WORTH THE WAIT

Finally.

Today was the day I was finally able to ride the hill I live on. After four years of temptation. It's a very steep, very long hill, and it got 9 inches of snow dumped on it in just over four hours. And it's still snowing. It usually gets plowed before I think to snowboard on it, but today the snow was just too thick and too fast for the plows to catch up. I was racing the plow with each run, and I knew it, as I could see the plow on the streets below mine.

I got three runs in on the hill to my left, which is the steeper of the two (I basically live at the top of a convergence of two hills which are at a 90-degree angle), before the snow plow came along. Then I got two more runs in down the other hill before it got too dark to see.

It was epic.

I was actually able to carve and make powder turns, right from my front steps.

The power was out during the snowboard runs, and stayed out for a couple of hours afterwards. It's obviously back on now.

During that time I decided to read an art history book called David to Delacroix, by candlelight. There was a partially full box of beer outside my front door, covered in snow, left there by a friend on poker night last Thursday. I stepped out on the porch, barefoot, and grabbed a beer. It was a New Belgium Fat Tire, which I've avoided drinking for over 10 years. But it was sitting there in the snow, and the power was out, so I tried it for the first time in over a decade and discovered that it was delicious. I don't know if it was the circumstances surrounding the tasting of the beer, or if it actually had gotten better.

Then my neighbor called (on my landline), and asked if I had enough candlelight to play backgammon by. I said I did and voila, we were playing backgammon.

It was all very romantic.

Until I thought I detected a slight humming sound.

I got up from the game to turn on a light switch, thinking for sure that it wasn't going to produce anything. But no, on came the light. It was so disappointing.

Hopefully the power goes out again soon.