Tag: Timberline Lodge

Chasing Snow

(It said “no tobogganing”, but everyone figured that since the sign was down it didn’t count)

The last several days have been quite full.  So full that I feel a little dizzy with it all.  I’m going to share the highlights in bullet points:

  • What do the Williamsons do when the weather gets warm and sunny and everyone in town is kissing the ground with tears of joy?  We head for the snow!  We drove up to Mt. Hood so the kid and Philip could do some tobogganing, which is prohibited, supposedly, but tons of other poor jerks in need of a cool down were there tobogganing too.  We unabashedly LOVE snow.
  • At the bottom of the mountain it was 75° and up at Timberline Lodge it was 46°, which was perfect t-shirt weather for us.  The snow was dirty and a bit wet-ish but provided entertainment for my strange child.  I filmed the tobogganing and realized the dismal truth that I have zero talent as a sports commentator.  It was a blow to my ego for certain, but I recovered in about 6 minutes.
  • We enjoyed a very expensive sub-par lunch at the Timberline Lodge.  Maybe that’s a little harsh.  It wasn’t sub-par but the menu for day visitors is not extensive (there is a different dining experience reserved for actual hotel guests) and it’s mostly $16 sandwiches not intended for vegetarians and $20 plates of meat not meant for vegetarians.  However, I did score a bowl of vegetarian chili that was okay.  Someone in the kitchen has an obscene love for chipotle.  Max had the best cup of hot chocolate of his life.  I believe his glowing report because he drank the entire cup of it.  Generally he only drinks 2/3 of a cup.  He gets tired of hot chocolate pretty fast.  Mostly we just enjoyed each other’s company and the lodge-y atmosphere.
  • Epic bloody nose.  The bloody noses had abated quite a bit.  Max hasn’t been having very many in general, compared to how he used to have them sometimes up to three times in a day.  The one he got when we got to the bottom of the mountain started out mildly enough but I should have known that my oversight in not bringing an entire box of tissues in the car doomed us.  It quickly became a matter of enormous stress for everyone requiring that we stop at a small “grocery” store to get tissues and dispose of the pile of revolting saturated ones that made it look like we butchered a pig for apres-ski amusement.  The kid was covered in blood.  I do mean COVERED.  This was a double sided one.  If you’ve never experienced a gusher so enthusiastic that it comes out of both nostrils while also pouring down your throat then you’ve really missed out.
  • Our neighbors got a puppy a couple of weeks ago.  How can that possibly be bullet point worthy?  Our neighbors are clueless eejits who leave their new puppy outside by himself for hours and while they can’t hear the poor baby yelping, howling, moaning in despair, and barking without cease the entire time he’s out there- we can.  It has been a torturous experience.  I get to be heart broken right along with the poor puppy who clearly thinks he’s been abandoned every time it happens.  We didn’t complain even though I couldn’t work without headphones on.  We didn’t complain until the night of the awesome thunder and lightening show for which the puppy was tied to a tree in the middle of the neighbors yard with no way to get to shelter.  My grown dog is terrified of thunder.  Imagine how a puppy feels out in the open under the drumming sky all alone?  When it started pouring buckets on the baby we were livid that the neighbors didn’t bring him in.  I marched over to their house and pounded on their door.  They arrived while I was deciding what torture I would visit on them for their pet crimes.  They claimed they didn’t know it was going to rain.  What lame asses tie a puppy up without access to a roof of some kind in the Pacific Northwest?  The situation has progressed to the point of calling ordinance control on them (for the incessant puppy distress noise that goes on for hours).  I’m sorry we had to do it.  We would take the puppy away from them and find him a more responsible home if we could.  We can’t.
  • In a breathtaking example of idiocy I managed to think Max’s school year ended on Memorial weekend so he got a whole week of summer vacation before having to go back to school because his mother’s powers of inquiry took a really big break.  He was (understandably) really pissed off at me.  School doesn’t really end until this Friday.  What’s completely unbelievable is that no one at the school seemed to have noticed he was missing.  No one called to find out why he wasn’t there for a whole week.  At the old school we’d get a call if he was an hour late getting to school.  Apparently the attendance rate of pupils at a school made up predominantly of special needs kids is pretty poor on average and so they don’t fuss about absences.  Duly noted.
  • We now have a pet snake named Pete.  Max caught him on the school grounds on Monday, making his return to drudgery pretty cheerful.  Pete is a baby garter snake.  Philip is not a fan of snakes.  When I say he’s not a fan of snakes I mean he really doesn’t like them.  When I say he really doesn’t like them I mean they occupy the space in his head reserved for nightmares.  So it’s pretty noteworthy how awesome he’s been about the fact that his son is now a snake owner.  We don’t know anything about keeping snakes as pets but we’re learning fast.  While I purposely planned on never owning a snake in my life, I have to say that Pete is adorable.  Never in my life did I imagine I would use that word for a snake, but it’s true.  And the excitement Max feels about him is also adorable.

And now it’s time for more coffee and a little work on the 3rd draft before starting my other work.