Part III isn’t happening, at least not today.  How’s this?  We packed and left.

I remember when I’d leave my kids for a couple days; it was such bliss, after I got over missing and worrying about them.  But I used to wonder if it was worth it.  Because that Monday morning, by about 10, I was wishing I’d never gone; wishing I’d never tasted freedom.  Suddenly the never-ending sea of toys, which started in the living room and spread everywhere, seemed so messy.  I would yearn for the freshly vacuumed hotel room.  The two kinds of sandwiches that no one finished, I would eat while remembering the chef making our Caesar salad at the table.  The argument getting out of hand in the girl’s bedroom, I’d have to mediate, my mind still back in that huge king-sized bed we’d left the day before.

Writing about the trip made it worse.  I mean instead of leaving it behind, I kind of dragged it out by sharing it with you.  And wanting to make it sound as wonderful as it was I might have made it harder to leave behind. 

All I know is that my dogs are bugging the shit out of me.  Were they always this obnoxious?  I can’t seem to make myself pay the bills and I was supposed to do that yesterday.  I am obsessed with food.  I have all these great leftovers and I’m either snacking or tasting what I’m cooking, or sitting down to a meal, or thinking about all the above.  There is a four-foot piece of hose from the drip system the puppy brought in, along with chewed-up wood all over the floor, from my day at the hospital.  They get bored when I’m gone. 

 And you know what’s really bugging me?  My boss loaned me this book for a fun read:  Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding.  From what little I remember about Bridget Jones Diary I wasn’t all that taken with her but in reading the first few pages of this, I am impressed.  She has what I lack, and that is punch.  Sometimes I read people who I know are the real deal, even on here, and it’s just so depressing because I’ll never have style like that.  I’ll never be that clever. 

 But then I think about it in terms of food.  I told ya I’m thinking about food all the time. But what I was thinking was that everybody enjoys a good hamburger now and then; there’s always a place for the simple things in life.  And maybe more people will relate to my straightforward style. 

I wish I were back with my mouse. 

Part II

I check on the girls.  They are reading, sprawled all over each other on the couch. I go next door and make a cup of tea.  Sitting at the table by the fire, I start to nod off, when I hear scratching from over by the stove.  I look over at a mouse.  I’m yelling and it’s retreating.  You’d think with these new prices, they’d take care of mice.  We’ve never had mice before.  This is the smallest kitchen I’ve been in, and it takes some doing to find space enough to hid all the food.  I put the loaves of bread in the microwave.  The chips fit inside the pots and pans.  Cookies go in the bowls.  Mice don’t eat fruit, right?  I sit down, out of sight, and wait.  Soon I can see its big beady eyes looking out from under a pot, on the stove.   It sneaks over behind the toaster and I decide to lock myself in the other room.  As I open the door, to the bedroom, I am met with a chill.  Thinking I can deter the mouse from joining me, I quickly shut the door; shutting out the heat.  I climb in bed and hope for the best.  It’s so cold I get back up and put another blanket on, along with my hat.  I am tall, and the covers come up to my collarbone so I inch down in the frigid sheets, until just my hat is exposed.  Somehow I fall asleep but I awake with a start.  The noise came from my right:  a scratching.  I bolt out of bed and turn on the light but I don’t see or hear anything.  I come back out and search for the thermostat.  The temperature has dropped.  I’d overheard the guy at the desk saying the low was going to be 23 tonight.  Since the mouse is coming in there, anyway, I might as well keep the door open and enjoy the heat.  I put another blanket on and loosen the covers at the foot of the bed.  Climbing back in, I wait for the scratching. 

The next thing I hear is a banging outside the front door.  They want to eat breakfast at the lodge but I entice them in with beautiful bacon.  I start the toast and eggs and they make hot chocolate.  Then it’s down to the lodge.  While they fit the kids for skis, I walk into the restaurant and pour myself a cup of coffee.  When I come back out to the desk, the little girl, who was doing ballet moves during the piano playing, is there with her younger brother.  They are buying candy.  One of the biggest reasons my children have such fond memories of this place is that, from the time they were big enough to get the front door of the lodge open, they could go up to the desk and order candy saying, “just put it on my tab, please.”  They had many a conversation with John, the previous owner.  He was a grandfatherly type who enjoyed children.  This new, younger man seems to prefer teenagers, and he keeps tabs on whether any cute guys have checked in, knowing my girls will ask.

The kids go skiing and I come back up to make oatmeal and a pot of chili.  They packed their lunch to eat along the trail but they like to come back in for a cup of chili, to warm up.  I take the puzzle over to their place and get most of the border set up.  My youngest and I wear the same size so I will ski when she takes a break.

It has not stopped snowing from the time we arrived.  There is so much snow it’s impossible to keep the trail groomed.  The first hill took me by surprise but because I couldn’t see that well, through the flurries, I feel my way down, knees bent and leaning forward.  That worked better than focusing, visually.   Not doing any dancing or yard work these days, my legs are weak and I tire quickly.  I fall two different times, further on, only instead of trying to fight my way back up to a stand, I take one ski off in order to conserve energy; that and it’s too cold to enjoy laying there.  Getting up from the second fall I am surprised to see I have reached the meadow.  I ski to the center where I stop and listen to the quiet.   The trail divides the North meadow in half, this huge expanse of perfectly flat snow, bigger than a football field.  I look up to see giant fir trees holding huge wedges of snow on their bows.  My fondest memory of standing here is the day I saw a jackrabbit skitting across the meadow, the snow crystallized, glistening in the sun, like diamonds.  I look up and thank God, right out loud.

I decide to turn around and go back.  I am missing a ski partner.  The solitude is beautiful but, suddenly, I feel lonely.  When I get back the girls are sledding and they yell for me to get mine.  I get my skis off and work my way up the hill.  I can never remember if it’s better to sit or lay.  I sit down for this one but lose it halfway down, plunging feet first into a wall of wet white.  The second time, I do it right, throwing myself belly down, getting a good start.  I get air, hitting the ramp just right and slide the full length, whooping and hollering.  But as I lay at the bottom, too tired to get up, I realize how cold and wet I am from plowing into all that snow on that first, aborted run.

Back in the cabin I make myself a drink and dry off.  It’s getting dark, and I go next door to settle in for some time with the puzzle.  The kids finally get back.  It seems they had a scare with the train, which the youngest describes as the single most exciting event she can remember up here.  There’s a really steep place to sled up there, but I don’t know why she didn’t remember the train comes through about this time.  They seemed thrilled with their near escape and turn up music that sounds like noise to me.  I go next door and start the stir fry.  After dinner we go down for the movie.  Everybody, including me, has voted for Homeward Bound.  When it looks like Sassy, the cat, has drowned, the little blonde ballerina weeps, on the couch in front of me.  There are lots of small ones in the audience tonight.  Parents leave, in shifts, to get pajamas on the youngest ones.  Grandparents baby-sit while parents linger in the restaurant over another glass of wine.  It’s one big happy family all nestled by the fire with the children’s boots drying, lined up below and their snowsuits hanging, on hooks above. 

Hot chocolate sounds good so we go back up to work on the puzzle.  But this year it’s too hard and I’d rather write.  There’s something about writing by hand, that seems to make the words more my own.   The girls read their books, and I go back over to be with my mouse. 

Part I

When I was younger and married, packing for the mountains was always an ordeal.  And, if you didn’t remember to bring it, you went without; the nearest store was too far to drive.  Being a list maker, we rarely came up short.  In fact, the complaint was always that I’d brought too much food.  Now that it’s just the kids and me there’s no tension.  I realized this morning that packing has become one of my favorite parts of the ritual.  It seems silly, but I really enjoy all that planning and shopping and schlepping.

  The most fun is to open the cabin door and see what you got.  We keep switching around and, after a year, even the one the kids had last year seems different.  The new owners have doubled the prices so, guess what!  Next year we’ll all be in number eight.  They have little cabins, and we’ve been getting two of those but on the other side of the sledding hill are the nice-sized ones.  They have big fireplaces and dining room tables with benches that six people can sit around to do the yearly puzzle.  The other great thing is that number eight overlooks the lake.  The only bad thing about being over there next year will be that I’ll be up all night listening to the kid’s party.

Our drive up couldn’t have gone better.  Once we start climbing into the mountains, we watch the thermostat closely, and with each drop in degree we get a little closer to snow.  We put on music with a driving beat and press on.  That first flake of snow elicits a unanimous cheer.  But the glee is short-lived, for me, as I navigate without chains.  The chains are on the floor, under my daughter’s feet. But I am determined not to use them.  I switch into 4-wheel drive and slow down to a careful creep, my white knuckles clenched around the wheel.  As we near the area where we got stuck that time, the mood shifts.  When we come to the place I’d made the wrong turn, that first year without my husband, everyone yells:  “That’s west”!  Once we reach the top, we are home free, and my youngest puts in the newer Simon and Garfunkel.  It’s snowing hard but we all see the sign.  I turn and make my way down, over the bridge, through the thickest flurry of snow we’ve ever seen up here. 

It’s our first year coming after the holidays, so there’s no tree.  But it’s wonderful all the same.  I see there’s a line at the desk so I go in by the fire.  There are lots of couches and chairs, all made by the same man.  He made everything in the place, including the furniture in the cabins.  To say it’s mission style doesn’t do it justice.  It’s hunkier than that.  I see the puzzle has been started.  People have left their books and coffee cups by the chair they like.  I sit down in front of the fire, in this wonderful old log cabin and look out the picture window, to the lake.

Once we’ve checked in, we trudge up the hill to see what we got.  I give the kids the bigger one, reluctantly.  They need the beds.  In the old days we’d bring everything up on sleds, but now they have carts.  We get the first two cabins closest to the lodge.  Even my teeny one is cute.  They all have wood stoves, which have been converted to gas.  The sledding hill is outside the front door and the X C ski trail is outside the back door.  We each get settled in our cabins and then go down to vote. 

As I pry the huge door open I see the cat make a run for it, wanting to come in out of the snow.  They have had a black and white cat living in the lodge for 20 years.  I notice this one is better looking than the last.  While my youngest sits down to the piano and plays for everyone,  I find the movie list.  It looks like no one’s picked the movies yet so I choose three and place my vote.  As I’m standing there, the woman behind me says to her friend, “I wish I could play like that.”  I turn around and say, “and she wrote it herself.”  Good thing my daughter couldn’t hear me.

After I vote I check out the restaurant.  Usually I’d make reservations but this year we’re eating in tonight.  Because the rates have gone up, I’ve decided to make all our meals.  The dining room looks empty but there is a steady stream of people clomping up and down the stairs, coming and going from their rooms.  We head back up to the cabins and get the food put away.  Nobody wants to wait for me to cook so we each make a sandwich and get back down in order to find a seat in front.  Movies start at 7:30. 

The kids leave early but I stay until the end.  After the movie I trudge back up.  It’s snowing hard.  I stop to catch my breath and look back down at the lodge.  They still have the Christmas lights up and someone’s already made a snowman.  It’s so beautiful here; everybody’s treasured secret.  One year in the dining room, over dinner, we got to talking with the family sitting at the table across from us.  They were admitting they never tell anybody about this place because otherwise they’d never get in.  It’s impossible to get reservations. 

Just so you don’t think Doug got me, I’m going XCskiing Friday morning, coming back Sunday night.  Have a great weekend!

It’s too late to be on here, but I wanted to tell you how much I am loving my new bamboo screen.  I kind of leaned it up against the edge of the window, on the brick.  I was afraid it might topple over onto the puppy while she was chewing on it.  She hasn’t tried to yet but she chews on everything else.  So now I am sitting in the privacy of my new corner.

The other thing I did was call the police back with the different last name.  Hopefully his mother was only married twice, and the name I got is really his.  She looked it up and said they didn’t have anything on him in Clackamas County.  So that’s encouraging.  I’m leaving for the mountains Friday, so I really want to feel like I have this under control before I go.  That sounds really stupid, like I’m ever going to have this under control.  The police officer, a much more helpful one, said I should write a letter and send it to him, certified, so that he has to sign for it.  Until he receives, in writing, a statement saying he is not allowed on my property, he can come over here all he wants.  Once he gets the letter, I can, after two visits, put him in jail.  And it counts if he’s using binoculars from his house to look into mine.  Or at least that’s what she said.  But now I have to get his address at the trailer park.

I look at my list of resolutions and add to it.  I’ve been trying to work towards achieving my goals.   I’ve worked out two days this week, and I’ve got most of Christmas put away.  I wrote an essay in an attempt to get an interview.  And I cooked shrimp tonight.  I even got a bunch of stuff drycleaned, trying to get together some clothes for interviewing.  My resume looks like shit, though.  And I even had someone help me with it.  So I have to tweak it some. 

I can barely keep my eyes open.  ‘Night.

My brother came over this afternoon wanting my house key.  He was going to Home Depot to get a new lock for the back door.  Instead, I got him to stay here and help me move my desk across the room, away from the window.  I miss looking out at the yard, but I feel protected, behind the brick where Doug can’t see me.

I want to thank you all for your advice.  I would never have called the police if you hadn’t suggested it.  I couldn’t believe what the woman officer’s response was.  She suggested the reason he’d been watching me was to make sure I was okay.  You know, a woman alone.

I didn’t know what to say.  She finally broke the silence:

“Hello”?

I say, “Yeah, I’m here”

“Oh, I thought I’d lost the connection.” 

“No,” I said.  “I was thinking.  He was either trying to get me upstairs, to the bedroom, or he was wanting an excuse to use the bathroom up there, to get into my medicine cabinet, or maybe he thought I had jewelry, but he definitely wasn’t looking out for my safety.  I know you probably can’t tell me if he has prior arrests, but – And I don’t know if this is his last name, because it’s his step dad, but could you look up the name Doug T……….”

She says, and I can tell she’s looking him up, “That’s right, I can’t give you that kind of information, but I will tell you that I have nothing on him, so you might want to get back to me with another last name.”

I hang up and call my brother to tell him to call his neighbor and get the name.