the birm*

Fondue: never again!..until next time…

It’s funny/crazy/cool how your body/mind forgets pain. Back when I used to do 24hr mtb races I used to vow “never to engage in one again” almost every time I finished one. A few days/weeks later, however, I’d tell myself that it actually hadn’t been that bad and [surely enough] I’d sign up for the next one…

Believe it or not, my experience with fondues (the melting cheese based dish where you dip bits of bread in) has been much the same. While some have been exceptionally good (both in taste and quality of ingredients), I’ve often felt a little/very ill in the following hours after indulging in one.

I’d already decided [a few times at different stages in the past] that I wouldn’t eat one at night again, as I’ve almost always felt sick at the usual 6 hour mark afterwards. BUT the talk and thought of one after a cold and hungry day in the snow destroys all remains of any previous painful experience.

So here I am, 2:40am, up and posting due to that ol’ sick feeling, waiting for it to pass so I can go back to bed and get some sleep. Perhaps this post will serve as a warning to me for the next time I consider fondue at night, since I know that after a quick scan my brain will most definitely report: “last time wasn’t that bad”…

When a draw feels like a defeat.

It’s weird how a draw, in a game of handball for example, can feel great or pathetic depending on how you got there.

As it happened on Saturday night, the team I was coaching was going goal for goal with the opposing team. We should have won pretty convincingly, especially since the other team ended up playing with a man down for the last few minutes. As it turned out, despite being 3 goals up with only moments to play, we managed to let the other team come back to a draw: 31-31.

It was outrageously disappointing and it felt worse than a loss. While the refereeing was fair (they made bad calls for both teams), it didn’t help (especially the 2 points they forgot to give us). Despite lame coaching and an average of 5 goals missed per player, we’ll only remember the dying minutes and the shot we should have scored on the buzzer…

Did anyone order snow???

So anyway, we had Tallman and Sarah stay with us for a few days on their “world tour of Europe”. It had snowed about 20cm a day or two before they got here, which was real pretty for them J

The eve of their departure, CHAOS had been announced for the S-E corner of France (LOTS of snow and ice and don’t-take-your-car-anywhere-unless-you-really-have-to kinda weather). Generally we take those warnings with a grain of salt (where does that expression come from?), but this time it was true! We woke up to half a foot of fresh snow, which tripled in height over the course of the next few hours. Schools were closed, buses were cancelled, kids were skiing down the streets (which, for some, were closed). It felt surreal to be walking knee-deep (and waist deep on the side of roads) in fluffy-whiteness. Thankfully Tall and Sarah’s bus wasn’t cancelled and was on time, at least for departure…