Sunday, February 26, 2012

Tales from the Chairlift...


Skied a lovely bluebird day at Brighton today. Blue skies, crisp air and even the surprise of a little fresh snow! I had a solo day, since my regular ski buddy could not join me. As much as I enjoy skiing with friends, I do enjoy my 'alone' ski days too, as it's always interesting to meet random people and chat on the lifts.

On one trip up Great Western today I rode with 3 guys. The one fellow had apparently bumped into friends and was happy to be joining them on the slopes. He has mostly been skiing Solitude this year, likes the mountain, but was lamenting that he rarely ran into friends there, like he did at Brighton today. (Apparenty the cool people are all at Brighton) Then he started talking about the people he had met and become friendly with at Solitude, like the parking lot guys, and the "Fogs".

Fog's??? I had to ask what Fog's where. Turns out Fog's, should be F.O.G.'s.... which stands for "Fucking Old Guys". The old guys who come up to ski every day then hang around in the parking lot drinking beers and whatnot. So then I had to ask... "How old are these F.O.G.'s?" Turns out these guys were pretty old .... like ***gasp***, 50!!!

Being an old gal of 51 I about busted a gut laughing to find out that "F'ing Old Guys" are in their 50's. I think the guy realized that I was a bit taken back that guys age 50 were considered that "old", and he added... "But these guys have lived hard." To which I responded... "I guess we'll have to see if you are still skiing when you are 50", though I do imagine these guys will, as it turns out that the guy who was telling the story of the F.O.G.'s was already 45. The whole conversation made me laugh, because I realized that if 50 year old guys partying in the parking lot are Fucking Old Guys, are 51 year old women up on the slopes "Fucking Old Gals"?

This got me thinking. I'm not only a 51 year old gal, but a single 51 year old gal... One of the (as best I can tell, useless) bits of dating advice I always hear is to "Do the the things you love, and that's how you will meet someone". Now I love to ski, and have to admit, that along those lines, I do have this secret fantasy of meeting someone interesting on the ski lift someday. But now I realize maybe I'm doing this all wrong... because when I go skiing... I spend my day skiing...."ride and glide, ride and glide". It has never occured to me to hang around in the parking lots where all the F.O.G.'s hang out....

And on another note... aren't these tracks beautiful? I wish they were mine, cause it would mean I was a really good skier...