27 December, 2005 (Tuesday)

Hi there,
And a cheerful season's greetings! Hope that you've enjoyed a very Merry Christmas (but gone easy on a very sherry Christmas), and that all is shaping up well for the New Year. Hip hip hooray!

Here at Big White we've been enjoying all varieties of White Christmas behaviour. We've had everything from snow to rain to sleet to more snow. The temperature has hit Spring highs of zero degrees, melting the ice rink and icing our ski slopes. I wonder what the New Year will bring?

Big White news:

• Still no new lifts open - Currently running with half of our lifts, one-third of runs. I'm unreliably told that we require another foot of snow before we can open Gem Lake. Expect another week or two before we're able to make use of the other half of the mountain.
• New snow? We've had some half-decent snowfall in the last 24 hours - some 14cm. Apparently we've had a cold current running over the cloud, giving us snow rather than sleet. This should mean that the low hanging cloud which has fogged us so badly for the last week will disappear. We can hope.
  Skiing is so much better when you can see where you are going. Rumour has it that our mountain is faring a lot better than a lot of the other mountains in BC - Whistler has been rained out and Mount Washington looks pretty bare.
  
• Spreading the love - The house is sick and over worked. Both Dave and Josh are suffering from the cough that I was enjoying last week. They both look pretty miserable.
• Ice rink closed - the outdoor Ice Rink was closed on Saturday due to a warm change that started melting the rink. When I arrived at 4pm on Saturday things were frantic. By 5pm they had closed the rink and suddenly all was dead. Lesley decided I deserved to get the early mark last night. The extra double time would have been nice.
  

24 December, 2005 (Saturday) Christmas Eve
Twas the night before Christmas
All was quiet as a mouse
Working my split shift
Wish I was back at my house -
Christmas is beckoning
As I watch the clock tick by
Thinking of family
Summer and pie

Despite pre-travelling intentions, I haven't been writing as much as I'd like. My life seems to have succumbed to a routine of early work, skiing in the Big White-out, and token social interaction out and about at Sam's. There is some comfort in routine and, truth be told, livins here so far I only feel like I've started to settle. I haven't been in the most reflective of mindsets mindsets travelling and finding my space. Yet, it's the eve of Christmas tonight and it is quiet.. and it feels right that I should sit down and scribe some of it.

Even with all this White Christmas hype of snow sleighs and happy chipmunk music I'm not feeling the most festive. Sure, I did a touch of Christmas shopping and thought some Christmas thoughts for a while, but between work and it all, the Christmas season has kind of dropped off the radar. I know a lot of the houses on the mountain are holding Christmas feasts, and I have even been invited to a few - but I'm not really in the mood. Perhaps it's the 46 hours in the last week, or perhaps it's the whole blurring of days until you can't tell whether it is a Sunday or a Wednesday... but it just doesn't feel like Christmas.

Today I worked a split, and I've got more of the same to look forward to tomorrow. The place is crawling with tourists and last minute purchases are so expensive around here. So between these sensibilities and worked to the bone housemates, I guess we're having a quiet one. Which isn't a bad thing (or so I keep telling myself). Sure, it feels a little empty and drawn, but there's more to it than that. What it does do is really bring home what Christmas is to me - special family moments, enjoying the company of my nearest and dearest, and going to some extra effort to get into the spirit. I kind of enjoy the process of searching for presents for others, finding something that 'fits', that somehow says something about them or my relationship with them. I think that my time here has made me appreciate family and close friends that much more. It has been often said that distances makes the heart grow fonder - and despite the cliche I have to admit that I find some truth in that.

25 December, 2005 (Sunday) Christmas Day
Christmas day, sitting in my ticket booth at The Ridge. It is dark and overcast, a mirror to a lot of fuzzy heads on the mountain. The time is just edigng past 10 and its been a relatively quiet morning here. Last night was fun, but a tad expensive. I've made a resolution to stay clear of Sam's for at least a week. I know I've probably said it before - the same vibe, the same crowd, and the same bad music selections. It is fun - but there's other things I need to start spending my time on. So no more Sam's for at least a week. It's probably a good idea, especially considering the hours I've been clocking. Then again, I thought I was doing well for hours - hitting over 40, but Sarah tells me (my Ridge buddy for the morning) that she managed a staggering 52 hours last week. I guess those Happy Valley day shifts add up. Ouch!

I just had a bus load of Chinese tourists come by. Infuriating. The woman in charge was wandering around in her purple ski suit without a clue. After disembarking from her bus she came to my ticket window and demanded tickets and rental gear from the lodge... both of which we don't supply here. "I have credit card numbers for ticket. Give me ticket and rental.". Problem was, I told her that she needed to move her busload of tourists down to Happy Valley to get it done, but she just wouldn't listen. Even after I gave her directions 3 times. So much for my festive spirit! Finished shift early and cruised through an icy white out back into the village. Nasty. Midday was spent cleaning the bathroom (now squeaky bleached clean) and night was in Happy Valley.

25 December, 2005 (Sunday night) My Christmas Dinner
I finished work early this evening. The skating rink has been closed until further notice (or at least cooler conditions), our Spring-like 0 degree heat melting the surface and leaving us with puddles of icy slush. Without a skating rink there’s really no need for 2 of us to work in the Happy Valley lodge (“Heppy, Heppy, Heppy Valley!”), so Lesley sent me on my way (apparently working last night was reason enough. Guess she really is in for the extra dollars at time and a half!). After turning in my $12.04 in cash sales (around 8pm) I left a tired Tim to his village vigil and headed to a quiet condo to change and decide where I should head.

Christmas cheer has passed our house by. It’s hard to get into the spirit of festivities when everybody is sick, tired, run-down and working way too hard. We opted out of cutting a tree free of the Ridge, and Kris Kringle boycotted our end of the Ptarmigan. Instead, we made a vague attempt at a ham, lunched on a Kraft Dinner and just said Merry Christmas a lot with Big White customer service grade enthusiasm.

Looking about our apartment, I decided that I didn’t want to cook on Christmas night. In fact, I’ve been here a month and have yet to properly sample the local cuisine. What better excuse could there be? Walking down the main strip, past Sam’s, Frank’s Chinese Laundry and down the stairs past the mini mart and Underground Pizza joint, I realized that Christmas night past 9pm probably wasn’t the perfect time to be shopping for a place to eat out. Still, strolling past the Village Centre Mall (VCM) the neon “Open” sign for the Copper Kettle (in the White Crystal Inn) beckoned me.

The main dining area looked busy of the Kettle (and a little too formal) so I opted for the Ghost lounge dining area. Within a few seconds I found myself a seat by the window, looking out at the fairy-lighted houses (they sure know how to cover something with fairy lights around here!). The menu looked pretty standard - cuisine and price-wise, with a good selection of burgers and gourmet sandwiches, moving onto steaks and roasts. I'd been hankering a steak for a while, so it wasn't too hard a choice at all.

Sitting in the dining room, San Pelegrino in hand, it felt good to relax, reflect and have some quality self time - something that has lately seemed to be in short supply with the mountain rush of work and all the rest. I sat and people watched and enjoyed the quiet ambiance for a while, then found myself pen in hand furiously scribbling stray thoughts onto a napkin - very hollywood hack. Still it was something that I haven't done for too long and the time felt right. Sometime sitting there I realised that Phoebe was working, cruising the tables, so I waved a 'hi'. She came over and we had a short chat, about the place and how great it was that I could come here and dine in style... alone.

Phoebe? I met Phoebe randomly one day working tickets in the village. It was her first day and she was hanging out with Lauren, a British med student who I'd met catching the bus up from Kelowna to Big White. Phoebe just kind of rocked up with this cheeky grin of hers to buy a ticket and from there I seem to run into every so often where she gives me a wave and comes over to say hi. She's a laid back Australian gal. Her current pet peeve is the amount of bogan Australian guyswandering around Big White. Still, I think she's settled now - I've seen her more than a few times at Sam's lately mingling in. Definitely an on-mountain gal now. My $29CAD (before tax- approximately 5 hours work at the ticket office) New York steak came out on a bed of mash with boiled veges. I hoed straight in, enjoying the flavour and steak goodness. Admittedly there were some grizzly bits and the veges were under-cooked, so my 5 hour work expectations were a little disappointed, but it was still a good feed.


Meanwhile my introverted navel gazing went through the usual litany:

• What is my current direction? Where to from here?
• Am I here to just break even after the snow season?
  
• What kind of profit is this place making - what are the fixed and Break even on a snow hill? Fixed and variable costs of running this mountain? (It's true. Right now how much money these guys are making is one of our pet topics in the apartment)
• What are my New Years resolutions?

Connoisseur or pretentious wanker?
With all that thought, I decided that I should indulge a little bit more. The Kettle sports a good selection of single malt scotches, with a big board displaying the locations of a dozen of the finest complete with a map and short description. While my first 2 selections were out of stock, I finally settled on a dram of Tallister 10 year old scotch, neat. The taste was fiery but smooth with a warm bite - an enjoyable taste. Compared to my bottle of Laphroaig it had less smokey peat taste and a stronger scent, with a burn that hit as soon as it touched my tongue. Somewhere along the way I decided that I'd have to visit once a week to work my way through the complete scotch menu. Apparently the head bartender is a bit of an officiando.

A Merry Christmas indeed…
As I was finishing my meal an older blond sitting alone on the table next to mine leaned over and asked if I was waiting for anybody. Cougar! I replied that I was just enjoying my company and politely inquired the same of her. She asked if I wanted to join her, but I pleaded that I was on the way out, paid my bill and fled. She looked disappointed.

So that was my Big White Christmas experience. A quiet and introspective night with a steak. What more could I really want?