In which I am not, obviously, "stuck in Paradise"

...unless you are referring to the township of Paradise, where it is about 50 degrees warmer than when we left Summit County two days ago.

Thanks to Ed's friend Terry, who did exactly the ghetto-style yank-and-bend job on the front of our van that I kept telling Tyson was all we would need to get back on the road, we made it to Keystone on Monday. We kicked around some, took in a couple of movies--300 (crappy, with apologies to Elaine) and Shooter (Marky Mark makes such a great reluctant badass ["oh, man, I totally didn't want to blow up your compound in the woods with an assortment of homemade explosive devices, then take out an entire helicopter by shooting up a propane tank, but the imported Libyan commandos kind of made me do it"])--and generally behaved like ski bums for half a week. I can now make it down a green run in wide S-shaped traverses, repeating "fall line, fall line, bigtoelittletoebigtoelittletoe" to carve a pretty good string of parallel turns. It snowed on us on Thursday while we were attempting to crash a barbecue lunch at Nico's office, so that was both fun and interesting. I can't say I get too excited about snow once it's on the ground, but I can't resist the light, feathery feeling of snowflakes on my face. (No, Tyson, this does not give you permission to wing a snowball at my head. That is so not what I meant.)

But now we are back, with all the realities of home now crushing down upon us--grocery lists, lesson plans, endless piles of laundry, a bathroom inexplicably full of muddy cat prints. At least Tyson had the grace to clean the house on his half-day of early vacation on Friday.