Tom at Technical Museum building an electric circuit.

Lisa performing laparoscopy.

Two skiing weekends in a row threw me naturally into a total chaos. Packing and unpacking wet things and figuring out what will and what won't fit in the car, got combined with worries about pipes. Our city had sent us a letter before Christmas in the sense that on January twenty-fourth, they will come and change our water meter, and given the fact that our water pipes are old, they cannot guarantee that these won't get destroyed during attaching the said new meter, which of course would be our fault and we must fix the pipes. Well — we somehow happen to have noticed that everything in and around the house is from the year 1964 (when it was built), and that the pipes really need replacing, and we were planning to do it — but not during Christmas, or in January.

Still we did not want to leave anything to chance, so even before Christmas I began to check, who, when, and for how much. Our neigbor had recommended Genmor Plumbing. I called them, they sent an appraiser; he crawled through and under the house (Hippo came back from work on his account), promised to send the results — and nothing happened. I called them twice, where is the appraisal: I felt like in the fable of rooster and hen — the admin knew nothing, had to contact the appraiser, he had to talk to the company owner, he in turn needed to speak with the sun, who would talk to the rain...
We concluded that a company which cannot figure out who promised whom what, is perhaps not someone we want to work for us (imagining they forget to connect the pipes and we will end up with no water, pipes and money); our neighbor Guillermo saved us again in the end.

Hence in the middle of my mountain unpacking, workers showed up and began to dig in our driveway. This disturbed our finicky car-parking system, garbage bin spots, and indirectly space for kids to run outdoors, but at least everything got done within the cut-throat deadline of Big Brother.

We decided to stay in the city for the next weekend. On Saturday we got invited by Rumiko, mother of Tom's classmate Bryce, to The Tech (Technical Museum of San Jose) — she got some company sponsored tickets. We take our kids to see aquaria or the Children's Museum; we were last at the Tech some ten years ago with Hippo and did not remember it much anymore. We were quite interested — the kids always like taking the light rail to the downtown — we got there just in time for opening at ten a.m. We were pleasantly surprised by (minimum of) people and how interactive the displays were. Juniors were ecstatic; except it was a bit embarrasing that a TECHNICAL museum shows an electric generator attached to a stationary bike, but a pedal is unfastened, and no-one seems to be competent to fix it. Many other exhibits displayed small faults that could be likely easily mended, given an occasional handyman with a bag of tools.

Way to Balconies.

Condors were watching us with hungry looks.

We got together at eleven thirty for lunch — the cafeteria was empty, great. Even so we just made it to the beginning of an IMAX show at noon. Kids loved the movie (poor things, we had still not taken them to a regular movie theatre, and their only experience is with muzeum shows); Tom said that it was "cool" and Lisa kept pointing things out and demanded explanations from Hippo. After the show, we moved on to higher floors, but we had the impression that the children were throwing glassy looks and had had enough. Our (adult) heads by then resembled meteorological balloons, and we opted for retreat.

An e-mail from Pavel awaited me at home; he was looking for a climbing buddy for Sunday. I wasn't against it in principle, but I had already arranged with Blanka that they would come to pick up one of our child seats and make it a family visit. Eventually Sid almost voluntarily agreed to deal with the visit himself.

Western Pinnacles were beautiful since morning. The sun was set on high-bake, grass was green — a pretty "summer" day. Pavel chose Balconies for climbing, as we did not know them yet — they're no good for climbing in the summer, for the it's a south face and completely scorched; in the spring it's off limits on account of nesting condors; in the winter, water runs down the rock most of the time. Thus we wanted to use this rare opportunity when condors don't nest, water's (still) not running, and sun is a welcome companion.

A small snag materialized under the face — Pavel forgot his belay device, and he had to recall belaying with an Italian hitch. This would not be so bad, but it's really incovenient for rappeling (this knot twists the ropes horribly). First we took the two-pitch Lava Falls (5.9). Condors began to circle above Pavel and I suddenly wasn't sure whether to be worried. Then we went to look for some 5.10 according to a guidebook. Pavel started in something, but it was a combination of flakes, moss and fern. Again I praised my new helmet. I know that thus equipped I look like an idiot, but I would feel a much greater idiot with all the falling rock stuck up in my head.

When Pavel satisfied his urge to work in a rock quarry, he tried to start another route. I liked No Sense of Measure when I saw it, but 5.11b isn't so much fun after all. Pavel worked out vigorously and muttered a bit, and subsequently I got stuck hanging and unable to make a key move. After that followed another hundred feet of very nice climbing. The face was showing signs of neglect (dirt, moss, cracking holds), and I was rather afraid even with a top rope, but it was a fine climb. And since we already reached these places, we moved on to The Powers that Be — another eleven. There I again, top roping, could not make a move from a tiny hole into an overhang, but just like with No Sense, it was a very interesting climbing.

Summer evening in Pinnacles.

All the kids enjoyed moving our old couch. (photo Blanka)

We marched back to the car already in darkness. The illusion of summer night was reinforced by sweet flowers a-smelling and frogs a-croaking — now, in the midst of January, it was a rather peculiar feeling. Although I changed my clothes at the parking lot, back home dirt and moss would still fall off of me. Hippo said that it was nothing compared with his day. When Nejedlys came, Sid and Peter left our granny and Blanka with the children, loaded our old couch to Nejedly's sienna, and took it to Redwood Shores. Subsequently they went to K-Mart to buy (and load and move) a DOUBLE bed. Given the fact that we live in California, both shop clerks and customers would all wear friendly smiles upon seeing two men shopping together for their bedroom furnishings. Later, while buying groceries obviously for a common household, their male cashier called them "boys" and winked conspiratorially.

On Monday we switched back to our regular schedule and went to our skating lessons. On Tuesday, our neighbor Ina with her daughter Sasha wanted to go skating again; why not? I was surprised that the rink contained a larger number of boys in hockey protection, but soon one of the mother told me a sweet secret, namely, we had only seven minutes left to skate, as then a hockey training would start; I began to feel like an idiot. Somehow I never thought that they would change their training schedule in the middle of the season, canceling public hours; I also did not expect them to sell us tickets for seven minutes skating without telling us.

So I let the kids and Ina in the rink and went back to hassle them at the register. The cashier turned pale and said that she totally forgot it and this hockey was new and they would give us a rain check tickets. Meanwhile I announced to our skaters that it would be shorter today. Fortunately, no one hurried with surface maintenance, and hence they chased us off after about twenty, not seven, miutes. This gave the children some decent time to skate (free!), and all ended well.

As the weekend approached, it started looking like the "cabin" at Kirkwood would be more or less available. Vendulka wanted to go ski, but not alone, and so we put together five people, two cars, and two departure times. I left with the kids on Friday noon, to get to the mountains before the rush hour and before the kids' bed time. It was a bit unusual to deal with things on my own — pacifying kids in the car (which went well, only I got a bit tin-eared after three hours of listening to Hop-Trop — a Czech folk group — but what would you not do for your offspring?), navigation, driving, unpacking, starting fire, cooking and putting kids to bed, but in the end there was no serious trouble. Sid with Vendulka started after they each got back home from work, reaching their destination almost by midnight. Again, no further complications.

Vendulka taking Lisa.

Tom always ready to ski.

While having breakfast in the morning kids were already checking out whether the lifts were going, and eagerly plunged into preparations for the day. Poor Sid was forced to get up and hurry to the slopes about half hour earlier than he would have considered humane. Then again, we managed to find a parking spot in a reserved family lot right at the rental center and process Lisa's ski school and gear rentals before most of the crowds arrived.

We handed Lisa over to the instructors and proceeded to ski with Tommy. We took one ride on Bunny, for Tom wanted to show us how he skis over (artificial) humps. Then we moved on to Timbercreek, where I later left Hippo with Tom and continued to ski with Vendula. New snow had not fallen since New Year, the surface was frosty, and skiing was possible only on groomed slopes. I was grateful to have borrowed Pavel's helmet, for the snow was crazy fast and I have not been such a good skier. Vendulka talked me into trying The Wall, the most difficult local slope. Reaching the top, I got somewhat queasy — I really suddenly had an icy wall under my feet, with an inclination that seem absurd. Still all I could do was letting myself down along it. It went well for a moment, but then my ski slipped and I found myself skidding on my side at a mad speed. Fortunately it was my side close to the slope, with skis still pointing downhill, and if I recall correctly, I was praying to keep my legs under me — if they got above my head, I would have likely headed down the icy ditch into the forest at a rather unhealthy pace.

Eventually I managed to stop and even stand up back on my skis — the rest of the slope was OK and I rather enjoyed it. Were it not for the first few yards, I would not hesitate to try it again, but this way I chickened out and switched back to the common single black diamond.

At noon we got together in the "cabin" for lunch, and then as a whole pack (with Lisa and Venduka) headed for Snowkirk. This is another easy lift, much closer to our accomodations (i.e. no driving is necessary). Easy slope turned out to be too easy even for Lisa — and had sections so slow that Vendulka had to pull Lisa behind her. Subsequently we ran mostly blue slopes and found our kids run any slope with suicidal abandon, lacking any sense of speed, and skills to control it. First, Tom picked up a crazy pace from one hill, but fortunately fell before reaching the trees; even so it got me rather sick. Some time later, Lisa let herself down off a hump — and managed to brake, but too close to danger in my opinion. We also spend fifteen idle minutes sitting on a chair lift — our wondering WHY was interrupted by an arriving helicopter — which was not a good feeling: someone injured themselves by skiing to need an airlift. Tom started to be obnoxious and complain about the quality of the slope, skis and snow, which in his case means that he's HUNGRY. Thus I elected Hippo to go and feed Tom, while we girls wend on a somewhat harder slope. There, Lisa lost her nerve and got afraid. Eventually Vendulka helped her through the harder parts in tandem between her skis, which Lisa liked a lot.

Tom's style is still dominated by *pizza*, as they call ploughing in the class.

Lisa running down Timbercreek. Kids don't use poles, to reduce initial confusion.

On the second day Tom put on his ski boots right after breakfast, while still wearing his pajamas. He asked to ski at Timbercreek, saying that he did not like Snowkirk. In the end he prevailed — several slopes converge on Snowkirk, and even very fast skiers mingle with the beginners; Timbercreek seems to be somewhat safer in this regard. We executed another rapid departure, only I left one of my poles behind in all that rush and packing. I pulled Vendula out of the bathroom (using my phone) and conscripted her to look for the pole (especially since I had not packed my own ones back at home and the missing one belonged to Pavel who was conveniently not around).

Back on the slope, we began to teach our kamikaze juniors to control their run by turning. The surface was still quite fast, and we felt some control was needed. Running in line worked best — one child behind each adult, copying the track. Soon Vendula and Martin and my (Pavel's) pole showed up, too. Kids showed considerable joy that somebody else than their boring parents would deign to ski with us, and we all went down Timbercreek. Tom was wondering why we use "Mates" instead of Martin to address this friends of ours (it's his nickname), and concluded that Mates must be a Czech way of saying Martin, for he translated Martin Luther King (about whom he learned in school) to "Mates Luter Král" (král = king in Czech). Vendula and Mates then swished away to run on double black diamonds, and we continued in our family program. We had a choice of returning back to the "cabin" for lunch, but our eager juniors convinced us to have a fast lunch in a cafeteria at the foot of the slope, to maximize skiing.

This turned out to be a good idea — fast food took us perhaps twenty minutes, and still by two o'clock, after some four hours of consistent skiing, we had a hard time to convince the kids to leave the slopes. We had to return rental skis, pack our stuff, and set out on our way to home, to get juniors to their beds on time. At one moment we split the family again — Hippo took the kids and I took a chance of a last hour of running lifts, to get to something more challenging than blue slopes, and subsequently gave company to Vendulka on our way to the Valley.

Practicing turns.

Our bathroom...

I must say that I was first worried, whether just one hour would suffice for "proper" skiing. Yet, when we finished our first round in less than ten minutes (including waiting for the lift and riding it), I was rather glad that there was ONLY one hour left. Vendula and Mates took me through all possible places; Iztok and Ned joined us for one or two runs (they came with Mates for just one day). My knees began wobbling after a few runs and it was not just fatique. Fortunately we could later share in cleaning up the "cabin" and in driving home with Vendula.

Returning to regular life ensued. Or rather, irregular life. Now that we had our water mains replaced, we decided to have all plumbing in the house renovated. The pipes lead in a crawl space under the house, and therefore it's not very difficult, unlike having to cut through brick or concrete. Alas, a disturbance in an old house causes a chain reactions. Now that we were re-piping, we opted to move the washer and drier from one side of the garage (where they complicate parking) to the wall shared with the kitchen. This means re-arranging gas pipes, electric installations, and water in the garage. Since we were re-piping, we wanted to change our faucets. And new faucets really call for fixing the broken shower stall — water not draining from one corner — which actually means demolishing the whole bathroom. So now that we were replacing the bathroom and would have new tiles installed, we should really replace the windows there as well. A washbasin on a single leg in the kids' bathroom does not even offer space for a soap — but if we want a cabinet with a basin, heating airducts must be moved (since they terminate under the existing washbasin). And so on.

We had been talking about these things for ages, but whenever we realized how much HASSLE all this would be, we would always postpone the final decision — not to speak about how much it all would cost: we have been fainting for years. Now that Big Brother forced us to start it, I hope we shall survive it in good health...