Ski Season

Have I mentioned that we live 45 minutes from good skiing? O.K., an hour now that France is installing radar cameras everywhere. What a life: Provence and skiing in one package. We have become the ultimate in fair-weather skiers. If the forecast isn't wonderful, we stay home.

This year, for the first time, we've bought a type of pass which allows 10 days of skiing, taken as needed. The good part is that we could go skiing, guilt-free, since it was already paid for. The bad part, I discovered this week, is that you know when your last day arrives. This is more of an emotional shock than just not getting around to going again.

Finite skiing is just one of the things I've learned this year. I've also begun mastering the new technique for the new skis. I love it that at my advanced age, I'm still improving on the piste. This is due more to my new parabolique skis than any increase in athletic ability. As an athlete, I'm about on a par with my Chows. As an example, Van-Ly was rapt in front of the floor-model bird cage in the village hotel bar yesterday, when one of the birds suddenly flew from one side of the cage to the other. Van-Ly jumped sideways to follow it and promptly fell over. "Pas très athlète," one apologises in French.

I had to have new skis because after I tore the second anterior cruciate ligament, it was either give up, get new knees or get new equipment. The new equipment (cheaper than new knees) has made me a new skier. I have been wanting Nick to get a pair, not least because it's starting to look funny showing up in the pointy-toed skis he's still using.

Our clothes are pretty out of date, too. We are still skiing in all-in-one ski suits, which, I recently read, are the height of unfashion. The station where we ski is pretty unfashionable, too, so it doesn't bother us, but I did have a yen for new after-ski boots until a couple of weeks ago. That was the day of the Turning Point. There comes a time when your equipment and clothing are so old, they become a fashion statement. "Hey! I can ski. I don't have to wear Yves St. Laurent."

Anyway, I love my ski suit. It's gunmetal grey, with bright red on the bodice and two pleats and a hood in aqua. It has a crudely stitched repair across the right buttock where I must have sliced it on a ski in a fall. Various tatters and worn bits are patched with coordinating bright red rug tape to match the original colour scheme. It's blouson-y and has served me well for a good 25 years or more -- through thick and thin, as it were.

Nick's suit is in about the same shape, not so patched, but with mysterious black spots on his bottom that look like ink spatter. It used to be silver and bright orange, but has dulled to a warm yam colour.

We are the only people on the piste with back-entry boots, bought the same year as the suits. I adore mine. They were the first comfortable boot I ever owned and they feel like bedroom slippers. Who could ask for more? I'm trying not to fall for the propaganda telling me that new boots will do even more for my skiing than new skis. (Hmm, but the propaganda for the skis turned out to be true.)

My real worry is that I will be skiing down the piste one day and will have a Muriel. Our late friend, Muriel, grew up on skis. She wasn't an elegant skier, but she could get down anything in a workman-like manner. She was pretty much dressed like a workman, too. Borrowed pants, unmatched jacket borrowed from someone else, boots that she'd had since her foot had grown to adult size. Anyway, we were halfway down a fairly steep slope one morning when Muriel pulled to a halt, looked down and exclaimed, "Ah! That's what's the matter." The top of her boot had come away from the sole for about 3/4 of its length. For you non-skiers, that means that her ski was hanging on by a thread. Muriel lit a cigarette, had a few puffs to relax, and then proceeded to ski down the rest of the hill.

I'm not as good a skier as Muriel. I'd have to walk down. But I keep hanging on to my boots. Nick's boots are probably as structurally sound as my own and his ski suit covers up the rotting fabric on the tongues.

Our ski poles are so old that the fashion for squiggly racing poles has come and gone, and we're back in style, again. I say style. Nick's poles have developped an unorthodox curve and the baskets on mine have a distinctly home-made look about them. They were cheap (who spends money on poles?) and came without the holes used to secure them when not in use, so Nick drilled them in the workshop. Nick's a designer; ergo, designer poles.

Our after-ski boots can only be worn by the socially feckless. All the fabric on Nick's is rotting away. Mine are newer, but for 7,50 at the market you don't get waterproof, so I've lined them with plastic bags which occasionally peek through the tops.

As to accessories, the hats are old, but, then again, hats don't wear out unless you fall on your head a lot. And I have gloves of fairly recent vintage, this being the first time I've skied in warm weather.

The crown in the jewel, however, are my mittens: silk-lined, down-filled leather that are going on 40 years old. No scratches, no tears and they keep my hands warm while everyone else is wearing Gore-Tex. I paid what seemed to be a fortune for them at the time, but they have to take the prize for money well spent.

So, anyway, Nick will get new skis for next season. But from the boots up, you'll still recognise us when you see us on the slopes.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

My first thought upon opening the book and seeing the author picture was, "Her parents named her Lionel? No wonder she writes about dysfunctional families." And an interview with Shriver confirms that the book stems from her own fears of motherhood.

For anyone who has been hiding in a cave for the past couple of years, this is the story a mother trying to come to grips with the reality of her son, who has killed seven of his classmates along with a teacher and a cafeteria worker. The story is told through a series of letters from Eva to her "estranged" husband.

Unlike many people, I didn't find Eva an unsympathetic character. She is brutally honest with herself and Franklin, and exhibits the not necessarily balanced faults and virtues of a real person. In her letters, reviewing her life with husband and son, she reflects on their familial history in minute detail (the paperback edition I read is 468 pages long), trying to understand why she and her family have been struck by lightening and how she might have made things different.

Although I found Eva an interesting character, her husband is portrayed is someone so unobservant, so emotionally blind, so deaf to reality, his wife's needs and his son's peculiarities, that it is hard to believe he can live outside an institution. In the end, there is no answer for Kevin and much as I might like to have made Eva's journey with her, I couldn't do it in her husband's company.

As for the "twist" to come, promised in the reviews, I'd pretty much figured that out by the second or third letter, so there wasn't much point in waiting around for it.

This is another DNF for me; I read half of it.

Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent

For eighteen months, the writer Norah Vincent transformed herself from a butch dyke -- I believe that is her preferred term -- into a slightly effeminate man. The transition was a lot harder than she thought.

During those eighteen months, she joined a men's bowling league, prowled sex bars, joined a dating service (some of the funniest passages in the book are about her dates; she didn't like most of the women), retreated to a monastery, joined an Iron Man chapter and worked as a salesman in a "Red Bull" company. (I had to guess what Red Bull is, but the characteristics required were all too clear.)

Self-Made Man is not a jokey, let's spy on the boys (giggle) book. The effort of becoming a man and her search for what makes men different from women was a grueling, emotional, fascinating journey into someone else's skin. It is a magnificent piece of research as well as a page-turner.

Her conclusion is that men are emotional cripples; they know it and hate it and can't break out of it. Because of what they are raised to be, they encourage the same repression in other men and pass it on to their sons.

What she didn't count on was the effect "passing" on her own psyche. Trying to return from Ned to Norah left her in fragile psychological state that took months to heal. The entire experience convinced her that she much prefers to be a woman.

I caught an error in Vincent's perception early on that made me wonder about the value of her other observations, but everything rang so true, I had no other quibbles. The error rang true, too, unless you'd duplicated the experience, so maybe there were others. In the end, it doesn't matter. This is probably the closest women will ever get to peer into a man's world.

The error? She bowled for a whole season in the men's league. It was quite an introduction: the first attempt at becoming a man; the first attempt at bowling (she never was any good). One evening the alleys got quieter and quieter as someone on another lane was in the process of a perfect game. Vincent takes the hush and attention to be men's homage to man. Wrong. Any league will come to a halt to watch and pray for that perfect 300.

You'd think her wife (to whom the book is dedicated), the "self-confessed trailer-trash girlfriend," would have noticed the error. It was she who warned, "Just remember that the difference between your people and my people is that my people bowl without irony."

(I wasn't too bad, since you ask.)

Bones Would Rain From the Sky by Suzanne Clothier

Well, lookee here: Books and dogs.

An old Turkish proverb says that if a dog's prayers were answered, bones would rain from the sky. Subtitled Deepening Our Relationships With Dogs, Clothier expects that if we pay more attention to our furred friends, we can interpret their feelings and emotional states, achieving our training ends more easily and with the cooperation of our dogs.

Clothier, although she never calls herself that, is truly a dog whisperer. She can intuit a dog's logic and state of mind and form fast friendships sooner than we can say, "Fetch"!

Since I hardly know my own mind (something that she points out in the book) nor is my life my animals (besides umpteen dogs, Clothier and her husband farm cattle, goats, chickens, pigs and other critters), it is unlikely that I will be a star pupil. Still, I found the book useful.

The first half and the last quarter are mostly an account of Clothier's philosophy; Bones is not meant to train the trainer. The middle section, though, does have fairly concrete examples of some of her experiences with "aggressive" dogs. Between the examples and the philosophy, she gives the ordinary owner something to strive for. And she can be very amusing.

I would recommend that anyone with a dog read this, preferably before you are, again, seized with the urge to shout or, worse, hit. Not only will your dog make more sense to you, you will make much more sense to your dog.

Posted by Margot at 11:06 AM

March by Geraldine Brooks

A brilliant novel about Mr. March, the father of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. March is a dreamer and idealist thrust into the brutal action of the Civil War. As the year unfolds, he writes loving letters to his family while shielding them -- but not us -- from the worst of his war experiences. To himself and us, ruminates on his early life and shares his moral concerns.

The book would be a great story even without the Little Women connection, but it does manage to flesh out the character of Marmee who, as Brooks' mother noted, was too good to be true in the original. The other characters are there, too, the little women, Laurie, the neighbour boy and his tutor Mr. Brooks, Aunt March and others, peripheral to the story, but bringing a pleasing sense of recognition, something like greeting old, childhood friends.

March is based on Bronson Alcott and, in his reminisces we meet the New England intelligentsia/abolitionist community, the Thoreaus and the Emersons, encounter passengers on the UnderGround Railroad and get taken in by John Brown's schemes.

Did you know that Henry Thoreau invented an improved pencil? And I had certainly never heard of "contraband," slaves who came under Union control and fought for the Union or worked the plantations for pay under Northern lessees. I love novels like this, where you can trust the history because what isn't true is set out by the author.

And somehow it pleases me to find the Brooks is married to Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic and Blue Latitudes, and one of my favourite writers.

Facing the Wind by Julie Salamon

This is the story of a murder, a club for mothers of handicapped children, and a love story.

From the back cover:

Bob Rowe and his wife Mary worked hard to build their American dream. A suburban home, barbecues in the summer, and a fast track corporate job made their life look ideal to outsiders. Yet they faced one of the most difficult challenges for a couple: their son Christopher was born severely handicapped and disabled. As a family, they managed to navigate through the tough times by being hands-on parents. Their efforts were emboldened by a group of extraordinary women - all of whom also had disabled children - who acted as a support system for one another.

Then, one day, Bob killed first the three children and then Mary.

I found this book gave me real insight into a state of mind that could lead someone to kill his family "out of love." It also made "temporary insanity" something more than a legal plea.

I find it strange that not one reviewer was struck by what surely must have been the effects on Rowe of his driven nature and his harridan, carping mother. From a young age, Rowe was determined to be successful in his career, to achieve middle-class status, and have a storybook home and family. With perseverance and focus, he achieved his goals. He must have been a breakdown waiting to happen even before the trauma of dealing with one sick child and one severely handicapped child began to pile on more pressure. Adding public role model and a job crisis not of his own making to the stew, it could only have been a matter of time, And, unfortunately, it was.

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