Snowed-in to mid-pane.

Only by Wednesday morning, five days before Christmas, I remembered my ingenious plan to get our kids a cell phone. We were telling ourselves that when we order an overnight delivery, we would be OK by Christmas Eve. Especially since we had planned to stay at home on Friday and depart for skiing at Kirkwood on Saturday. There was no sign of the package on Thursday; instead, we had a message from FedEx on our voice-mail that they would deliver the package on Friday, unless we wanted to pick it up at their location. I regarded it as a sensible solution; I really did not want to hang around at home for the whole day, waiting for the courier, only to discover that he came just in the moment I stepped out to pick the kids up at school.

Even basic cross-country skiing resembled an Arctic expedition.

FedEx's web site, however, refused to cooperate. So I picked up the phone and learned that our package was deliverable only against our signature, thus they had to deliver it. I attempted to use a logical argument that if I show up at their office with my ID, and sign on spot that I received the package, it would save me needless nerves an time, and their driver a very probably wasted trip to our home. Yet the nincompoop in FedEx employ was unmoved; it just was not possible. I asked for a supervisor and eventually got a nice woman on the line, who subsequently agreed to trying to hold the package at their San Jose office, where I could pick it up during Friday.

On the week leading to Christmas, one night Lisa got up from her bed and without accepting any compromise, moved to granny's room, saying that Tom kept waking her up and that she wanted to sleep alone. We had, of course, expected something like this, and honestly — if our children would continue to want to share a bedroom into their puberty, we would find it weird, but the suddenness and firmness of Lisa's decision took us all by surprise.

Meanwhile the weather forecast kept changing by every hour — the only thing that stayed relatively unchanged, was announcement of a heavy winter storm, arriving. We began to doubt whether we'd be able to get into the mountains on Saturday at all, so when a break in snowfall occurred on Friday afternoon, we wasted no time. We still had taken kids to school that morning; then we began to plan a greased lightning action. I started packing at top speed, and run shopping errands — including a stop at FedEx. They told me that they simply DID NOT HAVE the package. I must say an overnight service which fails to produce a package after forty eight hours did not impress me at all.

Wind-side of Kovář's car (ours was only slightly better off).

I picked up the kids from school after lunch. The teachers were surprised — I guess that my morning message I had left at the office did not reach anyone, but by two o'clock we were all loaded in the car and driving out. I had originally thought that we might stop by the FedEx office once more on our way, but according to their web site our phone still lingered in their transit warehouse in Oakland, thus we'd given up and sped off to the mountains. Even so, our journey was to be interesting. Snow was not falling and ploughs were operating, but the blacktop was covered by a layer which kept two-wheel-drives resorting to chains. We were fine until we reached a column of stopped cars. Allegedly someone was being pulled out of a ditch beyond a curve, and they needed space on the road. The driver of the first car claimed he had been waiting there for twenty minutes, and there were about thirty cars ahead of us.

Night show with a snow blower.

It was obvious that we would be driving in a convoy. But I'm not sure till this day why the leading car was driving fifteen — and never let anyone pass. We had to overtake the whole convoy, which we did in small leaps. When we finally sped past the initial slug, he rolled down his window and yelled something incoherent at us, and gestured threateningly. We did not understand, for as soon as we got ahead of him, we could proceed at the breathtaking speed of thirty miles per hour (you can't really go much faster on all the snow and ice even with an all-wheel-drive), and we quickly left him behind. With the remaining thirty cars following him.

Kovars had arrived on the same Friday night, with the promised storm on their heels. My (lazy) Hippo was rather pleased that the lifts were off line on Saturday and he could crawl back to his books and his computer. The kids put on warm clothes from head to toe and departed to dig in the new snow; Vendula, Pavel and I went cross-country; you could only see a few steps ahead on the meadow and all tracks were blown over, but it was relatively OK in the grove at the edge. Pavel found out in the afternoon that the easiest Timber Creek lift had been put back into service, and decided to check it out. Vendula and I rather did another cross-country lap, made more interesting by getting lost in the meadow and wading knee-deep in the snow — not even our cross country skis would keep us on top of the fluffy powder.

On Sunday one could see in gaps between the snowy gusts, how people ride up on the lift nearest to our "cottage" (lift #5), and so Vendula, Pavel and I packed up and set out. Before we actually made it to the lift, the operators began to turn away interested customers, closing down on account of wind. We all squeezed into a resort shuttle, hoping to try our luck at the despised Timber Creek. Every round there we kept asking the operators whether #5 got back online, and they insisted it did not. Still a rumor began spreading among folks that number five was on, and Hippo had confirmed it — seeing it functional out of his window. We tried our luck again, and succeeded. Honestly — I don't know how to ski in fresh powder, so it was the same ordeal for me everywhere.

Hippo and I pondered what to do and decided that sitting in the "cottage" in the snow storm for two days in the row, was not quite the best thing, and that we would drive home. I packed and Hippo went out to dig our car out of the snow. When he returned a half hour later saying he could not drive it out of the snowbank, I regarded it as one of his horror tales. He was right, however, and when we all had spent another half hour digging and pushing the wagon out, we were so late that the road got closed again. We were bound to keep the Kovars company for another night.

Scarlett O'Hara.

In the end we were glad — the skies were blue in the morning and the valley rattled with bangs as they were shooting avalanche slopes down — a good omen that they were working on opening the maximum number of runs. The blue sky did not help in improving my (in)ability to move in the deep powder. Moreover, incredible crowds eager to hit the ski slopes had showed up and noticeable lines started forming at the lifts.

Christmas came in spite of our short preparations.

And December twenty fourth came, and back in our house, two hundred miles farther west, potatoes and other salad ingredients were awaiting in the fridge, and a decorated tree and packed presents. Our departure from the mountains went well, we bought fresh salmon in Martell on our way home, and we stood in the FedEx office at four thirty, to pick up our package. A line of twelve people did not seem too bad, but they were being processed at a snail pace, well, the Christmas Eve shift was giving us a clear message who's to pay for their bad luck to be on duty. In the end we had to wait there for almost a whole hour, which further delayed our Christmas preparations.

Till today I'm not sure how we managed to be at the tree by eight — cooking salad, grilling the fish, all changed into something civilized, finishing packing presents... it had to be a big rush, but there we were. This year we skipped decorating the house, baking home-made cookies; even the ginger-bread house stayed untouched in its box, but I still think it was a nice Christmas — we had enjoyed snow and the romance of a snowed-in "cottage". It helped that the kids now know the deal with Santa, and lent a hand during the preparations, understanding why we MUST go for a walk after dinner — otherwise, no presents would show up under the tree.

Tom got Lego Mindstorms 2, and started to build a little programmable robot right away; Lisa found under the tree a long dress — a Southern Belle costume with a hoop-skirt, and so she, too, was in seventh heaven. Besides the dress and high heel shoes, she got Kobo Mini — she had been reading all the time, and her books threaten us with an avalanche, so this way we may keep it in check. It was a complicated deal, getting a Kobo, we managed to find only one piece, and since Tom got his expensive Mindstorms, we decided Lisa would get the other pricey gadget. Tom had been, however, hogging my own e-reader since then, and we were bound to find a solution soon.

On the twenty fifth the kids played with their presents and we had invited Slávek over for lunch. He had finally made a confession to us that he plays a guitar, and we let him go only after dinner. Perhaps we would gain a capable musician replacement for Bára who had moved to Czechia.