Thoughts in Random Patterns

Ski Season Ends

It's a glorious day here in Keystone, with about 3 inches of fluffy new snow and sunny skies -- but I'm heading back to Boulder and won't be back up here probably until May.  And what this really means is that for the second winter in a row I didn't ski a single day during the entire ski season.   My friends who come to stay with us and actually ski think I'm quite strange.  I agree with that, but think that what really happens is that I'd rather read than ski, which is what I do a lot of up here, and I'd rather spend the days with Brad, who doesn't even pretend to ski like I do.  I guess we have a mountain house as opposed to a ski house.  Maybe next winter I'll break in my "new" boots.

Groovin'

Today for the first time in over two weeks I had a fully healthy and energetic day, which feels extra wonderful after having a nasty cold for so long.  I went for a long walk with Brooks, did some yoga, and even flossed my neglected teeth.  I'm usually a radiantly healthy person, often avoiding having even a single cold in a winter season, so being sick is like visiting a foreign land where I observe all the minutiae of my energy levels and mucus production.  When I'm healthy I don't really notice these things at all unless I'm doing yoga or sitting meditation.  But I'm newly grateful for being wholly healthy, and am glad to be well since I begin my April with a week on the road in Dallas and New York. 

Umami

I'm catching up on a small fraction of the piles of magazines littering my office and had the strange experience of seeing the same new word in both the New Yorker and the New York Times -- umami.  In the March 10th New Yorker it's in a book review of Perfumes: The Guide, which is more about the language of describing scents, especially in wine tasting.  In the NY Times it's in a March 5th article about MSG which is currently the second most popular article to email.  And what is umami?  According to dictionary.com, it is:

A taste that is characteristic of monosodium glutamate and is associated with meats and other high-protein foods. It is sometimes considered to be a fifth basic taste along with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter

or

a taste sensation that is meaty or savory and is produced by several amino acids and nucleotides (as aspartate, inosinate, and glutamate)   

It's strange to see the same unfamiliar word twice in one day.  Lattice of coincidence.

It Must Be Spring

The 36th running of the Iditarod sled dog race started on Saturday, with 96 teams signed up for the 1,049 mile race from Anchorage to Nome.  The Anchorage Daily News website has great photos and a daily newsletter about the progress of the mushers as they cross the Alaskan bush.  This is definitely an extreme sport.