John Flanagan

This post is hard for me to type.  It's titled after one of Jack's best buddies ever who has been in the hospital for 9 days now.  He went in originally for what they thought were gall stones and when they got in there they realized that it wasn't gall stones at all.  He has cancer and they ended up removing his gall bladder and his appendix.  Both were diseased with cancer and now they are trying to determine how far it has spread.  It's looking pretty grim. 
We decided John needed some support and Jack would be just the guy to cheer him up.  We got the kids set up at some friends for the night and the dog and cat taken care of and drove to Colorado Springs.  We got to the hospital at around 4 or so.   He hasn't eaten in 10 days.  The can't give him anything but water.    He's lost 30 or so pounds but he looked good.  It was another night of story telling and laughter. 
Jack and John met in about 1982.  That was the year I graduated from high school.  Jack moved to Colorado and started living in Summit County after attending college for a year and a half in Durango.  Of course, Jack was a skier and so was John and they were eyeing each other up on the mountain and started skiing together, both earning the respect of one another.  Jack needed a place to live and moved into the small 100 year old cabin John shared with his girlfriend at the time, Marilee. 
Jack and John are nothing alike.  Jack is from the West Coast, San Diego, and John is from the East Coast, Connecticut.  Pure opposite, geographically speaking.  John is Irish and parties like no other.  Jack is usually responsible and quits drinking before he gets severely drunk.  John has a huge, huge temper.  Jack has no temper.  John is wild, Jack isn't.  But they do share that incredible bond of skiing.  And skiing big.  They became ski partners quickly and 30 years later nothing has changed with those two on the mountain except they ski wiser, they don't take the chances they used to.  Well, John still does, I'm sure.  When Jack and John get together they laugh and tonight they were telling stories that I have never ever heard before.  It was so much fun listening to the two of them.  Here are some of the stories. 
John used to drive an old white truck.  Jack used to drive an old blue truck.  John's truck was a good truck.  I still remember it.  Jack's truck was a piece of crap.  It had no power and the tires were bald and Jack, being so frugal, didn't care.  He'd drive that thing up Montezuma Road at a crawl in the snow and John was driving up the mountain and came up behind Jack, driving slowly.  The first time he saw Jack driving that truck up the 6 mile road, with an elevation climb of around 1000 ft, he decided it would be funny to ram Jack's truck.  He is gaining on Jack and Jack sees him in his rear view mirror and is wondering why John is getting so close.  John is driving at full speed ahead and rams right into the back of Jack's truck. and Jack, of course, spun out and did a 360 right in the middle of the road.  John took advantage of that 360 and passed him, flipping him off as he's passing.  So now Jack is behind John.  John takes off up the mountain laughing his ass off.  They both get to main street so you now have to slow down just out of pure respect for driving slow through town.  We all know that.  John is driving respectively slow through town and Jack comes up behind him and rams John's truck now.  Game on.  They did this over and over.  I never knew this before and it shocked me to hear of the bumper game they played with each other.  Never mind the danger.  That's why it was so much fun.   
Jack then was reminiscing about the time they were at the Snake.  The Snake is a bar/restaurant that has been up here longer than any other in the county.  It is in Keystone and John worked there for years as a waiter.  How he didn't kill an unruly table is beyond me.    We have spent countless hours there, sorry to say.  One night after skiing all day, Jack and John ended up at the Snake.  Not unusual.  John's infamous for Jamison shots.  He can drink a lot of Jamison.  The bartenders were sick and tired of John and told him to leave.  John informed us that he told the bartender he wasn't finished drinking yet so he wasn't going to leave.  Jack, the guy who hates confrontation more than anyone I know, is trying to pacify drunk, Irishman John.  Jack thinks he has done his job.  They walk out and the folks inside lock all of the doors so John can't get back inside.  John didn't like this one bit so he gets in his old white truck with Jack in the passenger seat and drives around to the back and rams that truck right into the side of the building.  This is an old log building and probably not very sturdy.  John is hanging out of the window of his truck yelling "I'LL HUFF AND I'LL PUFF AND I'LL BLOW THIS HOUSE DOWN!!"  Well, he was serious and kept ramming the side of the building until they decided to let him back in.  They did and John did another shot of Jamison. 
One of our friends was telling us about the first time he met John.  John and Jack were at the Snake, shocking, and John was extremely pissed about something another one our friends did.  John leaves the bar and comes back in with his chainsaw because he is so pissed off he decided he was going to saw the bar in half.  He's trying to start the chainsaw but he's too liquored up to figure out where the start switch was and never could get it started.  If you knew John, everyone in that bar was praying to God that he wouldn't get that chainsaw started because if he did, there would be carnage.
Jack and John had more fun skiing together than anything.  Both were into going big.  They'd hike and hike and ski huge vertical and talk about it over shots of Jamison.  They were skiing uncharted territory before anyone was skiing it.  They were taking big chances.  I'm surprised they survived any of it.  Powder day's were abundant and they were like kids in a candy store.  And they still are.  When it snows on the mountain and they run into each other they are like little boy's enjoying the best day of their lives.  At the time it is the best day of their lives.    
As we were sitting there in the hospital talking about the past and all of the stupid things that took place John was pressing his pain med button because he was laughing and it was causing him a great deal of pain.  He kept telling us he couldn't laugh so we had to stop telling these stories.   He was happy talking about the good ol' days and it was great to see him smile.  The ski stories started up and we could have gone on and on.  Visiting hours were coming to an end and we had to get dinner so we said our good buys. 
It was a good visit and our good friend John has been diagnosed with cancer.  I'm going to try to get as many of those crazy times on paper because they are so worth telling.
We'll know more next week how bad his cancer is.  I'll keep you posted.

The Celebration

Last night was definitely a memorable night.  It was the celebration of Leif Borgeson's life and let me tell you, it was amazing.  The first part of it was held at the Keystone Conference Center and there were 700 chairs set up, each one filled and there were still so many people standing up in the back.  There were 2 huge screens set up for an incredible presentation after a few people got up and spoke.  There were 7 or so people that took the podium with fun stories and memories and the last person to get up and say something was his oldest son who read a Hopi Indian Poem.  It was beautiful.  The presentation was the most amazing thing and there was not a dry eye in the room.   Grab a tissue and watch it.  THIS IS GOOD!  http://vimeo.com/20102602.
We then travelled up Loveland Pass to Arapahoe Basin for the Celebration.  It was this long procession of cars for the 6 mile drive.  And a Celebration it was. 
The Basin provided food and drinks and it was done up so well.  There were people there I haven't seen in years.  And I didn't miss a beat with any of them.  It was one of the best parties I have ever been to.  The "family" we have here is like no other.  Everyone lives large, goes big and talks about it as if it's nothing.  We all share the common bond of skiing.  The night ended after so much laughter at around midnight with many going out to the Snake to carry on.  Jack said no way.  Home for us.  Thank God one of us was thinking. 
I woke up this morning not feeling up to par.  The memories of last night were amazing. 
Jack had to work at the ski shop this morning so I got to lay around for the morning not feeling guilty.  He got home at around 1:00 and we decided to drive to Colorado Springs to visit our friend, John Flanagan,  who is in the hospital.  I'll blog about that visit tomorrow.  I'm in a hotel room in Colorado Springs and I'm wiped out.  Time for bed.   

Sad

 
This past week has been extremely sad.  Tomorrow is the service for our friend Leif Borgeson and it's going to be huge.  Ever since his death Jack has not been himself.  He is really effected by this loss.
 
Tonight, I was in charge of dinner for Hannah's confirmation class.  Each parent has to sign up for a night and back in December I signed up for tonight.  I had to work so I knew that I had to put together something for dinner in the crock-pot and Jack would have to bring it to church and set up and serve.  But, dummy me, I made tacos and it was high maintenance.  I had bags of stuff for him to bring and there is a vegan couple there, so I had the vegan tacos as well, that had to be heated.  All pretty easy right?  Not if you're Jack.  I have totally enabled him to not know how do anything but boil water.  Shame on me. Well, he did great and pulled through.    
I went skiing today and knew I would have to get home to get everything together for Jack which would make his life easier.  He picked up the kids from my work and left after extensive direction from me.  I need to learn to shut up and let him deal.  Well, he was cranky and I was pissed that he came in so cranky. 
I got home early, 10pm.  He wasn't home but all of the leftover carnage was still in the bags waiting to be put away.  I was annoyed and started cleaning up and thinking of how cranky he was.  I got over it and sat down to watch the news.  He came in and he had a couple of cocktails down in the garage with our tenant. 
He just started crying when he saw me and said shit is hitting the fan.  He told me that our friend, and our best man in our wedding, has been diagnosed with stomach cancer and we need to get to the hospital asap to be with him.  It was all too much for him to handle.  He was so freaked out about the life and death concept and we sat there for a long time thinking about our friends.
I felt so bad for being pissed and annoyed at him after seeing how he was not handling all of this death and sickness very well.  Shame on me again.   
I'm not sure why things happen the way they do but it sure is hard to see friends die, friends have cancer, friends get divorced, friends suffer.  Jack has not had to deal with many of these issues and he is not having a very easy time of it.  Tomorrow will be very difficult.   

Heavy Hearts

Many of us here in Summit County have heavy hearts.  Our community lost an incredible person on Tuesday.  He was only 50 years old and died hiking in Aspen with one of  his sons.  I was working the day shift in the office and my good friend called to give me the bad news.  She was crying and I was not understanding her and when she told me who had died I was in shock.  I hung up the phone and just stared at it. 
When a friend dies you don't believe it at first and in my mind I kept thinking maybe it just isn't true.  They must have made a terrible mistake and word got out wrong.  Obviously, that was not the case.   I called Jack who was skiing in Beaver Creek and he answered.  He was already in the car driving home and when I told him the terrible news he just broke down and couldn't talk. 
All I could think about for the rest of the day was his family.  His wife and 2 sons, one who has gone to school with Hannah since they started. 
I picked up the girls from the bus stop and Hannah asked me what was wrong.  I said nothing.  I said I was tired.  I didn't want to say anything in the car.  We got home and Jack was not home yet.  We did homework and I started cooking dinner.  Jack came in after awhile and he came up to me and we just hugged and cried.  Jordan came up to us and we all hugged.  Hannah came down, from upstairs and there we stood, in our kitchen, in a big family group hug.  It was an incredibly sad moment. 
R.I.P. Leif.  You will be missed. 

BUTT COLD!

Yes, I'm going to bitch about the cold.  Being from MN I thought I was tougher than this.  I'm not.  I know, I've said this before.   As I type my thermometer reads -25 below zero.  I can't believe we didn't have a pipe freeze, or a few pipes freeze or like what happened one year, our entire line to our well froze.  That year we were without water for a couple of weeks during the winter.   The girls were itty bitty and it was no bueno. 
This morning we woke up to -20 something and I decided I needed to check to see if there were school delays.  Jack informed me that we didn't have Internet and since we don't have cell service at the house I couldn't get the Summit County Alert, which is set up to go to my email and cell phone.  I turned on the tv thinking the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen would tell us which counties were effected by the cold.  Well, Summit wasn't on that row of schools so game on.  We were all freezing in our house and the girls were getting ready fast and at 6:40am they left for the bus.  It takes us 15 minutes to drive to the bus and when they got down there they had just heard on the radio that all buses for school were on a 2 hour delay.  So, back home they drove, up the icy road to our icy house.  It never got above 0 all day.  I mean, our whole country is in a deep freeze. 
Tomorrow it's suppose to be up in the 20's for our high.  Balmy.  I am going to ski with my cousins and I will be wearing my battery operated heated socks and glove liners.  Thanks to my sister in law.  I love those things. 
Stay warm and enjoy those cracks and creaks in your house.  My house sounds like it's falling down. 

Social Networking

I love facebook.  I have been on fb for around 2 years now and have connected with many high school friends that I am happy to be re-connected with.  However, I do need to be smarter when I am friended and really ask myself if I care whether or not we are fb friends.  The answer will most likely be a big fat NO.  This is what I am speaking of.
A few weeks ago a guy sent me a friend request and I saw that we had many, 15 or so, mutual friends, all from high school.  Sometimes I get a friend request and the same thing has happened that we weren't great friends or I really can't remember that person and it turns out that I am happy we are now fb friends.  So this time, same thing.  I didn't have my yearbook to look up his picture but no biggie.  I figured what the hell.  So I accepted his friend request.  after looking at some of his pictures I still couldn't figure out who the hell this guy was.  Well, he was fine, commenting or posting.  His posts were fairly normal and as I was going through my fb one day he posted something to the effect that his life was shit and he needed to figure it out.  I, for some stupid reason, decided to comment and I wrote, "time to start living the dream."  Big mistake. 
The next day I was checking my fb and he posted something on my wall, in Russian.  Well, I don't speak Russian so I didn't know what it said.  I didn't even know it was Russian.  I thought that it was a spam thing so I ignored the post.  Then, I get a private message from this guy basically chewing me out saying that he now knows I don't answer direct questions,  the message in Russian was asking me if I answered direct questions,  that I was difficult to communicate with in high school and he asked if I was having marital problems because I am spending a lot of time on fb.  He called me passive aggressive, blah, blah, blah.   Well, my go to gal, a great high school friend and still is, was who I went to with all of this weirdness.  I had replied to his message asking him if I had offended him.  Another big mistake.  I should have just let it be and moved on.  Well, he said, in fact, YES, I had offended him by saying he needs to start living the dream.  OH MY GOD!!!!  It was all too weird and I decided to end all communication with him and after sharing all of this with my friend she agreed, end the communication.  So I did but the funny thing is, he had already unfriended me so it was over.  Boo Hoo.  I wanted to be the one to unfriend first (oopsie, there I go being all passive aggresive).  I shouldn't have thought about it for a day and just did the unfriending.
It's all so high school isn't it?  That what is so darn funny about fb.
So, if you get a friend request and you are thinking, "hmmmm.  I wonder who this person is and I wonder if I should just click accept?"  Don't.  I have to admit.  I am still scratching my head over this and rolling my eyes. 
For those who don't know me, I have a huge sense of humor and love to laugh and I am laughing. 
omg, lol, rotflmao, lmfao.   I love fb.