A GREAT DAY

A GREAT DAY

I love my daughter.  She is a beautiful young lady.  She is intelligent.  She is a fine writer when she decides to blog.  She does seem to view the world with a different set of lenses than her cranky Old Man.  The estrogen crank tends to see the brighter side of life; she puts a nice spin on events which she often sees through rose colored glasses.  All of this is just a set up to a tale of a day skiing two years ago.

The youngest crank (Spence) visited from Massachusetts.  We drove to the home of the Pennsylvania crank (Matt), and met up with the North Carolina crank (Mary Beth).   The Pa. crank was able to score free ski passes from a resort manager contact.  The entire Cranky clan, with the exception of the California crank (Mike) made a trip to the nearby Pocono Mountain slope.

The plan was for all the cranks and myself to go skiing, along with my oldest grandson.   The remaining four Crankettes would go tubing with my DIL and Mrs. Cranky. 

That was the plan.

Turns out the free passes were not honored at the tubing park.  Matt  did not want to shell out the expense for his two toddlers as there was an excellent chance that they were too young and would have been afraid.  He and DIL left with their two Crankettes.

Mary Beth took the oldest Crankette (Tommy) to rent skis,  Spencer  and I went skiing, expecting to meet up later with MB.  Mrs. Cranky took the final two Crankettes tubing.

Renting the skis took over an hour and we never did meet up with MB and Tommy.  It was Tommy’s first day skiing and Grandpa Joe (Cranky Old Man) was worried as I thought he would need my help.  Assisting a new skier can be difficult especially for a smallish lady (that would be MB.)  I searched and searched for the two wayward skiers.  In addition to being worried about not helping, and afraid that MB and Tommy would be miserable, I was having trouble skiing with my arthritic hip, and Spencer was bored constantly having to wait for me.

Meanwhile, back at the tube area, Mrs. Cranky was entertaining two children that she really did not even know very well.  She was worried that if anyone got hurt she would feel awful.  She was nervous.  Mrs. Cranky also hates the cold.  She hates the snow.  Tubing is in the cold on the snow.  She was miserable being responsible for two children while enduring the cold and the snow.

Spencer and I quit skiing, hoping to meet MB and Tommy at the bottom of the hill.  We sat for an hour.  We tried to make cell calls to everyone, but there was no service on the mountain.

After several hours we finally all met up, ate some lunch, and headed home.

Matt and DIL were disappointed to miss out on tubing and skiing.  Spencer was disappointed having only skied a few runs and waiting most of the time on a near cripple (me.)  Mrs. Cranky was cold, tired and a bit miserable having spent the morning doing three things she does not like, child watching in the cold in the snow.  On the way home, MB got lost and did not get back to Matt's for an hour after everyone else.  I of course was worried that something bad had happened.

I entered Matt’s house and immediately demanded a large glass of wine (frig the wagon, I needed a lift.)  I was tired, sore, and exhausted from worrying about everyone.  Mrs. Cranky was tired sore and miserable.

MB and family finally found their way back to Matt's.  She was smiling and exhilarated.

“The snow was great!  Tommy did really great after just a little bit!  We can’t ski like this in NC.  Halley and Graham had a blast tubing.”   

And then came the comment that had me questioning any similarity in our DNA.

“ALL IN ALL, I THINK IT WAS A GREAT DAY!”

 Like I said, I love my daughter; I only wish I could get a prescription to the same lenses she uses to view the world.

Several years later, and in retrospect, the Crankettes had a good time so I guess it was a pretty good day.