Sometimes People Just Break Into Song

Last weekend was a tiny bit stressful because I had a lot of responsibility not to forget anything, and there were a lot of things I could have forgotten.

It was my friend’s birthday. We’ve known each other for a long time (twenty five years) but we don’t see each other as often as we used to. She travels a lot, and for many years lived far away. She’s a working artist/photographer, which is a field where making any sort of a living doing that is incredibly difficult. She does, and it’s pretty impressive.

But we try to make time for each other. I put reminders in my calendar three months ahead of time “Send xxx a message to see about getting together” and then sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We see each other once or twice a year, and I try to be around for her birthday if she’s organizing anything.

This time she organized something in a place where the skiing is good, and where I have another friend who I don’t get to see as often as I like. Why not combine all that? And invite my partner coming from another part of the country to ski?

So I had to figure out…all the gear and stuff for my partner and I to ski, overnight stuff, where to ski tour (checking the weather and the avalanche danger six thousand times) food options, breakfast stuff, train options, where to park, where to meet the one friend, where to meet the other friend and so forth.

It all worked (I only forgot my partner’s ice axe) and at the end, we arrived rather exhausted in a village where we had to wait for a bus for about two hours and I didn’t know if there was a place to wait or eat. But lo and behold! A super sweet restaurant was still open, and would cook us some food. It was later than lunch time and many restaurants don’t staff the kitchen after 2pm, so we were lucky.

And at the end of our lovely meal…the other patrons began to sing! Yodel even. This just doesn’t ever, ever happen spontaneously like that.

My partner caught his train home and I made it home and needed….to put away all the crap I’d grabbed for the weekend. Only had to put away one ice axe, so there’s was that at least.