We Interrupt This Column...

We interrupt this column for some very important medicinal appointments. You see, the boys and I ran the annual Run Rocklin 5K on Sunday, and even though they’ve been running it for years with me, and they are getting older and stronger, they all sucked this year. Well, actually Son Number Three did OK-ish, but the other two sucked. I also sucked. It was basically a suck-fest.

This has me very concerned about the health of our legs and lungs. Rocklin is only a few hundred feet above sea level, so there should have been no shortage of oxygen for us to use, but I for one couldn’t find nearly as much as I needed. The boys seemed to be having the same issue as me, albeit in a quieter and less obvious way. But their finishing times told the tale – Not enough oxygen and weak legs.

It was obviously time to take us all for a series of tests.

This leads us to the reason we are interrupting today’s column. Son Number Two happens to turn seventeen years old today, and he doesn’t have any tests scheduled at school. His two brothers don’t have any scheduled classroom tests either.

All this great lack of school test timing happened to coincide perfectly with the fact that it snowed about eight to ten inches in the Sierras yesterday, so we have the perfect storm, so to speak. Which brings us to the reason we have to interrupt this column today – namely, I’m not here.

I mean, we really had no choice but to get all three boys and me up to a high-altitude testing ground, where we’re able to run our legs through a long series of rigorous tests in a low-oxygen environment. And since it’s a low-temperature day, we’re also able to visually monitor our lung functions.

Look, I don’t like them missing school any more than they do for these kinds of medicinal appointments, but gosh darn it, the health of our children will always come first.

Do I care too much? Perhaps. But we will stay up here and run these tests until our legs can’t stand it anymore.

We’ll get to the bottom of things. And we’ll probably get there pretty fast.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Surfing Lake Tahoe

My three boys have not had very much contact with snow. That’s mostly due to my wife’s natural allergic reaction to any temperature below 83 degrees Fahrenheit. She gets cold watching snow on TV. But like me, she grew up skiing, and she didn’t want to completely deny her children the experience, no matter how much she might suffer in the process – from the front seat of the running car, sipping hot chocolate with the heater blowing full bore.

The best we can do for them is to let them play in the snow. They won’t grow up skiing or snowboarding with any regularity, because going skiing as a family of five these days literally costs a thousand dollars - four hundred dollars for lift tickets and six hundred for five cheeseburgers and a small water at the lodge. Since a skiing scholarship is a tenuous gamble at best - and only one of the boys is displaying any real coordination - we’re just going to go ahead and save for college instead. We’re actually trying to save for four tuitions – three for the boys and one for me. I want to go back with them. I had a blast in college! That might have been because my dad didn’t tag along, though, but who knows?

We live in California, in the Central Valley that sits next to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sierra Nevada is an old Spanish term that means “steep road to casino covered in ice.” It never snows down where we live, but we can visit the snow like tourists in under an hour, any time we feel like it. Sorry, Wisconsin... and almost every other state.

Not too many people are aware of this, but the California side of the Sierras usually receives some of the highest snowfall totals of anywhere in the U.S., and way more than anywhere in Southeast Asia. I say usually, because in the recent few years we’ve received about half an inch of snow in the spots that normally get thirty feet. As a result, all of our lawns are brown and we can only shower every other week, and only if we pair up.

We’re having our first wet year in a long while this winter, and the snow is once again piled high where we keep it, a convenient fifty-minute drive from our house. Again, sorry, Wisconsin. It was time to head for the snow, so my wife put on twenty-seven layers of clothing and we headed up the hill.  

We are a little light on snow gear and toys, though - again, due to my wife’s severe temperature allergy, and our financial aversion to ski resorts. We go to the beach a lot because it’s free. I never have to pay $185 to get a “beach pass.” The flipside – there are no sharks on the ski slopes. It’s a give and take.

So, we own wetsuits and boogie boards for the kids, but not sleds and skis. Or snow pants. Or snow boots. Or good gloves... nothing, really. So, we borrowed some snow clothes for the boys, conveniently omitting the information that Son Number Three’s snow pants were really owned by a girl in his class, and off we went for a weekend in Tahoe.

The boys had a blast the first day of sledding, zooming down the small hills and flying off the jumps we made. On the second day, we got a little more adventurous and headed up the side of Mt. Rose to the public “snow play area,” which is an enormous steep hill that rockets you out onto a highway if you fail to stop in time. It would have been great, but the weather was not exactly cooperating.

While my wife watched in shock from the car, the three boys and I battled thirty to forty-mile per hour winds across the slope, along with the rest of the other idiots who decided to get out of their cars.

You know, those plastic saucers people have can really get moving through the air in a strong wind, like a sheet of plywood in a hurricane, nearly decapitating you as you hit the deck and watch them travel a quarter mile off into the trees.

We watched one lady, who obviously also favored the non-frozen water sports, chase her inflatable pool mattress all the way across the highway, where it had lodged itself under someone’s pickup truck.

Such rookies! We beach people had the upper hand that day. Boogie boards have leashes on them that attach to your wrist. Sure, the board is almost as big and heavy as the kid, so when the gale-force wind catches it, the kid gets pulled off his feet and his arm almost gets pulled out of the socket, but at least you don’t lose the board.

Those other people are probably still looking for their saucers.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

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Tahoe Glaceau

Amid the many news reports and ripe opportunities for new taxes brought about by the severe drought in California, one crucial element to the story may not be getting the attention it deserves.

Lake Tahoe is low.

The water level in the usually pristine lake is now as much as a full few inches lower than normal. This has caused a mild panic among the lake’s well-heeled gentry. Many shoreline homeowners have been forced to gasp in disbelief, as their once unparalleled view now includes slightly more of their dock pilings than normal and sometimes even unsightly mud.

But if you think these captains of industry and third and fourth-generation trust fundees are going to take this lying down, you’ve got another thing coming.

We caught up with Lars Networth, President of the Establishment for a Lifelong Ideal Tahoe Experience - Shoreline Owners Brotherhood, or ELITE SOBs for short, who outlined the bold initiative for us.

“The plan is simple. Simply brilliant, that is,” Lars explained, on the deck of his seventy-foot Princess M-Class yacht earlier this month. (A yacht, by the way, that Lars is now being forced to moor a full two feet farther off shore.) “We are simply going to raise the lake back to its appropriate level by filling it back up.”

So, the ELITE SOBs have devised a simple and clever plan to get things back to normal. How will it work?

“Bottled water,” Lars explained. “Simple and easy.”

Bottled water?

“Of course,” Lars replied impatiently.

How much will you need?

“Well, we’ve dropped below the natural rim of the lake, and we need to get it back up there. But we certainly don’t need to spend any more money getting it up any further than that. If we did, our investment would just be pouring out into the Lower Truckee River. We certainly don’t need to be providing Truckee and Reno with anything for free, now do we?” Lars replied with his trademark knowing grin.

Why bottled water?

“Well, that should be obvious, even to someone such as yourself,” Networth replied. “There isn’t enough good non-bottled water around here, as if there is such a thing, or we wouldn’t find ourselves in this sticky predicament, now would we?”

Interesting. How is the plan progressing?

“There is no doubt that the Establishment will go through with the plan,” Lars replied indignantly. “It’s going to happen. We are simply stalled in a debate concerning which brand to use.

We’re obviously going to save the Acqua Panna and the San Pellegrino for drinking. I mean, we can’t be running out of those, now can we?” Lars chuckled.

“But you know how it is. Well, you might not, actually. But anyhow, when you have a committee situation, there is always give and take. We’re currently locked in a debate over the two obvious choices; Fiji or Evian.

We have a faction insisting on filling the lake with Perrier but there is some debate over what the bubbles might do to the fish. Off the record, we only eat Japanese sushi and Chilean sea bass, and none of us fish for sport, so we don’t really care, but there is the whole ‘green appearance’ issue to consider. More importantly, there is some concern over at the Tahoe Yacht Club about the effects of carbonation on the finish of our Gar Woods and Chris Crafts. Lots of things to consider, don’t you know?” Networth said, standing up to strike a gallant pose at the ship’s railing.

“Would you believe we even have a member who wants to use Aquafina because it’s cheaper? Can you imagine? We might as well use Dasani or tap water from Kansas, for goodness sake. I don’t have to tell you he’s not old money. Owner of a construction conglomerate of some sort. I don’t think you’ll be shocked when I tell you he’s on the south shore. The Nevada side, obviously.”

Lars gazed out across the ever-so-slightly-receding water at his kingdom.

“If only Glaceau made a blue vitamin water,” he added wistfully.

“Well, anyhow, obviously, once the plan has been put in place and the lake has been restored to its proper viewing level, we ELITE SOBs will need to enforce a strict no usage policy for any non-shoreline owners. Everyone will still have the benefit of the view of the lake, as before, but we can’t have just anyone swimming or boating in our investment, now can we?”

Obviously not.

“And we’ll finally be rid of that infernal eyesore of a paddle boat, the Tahoe Queen,” Lars said, maniacally stroking his well-manicured goatee. “Finally.”

OK. Well, thanks for your time, Lars. And good luck to you and the other ELITE SOBs. We appreciate your efforts and wish you all the success in the world.

“Obviously,” returned Lars Networth. “We’re doing this for everyone, after all.”

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!