SKI TO SEA WAS BACK WITH TEAM DADBOD.
This was Andrew's sixth or seventh year as a Ski to Seer. And the Dad Bod's third at least. I will note that there is a pretty high diversity of "dad bods" representing the (all ages and co-ed) team, though most of them definitely verge on the more athletic side.
For those unfamiliar with the SKI TO SEA, well you obviously don't live here. It's a multileg relay race that starts at the top of the mountain (double scoop of skiing)
and winds its way through some running, some cycling,
some boating,
more cycling, more boating and one big ass party in Fairhaven (part of Bellingham, sort of)
Whole thing is based loosely on some crazy ass ultramarathon from the turn of the last Century. It takes somewhere between 6 (if you're a professional team) and 10+. hours Yadda yadda yadda. And yeah it's been around way longer than fun runs and mudders and urban whatevers.
Or - if you're just an average person who grew up in Bellingham - Ski to Sea is a very large party that lasts all weekend and is responsible for a staggering influx of cars from the big city folk down South and up North.
It's been a good year for Team Dad Bod. Everyone finished their legs (with actual legs intact even!). You could feel it from the start.
The start, for me, being the pre-race team party.
To an introvert, parties are a dicey proposal in the abstract. Kind of like a medicinal intoxicant: such potential of being "too much" very quickly. And, after a few overdose experiences, suddenly your body tenses up at the slightest wafting whiff. BUT, man just the right dose on a properly full stomach and it's the best high. I feel like I've pretty well always enjoyed hosting in my lackadaisical fashion. This was technically Andrew hosting and he did most of the work, which was a bonus. I was just enough hostess to have a comfortable role and hostess-throne in the back corner of the kitchen.
There's some golden saturation of people combined with the bustle of snacks, food and beverages that allows optimal milling and connecting for my tastes, and we managed to hit that golden combo a few times. Andrew's Ski to Sea team came to our house in dribs and drabs through the day, but at peak saturation there were probably about 7 or 8 of us.
As people petered out, I got to spend a good hour or so catching up with my WWU buddy Justin. He was recruited to the team after I fortuitously pimped Andrew out as a ski buddy earlier this year. It was most excellent seeing him again. Some people - especially when they are the embodiment of all extroversion should and could be - are just easy to talk to (especially when a very kind husband distracts the underslept monster-child in a different part of the room), and I felt grateful for the opportunity.
But enough about the pre-race party.
There was the RACE. AAAAAAAAHHHH. It was a party in its own right.
An occasionally bright & sunny party that made me wish I'd brought a hat or sunscreen or sunglasses or an umbrella or anything other than a husband who had a back up hat that I eventually had to cede to Chaya as we sat in various beautiful and sunny places to watch racers do things and spectators do other things. Whew. That was a sentence. Eat it, Hawthorne!
Yeah sunny! I'm a Pacific Northwesterner. The beginning of summer is dubbed Juneary by the locals (or occasionally just June Gloom). I had boots in case the rain got bad... Completely ill prepared for this perfect sunny weather nonsense.
Leave that in our "notes for next year". Other tidbits include just getting an Air BnB in Fairhaven (reserving roughly in August for next May I imagine), and making sure the canoe leg has an actually decent canoe instead of a heap o'junk.
But it was Grand. We all mostly met up in Fairhaven to celebrate the finish. Chaya survived without too many epic meltdowns and we all made it home in sweaty pieces.
Our actual Memorial Day was chill. I mean as chill as you can get with a largely overstimulated three year old who's had a BIIIIIG WEEKEND and has intermittent panic attacks about her orange being "too wet" with bouts of maniacal laughter as she attempts to poke mommy or daddy in the face and/or areas-we-do-not-touch-on-other-people-without-express-permission-in-a-private-space-and-even-then-not-until-you're-much-much-older with a spare kebab skewer.
But there was grilling, by god.
And...
wait for it...
wait for it...
S'mores.
Classic S'mores this time around down to the Hershey-Honey Maid-Marshmallow brands, but we've got all kinds of variations we've been dreaming up.
It's been decided that the theme of Chaya's 4th birthday is gonna be S'mores (mommy and daddy think this is fantastic, and Chaya was busy singing and smearing marshmallow chocolate sludge all over any available fabric to opine much one way or another). So we'll have to audition several options in the intervening months.
With that, it's SUMMER! Or at least late enough in the year, I can wear white with impunity (though heck no, not wearing white around the mouth rubbing choco-marshmallow mush monster) and prepare for June. It'll feel a lot more like summer next weekend when I go back East again; I've checked the forecast and there will be heat, humidity and thunderstorms. Oh yeah baby.
Psyching myself up for my visit to Noho next week. If I'm lucky I might see some people I haven't seen in about 14 years. I'm sure I'll make many meaningful observations upon seeing them in lieu of the reflex "long time no see, you look good." Like "hey, you know if we'd conceived a child last time we saw each other, they'd be in high school now?? Also how two women would have conceived a child, I don't know, but I was so close to you back then I know there'd have been a way!"
It's gonna be wild. Or polite and cordial and notably absent of small people wiping their sticky gooey mouths all over my skirt. I think... I think.
Until then, I guess we'll try a couple more days followed by a hop onto the legendary Red Eye of flights yore. Time changes are weird.
But first, we sing! Really. It's almost time for toddler music class.
Happy Pseudo-Summer everyone.
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