For years, The Princess has talked about taking a drive to Pennsylvania to visit Amish country. For years, I have refused.

Maybe it was my reluctance to feel like an outsider to what I would consider xenophobic people. Maybe it was the prospect of having a really boring weekend sniffing horseshit.

Or maybe it was because watching Witness when I was a child traumatized the living crap out of me. Seriously, watching Danny Glover slash a man’s throat in a train station bathroom and watching another man get buried alive under a silo-sized mountain of corn feed is liable to emotionally scar just about anyone.

In any case, I finally agreed this past weekend to take the 2-hour drive to Amish country. We traveled through towns called Cockeysville and Blue Ball before arriving in Intercourse.

FYI: At no point did these jokes get old.

We spent more than 24 hours among these misunderstood Anabaptist Christians, riding their horse-and-buggies, walking among their farms, and doing our best not to offend any of them. Knowing me, I’m surprised I succeeded. I even snickered when I heard some frat boy ask an Amish lady selling homemade root beer to take a photo of her only to have her respond, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Here are three things I learned about the Amish this weekend:

1. Horseshit stinks.
2. Horses shit a lot.
3. There are a lot of horses in Amish country.

We got to Intercourse, PA, on Saturday afternoon after a meandering drive through northern Maryland and Lancaster County, PA. The Princess, who is nothing if not a well-prepared traveler, read her literature about what we could do in Pennsylvania and soon learned we had made a huge mistake.

Apparently, there is nothing to do on Sundays.

I knew the Amish were a religious bunch but I didn’t realize that meant that everything shut down on the Sabbath. When the Lord wants you to rest, he really wants you to rest. So we tried to cram as much as possible on Saturday.

We took a horse-and-buggy ride:

We visited Amish farms:

We found signs about Intercourse:

We haggled with Amish boys over the price of horseshoes:

We saved a group of kittens from religious persecution:

We drag-raced wild and reckless teenage Amish boys:

We read the Bible (something called the New Testament?) page left open in our hotel room:

And, of course, on Saturday evening, we revisited my traumatic childhood experience by watching Witness, which played in every room in the Best Western at 9pm. More than 20 years later, the movie had lost some of its power over me, I suppose because I no longer empathized with a young Lucas Haas witnessing a brutal murder. And Harrison Ford going ape shit against the local townies for spreading ice cream on the face of that immortal dude from Die Hard was pretty funny.

But man, Kelly McGillis as an Amish woman? Hot.

I didn’t want to write about this.

I wanted to write about my wild and crazy party weekend in New York City with my best friend Blue. I wanted to write about going to Shea to see the Mets and having a large drunk man fall on us in the stands. I wanted to write about beating Blue at Ping Pong for the first time in my life (bringing my career record against him to a blistering 1-73). I wanted to write about all the stupid jokes and funny stories that happen when you hang out with someone you’ve known for 26 years.

But then it happened.

Blue was taking me to a show. Not Broadway, as I had thought, but “off-off-off-off-Broadway”, according to him. He wouldn’t tell me what it was because he didn’t want me to go into it with any preconceived notions. So I didn’t know if we were attending a play featuring a naked Harry Potter or watching some bad street performance.

Turns out, it was a little of both.

The last time Blue and I went to dinner and a show was several years ago when we grabbed some pizza and attended “Taller Than a Dwarf” with Matthew Broderick and Parker Posey. The play was sort of interesting but not that memorable. The night, though, was.

During the play, my stomach started grumbling. So did Blue’s. As line after line was delivered and each act unfolded onto the next one, we began to realize that the $3 pizza slices might have been a bad idea.

When the lights came up, we bolted. For the bathrooms. We sat on those porcelain stalls like they were our lifelines, cursing the gods of baked dough and melted cheese and struggling to survive an embarrassing situation.

Eventually, a security guard came into the bathroom after the theater was empty and turned off the lights.

“We’re still in here!” I shouted.

“Hurry up!” he shouted back.

There was an awkward pause. Finally, I replied:

“We’re doing the best we can.”

Enough years have gone by that Blue and I can laugh about it now. This past Saturday’s incident, however, might take more time.

The mystery show turned out to be Fuerza Bruta, a surreal revolving stage performance featuring a lot of kinetic energy, wind, and water that looks like Circue d’ Soleil on LSD.

Blue and I had eaten at Arturo’s Pizza earlier, sharing the most incredible half-bacon, half-sausage pie (probably one of the best I have ever had). I finished a half-carafe of red wine on my own.

“Hmm,” Blue said, “pizza and a show in New York. Seem familiar?”

When we arrived at the Fuerza Bruta show, I was feeling a bit tipsy. We walked in and immediately I was wondering what the hell was going on. Everyone was forced to stand inside a circle in the center of a dark room. One guy took off his shirt. A bachelorette party came in with each drunk woman wearing a mask. I started to wonder if Blue had brought me to an orgy.

The show started with a man running on a treadmill above our heads. Strobe lights started to splinter the dark. Wind and water were sprayed everywhere. People started to jump, dance, and cheer. Everyone would move around in unison, pushing us around the “stage” into different formations.

I stared up and got dizzy. I lost my place. I lost myself. I looked for Blue and couldn’t find him.

And then my stomach started to hurt.

The ceiling above us became a see-through mylar swimming pool. Half naked women swam across it as we all watched and cheered.

I looked around for the emergency exits.

The swimming pool ceiling started to be lowered slowly. The wet women got closer and closer and soon they were claustrophobically on our heads. Everyone raised their hands to “touch” the swimming women.

I told Blue I had to get out of there.

Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the pizza. Maybe it was the Italian sausage and hot dog I had at Shea that afternoon. Maybe it was radically changing my diet after a week of observing Passover’s dietary restrictions. Maybe it was the heat in the Fuerza Bruta room. Maybe it was the strobe lights and the psychokinetic energy.

Maybe it was everything.

I buckled over and everything went dark. Blue pushed me to the red EXIT sign.

“Is he ok?” I could hear people ask.

I was catatonic. I couldn’t talk or walk. Blue somehow got me downstairs and to the bathroom. I sat on that toilet feeling like I was going to die. I sat there wishing I would die. This, I thought, is was being poisoned must feel like.

It took 30 minutes for me to open my eyes and stand up. The 70-minute show was still beating through the walls. I apologized to a sympathetic Blue and said, “Let’s catch the end of the show.”

We walked upstairs and entered the room. One minute later, the show ended.

Now, Blue says I didn’t ruin his birthday and that I shouldn’t feel bad for blowing the tickets he paid (discount price) for. But he did say that I shouldn’t sugar coat this story in my blog. That my best blogging is done not when I try to control my online image in a flattering way but when I’m honest to everyone about who I really am. Easy for him to say, he doesn’t have a blog.

So here’s my unflattering story, the one I didn’t want to write about, the one that doesn’t make me seem funny or witty or attractive to strangers. It’s very unflattering. Very honest.

And one more thing. On the way out of Fuerza Bruta, I heard a woman behind me sum up the show to her friend:

“This show would have been amazing if I was on psychodelic drugs.”

Really? I wanted to say to her, you should have had what I was on.

The Boston Red Sox beat the Hanshin Tigers — the Boston Red Sox of Japan — earlier this week, a game that reminded me of my trip to Osaka two years ago.

I didn’t see David Ortiz hit a mammoth homerun then. Nor did I see them play “Sweet Caroline” during the eighth inning. But I did see and have one of the oddest baseball experiences in my life.

The Princess, who lived in Osaka for nearly two years, scored a couple of tickets to a preseason game for the Hanshin Tigers. The team used to be called the Osaka Tigers before strangely changing its name to reflect its owner (Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc.). That would be like the Seattle Mariners being named the Nintendo Mariners.

Actually, that would be pretty rad.

Now everyone knows Japan is cool. And most of the chicks are hot and submissive. But the place is weird. They sell beer on the street in vending machines. They cheer on half-naked fat dudes ramming each other. And they crap into the floor.

So I expected that watching a Japanese baseball game would not disappoint in its uniqueness. And I was right.

We arrived at the Osaka Dome (they now play in Kōshien Stadium) early and I decided to show my support for the Tigers by buying a hat. The best part about this process was that it made me feel huge.

I had already felt like a giant in Japan, towering over people everywhere I went (for once). This phenomenon continued when every hat I tried on wouldn’t fit. I have a freaking bowling ball cranium as it is, but realizing that Japanese headwear is too small for me was an ego boost.

I knew a little something about Japanese baseball from reading You Gotta Have Wa, but even I was unprepared to understand the different customs.

The game against the hated Yomiuri Giants of Tokyo started and almost immediately, we knew that this fan base was unlike any other. Everyone in the stands cheered like it was the fucking World Series of Hello Kitty, screaming out the names of players, applauding every swing, and singing fight songs — yes, fight songs — for every single player, complete with drums.

The fight songs were led by the team’s energetic and official fan club, which set up camp in center field and were as unrelenting as any boosters at a college football game. They sang NON-STOP throughout each at-bat until the batter would make an out, after which they would immediately stop.

About a third of the way through the game, I wondered what the fans would do during the 7th-inning stretch. Nah, I thought, they probably don’t even have a 7th-inning stretch. What are they going to do, sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”? Yeah, right.

I was wrong.

During the top of the 7th, The Princess and I watched as, without prompting or solicitation, EVERY single person in the stadium took out a balloon. Almost without even saying anything. And they started to blow. And blow.

These weren’t just any kind of balloons. They weren’t exactly what you would expect at a birthday party. No, these balloons were…uh…how do I put this? Phallic.

They were long, slender, girthy balloons with a swollen “head” at the end. And they were being blown by every man, woman, and child. The Japanese woman sitting behind us noticed we were awed by the balloon-fest but were, sadly, balloon-less. So she handed The Princess and I our own pair of penis balloons.

When in Rome.

We started to blow, completely unaware of why we were following this strange tradition, until they were these erect latex air pockets, pinched at the end.

When the Tigers retired the last batter of the inning, the entire stadium busted out into song, chanting and yelling and thrusting their dick balloons into the air with so much joy and pride I didn’t think it could get any weirder.

When the song was over, all the fans let go of their balloons simultaneously. The balloons flew through the air, blowing out air and creating an arena full of color and people’s spit. It was incredible.

And it looked a little something like this:

The Tigers, though, lost the game. Not enough penis balloons, I guess.

On a trip to Las Vegas many years ago, I stopped at a casino at the Nevada border with my friends Blue and Scotty to start our gambling weekend early.

At one point, Blue and I were watching Scotty play blackjack at the $5 table. More to the point, we were watching Scotty lose at blackjack at the $5 table.

Hand after hand, it seemed like Scotty would get a 15 and decide to stay, only to have the dealer beat him with a 21.

“Scotty,” I told him at one point, “You would be really good at this game if it were called 15.”

At least, I thought it was me who said that. Blue, since that day so many years ago, has asserted it was he who said the famous line.

We have argued about this point ever since then, both of us certain over who made the proclamation. But because I recently lost another bet based solely on memory, I must admit, finally but with a huge degree of trepidation, that it was Blue who said it.

What happened was this: a few days ago, I finally received the DVD from Game 1 of our January trip to Dodger fantasy camp. In my blog post about it, I wrote that in my first at bat I hit a ball that “sailed into left field and luckily bounced in front of the left fielder as I took the turn at first base.”

I added that I stood on first base and had the following thought: “One-for-one, I thought to myself. Batting a thousand.”

Here’s the problem. Blue, who made the trip with me to Dodgertown and was on my team, remembered that I didn’t get a hit in my first at bat.

He was positive about this. But so was I.

So when I got the DVD of the first game, I called him and told him I would watch it with him on the phone and we would determine once and for all who was right.

The bet? The loser had to relinquish his right to the blackjack story and would, for one full year, admit he was wrong over who told Scotty “You would be really good at this game if it were called 15.”

I popped in the DVD. The memories of the game came rushing back to me. Our team, San Bernardino, wearing our road gray Dodger jerseys. Steve Yeager, our coach, pitching to us. The warm Florida sun. the most beautiful diamond we’ve ever played on. Our proud team that would go 5-2 and battle for the pennant until the last day.

And then my first at bat came. I know I’m right, I thought. I know I got a hit. I played the DVD on my laptop while holding the phone to my ear.

First pitch. I smack it to the left side.

Oh shit.

It wasn’t a flyball single. It was a grounder to the shortstop. I watched the screen helplessly as he picked it up and flipped it to third for a force out.

A fucking fielder’s choice. Oh-for-one. Batting .000.

It’s amazing to me how our memories betray us. I watched the rest of the game and was incredulous at how different the game had gone compared to how I remembered it. It was just little things that my brain had twisted into memories that betrayed reality.

The pop-up behind the plate I caught? In my mental database, the ball stayed up in the air much longer. The line drive I snared at shortstop in the 9th inning? Looked different than how it “looked” in my mind’s eye of that moment. The groundout in my third at-bat? Not as close of a play at first as I remembered.

So yes, Blue, I admit. You are the one who said the “15 line” to Scotty. For one whole year, I will confess to this “fact”. My memory is obviously suspect and it is more likely that you said it than me.

But I still batted 189 points higher than you. That’s not memory. That’s a fact.

“You’re not as much of an asshole as you used to be.”

These were my sister’s words to me this past weekend. My brother and I visited her in Portland, OR, an overdue trip paid for by my benevolent dad.

“Thanks”, I told her, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

And I did consider it one. Because her assertion is true. Growing up as the oldest of three, I wasn’t always the nicest brother to my hermanita and hermano.

I once locked my sister, who is one year younger than me, in our large toy trunk and told my parents she ran away. They found her a few minutes later banging on the inside of the door, crying to be let out.

I also used to make my brother, who is 7 years younger than me, cry by telling him he was adopted and that our parents didn’t want him. I thought it was cute when he sobbed hysterically.

I have probably caused some serious emotional damage to my siblings. But the truth is, I love them more than anything, so it was great to spend the weekend in Portland with them, just the three of us, all grown up and matured by time.

I hadn’t been to Portland since I was 4-years-old. It was the first American city my family lived in after emigrating from Argentina. I have no real memories of the city, the only images a few photos of me playing in the playground of our first apartment complex.

My first morning in Portland, we met up with our cousin David, who is related distantly to us through a family tree too complicated to remember. Six years older than me, he told me that when I was a kid, I was a VERY excitable child and liked to run around all the time, constantly asking him for “horsey rides”. He even gave me a horsey ride for old times’ sake.

He remembered one time when my family went out for a fancy dinner. Dressed in some white suit (thanks, Ma) and obviously feeling stifled, I had run out of the house to the muddy playground, where I played in the rain-soaked swings and threw myself into a puddle of mud. Yeah, I was that kind of kid.

The weekend in Portland started with my sister picking up my brother, who lives in LA, and me at the airport. On the way home, we stopped at Carl’s Jr. (not Hardee’s) for a deliciously disgusting Western Bacon Cheeseburger meal.

My sister drove up to the window and paid the cashier, who gave her my soda. She handed it to me, put the car in drive, and hit the gas.

“Hermanita!” I yelled. “You forgot the food!”

She couldn’t back up since the car behind us had already started to move forward. So we made my brother get out and walk to the drive-thru window, where he stood for several minutes waiting for my food while we laughed our asses off inside the car.

“It’s going to be that kind of weekend,” I told my sister.

And it was. Though we see each other two or three times a year, this was the first time the three of us had hung out alone without either of our parents there to make sure we got along. We spent most of the time reminiscing with old stories, laughing at stupid things we said, making fun of each other like we did (and do) when we were children, and enjoying the very first American city we ever lived in.

Sometimes we would regress to childhood and tease each other and fart in each other’s faces. Other times, we demonstrated how mature we now are by discussing Portland’s real estate market.

On Saturday afternoon, we visited an aunt who lives in the rich area of Portland (West Hills, I think). I thought we were visiting a nice, old lady who would feed us snacks. As it turned out, I was half right.

Aunt Marjorie is an awesomely sassy broad who lives in the most beautiful house I have ever seen, overlooking the city, and who has volunteered at Planned Parenthood for decades.

She showed us around her mansion of a house and told us about her experiences touring middle and high schools educating kids about condoms. You haven’t lived until you meet a 70-year-old woman who talks about reservoir tips and dispelling the myth that Mountain Dew works as a form of birth control.

(I haven’t had even a sip of the Dew since I was a teenager, but I’m pretty sure this proved that Oregon kids are much more stupid than those from California.)

In the evening, we met up with Hermanita’s boyfriend Jandy and had an early birthday celebration for my brother at his favorite place: a sushi restaurant. The sushi was served on a revolving conveyor belt (called Kaitenzushi) and we managed to put away 31 plates between the four of us.

The next day, Sunday, we spent in downtown Portland. We started by going to Powell’s Bookstore, which claims to be “the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world”. The store, though not as charming as The Strand, was huge, taking up an entire city block and holding an impressive amount of books. It was overwhelming and I felt unprepared since I hadn’t printed out my “to-read” booklist from GoodReads. Still, I bought about $50 worth of books (low for me) that were on sale.

We then went to Voodoo Doughnuts, which sells unique and irreverently named donuts, like Cock-n-Balls, from what appears to be a former biker bar. They were out of bacon maple bars, so I ordered the Memphis Mafia, a chocolate chip/banana/peanut butter glaze that was the largest donut I had ever seen or eaten.

After dodging a donut-fused heart attack, we ventured to Portland’s Saturday Market. I exhausted my sister with “jokes” reminding her that we were attending something called Saturday Market on a Sunday.

Though I expected the market to be the same sort of fair of trinket and food crap, I was surprised by how unique it was. Especially the people. For example:

A man playing the guitar (well) with only half an arm

Some dude also playing the guitar, but with a cape and both of his arms. Cheater.

A bicyclist performing tricks on the street. I secretly wanted to see him fall on his face.

A Goth girl giving out hugs as part of the now-famous Free Hugs Campaign. The hug she gave me didn’t fill me with light and happiness. It made me feel awkward. If you’re going to give them out for free you better improve your technique, Goth Girl.

Afterwards, we walked to Rogue, a brewery where we sampled several local award-winning beers and I let my brother and sister beat me at Connect Four. Seriously, I fucking suck at this game.

We ate at a Thai place that night that featured sunken tables. Toward the end of the meal, a man’s table fell into the sunken area below him, crushing his legs as he struggled to free himself. The waitress helped him. And by “helped him”, I mean she went over, grabbed the glass of water, and walked into the kitchen.

Overall, I liked Portland much more than I thought I would. I got to spend time in the very first American city my family lived in and with my favorite people in the whole world who are younger than me. I also bought an 80-gig iPod, taking advantage of Oregon’s lack of sales tax and my brother’s vast iTunes library.

It even made up for having to wake up at 4am on Monday.

B32? What the hell kind of boarding number is that, Southwest Airlines? That better not be a middle seat.

My flight to Portland today is going to last seven hours. There is no way I’m riding bitch the whole way.

At least this girl isn’t flashing “301″.

PHOTO CREDIT

The internet is quite old now. It’s no longer amazing to us that people can visit a blog from overseas. — Skelliewag

I recently visited the International House of Pancakes for breakfast, a small feat considering I have let my passport expire.

Despite its name or catchy acronym, there is nothing really international about IHOP. Sure, its International Passport breakfast allows you to choose French- or Swedish-style pancakes — even, as I found out, when I ordered the Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity — but dining in one of these restaurants is as American an experience as you can get.

What is international, as I recently learned, is blogging. And thanks to Google Analytics, I have learned quite a lot about exactly how international my blog is.

Since installing Google Analytics (a behind-the-scenes application that tracks blog stats more comprehensively) five months ago into my blog , I have been able to view how many visitors I get from other countries. I can also view not only what country they’re visiting from but also the specific city and state/province. This has led to some pretty interesting observations.

Of the 48,000+ visits I have received since September, more than 90% come from the U.S. Canada ranks second (hey, H!) followed by the U.K. (hey, British Guy!). No surprises there.

By clicking on the United States hyperlink, I can see from which states people are visiting. As a “DC blog”, it’s again not surprising that District of Columbia (not a state, by the way) is number one, followed by Virginia and Maryland. New York, California (represent!), and Texas rank immediately after the Big Three.

Where it gets interesting is not only where the other states rank but why they rank where they do.

For example, the state that visits me the least is Wyoming, with only 13 hits since September. I don’t know why nearly no one from the Cowboy State is visiting but they must have their reasons. Maybe they don’t have too many computers in Wyoming. The thing I do know is that I can make fun of Wyoming and no one will get upset because, well, odds are there are no Wyomingers reading this.

Google Analytics also lets me see from what cities people are visiting. For example, I know that of the 904 visitors from Pennsylvania, 10 have come from Intercourse, clicking on an average of 2.10 pages per visit and spending nearly 12 minutes on average on my site. Five of these visits came on December 31, which makes me wonder what they were doing on New Year’s Eve in Intercourse, PA.

Internationally, I have received visitors from 123 countries. Though I’m not exactly ready to join the United Nations with this worldwide collection, I am amazed at where people are visiting my blog from. I have received, for example, 22 visits from Malaysia, 10 from Iceland, and 4 from Serbia and Montenegro.

Hell, even Iraq has sent me 2 visits and 4 have been from Iran. Sadly, none from Afghanistan.

You would think Argentina would send me a decent number of visits. Nope. My native land only ranks 15th on the list with a meager 48 visits (come on, Grandma!).

What about Israel, home of my Chosen peeps? Ranked only 19th with 40 visits.

The biggest surprise in all of this was the 12th-ranked country on my list of visits. This country has sent me more visits than either Argentina or Israel.

Djibouti!

This African republic on the Red Sea has visited my blog 68 times! From what I can tell (based on the 1.47% “new visit” statistic), all these visits have come from only one Djiboutian. Thanks, dude!

Since the only thing I knew about Djibouti was its name (thanks to that Coke commercial where an old man tries to prove to his son that he’s not losing his mind), I decided to do some research on this country look it up on Wikipedia. I learned that Djibouti is a pretty arid place where the people speak Arabic and French and whose national anthem is, simply, called “Djibouti”. That’s about it.

Wherever you are, Djiboutian visitor, I thank you. You haven’t visited since December 6, but I hope to see you again.

I’ll even invite you to IHOP.

“Let’s cut their dicks off and bury ‘em!”

Those were Steve Yeager’s words, just moments before our first game at Dodgers baseball fantasy camp. Our team is warming up, adjusting our batting gloves and stretching our old, tired muscles.

Yeager, the former Dodgers catcher and 1981 World Series MVP, as famous for his late-night partying as his cannon arm, is sitting on the bench watching the other team take infield practice.

“Look at these fuckers,” Yeager tells us, eyeing our opponents through his aviator sunglasses. “Let’s beat their dicks into the ground.”

Yeager does not mince words. He does not beat around the bush. He yells. He curses. He vocally throttles you. Yeager tells you exactly what he is thinking and if you can’t take it, or you whine, or you have a weak excuse, you are, I’m sorry to say, a pussy.

Yeager is our coach, our skipper. His team? Twelve hobbling men of varying ages and baseball talent who have spent a lot of money so that we can pretend – at least for one week — that we are major league ballplayers.

We are pretending, to be more exact, that we are Los Angeles Dodgers.

DODGERTOWN

For one week, more than 100 men attended fantasy camp in Dodgertown, Florida, the Vero Beach spring training home to the real major league ballclub. We played seven “real” baseball games, met dozens of former players from Brooklyn and LA, and lived in the very same camp where prospects and major leaguers live during spring training.

The camp I attended was the 50th fantasy camp and was supposed to be the last incarnation before the Dodgers moved their spring home to Arizona next year (though that may now be delayed). I attended with my best friend Blue and his dad, Big Papa), both of whom went in 2006 and convinced me that if I saved just $200 a month for two years I could afford to go.

Dodgertown is a sprawling campus that sports five baseball diamonds and is home to Holman Stadium, where the Dodgers play their spring training games. Attending camp there can be an insular experience since those of us without Blackberries can effectively feel cut off from the rest of the world (what’s this I hear about an election?).

We arrived early for Sunday’s optional workout. After a 2-hour drive from the Orlando Airport, we decided to walk around the campus that first night. All the roads are named after Dodger greats (Sandy Koufax Drive, Vin Scully Way) and were illuminated by giant light fixtures molded in the shape of baseballs.

I noticed our rooms were by the tennis courts and optimistically declared: “Hey, this is great, we can play some tennis while we’re here.”

Blue and Big Papa rolled their eyes.

“Just wait,” Blue replied, “you won’t feel like playing too much tennis once you start playing baseball.”

And he was right. The week would prove to be one of the most physically punishing weeks of my life (outside of trying to stop bullies from giving me atomic wedgies for wearing Voltron PJs when I was 10 at sleepaway camp). We were in the training room every day getting ice packs on our joints, Icy/Hot rubdowns, treatment for our blisters, and using their whirlpools, which had two settings: freezing and scalding.

By the time the week was up, we felt so depleted and drained, nursing our aches and pains, that Blue and I started stealing golf carts to get around the camp rather than perform the arduous task of walking.

But it would also be one of the greatest experiences of my life.

DAY ONE

The first Monday, our first full day, started with the rookies (about 70% of the campers) taking part in batting/fielding/pitching/drills.

We dressed in our home white jerseys. It took me some time to figure out how to put on a baseball uniform since I hadn’t done it in years. This proved highly comical since many of us found ourselves in the locker room asking whether to put our jock straps under or over our underwear. Sliding shorts? It would have been easier at that moment to flirt with Natalie Portman than to yank those tight thigh-huggers over my legs.

By the time we were finished dressing, I was exhausted and needed another shower.

My group started at the batting cages, where I began the task of deprogramming a swing corrupted by years of playing softball on the Mall. I took my first cuts and dozens of campers looked on. I popped up or fouled back nearly every pitch I saw. But as I kept at it, I started to hit the ball more solidly and felt better about my swing.

Still, I felt out of sync, like I had a hundred small parts all acting independently of each other. My grip was too tight. My balance was off. My stride was too long. I wasn’t watching the ball all the way in to the bat. Shit, is that Reggie Smith laughing at me?

The next set of drills was pitching and catching. A former catcher, I had resolved to try the position again and quickly remembered why I loved it so much. I caught a pitcher named Ken who would later in the week beat us in a crucial game.

I relearned the crouch, settling behind the plate by the “strings area”, where countless former Dodger greats learned how to pitch. As I caught pitch after pitch, Travis Barbary came over and told me I had good form and showed me how to keep my balance. A few minutes later, I approached Jeff Torborg, the man who caught Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965, and listened intently as he explained where to stand on a relay from right field.

I was in heaven.

The last drills of the morning were the infield/outfield drills. I ran out to shortstop and took some ground balls while Maury Wills, one of the all-time Dodger greats who changed the way the game was played in the 1960s, showed me how to better pivot on a double play.

Afterwards, Rick Monday gave us instruction on fly balls. After a few pop-ups, I went to my spot to catch the next one when Monday decided that they had been too easy. He instructed Garey Ingram, who had been feeding the balls into a pitching machine aimed straight up in the air, to angle them higher and farther.

Almost without warning, he launched the highest fly ball I had ever seen straight above my head. I ran back and to my right, hoping I wouldn’t trip over my cleats let alone miss the fly ball. It carried in the wind further and further behind me. I kept my feet under me and as I saw the ball come down, I reached out with my glove and snared it – not just to my surprise but to that of Rick Monday.

“Atta boy!” he shouted as the campers cheered.

We all hustled back into the clubhouse for lunch.

FIRST GAME

During lunch, they posted the team rosters on the wall. Blue, Big Papa, and I were drafted on to the San Bernardino team (there were eight teams, each named after a city where the Dodgers or their minor league clubs played) coached by Steve Yeager and John Shoemaker.

Many of the veteran campers laughed when I told them I was on Yeager’s team. Yeager had a reputation for being tough on his players. “You just wait,” one camper warned me.

I had met Yeager 16 years ago when I was in my last year of Little League. He had come to our ballpark to sign autographs. Before leaving for fantasy camp, I fished out the photo I remembered had been taken of him with my teammate and me. One night, I showed it to Yeager.

He looked at it for a minute, asked how long ago it had been, signed it, and gave it back to me.

We changed in our road gray uniforms and went to Field 1. When I looked around at our team for the first time I quietly thought to myself, We’re going to suck.

We took some batting and fielding practice and then started our first game, facing the Ogden team led by Maury Wills. It was instructional pitch, so I knew I’d get a healthy dose of fastball strikes to look at.

Yeager batted me fifth and I came up in the first inning. I swung at the first pitch.

How many times had I been told never to swing at the first pitch? The ball sailed into left field and luckily bounced in front of the left fielder as I took the turn at first base.

One-for-one, I thought to myself. Batting a thousand.

The game was a seesaw battle as we exchanged leads with Ogden nearly every inning. I caught 4 innings and played shortstop the final two. In the ninth, I made what many considered to be the play of the day.

We had an 11-8 lead with a man on first and no outs. Everyone was tired and were looking to just get the last three outs before hitting the showers.

I was playing shortstop when an Ogden player smacked a hard liner to my right. I bounded to the hole and reached out, snaring the liner in my glove. I noticed that the man on first had started running toward second base and had stopped dead in his tracks. I wheeled around and fired the ball to first as he scrambled back. The ball got there a split second before he did and I doubled him up.

We got the final out easily and Bookie, our first baseman, handed me the game ball and said, “You deserve this.”

I ended the game 2 for 5 and overall felt good about my play. Blue did well, too, going 2 for 3 and playing second base. We were 1-0 and the team had played much better than I expected, batting 23 for 50 collectively and playing solid defense.

After the game, Blue and I went to the campus bar, where they showed the game we had just played game on the big screen. We got to watch ourselves bat and, I have to admit, I swelled with pride when I watched myself make a good play on TV.

DAY TWO

Blue and I woke up at 6:30 am. “This is not a vacation,” Blue said as he groggily walked to the shower. “It’s fun, but it is not a vacation.”

We played the Torborg-led Los Angeles team in the morning game and beat them 12-9 at Holman Stadium. Though Dodgertown has five fields, Holman is where the Dodger actually play all their spring training games. There is something magical about stepping into the batter’s box and seeing your uniform number displayed on the scoreboard beyond center field.

I got a hit in each of my first two at-bats, finished 2 for 3, and caught the entire game. Having been a catcher in Little League, I had forgotten how much fun it is to play that position, facing your entire team, touching the ball more than anyone, being the General of your defense.

At one point, on a pop-up behind the plate, I tore off my mask and made a tough play, saving the foul ball from hitting umpire Dutch Rennert by spearing it above his head. He thanked me and I patted his noggin, much to the amusement of my team.

My biggest thrill, though, came at the end of the game when we lined up to shake hands. Torborg, the last man in line, saw me, grabbed both of my shoulders, and said, “Hey, you catch a really good game.”

Holy shit, I thought to myself, the man who caught Sandy Koufax’s perfect game just told me that I catch a good game! I was elated. I was also stupefied as all I could muster was a sheepish smile and a “Thanks.”

There must have been a letdown from that morning game because in the afternoon contest, we really stunk, losing 9-4 to a Brooklyn team that would finish 2-5. I didn’t hit the ball out of the infield and, playing third base, managed to make two errors, including making an ill-advised throw to first on a soft grounder that sailed over Bookie’s head.

As I threw it, I knew it was the wrong decision. So did Yeager, who screamed from the dugout, “What the fuck!”

Dinner tasted a bit worse that night as I couldn’t get over the loss that dropped us to 2-1.

“Blue,” I told my friend, “I just can’t shake this loss.”

“Don’t be so serious,” he advised me, “it’s just one game.”

I have always been too competitive, especially in baseball. When I was young, I would throw bats and helmets when things didn’t go my way, unable to get over my bad mood.

Yeager, a passionate player, was the right man to manage our team. He made us play tougher than any of us really were. We wanted to play for him. We wanted to win for him.

After showering, we headed to the bar. I talked with Ken, the pitcher who had hamstrung us, over a few beers. We made jokes. I started to feel better. By the time dinner came around, and I heard former Dodgers tell us some amazing stories about their time playing ball, I felt better.

DAY THREE

I woke up with Yeager’s “What the fuck!” still ringing in my head. I had dreamed that night that Yeager had told me to grab my catcher’s gear and get behind the plate, only to find I was naked and couldn’t find my uniform.

The morning game was, I felt, instrumental to how we would play the rest of the week. I told Smoke that this game would show us what kind of character we had and to see how we would react after a bad loss.

Of all the great things about going to Dodgertown – playing real baseball games, meeting Dodger greats, playing on the same fields where the major league ballclub plays – something I did not consider was the camaraderie there would be between the players.

It is difficult to explain the bonding that goes on between a bunch of guys from different backgrounds who all share one huge thing in common: the love of baseball and the Dodgers.

My team, San Bernardino, was loaded with some truly great guys. Bookie, who played first all week despite losing sensation in his left fingers; Smoke, our de facto captain who had the locker next to me and was arguably the most complete player in camp; Druck, a 62-year-old dude who played like he was 22; GT, who led our team in hits and was always propping us up.

Jock, the workhorse pitcher who would be our MVP is there was a team award; Simon, a camp veteran; Z, Smoke’s dad who was our most passionate player, and the B Brothers, who proved you can play on hobbled legs.

Even in the locker room, guys busted each other’s balls, shared our successes, and ridiculed each other’s often comical misfortune.

The instructors would also get into the act. They would curse and yell along with the campers, talk about their own exploits, and autograph all of our memorabilia.

When I asked Rick Monday before the first game for some advice being on Yeager’s team, he said, “Two words: ear plugs.” When one of the B Brothers got a hit off Jerry Reuss in the Big Game, where the campers play the instructors at Holman Stadium, Duke Snider told him, “So? Thousands of other guys have, too.”

One morning, Ralph Branca had everyone in hysterics as he walked around the locker room naked yelling, “Who stole my pants?” It reminded me of the time Seinfeld’s dad was in the doctor’s office after he thought he had been robbed, running around screaming, “My wallet’s gone! My wallet’s gone!”

The game against Jacksonville started poorly as we couldn’t hit or field. Yeager told us we were pressing too hard and he was right. Sure, this was supposed to be fun, but damn it, we wanted to win.

We were down 7-1 early but started to chip away at the lead. Going into the 9th inning, we were down 7-4 and somehow scored three runs to tie it. With a man on third and two outs, Blue came up to bat with a chance to be the hero.

He hit a laser to left. We all got up and started to run in jubilation. The shortstop, though, had other plans. He extended himself to his right, went airborne, and backhanded the line drive that would have given us the win. It would end up as the Play of the Day.

After Jacksonville failed to score in the top of the 10th, we got a man on second with one out. Big Papa, who hadn’t gotten a hit all week until this game, hit a flare to right and we scored the game-winner on a close play at the plate.

We all rushed the field and hugged Big Papa like he had just won the World Series for us. We knew we hadn’t, but we didn’t care. We then went on to win the afternoon game 22-8 against a wild Gulf Coast pitching staff, pushing across nearly two dozen runs on only six hits.

We were now 4-1 and feeling like we had a shot at the pennant.

DAY FOUR

After playing four games in two days, everyone on the team was thankful to play just one game the next day. But it wouldn’t be easy.

We faced off against Las Vegas, led by Jerry Reuss, the only undefeated team at the top of the standings with a 5-0 record. It was a low-scoring game but perhaps our most complete game of the week.

We fielded like Gold Glovers, manufactured runs like the National Leaguers we represented, and Jock pitched 9 incredible innings to earn the 5-3 win. Now at 5-1 and in a three-way tie for first, we would be playing the next day against Midland, also at 5-1.

In the afternoon, though, we had the Big Game, where the campers play the instructors. Every camper got to bat once and take the field for two innings (8 teams and 16 innings made for a long game).

Before coming to the plate, I watched as two of my teammates struck out against Jerry Reuss, the big lefty who won 220 games in his career. With the entire camp watching, sitting in the stands at Holman Stadium alongside their invited friends and family, all I could think about was, Don’t strike out.

If you have ever played baseball, you know this is not the way to approach an at-bat. You should visualize the at-bat but never think while at the plate. You should consider how the pitcher might work the count and mix his pitches, but never get your brain involved. It’s a delicate balance.

I walked to the plate and tried to empty my head. I figured Reuss would want to avoid a walk and feed me a steady diet of strikes, so I didn’t think about how a hard-thrown pitch at my head could kill me.

His first pitch was over the plate and I batted it foul down the third-base line.

“There you go, you’ve seen it now, whadya say, whadya say?” shouted my teammates, encouraging me to battle a man who struck out more than 1,900 batters in his 22-year career.

On the second pitch, I swung and missed.

OK, he’s got you 0-2, I thought. He’ll probably try to get you to chase one outside. Look for the curveball.

Sure enough, Reuss tossed a breaking ball that floated outside of the plate for ball one. It was now 1-2, and I knew I’d get a fastball.

I adjusted my batting gloves, got comfortable in the box, and shifted my weight to my back leg. Fastball. Down the middle. I swung and hit the ball high and far into centerfield. In a campers’ game, it would have landed for a base hit. But in a campers’ game, Rick Monday wouldn’t be playing centerfield.

Monday got under it, caught it, and tossed it back to the infield just like it was one of the 3,978 putouts he made in his career. I trotted back to the dugout amid cheers from the other campers.

I had never been so happy to fly out.

DAY FIVE

Whenever a major league player goes down with an injury, I always bitch and moan about his inability to stay healthy.

Really, I thought before attending this camp, how tough can it be to not get injured in baseball? You bat four times a game, make a couple of plays in the field, and then go into the clubhouse for a beer and massage.

Now I see I was wrong.

Baseball is much tougher on your body than you think. Everyday, campers would go down with injuries – usually their hamstrings but also dozens of cases of bruises, strains, pulls, tears, and broken bones.

The human body is just not meant to do the things it does in a baseball game. A pitch is nothing more than an effective way of tearing apart the tendons in your elbow.

One guy, during the optional workout on Sunday, broke his left hand in the batting cages when a ball hit his bat and ricocheted onto his hand, ending his time at camp.

As the week bore on, my body started to betray me. Every morning I woke up in pain as I felt every grueling minute of my 32 years. I could only imagine how the older campers were feeling.

Blue and I started taking our time walking to dinner everynight, nursing our legs and whining about where we ached.

Sometimes, it seemed like baseball just added insult to injury.

In the last game, playing Midland for the pennant, we were the walking wounded. We looked like the soldiers from The Things They Carried, barely able to toss the ball around or run out a groundball. Even our pinch runners needed pinch runners.

Playing more aggressively, I started the game with a blooper to left. My second time up, I hit a rocket down the left-field line for a double that might have been more bases if the left fielder hadn’t run down the ball so quickly.

I walked my next time up and had also been pinch-running for our more hobbled players. Running around the bases all day, and all week, had finally started to take its toll.

My legs started to feel like they were being squeezed in a vise. Running was killing me but I promised myself I would keep going as hard as possible until the game was over.

Jogging in from center at the end of the 5th inning, Blue noticed my physical anguish. “How are you feeling?” he asked me when he saw me touching my left leg.

“It hurts,” I told him, trying to focus on my upcoming at bat rather than dwell on the dull pain in my thigh.

The pitcher must have heard me. My next time up to bat, on a 1-1 pitch, he threw a 70-MPH fastball. Directly at my left leg, smacking me in the very spot I hurt the most.

I fell to the ground like a bag of coal, gripping my leg and wondering if I would ever play the piano again. I actually started to enjoy the time off my feet while Possum, the trainer, and the umpire checked to make sure I was OK. Yeager finally came down the third base line, looked at me, and declared, “He’s fine” as he grabbed my hand and lifted me onto my feet.

To prove the point that I was OK, I ran down to first base, masking the pain I felt with every step. The pitcher waved his hand apologetically to me to indicate the pitch hadn’t been on purpose and I tipped my hat.

We had given up 7 runs in the first and though we made a late charge to get the score to 10-9 in the eighth inning, we ultimately lost the game, and the pennant, 13-10.

Yeager told us after the game how proud he was of us, how much we battled and that we never gave up on any of the games we played. We believed him.

That afternoon, Blue and I watched the Pop-Up and the Hitting Contests. I couldn’t participate and chose to relax, drink a few beers, and watch much healthier players compete.

That evening, the final dinner of lobster tail and filet mignon, was also the Awards Night.

Jeff Torborg, the man whose comments had meant so much to me earlier in the week, went to the podium to present the Pee Wee Reese Award, given to the best hustler in camp and named after the former Dodgers shortstop and team captain.

As he began to speak, he mentioned how early on in the week, some “kid” had come up to him during the catching/pitching drills and told him, “I can catch.”

Yeager, sitting behind me, smacked my right shoulder.

I wish I could remember the rest of Torborg’s words because a few seconds afterward, I was in for the shock of my life. Saying something about how well I played catcher, how much heart I had, Torborg uttered my name and told me to come up. The room broke into applause as my team stood up, cheering me on and giving me high fives as I walked up to receive my award.

Torborg handed me the plaque and I smiled, this time turning to him and saying, “Thank you so much, I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

I think that’s what I said, anyway. The entire sequence has become a blur. In any case, I know I was thinking it.

CONCLUSION

Blue, Big Papa, and the rest of my team and the camp spent that last night at the bar rehashing all the games, laughing at botched errors and reveling in triumphant moments.

The next day, Blue and I toured the now-empty Dodgertown one last time. We walked to Holman Stadium and talked about our games there. We admired Field 2 and I thought about our win over Las Vegas. We went by the pitching strings area and I thought about Torborg, Barbury, and everyone else who told me I could catch.

I had ended the week batting .522 (12 for 23). Blue had officially batted .333 (7 for 21) but was deprived of a hit when a baserunner (me) ran back to second on a line drive instead of going to third, turning Blue’s hit into a fielder’s choice and robbing him of a .381 batting average. Sorry, buddy.

I thought about the words of Carl Erskine, the former Brooklyn and LA Dodgers pitcher who went 122-78 in his career, and who had told us that final night to savor the week, to enjoy the moments, because no one back home, unless they’ve been to fantasy camp, will understand how important it was for us to play pretend.

I just wish I could pretend a little bit longer.

Kramer goes to a fantasy camp? His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down $2,000 to live like him for a week. Sleep, do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors and have sex without dating… THAT’S a fantasy camp.” – George Costanza, “Seinfeld”

Years ago, when I was a tiny Little League all-star, I made a bet with my best friend Blue.

The bet was simple. Twenty bucks that one day, someday, I would have one plate appearance for a Major League Baseball team.

That was it. It didn’t matter when or for what team, and it definitely didn’t matter if I struck out, walked, or nailed a single. Just one time up at bat. For $20 (I guess that was a lot for us back then).

Now an adult and considered “over the hill” in baseball years, I have a sneaking suspicion that my chance to made good on this childhood wager is dwindling. I just don’t have too many professional ballclubs calling me up these days asking me to fill a roster spot.

But where reality sets in, there is always a world of fantasy. A world where our imagination expands faster than our regular lives. Where a grown man can reach back into his childhood and snatch the eager years just a bit longer than we’re supposed to.

This is why, next week, Blue and I will attend Los Angeles Dodgers Adult Baseball Camp.

Set in Vero Beach, Fl., the Dodgers’ spring training facility known as Dodgertown is in its last year of existence. The session I am attending will be the 50th camp in Dodgertown. Next year, along with the pro club, it will move its facility to Arizona, effectively ending a long-standing tradition.

Regular readers of my blog know how much I love baseball. And, especially, how much I love the Dodgers. When I was 12, I would hide my radio under my pillow and listen to Dodger games late at night, hoping against hope that my parents wouldn’t catch me and make me go to sleep. I can still recall Vin Scully’s voice emanating through my pillow as I would fight off sleep just to hear the Dodgers win.

This is why I cannot fully explain just how excited I am. I realize this is a handicap for a blogger. But I have yet to process the full weight of living out my boyhood dream of playing baseball.

For one week, Blue and I will stand on the same fields as the Dodgers do every spring, playing daily doubleheaders, and receiving instruction from former Dodger greats like Maury Wills, Burt “Happy” Hooton, and Rick Monday.

Dodgertown gives each of us two uniforms – the pure white-and-blue home uniform and the steely gray road one, both emblazoned with the familiar cursive lettering of my home team, my last name splayed across my back, and my uniform number, #27, my Little League number.

They will film us, photograph us, and make baseball cards of us. We will get plenty of playing time (I have already asked to play shortstop), run drills, hit the batting cages. We will live our lives like we are in the midst of a one-week homestand, playing ball, talking about our favorite sport, and meeting some of the greatest Dodgers to ever put on the uniform.

I have told a few people about fantasy camp, but I haven’t really broadcast it. Some of my friends have reacted with bewildered stares. Almost always, the first question everyone wants to know after “What the hell is Dodger camp?” is “How much did it cost?”

It cost a lot.

Blue, who went two years ago with his dad, and I talked about going together shortly after he got back from his initial trip, which sounded like the greatest experience of his life. That very moment, I started saving as much as I could and, 18 months later, my dream to attend the camp is coming true.

Though I play softball every summer on the Mall with my friends, I haven’t played hardball since I joined a recreational team when I was 23. Sure, I can bat .650 with 5 homeruns and a team-leading 1.975 OPS when the pitches are being lobbed to me. But when you put on that uniform and have to step up to the plate to face a 75 MPH pitch, everything changes.

To prepare for camp, I went last weekend to the batting cages to see how I would do. I hacked away inside the Fast Pitch cage, unable to find my groove. I started doubting whether I could do this, if the baseball talent I had as a kid had waned.

Then I realized what I was doing wrong. I was holding my hands too low in my batting stance, taking too long to cock my arms and swing through the pitch. I adjusted my swing and started bashing baseballs right and left.

No one else was there. Why would they be in January? Fighting the cold, I paid for 172 pitches and blistered the palm of my hand. Afterwards, The Princess and I went to the Sports Authority for some equipment shopping.

While I was looking at sliding shorts, The Princess picked up a bat off the rack and modeled her batting stance. She took a cut, following through as the bat struck the clothes rack with a loud THWACK.

“Oops,” she muttered over my howls of laughter, quickly putting the bat back where she found it.

I also recently started reading Jane Leavy’s acclaimed Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy. Using my 1988 Topps baseball card of Mike Scoscia as a bookmark, each page has brought a smile to my face as I read about Duke Snider (who is rumored to show up for one day), Dave Wallace, and, of course, Koufax, the greatest Jew to ever play the game.

My chance to feel like a major leaguer is coming and when I step up to that plate that first time wearing that beautiful Dodger blue, I’ll know it’s as close as it’ll ever get for me.

I wonder if that means I win the $20.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to update my blog while at camp next week. They have Internet connection but Blue assures me that I’ll be too tired and there will be too many activities for me to write anything. So stay tuned. If I can, I will update my time there.

First three photos taken by Gary Bogden and courtesy of ESPN.com. Photo of me in the batting cage taken by Hermano in Agoura, Calif.

Perhaps Ann Daly of the 100 Places blog best described skiing at Wisp:

This has been an exercise in learning to ride on a combination of ice and what appears to be little round balls of hail. There is no “swooshing” sounds on these trails, more like the crunch of glass being ground under your heel…to add to the fun, the runs are flanked by mud, muck, and a goopy mixture of dead leaves and twigs, about the consistency of wet cement. To help break your fall, large stones have been helpfully thrown into the mix. Just a little extra incentive to not miss that turn.”

As my friend Shiftless Badger would say: “Indeed.”

Badger, his boyfriend Foxymoron, The Princess, and I all headed to Wisp on Friday night to hit the slopes. It had been 7 years since I had last skied. That time was in White Tail, where I thought my first time snowboarding would be easy since I skateboarded as a teenager.

Ah, the hubris of youth. I ended up a mess of a man, my body and ego bruised beyond recognition.

I vowed then and there never to snowboard again.

We left Friday evening after work, hitting some random Burger King while driving north on the 70. The middle of this Burger King featured a large, pink booth sculpted in the shape of some extinct Edsel. Naturally, we had to eat in it.

I scanned the BK menu and noticed I could order a Whopper, double Whopper, or triple Whopper meal deal. For a minute, I seriously considered ordering a quadruple Whopper with cheese and doing the Whopper freakout when they told me they didn’t carry such a monstrosity.

“What do you mean you don’t have the quadruple Whopper with cheese?” I would have guffawed at the poor cashier on closed circuit TV. “You mean to tell me I’m supposed to eat only a triple Whopper with cheese? Give me my quadruple Whopper!!”

(Seriously, I can’t believe the reactions of these people in the commercials. If Burger King had punk’d me and filmed it for their commercial campaign, I might have been slightly perturbed. And then I would have ordered a BK Broiler.)

We kept driving and arrived at the Comfort Inn around 10pm. The rooms were large and we had a view of the Wisp ski lift out our window. We knocked around ideas for what a Discomfort Inn would be like (the hotel manager asks you about masturbation), downed a few beers, and called it a night.

We woke up at 7am and raided Comfort Inn’s surprisingly tasty continental breakfast. I’m not sure which continent inspired the food but it definitely infused us with some needed energy.

Wisp Resort is not exactly the greatest ski facility in the country. The runs are short, the employees are teenaged and obnoxious, and the cost is expensive. Though Wisp should not be blamed for the lack of snow, charging nearly $100 for ski lift and rental equipment probably explains why there were such few people there.

I was a bit nervous about my skiing abilities considering the 7-year-gap in between ski trips. After 3 minutes of skiing, these nerves took a backseat as my muscle memory took over and I started thrashing down the slopes with reckless abandon, picking up speed and flying past lesser mortals.

I’m Picabo Street, motherfuckers! I thought to myself, unable to think of a famous male ski celebrity. Bode Miller might have been a better choice.

SB and Foxymoron snowboarded and were really good at it. The Princess felt sick but still managed to hit the slopes for half the day.

Based on the recommendation of my friend Egyptian Sausage, I considered renting snow blades (short skis). One of the teenage guys at the rental store, though, told me: “You don’t want those things. They’re for doing tricks.”

In other words, for people younger than me.

As the day aged, it got warmer until the point when I thought of ditching my jacket. This also caused the terrain to get slushy and harder to grip with my skis. More people started showing up, too, especially teenagers snowboarders who thought it was sometimes a good idea to sit in the middle of the run when they wanted to take a break.

We tried different runs but enjoyed the green (beginners)/blue (more difficult) runs the best. I watched with some envy the few and fearless descend the black diamond runs (some of them were children).

We ate lunch inside the Wisp lodge and watched out the large window the snowboarders bailing on ski jumps. I was wearing my Good for the Jews t-shirt, which must have shocked the mostly white crowd because I got more gasps and double-takes than a whore in church.

“Did you see what his shirt said?” I heard an employee tell another.

Yup, there’s a Jew in the house everyone, run for your lives! The lodge cafeteria also featured multi-purpose spoons, which mystified The Princess, who wondered what made the forks and knives only single-purpose utensils.

In the end, I didn’t break any bones and I only feel hard once. This happened when I was trailing The Princess and decided to show off (of course) and do a quick swoosh move. My body, though, had different plans. I tripped and fell out of my skis, taking a header into the ice/mud/sludge.

A ski patrol woman slushed past me, barely stopping to ask if I was ok, before moving on. I looked for The Princess, who surely must have heard my embarrassing fall and turned around to check on me.

She was nowhere in sight.

“Oh, you fell?” she asked when I finally made it to the bottom of the run.

It’s a tough world, this skiing.

Here is a video of my last run of the day. At the end, you see me freak out Shiftless Badger as it looks like I nearly run him over. Should have given him a Whopper with cheese instead.

Banner photo credit