Was It Something I Said?

No, seriously, Universe, why do you not want me to go to Tahoe? Don't make that face, we both know it's true. Our little game is now 20 years old, you're playing dirtier and dirtier, and there's not way I'm ready to give up. No point in denying it. Let's look at the facts:

1987: A weekend at Bernie's place in the Tahoe Keys. What could be better? Oh, I know. Not getting sick and throwing up on their bathroom carpet would be better (incidentally, who the hell has a carpet in the bathroom?). Not spending two days lying on the couch with fever would be better. Not staying home with the 6 year olds and their babysitter, while everyone else went casino hopping would be better. Oh yeah, and being 4 years older and somehow able to take some sort of advantage of the babysitter being a cute 17 year old blond in shorts would have been way better. This, by the way, was also the year I was not taken on the ski trip to Austria because I injured my toe. Nobody bothered to ask me if it still hurt, which it hadn't in months.

1989: A combination of my brother having an accident and a 5.9 earthquake in San Francisco puts my parents off the Tahoe mood, and we fly back to Israel instead.

1990: Daisy goes under. Again, Tahoe is canceled and I get sent back to Israel. A pattern begins to emerge. 1998: Nope, leaving the parents out of the equation does not make a difference. One of the worst rain storms I've ever seen begins as soon as we enter city limits. In the middle of fucking August. We spend the day looking for a place to buy tarp to cover our little tent, but the entire area is sold out. We finally find the last tarp at Meeks and set up camp in the mud. We get the hell out of there the next morning. 2000: I score my first point in the Tahoe game. We actually manage to get to Tahoe and spend a quiet 24 hours in a cabin. Of course, traffic and and snow meant that we spend the other 24 hours of the weekend in the car, but it's progress.

2005: Lack of time, lack of funding, having recently moved from the other side of the planet, and getting some visitors, all spell "No Tahoe this year".

2006: I have my hernia operation right at the beginning of the season, and it puts me out of the game for the entire winter. By some miracle, there's still good skiing on April 30, and we make quick reservations. Screw the awful food-poisoning that Marina got two days before - I'm going to have my day on the slopes if I have to pack her in the trunk. How naive of me. After 7 hours in traffic, they tell us that the roads will stay closed for the night and we have to turn back. We reach Tahoe 22 hours after leaving home, and there's no time for skiing.

2007: We can call this my second point, sort of. Between Marina's school and my work, I get 3 days on the slopes. Am I supposed to be glad because it's better than nothing? I'm not very.

2008: Ski season opens in late December 2007 and we're there immediately. We got a nice hotel, two minutes from the lift, and it's going to be 3 beautiful days on the slopes. I'm so excited! 3 hours after checking in, my temperature is 2.5 degrees (C) too high, and I realize I've just lost another round. $600, hours in the car, a horrible feverish night, and now I have to sit through that ride again with a high fever. We stop in the ER before driving back home, and Marina mentions briefly, while we're waiting, that she thinks we should have a baby. Like I hadn't known for a month now. But she's not pushing or anything, and it doesn't need to be right now. It can wait till next week when I'm feeling better.

Universe, I'm going to get you for this.