Adventures with Altitude

What fresh snow does to people

2009-01-25T19:31:00.003-07:00

En route to a telemark ski lesson in the back country, a few cars whizzed past us on a somewhat slick mountain road. Presumably the drivers were eager to hit the slopes, blanketed with fresh powder. Minutes later we passed at least one of these cars, now smashed up on the left side of the road, tilting into a ditch, its right side dented. Another vehicle had spun and landed on the other side; its front fender hung by a thin strip of metal. No one was hurt. But no powder for these people, either.

Skiing at 11,000 feet

2009-01-12T22:40:00.003-07:00

It sounds completely crazy. Maybe it was!

I dunno.

It seemed like an adventure and I lived to tell about it. The full story is here, on my other blog.

Enjoy!

Forecast, shmorecast

2008-12-20T20:54:00.003-07:00

Apparently meteorologists out here are no better at predicting atmospheric conditions than their colleagues back East. The forecast had called for temperatures to be in the teens today, a bit too cold for a hike. But when I woke up the sky was bright blue and the sun unobscured by the inaccurately predicted partial clouds. I opened my living room window to get a feeling for the air temperature and it seemed much warmer than the mid-teens. To be on the safe side, before getting dressed and driving 30 miles for a hike, I went online and looked up current conditions.

Checking www.wunderground.com at around 11 a.m., it said that current temperatures in my zip code were 16 and would remain steady or fall throughout the day. Not so, I thought. Indeed, when I got into my car and headed toward Jefferson County Open Space, my thermometer said it was a balmy 28 degrees. That number increased to 30-32 as I got further away from the city. In other words, the actual temperature was DOUBLE that which had been forecast.

What's interesting, and perhaps a bit sad, is that so many people spend so much time discussing the nuances of the weather forecast and very often it is plain wrong. To quote my meditation teacher, the next time someone launches into an animated discussion, description or denunciation of the forecast, I will simply reply, "Is that so?"

Reversal of Fahrenheit

2008-12-14T20:16:00.004-07:00

Yesterday afternoon it was a balmy 56 degrees in Denver. With the sun shining and people out running and cycling in short sleeves, it hardly felt like December.

Twenty four hours later the temperature had plummeted to zero, a descent so steep that it makes recent stock market declines look like mild turbulence by comparison.

I'm still marveling at this reversal of Fahrenheit. Luckily it works both ways - by tomorrow the temperature is supposed to skyrocket to a relatively balmy 20 degrees.

Stinky Snow

2008-12-09T22:51:00.004-07:00

A cold front came in yesterday, bringing with it the stench of the stockyards just north of the city. Being new here, I would not have been able to identify the odor had one of my studio mates not pointed it out. We were outside to reshuffle our cars, parked end to nose in the narrow strip of driveway behind our building. As the wet snow fell in straight lines, behaving like semi-solid rain rather than fluffy flakes, out of morbid curiosity I took a whiff of the cold air and immediately regretted it. For a brief moment I felt a bit nauseous, much as I felt one day in Israel when a wind storm whipped up sand from Egypt, depositing loads of disgusting dust on Jerusalem. I hope that my future associations with snow are not forever tainted by this olfactory misadventure of inhaling particles of fecal matter, flesh and blood.

Today the sun was out. The tainted snow melted quickly and the air was fresh and still once again.

Colorado Contrasts

2008-10-28T13:35:00.003-06:00

Weather: A few days ago when I left my house at 9 a.m to go to a yoga class it was 47 degrees. At 11:30 a.m. it was 77 degrees, rendering my choice of attire - a thick sweater -entirely inappropriate. It was as if I left my house in autumn and by noon it was summer.
Clothing: As a result of the weather fluctuations, it is possible to see people dressed for several seasons occupying the same place. While hiking on Sunday wearing pants, a fleece, vest and gloves, I saw a jogger wearing tiny shorts and a sports bra. For every person who was bundled up there was another wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
Housing: Across the street from my modest apartment building there are a few luxury condos for sale. They both have custom made carved wooden built-in furnishings handcrafted in Indonesia. One has a master bathroom with a shower with seven water jets and a foot massager. Both have enormous jacuzzis. They range in price from $399,000-$699,000. Just half a block away from these high-end residences is some sort of halfway house, I'm guessing, in front of which a group of middle-aged men always seem to be hanging out and smoking.

So, how dry is it here?

2008-10-23T12:27:00.003-06:00

Colorado has a dry climate.

Make that a very dry climate.

It finally sunk in how dry it is when I noticed that a teabag that I had left in a cup was completely dessicated within a day or so, brittle to the touch, as if a vacuum had sucked out all the moisture. Back East, leave a teabag around for awhile and, if there is any water left in the cup, one might start to grow a colorful mold. Yes, I confess to having inadvertently cultivated more than a few spores in my time in the Boston area.

Today while walking home from the post office I noticed that many of the leaves on the ground were completely withered and wispy, quickly disintegrating in the dry air.

As far as I can tell I haven't started to shrivel. To deal with the dryness my humidifier runs 24/7, I drink continuously and I use copious amounts of moisturizer.

Anyway, time to go grab another drink!

Om-ing alone

2008-10-19T20:40:00.005-06:00

As I wrote previously, I really like the yoga studio I've found in Denver. And I still enjoy going although I've noticed that this studio doesn't have the same om culture as the ones in the Boston area. Back East, it was typical for classes to begin and conclude with a round of three deliberate oms. When dozens of people are om-ing together a vibration is generated that can be felt deep in the body.

Here in Denver, classes are quite small. The largest might have 20 students, a fraction of some of the busier Boston classes. Many of the instructors only do a single "om" at the beginning of class. Some dispense with the om-ing altogether, instead telling us to take three deep breaths at the start of practice. While a single om is better than none, I find that I need three of them to build up to a robust, deeply breathed om as my first one is often shallow and, therefore, tentative. In one class where we did do three oms, I noticed that the other students practically whispered theirs. I am curious about the hesitation to unselfconsciously chant the om at this studio. I'd rather not be om-ing alone.

Car Talk

2008-10-03T00:16:00.005-06:00

I wasn't planning to get Colorado plates so quickly but I learned that I needed to register and insure my car in Denver in order to get a residential parking permit and visitor permit for my block. Talk about an incentive!

Before I could actually register my Subaru I needed to have its emissions checked and the vehicle identification number (VIN) verified. Both tasks were accomplished for $40 at a testing station in Southwest Denver; the fact that my car is all-wheel drive allowed me to go into a special lane which, even though it was a busy day, had the shortest line. Within 20 minutes my car had passed the emissions test. Unlike Massachusetts, Colorado does not require a vehicle safety inspection; the state just wants to be sure the air is as clean as possible. While my lungs are grateful for the attention to atmospheric quality, it does bother me a bit that the state has no interest in verifying that the brakes, lights and signals of cars on the road are working properly. Although the culture here is more laid back, highway drivers are as aggressive as anywhere else. A quick Google search showed that Colorado used to have safety inspections but abandoned them because inspection stations had been abusing the process to require unnecessary repairs.

Armed with my inspection report, proof of VIN, Massachusetts title, registration and a printout of my Colorado insurance I went to a Registry of Motor Vehicles. I waited only about five minutes before it was my turn and in another five minutes I had my new license plates, title and registration. Wow!

At the parking department, located in another part of town, the process went quickly. Hopefully when I go to get my Colorado driver's license I will be able to easily and speedily navigate the bureaucracy.

Withdrawals Only

2008-09-22T21:48:00.005-06:00

I was at the UPS Store in downtown Denver today, collecting some of my mail which I had forwarded to a rented mail box there. One of the envelopes was from my former landlord so I assumed it contained my refunded security deposit. I also had a few other checks that I was eager to deposit into my bank account.

"Where is the nearest Bank of America branch?" I asked the young woman behind the counter.

She didn't seem to know, so a white-haired and tanned gentleman, also a customer, interjected,
"There are no Bank of America branches in Colorado, just some ATMs."

I looked at him as if he were crazy. I mean, the bank is called Bank of America, not Bank of America-minus-a-few-states.

"I'm not kidding," he said, somewhat aggressively. "Colorado doesn't allow those big banks to do much business here. My wife, she's from San Francisco and is a loyal Bank of America customer and she was surprised, too."

"Well," I said, "I have no loyalty to them - they simply bought out my previous bank which had gobbled up my bank before that. I just want to deposit some checks."

"They have an ATM pretty far from here, down by Leetsdale and Monaco," he said. That's an intersection a few miles southeast of where we were located.

"Well," I replied, "I'll be in that part of town tonight. I'll check it out."

Before going out for the evening I went online and learned the locations of the five ATMs that Bank of America operates in Denver. None accept deposits.

A Tale of Two Studios

2008-09-21T21:10:00.005-06:00

Back East my preferred form of exercise of were power yoga classes at Baron Baptiste studios in Cambridge and Somerville. This style of yoga is based on the Ashtanga system but is practiced with high heat (upwards of 90 degrees) and humidity. The intense movement and perspiration would leave me feeling detoxified, relaxed and energized. I had tried other styles of yoga in studios that were closer to room temperature but discovered that they didn't have the same profound effect on me. And so, despite my ambivalence towards the yoga empire that Mr. Baptiste is building, I became a regular at his studios.

Classes were usually crowded - a "small" class might have 20 students, a packed one upwards of 70. In such close quarters, one had to be prepared to be dripped on or sprayed by a neighboring yogi whose sweat might travel well beyond the limits of their mat. After some initial revulsion, I got used to being splattered, realizing that a few seconds of ick were a small price to pay for the deep inner peace I would feel afterwards. And once class was over we had to jockey for the few available changing rooms. There were no showers. But even a thorough towelling off did not prevent me from continuing to perspire long after I had changed out of my clothes. Again, the post-class stickiness was, in my mind, a sacrifice worth making for my well-being.

In Denver, there is a Baptiste-affiliate studio, Yoga on 6th, that shares a facility with Bikram yogis. This morning I took my first class there and was delighted to discover that the building has its own parking lot, locker rooms, bright yellow tiled showers (!) with shampoo and conditioner and bodywash, enough space for a small cafe area in the front, and soothing and original art on the walls. Even more fun was the selection of yoga props to choose from. In Boston, there were purple or blue blocks and straps. In this studio, the blocks came in red and yellow, in addition to the more subdued hues, and I even saw pink, red, black and white yoga straps. The class itself was not packed wall to wall, so the only sweat I had to deal with was my own. And the teacher deviated from the rather predictable sequence taught in the Boston studios, allowing us a choice of poses and pacing at various times. She even played some music during class and, when it was over, told us we could stay in savasana, the final resting pose, for as long as we needed. Back East, savasana lasted no more than a few minutes so that there would be enough time to mop and swab the floors before the next class.

I probably could have fallen asleep on my mat but I was eager to try out the shower. I peeled off my sweat-soaked clothes, placed them in a plastic bag provided by the studio, and turned on the hot water.

Aaah.

Coffee Shop Comparison

2008-09-21T20:37:00.004-06:00

One of the rituals I had at my former art studio outside of Boston was visiting the local, independently owned cafe for some freshly made decaffeinated coffee and, sometimes, a cookie. Their decaf was excellent, some of the best I had tasted on the East Coast, and the cafe was literally a five minute walk away. When I was planning to move out of the area I realized that I'd probably miss going there, even though the barristas were, with very few exceptions, an unsmiling and sullen group of 20-somethings who rarely managed to crack a smile and who didn't bother to acknowledge me or even remember my order - almost always the same, a small decaf coffee to go - even though I went there two to three times a week for several years.

Fast forward to now. It turns out that just a few blocks away from my new art studio is a local, independently owned cafe, Pablo's Coffee, where a friendly and occasionally cheeky staff serve up fresh coffee - they even roast the beans on the premises - and fresh commentary. The tattoo-covered 20-somethings seem to enjoy working there and, as I overheard once, aren't afraid to tell a customer that she placed her order in an ungrammatical way. To me, it's refreshing that sometimes the barristas give the customers lip in addition to great service. At least they are paying attention and in the moment, making things unpredictable and fun, rather than behaving liked bored robots. And their decaf coffee is rich and mellow and comes with a free refill.

I don't miss my old cafe at all.

Stripping Away Assumptions and Identities

2008-09-20T20:58:00.009-06:00

Denver is filled with strip malls. They line the sides of the large boulevards that criss-cross the city. When I visited Denver back in June, I was struck by the ubiquity and ugliness of these clusters of stores bordering large asphalt parking lots. It is not as though there are no strip malls back East; rather, they tended to be in communities that were outside of my usual radius and I could avoid them if I really wanted to, choosing instead to visit stores that were in more quaint buildings and neighborhoods. In fact, there were times in my life when it was very important for me to maintain the identity of someone who does not shop in strip malls or in big box stores, as if by venturing into a cluster of such retailers my essence would be somehow tarnished or damaged. Yes, I confess that for a long time I was a retail snob and had deep aversion to chain stores except, of course, when they were having huge sales. Then of, course, my inner cheapskate would overrule the snob and would give me the green light to shop, shop, shop.

When I was considering moving to Denver, I realized that I'd have to leave this particular relic of my identity behind unless I was prepared to limit myself to what, at first glance, seemed like just a couple dozen shops in a few original and historic neighborhoods.

A few days ago I drove down Colorado Boulevard, a wide thoroughfare that runs North-South through Denver, to get to a Michael's craft store that stocks Ott Lites, lamps that allow one to see colors accurately. The store was located at the far end of a strip mall with an enormous parking lot that was practically empty. I could hear my inner snob going, "Ugh", but out of the corner of my eye I noticed that this particular mall also had a North Face store in it. Hmm! Maybe strip malls are not entirely a bad thing. I made my purchase, glad that Michael's happened to be having a substantial sale on this item. I put the light in the back of my car and walked past Jo-Ann's Fabrics and a discount shoe retailer and into the North Face store.

"So, how did a nice store like yours end up in this strip mall?" I cheekily inquired of one of the clerks behind the counter.

"Well," she said, amused by my question, "This is actually a great location. There are rarely vacancies of more than a week in this mall. You should check out the new clothing boutique on the far end."

Curious, I ventured along the sidewalk that connects the stores. It seemed as if the quality and prices of the merchandise were getting higher the further away from Michael's I walked. Next I wandered into Republic Shoes, whose European brands, triple digit prices and attentive service suggested a completely different class of clientele than those who would shop in the discount footwear store just a few doors to the right. I took their card and popped into Turquoise Boutique, selling ladies' fine apparel. It was a classy place with unique styles and prices to match. The proprietress also commented on what a great location it was. Next I popped into Guiry's, an interior design and art supply store with several outlets in the greater Denver area. The helpful clerk told me that this particular Guiry's was the largest.

So much for my assumptions about strip malls and the people - including me - who shop there.

Scrape Off vs. Tear Down

2008-09-19T22:20:00.001-06:00

Even though greater Denver is, in many ways, a different world from greater Boston, both metropolitan areas are in the United States, a place where it is considered perfectly normal to demolish an existing home and put up a new one.

The difference is that in Denver, homes facing demolition are called "scrape offs" or "scrapers" whereas in the Boston area they are known as "tear downs". I have to say I am more enamored of the term "scrape". It conjures up an enormous, sharp-edged spatula that, with one deliberate flick of a giant wrist, neatly and completely removes the unwanted, neglected or outdated house from the land upon which it has been sitting, leaving the property pristine once again.

The Denver housing stock is diverse - everything from squat bungalows to lean high-rises and many styles in between - and includes many small, one-bedroom homes that are on lots so compact they are practically chafing their neighbors. On larger lots these might be natural candidates for "scraping". But because there is no room to expand, these petite homes might just survive the current craze to remove the old and erect the new.