a snowball’s chance

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If you needed to ship a Christmas package to my Mom’s house, there’s a snowball’s chance in Hell it got there on time. My Mom lives on Whidbey Island, in Northwestern Washington State. She lives on a lake, on an island, in the Puget Sound (aka: the Pacific Ocean). You will drive far from civilization and ride a ferry before arriving here. And though most years it doesn’t snow, there was 14 inches on the ground last week. So the pansies at UPS decided, despite Elijah’s considerable investment in shipping costs, they would delay delivery until after Hanukkah.

Anywayz. It’s cold here. My Mom doesn’t believe in heating the downstairs of homes so my room is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. No worries, this has provided an opportunity for me to try out some warm clothes and train for cold weather climbing at Joshua Tree. Taking this week off from my normal climbing/swimming routine has me planning for the upcoming season. In fact, there’s a plan in the works to get over to Joshua Tree the day I arrive back in Santa Barbara. Which reminds me – Micah, Andy and Justin, I’m going to Joshua Tree this Friday and you need to get in on that. I’m losing feeling in my fingers now. In the larger picture of next climbing season, I want to focus on a single hard route, one that will leave me satisfied with my progression within the sport, a 5.14. I’m pretty psyched about it. It’s gonna suck and be rad at the same time. My motivation since the hospital has paid dividends to my climbing already and I’m way more psyched now.

I climbed with my step-brother at the Everett Vertical World gym Sunday. It was rad because we got on these thin, slightly overhanging top-rope routes but pulled the top-rope to lead them. Rad because no thought was given to leading, making clips exciting and falls spicy. Two thumbs up for an otherwise unremarkable climbing gym. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know. There’s just not enough steep stuff there. But climbing is partly what you make of it I guess, and I did have a great time, so whatever. There’s a snowball’s chance I’ll move back here for the climbing though.