Our Sierra

If Pablo Neruda was right, and laughter really is the language of the soul, then spending a Tuesday night at the casino might actually save you. Every Tuesday, Tahoe Comedy North dishes up the funny in the Crown room at the Crystal Bay Club. I was skeptical that stand-up comedy could rally the crowds in Tahoe, but the room filled just as the host warmed up the mic, and the performers kept the jokes rolling from 8–10 pm. I have to admit that the opening comedian had Lis, Sue, Jim and I all squirming in our seats and glancing for the closest exit, but the following act and the headliner raised the bar significantly. Except perhaps for the old folks in front of us that maintained their stoic and disapproving demeanor throughout, headliner Adam Richmond had the room in stitches. Either the guy in front of us didn’t have his hearing aid loud enough or the drinks got stronger toward the end of the night, but I thought the jokes were funny. (It was probably both.) There’s just something remarkable about people who can remind you that even in Tahoe, we can take life way too seriously sometimes.

After the show, Sue split to tend to the kiddies at home and the rest of us grabbed a late night $1.99 breakfast at the Biltmore. For $2 the breakfast never disappoints, but I would probably skip the $4 milkshake next time. The night wouldn’t have been complete if we didn’t stop by the roulette table on the way out. Lady Luck was with us again and I tripled my minimum buy-in. I must confess that I lost $20 on roulette since the last time I blogged, but it’s way more fun to write about the winning moments.

Another great evening out, and we were in home and in bed by midnight. I’m not sure we found salvation, but it felt good to laugh out loud.

Smile — we live in Tahoe!

It’s hard enough working inside at a computer on a 60-plus-degree, bluebird day, but it is downright torture to be sitting here recounting the glorious time we pent-up office women here at TQ just spent out reveling in the prime weather. When my iGoogle weather widget told me that today would be so sunny and warm, I immediately declared it an office-wide picnic lunch day.

Since our ski lunch a few weeks ago at Diamond Peak, we’ve been craving therapeutic fresh air and activity to break up the workday. So around noon, girls and dogs all piled into two cars and headed up to the Mount Rose summit. All snow-booted up—except for poor Nicci, shod only in tennis shoes because we kidnapped her on our way out—we headed up a roughly packed sled run. The tumbleweed-like bundle of dogs defied gravity, somehow rolling and tackling each other up the hill. We came out atop the ridgeline on a nice, boot-packed trail.

The going was easy until I decided to lead us along the scenic route. Barring a few trap doors, the snowfield crossing was relatively firm. We came out on a sunbaked slope peppered with warm boulders and patches of sand and brush peeking through the snow. The view was spectacular and the entertainment unparalleled. There are few things more hilarious than a dog gang in the psychotic throes of a snow high.

Belly rumblings reminded us it was lunchtime. Elaine V. pulled out her bento box packed with brown rice, edamame and egg rolls complete with mini condiment dispensers and tiny utensils. Lis snacked on her veggie sushi, and Elaine D. demurely crunched crackers while Nicci and I mawwed through our sandwiches.

With the sun starting to burn our pasty winter complexions, we turned reluctantly back. Trekking back through the ever-softening and aptly dubbed (by Elaine V.) “memory foam” snow left us with enough snow on our cuffs to drag a little hint of nature back to our desks.

As I sit here typing, I can still feel the slight burn on my cheeks, the warm tingle in my quads and the mountains calling me back. And the only reason I am back inside, staring whistfully through the glass, is to share this moment with you. So grab anyone who is looking a little droopy and get out there already!

Besides being talented, smart and ridiculously good looking, we at Tahoe Quarterly also pride ourselves on our big, generous hearts. Which is why Lis, Nicci and I walked over to the Incline Village fire station to donate blood today. I’m totally kidding—we went for the free donuts.

Anyway, it was a fine enough experience, at first. The nurses were all extremely professional (which I always imagine is hard when you have to ask every person about their drug sharing habits with prostitutes in third world countries). I do, however, prefer blood drives in Pennsylvania, where someone always dresses up as a blood droplet, looking like a giant red Hershey kiss.

It was Lis’s first donation, so Nicci and I waited until she had the needle in her arm to talk about donations-gone-wrong—veins that can’t be found, sadistic nurses, etc.

As the veteran blood donors, Nicci and I finished first, pumping it out quick and painlessly, then walking over to the snack stand to load up on carbs and fluids. Which is where I started feeling kind of funny. Suddenly I wasn’t in my chair anymore, but on the floor staring groggily at the ceiling while two men stuffed pillows under my head.

“So is she the first one to pass out today?” Nicci asked, and I was not proud to hear that I, indeed, was.

Regardless, drained and embarrassed, it felt nice to do a good deed. Luckily, the Tahoe Basin has plenty of other opportunities for those looking to volunteer. There’s the Bear League in Homewood, the Boys & Girls Club in South Lake Tahoe and Kings Beach, Project MANA in Incline Village, and numerous other foundations and community support networks surrounding The Lake. So whether you are helping the poor or unconscious on your back in a fire station while someone named Todd tries to get your blood pressure under control, please enjoy your service, as it makes our community a better place.

With a husband catskiing in Oregon and a boyfriend couch-bound with a busted knee, what are two Tahoe ladies to do on a Friday night?

Lis and I left the TQ office Friday afternoon and headed to MontBleu not knowing exactly what to expect from the evening ahead. As working girls, we’re not routine patrons to Tahoe’s high-end cuisine scene, so it was a treat to be attending the inaugural night of Ciera Steakhouse’s quarterly food and wine pairing. The event proved to be a wonderfully decadent affair. Our jovial sommelier guided us through a five course meal with descriptive insights into our gastronomical experience. From the caviar and Champagne to the foie gras and Sauterne, the rich flavors indeed hosted “a party in our mouths,” just as our guide had promised. By the time the desserts, cheeses and port arrived, the volume and laughter had increased tenfold and our tablemates regaled us with funny historic anecdotes and intriguing Tahoe lore.

Dinner wasn’t the only success of the evening. Neither Lis nor I are gamblers per se, but I introduced her to the roulette table and it wasn’t long before we’d quintupled our humble minimum buy-in. (Don’t ask questions, just make sure you always have a chip on 23 when Eric is spinning.) We walked away from the table floating on the high from Lady Luck’s presence, and I’m afraid I may have ignited a new infatuation in Lis.

An invitation to join the Blue Gay-La pub crawl was a tempting way to keep the night going, but, alas, my golden/chow puppy awaited us in the car, eager to scarf down the remains of my excellent dinner. No doubt the delicacy of the Kobe beef steak was not lost on his refined 8-month-old palette.

We headed home with excessively full tummies and some extra cash in our wallets. I don’t think we need to make the boys envious by telling them all the details. Ok, that’s a lie. I do think my able-bodied, powder-catskiing husband deserves to feel a little jealous.

So Lis, what are you doing next Friday?

The four inches of snow outside my window that I awoke to on September 29 didn’t particularly make me want to lace up my sneakers and run 13.1 miles. But as I rolled out bed that morning, I prepared to do just that. I downed some coffee, dressed (warmly) and got in the car with my fiancé, Jason, and my brother, David, who had flown in from Pennsylvania to run the marathon. We drove to Tahoe City, parked and they walked over to Commons Beach, the starting point of the full marathon, while I loaded a shuttle with other half marathon participants and we were bused to our stop, halfway between Tahoe City and Pope Beach, and dropped off in the cold. We had two hours till the start of our race. Hopping a little to stay warm, the busload of us started trudging up Glen Street, not really sure what to do for the next couple hours. It was freezing outside, and we picked our way up the street, avoiding patches of black ice. As we walked uphill, chilly and slightly disgruntled, a woman came running outside, waving to us. She and her sister were running the half marathon too, she explained. Why don’t we all come inside until the start?

Feeling warmer already, we filed in the house, one by one, at least 20 of us. The woman who brought us in told us that she, her sister and her mother had rented the house for the weekend. The mother, a sweet older woman still in her pajamas made us a fire in the big, open living room. They felt so bad for us, she explained, at the thought of us all standing out in the cold for hours. One sister offered coffee and tea. The other brought around plates of bananas and blueberry bagels. We stretched and talked and laughed and ate. The sisters invited even more people into the home and the mother passed around more food and drinks. A couple of us started playing Balderdash, a board game where everyone makes up ridiculous definitions to ridiculous words, like “scrumpox,” (which actually has a much more innocent meaning than what some of us came up with). The sun slowly came out from behind the clouds.

The time flew by. At 10:30 a.m., we left the house that we had entered two hours earlier, cold and as strangers, now warm and as friends. We crowded the starting line with a couple hundred other people. As the gun went off, I lost them all in the other runners, who were jammed so close together that we jogged only at a jerky trudge until we got down that first hill and away from the melting patches of ice. Throughout the race, up the “Hell Hill,” past Inspiration Point, down the switchbacks and around the historic estates, I’d pass or be passed by the people I had huddled by a fire and drank coffee with that morning. Thirteen miles later, I found Jason and David at the finish line. We got our medals and hobbled to the shuttle that would take us from the Pope Beach end back to the Tahoe City start, and I explained to them the possible definitions for the word “scrumpox.”

Packed snacks and loaded the boys—Max, Ben, Blackjack and Tom—into the car on a bluebird Tahoe fall day. Destination: The Kokannee Salmon Festival at Taylor Creek Visitor Center. Headed south via a now quiet West Shore, but by the time we got close to Emerald Bay, all were antsy. But what a fine place to make a pit stop! We tucked into the parking lot there and best of all, no fighting over parking spots at this time of year. I took Jack for a tail-wagging stroll while Tom followed the boys rock climbing. No falls or scrapes, and they had fun scrambling over “the mountains.”

After plenty of oohing and ahhing over the views, and a little planning of next summer’s hike up to Eagle Lake, we resumed our journey south, along Emerald Bay road, hanging on tightly as we crossed the terminal moraine land bridge between Cascade Lake and Lake Tahoe. A few tight hairpin turns off the ride and at last we were there (yet). Of course, with boys, that meant eating first. Lake Tahoe Wildcare was grilling salmon, so can’t exactly complain about the fare.

Once little tummies were full we met Sammy the Salmon. Jack growled and barked, transforming into mellow lab to defender against all things fish. Very amusing. Ben wasn’t too keen on the giant upright land-fish either. We plunged headfirst into collecting stamps at each of the stations set up to help the little guys learn about the life cycle of the Kokannee. Pretty informative for the adults too.

But the best part was walking along Taylor Creek and watching the bright red fish splash and wiggle their way through the shallows, looking for a safe spot to lay and fertilize their eggs, then the fight to defend territory from other male fish (the guys with the hooked jaw and hump back) and Mallard ducks looking for a little brunch. Blackjack was definitely straining at the leash to get in there too.

Cool views inside the stream profile chamber too, where you can get an underwater perspective on the salmon. Spent awhile inside the dark and cool room while the kids knocked on the window, vying for a Kokannee’s attention.

But by now, little legs were lagging, and of course, stomachs growling again, so while the boys went over to paint with dead fish—no kidding, it’s an ancient Japanese art form—I rounded up some mint chocolate cookie ice cream, which they devoured. After red and green scaly prints dried, we headed back to the car for the homeward journey. Stopped at Cave Rock boat launch and beach on the way home, and the warm day lured the boys into the water for a bit, while I chilled on the sand, soaking in the last, best days of Indian summer.