Vihanti is a town in northern Finland with a population just over 3,000.  The population density is 16 people per square mile.  Vihanti is home to the heavy metal band “Gobra”.  The great dance hall in Mäntylampi was the biggest one in the whole province during the 1970s but is now used only couple of times per year

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I was making mashed potatoes with roasted garlic.  I usually just roast a garlic by, you know, roasting a garlic, but this recipe online said to lop off the top (OK, I usually do that) and put a pat of butter, a squirt of lemon juice and some kosher salt on it and wrap it up in what my mom used to call tin foil (and the butter came out of the ice box).  An hour plus at 350 and the garlic head was nice and roasty, pretty much like it is any old way I do it.  I peeled three large russet potatoes, cut into pieces and boiled, then put them through the ricer (see ricer below) with the garlic.  Last step was to add a little salt, pepper and chopped parsley.  Pretty good.  For the record:  Becky doesn’t care for them.  Ms. Moon says just boil the garlic with the potatoes and smush them all together.

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I woke up at 3 AM and continued watching Arrested Development.  I wound up the grandfather clock, did the dishes, watered the plants, folded my laundry and watched Arrested Development.  Then, I did one-handed pushups like Spenser and watched Arrested Development.  Then, I finished an oil painting in the manner of Rothko, while watching Arrested Development.  Eventually, I decided I should get out of the house, so I put on my snow pants and thick blue ski top and threw my new skis my father is paying for, and my old but perfectly good boots, and masks, balaclava, helmet, poles, scarf, extra socks into the Honda and headed up to The Mountains.

By The Mountains, I mean all those resorts one encounters along I-70.  Before you get to The Tunnel and the Continental Divide it goes through/under, you’ve got Loveland Ski Resort on your left.  A little farther on, you can bear right and head to Winter Park.  Or you can go through the tunnel, trying to hold your breath, refusing to hear what horn-honking sounds like, and then pop out on the other side, which is usually colder and snowier than what it was like when you entered, but not always.

The first big ski resort is Keystone, but Breckenridge and Copper Mountain aren’t too far away.  Another half hour, and you’d be near Vail and Beaver Creek.  And there are lots of smaller resorts along the way.  I decided that my two-hour drive was long enough and headed to Keystone.

I got out of my car and started to make myself look like all the other extraterrestrials.  Crimson helmet-carapace, googly-eyed goggles, black ninja balaclava on your face,  giant red boots that make you walk funny, ski pole antennae poking out from under your arms, long clatter of skis on your shoulder.  You do this because it’s easier to wear this stuff than to carry it to the Brown Bag Room, where they have lockers and tables and where you can finish putting stuff on, and also you can eat your lunch, if you brought it.

I took one look at the main ski lift line and was amazed to see it was nearly empty.  At noon on a Sunday.  On a nice sunny day and the snow looks decent.  What’s up with that?

I would be on the lift and up 4 miles to the top and then down this very run, but it had been 4 years since I skied, so I thought I would make a few runs on the Bunny Hill.  This required shlepping my skis and poles over to the mini-lift, at which point, I had forgotten that I had no lift ticket, so I skied over to the ticket office.  Eighty three dollars for half a day.  And I only intended to be there for 3-4 hours.  Is that why the lift lines were so short?  I ski-slid in quasi-Nordic fashion over to the Mountain House bar, with its outside tables and sat there and put my feet up and watched skiers come down the hill and watched tiny kids whiz by in tiny helmets on tiny snowboards and watched pretty girls take off their helmets and shake their hair out.

Then, I got in the car and drove home.

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I watched maybe 20 minutes, all told, of the Oscars.  It was as boring as it always is (sorry, Becky).  Billy sounded like a comedian in the Catskills in 1956:

“Thank you, thank you. That was extremely loud and incredibly close. Extremely loud and incredibly close — that’s how my relatives are watching this show. This is my ninth time, ninth time hosting the Oscars. So tonight just call me war horse.”

I missed Sasha Baron Cohen dumping ashes on Ryan Seacrest.  Every time I switched a channel and switched back, there was George Clooney, elegant and looking like the most relaxed man in the world.  But, of course, all the guys have to do is throw on a tux.  The women have to import hair stylists and shoe experts and designer dress people and get themselves into “shapewear”, and try to look beautiful.

The first headline I saw this morning was

Angelina Jolie’s right leg gets Twitter account