(Cast Card photo I took, before we were married)

I came home last Friday and listened to a  message from a women calling from a New York City Magazine and my heart began to flutter. Was this the call that I had been waiting for? The call that was going to put my book on the map?

I researched my files to see what proposals I had sent to this magazine and I found something that I had sent last April. My alarms went off as I wondered why were they calling me now, almost a year later.

In my numerous hours spent searching for freelance opportunities and social networking, I enter contests along the way, all for the greater good of my website and potential publicity for my book.

On Monday it was revealed that Wade was a semi-finalist for a “Hot Husband” contest that I had apparently entered him in. They wanted to interview me on our relationship and to find out how steamy he truly was.

Five minutes prior to the interview, I was in my office prepping my webcam to film the interview, for some crazy reason, when Wade opened my door. “What are you doing home?” I asked, startled. He had come home sick. When I explained that he had become a semi-finalist, he shook his head, barely laughing at his insane wife, and said he was going to bed.

When he recovered I told him that, if he won, we didn’t win anything but the confirmation that he truly was hot and that he would have to model for a photo shoot, which he has done for me many times before when I worked in film production.

We came to the conclusion that unless they mentioned the book, it was not worth his time or effort. I relayed this message to the Assistant Editor who promptly removed him from the competition. Where was the compassion for the wife of a hot husband?

And so Wade will not be sporting the cover of a women’s magazine naked, all but the overalls, and I guess I am all the better for not advertising how hot my husband is to the masses.

For a little bit of fun, here is the interview:

Last Friday I put on my ski clothes, as I got the boys ready for school, and my adrenaline was pumping in anticipation of letting loose all of my pent up aggression as I skied through the freshly fallen snow.

If you live in a ski resort, you live for snow, lots and lots of snow. When it doesn’t snow and you’re dealt with bitter cold days without mounds of snow to throw your kids into and built forts with, than tempers begin to brew and foam and people find it best to keep to themselves lest the fists start flying.

“Our good Mommy is back,” the boys declared on our way to school as I blared their favorite radio station, 100.5 Radio Free Aspen, a station that plays the same top ten hip hop songs repeatedly to ensure that you learn every word to Akon’s “Sexy Bitch” by heart. Yes, I know, totally inappropriate but we love music and dancing so what are you going to do?

Picking up the girls down the street,  I watched as the little one quietly inserted her thumb into her mouth as her big blue eyes innocently took us all in. Being a fellow thumb sucker, until I was ten, I deeply empathized. I knew that the music was a complete departure to the songs that she was used to listening to on her way to school like, “This land is your land,” and I wondered if it was all too much culture shock for her.

When we arrived at school Axel began to whimper. He had dark rings under his eyes and complained of a tummy ache. I looked into his melt chocolate eyes with long dark lashes and I realized that I could not pump him up on Motrin & Vitamin C and send him on his way, not even with the superb combination of best friends and powder awaiting just fifteen minutes away.

I had to work hard to not show my frustration and resentment that my day had taken a turn but my perceptive little boy knew what was up and I saw him grow sad with the acknowledgment that I was wishing to be elsewhere when all he so desperately needed was my undivided attention.

As the day progressed Axel revealed to me his deepest thoughts and I made a pact to myself to allow these precious moments to happen on a daily basis. I absorbed every detail of his stories, how he got in trouble at school for talking when he was actually defending a student who was being made fun of and how his teacher did not listen to him when he tried to explain and so he just gave up.

We talked about the pain he feels when he hurts himself and he said, “I shake my body until the pain goes away but when somebody hurts my feelings, that is when I cry, even though I don’t want to.” Tears came to my eyes as I listened to my quiet little boy who has learned to keep his thoughts to himself because nobody seems to hear what he has to say.

Axel’s message was clear, I was just as guilty as his teacher’s who fall into the pattern of coexisting without communicating or connecting and I became determined to change that. As my mother always says,  these are the best times of my life and I need to appreciate them while they are here.

The boys are growing up quickly and I need to remain present or I will miss many a precious moment and I thank Axel for this reality check, the mountain can wait.

Oh yeah, the X-Games are here and Aspen is hopping with stretch limos and masses of dudes and dudettes walking around town with to go cups in their hands.

When people ask me if we are going to go to the X-Games I wonder what family with boys doesn’t go to watch these incredible athletes perform death-defying tricks.

We drove to the Snowmass intercept lot and were amazed to see how organized everything was as they herded the 30,000 + people into the lot to take the bus up to the venue.

The boys were dressed as if we were heading to the North Pole. The only thing I forgot were the ear plugs to mute the language of the teens who were never told to curtail their vulgarity when innocent children stood nearby.

We held on for dear life as we propelled forward to Buttermilk, a mountain which under normal circumstances is as gentle as it sounds.

It is true that as we locals raise our children in a place where extreme is the norm, we both revere and loathe hosting the X-games in Aspen as it only helps to fuel the minds of our children with delusional aspirations of achieving the insane.

As we walked through the crowd to watch the big air competition I noticed a young man dressed in a bright green lycra suit who couldn’t process, in his hallucinogenic state of mind, that the steps he had just climbed had ended.  I steered the boys away as he kept climbing to a place that I hope my children never attempt to reach.

The boys had a blast racing around grabbing swag and getting a super cool poster of their names written in graffiti from some of the masters who had become famous from their shaky past lives of obscurity.

The Big Air Competition was too surreal for me as I watched Bobbie Brown fly through the air performing his miraculous  Switch Double Pits To Misty 1260 thinking that these athletes are better to watch than superman as they perform their double corks, whiskey flips and rodeo tricks.

I am certain that every contender flies in their sleep, reaching greater heights as they perfect their tricks while creating names like Big Air Jon Olsson’s Switch Hexelfoot 900 and  I feel reassured that Wade and I made the right decision to stave off one more year of freestyle skiing for our boys.