NYC 2009

Billy D on the Nasdaq wall

I am in awe of what happens in this city.  First of all, I don't think you are allowed to be a cab driver here if you do not honk your horn at least every 2 minutes.  These streets are alive with sirens, horns, the subway passing underneath you and the constant game of dodge ball you play with the people walking all around you.  There are street vendors selling bananas 3 for $1, 3 handbags for $25, 3 "I Love NYC" shirts for $10, 3 bialys  for $2, "How about a hotdog Ma'am?  3 for $3!)  If you need just about anything in this world you can find it on the streets of New York City.  Anything and everything but quiet.  Yesterday I had the experience of stepping into the world's largest store, Macy's.  I know I'm from Vermont, the state that has the only capital in the US of A with no MacDonalds or Starbucks, and any town larger than Burlington looks gigantic to us, but the nations biggest store!  I had to see this.  So, I followed the other girls in with one mission, and that was to get our makeup done for free at one of the 75 companies that had a booth in Macy's.  I wandered around aimlessly for a while, bumping into shoppers who had a clear mission, until I saw a familiar brand, Clinique, and strode over to the desk.  I picked the girl who had the least makeup on behind the counter and asked if she could please help because I had no idea what I was doing.  Her name was Matilda and when I told her I needed some makeup (probably pronounced wrong) on my face for a formal ball she asked me what I normally used on a day to day basis.  Things started to get comical here, especially when I said that I wasn't sure I had ever put makeup on in my life.  To me, that wasn't a big deal.  When you spend 4 hours a day in bright colored spandex, it's not the first thing you think to do when you get back inside.  To Matilda, born and raised in the city, it was a bit of a shock.  So she began to fix me up and 30 minutes later I left the beauty department sporting a look that was a bit different than the one I usually wore.  I had heard that this store had 8 or 9 floors of whatever you can imagine, so I decided to venture up to see what was going on in the rest of this maze.  Women's shoes were always fun to look at, so I looked at a map and of the store and saw that they could be found on floors 4 and 5!  I felt instantly claustrophobic and, as if I was in a fire, searched frantically for a lit-up exit sign.  This store was as if someone has taken all the fields around my house, stacked them up and filled them with products.  It was enormous, I was overwhelmed and had bonked.

  

Nasdaq building where we all had our pictures taken as well as our names on the wall!

We then headed to Gotham Hall and as always, the Ski Team Ball is a good show.  All us athletes step out of our sweatpants, training gear, and race suits and get into suits, dresses, high heels and makeup and mill about with 500 really psyched up fans of US Skiing.  Alongside us were former Olympic medalists Donna Weinbrech, Tommy Moe, and Billy Kidd.  

Billy Kidd, me, Mike Engel, Marco Sullivan.  Mike and his ex wife Deb Lovci have put me up in Park City for the last 3 summers and Mike came all the way out to New York in support of the US Ski Team and me.  Pretty awesome people.

 Ralph Green and me with a few of the supporters

The Ski Balls are always a good time and an awesome way for athletes to meet some of the many people who support our efforts.