Skiing, The Third February 15, 2008

If you know me, you know the indoors and cement-city-blocks are way more my thing than the traditional out-of-doors.  This weekend, however, I am for the third time ever, spending my days whooshing down a mountain in Pennsylvania.  I will most likely break a leg (on the green slopes) and have to be rushed to the hospital, so you can find me there on Monday.

The first time I skiied I was 20, and I went with my friend, Lindsay.  She came up to Massachusetts, and we drove to Stowe, VT.  On our drive to Stowe, we stopped at Montpelier, where we tromped through 2 feet of snow in the dark up to the Capitol building.  That?  Was Awesome!  Also, there is apparently no food in Vermont, not even a fast food restaurant, so we did not get anything to eat for the entire drive.  I remember being particularly hungry.  In Stowe, we stayed at a little motel and went to the slopes about a mile away during the day.  The first day we got our rental skis (her first time skiing, too) and decided we should rush immediately to the green slope.  Whoosh!  I think I did a 180 and I know I lost a ski a few times up the hill from where I fell (on my back).  I ran over a small child — he was okay, and when his dad flipped him over (he was face-down in the snow) he was laughing.  Then we took a lesson.

The lesson was practically on flat terrain, but I managed to fall multiple times.  Wielding the long sticks attached to my feet was not particularly easy given my coordination.  But we were taught the “pizza” move, and after the hour lesson, surely we were geniuses, we thought.  So we whooshed down the green slope again.  But this time the “whoosh” took forever because we were going side-to-side.  Forever.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted and never wanted to ski again.  But I couldn’t sit in the lodge, because there was no lodge — just a cold, boring cafeteria.  So I was destined for the ski slopes again the next day.  And a-skiin’ I went!  It was better than the day before, but I was all kinds of sore.  I think it was that afternoon that we toured the Ben and Jerry’s factory, an event which should not be missed.  And the next morning, I believe we skiied again.  Too much skiing, too much falling down.

Two or three years later, I went skiing with my friend, Rich.  Rich came to visit me in Western Mass, and we woke up early on a Saturday to go to a little ski resort about 40 minutes away.  The instant I woke up, I knew I didn’t want to go, after all.  But we got in the car and went.  Rich, a good skiier, gets mad props for staying with me all. day. long. on the green slopes.   I didn’t really fall, but I can’t have been very fun to ski with, either.  Then something went wrong.  We started on a green slope, but we must have taken a wrong turn, because suddenly we were on a blue slope.  And it looked to me like a 90degree drop.  Holy. Crap.  There were trees very close on either side of us.  I kept thinking of Sonny Bono and how I did not want to run into a tree.  So I essentially freaked out and walked down the hill.  I think it was one more green slope that day, and that was it for me.  I haven’t been skiing since.

But this weekend, I will ski because Numero Uno likes to ski.  Lindsay thinks I will be able to take the blue slopes by day three.  I don’t buy it.  More likely I’ll run down three small children, one adult, and a snow mobile.  The snow mobile will land me in the hospital.  But at least I will have an excuse for not skiing in the future.  Get back on the horse and try again?  I never liked that horse in the first place!