Skiing. Or something like it.

So as you all know I am home, alive, and well. Skiing was more fun than I could have ever imagined. At first I thought that this ski club was going to be a little like visiting a retirement village in somewhere in Denver where all the geriatrics have skis tied to their walkers. Contrary to my overactive imagination, no one on the bus could have been more than 70, tops. It was a very fun group of people and the best part was that the trip leader started the trip off with 4 dozen doughnuts from this place. I mean, what are the odds that a random ski trip would begin with your very favorite, hand cut, heavily glazed doughnuts? It’s news like this that makes you realize, even at 4:30am, it’s gonna be a good day no matter if you have a limb or two missing on the trip back home.

Skiing is a little bit of a sensitive topic for me. I grew up next to a mountain in New York State and because my parents were determined for me to live a tragic, horseless, ski-less lifestyle, I was never allowed to pick the sport up. No amount of pleading would change my mother’s wicked heart (Yes, mom, wicked. Especially all those summer days you told us it was too hot to go swimming).

Fast-forward a bit to Sean, who has spent a lifetime skiing and whom refuses to let me miss out on an opportunity unless it requires me jumping out of a plane, decides that at 29 years old it’s high time for me to get my ski legs. For those who don’t know anything about NJ, northern NJ (the part right outside NYC) has a bit of a shortage of mountainous areas. It does, however, have one right on the border of NY State. Actually, it’s really less of what one would really consider a ”mountain” and more of a mole hill in skiing standards. It’s one of those places that when you become a real skiier, you don’t tell other skiers you’ve ever been there. Anyway, Sean assured me it was a good place to learn and proceeded in taking me to Campgaw Mountain where I then took a private lesson with a 12 year old boy who had yet to discover the glory of a vertical growth spurt. Now, I’m no stranger to awkward moments but I cannot stress enough how embarrassing it was to have someone waist-high teaching you how to precariously balance yourself on two thin sticks. I tell you, it’s a combination which practically begs that everyone end up in a pile wherein the wee youngen is squashed by a voluminous woman 3 times his size. Regardless, the squirt knew what he was doing and despite the childish names assigned to the positions (Do the french fry!! Are you doing the French Fry?! Ok! Now pizza! Pizza! Pizza!!) I got to be pretty good and fairly confident Pizza-ing and French Fry-ing my way down the larger hills until the inevitable Griswoldean fall where my skis ended up over my head wielding themselves in a helicopterlike fashion until one leg finally stopped itself by wedging the ski behind my shoulder and tearing something in my knee that ended in CL. Leaving me in shame to tell the tale of how I injured myself on Campgaw Mountain which has a total of three, THREE, runs and two of them being the most pathetic bunny slopes you’ve ever seen.

It’s been three years since then and to say that I approached this new trip with trepidation would be an understatement. I assumed that I would come home, probably in one piece but definitely injured and hobbling, considering the possibility of a thrown out back. Adding to the feeling of dread and despair was the 5 hour drive in treacherous conditions where the highways of New Hampshire and Vermont were littered with car wrecks. It was raining, it was sleeting, the only thing that would have made it worse skiing conditions would have been if it were an Apocalyptic fire that rained down from the sky. But yet, the ski club marched on. When we finally arrived at the mountain I had discovered, in no uncertain terms, I’d forgotten how to ski. Oh sure, I could remember the food groups, but I couldn’t remember the exact method of how and when to use them. My 31 year old mind had officially failed me.

This is when I tell you that my saint of a husband forked over an extraordinarily large amount of money for me to take a two hour lesson with the most wonderful Swedish instructor ever had. (And now this is the spot where I then tell you that this instructor was a 60+ female but that didn’t stop me from telling Sean if he set me up with a hunky instructor he was to report to the Black Diamonds until I instructed him that my *ahem* lesson was over. Alas…) She was funny, she was comfortable, and best of all, she was my size so I didn’t have to fear crushing her when my skis overlapped hers and we went tumbling across the Easy Rider trail. And then we skied. Oh how we skied! I am very proud to report that I rocked the hell out of the bunny hill and even made it over to one of the blue trails that had actual trees on either side of the run which I expertly avoided without the aid of screaming. I skied my little heart out in the pouring rain and gail-force winds until it was deemed to dangerous and they closed the lifts. Did that stop me? No! I marched right over to the Magic Carpet with all of the other 5 year olds and continued skiing tiny inclines until the winds nearly sent me careening into a group of wee ones. Figuring that I gave them enough of a fright to haunt their dreams for a good few nights, it was time to turn in and engage in the time honored drinking-with-strangers-at-the-pub until the bus was ready to take us back home.

It was a good day. A very good day indeed, and I believe owe it all to those doughnuts.