Cathie's Blog
Friday, January 13, 2006
“A Pro is an amateur that never gave up!”OK, here’s how it went down. Chris (God bless him) woke us up at the a*s crack of dawn to get ready for my big day of skiing. I was so excited. For those of you that know me, I love winter, and anything to do with it, so I couldn’t wait to get to the mountain and begin my grand skiing adventure. Getting Allison ready was slightly reminiscent of the little brother in “A Christmas Story” because as soon as we got in the car she “had to go potty,” but we managed to get there on time to sign the kids up for ski school, and get a private instructor for Kimmie and me. Now, let me first tell you what our expectations were for the day. Kimmie and I thought that 1. Our instructor would be hot (mainly because we ASKED for a hot ski instructor from the girl we paid, and she kinda gave us the impression that should would do what she could), 2. We were going to kick ass skiing, because we’re fabulous at everything, and 3. Drinking & skiing mix. Allow me now to discredit each and every one of my/our expectations.
Kim and I waited where we were told for our instructor, and up walked “Ted.” Ted is clearly a NC native, with his southern accent and very sweet mannerisms. I quickly forgave the cashier lady for giving us a ski instructor who was about 3 days away from retiring because I was so excited about skiing—AND he had all of his teeth. I suppose it could have been worse. Ted walked us over to the Bunny Slope and began his instruction on putting on our skis, etc. I have a very short attention span, so I just kinda do my own thing and pay attention every once in awhile. Ted’s going on and on about “Make sure you skis are parallel to the fall line (I think..)…blah blah…something something…..” Kim is doing as she is told, and I am just bored to tears and want to start skiing like Pekaboo Street already. Then, Ted says what I had been longing to hear:
“OK, pay attention because we are going to move over here.” (Around the larger ski class, which to me, constituted skiing.)
“Yay!” I said quietly to myself.
“Now, you ladies were born to keep your legs closed…” Ted word vomits.
Kim is about to DIE because he just said this in front of me. Ted does not, however, realize that what he has just said has offended me in more ways than I care to count, and Kimmie is just hoping I don’t lay him out in the snow, and he continues…
“…so when you ski, you need to pretend you have a basketball between your legs. I know you ladies will try to keep your legs closed…..blah blah blah..”
I am almost mortified FOR him because the look on my face must have said a million things. I let it go though, because I just wanted to start skiing. I did begin to realize at this point the Ted’s “sweet mannerisms” are all a front.
Anyhoo, he starts telling us how to do this, and how to do that, I get bored and ski away. Swish, swish, swish….I make it to the bottom of the bunny slope. I am freakin’ awesome. I don’t need this freakin ski class. This is all I’m really going to say about the ski class, except that Kimmie quit, I thought myself to be a natural at this whole skiing thing, and once class was over, it was time to meet everyone at the bar.
Once inside the bar (which was a bit difficult because I had left my ID with my plane ticket—at the cabin—and Chris had to do a little sweet talkin’ to get me in), everyone had ordered a beer, so I said what the hell, and ordered one as well. Although I do not normally drink beer, it tasted particularly good that day. Mmmmm. We ordered some lunch, and watched the newbies on the hill fall and run into houses from the bar window. Chris, Ryan, and Jenny agree to go with me down the “Green” to see how I do outside of ski class (Ryan mainly agreed because he knew it would be a good show). I go ahead of the boys with Jenny, we grab our skis and she suggests we “put them on here.” And by “here,” she meant on a bit of an incline, which I did not notice until I got my skis on, slid down the incline, and into a poor unsuspecting woman, who, when I asked if she was alright, pretty much said “Don’t fucking touch me.” Oops. I feel like a real idiot at this point, and my confidence is a bit bruised. Moving on, Ryan and Jenny get ahead of Chris and I in line for the ski lift (again, Ryan did so because he knew that my getting OFF the ski lift would be a good show) and they were off. Jenny and Chris kept telling me “When the lift comes, hold your poles in your left hand, and grab the chair with your right, ok??” OK, got it. And surprisingly enough, I DID get it. I got on that effing chair like a PRO. Once we were getting near our “stop,” Chris is telling me,
“OK, once your skis hit the ground, stand up and make the turn to get out of the way. You know how to turn, right?
“Yeah..I learned that…” I replied, getting slightly nervous.
“OK, now the people behind us are probably NOT going to get off, but you need to move quickly in case they are, OK?
“OK. Move quickly. Got it.”
“OK, put your skis down…get ready…ok…NOW!” Chris instructs.
I did what he said, was successful for about 3 feet, and then…Ate. My. Sh*t. This prompted the ski lift operator to run to my aid screaming “INCOOOOMMMMIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!” It seems Chris was wrong, and the people behind us were, in fact, getting off behind us. The ski lift operator is trying to get me up while chanting “Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus!” I finally get up, tail between my legs, and scoot over to my peeps, who are all but on the ground laughing at me. My confidence (and dignity) has been all but destroyed at this point, but I truck on. Jenny, Ryan and Chris are all telling me I need to make sure to do this, do that, “do your pizza!” and “go side to side!” OK, I think I can do this. Ryan and Chris go a little bit ahead of me, and Jenny stays a little behind, and I take off. I don’t mean I gracefully began skiing down on the beautiful white fluffy snow either. I mean, I started going down this mountain at rates of speed I do not even do in my own car on the freeway, and had to make myself fall before I fell over a cliff that would have broken my femur, no doubt.
All I hear at this point, besides my own laughter, of course, is Jennifer’s “heheheheheheheheheheeeeheeeeehee….” (For those of you that don’t know Jenny, she has a very sweet and cute giggle, which can also be interpreted as evil if you know her as well as I do.) I look up to see my dear, dear Jenny, laughing hysterically at me, in her perfect “ski stance” and her perfect blue ski coat, and her cute little sunglasses.
She begins coming towards me doing her perfect ski moves, side to side..swish, swish, swish, and says “C’mon Cathie, you can do this. You just need to make sure to do your pizza!” in her cute little voice. Chris helps me up, and I try again with the same result. This happened over and over, and the entire time, all I heard was Jennifer’s laugh. At one point, I, no lie, almost ran into a house located on the side of the green…that was skerry. Ryan tried to reassure me by saying “Don’t worry Cathie, I’ll catch you before you run into a house,” though I didn’t see how he could possibly do so when I am going 90mph 20 feet ahead of him. After begging them to let me slide the rest of the way down the hill on my a*s to actually spare myself some embarrassment, they kept at me, and I kept giving it “one more shot.” I did well on one run, and I thought I could make it to the bottom flawlessly, however that, too, ended tragically.
I told Jenny that I was so happy she was there laughing at me, because I would have been crying at this point had she not been. Almost at the bottom, I say “eff it! I’m going to DO. THIS.” I get up on my skis with conviction, and I take off towards the bottom, ahead of all my friends. I had it. I was going to end this with a bang. And boooooy, did I. I begin approaching the bottom, where there are no less than 200 people waiting to get on the ski lift and such, and I realize that I….cannot…..stop….. ”Oooooooohhhhhh… sh*******t!” I scream. And I make myself fall. In a ditch. No lie. About what seemed like an eternity later, my friends arrive to find me lying in said ditch, and just lose it. Laughing, pointing, the whole thing. With all of Sugar Mountain looking on, including, I believe, all the people in the bar who look on for sport, just as we had. So before they helped me up, I had Jenny laughing, Chris getting out his camera, and Ryan saying “No, don’t take the picture yet!” He throws my poles, which I had left a little ways up the hill, on my chest, and says “OK, take the picture now!” And here it is…the money shot…..
I apologized profusely to my friends for the hour they just wasted getting me down that hill. Ryan responded, “Oh no, don’t apologize. That was worth…every…SECOND…”
So yeah, that was that. We all had a big laugh at my expense (you people are lucky I have no soul), and left.
Now, let me tell you another story. I go to Ryan’s house on Tuesday night since Jenny was in Brazil, and I am a good friend. So I was there, Kimmie was there, Eddie was there, Kristen came by, and Matt showed up a bit later. We somehow get on the topic of my unfortunate attempt at skiing, which Ryan still finds wildly amusing, when Ryan blurts out,
“Yeah, we probably should have taken you on the Green (the easier hill), not the Blue (the hill for people that have been skiing since birth).”
“Yeah, ahahahaha, wait. Hold the eff on. What did you just say?” I reply.
“Uh, yeah, we took you on the Blue.”
“What the f*ck!?! Are you serious?? That’s effed up Ryan. Why did you do that??”
“Well, the Green had the snow machines blowing and if we had taken you there…”
(I am thinking he was going to finish this sentence with something along the lines of “it would have been too slippery..” or “the snow machines make it harder for YOU to see…” or SOMETHING that would have led me to believe that he was actually doing it for MY benefit as a newbie….)
“….the snow machines would have blown snow all over us (me) and I would have been caked in snow.”
“Ooooohh, riiiiight, I wouldn’t want YOU to have been inconvenienced like that Ryan! I wouldn't have wanted you to ruin your outfit!”
I am still waiting for my apology letter detailing 101 Reasons why I should still be friends with you, B.
Big ups to Chris…you’re the best…thanks for allowing me to walk away from that experience with a fraction of my pride intact.
I’ll be back. I’ll try it again. Like Allison’s Kung-Fu teacher says “A Pro is an amateur that never gave up.” Actually he says “A Black Belt is a White Belt that never gave up,” but it’s the same principle, really.
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