Recovering Baptist

We woke up very early Saturday morning and caught the 6:15 flight to Minneapolis. As best as we can tell, we got out just in time, since the snow had not started falling in Atlanta yet. Our Minneapolis to Salt Lake City was a little late, but we were able to avoid the Sundance traffic in Park City and hit the slopes at Deer Valley by 2:30. This was my wife’s first time skiing in six years, and she skied great. She was moving down the slopes with good form and a nice pattern to her turns. And then she fell.

I saw her fall and didn’t think that much of it, but then I saw her face. I wanted to believe that it wasn’t that bad. And for a little while none of us thought it was. She managed to get back on her skis and finish the run. She even got back on the lift and skied a short way over to the gondola. But she couldn’t walk up to the hill to the car. A few bags of snow and a night of icing her knee didn’t help, and we started our day at Alta in the medic’s office. And that’s when we heard it.

A. C. L.

After only four runs her ski trip was over. Worse, rather than preparing for a day on the slopes she had to begin thinking about how we were going to take care of the boys while she spends five days in bed recovering from knee surgery. This is not how our happy trip to Utah was supposed to turn out. If anyone was supposed to get hurt, it was me, and it was to happen while I was doing something stupid. The best wife in the world wasn’t supposed to get hurt on a fluke fall on an easy slope. The rest of the day was spent with her sitting in the pub while I half-heartedly made a few runs on the perfectly groomed slopes and muttered obscenities under my breath.

I might talk about the good parts of our trip later, but for now, really what else matters?

Update - it could have been much worse. As we were flying out a professional skier was making videos on the backside of the mountains we were skiing when he also fell. My friend and I were watching Warren Miller videos during our layover on the trip up. They’re cool as hell, but you never heard about the guys who die making them. I think we’ll stick to the beginner side of the mountain.

Tomorrow we enjoy my Christmas present - the ski shell and the trip to break it in. My wife is the best in the whole world. If you don’t believe it, then show me one who has bought her husband a grocery cart full of Belgian Trappist Ales, built a custom pipe holder, and bought him a ski trip. Oh yeah, then there are the things I can’t put in print…

Have a great long weekend everyone. We won’t be back for a few days. Hopefully I won’t break anything this time, or I may be silent for a bit longer.

We figured that avoiding amateur night on the roads was probably a good idea, and a cabin near Ellijay turned out to be perfect. My family and two others spent four days playing pool, shooting off fireworks, and sitting by the fire. The kids played well together and actually behaved except for bedtime. As dull as it may sound, the adults pretty much did, too. We played pool, sat by the fire, and ate. And drank. And ate. And drank. And ate some more.

Our menu for the weekend pretty much consisted of every cholesterol filled, sodium saturated, carbohydrate heavy foodstuff possible. And to drink we had a wide selection of great beer and limoncello. And while I love to eat and drink, at some point even I realize that even the Romans put an end to their feasts at some point.

And so now it’s back to the real world. One nice green leaf is about all I can stand to eat today. I even tried to head to the gym for the first time in many, many months, but someone pulled the fire alarm. So much for a healthy 2008, but if how you ring in the new year is a representation of how you’ll spend it, this is looking to be a fun one.

This year marked a second experience in my nearly 35 Christmases - we had a wintry mix on December 25. One year while I was still in college I spent Christmas with my parents. The temperatures were supposed to drop Christmas Eve, but no one expected there to be a very fine layer of snow on the ground the next morning. By 10:00 am it had completely disappeared, but for a few hours it was beautiful.

We didn’t have any snow this year, but we did get a few moments of sleet. Everyone I know thinks I’m nuts, but that was a big highlight. Any sort of wintry weather makes me happy, but getting it on Christmas morning makes everything extra special.

But the coolest thing about Christmas this year (not counting the boys’ new toys, which is a whole ‘nother post altogether) also has to do with snow. Lots of it. My second to last present from my wife was a really cool North Face ski jacket with a removable fleece liner/jacket. “Cool!” I said when I opened it. But then there was one more present. I opened the small box and under the tissue paper found a few pieces of normal paper. It took a moment to realize what was printed on the pages; my wife bought a pair of plane tickets to Utah to break in the new jacket! Turns out most of my friends, family, and even my boss were in on the surprise, which just makes the trip that much cooler.

Here’s hoping everyone else got something almost as cool as a surprise ski trip.