No falling, no skiing !

(Just sec removing some of the cob webs formed in the past 3 weeks before I get to business)..ahha..all done..

Hello there! Three weeks into 2012 is it too late for wishes? I guess not..here goes 'Happy new year'

And what have I been upto you ask. Well lets see in a nutshell the last week of December was spent in going to Indiana, meeting V's friends, a skiing trip followed by playing host to all of them at our place and celebrating new yrs eve in Chicago. First week of January spent wasted thinking about the last week of December and the time after that generally spent pondering over life and what I'm doing about it..yes I've been in a very pensive mood lately. Anyway I'll bunk that thought for the time being. So the highlight of the past month was definitely the skiing trip.

We had gone to a resort in Wisconsin known for all snow related activities. Now this was the first time skiing for both me and V. And we were both terrible at it. Fine I'll be honest, I was terrible and V managed fine by the end of the 4 hours. But to give me some credit he fell more times than I did in the first 15min. Thankfully we were accompanied by friends who are nothing short of pros at it, treat the gym as their second home and work out religiously. That training came in super handy when they had to lift me up every 5min. 

 Having glamorized the idea way too much in my head, I was however super thrilled to be actually going skiing and had a silly grin on the entire day. The pros in our gang had scared me to death about the biting cold, falling on my bum, ice melting to become chilly water and making my fingers numb etc. So taking their advice to heart I dressed in 3 layers on the bottom, 5 layers..yes you read it right 5 LAYERS on top, 2 pairs of gloves - ski kind on top of the woolen ones, 3 pairs of socks, scarf and ear muffs. I was dressed like a ski-ninja, if there is such a word and even hummed the track of 'eye of the tiger' in my head whilst getting dressed. Now in no way can I be called a fashionista but even in my humble eyes I was surprised to look like such a total buffoon in the gear. When I looked into the mirror and a penguin looked back at me, the charm of what I'd been fantasizing about wore off a little. 

Sports and me have a love-hate relationship. While I'd like to believe I have the potential (who am I kidding!) to be athletic, the problem arises when the athletic part of me becomes the pathetic part. I have the best intentions but something just happens and all the ambitious plans go kaput! Skiing was no different. Nevertheless I waddled away to reach the slopes and put on those terrible shoes that made me feel like the big friendly giant right out of the Roald Dahl novel. V helped me put them on, nearly smashing my toe and hurting his forehead and this was when we weren't even outside. The most intelligent decision of the day however, was to finish the posing for photographs when we were pumped up to go outside and at our smiling best with the skiis. I had naturally assumed the husband would stand by me and we'll help each other out. But no sooner had we got outside we promptly fell down within few feet of each other, he then thought being with me was like blind leading blind. So we amicably split and went to our respective tutors to learn the ropes. I did get sadistic pleasure seeing V fall more times than me and I even tried to show off waving out to him whilst barely managing to balance myself. Alas this confidence was short lived as I literally and figuratively went downhill post that. 

My pro friend took me to the bunny slope (basically the easiest one there is) to show me the moves and techniques. He patiently explained everything and I diligently copied him, only to fall on my poor sore bum each time, it slowly dawned on me, the pathetic in athletic is back to haunt me. Once I leaned slightly to catch my breath,  looking at all those people whizz past made me loose focus and I felt myself starting to fall. While I scrambled to stay on my two giant feet, I held onto the first person in my vicinity. Unfortunately for him I brought him down and also his friends standing next to him...not a pretty sight. The hardest part was learning how to stop myself downhill and making the pizza slice shape with the skis. I fell in different ways, speeds, on different body parts and each time saying a different prayer to god begging him to let me come down the slope minus a fall. God of course, was too busy to pay attention to my prayers. On probably the 11th attempt down the slope I managed to somewhat come down. And them immediately after that I step on my own ski..result of that..?? Fall again, this time sideways. By this time I ended up having an audience and thought to myself, 'This cannot be a good thing'. Waiting to be hauled up each time came with its own set of embarrassments, thought bubbles of ' ohhe's finding it tough, damn I've put on weight, I should have exercised more to finally- screw it it's all because of the clothes!' flashed by each time. Seeing a friends gf who we met for the first time, ski away to glory in her petite physique did not help things. She would come by every 15min ask whether any progress and whizz past while I sat in the snow shaking my head. And I started to resent her for no reason whatsoever after that.

The cherry on the dud of a cake was going up the ski lift. I was briefed on how to get up and down and mentally practiced the sequence of events in my head and observed the few people ahead of me. I was totally charged up, got on it just fine but when it was time to get down, I couldn't stop myself and body slammed someone from behind making him fall. While I lay as a bundle of bones on the snow I couldn't get up by myself and to make matters worse the person operating this end of the lift was shouting at me to make way for the next batch of people. This was when I snapped, barely managed to get up, got out of the skis and carried them all the way down. I was just about giving up and going inside to have the hot inviting coffee when I see V. He had progressed from the bunny slope to the intermediate one. I was dumbfounded..what??? The same person who fell five times in the first 5 minutes. Not wanting to come across as a loser, I put my skis back on and decided to give it another shot. The problem being i had happily asked my pro friends to go explore the other slopes and have fun as they had wasted too much time on me anyway. So it was only left to me and the little I had learnt in the last two hours.

While I made my way through I chanced upon something magical. There was a smaller slope which I christened the squirrel slope. It was filled with kids between the ages of 5-10 along with the doting parents teaching them how to ski. My mind was filled with newer and more positive thoughts now - 'they seem to be doing just fine', 'looks more manageable','I'll just stand next to a set of the parents and practice'. Finally I decided to follow Nike's tagline of 'just do it'. And the skiing experience finally had a happy ending. I learnt how to balance and stop when coming downhill. Still fell but somehow managed to get up. I competed with the likes of 7yr olds and lost, but no regrets. Did manage to give a tip to a 10 yr old on how to get up (that was the only part I became good at!) and felt good about myself. V however, refused to come near the kiddie slope as he called it, to come get me. But I was too busy basking in the glory of having conquered managed the squirrel slope to bother. Yayyyy! All's well that ends well. Ski again? Sure,when??