More Than Just a Ski Lesson, a Life Lesson if You Will

So over the weekend, we sat huddled by the fireplace, getting deluged by rain. The Rose Parade, for the first time in over fifty years, was rained upon. We native Southern Californians usually dislike the rain, and avoid doing too much when it happens to show its face, which isn't really all that often.

Today, you would have been perfectly comfortable wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

Despite this bizarre weather courtesy of global warming, the weekend storms managed to drop some snow on the upper elevations.

We are planning on taking Mr. Personality to the snow very soon, as it is only about a two hour drive away. That is, if this week's high temps will not have melted it, which I am crossing my fingers that the hot weather won't last long enough to reduce the snow significantly.

Even though I have only been skiing twice, I am willing to brave the mountains once again.

You see, Hubba-hubba had kindly offered to teach me to ski. We vacationed often in Lake Tahoe in our former lives, and for no particular reason, I had never learned how to ski.

The main lesson in life that I have learned so far is to never let your significant other teach you how to ski. You can thank me for learning the lesson for you and passing it on later.

He learned how to ski when his brother-in-law took had him rent some skis, took him up on a lift, and basically told him to figure out how to get down.

This inauspicious beginning to his skiing career should have prompted warning sirens in my head, but I am an optimist.

Hubba-hubba's first commmand was to make me walk up the bunny slope head on with my skis. I kept slipping, I kept complaining (see picture, up to the right, and that's about what my face looked like. The years haven't altered the basic expression) how hard it was. I was exhorted by my merciless taskmaster to keep going, if I could just climb the hill straight up, then I would be able to master anything! I must have tried for a good twenty mintues to climb the same 10 feet.

Finally, a ski instuctor who happened by actually took pity upon me, taking the unpaid time to teach me how to walk up sideways, which is apparently the way it should be done.

When a professional takes the time to help you and you have not hired them to help you, you then know you have plumbed the depths of humiliation.

Then, I had a really hard time grabbing the tow-pull for some reason, and I actually whomped face first into the snow because I grabbed it at the wrong time. Think the picture to the right again, just encrusted with snow.

I think I "skiied" down the bunny slope a grand total of one time.

But because I love Mr. Personality so much, I am willing to revisit the scene of my embarassment. I wish to spare him the total unfamiliarity with the snow that I have, and I plan on him learning to ski by at least age 10, if not sooner.

Bring it on, Mr. Snow Mountain, bring it on!