After trying a couple of things, we collectively figured out that T. needed to stay with his dad and Brent and I sallied forth alone. Except for that twinge of guilt. My baby felt sick and I was going off to have fun! One of the major reasons for choosing to go to Tahoe was because T. wanted to ski. How could I?
I got over it. I quieted my conscience by remembering that I wasn’t abandoning the kid, just letting his dad take care of him instead of doing it myself. I emailed to see how he was doing and, not surprisingly, T. felt gross, but managed to watch crappy television. He’ll be fine.
And I skied. I skied all by myself, choosing whatever run I felt most like doing, going at a speed appropriate to my own level rather than one that kept T. below me so I could help him collect up his “yard sales.” (This is a term we learned from a friendly ski patrol guy last year, who, seeing that T. had scattered every piece of his equipment over the slope and was perfectly all right, suggested we have a yard sale…) I was apparently having enough fun to be remarkable, since lift operators kept commenting and talking to me.
My new boots are awesome. I stopped skiing when my legs were tired and the snow felt too icy, not when my feet couldn’t take it anymore. The new skis rock. I had to adjust to having poles that are the correct size for my height, since I’ve been using my dad’s hand-me-downs for years and he is much taller than I am, but that is not a complaint!
It was cold, but mostly sunny yesterday. The wind blew sparkles of snow off the trees to scintillate in the clear air. I heard mostly the wind and the crunch and scrape of the snow under my skis, except when I was near the lifts, when the soundtrack switched to reggae. I didn’t have to wear a stupid hat.
When I was too cold and tired to keep going, I went to the lodge and had hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps in it. Life is good.
