a weekend disappeared! and snow adventures!

 where the fuck did saturday go?! i need another one right now.

morning:

woke up hella early to be ready for 9am pick-up. r would pass by my house and we would head on out to the skiing lodge (is it an actual lodge?). so i got ready and got dressed and got prettied up. i made some french press coffee. unfortunately just as it finished brewing r arrived. i quickly poured the coffee down my gullet and headed out to the door. 

she was already playing t. swift as i got in the car. we drove through beautiful white fields while chatting about life, music and the perils of my decision to snowboard over skiing. "it's not too late you know? if you take some skis i'll make sure you are running down blues by the end of the day". the offer was very tempting but i had already made up my mind to try out snowboarding. partly because i wanted to redeem myself for all that pain 15 years ago and partly because of e. i think she usually feels the least capable member of her alpine group and having someone else struggling even worse can be encouraging and highlight her accomplishments. plus it's also part of her bday celebrations. 

we made it to the group about 10 minutes late, which is to be expected out of BOTH r and myself, so we're a perfect team for it. met the group, e had our passes and i went straight to get my rental equipment. we went into the bunny hill area and we separated into two groups: those who knew how to do what to do and myself. they went off to play in the cool areas in the park while i stayed to learn how snowboard. 

afternoon:

man am i glad i got the snow bib! i fell down multiple times, on my butt, on my knees, on my hips. Every time the snow would hit hard and compact on my body but i never got wet. it was awesome. thankfully e gave me a ride the night before after i told her i had planned to go with jogging pants. good call. 

the snowboarding: it was rough. at first. on my second time after the lift dropped me off, i felt like giving up. or maybe switching to skis. something. i was in pain and looking down the hill i didn't think i would get better. i was also alone. i thought long and hard about whether coming to this place was worth it. i also almost felt like crying. for some reason my wires got crossed and i felt heartbroken too. but i trudged on. the second time felt almost as painful as the first. i fell down. many times. not too hard. but hard and enough times toe make one want to stop doing it. at the bottom of the hill i stood by the lift for a long time. maybe, i thought, if i stayed here long enough watching people that time would pass by and it would be time to go home. 

but time was slow then. 

i went up the hill again. third time i did not fall down coming off from the lift. good start. strapping the back foot was troublesome. bad beginning. went down in what i would grade c- in terms of not falling down but at least it was consistent and not as painful. most of the falls were controlled and because i was either aggressive with slowing down or felt awkward. i felt better at bottom. i was also feeling frustrated at the length of the bunny hill. it is not as steep as one of the real hills so it's good to practice but it's also very short. i could try one or two techniques before i was already at the foot of the hill. there wasn't time to improve and continue on. i would have to take off my back foot, then weirdly move to the line of the lift and do the whole thing again. needless to say i once again waited a long time before i got on again.

i did get better. it did get more fun. but then the day was over. 

 

evening:

q seemed to be in a hurry to be home and to the outsider eye seemed to pressure e into leaving. we all sort of decided to head home and they all left. they also all left without having some sort of regroup at the end to say goodbye. that's the one "americanism" i still don't get. if you got someplace together as a group, i have been conditioned all my life you gotta say goodbye. in person. maybe it's a generational thing? i don't know. it just feels very impersonal. like we're less friends and more like rented bodies good for the specific moment. either way i'm learning not to be bothered by it. 

r drove me home. this time she put another tswift album but i barely heard it. we talked about future plans to go skiing, the things covid life is robbing from us, and trying to play hooky from work on wednesday. hopefully it can actually happen. 

night:

q had lent me his goggles and mittens and i went over to return them. i got to say hello to dv and had a bit of fun for like 2 minutes. then got home and ordered food because i still haven't gone grocery shopping. trying to work for a bit but my concentration is elsewhere. 

thoughts:

i thought about cy. would she have liked to do this type of activities? this is something that i never got to explore with her and and i am totally drawing a blank if she'd like it or not. she was very risk averse so i don't think she would have done snowboarding, but maybe skiing? 

on a related note, i find myself thinking of cy when i hang out with e. they are so different in every way. i guess they both "argue" with me on a semi routine basis. maybe i miss the conversations and debates i used to have with cy and e is pretty good at challenging me back on a lot of stuff. also today e was sporting a type of braids on her hair that cy used to wear when we went hiking.