posted on January 13, 2001 08:14:49 PM new
Lets begin with our daily dose of foreshadowing. Her parents and I took my absolutely most favorite 2 year old girl sledding for the first time today. Didn't need to go far into the mountains. Boreal got 3 feet in the last storm. Crunchy powder, too.
The day began uneventfully with several runs down the kiddie slope, Alissa in our respective laps. Then we let her take a few turns by herself, strategically posting adults along the run. She quickly learned that it is far easier for someone 2' tall to be carried over 8" of snow than walk in it. So, I spent a lot of time carring child and saucer uphill in snow. Cold was not a problem. Stamina was questionable.
With the tyke tired and cold, the men decided to take a shot at the big hill. James took the run on the far left. Pretty smooth but not hard packed, it seemed a slow ride. He did manage to dump himself, shirt riding up to allow a load of fine powder access to his pants.
Not impressed with my compatriot's ride, I chose the run next to it. Slightly steeper and definitely slick packed, this looked better. A couple of suspicious moguls disquieted me, but not seriously. After waiting nearly interminably for a child just lying in the middle of the hill, I was ready.
Perched on the small plastic saucer with legs tucked up, it took only rocking forward to slide out of the ramp pocket. Perfectly aligned in the 'chute', I accelerated rapidly. The saucer softly whooshed over the snow, promising a fast ride.
My sense of well-being faltered as the first gentle rise tossed me in the air. I did manage to keep upright, atop the saucer, and relatively balanced. "I've still got a handle on this," I thought. Some small part of my mind recorded a peripheral child saying, "Wow, look!" as I hurtled by.
With such a quick start, good distance was achieved on the first jump. So good, in fact, that it netted a landing on the second mogul, one of the suspicious mounds. Landing is perhaps a euphemism in this case. More accurately, an inelastic collision between my coccyx and what was undoubtedly concrete cleverly disguised as snow.
Said jarring impact moved up into my bowels, settling there as a curdling feeling. Sparing precious little attention to physical indications, I split concentration between staying upright and somehow protecting my tailbone from further assaults. This was difficult as I again found myself airborne.
The second fall seemed worse than the first, although this was likely due to anticipation. I tried rolling to one side with the impact, but this only unbalanced me. As I flew for the third time, I came halfway off the saucer. Twisting in midair, I pulled it mostly under me just before reintroducing posterior to terra most firma.
The next section contained only small bumps, although they felt significantly larger than they looked. Each left a less than loving caress on my uncushioned bones. I did manage to get fully back on the saucer and was again picking up speed when an insidiously minor bump tipped it.
The edge dug smartly into the snow, throwing a blinding spray into my face before biting fully. Clinging frantically to the plastic disk, I somersaulted/rolled completely. Amazingly, I righted. Again, some minor portion of cerebral cortex focused on others. The laughter I identified did not concern me at the time, so busily was I fighting to protect my battered frame.
The ride ended with a long slow glide, although I claim intimate familiarity with every minor variation in sub-snow topography. Ow, ow, oooh... ow! Michelle ran up saying she got a picture of me just before I flipped. "I just missed it." Pity.
In a Herculean display of grit, I stand, grimacing, picked up the mutant frizbee, and tottered off the hill. I wonder idly if my chiropractor would consider this an emergency. A shout catches my attention. I turn to watch a lad stuff his toboggan into a whoop-de-do and do a perfect Swan. He flies like Superman before sliding down the hill on his face. Everyone laughs. Some people lift and dust him off. He reascends. When can we do this again?
posted on January 14, 2001 05:29:50 AM newSome small part of my mind recorded a peripheral child saying, "Wow, look!" as I hurtled by.
I think this confirms you are firmly in the throes of adulthood, zip. Weight considerations aside, the ride was just as jarring some decades back, but then we considered it "fun". Amazing what we'll do as kids, huh.
posted on January 14, 2001 08:46:57 AM new
I am humbled in the greatness of the descriptiveness of your writing. I could picture the entire scene in my head, which made me jump from laughter to wincing and back again.
Your tailbone has my sympathies.
Speaking of Clark Griswold, my children crack up each time we watch that movie when they get to that scene. My husband has a parka from the Air Force that is just the same as the one Clark wears. When he went sledding with them a few years ago, they said he looked just like Clark when swooping down the hills. I can barely lift the parka, I can't imagine wearing it.
posted on January 14, 2001 09:17:41 AM new
Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Zippy, airborne again!
First time we took younger kitten to the snow, he was seven going on seventy. It took a lot of convincing for him to ride down the hill on the inner tube. He was convinced he would reach Mach 3 and/or die a horrible death in a crash(he was such a cheerful, optimistic child sometimes). No, no, we assured him, nothing would happen. Even if he fell off, he would land in soft, cushioning snow. C'mon, we said, it would be FUN!
Unconvinced, he set off down the hill on the innertube. He picked up speed and was fairly whipping along, horrified expression on his little face, when he hit a bump. The innertube went one way, he went another. The innertube landed, bounced, and rolled the rest of the way down the hill. He landed with a whump on his back on the one de-snowed patch on the hill and laid still.
The tom and I dashed down the hill to join the kitten, who opened his eyes, stared up at us with an accusatory expression, and said, "I TOLD you I'd get hurt!"
He wasn't hurt, just had the wind knocked out of him. But he spent the rest of the afternoon in the car, flatly refusing to even walk on the snow.
posted on January 15, 2001 03:51:48 PM new
Several years ago, my boyfriend and some of his buddies decided to go sledding. They took one of the tobaggan style plastic sleds, put a bunch of foam padding in it and sprayed WD-40 on the bottom after each run. Some how or another, there was a reporter from the local newspaper that went along with them. He refused to go after watching the first couple runs, but they almost had him convinced to go when my boyfriend took his turn. Mind you, the hill was long enough that they would pile in a car to be driven back up to the top. Anyhoo, my boyfriend hops on the sled and makes his merry way down the hill. The reporter was waiting at the bottom, so he saw the whole thing. Boyfriend is whizzing down the hill, when he suddenly has to swerve to avoid running over a child in the middle of the run. This takes him on a most undesirable path as he is now heading for a very large mogul, or should I say curb as the parking lot is on the other side. The reporter sees him get airborn. Jeff tucks his head into his arm to protect it as he quite rightly assumed that this landing was going to hurt. Unfortunately he forgets that he is wearing a pair of ski goggles when he protects his face. He lands with quite the thump and the reporter runs over to him after he stops to see if he's ok. Jeff gets up, face covered by both hands. He takes his goggles off, throws a double handful of blood and the ground and says, "Its time for a beer." The ski goggles basically cut the top part of his nose away from his face when he landed. Needless to say, the reporter started off his article with, "They said it would be fun, they said it wouldn't hurt, they said I wouldn't be scared. They lied."
And my boyfriend wonders why I won't go sledding with him.
