My whole body aches...

...and no it has nothing to do with nights out in the barn with Pepe el Romano (shout out for that one goes to anyone who remembers Bernarda Alba--man I miss you guys).

It's Tuesday and I'm still feeling the effects of my weekend in my legs, back, and arms. Plus, my legs are all cut up and there's a tear in my nose piercing. And I feel absolutely fabulous.

I'll explain: for my birthday, my parents helped me pay for a weekend trip with the Quest to Mammoth to go skiing. It's been two years since I skied last, and it was totally killing me--I missed it so much! So on day one (Friday), Derek arrived at my house at 4:45 am to pick me up, then we headed over to Kimmie's to get her and Lauren. We rode up the five hours in his parent's minivan with the girls taking a row each in the back and Derek and I took the mom and dad seats up front. I felt especially maternal when we stopped for breakfast and I woke up the girls, who wanted to know if we were there yet. When we finally arrive, Kimmie and Derek did a half-day while Lauren and I had some great chat time in the village.

Injury Number One strikes the first evening, pre-mountain time. A group of us is sitting in the hot tub when Niko dares me to climb the metal fence next to us. In a moment of sheer brilliance, I reply, "I'll do it if you do it." So when he agrees, my pride won't let me go back on my words and the two of us climb on top of the railing, count to three, and jump. Mind you, I'm in my bathing suit right now, so it's very cold. His exact words were something about "face-planting" in the snow bank, but instead of attempting a full-on belly flop, I opt to pounce on my hands and knees, not at all worried about the fall (but rather the cold) because I assume the snow will give a little. It doesn't. By now, I'm shaking because it's freezing, but I manage to stand up and try to get down the fence. That's when I look down at my legs and realize there is blood all over them. Uh...awkward... For the first 30 minutes or so the pain is numbed by my pride and the amusement I feel in doing something stupid at the risk of my body's safety. For whatever reason, I kind of like the part of me that rashly and passionately attempts things without thinking them through. Kind of like Peter who jumps out of the boat to walk on the water to Jesus (when passion works in my favor) or draws his sword to cut off the ear of the guys trying to arrest Jesus (when passion makes me do something stupid on a whim--see also the teeth whitening and Nair incidents). But I digress...my second injury for the weekend comes a couple of hours later. Kimmie, Lauren and I have a room together in one of the condos where we share a king-sized bed. Around the time we are ready to go to sleep, Jared, Bryan, and Mike show up and want to come hang out. Somehow amidst all the talking, we get into a wrestling match (this happens to me much more often that you'd think) in which I lose my glasses. Just after I'm deprived of all sense of vision, my nose ring snags on something and Kimmie and I go tumbling into a heap on the floor. As I lie there partially winded, I ask if my nose is bleeding. It was...and not in the traditional I-got-punched-hard kind of way, but instead I've got USC cardinal dripping from the tiny diamond look-a-like. Not cool. Luckily it was only a small tear, which after rinsing by putting my face under the faucet, finally clotted and is now on it's way to healing. These events pretty much sum up my pre-mountain time on Friday.

On to day two...driving up to the mountain, I was almost in tears of joy and excitement. I got my skis and headed up with Derek, Bryan and Mike. Mike, who has been skiing with his instructor/father since he was five, gave me some tips on perfecting my form. By the end of the day, I was markedly better and VERY sore/exhausted. Kimmie joined us in the afternoon, but we lost Derek to the ski patrol on the last run of the day. No...he wasn't injured...but he had to fill out a report about the poor girl he bashed in the back, full-speed. To his credit, she cut right in front of him at the last second, and there was no way for him to avoid a collision except to yell, "Watch out!" after it was already too late. She ended up ok, though, and we finally got to the car to head home. The evening was filled with great conversations and worship time with the rest of the group. I probably hit my bed around 2.

Day three started a little slower. I already had a full day pass for Sunday, but no one in my group was going in the morning. No need to waste a good day of skiing, I headed out on my own (hope Mom and Dad aren't reading this). With my iPod as company, I attacked the mountain good and hard. Really hard, actually. I didn't really pay attention to the map, but just followed trails and lifts that looked fun. So I get around to lift 9, which if you know Mammoth you will notice as foreshadowing what comes next, and as I'm riding up, I look down at the runs below me. I see trees. And if you know me, you know that there's nothing I love more than cruising the tree line. I plan to take that run, and at the top, I turn left, disregarding the Experts Only sign, thinking, I'm good at trees...this won't be too bad. Well it wasn't...once I got down to the actual trees. The first part, however, was miserable--super steep with intense moguls. To really do the run properly required great form (read: holding self in a wall-sit position, sans the wall), which nearly killed my already dead legs. After finally making it down--without crying, by the way--I opted to chose a different lift and moved to slopes that were more my size. Lunch came and went, then Mike and Bryan called to meet up with me. We cruised the gondola for a run at the peak, which Mike promised would be easier for me than I expected it to be. Really, he was right about it being easy for me...it didn't turn out quite so easy for him though. He went ahead of me to coach me down and I started wide turns. It sort of went like this:
"Mike there's no way I can do this. I'm getting freaked out."
"Meredith. You can do this. You're fine."
Mere makes a turn, loses control, loses confidence, and keels over on her side.
"It's really steep, Mike. I've lost all confidence."
"You can do this!"
Mere makes another turn, keeps slight control, coasts way-the-hell across the mountain, tries for another turn, same thing.
"Ok, Meredith, make another turn and come down to where I'm standing."
And this is where the story gets fun...I'm turning and speeding up, so I cut parallel to the mountain, again planning to coast as long as it takes to slow me down. Thinking I'll cut right above Mike, I head his direction, only what I don't realize is that I'm sliding downward much more than it seems, which sets me on a bee-line strait into Mike.
"You're ok Meredith. I got you."
But he didn't. I guess technically I got him. I slid pretty fast into him and took out his legs. We were a mass of skis, poles, legs, and perfectly shaped eyebrows. I half expected to pick up snow and roll all the way to the bottom of the mountain as a massive snowball like they always do in cartoons. No such luck. We did manage to skid about thirty feet or so and I lost a ski and a pole. A nice man picked up my pole to bring it down to me. Then his ten year old daughter came down with my ski. Awkward. The rest of the way down went fine. Mike opted to go all the way to the bottom so I wouldn't hit him again. So I guess this means I'm a fairly competent skier...just not so good with obstacles... We finished up the day with some more blue/blacks and I did a great black mogul run and found that I actually kind of like them. After the lifts closed, we maneuvered back to the Lodge where my final mountain moment involved the wind over-drying my contacts so much that they shriveled almost to clover shape and I had to ditch them. Half blind, we gondola-ed back to the village where I soothed my sad self with Starbucks.

Thus ends our adventures up at Mammoth. Expensive but well worth it. Arguably the best birthday ever.