#16 From a new perspective

First, the intro:

My friend T-rel is one of my college buddies who also has a blog (See: Beutler in Seattle in the links to the right.) He lives in Seattle, and recently mentioned that he was going to learn to snowboard. So, he did that for me so I could cross one more thing off of my list. He called the other night to tell me that he was coming to my b-day party (WHICH WAS AWESOME. Better post on that when I get the pictures from a few other people and loaded from my camera.) Anyway, T-rel decided to write his snowboarding experience in "the voice of Rachel", and he said he had a SOTD picked out and everything, so I told him to have at it. While there was a tiny piece of me that thought, "This is where I find out that T-rel thinks I'm a moron," for the most part, I thought this would be a lot of fun. He sent me this, and I was correct. I had tears streaming down my face reading it, so I hope you enjoy the story of how "I" learned to snowboard. My comments are in blue.

In case nobody noticed I have this list of things I wanted to do before I was thirty. I figured with my summer off and family in the mountains learning to snowboard would be one of the easier options. Well I had to make a special effort to do this because my birthday is coming up really soon and you know what is awesome about a new sport? I get to go SHOPPING! I went shopping because I needed to look the part of a snowboarder and also not to freeze but that was secondary. If I’m going to meet a cutie on the mountain I need to look the part of a snowbunny. I don't talk about shopping here, do I? I don't think I'm that bad...

I’m going to detail my thought process on picking out snowboard gear.
Step 1 – I asked around to figure out what I needed to buy versus what I could rent once I got there. Result – lots of conflicting advice. Go figure. Step 2 – go to the store to shop around. Result – I didn’t buy anything but there was a cute guy who offered to help me. I’m going back tomorrow to flirt with him some more. Step 3 – return to the store to buy essentials because I was a little overwhelmed. Result – I spent way too much money buying gloves, snowpants, a jacket, and goggles. Secondary result – cute guy is dating someone. Suckage! But he wasn’t that cute on second glance anyway or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Boys are never that cute after you find out they're taken.

You might know this about me but I don’t like to embarrass myself all that much so rather than go on a busy weekend I decided to take a day off of work. The kids won’t even know I’m gone – I’m just going to give them some crayons and leave to snowboard and be back in time to hand them back to the parents. Actually, I used a vacation day and a Sub came in to handle the kids but seriously some days I think the kiddies would have no idea if I left for a few hours. Have I ever said this? It might be true. On top of the clothes I decided to take lessons with my learning to snowboard experience because, well, I figured I would rather spend the money and fall intelligently to make up ground on people who I know already snowboard. Ok, that does sound like me.

What the hell!? I have the day off I might as well kill two birds with one stone and see the Dr. before I head out to the mountain right? Well I’m not going to die so don’t ask me all worried like. That did give me a little bit later start than I wanted because you know really, who wants to fall in the afternoon when you can fall in the morning. And because I figured the earlier I went the sooner I would be going down the mountain in no time.

So I get there and it’s an awesome day – like 30 and sunny and I’m thinking how lucky it is that I randomly picked a good day. That got me thinking about how I spent an hour driving uphill the entire time because the hill I chose is on the backside of Mt. Rainier. How bad ass is that? I mean seriously there is a glacier at the top year around! Take that garbage piles in the Midwest! You suck you know that!? You’re made of garbage piled really high – ugh – how gross is that? Seriously how did they decide that making ski hills out of garbage was a good idea, I mean couldn’t you come up with something else to do with the garbage or a different substance to pile up and make a ski hill out of? This is BY FAR my favorite part. Nicely done, T-rel.

I spent money to rent a board and get two hours of instruction and it was awesome. The first they teach you is how to put on the gear – which is ironic because I had the clothes and looked like I knew what I was doing – ha – little did they know. Anyway, I had a young guy assigned to me, heretofore referred to as cute snowboard guy or CSG for short. (Hee hee! Nicknames!) CSG was great; he taught me all the basics of getting on the board, starting, stopping, turning, and most importantly looking good on my board in my awesome snow garb. I picked out some awesome stuff as it turns out. CSG was jealous but he also turned out to be a complete ski (snowboard bum) – he was 21, lived with his parents during the winter, moves to Alaska during the spring, lives on a glacier and takes gives sled dog tours to cruise ship patrons during the summer. After all that is over he takes all his money and travels overseas until he runs out of money of snowboard seasons starts again, whichever comes first. Actually, now that I think of it, I want to be him. He has no responsibilities and gets to see the world. If CSG wasn’t so young I think I would have tried to eat his face off (AWESOME.) but he also has a girlfriend of some sort. Silly Cute Snowboard Guy.

I went up and down the disco run, which is the Discovery Run, which is a green bunny hill, all day and got pretty good at some turns but the faster you go the harder you fall as well. I was a little sore in lots of places the next day but I loved it I’m totally going to back. I don’t know if I’ll take more lessons but there were some really cute guys hanging out there so it might be worthwhile to really know what I’m doing so I can chat up people on the longer chair rides.

SOTD: is going to be Aerosmith Falling In Love “Is hard on the knees” because I never knew how sore I was going to be.

T-rel- this totally made my day. I LOVE IT. Well done. Anyone else want to guest blog for me? I'm accepting submissions always.