A view of the cosmos from flat on my back

“Hey Mike, what did you get up to yesterday?”

“Oh, not much. Worked, then went skiing.”

“Oh, you ski?”

“I DO NOW!”

– Imagined dialogue if someone asked me, “Hey Mike, what did you get up to yesterday?”

So, yes. ‘Tis true. I went skiing. For the first. Time. EVER.

At least I tried. I’m not sure if I actually accomplished any skiing, but I flailed like a grand mal seizure victim for a good two hours, which is excellent cardio, just so you know. Anyway, it turns out that cross country skate skiing is intrinsically difficult. Almost ludicrously so, especially for an uncoordinated person like me.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. This happened last night, too, and when I got ahead of myself, no amount of flailing would counteract my quick descent from being more or less perpendicular to the planet’s surface.

“How did you get skis, Mike?” You might ask. You might also ask what color said skis are. I’ll get to that.

It turns out that the Word on the Street is that I’m trying to learn to ski this winter. It also turns out that School Board Member and Master of the Tsalteshi Trails Mr. Bill Holt has an ear for such things. When he learned of my enthusiasm for all things ski and my then-skiless circumstances, he swept in to rectify the situation.

“So, he let you borrow a pair of skis?” You might ask. He did not.

HE LET ME USE THREE PAIRS. He recommended that I don’t try them all at once. Which is sensible, as I have a limited number of appendages to enski.

So, with temperatures hovering around a balmy 7 degrees Farenheit, I arrived at the trails with one of the pairs of skis. They were blue, thanks for asking. Rather like my hands, initially. However, we must never underestimate the energy consumption required to flail spectacularly. And flail spectacularly I did. Others there “learning” with me must have thought I had mistakenly dropped a cattle prod down my trousers, such was the extent of my gyrations. All I was doing was attempting to stay upright. To this end I was not very successful.

I fell. A lot. The most impressive wipeout ended with my headlamp being jettisoned forcefully from my person. I did give this moment pause to consider the Universe. Particularly Jupiter’s spatial relation to the Moon. A lovely thing to consider as I ran a checklist of Body Parts That Were Undamaged From the Fall.

While considering my version of Newton’s First Law of Motion, “A Mike on his back tends to stay on his back,” the situation was made more ego-damaging by my work colleague Jordan, who screeched around the course like an Olympian, stopping ever-so-often to complain about how “out of shape” he was before rocketing around the snow at absurdly unfair velocities.

At least I know it’s possible. On that topic, I’m thinking of trying another pair of skis. It just so happens that one of the other pairs of skis are pink. Not just pink. Very pink. Henceforth, they will be known as:

THE PINK BLADES OF JUSTICE

But I’m not quite ready for them yet. I think I’ll need a few more lessons on how to flail less and ski more before I can rock the PBo’Js.

If you see me on the trails, please do not call the paramedics, I flail naturally. Feel free to join me. From my prone vantage point, Jupiter is just lovely.