The funeral is on Friday.

In other news, we went snowboarding on Tuesday, the legendary busiest day of the year. It was snowing, which resulted in some driving challenges for my brother. Unaccostomed to snow, he bravely trucked along in his Honda Accord, dodging idiots who haphazardly parked in the road leading to the parking lot to PUT CHAINS ON THEIR ALL WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES. Their stupidity pained Josh and I, well-weathered Coloradoans for five years, who plowed through many a snow storm in our tiny, squirrely, Honda Civic. Granted, Sam had chains in the trunk on the rare occasion that the snow reached a slipping level that merited us getting out and pulling the monstrosities onto the tires like a pair of chain mail pants. Josh was really excellent in coaching Sam along the turns and I noticed that my bro does something exactly like I do when he’s nervous: Break into song. (“I’m paaaasssing this big truck, la-la-la! I’m speeeding past this big semi, la-la-la!”)

Anyway we made it to Mount Hood Meadows where we performed the getting ready ritual in the parking lot while listening to nearby teeny boppers blasting their music out of their shitty cars and swear and smoke weed. It was funny only because there was a time when Josh and I were known to crank up the punk rock while we prepared for the mountains and maybe drink a beer, but those days are certainly over and I was kicking myself for not bringing my latest cd crush: “Mr. Party” by Chuy Jr, a spanish rap artist from LA. Singing “Mr. Party” would have definitely made us some enemies in the parking lot of Hood.

Here comes the inevitable: I realized the difference between Colorado snow and Oregon snow. Back in CO the term ’snowing’ means that the mountain is gently being covered by a light blanket of fluffy white powder. Everyone is cheered as they ride the lift because they know their descent will be rewarded with banks of light snow; the flakes rest on your shoulders before sailing off into the abyss. In OR, ’snowing’ means a hard mixture of ice and rain combines to make the fattest, meanest, flakes you’ve ever endured. Pelting us like merciful fists, the snow attacked us as we bravely put our heads down and rode the lift into the clouds. The snow did not bounce off us, but stuck to our clothing and melted, leaving us wet and sopping. I’ve never been super into the “Pow-Pow”, preferring my trails to be well groomed and soft. Sam and I battled the powder inexpertly, frequetly catching the nose of our snowboards and falling into the icy fluff. Sam actually cheered me on as I dug myself out of an impressive drift, swearing, and getting snow down the back of my pants–I envied Sam and his new snowboard bibs.

This ties into what I used to make fun of, now seems to be very reasonable and practical. When I first started learning in the tightly knit Summit County community, I wanted to purchase a pair of snowboard bibs, the kind that go all the way up to your arm pits but Josh wouldn’t let me. Getting snow down your butt is a right of passage, he said–or maybe he implied this. At any rate, I didn’t get bibs and I learned how to snowboard without falling every five seconds, thus avoiding the snow-down-the-pants syndrom. This leads me to the second thing I used to scoff at: leashes. They hook onto you boot and board so that you don’t loose your equipment.

Which comes to the meat of my story. While riding the lift up midway through the day, I suddenly felt my board shift and slither away ONLY TO FALL INTO THE SNOWY DEPTHS BELOW ME. That’s right: I lost my board. My bindings were loosened before I got on the lift to prevent my right foot from having the circulation cut off and my board simply slipped out from under me. Let me tell you, it’s the most horrible feeling in the world. You expect when you loose a heavy peice of equipment like a snowboard to hear a crash and/or boom. But I have to report that it was the most silent and creepy experience ever, feeling hardly anything and then suddenly being stuck on a ski lift with nothing attached to my boot. Sam was riding behind us and barely saw the board land in a powder of snow in an abandon part of the trail near a tree. Of course, I’m lucky I didn’t take anybody out below me, or that the board fell and took off down the side of the mountain to end up God knows where. At any rate, I had to jump off the lift when we arrived at the top and run straight to the lift operator’s booth. Josh took off on an imediate search for the board leaving my brother to watch me fret and freak out while waiting for the ski patrol to join the search for the lost board. The lift operator felt bad and gave me a piece of candy. I became distraught at the idea of my husband plowing through the uncharted forest looking for my lost board. I envisioned Josh wandering through the roped off sections of the run and falling into a tree well. I called him repeatedly on his cell, leaving him threatening, “You get back here right now” messages. Finally, he called me back and said, “I have your snowboard.”

This is nothing short of a miracle. It also made Josh a total hero in my eyes. He had waded through waist deep snow, taking one deep step at a time, until he reached the tree where my board had landed. Only an inch of the nose was peeking out over the snow, the board was sticking straight into the ground, and only a keen eye would have been able to find it. I never, ever, expected to actually find my snowboard. I considered it lost forever. I fully intended to take the “lift ride of shame” back down to the lodge. Did I mention that it was a brand new snowboard and that this was the first day I rode it? Or that my bindings were only a few months old as well? I still rode the lift down to meet Josh at the bottom of the run and I advised any and all snowboarders who passed me going up to wear their leashes. My stomach was still in twisty knots throughout the day, the feeling of sick still creeping up on me even as Josh handed me back my board. We rode the rest of the day until our clothing gave in and became sopping wet.
Valuable lesson learned: wear a leash. And if you do lose your board, hope that Josh is with you.