Chapter 1 "Something Catchy to Parallel Chapter 2"

It's a new year, and I am preparing myself for yet another family vacation. This one will be different. My brother and sister are not coming, just Papa Peeples, Mama Peeples, and me.

I wake up in darkness.

I get ready.

We drive to the airport; it's a smooth trip segemented by a brief conversation with a police officer about being late, and what constitutes a "valid" excuse for breaking traffic laws. No citation. Everything is proceeding normally.

Fly with family friends.

Denver, CO. It's beautiful here. Snow has been falling constantly, like a one-legged gymnist in a floor routine. An avalanche blocks our direct path to the resort; we have to go around (please add 2 hours to your trip). I assume control of the ipod-radio. The Doobie Brothers welcome us to Winter Park. It's cold and white. A blizzard blankets the mountain in confectioner's sugar and I'm the donut that's about to be rolled around in it.

1/6 - We leave and arrive

I wake up in daybed.

At a sultry 12 below 0 F we hop in a ski lift. This ski lift hates mornings, Floridians, and moving more than 4 yards without resting for 5 minutes. I have never considered the worst place to be stuck in -12 degree weather. Now I don't have to. We make it off without frostbite or hypothermia fully setting in. Strapped to glorified splinters we slide down the mountain in approximately 1/1000th of the time it took us to get up. We repeat this behavior periodically modifying our garb to maximize modesty and warmth. Vacation has officially begun.

Lunchtime.

With a scenic view of cold people and snow, we eat overpriced food. Why did I order a Thai dish with duck at a restaurant which not only employed no Asian workers but had never in fact seen an Asian? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that sauce was ketchup based.

We continue skiing.

Chapter 2 "Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow."

It is high time I go off on my own. I hit the moguls on a black diamond called, "Columbine". Going back up the lift, I chat with a man from Miami who likes to have sex with "stupid chicks" - we haven't kept in touch. I choose a slope called "Edelweiss". I go with the gusto that not skiing since you were eleven gives you. Picking up speed, I spot a ramp of snow some kind person has fashioned at the edge of the trail. Quickly I redirect. I plot my course: a jawdropping jump followed by a quick cut left, shoot through a patch of trees and drop down a snow wall back to the slope. I go, I jump, I begin turning.

I stop to inspect a sturdy evergreen.

While lying in the snow like an abandoned G.I. Joe, I have time to reflect: "My, I hit that tree forcefully! I suspect I have broken my arm. Wait... Yep, it's broken."

It doesn't hurt too horribly at this point. Evidently, adrenaline numbs pain in addition to making you stupid. I gather my poles (my skis stayed on, somehow). No one is really around. Why start being rational now? I use the poles to hold my shattered elbow at a 90 degree angle, while I ski down the rest of the mountain hoping that I don't fall and that no jackass snowboarder cuts me off. At a flat part, I have to take my skis off and carry them with my poles in my left hand while my broken right arm dangles at my side. I approach a ski station at the bottom of the mountain.

"Excuse me..?"

"Yep?"

"Where do you go for a broken arm?"

"Do you have a broken arm?"

"I think so..."

Reclining on his apparently operational snowmobile, "There's a clinic just over that hill, behind the lift."

"...thanks."

1/7 - comminuted fracture of the proximal ulna

Surgery required.

I now have a stainless steal plate screwed into my arm, and typing this is incredibly painful. I should probably ask the physical therapist (who I start seeing tomorrow) if typing's okay.