July 6, 1998

Here's the skinny on my weekend. I'm skinny. I know that's beyond ultra-corny but bear with me, there's a point buried in here.

Friday: We went out on the boat in the afternoon. Me, Mom, Dad, and Brian. Ann had something to do. Everyone but Mom skiied and it was fun. We ate Pringles and no one got any more sunburn.

Saturday: Ann's Graduation Party and the Fourth of July. Happy Birthday America...I hope I look as good at 212. This is where someone e-mails me and says "No Kathy, America is actually [blank] old" and I prove, once again, that history is NOT one of my strong points. But anyway, I watched some of the Star Trek Marathon (I saw two episodes "T'Pring is a Vulcan Bitch" and "Khan Should Have a Movie"), then picked up Grandma. The party went well, everyone ate but not nearly enough (We have SO MANY hamburgers...it's a good thing I eat meat again!). After the party two dozen people in or around my age bracket piled into cars and we tried to go to Jones Beach for the fireworks. Never try to go to Jones Beach on the Fourth of July. Go the night before and stay over until the fifth. We were on the parkway for two hours. And my house is only one exit up from the beach. Nightmare.

Sunday: My parents woke me in the early afternoon to go to the ski store. It was very strange to hop in the car with my parents and Brian....it scared me a little. But anyway...my parents bought a wakeboard. Then we went over to another place, this one was more a surf shop. I tried on wetsuits. Women's size six, children's size 16, Men's XSmall. None fit. We found a women's size 4. It's so small they don't even carry it in the catalogs. It fit like it was cut for me. And I look awesome in it. It looks just like Brian's (with minor exceptions) but mine is teal where his is slate blue. And his says "Hammer" on the side where mine says "Elite". Oh, and mine uses about half as much neoprene to cover my whole body. It's tiny, but it covers me all up. I float about three inches higher in the water with it on and I'm WARM!!!!

This is where it gets fun. We're out on the boat: the me, the parents, and the boyfriend. The day is lovely...Green Flies, seaweed, JetSkis...all the usual annoying things. It was a little windy, but the water was calm enough in parts. Brian tried out the wakeboard first. He did pretty good, he got up on his second or third try. He couldn't manage to jump the darn thing but he was moving around on it pretty well. Then I tried. I got up on my sixth or seventh agonizingly salty try. I need a nose plug. But I did get up on it. I couldn't manage to DO anything, but I stood up. Then I fell. It was fun in general. I am determined to get better at skiing. I am also going to get into kick ass shape. I will be buff.

Oooo....point. I know. I promised there was one. It's coming.

So Dad and Brian did their usual cool stuff and we saw a five year old little boy in a cute little wetsuit on a wakeboard putting all us grown ups to some SERIOUS shame as he got about six feet of air on the board. I think the only reason he fell was because he was so little he didn't have the strength to hang on over the bumps the boats made going past each other. Then after all that I decided I wanted to just ski. One ski on each foot, back and forth behind the boat. Zoink. I went once, there were too many boats to do anything fun, I fell. I tried again and Dad hit the gas too soft, I couldn't hang on to get out of the water. I tried again. Dad hit the gas harder.

This is where it's important you know I have a size seven-and-a-half foot....well, I have two of them but seriously. Seven-and-a-half. Brian has a size 12 foot. My father has a size 11. Both of them use the same skis I use. They're adjustable. The left ski gets tight enough. The right ski is a bit loose. Loose skis are bad.

Dad hit the gas. I held on tighter this time, fully intending to get up and ski. My left ski stuck with this plan. My right ski did not. Zoink. It twisted around to the outside of my body a fair amount past 90 degrees before yanking itself from my poor size seven-and-a-half foot. I sat for a moment in the seaweed that had been stirred up around me in the process of not getting out of the water despite all determination and newfound grit. Then the pain hit me. I didn't cry. I just bit my lip and lay back in the water letting the lifejacket do all the work. 'Don't let it be broken, being broken would suck too much' I thought.

The boat got back to me quickly and I tossed Brian the skis. Dad helped me into the boat (You'd be amazed that I actually CAN lift myself onto the swim platform with my two scrawny little arms and no feet). Mom gave me an ice pack and I just sat there, feeling confident in the assumption that it wasn't broken, and it just couldn't be that bad otherwise.

I, for once, was right.

I got waited on and got to sit around all Sunday but I could put weight on it by this morning. I even went to the mall with Mom to exchange the pants that didn't fit. I was limping around pretty well by tonight but it doesn't hurt if I just put it up a while. Mildly twisted. I gimped over to Brian's hockey game tonight and gimped my way up to my new mattress tonight. New mattress!!!!! It's easily four inches thicker than the old one. I tried to hop up into my bed (which is raised off the ground about three feet) as usual and found I was bounced off the side of the mattress. Not enough height. So I had to muscle (HA!!) myself up into the bed today. Ooooo...it's so nice not to feel springs!!!

So, the moral of the story is...Kathy gets hurt no matter what she does to avoid it. Next time I ski I'll be certain to wear socks to make my feet fit the skis better. And I'll be sure to jump higher when getting into bed.

Oh, and you weren't expecting to find a freakin' haiku down here, were you?