Entries this day: water_ski

water ski

Saturday 14 August 1999

After having been up until 3am last night, I was sleeping soundly at 8am when Jason called.

"Hello?"

"What's up honky?"

"Yo Jason, what's up?"

"You wanna go water skiing with us today?"

"What? Water skiing? Um, yeah what time?"

"You gotta be at my house by 9 o'clock."

"Um, okay, it's what 7am now?" I had thought my clock said 7. It felt like 7.

"No, it's 8."

"uh oh. okay bye."

Got to his house at 8:59am.

His friends Chris and Tammy were there, and his sister Tana. We piled into my car and Tammy's car and stopped by Albertson's for ice, water, and sunscreen.

Sara works at Albertson's and she surprised me with a surprised, "hi Rob!" as I walked by. Wow! No time to talk now, but I gave her a hug and we zipped off to the boat rental place.

Jason's mom was there and we got the boat and all that.

Skiing was awesome. I haven't been in at least 10 years. I think the last time I went was at SWUUSI, when I ended up with 4 stitches below my eye when a ski popped me in the face as I fell. I've been snow skiing since then, and there's a nagging feeling that I've been water skiing since then, but I can't remember when so I say I haven't been. In either case, it's been a long time.

Jason went first; it was his birthday (the reason we were skiing at all) and he slalomed. He got up on the first try and skied for a pretty long time, although he didn't do many tricks or anything.

Chris went next and got up on the first time using both skis.

When I went, I tried one ski several times, but couldn't ever get up out of the water! Doh! So I put on both skis and had no problem. I loved zipping way outside the boat on turns, skimming across the water at super ultra jet speed. I tried a couple of tricks: letting my butt touch the water, picking up one ski, jumping over the wake (actually the boat we used wasn't that big so the wake was not much to jump), oh, and I straddled a little styrofoam bouy thing along the edge of the lake.

That reminds me- the lake water was gross. Not super deep, and stinky silty mud at the bottom that our feet just glooped right through while walking. I used the skis as "snow shoes" or silt shoes in this case when I fell and was waiting for the boat to get back to me.

That also reminds me. Each time I fell, if I was really going to wipe out well, I would cover my face and head with my arms to protect from any torpedo-like skis that might otherwise send me to the ER. I never once got hit by a ski though, so I remained unscathed. One time when I fell, I didn't really fall at first; I was about to eat-it, so I let go of the rope and just slowed to a halt and kinda tumped into the water. Very smooth fall.

A different time I fell in the middle of a super way outside the boat turn thing and couldn't handle the oncoming waves as hard as I was pulling out, plus my arms and legs were so fatigued from skiing! That was about the wildest crash I had, kinda twisted into the water and covered my head for protection.

The second time out of the boat, I tried one ski again. With much encouragement from all aboard the boat, I was finally able to do it!! It just required encouragement and a fine control of how steep to angle the ski out of the water to get me onto it. Once I was up on one ski, it was relatively easy, especially with all the cheers from the boat for my success! I barely jumped the little wake and swung outside the boat when I could. Great great fun.

Tana, Tammy and Jason's mom all chose not to ski, though they all did get into the water once to cool off, amidst lots of "gross!!! it's so gross!" cries from Tana and Tammy. The sun was baking hot on all of us and we drank lots of water. I had one SPF 30 sunscreen and still got a little burned on my shoulders.

Mom treated us all to lunch at Mannie's and it was great! I had chicen, spinach, cheese quesedillas. Even had some leftover for breakfast.

We all parted ways and I swung by Albertson's to see if Sara was still there. She was but had just finished lunch so couldn't talk super long. She invited me to watch her get a tattoo tonight. Sounded cool to me so we set up a general time and I went home.

I slept.

Sara came over, we went to the tattoo place and she spent several minutes deciding what to get. She had had a firm decision made that morning, but wasn't so determined this evening. She decided upon a yin yang symbol with fire burning up from it and the initials AH for American Humanics, an organization she volunteers and works for at University of Houston.

She dropped me off back at home and here I am. I'm going to bed. permalink