And apparently the plan for me is to slow down for awhile. During just the loveliest of weekend getaways (this time to Lake Tahoe) I endured an unfortunate ski injury – complete ACL and partial meniscus tears in my right knee. (Side note: I remember so very little of my highschool education, yet I do remember having to memorize just about every part of the human body in my Anatomy class, including the meniscus. I succeeded in remembering it for the test by breaking it down into three smaller words: Men Is Cus, but since Cus isn’t an actual word, in my head I changed it to ghetto slang…”Men Is…’Cuz!” Because I’m sure they say that all the time in the hood. Hey, it helped me ace my test and don’t lie, you’ve come up with equally ridiculous ways of memorizing things you’d never need to know except for the 90 minutes it takes to finish the exam.) Anyway, back to the incident. I wish I had a better story, but nope. I was skiing and I fell. Skiing within my abilities, even. In fact, I had just made the responsible decision when it happened: Sean took to the right hand side where the deadly little hard-packed moguls were and I opted for the seemingly “safe” left side run where the snow was smoother and the trees gave me plenty of room to not wrap a ski around one of them. My skis crossed, I fell and OH, DID MY KNEE HURT!!! I was yelling in pain, a man somewhere in the distance was asking if I was okay (please let it be my husband who for once did not fireball himself all the way down the mountain) and my head was facing down the mountain so surely I was only moments away from helplessly sliding headfirst into a tree. The man’s voice became closer – it WAS Sean!! Thank goodness! Thank goodness he was there for the whole ordeal and I didn’t end up like the woman who arrived at the ER moments before me with a broken pelvis and no idea where her husband was. Surprisingly my pain went away within minutes and for a quick moment I thought, “just another almost skiing fiasco by yours truly but hey, it looks like this might be no big deal.” Dead wrong. As soon as I stood, my knee gave out. Shit. Guess there’s only one way I’m getting off this mountain and it’s by ski patrol and everyone we roll by will wonder if I’m dead or unconscious. Or maybe just a lady with a blown out knee as it would turn out. I will say that the run down in the ski patrol sled was a blast!! I was giggling like a toddler the whole way down. I’ve been home now for a few days and reality has had a chance to settle in. I’ve seen the ortho, I’ll have surgery in about a week, but the good news is that the recovery isn’t too bad. I’ll hopefully be walking a week after surgery, running after 3 months and skiing after 6 months. 

The timing really couldn’t be better. It came after our big trip to Maui, toward the end of the ski season and with enough time between now and summer to be able to dust off my hiking boots without missing a beat. And I’ve been running and running and running it seems from one thing to the next lately. Packing, unpacking, washing, repacking, coming, going, flying, driving. It’s time for a break and it’s a relatively welcome one. I could have done without the consequence of the required surgical reconstruction of a major body part, but if you know me at all, you know that’s pretty much what it takes to slow me down. It’s impossible for me to be still unless it’s forced. I think in a small, certainly non-malicious way, Sean is pleased with our current situation. He adapts very well to the primary caretaker role and I think he takes an almost unhealthy pleasure in watching me sit down. The kids seem to be adapting well also and they are very careful around “mommy’s bad leg.” Kellan has even developed a sympathetic bad leg syndrome that renders him suddenly and completely incapable of getting ready for school in the morning. 

An injury like this one is definitely a test of one’s belief in silver linings, but who has time for depression? I mean that question seriously: Who actually has the time to be depressed? There is just so much to get done – drawers and closets need to be organized, recipes need to be mastered and healthy eating plans developed, more hours need to be put toward building customer relationships and I can finally get around to doing my expense reports. So maybe slowing down for me isn’t really slowing down, but I do like the idea of being homebound for a few months. The domestic goddess inside is calling…