Skiing IS Freaking Me OUT!

Two planks on the bottom of my feet
        and a gentle push down a mountain they label "blue."

                    Whooooaaaa...whaaaa?!

Yes, so here I am, a Florida girl of Caribbean descent, pondering what to pack for skiing.  I have never, ever, ever, skied before.  I leave tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. and it is only Maine - not the 12,000 foot elevations of Colorado or the Swiss Alps, I am scared.
Very.

I am more terrified of skiing and hurting my knee or something because of my scheduled first full marathon in Chicago...I kinda have been a bit cautious....(I make sure the floor is not wet when I get out of the shower, cautious). Plain and simple, I do not want to get hurt.

I know of people that get injured, no wait, killed, while tempting that sport we all call "skiing."  Sonny Bono died at, ironically, Heavenly Ski Resort in Nevada, because he smacked into a tree in Wylie Coyote fashion.  Michael Kennedy died a year before him in Aspen, Colorado, again, a tree *whack!* Goodnight!

How 'bout Natasha Richardson?  Pretty actress married to Liam Nielson, remembered for her role in the Parent Trap, a Disney movie where once cute Lindsey Lohan played BOTH of her twin daughters?  Yeah, she gone....how?  Well, during a ski lesson....on the bunny slope....she gently falls and hits her head, gets up, walks away with a mere headache - decides to go back to her hotel room and take a "killer" nap.  Seriously that one freaked me out!!  

You do not want to be a wuss, but dang, how many times do we bump our heads and we do not rush to the ER?  Only because you do not want to sit there for hours and hours to finally have the intake nurse ask: "You are here for what?  You're serious?!  You mean to telllll me, that YOU are here wasting MY time because....because you bumped your little head?!"

Umm. Yes?

Let's not even go with Sarah Burke, come on!!! 

Here is a chick that lives, eats and poops adrenaline.  She probably began skiing soon after taking her first baby steps!  Seriously, as the photo above demonstrates, she made skiing looks so darn easy.  Yet she died demonstrating a half pipe or something crazy like that during an X-Games break, for her Monster Energy Drink Sponsor.  She has done this trick more than a dozen times. She was a bad-ass! "Was" being the key word.

Sara Burke Photo by: Alessandro Garofalo/Files, Reuters

So pray for me, please!  Know that I WILL wear a helmet.  Pray that I will have the courage to try the slopes after surviving the ski school lesson on day one (Surpassing the curse of Natasha). That I do NOT wuss out and honestly try to like it (channel my inner Sarah).  If after, I feel totally unsecured about not injuring myself, then I am going to *gasp* fake an injury, so I can just hang out at the toasty lodge with a good book and a hot toddy....because I do not want to end up like that guy below:

Dang....OUCH!!!!!!!!  Sometimes a girl has gotta do what she's gotta do!