Morning all. For me this is the end of the week. I will be cooking like crazy this afternoon and then enjoying Thanksgiving (and more cooking ) tomorrow with left overs and family until Sunday. So later this morning there will be a list of upcoming prompts for next week. )I’ll include the Thursday and Friday ones for this week incase you don’t want to flip back to last Friday’s list. But for now, to the prompt!
Not where I thought this was going.
Wednesday, November 26th: Sweat beaded her brow.
Sweat beaded her brow. It was hot. Why had no one warned her it was going to be hot. She saw the pictures, saw the others having fun enjoying themselves. No one ever mentioned it would be hot.
‘And who would ever think it was going to be hot with all this snow around?’
That was the rub. She was surrounded by snow. She saw a thick blanket of white in every direction. There was some brown and green from the trees, but mostly it was white. She was dressed in more layers than she thought she could put on at one time and felt a bit like she had been inflated. Her movements were a little stiff but she managed to get through the ski instructor’s brief lesson.
She was welcome to pay for additional lessons but this one came free with the booking and gave her the basics. She figured she’d try out the basics and then if she needed further assistance, she could talk about additional lessons.
To her surprise, when she went to the top of the beginner slope, she enjoyed herself. She liked the ski lift the most, considering it the best part of the slopes. The skiing down just felt like the consequence of taking the ski lift up. All in all she thought it poor planning. After all, why couldn’t the ride go in a circle for those who wanted to enjoy the view but not actually ski?
That didn’t seem to be a possibility and she was certain after the few conversations she had that it would be viewed as blasphemy by the others. The lift was a tool, the skiing was the point. She disagreed, but it was a ski lodge.
Throughout the day she grew comfortable enough with the beginners slopes that she decided to try the intermediate ones. The view was better and while she thought the view would be spectacular on the ride up to the expert level slopes, she wasn’t foolish enough to try them and contented herself with the intermediate ones.
The wind was cold on her face but every other part of her was sweating. She did not care for that and by the time she returned from a day going up and down the mountain side, the contrast of hot skin and freezing face made her feel like she was coming down with some sort of illness. She returned to the lodge and after setting the skis aside, she returned to her room. A shower soon rinsed off the sweat, the steam heating her face until all of her body was once again the same temperature, or roughly so.
She felt better although she suspected that her legs would be achy in the morning. Clean and freshly redressed she went down to the dining room. She was waved over to her group and she took a seat. Dean was from marketing, Sam from development, Jane from HR. Theoretically she knew they also had titles like director or vp but she had never been able to keep all of the titles straight. Their divisions only occasionally interacted with hers, so she knew them in passing but not well.
Theoretically this retreat was to get them all mixing and mingling so no one was with their own division. Of her division, she was the only one in attendance. When it was proposed all of them came up with excuses as to why they couldn’t attend. The CEO insisted one of them attend and they drew names out of a hat. Hers was pulled and thus, here she was.
Ten til Midnight 