Saturday

During this particular winter holiday the general rule seems to be to gorge ones self in much the same way the Romans did, never really experiencing that hunger or empty stomach feeling between each elaborate meal after the other. As in our house, food seems to be in abundance with bowls of candy, or as my wife puts it, goodies place strategically around the various rooms to add to the Christmas spirit. Tradition being after every large lunch, you move straight into the next meal an hour later, afternoon coffee with Aunt Susan’s pound cake and half a dozen other oven baked delicacies. Not to long afterwards the dinner bell is ringing with another elegant spread of spareribs and pork loin straight out of Julia Child’s cookbook, and once again a neighbor’s fruitcake as dessert. The digestive juices in my stomach never have a time to finish their job and soon I find myself, out of habit gnawing on the armrest of the sofa.

It’s usually around this time my wife will say, “Let’s head up to the cabin and get away from it all”. Another words, what you need is a daily regiment of cross country skiing and snow shoveling to work off the Christmas joy from around your waist.

I need to add, that be no means am I over weight, in fact just the opposite. In high school, if anything, I was picked on for being skinny. Now in my middle age I look back at those very individuals with their couch potato beer guts and clogged arteries and laugh.

Unfortunately that thought will not get me out of tomorrow’s morning’s calisthenics. My wife is dragging me out of bed for an early morning ten-kilometer skate ski run up the trail and back. As she put’s it, “just because you’re middle age, doesn’t mean you can sit around on your ass!”

She is planning on us being up here for five days!

Richard Boyer