I could easily hibernate all winter. I’d just write a few hours online dressed in my robe and sleep the rest of the day, waking up only to eat starchy food. Damn The Man, making his 40 hours a week year-round. The only other way I manage to enjoy winter is to take up rigorous sports – nature walks and sledding among them. My sister and I took a walk yesterday through the Arboreteum to enjoy the last sunset of 2007. Then we partied hard for 8 hours (scrabble + champagne = party) to bring in 2008. Today, Diene and I kicked off 2008 with some sledding. It was his second sledding trip in life (the first being last week.) I am amazed by his enthusiasm because, as Amy pointed out, sledding is an activity that seems normal if you grew up doing it, but pretty asinine if you come into it with the reason of an adult. Children manage to overlook the risks of sliding down an ice hill as fast as you can, trying to steer around jumps, trees and other people, with only a sheet of plastic between you and the frozen tundra.

I am grateful for long underwear, plastic saucers 4′ in diameter, and the hill at Olbrich Park: a combination with which it is worth venturing outside.