Yuletide Freeze

Okay.  Christmas is over. Here is what I did last night, just before I went to bed, to make it official:  I took the Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies out of the fridge, poured water over it, and let it sit overnight.  I am DONE.  Done with overindulging, with mindless eating, with the faint headache that comes with sugar coursing through my veins.  I'm due to have bloodwork drawn on Friday.  Will my daily five-mile walks be reflected in those numbers at all??  I shudder to think what my cholesterol will read.  I really don't know how this works -- whether the results are cumulative or can spike alarmingly -- but I do remember way back in my 30s, I had bloodwork drawn, the cholesterol was a little high (it never had been before), and I suddenly remembered my trip to KFC the night before.  Well, I'll deal with it.  All I can do is just get back on track, starting today.

I had intended to let Christmas day be my day off for this last week, but after dinner, I felt a little stir-crazy, and Banks seemed restless.  Not only that, I have to be in Houston for a memorial service on Friday and Saturday, and doing the math, it's hard to figure out where the walk will fit in.  The much-anticipated cold front arrived late in the afternoon, and the temperature dropped steadily. I put on my warmest hoodie, but couldn't find my my gloves, so I put on a pair of thick black athletic socks which did a great job. 

Somewhere back in the winter days of this blog, I think I said something about how, no matter how cold it was starting out, I always end up taking off my gloves.  Not this walk -- oh, it was freezing!  Overnight the temps dropped to the high 20s, and I'm not sure how low the mercury was when Banks and I went to St. Ed's around 7:00 last night, but it was as cold as any walk I remember.  I knew St. Ed's would be deserted, and it was.  I did not see one human walking around the entire hour and a half, and only two cars, one of them a St. Ed's police cruiser.  Once we covered sufficient ground, we ended up back at the soccer field, and of course I let Banks go off leash, even during our treks up the steep hill; he happily romped around the street and the yards overlooking the track, occasionally stealing a glance up at me like "Am I really allowed to do this?"

The best part of the whole night was that we -- and apparently we alone -- were the audience at a beautiful bell concert of Christmas carols.  It came from one of the buildings, but I couldn't tell which one.  How do they do that?  It was definintely clanging bells, not a recording.  And it was beautiful and magical in the midst of the cold and the dark.  A perfect way to end Christmas.