1) It’s
way back in January, 2012. You live in Fairbanks Alaska,
in a small cabin with no plumbing. As a research professor, you do a lot of
professing – mostly about climate change, and how it is causing Alaska to catch fire,
melt, and sink into the swamp – sometimes all at the same time. However,
climate change notwithstanding, it's forty-six below zero here in Fairbanks. The sun did not rise more than one degree
above the horizon during its brief visit today. What should you do?
If you head out for a session of vigorous skiing with an athletic group
of friends (or perhaps strangers -- it’s hard to tell under the balaclavas), go
to 5. If you load yourself, your marvelous husband, and your
knock-knock-joke-telling twins on a plane headed south, go to 8.
2) Yes,
sugar works wonders as a motivator.
Following in this precedent, lollipops and candy corn are major factors
in powering the twins -- along with one of their little buddies -- through
their first 10k race, the Midnight Sun Run. The three pipsqueaks breeze across
the finish line, Cinderella-like, at the stroke of midnight.
If you think that the logical next step would be sign up the same three
six-year-olds sign for the Kids’ Equinox Marathon – and also take them over ten miles of mountainous, wind-blown
trail to Tolovana Hot Springs –try 3. If
you’d like this narrative to return to yourself, take an egotistical hop to 6.
3) Sure,
why not? Kids love hiking! Entertainment along the trail is varied, but
includes a strong focus on out-of-key singing and name-carving on
tree-fungus.
If you decide that car-camping might have been a better idea, go to 4. If you’d prefer to do something deeply
startling and irresponsible, try 7.
4) Excellent
choice. The sun is shining, and given that it’s mid-May, the river ice has all
but disappeared. We’re in that brief ten
minutes of calm before the mosquitoes appear in full force, so it’s the perfect
time for some quality outdoor time with a veritable gaggle of friends. Remember, socializing is important, now that
you’ve reached those Middle Years. It’s
not like college, y’know, where you tripped over like-minded nerds in every
lecture hall.
If you want to broaden your social horizons by hanging out with the
parents of other hip-high people, proceed to 9.
If you just want to regress and dig up all those old college friends
again (and not only via Facebook), try 10.
5) Excellent
choice. After all, you’re training for a
couple of hundred-mile ski races – one in February and one in March – as well
as a hundred-mile mountain bike race in June, a half-ironman triathlon in July,
and a trail-marathon over a mountain in September. You wouldn’t want to completely embarrass
yourself at every single one of these events, would you? Um, would you?
If you proceed with your exercise regimen by skiing amongst your friends' houses, stopping at each abode to
eat cookies and/or peculiar European boxed fruitcake, go to 2. If the rest of your training consists of
bike-commuting three or four miles to work and hiking at a 1mph pace with your
offspring, go to 3.
6) Ok…it’s
your fortieth birthday! Time to party!
If you decide to celebrate your maturity by going camping with a horde
of small children (what – you thought this was all about you?), go to 4. If
you’d prefer to have an entertaining midlife crisis that leads to the sort of
behavior that could not possibly be included in a holiday letter, try 7.
7) Oh,
for heaven’s sake, what did you expect to find here? Go back to 4.
8) Welcome
to the southern realms! Arches
National Park is,
according to the rangers, inhospitably cold in January. But given that it’s about 100 degrees warmer
than Fairbanks,
you’re not complaining. After a fine
start during which one of your kids pukes in your amazingly uncomplaining
brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s kitchen, you drag along the twins -- plus
their six cousins -- for some fantastic vistas, breathtaking rock formations,
and desert hiking.
When the four-year-old nephew proves uncertain that he likes hoofing it
for mile after mile, and the older kids are leery of heights, should you (5)
provide piggy-back rides, or (2) hand out more gummi-worms?
9) Great!
There are so many eminently entertaining, immensely time-consuming, and
irredeemably messy things to do with kids and their doting caregivers. You wallow in kettle corn at the fair. You commit yourself to orchestrating a very
crimson made-up holiday called Cranberry Festival. You trudge the snowy streets with a herd of
chubby-looking creatures on Halloween. You hob-nob at birthday parties – chilly
pool parties, violent piñata parties, and one at which you pretend to be
Minerva McGonagall.
As the year draws to a close, should you and a friend volunteer to
co-lead a table at the University Park
Elementary holiday craft fair? If so, go
to 11. If you’d prefer to drag your
parent-friends into a six-gingerbread-house baking fest, go to 12.
10)
Conveniently, a college friend is getting married, and he
and his fantastic bride have invited a large percentage of your college friends
to a gorgeous retreat in Monterey
California. Best of all, it turns out that everyone is
just as much of a dork as they were back in 1994. Major themes include doing jigsaw puzzles, playing Apples to
Apples, and flying kites.
If you decide to leave the kids
with a babysitter and join the friends playing mock-Jeopardy, proceed to
11. If you take the kids whale-watching,
go on to 11 anyhow.
11)
Mercifully, you have one child who does not end up either
freaking out or vomiting at this event.
Too bad about the other one.
If you still think you might be able to make something of this year --
and yourself -- through zealous use of humor, irrational optimism, and limited
sleep, dive right into 12. However, if
you have entirely given up on the concepts of sustained accomplishment and
personal dignity, go straight to 13.
12)
Time flies, and it’s Solstice. The good news is, you’ve almost made it to 2013! The bad news is, it’s forty-six degrees below
zero again, and the sun is once again only up for three and a half hours each
day.
If you decide, weather be darned, to attend
two different outdoor Solstice parties, both of which involve regressive
behavior and setting things on fire, go to 14.
If you choose to take part in a dawn-to-dusk race in which you hoof it up
and down West Ridge for eighteen miles in temperatures known to congeal propane,
go to 14 anyhow. And if you decide to
bake three pecan pies, roast chestnuts, and sew handmade gifts for everyone in your
13-person community all in the space of 48 hours… still go to 14.
13)
I kind of thought I’d find you here – either that, or
hanging out at 7.
Ok, fine. Go check on 7 again,
then proceed to 14.
14)
Collapse on the window seat in a thermal sweatshirt
with stains all down the front. Gaze
helplessly at the piles of laundry, odd mittens, and overdue library books. Eat
a large hunk of baking chocolate and a handful of Zippy Zoo vitamins. Write a Holiday Letter.
THE END
Happy holidays everyone. Best wishes for an exhilarating, hilarious,
and fulfilling 2013. And to all a good
night.
No comments:
Post a Comment