As the sun heads south, nights are longer than days, and the temps settle to the colder side of freezing, sleep becomes irresistible. When the darkness of 5pm rolls around, it feels like bedtime, and I long to be a bear so I can hibernate.

The thing is, we humans simply don't have what it takes to hibernate. Recent research shows hibernation to be more complex than simply taking a nap, and that there are some promising implications for human health. 

Toward summer’s end and all autumn long, bears consume roughly 20,000 calories a day to attain the necessary fat to get through their extended winter nap. In Colorado, black bears (which can be cinnamon, brown or even blonde - black is the species name) head to their dens sometime in November. Part of that hibernation signal has to do with their food being unavailable: their natural diet consists mainly of grasses, berries, fruits, nuts and plants, with insects and scavenged carcasses filling in the rest. 
Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Living with Wildlife - Bears  (scroll down for “Black Bears at a Glance info and resources)

During hibernation from approximately November to mid-March, bears do not eat or drink, and their heart and breathing rate slow to about 75% of normal. Unique to hibernating animals, their body temperature does not drop very much. 

We humans were not made to hibernate. Two obvious problems for us taking a months-long snooze: bone loss and brain dysfunction. Interestingly, scientists have found that bears turn off the genes associated with bone loss during hibernation. Regarding brain function, there are tau proteins that cause tangles in the brains of humans with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Hibernating bears (and squirrels) also accumulate tau proteins in their brains. When they come out of hibernation though, the tau proteins clear, and their brain function is up and running as they emerge into spring. The implications for humans regarding both brain function and bone loss are encouraging, and research continues.
Smithsonian Magazine Article: Why Amazing Discoveries About Bear Hibernation May Help Improve Human Health

So how’s a non-hibernating human to get through winter? With, among other things, a lot of light. Anything from a light therapy lamp to an alarm that mimics the sun rising, to getting outside first thing - the important part is to set circadian rhythms by exposure to light. Since darkness encourages the body’s production of melatonin, getting out for midday or afternoon walks can be beneficial for afternoon fatigue. Sticking with a sleep routine, eating nutritious foods, drinking plenty of water and cutting screen time at least an hour before bed are all suggestions we’ve heard before, but worth repeating. Getting solid shut-eye, and bolstering your health with good choices 80% of the time will set you (and me) up for enjoying winter instead of slogging through it.
New York Times Article: How Not to Feel Dead Tired This Winter

​Early-morning winter runs bring lovely gifts. The stars twinkling brightly from the deep black sky. The sharp and comforting scent of piney-rosemary in the clear cold air. The soft, low “who?-who?” of the owls. The feel of spacious quiet in the pre-dawn. 

There are some mornings when the sun is making itself known toward the end of my trek, and I’m taking my last few strides under a golden pink sky. On those occasions, I encounter a man walking his dog. 

This is no run-of-the-mill human-dog pair. The man is very tall, his posture erect but not rigid. He moves smoothly, with a certain grace. His gait is measured, steady, long legs setting a consistent pace. They say dogs and their guardians look alike, and it is true in this case. Strolling alongside the man is a Harlequin Great Dane - a long, tall and slender canine sporting a white coat with large black patches. The dog moves fluidly, its sleek body both elegant and athletic.

Remarkably, there is a flock of birds that surrounds and trails the duo in a cloud of wings and beaks. Mostly magpies and crows, the birds swoop, land, peck the road and lift into the air again, cawing and calling in a whir of circular motion. It is a wonder to behold: man, dog, birds, all moving along in an unlikely tableau. 

The man seems oblivious, his calm poker face giving nothing away. Looking more closely, though, I spy his hand reaching into a rectangular canvas bag that hangs from his shoulder. It seems he is giving something away: birdseed. 

He is scattering the seed behind him as they walk. He does not look around to witness the avian stir he’s causing, but the Great Dane sure does. The dog is trying so hard to be on best behavior, doing its utmost to step along with the aristocratic nonchalance of the man. But the dog’s curiosity wins out, head swiveling from one side to the other, then looking up at the man, head cocked as if to say: “But…the birds? Chase? Bark? At the birds?”

The man ignores the birds and ignores the dog. He continues to walk along. Is he training the dog to eventually ignore the birds as well? Does he enjoy the company of these feathered friends? Or perhaps, like the Bird Woman in Mary Poppins, he is demonstrating kindness and caring in this simple yet profound way, feeding the birds.

​Thanksgiving is here. That means turkeys are the main focus: running races (Turkey Trots), pre-orders at the grocery store or meat vendor, discussions of how to thaw, how to cook, to brine or not to brine, to deep fry or rotisserie, and so on. 

My Thanksgivings growing up in southern California had a fairly set pattern. We left early, though never early enough to avoid the 405 traffic to my grandparents. My uncle’s family and ours would all converge by late morning, and each year my grandma aimed to eat at 1:00. We were usually lucky to sit down by 5:00. The hold-up was mostly due to waiting on the turkey.

The males gathered in the tiny TV room to watch football, everyone squeezed onto the two armchairs, my cousins wearing out the reclining mechanism on Grandpa’s. We females would hang out in the kitchen with Grandma, snacking on enough sour cream onion dip and potato chips to last until next Thanksgiving. When I was in high school, my grandma and I would sneak margaritas - she’d make them from these packets of powdered drink mix. I fancied myself quite the sophisticate, sipping from the salted rim of my glass, and I didn’t at all mind the turkey delay.

Why is it that turkeys are such an integral part of the holiday we call Thanksgiving? Also, what are all those red things around their faces and necks? 

As it turns out, turkey was not necessarily a part of the “first Thanksgiving,” a feast held by the Wampanoag people and English settlers in 1621 at Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts. Most likely that meal included geese, ducks, and even seafood like lobster. It most likely did not include sweet potatoes with marshmallows or green bean casserole.

The association of turkey with the Thanksgiving meal is largely due to the author Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote the 1827 novel Northwood. In that novel, she described a New England Thanksgiving in great detail, including the turkey as the key component of the Thanksgiving meal. She lobbied to have Thanksgiving designated a national holiday, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the presidential proclamation to make it official. 

Wild turkeys are native to Mexico. European explorers brought wild turkeys back with them and thus turkeys were domesticated in Europe. The English settlers later brought domesticated turkeys with them to North America. Benjamin Franklin wrote that the turkey, a respectable bird and one native to the Americas, would make a more fitting choice as the nation’s symbol than the bald eagle.

Wild and domestic turkeys differ from one another in various ways:

• Wild turkeys have dark tail tips, while domesticated turkeys have white tail tips. 
• Wild turkeys live three to four years, while domesticated birds live about 26 weeks before they end up on our Thanksgiving table. 
• The wild male (tom) can be up to 20 pounds, while the females (hens) are up to 12 pounds. Domesticated toms are up to 50 pounds and hens up to 16 pounds.

Turkeys can run - fast! - approximately 25 mph. Domestic birds can fly into trees for safety, but their wild cousins can actually fly. It is only the toms who gobble, usually in the spring and fall, to attract the hens. The wild turkeys don’t just gobble, they can make almost 30 different calls.

The turkey's unique anatomy:

• Wattle - loose red skin attached underneath the beak, turns a bright red when the bird is excited.
• Snood - flap of fleshy skin that hangs over the beak, also turns bright red with excitement.
• Beard - wobbly area on the chest made of keratin bristles.

Sources
Almanac: Turkey Trivia
Brittanica: Why Do We Eat Turkey on Thanksgiving?

​This time of year, as the snow starts to fly, the snow shovels are at the ready, and the skis take a turn on the tuning bench, what comes to my mind is…ice cream sundaes. Specifically those from Lyon’s Corner Drug & Soda Fountain. When my daughter could still show her age with a hand-and-a-half’s worth of fingers, we’d sometimes head to Lyon’s for a treat after skiing. 

I grew up with Thrifty Drug ice cream cones - 25¢ per scoop. The scooper pushed out a tube of ice cream that was flat on both ends so that a triple was a smooth multi-colored cylinder that fit precisely into its cake cone. The cone that collapsed into a soggy mess if you didn’t get down to business in a hurry. That ice cream was actually pretty good - but a soda fountain Thrifty Drug was not. The true soda fountain experience is a generous slice of the past with present-day deliciousness on your tongue. 

When you walk into Lyon’s, you see the large checkered squares of black and white linoleum floors. Framing the galley-style kitchen is a long L-shaped counter with shiny chrome and vinyl 1950’s-style bolt-down bar stools. The soda jerk (person working the fountain) is in constant motion prepping hot and cold sandwiches, fountain drinks, soups, and of course, sundaes. The jerk serves with one hand and wipes the counter with the other, in a flowing dance of making food and washing up that is both art and function. 

One afternoon my daughter and I got the end stools, the ones on the short part of the L - prime seating as that area has a bit more space. We shrugged out of our ski jackets and bellied up to the counter. After careful consideration, Charlotte placed her order for a Turtle Sundae. She would carefully oversee each stage of this all-important production, and Jamie, the gifted soda jerk working the kitchen in those years, was more than up to the task. 

First the layer of hot fudge poured from a mini ladle in a thick ribbon, pooling in the bottom of the fancy glass dish. Then two scoops of cookies and cream, drizzled with caramel. Charlotte’s eyes were very large, her laser focus unwavering. A sprinkle of nuts, an extra-large portion of whipped cream. I thought Charlotte was going to fall off her seat. I heard a couple of soft chuckles and looked up to see the folks sitting on the long side of the L watching Charlotte as she witnessed her sundae come into being.

The entire sundae got a pump of chocolate syrup and a heap of rainbow jimmies. Jamie was out-doing herself. Conversations paused as anticipation built along the whole soda fountain, Charlotte white-knuckling the countertop in awed silence. 

When at last the cherry was plunked on top, it sunk, half-covered, into the cloud of rich whipped cream. As Jamie set the masterpiece in front of Charlotte, Charlotte’s eyes were popping out of her head and she had a megawatt grin that lit up her entire face. The soda fountain customers applauded and even cheered, I think as much for Jamie’s artistry as for remembering a time when their faces looked like Charlotte’s.  

I think about that day because it was precious to experience Charlotte’s unadulterated delight. Because of the warmth and fun we shared with fellow soda-fountain enthusiasts. Because of the pleasure Jamie took in her craft  - not just beautifully preparing food, but also bringing huge smiles to the faces of her customers. I think of that day because of the simple sweetness that brought us all such pleasure. 

​Years ago I loved to visit my grandparents in Glen Burnie, Maryland. Their home sat beneath gigantic oak trees on the aptly named Brownshade Drive, a small u-shaped street adjacent to Sawmill Creek. This neighborhood was from a small-town era. The same concrete sidewalks on which my grandmother had walked to school prior to World War II, houses of all sizes and styles with generous and welcoming porches and lawns, families that knew and remembered one another. 

One year in late summer, my parents and I were visiting at the same time. Staying with my grandparents meant gatherings with cousins, aunts and uncles, and always involved food. The best was the crab feast. By this time the feasts were toned down from the carnival-craziness of my early years: lanterns strung between the trees, all kinds of yard games with prizes, tubs of beer and softdrinks, a huge table devoted to desserts, and my super-social grandfather literally inviting people off the street. In those days, crab feasts went mid-morning until past midnight, because people would get second, third and fourth winds and someone would inevitably show up with pizza after all those crabs and desserts.

So this particular year with my parents we focused solely on the Chesapeake blue crabs. The tables were covered with newspaper, wooden mallets, butter knives, rolls of paper towels - and a heaping, mouthwatering pile of just-steamed crabs, coated in Old Bay seasoning. Picking and eating whole crabs is a skill that, once learned, keeps you at that table for hours. 

By the time we waved goodbye to the last person driving away from my grandparents’, it was dark. More than that, a fog had moved in. The street lamps, decades old, shone down through a filter of leafy trees and thick mist. It was foreboding. It was inviting. My mom, dad and I were hooked by the noir mood and decided to go for a walk. 

The fog became so thick as we walked along that we couldn’t see more than a couple of houses ahead. The damp clung to our clothes and skin, and my mom and I looked like we’d way overdone our hair-volumizing treatments. The sounds of our footsteps and voices seemed muffled, and we started speaking quietly as if the fog were eavesdropping.

Then we came to The House. 

The House, looming out of the mist, was a white three-story Colonial that had seen much better days. It was badly in need of paint and sat on a large triangular lot. The garden, relative to even the most prolific in the neighborhood, was a chaotic overgrown mass of vines, bushes, and trees that had taken over the entire yard. We could make out mounds of earth next to holes in the ground as if we’d interrupted a grave-digging convention. This was all surrounded by a decrepit white picket fence. 

We were still a couple months off from Halloween, but this was the quintessential haunted house. Was there something moving, there in the fog? Yes, yes there was. It was just . . . a black cat. Yikes!

We high-tailed it out of there, like kids up to no good, creeped out and excited and jabbering all at the same time. 

The thick fog still hung in the air, the tree-lined streets transformed in the heavy veils of mist. Then, we began to notice something charming: the many homes with lit candles in each window. This traditional custom of welcome was made especially lovely in the foggy night; we were captivated and the sense of eeriness slipped away. We made our way back to Brownshade Drive, eager to share our outing with my grandparents.

Our ramble of thrills, chills, and enchantment is an adventure my parents and I remember and talk about to this day. I’m so glad we decided to take that walk.