Here it is, Sunday again. We all just got home, stumbling into a messy house, nobody making any offers to remedy that problem. I am not snowboarding or going to the rec center tonight. A little unusual, since I have been gone every evening this week that we did not have company. Christmas is approaching. We all know it, can feel it in our bones. A dread, a small bit of panic, a temptation to crawl in a hole and stay there until about the sixth of January. I never figured myself for the type of person who excersizes for therapy, but I occasionally surprise myself. TV is boring, the house is messy and depressing, the fridge is empty (we seem to be even shorter on time than money to buy groceries) so more often than not, I find myself lacing up my Gel Asics and hitting the track. It's something to do, the endorphins kick in after a mile or so, and I settle into a comfortable stride that almost feels as though the track is coming toward me, instead of me moving over it. I watch the white cinderblock walls and the floor to ceiling windows slide past me, steal surreptitious glances at the hotties at the weight machines (don't judge me, I know Christmas is past, but the catalog can still be mildly entertaining...), and outrun all the leftover stress and angst of the day. By the time my run is over, and I have pumped enough iron to turn my arms and shoulders into mush, and have simmered in the hot tub or steam room, then shocked my overheated self in the pool, I feel exhausted but so much more alive, have forgiven my job for the stress it causes, and am ready to not resign again for another day. I have a whole list of uncomplimentary things I call people like me, who would rather work out than sleep, who prefer salts to sweets, who drink water instead of soda. I make jokes about it only seeming like they live longer. It is only when I hear my friends say the same thing about me that I become very quiet. That may be the facts of me, but at heart, I am actually a lazy slob. I do exactly what I want to do, which most of the time, is getting out of the house and doing something rather than watching the same movie that we watched last week, and cooking just so I can clean the kitchen later. Plus, I just bought myself new running shoes the other day. They only have about fifteen miles on them, still all springy and arch-supporty, still fresh and white. Who could resist the allure of a new pair of tenny-shoes?

....Well, it's not Sunday anymore. I really meant to get back to my computer after that distraction (can't remember anymore what it was) but by the time I got back up to our room, where the computer is, B. had turned it off and was in bed. It's actually Thursday now, the day after the "Blizzard of '06", as the news is calling it. We only got about six to eight inches of snow, and are used to it, unlike our stranded Denverites and holiday travelers who could not make it up here as planned. They got two to three feet. It has been a nightmare of changed bookings, cancellations, and extended stays the last two days. The office has piles of Fed-exed gear that got here in fine shape, unlike it's owners, who are stuck in L.A., or worse yet, Wakeeney, Kansas. And to top it off, the first big powder day since the slopes have been open, I worked a ten hour day, gunning my poor little Jeep through piles of snow and slush, racing from one near catastrophe to the next, stopping long enough to chug a meal-replacement shake (no, I'm not THAT health conscious, but bless the person who came up with the "sixty second meal"- tastes like swamp goo and bitter cocoa, but provides a much-needed energy boost), and later, a freebie Nature Valley granola bar from a stack of free samples in a building lobby. Cleaned out the granola chunks with a free sample of Nicorette chewing gum (sans the nicotene, being a free sample), an interesting orangie-minty flavor. My standard hunger staver-offer when I am in Keystone, where cheap food is as hard to find as...well, you supply the metophor. I could think of about three, but they are all decidedly naughty. And I'm too tired to make one up.

On the days when more sustanance is needed, or one's mental state needs a longer recovery time than the time it takes to drink an icky chocolate shake, there are two places in Keystone where one can eat for around three bucks. Both can send one straight into a state of gurgling lethargy, complete with gassy bloat and breath that could send a camel running. One is the Keystone grocery, a Texaco station with a few aisles of groceries and a prepared foods section where one's pocketbook is viciously molested, but where one can still buy a burrito for under five bucks. The other place where locals can shell out a just a few bones for some uncomfortable bodily functions is Uncle Pizza, better known as it has been known for years, as Pizza 101. It consists of a countertop, two fridges, a massive oven, a tip jar, and three barstools, and one or two shaggy headed shredders squeezed into a space that would hardly hold a gourmet chef's knifeblock. Order a slice, specify what you want on it, your toppings get slapped onto an already baked, basic cheese pizza, tossed into a crusted, ashy oven, and several minutes later, thrown onto a paper plate which is unceremoniously slid towards you. Fight for a barstool, or if you are having a "cute day", grin at the liftie who's just finishing his slice, take him up on his offer to vacate his seat for you, and sink your teeth into a slice the size of your head, all bready goodness and grease, and as you inhale it, idly wonder just how miserable you'll be the rest of the afternoon. Trade powder stash tips, or sob stories about having to work too much with the other six people there (maximum capacity, folks), wash down that last bit of crust just in time to offer your seat to the cutie who just grinned at you, slap down three bucks to cover your slice plus tip, and elbow your way out the door. There you have it, peoples. Keystone on three dollars a day. That is, if one meal a day is all you require. Of course, if your budget is a ten dollar meal, there are infinitely more options, and if it is more like seventy or eighty dollars a meal, well, you will not be disappointed then either. But it takes a very crafty lass to feed herself on three little bitty dollars when she is stuck out in a resort town all day.