Three days as the buffalo flies

Please, delve into your hearts and muster what little strength is left to forgive me for the brief yet taxing sojourn. I was in woods in New Hampshire, land of snowflakes and pine trees. Please refer to The Little House in the Big Woods for further description of the holidays, for it was rather similar. We had buffalo for supper and in the morning flapjacks with syrup from the local maples. Along with many cookies and delectable sauces and tartlets. On such family occasions the kitchen is humming approximately 16 hours a day and nothing, not even the applesauce for the latkes or the stock for the soup or the peppermint fudge comes from box or jar. The sunsets are pink and prolonged and at night the adventurous wander with flashlight or candle into the meadows for astronomical observation.

Thus it is weary I return, after many hours by car and rail, southward as the snow melted and the strip malls suddenly blossomed as copious as the pine bowers of the land I left behind me. The days are wan and fleeting and darkness descends swiftly. The apartment lies deserted by its inhabitants, those who fled toward kinder vistas of hibiscus and iguana. A crumpled napkin is discarded on the floor in their hurry. The last hours of the year are upon us, and I fear its leaden days suck the very life out of these, the strong, our comrades. It is time to call Yummy Taco, and beckon them hither.