Page 38 December 14, 2012
DAN’S PAPERS
danshamptons.com
Getting an Early Start on Your Resolutions By KElly lAFFEy
It’s mid-December, and I’m still torn on what my 2013 New Year’s fitness resolutions will be. I have a standing invitation to run the Boston Marathon with a friend this April. It would be my first-ever marathon, and running the Fab Five ’Thons (Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London and New York) is on my life bucket list. But, I also just found out that the qualifying time for automatic entry into the New York Marathon is to run a sub–1:30 half marathon. That would mean that I have to cut 4 minutes and 5 seconds off of my current best time. Difficult, but achievable. We have just short of three weeks until the New Year, and maintaining a healthier lifestyle tends to dominate everyone’s list of resolutions. With that in mind, there’s no harm in getting a jump on keeping fit: (I started training for Boston over the weekend. But Day 1 and Day 2 were rest days.) Set a tangible goal that gets you excited. Want to lose five pounds? Be able to run a mile without stopping? Qualify for a marathon? Know that achieving your goal is your reward. Similarly, set a time to work out, and don’t let
anything change your mind. If hitting the gym between 350 and 560 calories an hour while becomes a part of your daily routine, it’s harder skiing.) This year, I resolve to ski for the first to find excuses to skip it. time since high school. I don’t think it will It’s the little things that matter. You know be pretty. But it will be a bargain thanks to how you spend $4 on a daily specialty caffeine Liftopia.com, a slopes discount website that I’ve fix? And after a workweek you’ve spent $20 been meaning to try. I remember reading about on coffee? Up to $1,040 total in the site somewhere last year—you a year? The same “it-all-adds-up” buy your tickets at Liftopia before philosophy can apply to exercise. you head to the mountain, and you When not having enough time is can save a significant percentage an issue, devote yourself to a quick off of the (North)face value. The routine. Something as small as stipulations: Once you buy, you’re pushups in the morning and sit-ups locked in to the date. And the at night is completely doable. tickets can to sell out quickly. Go to the free fitness classes Eat breakfast. I think the idea that at Lululemon in East Hampton. It Hit the slopes this winter! breakfast is the most important still amazes me that a major chain meal of the day has been sufficiently not only stays open seven days a week in the and annoyingly pounded into everyone’s head. offseason but also shows a serious effort to be After discovering that I was allergic to peanut involved in the local community. It’s awesome butter, I painfully searched for a breakfast that a business based in Vancouver, Canada that was as quick, portable and nutritious as a “gets” that there are local East Enders who peanut butter sandwich, and I think I’ve finally would love to take advantage of the type of found it: (Modified) Huevos Rancheros. activities that primarily only dominate summer Hard boil some eggs at the beginning of the schedules. Let’s prove them right. week. In the morning, throw a sliced egg on a (Also, take a look at Lululemon’s “Manifesto.” whole wheat tortilla, melt cheddar cheese on It’s hard not to feel positive when reading top, add some veggies, and top off with salsa. the carpe-diem-esque quotes. Having a good Yum! attitude is key to meeting goals.) Lastly, everything in moderation. There’s no Try skiing. Or snowboarding. (According to harm in indulging in holiday treats every once LiveStrong.com, a 155-pound person can burn in awhile.
Guest (Continued from page 34) work, there’s work. Sometimes you go dig and scratch for it and look for it, but there’s work.” Ronald lives in a house he built himself in the woods north of the highway. It is a veritable patchwork of his handiwork. Beneath his deck is a large pile of lumber he cut from an oak tree that he found in Southold. He walks over to a smooth tabletop that he just finished sanding. It is blond, unintentionally modern, with gentle curves that resemble a wave. He hasn’t quite figured out the right legs for it. After nearly four decades as a carpenter, Ronald is transitioning into a new line of work. He’s trading in houses for furniture design and stained-glass work. “I like the carpentry but a lot of it is getting harder to do because I am not 22 years old anymore. And the competition is very
competitive, and working alone—my son is helping me on occasion—but there is a lot I can’t do. Stained glass I can do rain or shine, doesn’t matter. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I like the thought process behind it,” he said. In Ronald’s living room and bathroom, stained-glass panels of landscapes and of women washing each other’s hair hang on the wall. By the kitchen are two long tables made from a cherry tree that he cut down from his father’s yard. The tabletops rest on old Singer sewing machine tables in place of conventional legs. He’s begun selling his furniture and stained glass at fairs and is now thinking about how to make this his full-time job. He wonders if it would make more sense to relocate and pursue the furniture and stainedglass work somewhere else. Maybe down
South—somewhere that is easier to maneuver, somewhere that is less expensive. “To get off the Island is a process here, whereas if I were to move to Delaware or Maryland and set up a shop down there, I have a lot of outlets I can reach in a short amount of time.” But Ronald can’t imagine leaving the Hamptons for good. It’s where he grew up and raised his kids. It is where he has worked his entire life. “There are a lot of places I want to go, but there’s no place I really want to move to,” said Ronald. “No matter where you go, there’s going to be issues. It doesn’t matter what part of the country, what town you go, what city. There are going to be things people like and don’t like. I think we’ve seen the best of the best out here and now it is not so much as it was.”
Years before, my wife and I did the same bird Count and were at the entrance to Northwest Creek on the Barcelona side when a pair of swans flew by about 50 yards away; their beaks looked very dark, when viewed through the binoculars. “Is that a black beak on that swan?” We were not sure as we watched the pair disappear over the Swamp Road woods, where they banged a “180” and eventually flew right over our heads as if on call. They were tundra swans, and this was the first time they would be on the Orient Point Count since 1908! As I said before, only exciting to birders, but to a fisherman this would be a 55-pound
striped bass. The bigger picture is, all these little personal moments keep people coming back to bird counts all over the world, an amateur army collecting data on avian mating, moving and surviving, or not. For instance, we have pelicans visiting every year, and a pair of nesting bald eagles on Gardiner’s Island, not to mention the phenomenal comeback of our native seasonal breeder, the osprey—who thrived after we banned the D.D.T. that was ruining the strength of birds’ eggshells. It was only banned because people were watching these birds and raised their voices when they were endangered. Years ago, who’d a thunk.
Birds (Continued from page 31) that way and he made a break for the bushes across the street. He made it, but he had a set of merlin talons attached to him before he got inside the hedge. She flew off down the street, titmouse in tow, we followed in the truck and slowly pulled into a break in the tall evergreen border the merlin just flew through. There she was on the ground, not five feet from my door, the titmouse dispatched, when she turned to me with a glare that said, “Do you mind, I’m eating lunch here!” We slowly backed out of her dining room, as she looked like she wasn’t moving until she finished her lunch.