PAMPER YOURSELF AS JANUARY'S HARD TIMES ROLL

Folks tend to be hard on themselves in January. There are those Resolutions they're going to keep, really keep this year. So the dining table doesn't creak with platters of T-bong steaks, standing rib roasts, gravies, rich creamy casseroles and delectable desserts.

The exercises, self prescribed or otherwise, must be done, no matter the sore muscles and what seems like fractured bones.

A long put off trip to the dentist is scheduled and fulfilled. There will be no new clothes, shoes, lipstick. Lipstick? Dig out that last eighth of an inch below the rim of the tube in deference to the un-self-imposed recession.

Neglected correspondence that has some friendships balanced or a bank audit requested! All dreary stuff. So, I propose we should pamper ourselves in little ways that get us through this starkness.

The house ought to smell of something good cooking or baking. I suggest soup and yeast bread. Some folks' soup pots, started on Monday, just keep getting better as the week wears on. Today a fresh can of beef stock is added, tomorrow another onion. Next day some more celery and those smidgens of leftover peas, corn, whatever. A teaspoon of chili powder about mid-week adds warmth, both in taste, color and aroma. Mingling with the simmering onion and carrots it gives us that oh-it's-so-good-to-be-home feeling. Rising yeast bread in the steamy kitchen completes the pampering of our bleak savory senses.

A quiet moment to name over and give thanks for our taken-for-granted conveniences and comforts leaves us gently buoyed up a warm home, indoor plumbing, soft blanket, friendly neighbors, someone you can rely on in distress. Make your own mental list and revel in the pampered feeling it gives you.

Since you have more time than you thought you had, else how did you get all that holiday stuff done, take some of that time to sit back in a comfortable chair, legs up on something, and take delight in wonderment. What makes the wind whistle at one particular house corner and not another? Is it the angle of the corner, the depth of the ell? Is it the same principle of man's blowing over the mouth of an empty jug?

Of all things inanimate, the wind is one you think you can see. You can hear it. You can feel it's force. You can smell the odors it carries. You call if soft or harsh, cool, warm and cold. But you can't see it, can't grab a fist full of it. When you ponder on man's inability to fix the blowing of the wind and the invisibleness of it you think of what an apt comparison to the Spirit Jesus made to Nicodemus.

Tired of that wonderment? Try crystallization. How can non-living things grow? No milk, no spinach, no bread, still the crystals multiply. They just build up layers of their own atoms by some mysterious process-atoms that have a preordained shape such as salt, sugar, snow, diamonds, etc. Like the uncontrollability of the wind, we can't change the shape of crystals.

Grind a piece of agate into the shape of a marble and you might say, "There, I've changed the shape of those atoms." But you haven't. Pass an X-ray light through the marble and there you'll see the immutable shape of the interior crystals.

Think then of how man puts up an exterior facade to disguise his real inner self! If this thought makes you feel un-pampered, go drop another onion in the soup, put those used tea leaves around the geraniums and water with tepid water. It enhances the kitchen aroma whereby you're pampering yourself.

Then, maybe the thought will stumble into your head of how comfortable it would be to pull that facade down. Perhaps it would be as freeing as the crashing of the Berlin Wall. There now, you don't have to go to that tea if don't want to. You don't have to war that pair of shoes if you made a mistake in the purchase and they hurt your feet. You don't have to finish reading that book if you don't like it.

Dish out a bowl of soup. Butter a slice of freshly baked bread and partake. You'll get through Hard Time January.

REJOICE!