Actually, I didn't want champagne or schnapps. I wanted coffee. I cared not a whit about the admonition that caffeine constricts skiers' cells and lowers their body temperature. If I wanted to be awake to cook at the top and raise money as well, I desperately needed several shots of the good stuff.

Luckily, I knew there would be one place open at this hour. My spirits rose as I schlepped my load down the short, charming avenue. Storefronts twinkling with thousands of holiday lights made Aspen Meadow's Main Street, fifty miles away, look as stark as a Shaker living room. In several hours, these brightly festooned boutiques would become a hive of commercial activity. I wouldn't be trucking in high-priced commerce, but never mind.

I sniffed the scent of the dark, fragrant brew even as I rejoiced at the Open sign dangling from the door of Cinda's Cinnamon Stop. I dropped my equipment near the covered decking that ran by the shops and clopped ; up the wooden steps.

"Hey, Goldy!" bellowed Cinda Caldwell from her steamy walk-up window. Cinda's hair, dyed in a range of pink hues from cotton-candy to scarlet, was luminous behind the swirl of fat white flakes. "Come in, come in, I need to talk to you about something!"

I'd come to know Cinda - tall, athletic, endlessly enthusiastic and energetic - during my stint with the program. "You look worse than usual!" she cried cheerfully. "You're still doing your show?"

"Yes, but I need your coffee to transform me into a chipper TV personality. Make that a warm, chipper TV personality."

She guffawed. "Want three or four shots? Need a pastry with your espresso? On the house! C'mon!" she hollered impatiently. "There's something I really need to tell you!”

"Okay, okay, triple shot, thanks," I called back dutifully. "And I'd love a cinnamon roll." I congratulated myself on being too early to appear at the bistro. What else could I do while I waited for Arthur's crew to finish setting up, but indulge in free treats at Cinda's?

I stuck my head into the warmth of her shop. The Cinnamon Stop boasted a short counter and eight round wooden tables plastered with snowboard stickers. A higgledy-piggledy assortment of plastic and wooden chairs bunched around and between the tables. The huge screen that showed snowboarding videos during working hours was dark. Cinda, who had gained unexpected renown as one of the first female snowboarders in the state, whisked back and forth in her minuscule working space. She wore a bright yellow turtleneck and purple ski pants. A fluorescent purple-and-yellow headband held her tangle of pink hair in place. On the wall behind her, a poster of a snowboarder catching air vied with old-fashioned Christmas bulb lights strung around a fluorescent Burton snowboard. The board hung at an angle beside a row of Cinda's freestyle trophies. "Almost there!" she promised me. She was so upbeat, you'd never know she'd blown out her knees several years ago on the Killdeer half-pipe - that long, snow-covered half-cylinder favored by boarders - and hadn't touched a board since.