A Russian woman who lived in Abkhazia describes a local custom we might all like to adopt.  As a means to extend your lifespan, I can’t think of anything more delightful. 

According to Abkhazian custom, the time you spend with guests around the table doesn’t count toward your lifespan because you’re drinking wine and enjoying yourself. 

Odysseus himself would have approved, believing there was nothing more marvelous. 

May you live long and enjoy yourself around many a table with friends.  Albeit chalking up a more modest bill than this gargantuan affair. 

Source: interview with Olga V., in Svetlana Alexievich, Secondhand Time: The last of the Soviets, trans. by Bela Shayevich (New York: Random House, 2017), p. 237

Photo credit: elle_kh at pixabay