Slip Sliding Away

Way back when, when I was in University, I caught the bus to campus one very rainy day. It was about this time of year, and it had been a wet autumn.

It was the middle of the morning, and there weren't too many people on the bus. There was a row of single seats on one side of the bus, some doubles on the other side, and some benches at the back. I was at the very back, facing forward, and a middle-aged woman sitting in the singles near the middle. There was only one or two other people on board, all ahead of her and I, up near the driver.

As I said, it was a really rainy day, and everything was pretty wet. The woman sitting in the single seats was wearing a longish yellow rain slicker.


At one point, the bus made a hard, fast right turn, and the rain on her jacket must have made the seat very slippery, because she shot right off that seat and onto the floor; she didn't even have time to catch herself. It was like she'd been shoved off by invisible hands. She landed right on her bum, and pretty solidly, too, and she made an impressive noise, sort of like an "ooof", but deep and low, like someone had punched a bagpipe in the stomach. One second she was sitting on that bus seat, minding her own business, and the next she was sitting on the floor of the bus in a puddle of water, wondering how the hell that happened.

And the only one to see it all happen....was me. I quickly made like I was looking out the window and didn't see her, because I figured her day was going to go a lot better from here on in if she thought no one was looking. Meanwhile, I was practically herniating myself trying not to laugh. Not only did she shoot off that seat like a cartoon coyote off a cliff, but the noise she made was unlike anything I've ever heard before or since.
I got off a few stops later and couldn't hold it in one more second. I was laughing so hard and so long I gave myself the hiccups. And then I giggled about it every ten minutes for the rest of the day.

You know, that was almost 30 years ago, and I still laugh whenever I think about it.

I'm sure someone else has their own hilarious story that day, about seeing a young woman laughing her fool head off in the pouring rain, all by herself.

Feel It Hot, Hot, Hot.

It's pretty hot here....I'm not complaining, I'm just stating a fact. After the nastiest, unending winter we just had, followed by the grimmest spring on record, I swore I would never complain about the heat again. And I'm not....I'm just enjoying the fact that my feet are warm for the first time in 8 months. And they are VERY warm.

It got up to 33°C today, and as humid as you could imagine. It was like living in dishwasher.

We haven't put on the air conditioner yet; as hot as it is, the temperatures are supposed to moderate tomorrow, and honestly, we have the windows all shut up for most of the year, I hate to close them when it finally gets warm. We only put on the air conditioner when it's going to be this hot for a few days, and we are in danger of actually puddling on the floor.

Toby has morphed into a state of "cat butter", as he has smeared himself all over any and all available cool surfaces around the house.

When I came home from work and started getting dinner ready, I put on a fan in the kitchen, to make it a bit more comfortable. When I came in from lighting the BBQ, this is what I found:

I should have put an apple in his mouth.
I don't know why he doesn't go down into the basement, it's much cooler down there. I suppose he wants to stay up where the humans are; you never know when someone might be doling out tuna.

I'm determined to enjoy the heat, and try to remember what it was like to be cold. Maybe I should stretch out on the kitchen table.

Kibbles and Bits

Praise be! Summer is finally here! I was beginning to think it might never happen. We've had the most miserable, relentless winter in recent memory, followed by the wettest, coldest, most tortured spring on record. It never. stopped raining.
When they were predicting the end of the world a few weeks ago, I was beginning to think it wasn't the worst idea I'd ever heard....anything to put us out of our misery.
But on the weekend, it got warm. And yesterday, it got HOT. And today it got torrid.
It was 31°C with a Humidex of 41°C. (Translation: 88°F that feels like 106°F. That's not a typo.) The cat thermometer is registering a record 10 feet of cat. It's a bit of getting used to, this "summer in an instant", but even though I sleep in front of a roaring fan and haven't the energy to boil water, I'm not complaining. It's all I've been wanting for the past 6 months.
Toby is the happiest cat ever.....there's furniture to sleep on! Outside! The people are out; I have company!! There are bushes to hide in to surprise the birds!! (The birds are not so happy.)
Long may it last.

Thing 2 and her school band went on a feild trip to Canada's Wonderland, a big amusement park, north of Toronto, full of roller coasters and hellishly expensive junk food.
I volunteered to go along, mostly because I thought they didn't need me, and also, because if they did, I would get to go on the roller coasters.
I absolutely LOVE roller coasters. I would go on just about any roller coaster, ever, except, maybe one that actually might kill me.
(There is one at Canada's Wonderland called the Behemoth that seriously nearly made me cry. It was awesome.)
I've been on school trips before, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that in comparison to the bus trip there and back, the amusement park is an oasis of calm and serenity. Seriously, those kids get on a bus and they lose their shit entirely. For hours and hours on end; they scream and shout and carry on at the top of their lungs, and love every minute of it.
I've come to realize that for the kids, the bus ride is every bit as exciting as the actual destination. In fact, they would be just as happy to drive around on the bus for an entire day as actually go anywhere. I see the bus ride as a means to an ends; for the 14 year olds, the transportation is part of the ends.
I brought ear plugs, the same ones I use to go to sleep, and I was a much, MUCH happier Mrs. Loudshoes at the end of it all.

Thing 2 is an appalling speller; truly, she cannot write a complete sentance without misspelling something. She comes by it honestly, my mother and myself cannot spell to save our lives. My mother writes letters with a dictionary beside her, and I stumble over the words "licence" and "probably" almost every time I have to write them. Thank God for spell-check.
I don't know how her terrible spelling, (which is usually hilarious) came up, but she declared, somewhat indignantly, that there are "LOTS of words that arent' spelled anything like how they sound".
"Give me and example", I said, and she promptly replied "psychology". (She came up with it pretty fast, like she'd been just waiting to complain about it.) "And 'colonel', and 'rhythm'....a whole BUNCH of animals....like 'penguin'! And 'giraffe'!"
Clearly, I had hit a nerve.
"So, what words ARE spelled like they sound?" I asked.
" 'Zoom', 'melt' and 'tomato' ", she said. "And 'ketchup'. 'Ketchup' is spelled exactly what it sounds like. You can count on 'ketchup'." she said, firmly.
Apparently, this was something she had been thinking about for a long time.

Teenagers and cats....who knows what goes on in their heads?

April 29th 2011

I so did not have the same kind of day as Kate Middleton.

While Kate Middleton was walking down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, in a beautiful lace gown to marry a prince of the realm, I was out in the breezeway, in my bathrobe, slippers and some rubber gloves, cleaning up the debris from the raccoon's evident raucous party in the garbage bins. She was smiling and looking radiant. I looked like I'd escaped from the "Home for the Frenzied Bedridden" and cursing enthusiastically.

Later, when she was quietly and solemly declaring her vows, I was boarding a rickety school bus to accompany Thing 2's class on a field trip, a "War of 1812" re-enactment and workshop.

Kate Middleton was signing the Registry with her new name, and curtseying to the Queen. I was freezing my ass off in a a field while listening to a guy with nothing better to do than to pretend to fight a war that was over almost 200 years ago. A guy who was so enthusiasticaly and graphically demonstrated how a field surgeon would amputate an injured leg that it bordered on the disturbing. I'm not kidding; he used a leg of pork (God, I hope it was pork!) as an audio-visual aid and believe me, I've memorized his face for when I have to testify at his inevitable trial at some point. Apparently, someone fainted earlier in the day.

It was so freaking cold I very nearly stood in front of the cannon.

While Kate got to dine on whatever Royals dine on at luncheon (probably quails eggs and diamonds and corgis) I ate my lunch in an picnic shelter with no walls and a gale force wind out of the north. Except I forgot my lunch, and had to eat a granola bar I found in my purse, and a few Goldfish crackers and a Pop Tart from Thing 2's lunch. (Note to self: Do NOT let Thing 2 pack her own lunch from now on.)

No matter how nice her day was, and how decidedly NOT nice my day was, I still don't envy her marrying into that family.

Florida Adventure, 2011

The girls and I are home from a beautiful week in Florida; my parents have rented a place on the Gulf coast for the month of March, and we took advantage of the free room and board and enjoyed a week in the sun.
There really is nothing like that blast of hot, humid air when you step out of the airport when you go on vacation to somewhere warm from somewhere cold. Just to illustrate, we went from this:


to this:




in three hours. That? is nothing short of a freaking miracle.

The girls had never been to Florida before when they weren't at Disney World, so this was a bit of a different expericence for them....I think it was a bit of a shock for them that people actually live there, that there are schools and churches and malls, and that not everyone wears a name tag.

We went to parks and the beach, we did some shopping, and hung out by the pool a lot. When you live in Canada, the idea that you can swim outside, wear flip-flops and need sunscreen in March is incredibly heady. We never got tired of exclaiming "it's winter!" to each other, all week.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 got their first taste of the ocean; they'd never seen it before. Unfortunately is was way too cold to actually go swimming in the Gulf of Mexico; we're Canadian but we're not crazy. (I have some cousins that grew up in south Florida, near Fort Lauderdale, and they were shocked and somewhat in awe that my father would go swimming in their pool when it was only 80°F! We used to be thrilled when our pool here got up to 80.)
They spent their time collecting shells, which you don't get on beaches on the Great Lakes. (Unless you count zebra mussells, which we don't.)
Gasparilla Island was close by, and they have possibly the world's most boring lighthouse. Apparently the island is over run with iguanas, but we didn't see any.

The Mister didn't come with us; his idea of a vacation is not shopping and a book by the pool. But he did excellent work dropping us off at Detroit airport and picking us up. I think he enjoyed the week on his own...he had plenty of time on the computer and probably didn't eat a vegetable the entire time.
Toby was beyond thrilled to see us come home yesterday; I'm sure he thought we were gone for ever. ("And you left me with him???? He does NOT get up at a reasonable hour and is incredibly snarky when I have to remind him to do so, and worse, he eats the tuna himself!! What have you done to me?!?")
This morning he practically turned himself inside out when he realized that I was right there in bed where God intended me to be! He could not stop purring and head-butting and drooling all over me. It was a nice, if rather messy, welcome.

I'm back to work tomorrow; the girls have a few more days of March Break before they are back to reality. But we have the pictures to prove we were there, even if we can't wear flip-flops any more.

C-c-c-c-cold

Compared to other parts of Canada, we actually don't the worst winter weather. (It's -30°C in Winnipeg today. -22° in Farenheit.) Here? the wind is whipping out of the northwest, so even though it's only -12°C, it feels more like -21°. But you don't have to see a thermometer to know it's stinking cold out there....
How do you know it's cold?

• The snow squeaks when you walk
• The car doesn't warm up until you're almost at work
• There's no point in taking off your outerwear if you are going out again within the half hour
• The sky is the same colour as the snow
• The snow sparkles at night
• Toby only goes out for a few minutes, once a day. (He WANTS to go out all the time, but when the door is opened and that cold air hits his nose, he changes his mind.)
• Toby runs around like a lunatic for about 40 minutes a day, because he's inside too much.
• All I want to do is read in bed and eat my weight in carbohydrates.
• Your eyelashes stick together when you go outside, and it hurts to breathe deeply.
• The garbage doesn't need to go into the cans, because it freezes before any wildlife can smell it and get into it.
• You put on gloves to toss out the recycling from the back door.
• You can't wash the car, because the doors will freeze shut
• You wear long underwear, even if you're just going out to a movie or dinner
• You look for a grocery cart that's been inside for a while, because a cold cart hurts your hands.
• You walk funny, so the cold fabric of your pants doesn't touch your legs too much
• You can make all kinds of stops on the way home from the grocery store, because the milk won't go bad.

Snow

God I hope I stop whining about the weather soon.....even I can't stand myself.

Another freaking foot of snow yesterday. But today, oh glory be: sunshine. And nothing falling out of the sky.
I read in the paper today that last year we got 108 cm. of snow for the entire winter. As of yesterday at 7 a.m., we'd had 122 cm. In ten days. Of December.

The good news is, I'm getting rockin' fab triceps from shovelling snow and flinging it overtop of mounds that are taller than me.

Mother Nature, You Win.

Okay, Mother Nature, I get it: you are a bad-ass.

It's been a week of brutal winter weather, and winter hasn't even officially started yet.

Last week, we got 100 cm of snow. That's three feet. Three feet of snow is a LOT of snow, especially when you have to shovel it. Then it got mild, and then it got cold, which means not only does it feel like -26°C out, it's really freaking slippery, too.

Here is a shot of our street this morning, at about 7 a.m.

Here is the Loudshoes house, all enveloped in snow, snug and warm. It was a beautiful sunrise, even if it was cold enough to rearrange the anatomy of a brass monkey. Our front porch has disappeared entirely, and those lumps on the right are a cement flower box and chair. Hard to tell, I know.

This was last night, outside the front door. I wish these pictures could convey how unbelievebly quiet it all is.

Today we got a few more inches of snow, and I am seriously considering hibernation.

Mother Nature wins.

Snow Day!

Are there any more beautiful words in the English language than "snow day"?
I woke up this morning at around 6, took one look out the front window and figured no one was going anywhere today. Sure enough, at about 6:45 Thing 1 got a flurry of texts from all corners, saying it was official, all the schools were closed. And she promptly went back to bed. As did I.
I think there are few more delicious feelings in the entire spectrum of human emotions than crawling back under those warm covers, knowing you are completely, entirely, off the hook for the day. There's even a word for it: "coverlicious".

Living in the lee of Lake Huron, we get plenty of "lake-effect" snow, streamers that pick up plenty of moisture when they move over the relatively warm waters of the lake, and then dump it once they hit land. The funny thing is, while we got two feet of snow today, the Mister's cousin, who lives a half an hour south of us, hardly got any snow at all....they can still see the grass.

The Mister went out and did the driveway first thing this morning. I don't think it was so much a desire to get the car out; nobody is going anywhere today, but rather that we had a fairly mild winter last year and he hardly got to use his new toy at all.
Here he is at the very start...you can see how high the snow is, and the almost buried garbage cans, which I doubt will be picked up today.

Here is the birdbath in the backyard.

We went for a walk around the neighbourhood before lunchtime. This is the creek near our house. Note the foot-tall piles of snow in the middle of the creek...those are rocks, which barely peek out from the water.

Here is my family, on the footbridge that Thing 1 has to use to get to school every day. If it snows much more, that railing will be at knee level.

Even better, is that this is a Monday, and the Mister and I usually have Mondays off because we work Saturdays. So that means I get a full, unapologetic day of lounging around in my pajamas drinking hot chocolate and we're not losing any money. It's a win-win situation.

The Teeth of the Lion.

I would respectfully request to have just a few more hours every day....twenty-four hours is not quite adequate to get everything done. That, or perhaps acquire a superpower whereby I don't need any sleep at all. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'd get so much done if I didn't have to waste 8 hours a day on just lying there, unconcious.

(I hate complaining about being busy; everyone is busy. I don't know a single person who says "you know what I've got way too much of? TIME!" Even my children, who have no housework, no jobs and apparently, no homework, complain that they are busy. My mother has been retired for almost 20 years, and she still doesn't have enough time to do all the things she wants in a day. )

It is busy I have been. I know there are certain times of the year that have more going on than other times....December is busy at work and with Christmas preparations, in September things start up again after the summer, and I will be hella busy and hemmorage money, and in May, the weather gets warm and the garden needs so much done right now and there is no way to put it off or do it later. Which is where we have been for the last week or so.

Every night, after dinner, the Mister and I go outside armed with dangerous-looking, pokey thingys and take on the dandelions. We've got an overabundance of dandelions at the moment, an epidemic of dandelions. If dandelions were valuable, we wouldn't need to buy lottery tickets. And really, the only way to get rid of a dandelion is to pull them out. By hand. One. By. One. (And before you suggest that we spray the snot out of the little yellow buggers, our municipality has banned pesticides for residential use.)

As back-breaking as pulling dandelions can be, there is something very satisfying about snapping off a root at exactly the right angle, or nailing a weed as big as your head. And at least you can see the fruits of your labours as you go.

After we had decimated the dandelion crop here, we cleaned the breezeway and set out all the lawn furniture, another large job that couldn't wait. But the place looks good and we are all ready for the summer. Here is Toby enjoying the results of the humans' efforts. He was sitting on that chair nanoseconds after it was placed in it's spot, like he had been waiting all winter for us to do that. Note the weed-free lawn behind him.
I'm planning on making the next little while not so busy, so that I can enjoy the warm weather out in the breezeway, too.

Fabulous Friday

I love Good Friday; it's one of my very favorite holidays of the year, and you know why?? Because I have to do NOTHING to celebrate it.....nothing at all. No presents, no songs, no big meals, no cards, no costumes, no rituals, no nothing. What's not to like. Good Friday is an absolutely found day, with no expectations whatsoever. I love it.

And to top it off, the weather was spectacular today....warm, sunny, almost summer-like weather. We were wearing shorts on the second of April, for goodness sake. Many's the year where early April brings ice storms or blizzards or merely weather that makes you want to cry. But not this year! We actually slept with the windows open last night, and we did not die of hypothermia!

It's not terribly unusual for us to have summery weather for Easter, it's certainly happened before. One year, when I was about 17 or 18, my mom and dad had a willow tree chopped down in the backyard, and my brother and I were helping to chop it into firewood. It was a really hot weekend, probably about 30°C or so, and my dad had only recently opened the pool...it was about 56°F (that's about 13 in Celcius...don't ask me why, but we never did get around to using centigrade for the pool, it was always in Farenheit.) We spent the weekend nearly fainting from the heat of chopping wood and then risking cardiac arrest by jumping into the pool...it was so cold all you could do was shallow dive for the other end and get out right away before your body parts froze and fell off.

Another Easter I remember being just beautiful, and my mother had an Easter egg hunt for the grandchildren in the backyard. She had the brilliant idea of colour-coding the eggs, so that each child was only allowed to pick up his or her assigned colour. (Otherwise my niece, who was the oldest by a few years, would have made out like a bandit, snagging all the eggs in about 3 minutes, without a qualm. ) It turns out the weather was good enough for the squirrels to be out, too, because we discovered that they liked the gold-covered eggs, because they made off with about half of them. (Luckily, grandma had a few leftovers in the house. We hid those inside the house.)

I went for a run today, which was hot work because, hello! no shade in April! The leaves haven't come out yet...the whole run was in full sunlight. Last week I was wearing gloves and a hat. It's a bit abrupt.

All of us went on a bike ride this afternoon, which was lovely. There were so many people out, enjoying the day. Then the Mister took the girls to the driving range. (I didn't go because of my gammy shoulder; it still hurts occasionally when I brush my teeth, I'm pretty sure swinging a golf club would not have improved matters.

After an hour or so of reading my book, we went to my mother's for dinner. What could be better?

I think "Good" Friday isn't good enough...I think we should re-name it Fabulous Friday.

Spring!!

I declare winter offically "OVER", which is a bold and daring move here in southwestern Ontario, where there really is no "spring", just a half-hearted winter for a while, and then summer.
But today, winter truly does seem to have run away, and left us with an entirely new season.
What has made me so heady and audacious?

• The sun is out. And it's warm. In Canada, in the winter, you can easily get blazing sunshine combined with -40°C temperatures. In fact, the colder it is, the more likely it is to be sunny, because it is clear. But today and for the past few days, the sunshine is not simply decorative, it has a purpose and a function and you can actually feel it weighing on your head.
• Toby goes out. For the past few months, Toby has expressed a loud and lengthy desire to go outside about a hundred times a day, but recoiled from actually physically leaving the house when presented with the reality of what was out there. He would perform a truly impressive manoever where his front half was coming back in the door while his back half was still on it's way out, which, at the very least, entertained the person standing in the freezing doorway.
• The kids are on March Break. The girls are off school this week, a week which always marks the beginning of the last leg of the school year for me; only three more months of school left, with there being holidays in April and May, to boot. My children spend March Break 1) on the computer 2) shopping and 3) asleep. Not a bad holiday, in by books.
• I've put the boots away. Always a welcome sign of spring: you can walk out the door in the shoes you are wearing.
• I can run with impunity. I started running again recently, because the sidewalks are clear and I don't have to worry about avoiding ice or puddles, or looking like moron leaping to the side or tiptoeing at the last second.
• I smelled a neighbour's BBQ last night. It is possible to BBQ in the winter, but it's a major pain in the ass, and really, why bother? Crank up the oven and enjoy the stuff you can't make in the summer months. Those first few meals of grilled burgers and BBQ chicken are heavenly, and totally welcome. I think we will BBQ tonight.
• The van is clean. There is no point in cleaning out the van in the winter, it reaches the level of a health hazard early in November and stays there for the duration...nobody wants to be out vacuuming in -16° weather. But when it gets nicer out, I'm all keen to pitch out the trash, exhume the Tim Hortons' cup graveyard in the back, and make it presentable.
• Black is whack. Since I colour hair for a living, and manage to get at least one daub of tint on my person every. single. freaking. day. I tend to wear all black to work. The blobs don't show, and if I get bleach on me, I can dye everything back to black easily. But the first fewe days of spring I hate my black clothes and crave turquoise and cotton candy pink and lavendar. And after I've blobbed some 4.51 and some 6.23 on them, I go back to black clothes again.
• It's way too nice to be sitting inside on the computer. Time to go out and putter in the garden.

Enjoy the season!!

Comfort Food

I hit the wall last Saturday, the wall that is winter. It was cold and snowy and damp and utterly miserable here, and although it has not been a terribly bad winter, I had had enough of it. I’m tired of bundling up to get out the door, I’m tired of my nose being cold, I’m tired of cleaning off the car, I’m tired of watching every single step to see if I'm about to slip and fall like a cartoon character. If I could, I would get into bed with a cup of tea and a book for the next month or so and only get out when it’s spring.

Last Saturday, as I came in the door from work, I was cold and starving and defeated, and I had nothing ready for dinner. And then I realized I had all the ingredients for Breakfast Potatoes, and the world seemed a little brighter.

Breakfast Potatoes got their name, not because I’ve ever had them for breakfast, although you totally could, but because they have breakfasty ingredients. I served these with a fruit salad, and things looked a whole lot better.

Breakfast Potatoes serves 2

1 baking potato

3 eggs

3 strips bacon

¼ cup shredded cheese

Poke the potato a few times and bake it in the microwave on HIGH for 10 to 12 minutes. (If I am very organized, I do this the night before or in the morning before I go to work.)

When the potato is cooked through, cut it into bite-sized pieces. Melt some butter and oil in a frying pan and add the potato and let cook without stirring until nice and brown and crusty. Flip the potatoes over, and let cook until all the sides are browned, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, microwave the bacon and shred the cheese.

Crack the eggs in a bowl and beat them until combined. When the potatoes are all browned, push them over to one side of the pan to get them out of the way, and add the eggs and scramble them. When the eggs are starting to firm up, stir the eggs and potatoes together.

Sprinkle the cheese and bacon over the eggs and potatoes, and either run the pan under the broiler to melt the cheese, or do it the lazy way, and lower the heat to quite low (so the eggs don’t over cook) and cover the pan with some foil or a plate for a few minutes.

Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately. (Or eat right out of the pan if you have no shame.)

The Weather Outside Is Frightful...

It's snowing. We've had a blessed non-winter winter here, and it's been delightful not to have to deal with the white stuff. But here it is, the end of December, and we are finally getting snow. We are in the midst of a "snow squall", which really is a small, localized storm that comes in off Lake Huron and "plays red feck" (as my dad would say) with our city and nowhere else.

I thought we would never get any snow this year, because the Mister and I bought a brand new snow blower back in September. You see, we used to have some lovely, elderly neighbours who's son-in-law used to come and snow-blow their driveway for them, and as often as not, would come over and do ours too. But the lovely, elderly neighbours moved into a retirement home last summer, so somehow, I doubt that their son-in-law will be coming around any time soon to blow out our driveway. So we bought our own snowblower, which pretty much guaranteed we'd be snowless this year.

Thing 1 and I went to a movie this afternoon, and elected to walk home from the theatre, about a 20 minute walk. (We saw "New Moon ", which I hadn't seen, but Thing 1 had and was happy to see again. The fourteen-year-old girl in me loved it.) It wasn't snowing when we went into the movie, and it was daylight, so we had an interesting walk home....it was dark by then, and blowing and swirling badly enough to make it tough to see where you were going, and curbs and sidewalks were obliterated, so one got a bit of a jolt when the terrain suddenly dropped 6 inches from one step to the next. We looked ridiculous staggering around out there, I'm sure.

Thing 2 had been dying to go snowboarding, which she was able to do this afternoon, too. It's been way too warm for the local ski hill to even make any snow lately, so she was thrilled with the natural stuff. She was annoyed that we would only pay for a two-hour lift ticket, but after falling for the first hour, and spraining her left wrist part way through the second hour, she was happy enough to call it a day.

The only one really disappointed with winter's sudden arrival is Toby. Man, is he pissed. Somehow, he blames me. Every time he scratches at the door to go out, I gamely open the door only to have him recoil at the blast of cold air, and then give me a deeply wounded look, as though I had cruelly hoodwinked him. Then he slinks into the kitchen and demands a treat.

We live in Canada, I suppose winter was bound to show up sooner or later. I could have used later.

One Last Beach Day

Even though summery weather can last well into September and October, it still feels like summer is at an end once Labour Day comes and the kids go back to school. The kids still have another week to go, and there's not much time to cram in those last few activities of summer.

The Mother Sharks and 14 of their offspring managed to organize ourselves into one last day at the beach today. And what a glorious day it was...the weather didn't look promising when we started out, but we got a windy, sunny, perfect,idyllic beach day. (Lake Huron and I have had our differences lately, I had had it with that lake when we were at the cottage in July, and declared the lake and I had broken up for good. It was too cold and messy and moody, and the lake thought I was too sensitive and princessy, and needed to man up and deal with it. But today we had a nice time together, and have decided to remain friends after all.)

The younger kids played in the lake, and the older ones sat and talked, and quite happily occasionaly went for a walk. The mothers all got a chance to catch up and talk and eat and tell each other what we read recently and what we were having for dinner this evening. I've come to realize what a comfortable bunch these women are; there's no hidden agendas or touchy personalities or rivals looking to score points off each other. They never fail to make me laugh or give me perspective or remind me to not take myself too seriously. I just love them.

It's nice to have one last kick at the summery can.

And The Living Is Easy

Summer has finally arrived in southwestern Ontario, and by that I mean, it's what we expect when we say "summer" around here. Up until now it's been cooler and wetter than usual, and I think we thought we might never get that real heat and humidity at all this year. But the past few days have been sticky and hot, and since I complained bitterly about the cold last winter, I'm happy enough to deal.

Today was 30°C (which is 86°F) with a humidex of 40°C ( which is over 100°F) I love that Canadians give you the humidex, as well as the temperature..."if you thought the actual temperature was wicked, wait until we tell you how hot it really feels!". Like, somehow it being 30° isn't quite incentive enough to forgo decent clothing or basic hygiene, now you can cheerfully disregard common decency altogether! What good is deodorant and modesty with temperatures like these?!? (The opposite is the "wind chill factor" that we get in the winter time, "no matter how cold you thought it was outside? Its even colder than that. Why don't you call in sick to work and crawl under the table with a bottle of gin until the spring comes along?")

Last night Thing 1 and I went running, late enough for the temperature to have dropped enough to make it bearable, or so I thought. We took off at about 8:30 in the evening, and by 8:35, I had had just about enough. It felt like I was running with a warm, wet blanket over my face. You could almost get a hold of the air, it was so thick. Thing 1, always her mother's daughter, was more than willing to take it easy and cut things short.

Toby approves of this weather very much. He's never happier than when the people hang out outside with him, and the air is heavy and his lifestyle is completely appropriate.

He's way too drained to even lift his head off the pillow, poor thing. Occasionally, he will hoik his leg to give his nether regions a seeing-to, but that usually exhausts him, and he has to have another nap for about 6 hours or so. In my next life, I want to come back as a cat.

I know it's summer when the bathroom door won't open, when the glass of iced tea you put down leaves a pond of condensation on the table, and the kids smell of sunscreen when I kiss them. When we have corn for dinner almost every night, when the cat sleeps on the bare concrete of the breezeway, when there are no socks to be matched in the laundry. It's summer when I forgo perfume for bugspray, and I have to drive home quickly from the grocery store so that things don't thaw, making the bed every morning means pulling up the comforter from the foot of the bed. When we have fans on in every room, when my dinner menu is decided by what does NOT need to go in the oven, and I watch almost no television or movies, because it's too nice to be inside.

May it last.

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Stay Home.

We have finally had real, honest-to-God summer weather here for the past few days. It has been a cool, wet summer up until now, but since Sunday we've had a run of the hot, humid weather we usually expect. I can't say I mind it; I spend so much of the year complaining bitterly about the cold that I welcome the heat, and I'll put up with a lot of it before it starts to bother me.

There is one distinct downside to the hot weather, however, and that is how other people choose to dress themselves and then go out in public. I understand that when it is 30°C outside, the priortity is function over style, and far be it from me to criticize other people's fashion choices, what with me inhabiting a glass house in the vicinity of many, many stones, but really, there should be a few guidelines. Think of the children.

• There is no need whatsoever for me to see the crack of your bum. None. I don't care if the sun is blistering the pavement, your pants should fit well enough that NO PART of your bottom is out in public, even accidentally.
• I don't know you well enough to see any part of your underwear whatsoever. Its bad enough that I am forced into a premature and false intimacy by having to deal with a waistband or a bra strap, but when I see the entire bra or 6 inches of boxer shorts or clothes so sheer that I can see the pattern on your underpants, we've crossed a line. And don't get me started on whale tales.... It's one thing to be able to see where your legs go into your underwear, but it's another when I can see where they come out, too.
• And while we are on the subject of underwear, it's not optional. You need to wear it. Yes, all the time.
• Men should wear shirts. Period. I know it's culturally acceptable for men to not wear shirts in public, but really, I don't want to see man-nipples walking down the street. And the only people who should have to put up with hairy, sweaty armpits are the people you are related to, or the ones who chose you. The rest of us can do without it.

I remember being as hot as I have ever been in my entire life, 9 months and two-weeks overdue pregnant with Thing 1. It was about a gazillion degrees out, we had no air conditioning, and my bursting-at-the-seams body had given up any ablility to regulate its temperature about 8 months previously, and I still managed to present myself in public with a bit of decorum. I was as cranky as all get out, but I still managed not to show my butt crack to anyone. If I could do that, so should everyone else.

Ways That I Can Tell That It Is Spring

It's not quite spring here yet; after all, it's still only March, and last year we had one of the worst snowstorms of the whole winter on the first weekend of April. (It was spectacularly horrible.) But it's definitely on it's way....

• Parking spots have freed up again. In the winter, they have to pile the snow in the lots somewhere, and it usually ends up in a couple of parking spots that are out of commission until it all melts. The more it snows, the less places there are to park. I noticed at the library today that all the spots are usuable now.
• Kids playing outside. It's March Break this week, and the weather has been very mild, which means road hockey, skipping, hopscotch and some serious sidewalk chalking.
• Neighbourhood cats. All winter the other cats have stayed away (or home, if they were wise) and Toby has pretty much had the perimeter of the estate secured. Now there are cats wandering into our yard at all hours, and Toby is in a constant state of vigilance, skewering them with a penetrating stare in an effort to show them who's boss.
• I can go outside as is. The lengthy and exhausting preparations to walk out the door are no more. This evening I went to go get Thing 2 at a friends house, and I just picked up my purse and went. (Mind you, I should have changed into shoes from my slippers, but even that seemed like it was too much effort.)
• You can go outside and breathe deeply and it doesn't hurt. Also, it smells outside...all good smells, like damp earth and water and rain and outside. In the winter, everything is frozen and all I can smell on my walks is people's clothes driers running.
• Asparagus, rhubarb and Easter Creme Eggs in the stores.
• The floor at the salon stays clean. In the winter, we have to mop the floor about 4 or 5 times a day, or else the slush and salt make the place look like emptying waterbeds in there. Kind of slippery, too.
• I had to buy new sunglasses the other day. It was sunny, and I couldn't find any of the 17 pairs I bought last year.
• We turned the clocks ahead. Usually this kills me, as losing an hour of sleep is right on up there with me losing an internal organ on the list of "Possible Things I Do Not Want To Lose". But I was in Florida, on holidays, and slept for 12 hours every night and had a nap every day, so I only would have noticed the hour gone if I had been awake for it. (Note To Self: Do that every year.)
• I have to sign the kids up for camp. Summer camps are organized so that you have to sign up your kids and pay for them by the end of March, or they will be full and you will have two very bored, very pissed off children in August.
• I hate my clothes. Happens every year to me about this time. I've been wearing the same stuff day in, day out, for six months now and I'm sick of each and every article of clothing. But it's still not time for t-shirts and capris, so I just have to put up with it and will probably break down and buy something pink that will look so lovely but will have to have a cardigan over it.
• I am not so stabby.

Reprieve

One of the reasons I haven't been posting much on the blog lately is because I am all whiney and moany about the weather, and can barely think about anything else, and really, who wants to read about that? I can barely stand to listen to myself, let alone inflict myself on anyone else.

But today, today, is an exception....today it feels like I'm nearing the end of a long prison sentence; I still have a ways to go, but the end is in sight and if I behave myself, I might get early parole. The sun is shining, the air is filled with the sound of water running and it doesn't hurt to breathe in deeply through your nose. It's not spring, but it's definitely not the dead of winter, either.

The snow has gotten all soft and slumpy and defeated here in the backyard. And that in the birdbath? that is definite melting going on there. Check out that glorious blue sky! It had been so long since we'd seen the sun I actually had to hunt down some sunglasses this morning to go get groceries. I hadn't seen them in ages, and didn't know where they were.

Toby is particularly enthusiastic about the change in temperatures....he had been slowly losing his mind the past couple of weeks, from being indoors so much, and I think I speak for both of us when I say "it's about time". (There's only so much dragging of yarn and tossing of foil balls and changing of bed linens I'm willing to do to keep that cat amused.) Here he is outside, experiencing sensory overload...the sun! the smells! the snow! the cold! Note his awkward stance, as he keeps breaking through the top crust of snow about 1 second after he thinks it's safe to put all his weight on it....he is clearly disconcerted, but I thought if was very funny. (I got a slitty-eyed glare of death when I laughed at him staggering around out there.)

Here is our garden gnome, Peadsworth, clearly coming up for air for the first time in 9 weeks. The forecast is for another day or two of this, and then back to desperate temperatures again, which is to be expected, being February and all. But the odd day like today makes the rest of the winter bearable. Just.

Winter Walk

After five full days of non-stop eating and lolling about like Roman Emporers, this afternoon we thought it might be a good idea to A) go outside and B) move around a little. I was beginning to worry that my body might rebel and throw a tantrum like a 3-year old and refuse to do anything but eat if I didn't show it that other activities are possible.

It was a cold, bright, windy day out, much colder than it looked. The copious amounts of snow we've been dealing with have melted at an astonishing rate, which meant that the creeks and rivers hereabout are way, way higher than usual. After the thaw, everything froze right up again, so everything is encased in ice, too. So, in an effort to get the two kids out, we decided to go and investigate.

Man, there really is no greater magnet for children than water, is there? (Maybe fire, but that would be it.) Thing 2 and her friend poked at the very thin ice with sticks, risked life and limb by going way too close to the swollen creek, and fell down a lot. (Like, I mean, a LOT. Like, constantly. I began to think they had inner ear problems. The Mister got so frustrated with the two of them that he threatened to not take them to the Emergency Room if they broke their wrists. Like the idea of a home bone-setting would make them think twice about where they stepped.)

We saw deer tracks:

And poked around in the water. Here are the two girls clearly ankle deep in water they had been warned within an inch of their lives that they were not to go anywhere near.

This is the pathway, still covered in water. We usually head for that bridge in the background, but today we were thwarted. The two girls were all keen to forge ahead and get to that bridge, but the Mister and I declined. Forcefully. Besides, there was that little matter of coming back through the flood that they hadn't thought of.

All in all, we wandered around for an hour or so, and we were very cold and pleasantly tired by the time we got back. (Some of us had very wet feet, too.) I retired to the couch with a book and something to eat. Some habits are very hard to break.