You Can’t Stop Crazy

The prediction was for a temperature of -11°C with a wind chill bringing it up to and past -20°, with about 10 cm of snow today. The snow would be horizontal with that wind and cause drifts in all of the places you don’t want to see drifts at all.

 

I lay in bed this morning thinking about what the day was going to be like and thanking whoever the genius was that invented the forced air furnace and central heating. Days like today are good days to sit inside with a hot drink and watch the wind blowing the snow around. Every now and then I have to  leave my nice, warm nest and shovel a few inches of snow, but I am soon back into the warmth. I generally just get cold enough to appreciate coming inside. Sometimes I have to go out, but now I just go from the house to the car and then to whatever my destination is. Life is good…and warm.

Years and years ago, shortly after Louise and I had moved to Calgary, the province was in the midst of a long, deep, cold spell. I think it was about six weeks of below -30° weather. It was hell! I was delivering mail at the time and everyday I would come home, sit in front of the fireplace for a few hours and write my resignation. By the end of the night I had warmed up and decided to keep working at the Post Office for one more day. I was so cold every day that to this day there is a spot just under my eye that goes numb every time I am out in below 30° weather.

 

It was somewhere in the middle of this cold spell that there was a news report of a couple just to the south and west of Calgary that had been living in a tipi for the last few years. A tipi in this weather? They were interviewed and they said that the tipi was quite warm and the indigenous peoples lived in them for thousands of years. Sure they did, they had no other option! They also wiped their asses with leaves, bark and smooth river rocks. You can’t stop crazy from being crazy.

I could live in a tipi, shit in the woods and forage for my food like my distant ancestors did. I could, but I don’t. I’m just going to enjoy my warm home, indoor plumbing and the ability to buy my food from the corner store.