A Great Winter Vacation

Well, lucky me! We had our first sort of major snowfall last night, in four months time I will laugh at calling this a major snowfall, but I don’t live four months in the future, I live in the now. In the now the temperature feels cold, there is ice under the four centimetres snow that we received and I had to shovel and spread sand on the ice. This wouldn’t normally bother me except that it is forecast to stay cold for the foreseeable future. It is too early to settle into winter.

 

I had to help a woman up that fell in a parking lot outside of the market today. My initial impulse was to rush to her aid which is laudable. When I started to help her I couldn’t help but think she might not appreciate the help due to the threat of getting Covid 19 from a perfect stranger. Well, I’m not perfect but I am strange. While we were struggling to get her off of the wet ice I worried that I might fall and then they would have to get a crane truck in to lift me vertical. That was too much thinking for just a few seconds. I will be pretty pissed if I get sick.

 

I tend to dread the coming of winter even while I look forward to it. The first snowfall means that it can’t be very long before we start to look forward to the Christmas season. Of course since winter seems to have come along a trifle early this year it is signaling the imminence of Halloween. I wasn’t sure if Halloween would happen this year, but I have been assured that it will. Alberta’s top doctor says Halloween is a go and if you ask any kid if we should cancel Candy Day they just give you a look that says things that little kids shouldn’t say. I thought that maybe the door to door collection of candy might pose a threat but I guess some things are worth dying for.

 

I put away most of the out door stuff a couple of days ago, but I still need to organize the shed bringing winter things forward and moving the summer things to the back. I won’t be needing flower pots for a few months and those garden tools can take a nap until April. I do have to put the lawnmower away, I should drain the oil and gas but there is a better than even chance that won’t happen unless the snow melts and it warms up to seasonal temperatures. It will all get done, I just have to acclimatize myself to a new reality.

 

There is zero chance of a trip to a tropical paradise this year even if I win a lottery or my uncle Scrooge McDuck dies and leaves me a vault of money for me to swim in. I just can’t trust our American cousins to show wisdom in their Covid 19 precautions. Maybe I will take a virtual trip to Hawaii. I can turn the heat up in the house and stand in a couple of inches of water in the tub pretending I am walking along the beach. I will get Louise to waft a dead fish under my nose every now and then to add a little realism. I can maybe make a shave ice and pretend that my breakfast comes from the Kihei Cafe and lunch from Nalu’s. At sunset I will sit on a lawn chair in the front window and if I squint my eyes and use my imagination I should be able to see a whale just on the horizon just before the rare green flash happens.

 

Should be a great winter vacation…