Warm Winter Soup

I don't know about you, but the people that say they like winter are the same people that say, "it's not the heat, but the humidity" What is there to like about this time of year? The running your car for twenty minutes to warm up? The shoveling of the driveway? In this part of the world winter carries on and on. Brown snow until March, buried yard tools rotting away, industrial grade salt destroying everything. A sizable amount of "Canadians" claiming it's just a little snow, and driving at high speeds on the highway. Ontarians try and wear that badge on their shoulders as if it's as cool as being from New York. As if by stating that you love winter makes you more Canadian than others. You must like hockey! Okay I agree with that one, but I don't need to like the cold. And I don't.

Perhaps what compounds this hatred is the fact that it'll be months before it is over. Growing up on the west coast it was different. Sure it only snowed about once a year and we all took the day off, but it was overcast for much of the winter. Again Ontario residents have told me at length that they would prefer the bitter, ice, and wind chill cold, rather than the damp and grey. Liars! I wonder why people say that people from Toronto are full of shit? Yeah I'd rather don a full length snow suit over an umbrella. When my friends in Vancouver call me on January 10th and tell me they just played 18, and I'm destroying the environment by idling my car long enough to drive slowly to the store to buy more anti-freeze. You know what, I'll take the galoshes! I'll take letting my windshield wipers stay on for three months, instead of scraping.

The real crazy thing is that the past ten years I still haven't gotten used to it. I still think that it's not really that cold, and it is. That the snow isn't that bad, and it is. I see the sun out and assume it's nice, and it isn't. I hear that people from B.C. can't drive in the snow, and they're right. We don't have winter tires, or salt trucks. We don't drive in snow, we ride it! On mountains, not hills! Although, the weather on the left coast doesn't give me the one thing that I've learned to love about Toronto. There is one day here that doesn't have the same excitement as over there. The first nice day. That outshines, literally, most days out west. Not because it's nicer, or hotter, but because it's there. It sometimes happens for a week or so in March. You wake up and feel something different. We weren't sure if it would ever come and here it is. It's Blue Jays games with the roof off. Bike riding on Toronto Island. Jumping off the dock at Ben's cottage. You can't love them both. There are two seasons in Toronto, winter and construction. I'll take the latter.

And don't say Autumn. I'm looking at you Pat!

Last week it was minus eighteen, and today it's plus ten. My back yard looks upon a schoolyard and you know what I see. SOUP!