Snow survival tips for the uninitiated

So, you're a Wet Coaster, and yet - snow. INCHES of snow. Yes, plural. Which has melted and then frozen again, creating this product called "ice", instead of just melting and going right into the ground where the green grass and flowers grow.

I feel your pain. I too was once brutally exposed to this thing called "winter". Repeatedly. Sometimes on purpose. And yet, I survived. And you can too, if you follow some simple survival tips!

Tip #1: How to walk on an icy sidewalk
This is all about centre of gravity. You need to keep your weight over each foot, eyes on your path,taking small deliberate steps and do not, under any circumstances shuffle your feet. If you are doing it correctly, random passerbys will think you are an elderly man walking through a minefield. They may point and laugh, or perhaps offer to walk you across the street.

Careful. CAREFUL! That's it...

Tip #2: Driving in snow
Don't.

Okay, fine. You may have to get somewhere (work, school, driving random passerbys to the hospital after they point at you, laugh and slip, cracking their tailbones) and the buses are probably a)running late and b)being driven by people who also don't know what do to in the snow.

The weakest of the herd are left to succumb to the cold.

So if you must - go slow. No, slower. No - SLOWER. Theeeeerrrrre. Thaaaaaat's iiiiiiit. Be as gentle on the pedals as a newborn baby...that you step on...

Tip #3: Dressing
In the temperature adjustment system, the people need to present two separate, yet equally important groups: the layers who protect against cold and the accessories that keep in the heat. These are their stories. (dunhk duhnk).

Toques may look dorky, but you know what else looks dorky? WHEN YOUR FROSTBITTEN EARS FALL OFF. Put it on. And the scarf (extra long so it can wrap around your face) and gloves and at least an extra two layers under your jacket. (bomp bomp)

So that's it! Three simple ways to survive the unbearable cold snap MINUS temperature that has afflicted the Garden City, even if it lasts for, like, a whole TWO WEEKS...or more! (duh duh).

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It's too darn hot

Oh, wow - what a week.  Tuesday was the SINGLE HOTTEST DAY OF MY LIFE.  It went past 50 celsius (that's 122 farenheit) during the day.  Also, the air conditioner broke at my work, meaning it was the first day that I didn't freeze my ass off in the office because I'm in a building with two hockey rinks that is kept below room temperature at all time.  So that was good.  But then the ice rinks almost completely melted, so that was bad.  I guess.

And then the other night we had severe thunderstorms - and a tornado warning.  As this flashed across the bottom of the screen during Rockstar Supernova, I was all "whuh?  Wuh wuh?"  Because it never occurred to me that I lived in the part of the world where such things happenend.  So I looked at DD all, "So?  Do we bring in the container garden?  Tie down the patio furniture?  Sleep in the basement?  Tape the rest of the show?"

Fortunately, however, the warning was lifted, and I could enjoy my cheesy reality TV in peace, as nature intended.

A Meaty Issue

I still remember the moment to this day: standing in the kitchen, trying to conjure up the words to explain to my mom how there was this girl, and she was different, and I thought I might be like her, and no, it wasn’t a lifestyle choice but something that was really true, felt deep down inside.

And I still remember my mom’s incredulous looks, and the disappointment in her voice when she looked me square in the eye and said “Are you sure you’re a vegetarian?”

That was in high school. I had gone on a science trip, and for some reason, spent an exceeding amount of time with the school’s foremost vegan, she who won the Concours d’art oratoire, like, a zillion years running with her speech about how awesome it was to be a vegan and if you weren’t a vegan then you probably weren’t that awesome. I remember one part of her speech was about how being a vegan meant she had more choices than other people in terms of diet, which is technically false, because of – well, logic; but also kind of true, because there’s about 400 varieties of beans and legumes and curds and whatnot that meat-eaters don’t even know exist, let alone serve up for dinner.

So, on this one particular trip, she lent me a book (isn’t that always where it starts? Curse you, literature! Socrates’s dire predictions were true!) that seemed pretty persuasive. And I returned home struggling with how to come out to my mom.

Because in our house? Not eating meat was an unheard of thing, right up there with regular church attendance. Like we were some sort of bizarro rednecks: if He happened to drop by, Jesus would be welcome to dinner, as long as he liked his steak medium-rare and didn’t talk about Himself.

Like any good mother who thinks that her daughter’s gone completely wacko, my mother tested my resolve.

“You’ll have to cook for yourself”

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll need you to come to the grocery store with me.”

“Alright.”

When those two failed, she pulled out the big guns:

“I’m making teriyaki chicken wings for dinner.”

And that was that. I was a vegetarian for all of about four hours.

It’s kind of strange, but twice I’ve taken up smoking on a regular basis (once in 2000 and once in 2004, both because of roommate conflicts) and twice I’ve quit cold turkey, no problem. I’m not trying to be flippant about a serious issue, like “Oooh, I’m so special, look at me, quitting smoking is easy, tra lalala, everyone should do it!” But it’s just that smoking doesn’t quite do it for me the way a pile of BBQ spare ribs does.

And that’s the real key, isn’t it? We all have our addictions, our crutches that allow us to deal with the insanity of the world. Some people smoke, some people drink, some people watch reality TV, some people watch reality TV with plate full of bacon.

But lately (as in the last year or so) a strange thing has happened: I don’t quite have the same taste for it. Reality TV, I mean. Also meat.

I don’t quite know how it happened. I mean, I still think meat is both tasty and delicious. And the whole “it’s wrong to hurt animals” thing is both true and yet somehow totally irrelevant in my mind. I’ve always been of the mind that if you couldn’t kill dinner yourself, you shouldn’t eat meat. I’ve never had to prove myself in that regard, but I’m pretty sure I could follow through.

I think what really got me was a)the nagging voice in the back of my head that tries to get me to live sustainably, and b)the discovery that there’s plenty of good non-meat food to eat out there.

In terms of sustainability, it finally sunk in that meat is just not an efficient source of food. You pump in tonnes of grain and water, you get back a few hundred pounds of meat. Sorry, Bessie, but that’s just not a good return on your investment. And, to make matters worse, in order to get a better return, Bessie gets pumped full of steroids and antibiotics and other crap which now means that the average age of menstruation is, like, 11 in girls (14 in boys).

In terms of diet, I had the good fortune to have a vegetarian roommate who loved to cook, and share what she cooked, and was a good cook. And all of a sudden, I’m like – damn, this is good! (This is in contrast to a vegetarian roommate whom I lived with for all of two months, who once came upon a pork chop I was defrosting and snarked “Who left animal in the microwave?”).

And I’ve also got the support of my body, who actually started telling me some nights “No, you don’t want any chicken in your stir-fry”. It was a little terrifying at first, like “Whose body are you and what have you done with my body, which used to pack away 6 pieces of cold KFC for breakfast?”

So it’s not that I’m meatless, it’s just that I meat-less. And while that’ not going to win me the Concours d’art oratoire anytime soon, at least it’s a start.

Seal of Approval!

Dear Celebrity of some note,

It's that time of year again: the glamourous people of the world are flocking to Canada for the nation's signature cultural and economic event. No, not this one. Or this one. Or even this one. No, the one that brings together musicians, tv stars, and aging European sexpots:

SEAL HUNT 2006! The place where all the most CARINGEST famous people go to care!

Looking to branch out from "celebrity" to "celebrity who cares about something"? Aspiring to be a recognized humanitarian with all the prestigious awards and glamourous events that entails? Trying to find that perfect cause that only lasts a couple of weeks and affects one of the most stable, if not overabundant, species in the world, so that when it never goes extinct or even gets so much as edangered you can give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back in between hot stone massages and rolling in a pile of money? Well, this is the one for you!

Bring your hip waders! Wear your fanciest toque! Remember, EVERYTHING goes with white! By which we mean the adorable white fluffy baby seals that you will be photographed with! They're so helpless, they can't get away when you want to shoot them - with a gun or a camera! And fortunately, only the former is illegal, so you can get still get your pictures with them instead of their big ugly parents who'd probably just swim away or try to bite you, and who would look terrible during an awards night photo montage.

Here's what our satisfied customers have to say:

"I love all animals. That's why I'm a vegetarian. That's also why I'm protesting this hunt. Also, my hot, much-younger, former- model wife and I sure looked fab next to those adorable baby seals! Thanks, seal hunt, for giving us an easy out in the field of eco-activism! I'd love to do more to help the plight of the tens of millions of animals brutally butchered in slaughterhouses, but I don't fancy smelling like dung. Cheerio!"
Paul M, England

"These seals are a beautiful gift to the world. Beautiful things must be protected. I should know. If only I'd worn sunscreen when I was young and super-hot. Now, if the world runs out of seals, they will be coming for my pelt."
Brigitte, France

"I wish I really was the characters played on my hit shows, because then I could build a gate to another world using only an empty TicTac box, a spoon, and some ductape. Then my military unit and I would take all those precious baby seals with us to safety. Of course, once they outgrew their cute stage, we'd dump them back on Earth to take their chances with all the other animals, and Fred Savage."
Richard, USA

What are you waiting for? Sure, you could pick something a little more pressing, like third-world debt relief or AIDS, but those are wide-reaching, complex issues with no easy answer and real consequences to the earth and humanity. Maybe some people want the fates of poverty-stricken masses on resting on their shoulders, Bono , but do you? Maybe some people want to piss off the global-military-complex, Michael Moore, but wouldn't you rather just piss off a group of people that can't actually retaliate in any way, like economically-disadvantaged Canadians? 'Cause they don't get much more economically disadvantaged than the Newfoundland fishers and Inuit hunters who participate in the hunt!

Time is running out - for you to get that photo of a lifetime next to an ungodly adorable creature! This year, pick the cause that fits your busy lifestyle - pick Seal Hunt 2006!

Sincerely,

Whoever it is who keeps organizing this goddamn thing every year

Beware the sun, and other things I have learned about winter in Ottawa

Six years of Ottawa winters, and it still gets me at least once every season. The sun, that is – all bright and glowy and shiny and raining down the UV rays and Vitamin D, calling out to me with its tendrils of burning gasses – “Come on out!” it says. “Look at me, all fiery and not obscured by so much as a single cloud! Leave your toque, your scarf, your thermal underwear, and come enjoy my life-giving light and warmth!”

And so I do – and instantly freeze all the way to my ovaries because DAMN! I keep forgetting that in this town, Sun=Cold Enough to Freeze the Bells off the Peace Tower.

Not so back home. In Victoria, sunny meant just what you’d think – a warmish day, at least, maybe cold and breezy in the evening, but certainly nothing to panic about. Only now, six years later, has it gotten through my permafrosted brain that Sun no longer equals Nice Out, that Sun=BAD!, that a sunny day means that I can look forward to those moments at the bus stop where I forget what it’s like to have feeling in my hands or feet.

Now I can’t even spell meteorologist (or can I? I’m too lazy to spell check) let alone explain what they do, so don’t expect some sort of in-depth analysis of why it is SO MUCH FREAKING COLDER on sunny days versus cloudy ones. I just state the facts, I don’t/can’t explain them. Stephen Harper’s gaining popularity in the polls, the sun makes things colder – don’t ask me to give you the why and how!

Another thing I have learned about winter is that West Coasters walk differently than the rest of the country. Every year, I slip and fall on icy sidewalks/streets at least three times. These incidents range from the minor (as in “smile abashedly at the concerned strangers”) to the spectacular (as in “write up contract for share of $10,000 American’s Funniest Home Video prize with random stranger with camera phone”).

And apparently, the reason for this tumbles are that I don’t walk the right way. My more winter-wise friends are constantly telling me to “Walk this way!” (not to be confused with Steven Tyler, who also tells me to “talk this way”). “This way” is apparently lightly and gingerly, like the sure-footed mountain goat, who sure as hell would be extinct by now if the mountains had the same snow and ice build-up and crazy aggressive drivers that Ottawa does.

Which brings me to another thing that I have learned about winter – nobody gives a shit about pedestrians.

Not the plows, that constantly dump snow from the sides of roads onto sidewalks, or pile it up and the edge of the crosswalk so that my walk to work more closely resembles the 200m hurdles. Not the sidewalk sweepers, those mini-plows with major attituded that barrel up and down the narrow walkways spraying salt and sand on everyone without slowing or stopping for foot traffic, thereby forcing pedestrians to leap for the safety of the snowbanks (aside – terrible, terrible aside – the first year I arrived in Ottawa, the body of an elderly woman was discovered in a snowbank on a busy downtown street – it was suspected that she had tried to get out of the way of one of these sweepers and fell into the snowbank, laying covered and unnoticed until she froze to death – not to be crass, but winter is serious business around here). And certainly not the drivers who refuse to let me cross the street to get to my house, and leave me standing on the side of the road, a mere 150m from warmth in the -20 or less weather while they cruise along in their dangerously unsafe SUVs.

Other things to know:

-The best way to keep warm is to gather all the clothing you have, and then wear it.
-If you can avoid going outside, then do so. Invent games, activities, or friends to keep you sane. If that fails, well, you might be crazy but at least you're warm.
-Do not, under any circumstances, think that you can just "run out" and get the mail/empty the composter/bring out the garbage without wearing your full winter gear, or years from now you will be the icy centrepiece of a museum exhibit entitled "Frozen in Time - 21st Century Humans and the Mindless Chores that Killed Them"
-Always keep a Tauntaun with you in case you need to slit open its belly and sleep in its guts.
-Actually, that about covers it.