Hello, friends. I realize that I have not posted anything on this blog in a long while. I have had many thoughts and good intentions about writing a post. I wanted, for instance, to tell you all about the indoor Christmas parade I attended in Edmonton, wherein a woman from a local dentist's office dressed as a tube of toothpaste and some greyhound rescues were dressed as reindeer. Vixen, in particular, was not amused. There were mascot performers and some people from an organization known as the Knights of the Northern Realm. It was quite a display. It was the best (read: only) indoor parade I have ever attended.
But that was December. Several long months ago.
And it is STILL winter. But, take heart. The sun returned at the bus stop a few weeks ago after a long absence! There are also still festivals in this fair city. A few weeks ago we went to the Silver Skate Festival. Outdoors. It was a high of zero degrees Fahrenheit. We were undeterred, but I think I almost lost a toe, or two. My toes aren't that great, anyway, but I would like to keep the full set for resale value.
Almost everyone up here who knows I am from Virginia asks me how I am handling winter. I tell them that even Virginia has had a rough season this year. They are impressed by your snow totals, I must say, Mid-Atlantic folk. I have managed quite well, I think, to survive this long winter without losing my minds or my happy spirit, but I have to say that one thing, above all else has bothered me about winter here: One basically has to guess where the lanes to the roads are located, especially when it is actively snowing at night.
They manage to mark where stop lines would theoretically be at intersections. They put up signs to show where hypothetical medians go. There is no such aid for tracking the lanes themselves. You are on your own.
Last night, I was driving home from the concert hall downtown, the Winspear Centre for Music. It's a lovely place, and I had a great rehearsal with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble. It was such a great evening of music-making, in fact, that I had forgotten all about the weather outside. As I stepped through the doors with my fellow choristers out into the night air, one man gasped and said, "Not again?! It is supposed to be too cold to snow." That right there is a phrase I never adequately understood until I moved to Alberta: "Too cold to snow."
I got into my car and started down the road. The snow was light, glittery, and wispy-- beautiful, but it was blowing like white desert sand across my windshield and the road. One cruel joke of highway safety is that lane markers are also white. There are also no reflectors on the roads here; they would just be broken under the wheels of a plow. So, Kelley, just pick a spot that looks like a lane and pray you make it home. That is what I did. Tractor trailers, oil rigs, pokey little Hondas, and I just made our own highway configuration. It was terrifying: a snow globe of terror, brought to you by the Government of Alberta.
I feel lucky to be able to write this entry today. It is an entry of great gratitude that I paved my own path and survived.
Oh, and Saturday will be a downright spring-like 39 degrees. Cue the robins.
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