It’s so cold…

Fall teased us with near 0°C temperatures until the first week of December. Then, like it does here, it dropped to between -25C/-13F and -35C/-31F and it’s been that way ever since and it will stay like that until March. Don’t dawdle when in between buildings, plug in your car or it won’t start, don’t drop your mittens in the snow or you’ll lose your hand, type of shit. Repair shops are full of cars with cracked hoses and plug heads that have been ripped off from driving away with them still connected. The roads are such that you can see the brake light reflection of the car in front of you in the sheer ice. People who drive 60 in a 50 zone now drive 50. People who normally drive 40 in a 50 zone now drive 27 – apparently drivers' skill-self-trust/speed graphs are slightly curved. Planes that sit on the tarmac too long are de-iced a second time. Bellaclavas have a white goatee from frozen breath condensation. Your cheeks and nose feel a distinct bite in a subtle breeze. I have to thaw my hockey gear out with a blow dryer before every game because it doesn’t dry in the garage, it just freezes. And I just can’t keep my poor baby warm, she’s cold all the time.





They tell you to pack an emergency kit when traveling in your car. Why? Because this is all you see for hours when driving in this province.




It’s still beautiful country and I still like to watch the sunrise and sunset. I watch it rise during my first smoke break at work and watch it set during my next smoke break. (Where are my vitamin D pills?)

Anybrr, this post is interactive. If you drop in, you must post a punch line. I’ll get you started.

You wouldn’t believe how cold it is here.
(How cold is it?)
It’s so cold…

I saw a squirrel rubbing his nuts.

I tried peeing outside and ended up a tripod with a skinny yellow leg.

I can’t wait to get in from shoveling and get warmed up by a cold beer.

Some wild chill got in my mouth and made my molar ache. (That one is true).

Saskatoon hookers will pay you for a ride around the block.

Gave at the Office/Friends Lost

Here’s a video explanation of a concept called the landing pad. What’s interesting about this is that it’s not so much a video about a particular space in your house as it is a video about a particular space within a woman’s mind. Like a voluntary tumour or a chunk she donated to her retarded brother. I do appreciate the rather large concession though, the allowance of temporary clutter. You can see her blood pressure rise as she begins to talk about what happens when the landing pad doesn’t get processed.

And she goes one beyond to suggest that it become like a “task driver” where anything on the pad that pertains to you is a task you must perform or an item you must process. That’s some pretty forward thinking. That’s the cutting edge in terms of accountability when you think abou– oh wait, we do that here at the office. Employing business practices at home is not revolutionary, it’s out of place. A business functions because its people are both masters of their domain and accountable to the product they put forth. Children are neither.

I used to have a landing pad in my old apartment, it was called the kitchen. Then I had a landing pad for clothes that were in flux between clean and dirty, it was called the entire bedroom. These were more permanent residences than temporary landing pads though. I loved clutter. Clutter was my roommate. Clutter always had my back. Because of clutter, shit was right THERE when I needed it, right where I had put it down (a convenience seldom enjoyed when living with a woman). Picking clothes to wear was easy because clutter ensured my entire wardrobe was always within sight. Me and clutter made some pretty cool discoveries every now and then too, like, “The fuck is that smell?” and “There that shit is!” When I went to sleep at night I knew clutter would watch over me, which was comforting, except that when I tried to walk around in the dark clutter always seemed to be sleeping right in my path. Clutter ensured that doing the dishes was slick and easy because clutter soaked them for a couple weeks. Me and clutter used to laugh at people who were such neat freaks it got to be counterintuitive. “Like when you sit down to turn on the TV only to realize the remote has been ‘put away’ – on top of the TV!” Clutter would say and we would laugh and laugh. *SIGH* I kinda miss clutter. We were tight. Clutter will always have a special place in my heart.