Okay, let's just get this out of the way
Alright. So. I don't know what your breakfast routine is, but mine goes something like this: I'll eat, say, Red River hot cereal every day for breakfast for, say, six months until one day I wake up and realize I'm bloody sick to death of Red River hot cereal for breakfast and switch over to peanut butter & jam on toast, which I will proceed to eat every day for, say, four months until I instantly switch over to Bran Flakes and on and on and etc. and etc.
I'm starting to realize I'm the same way with extra-curricular activities. There's blocks of blogging, followed by blocks of reading, followed by blocks of hiking followed by blocks of baking, etc., etc., etc. And for the past half year or so, I was completely disinterested in blogging.
I have a couple of minor excuses as well: I got behind. I have a whopping big list of things I want to blog about (three-quarters of which are waaaaaay past their expiry date), and the bigger that list got, the more I shrank away from actually getting started. Also, there was the travel: from Saskatoon to the Shuswap to The Farm to Japan: I just wasn't around a heck of a lot, and when I was, I was in either pre or post trip mode. All the trips went well (I may even blog about them one day! OOooOOO!), despite having to fight tooth and nail at work just to get the time off. I really feel like each trip was earned in that regard.
Okay. Now that I've got THAT off my chest, can I discuss how ABSOLUTELY EFFING COLD it is right now? Yeeeeee CATS! Seriously. We've had snow and sub-zero temperatures before Toronto. TORONTO! I was in West Van yesterday night, and there was a wicked wind coming off the ocean that pushed the temperature down to -20. THIS NEVER HAPPENS HERE. (Okay. It happened once . . . in the 10 years I've lived here . . . BUT THAT WAS JANUARY). I'm torn between being weirded out by the crazypantsness of it all and totally reveling in sunny, snappy days and the SNOOOOOW of it all! Pretty! Even when it's half melted! YAY.
I don't know how my bulbs are gonna do, seeing as how I planted them just a few days before this cold snap. (I was in Japan, alright?). Well, I got half of them planted, anyway (I ran out of soil and daylight, since the sun starts setting at, like THREE THIRTY now. Le sigh.) The sun was shining right on to my balcony this afternoon, and I somehow convinced myself it was warm enough to plant the remainder of my fleurs (in all fairness, that concrete really does warm up in the sun), so I went out to by one more bag of soil and . . . it was frozen into a solid brick. Of course. (If I didn't live in this warm, rainy town, I might have expected that). Actually, being frozen made the bag A LOT easier to carry, but Cliff help you if you throw it down on top of your fingers, NOT THAT I WOULD EVER DO THAT. *sucks on middle fingernail*. I hope it warms up soon, otherwise, my spring fleurs are going to be more like late summer fleurs and I don't want them to face the wrath of the @##$%$@#@@@%($^*@%#@! aphids.
I don't think it's going to snow again before it warms up, which is a pity because when I looked out my window Saturday morning, the scene was exquisite. I actually went outside and watched the swirly, fluffy flakes fall for awhile from my balcony. It made me get my long-dormant haiku freak on. (QUICK! RUN AND/OR HIDE!)
Oh. Too late. Mwahahahahahahaaaaa!
November 20th, 1:15 a.m.
ropes of rain bursting
into snow's silent sugar
icing on my nose
graveyard Mounties laugh
cover their hands with coat sleeves
to clean off their car
documented routes
the U-Turn on 14th Street
a bold question mark
anonymous ghost
drags his feet across the street
footprints: white on white
hanging from branches
a new calligraphy forms
in winter's white ink
9:50 a.m.
slender blond maples
toss their manes indignantly
shaking out white hairs