The snow came just after I called Trev Deely motorcycle to ask them to have my Harley ready a month early. Dave had ridden his Softail past me with that smug look I’d seen on all the motorcyclists for days. Spring was here. Ha ha ha. Looking at you still riding in a cage. I fear I jinxed it. As we say among friends, “I may not be much but I’m all I think about.”
That’s when my furnace died. I called Eric at Starfleet and had faith he’d have it fixed in a day or two. He’s the best there is and has solved every problem I’ve thrown at him over the years. I just turned out the furnace lacked the normal access and each day he’d fix one thing and it would work better but crap out in the night. I love my electric blanket.
I fear I’d been thinking about returning to the prairies but this taste of winter cold and equipment break downs was a personal reminder of the struggle with the environment that was part of day to day existence out east. Here I had mosquito people and horsefly authorities and wasp drivers but there were no real bugs in the lower mainland. And winter didn’t last all year. The climate here is more hospitable. Even if the creepy people demand carbon taxes and punish people for heating their homes so LA people won’t have to use their air conditioners more.
Winter here lasted only a couple of months at most . I’d just taken pictures of pretty blue crocus and tulips and posted them on Face book. I called them Hope and Faith. Would they survive.
Thank God for Canadian Tire. They had an indoor propane heater to attach to propane bottles. They are imostly used in construction sites. The temperature had dropped and my electric heater limited by the available power on my cable wouldn’t do more than keep the temperature above 60. Since living in the tropics I will only wear shorts and t shirt in the home. I was now wearing sweats and sweaters and slippers. I may as well be in Winnipeg.
When the weekend came I escaped with Laura to Harrison Hotsprings. The Harrison Lake Hotel was luxurious with heat and I sat for hours in the public hot spring pool dreaming of the Mariana Islands. My dreams all week week were of my sailboat and fair winds and following seas. Darlene’s incredible Facebook pictures of Australia beaches have certainly stoked the dreams. Laura began talking about her love of Saipan once the snowstorm hit.
This week Eric became pretzel man and got into the inner workings of the furnace to scratch the right spot that had made the beast ornery. A tiny burnt out part that somehow not responded to the computer command to ignite. Eric set it straight. Heat, glorious, heat was now mine.
I sat on the couch in shorts and T-shirt watching NCIS and Big Bang Theory in shock. I went to work each day. I love my F350 truck with new snow tires. I smugly watched cars fish tailing in the ice and snow. I talked to a motorcyclist who said it was ‘awfully’ cold, the year’s best understatement.
All over the news the Justin Trudeau and family reality show desperate to out compete their role models the Kardashian’s and Jenners were in India dressed funny doing photo ops in front of impressive old buildings. I laughed at the quotes from Indiannews about how ridiculous they looked in their Indian “costume”. Anyway now I expect him to break into the song “It’s fun to live at the YMCA” Even when I visited Mumbai it was as sophisticated as New York so I’m not surprised Trudeau’s antics are perceived as “mocking”. When he visited us in the DTES he certainly didn’t get dressed in layers of rags carry and carry a sleeping bag.
The India government was further disgusted with him as he was only meetings with terrorists, the same modus operadi he used in Canada. But even that didn’t help his plummeting ratings so he went back to his winning strategy of giving millions and billions to strangers. 10’s of millions to terrorists in Canada. Billions to overseas tyrannies. And now he says he’s got a million dollar ‘trade deal’ but it turns out he knows as little about a good trade deal as he knows about economy, environmen or community. He’s given $750 million to chucling gleeful Indian billionaires, he really likes to hob nob with billionaires at our expense,, and they have said they’ll give him $250 billion in return. It’s like stealing candy from a baby. But the media is all over it and every one is smoking dope and drinking and no doubt some are trying opium because ‘why not’.
My patients are homeless and the news says the shelters turned away 50 people or more. I’m writing prescriptions for antibiotics. The flu is killing old people. There’s a sense the government wants to save money by killing off the citizens . The death rate from the fentanyl epidemic I’m in the middle of is over a thousand and now they’re shooting each other near the clinic I’m working. But there’s another picture of Justin and Sophie cavorting in front of religious monuments in the hot weather having abandoned Canada to the cold for his weekly family vacation.
I snarl by myself at times. My eye less dog comforts me. He’s been in a world of pain and now we’re relatively okay. We have heat to return to.
Then the pipes freeze. It’s a diagnostic dilemma in the dark in the snow in the below zero windchill last night in the dark but I find some idiot (me) has unplug the heat wire for the hoses so he could plug in his electric bicycle falsely believeing spring had sprung. I plug in the cord. In the morning the shower is running full blast, the pipe unfroze in thee night,but there’s puddles mist and spray throughout the bathroom. I towel everything down. I really have to pee.
I go to my refrigerator to get milk for the coffee I’m making and the fridge is off, the freezer meat is soft. Sometime in the night the water pump and new plug and electric heater have blown the circuit. I re set it. I now have heat and electricity and my refrigerator is working. My water heater I hope is back on line. It’s taken me about a half hour to get this all back in order. I’m having my first sip of coffee.
I’m running a bit late. I didn’t do the sit ups I promised myself I’d do. I’ve not meditated but I’ve not suicided. I’ve not shot up with a needle. I ‘ve not gone looking for a bomb to blow up some government office. I’ve not become a rapper. I’ve not voted Liberal. I’ve just plodded through a not atypical Canadian winter day knowing that as I’m in Vancouver this is likely my karma for all the ‘smug’ remarks I’ve made about Winnipeg when my friend Wes sends pictures of the magic driveways and walkways there that fill up with snow minutes after they’ve been plowed or shoveled. Here the snow will be gone in a week or so. I hope the bulbs are deep enough to withstand the cold. I love the flowers of spring. Soon I’ll be visiting the tulips in the valley for the annual glorious tulip festival.
I just have to remember that Spring does come. Even in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal Spring eventually returns with warmth and joy for all. I expect the media will have triumphal selfies of Justin Trudeau in Canada at last, maybe even at work in parliament. It might just be once like the sighting of the ground hogs but even the French work here eventually. The biker gangs and mafia will soon take to the streets. The corruption will heat up. It’s Canada , we’re resilient.
Another old friend died. He was spiritual. We know he’s in heaven. That alternative appears more attractive in Canadian winters.
My back hurts getting out of bed. The chiropractor is helping. I’ve been chewing aspirin and my lovely doctor gave me a stool sample kit for Occult Blood testing. I am surely bleeding in my aching gut with all this aspirin I’m taking to just be mobile so the last thing I want is a ‘false positive’ test. They threaten everyone over 50 with the long snake. As kids we were scared of them under our beds but these ones are real and despite the humor of Connolly’s description of a colonoscopy I really feel I could go to my grave happily having avoided medically induced explosive diarrhea.
It really isn’t that bad. I have to look on the positive. Snow tires, clothing, healthy cat and dog, heat again, running water again, light and aspirin.
There’s just this little bit about going outside. Too many car crashes. The other drivers scare me.
I see people who can’t bring themselves to leave their apartments. I’m seeing more and more people afraid and paranoid. The heart patients are having trouble breathing in the cold.
I have a picture of two malaria’s and a cholera up on my wall to remind me we’re just helping each other, one a little more along the road or a little less sick.
My mother would say, “lord love a duck”.
. I’ve got to see if the water has had enough time to heat so I can shave. I need the inspiration of a hot shower especially to ease my back.
I’ve got clean clothes. And snow tires. Don’t forget the snow tires.
Thank God for spring and please get rid of this snow so I can ride my motorcycle. Really I don’t want a pickle I just want to ride on my motorcycle.
I trust you spring. You will beat winter . You always do.
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