Hi again, James!  This is a continuation of my previous message to you:

AH>  Still snowing in Calgary...??  :-)

JB>  I've heard on The Weather Channel! Now that you have
JB>  frozen slush filling the storm sewer, kayaks might be
JB>  preferred over cross-country skis? 


           Uh-huh.  On various occasions I've said only half-jokingly that it
must be about time to build an Ark.  When I see news footage of people in the
Fraser valley being saved by rowboat I'm glad we have kayaks... just in case!
But I can't help wondering about folks who choose to reside on a flood plain,
then seem surprised if the river overflows its banks every few years....  ;-)



JB>  Our cold has subsided with a bit of Chinook winds. Even
JB>  when those missed us this past few days, -17C seemed like
JB>  a respite from the minus 40 wind chill.


           Yes, when the temperature went up to zero here it felt quite balmy
by comparison with what we'd had before!  Until mid-January there was nothing
Dallas & I hadn't experienced at some time in our lives.  But then we had ten
days of fog with the humidity close to one hundred percent.  The pavement was
wet & the trees were dripping, just as if it had been raining.  We often have
fog in spring & fall... for two or three days at a time.  On this occasion we
had a temperature inversion, or so the meterorologists told us.  I'm not sure
why that would be the case when it was warm & sunny in the mountains of North
Vancouver even though it was fifteen degrees colder at lower altitudes.  I do
understand there was virtually no wind to blow the fog away, however....  :-/



JB>  I'm still worried about letting the cat out for any length
JB>  of time, but with his cabin-fever, it seems to bother him
JB>  little.


           I presume he has a fur coat, and a few of the legendary nine lives
left!  While I was visiting relatives in Saskatchewan over Christmas holidays
many years ago I decided to take a walk downtown one day.  My aunt was beside
herself because I was gone for four hours.  She never went anywhere in winter
except in a heated car which was kept in a heated garage... and then she just
threw on a light raincoat.  I was used to waiting for buses at UBC, and I had
grown up on tales about trudging to school through a blizzard at sixty below.
Evidently the locals had me pegged for a tourist because I'd dressed as if it
gets cold there, and because it made more sense to me to walk down the alleys
& along the railway tracks than to use sidewalks covered with ice and/or with
packed snow.  Several people along the way kindly offered me a ride.  In this
particular locale "downtown" was only about half a mile away on
foot, whereas
it was quite a bit further by car.  I was young & foolish then.  I'd grown up
without a family car, however, and I was warm as toast at twenty below.  (I'm
speaking Fahrenheit, because that's how people spoke in byegone days... but I
imagine you will know what I mean.)  Zero degrees Fahrenheit is just about as
cold as it gets in Germany, or so I gather.  The same applies to this part of
the world.  I guess the real difference between us & prairie folk is that for
us everything grinds to a halt when it snows while for them everything grinds
to a halt when it rains!  Humidity & wind chill both affect the perception of
cold.  Either way, a lot of people don't seem to bother shovelling snow.  :-(



JB>  I'm running out of cold weather under-ware from my skiing
JB>  days, but the ski goggles are still coming in handy for the
JB>  really cold stuff, so the drudgery is at least tolerable.
JB>  I've since found some good fleece and Thinsulate to get me
JB>  through. My shell could use more ventilation, with all the
JB>  sweating I do dragging the hip around, but life *could* be
JB>  worse. 


           Yes, Dallas & I invested in some long johns last winter when I got
tired of pinning the waistband on the thick nylon tights I wore at university
... because the elastic was no longer functional... and the underwear he used
up North as a young man didn't fit.  This winter I replaced the woollen socks
I'd mended numerous times.  Woollen socks could be a thing of the past unless
you're willing to take out a mortgage on your house to buy them.  But I found
a synthetic equivalent just before Xmas... made in Canada... at 40% off.  :-)

           My father came here to get away from the cold winters in Saskabush
while my mother came here to get away from the hot summers.  I take after her
in that regard.  We can always add layers of clothing to keep ourselves warm,
but there's a limit to how many we can subtract to keep ourselves cool.  :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+