Snow

Yep, we've got it. At last. Snow snow snow. As promised. As threatened. For the first few days joy reigned supreme and sledding was the order of the day. But today, as we set out to tromp through more of the thick white stuff, middle child tentatively ventured that he was perhaps a bit tired of snow. Yes, well, I warned him, it's only early January. We will get tired of snow long before snow gets tired of us. I keep thinking about First Nations people and the colonial settlers in days of yore, making do in this landscape without 600 tog down coats (what the hell is a tog anyway?) and thinsulate boots, without central heating and automobiles and subways and supermarkets. I'm warm enough in my gear (as I should be, after my obsessive research) but I would not like to walk a mile in moccasins today. I don't mean to sound like a spoiled JAP (JCP?) and we certainly do a lot of travel under our own steam (steam! steam! please! more steam!), but I don't think I'd cope well in beaver skins and bark canoes. Oh well I guess in those days you didn't have to keep leaving your shelter to take your kids to school or soccer matches or violin lessons, much less skating classes.

And I wonder again, as I have for much of the past 17 years, what on earth we humans are doing in such northern latitudes. Surely if god had meant us to live where it was so cold, god would not have arranged for us to evolve on the African savanna.

Bade ui!