Thursday, October 21, 2004
And now a word on the weather
It’s October. It isn’t quite Hallowe’en yet. In fact, it’s over a week before Hallowe’en. However, here, in the Land of the North, it is snowing. It is cold, and it is snowing. It snowed on the weekend. It snowed on Monday. It snowed on Tuesday, and it snowed yesterday a little. It snowed between the time Rob left my house this morning and the time I actually managed to get out of the house myself to get to work. It is currently SNOWING like there is no tomorrow. After having moved into our fantastic, top-floor fancy new offices with WINDOWS (yay!), all we can see is snow.
This snow saddens me. With the snow, we get cold. It isn’t the paralyzing, draw-a-breath-and-freeze-your-lung-lining cold we can get here (-30C), it’s just annoyingly cold to the point where, if you’re not wearing your gloves, the steering wheel in the car is a little too cold to grip comfortably (-5C). If you’re not comfortably gripping the steering wheel when your car starts to slide on the ice, then you can’t white-knuckle it effectively while you’re screaming as the car spins and spins. And what fun is that?
This temperature is the kind of annoying cold that just foretells that the next five months are going to be Much Colder, and you better get used to –5C, because after a week of –30C, -5C seems like a walk in the park, and you can wear your light jackets again. However, the first week of –5C means getting back out all the winter wear, finding the lining to zip into the jackets, trying on winter hats and laughing at yourself in the mirror, and swearing because you can find only one “good glove” – the other possibly having been eaten by the NoodleDog, who is sitting there smiling at you because he actually likes the snow.
Yes, the NoodleDog, as I suspect many other dogs out there, seems to enjoy the snow. He has no problem with his toes being frozen, which I worry about, and he likes to get his face right into it. All I can remember about putting my face in the snow (when tobogganing) is that it’s freakin’ cold – like, colder than you could reasonably have imagined – and wet, which means that as the wind whips gently across your face at 50km/hr, it feels even colder and may even freeze on your skin. However, the NoodleDog likes it. The NoodleDog and Cooter played in the snow on our walk yesterday afternoon. They ran around like fools (which they are), eating snow, jumping through snow, rolling in snow, rolling each other in snow, and occasionally, peeing in snow. They had a pretty good time. This is Cooter’s first experience with snow since he’s just 6 months old. The NoodleDog is old hat with snow – he had a fine time in it last year. He particularly likes it if you throw snowballs for him to chase. Or at his head, so he can catch them with deft, short movements of his jaws.
The cats have not yet been out in the snow this year. They have been staying inside. This is not due to any particular cat-wisdom, but is rather due to the fact that the painters who were supposed to paint my deck before it snowed have since stopped painting due to the snow, and have screwed-off somewhere probably never to be seen or heard from again until spring. They kindly removed all the items from my deck, including the cat-resistant lattice I had installed to prevent the cats from going beneath the deck and running from yard-to-yard, as all our decks in my row are connected and not separated by any sort of fencing beneath the surface. So I have several choices here – I can: a) keep the cats inside thereby incurring their ire; b) re-install the lattice in the cold and snow; or c) just move.
I’m jokingly considering option c. Getting in to our new office from my house outside the city is a lot more difficult than getting to our old office. More difficult than I would have thought. There is no direct route that will get me here. I have to take a feeder road off the main highway in through downtown, because our office is situated in what is called “The Beltline” (which means it’s sort of downtown but not quite as nice as downtown with fewer amenities and a serious shortage of parking because we’re jammed in with residential people). From the North of the City, there is no reasonable access to The Beltline. However, from the South, there are several sneaky back roads and alternate routes one could take to get here.
Rob lives in The South. Heh.
We’re doing a trial run with the cats this weekend – we’re all going to stay at Rob’s place to see how it goes. Rob’s roommate is going out of town for a few days, and he suggested it. I swear, I did not bring it up. I am, however, quite excited about the idea, although I currently have worry circuits 1 through 5 set on “high”, running various scenarios. So many variables. So many possibilities for catastrophe.
There are many benefits, of course, such as easier access for me to get to the office, and more time to spend with Rob, and the huge benefit of not having to go home every day twice a day to feed and play with cats… However, Rob is “slightly allergic” to the cats, and there are many things that can go wrong. How will the cats react to the new environment? They may hide in places we won’t be able to find them. How will the cats react to Cooter in a strange environment? To date, they have been in their comfort zone when exposed to the little dervish, but on his turf, he might be more aggressive with them. How will Rob react to the cats in his house? He might get all stuffed up and decide that it’s not worth it.
Which brings me to the next point – if the girl’s profile on the internet says she has “many cats”, and you’re allergic to cats, what is up with contacting her? Sure, she’s probably cool and pretty neat, and obviously likes animals. But you have to ask yourself, if you meet her, and she turns out to light your fire, and then she falls in love with you, are you willing to break her heart because you can’t live with her cats? Because I really can’t give up either of them – the cats or Rob – now. (Oh, and if Rob happens to read this, I’m not saying in any way I’m not absolutely overjoyed we found one another – it’s just an interesting point and, well, you know how I worry…).
So worry circuits 1 and 2 are dedicated solely to running scenarios about Rob deciding he can’t deal with cats. Worry circuits 3, 4 and 5 are all dealing with little things like Cooter eating Smudge, or Rumble beating up Cooter and hurting both of them in the process, or the issue of the litter box… Worry circuits 6 & 7 are currently occupied with the night-time quad expedition Rob wants us to go on this Friday evening. That’s a whole ‘nother story…
Worry circuits aside, I’m hoping for the best. I’m crossing my fingers (all of them, which makes typing this a little tricky) and am trying to concentrate on the positives.
If only it would stop snowing for a couple of months!
This snow saddens me. With the snow, we get cold. It isn’t the paralyzing, draw-a-breath-and-freeze-your-lung-lining cold we can get here (-30C), it’s just annoyingly cold to the point where, if you’re not wearing your gloves, the steering wheel in the car is a little too cold to grip comfortably (-5C). If you’re not comfortably gripping the steering wheel when your car starts to slide on the ice, then you can’t white-knuckle it effectively while you’re screaming as the car spins and spins. And what fun is that?
This temperature is the kind of annoying cold that just foretells that the next five months are going to be Much Colder, and you better get used to –5C, because after a week of –30C, -5C seems like a walk in the park, and you can wear your light jackets again. However, the first week of –5C means getting back out all the winter wear, finding the lining to zip into the jackets, trying on winter hats and laughing at yourself in the mirror, and swearing because you can find only one “good glove” – the other possibly having been eaten by the NoodleDog, who is sitting there smiling at you because he actually likes the snow.
Yes, the NoodleDog, as I suspect many other dogs out there, seems to enjoy the snow. He has no problem with his toes being frozen, which I worry about, and he likes to get his face right into it. All I can remember about putting my face in the snow (when tobogganing) is that it’s freakin’ cold – like, colder than you could reasonably have imagined – and wet, which means that as the wind whips gently across your face at 50km/hr, it feels even colder and may even freeze on your skin. However, the NoodleDog likes it. The NoodleDog and Cooter played in the snow on our walk yesterday afternoon. They ran around like fools (which they are), eating snow, jumping through snow, rolling in snow, rolling each other in snow, and occasionally, peeing in snow. They had a pretty good time. This is Cooter’s first experience with snow since he’s just 6 months old. The NoodleDog is old hat with snow – he had a fine time in it last year. He particularly likes it if you throw snowballs for him to chase. Or at his head, so he can catch them with deft, short movements of his jaws.
The cats have not yet been out in the snow this year. They have been staying inside. This is not due to any particular cat-wisdom, but is rather due to the fact that the painters who were supposed to paint my deck before it snowed have since stopped painting due to the snow, and have screwed-off somewhere probably never to be seen or heard from again until spring. They kindly removed all the items from my deck, including the cat-resistant lattice I had installed to prevent the cats from going beneath the deck and running from yard-to-yard, as all our decks in my row are connected and not separated by any sort of fencing beneath the surface. So I have several choices here – I can: a) keep the cats inside thereby incurring their ire; b) re-install the lattice in the cold and snow; or c) just move.
I’m jokingly considering option c. Getting in to our new office from my house outside the city is a lot more difficult than getting to our old office. More difficult than I would have thought. There is no direct route that will get me here. I have to take a feeder road off the main highway in through downtown, because our office is situated in what is called “The Beltline” (which means it’s sort of downtown but not quite as nice as downtown with fewer amenities and a serious shortage of parking because we’re jammed in with residential people). From the North of the City, there is no reasonable access to The Beltline. However, from the South, there are several sneaky back roads and alternate routes one could take to get here.
Rob lives in The South. Heh.
We’re doing a trial run with the cats this weekend – we’re all going to stay at Rob’s place to see how it goes. Rob’s roommate is going out of town for a few days, and he suggested it. I swear, I did not bring it up. I am, however, quite excited about the idea, although I currently have worry circuits 1 through 5 set on “high”, running various scenarios. So many variables. So many possibilities for catastrophe.
There are many benefits, of course, such as easier access for me to get to the office, and more time to spend with Rob, and the huge benefit of not having to go home every day twice a day to feed and play with cats… However, Rob is “slightly allergic” to the cats, and there are many things that can go wrong. How will the cats react to the new environment? They may hide in places we won’t be able to find them. How will the cats react to Cooter in a strange environment? To date, they have been in their comfort zone when exposed to the little dervish, but on his turf, he might be more aggressive with them. How will Rob react to the cats in his house? He might get all stuffed up and decide that it’s not worth it.
Which brings me to the next point – if the girl’s profile on the internet says she has “many cats”, and you’re allergic to cats, what is up with contacting her? Sure, she’s probably cool and pretty neat, and obviously likes animals. But you have to ask yourself, if you meet her, and she turns out to light your fire, and then she falls in love with you, are you willing to break her heart because you can’t live with her cats? Because I really can’t give up either of them – the cats or Rob – now. (Oh, and if Rob happens to read this, I’m not saying in any way I’m not absolutely overjoyed we found one another – it’s just an interesting point and, well, you know how I worry…).
So worry circuits 1 and 2 are dedicated solely to running scenarios about Rob deciding he can’t deal with cats. Worry circuits 3, 4 and 5 are all dealing with little things like Cooter eating Smudge, or Rumble beating up Cooter and hurting both of them in the process, or the issue of the litter box… Worry circuits 6 & 7 are currently occupied with the night-time quad expedition Rob wants us to go on this Friday evening. That’s a whole ‘nother story…
Worry circuits aside, I’m hoping for the best. I’m crossing my fingers (all of them, which makes typing this a little tricky) and am trying to concentrate on the positives.
If only it would stop snowing for a couple of months!
