We have our first real snow (not fake snow) of 2020 and it’ll be around for at least a few days, thanks to sub-freezing temperatures (it’s -6°C as I type this at midday). Rather than curse the snow, I will haiku it instead.
It's snow time again
That white stuff is everywhere
Stay inside till spring
Harder than I thought!
Actually, I’m just lazy.
Here is a haiku to my laziness.
A new decade starts
The future begins right now
Slothfully I go
Just what are they, anyway? What is their mysterious, unspoken agenda? Who knows? Well, in theory, I do, but this is all you get for now.
Tiny, pink and odd
Elastic, ever-giggling
Plans evil or not?
Some sun and some cloud Warm and sometimes also wet August you snooze me
August was a strange month in how mild it was. We had some hot days, but only a few. We had some rain, but only a little. We had days of cloud, days of sun and most of the time it felt like summer, but it never felt like summer summer, almost as if the real summer weather was always waiting just around the corner.
On the plus side, the occasional soggy weather meant no big forest fires and the pall of smoke that would blanket the skies here for weeks on end never materialized. This was a bonus for air quality, general pleasantness and my running.
So August was kind of boring, weather-wise, but a good kind of boring, especially compared to the heat-blasted hellscape that was so much the rest of the world during summer 2019.
The cause of, and solution to, the world’s problems.
You think you're so smart
A phone that can do so much
Hate in people's hands
It started out cold
Now we get Alberta smoke
But maybe not oil
May March be warmer
The cold and the snow are old
Spring flowers are rad
Only 32 days until spring.
Winter wet and gray
With your short days and long nights
You're a bad season
Late and sleep beckons
Inspiration eludes me
Time for crazy dreams
Once again I have waited too late to get any kind of real writing done (it’s post-11 p.m. as I type this), and I frittered away another non-hour session by listening to the gripes and concerns of co-workers. Plus some chat about Diablo 3 because IT is, let’s face it, full of gaming nerds.
I promise to do better tomorrow. Promise!
We’ve had a rainfall warning the last few days, which, as you might guess, means a whole lot of rain– between 40-90 mm, depending on where exactly you are. It’s been quite wet.
The Rains
The rains fall heavy
Vehicles splash and spray me
My spirit is damp
The rain actually doesn’t bother me–this is definitely the wrong area to live if it does–and I’ve learned to avoid the areas where splashing and spraying can happen.
But I still remember that dark winter day last year when I was learning that lesson, diverting along the one block stretch of Brunette Avenue between the Sapperton SkyTrain station and my place, unable to take the much nicer hospital lane, closed (and still closed until December 2019) due to construction. This section of Brunette tends to be driven at highway speeds. I don’t know what the actual speed limit is here, but I am reasonably certain it’s not highway speed. The combination of excess water on the road and the aforementioned high speed led to me getting soaked with a great wave of water that fanned over the sidewalk. I stood for a moment, trying to register the fact that this little slice of a comedy movie had actually happened to me.
I walked on and got soaked three more times. I was very wet when I got home. In the end I found it kind of funny. And instructive. I’ve never risked the same trip along Brunette again during The Rains. The safe diversion adds two blocks to my trip, a small price to pay in exchange for not getting a metric ton of water sprayed on me at high velocity.
The last few nights it’s dipped below freezing, a reminder that the horrors of snow are possible. Here is a haiku ?celebrating? the cold.
The temperature drops
I forget to wear my gloves
These Popsicle hands
It was inevitable, really. After staying healthy for the trip earlier this month and healthy for the first week back at work, I felt a tickle in my throat yesterday afternoon that turned into a sore throat and sinuses by evening.
As I interact with other people all day–both by choice and otherwise–and live in a building where the hallway ventilation can be described as “no ventilation at all this year” I am perhaps only surprised it took this long for a cold/sore throat to latch on.
I am equipped with both DayuQuil and Nyquil. I am not taking both together, however.
The summer cold hits
Unwelcome sore throat and nose
Sickness and the sun