I am SO over it …

I’ve never been a winter enthusiast, but over the last several years, I’ve started to embrace the changing seasons and have stopped kvetching about snow and colder temperatures.

Well, I’m here to tell you that my honeymoon with winter is now over.

Last Fall it was predicted that we would have a brutal winter this year. Long, very cold and lots of snow.
For a while, I thought Mother Nature was going to prove them wrong. November and December came and went, it was unseasonably mild and not even a hint of the white stuff.

“Ha!” I thought.

Very short-sighted of me. And naive. I do live in Canada, after all.

January has been a bitch! While there hasn’t been tons of snow, there has been some, and most of it has melted in a day or two, but it’s been freezing cold. I mean extreme. Frigid. Until the last few days. Oh, it’s still wicked, wicked cold out there. Yesterday, for example, it was -28 Celsius with the windchill. No, that’s not a typo. But between yesterday and today, we’ve had 20 centimetres of snow. No, that’s not a typo either.

Winter’s hit, with a vengeance.

Sunday morning a friend and I were going to a documentary screening and talk. The theatre is close by, only a 15-20 minute walk from where I live and I normally enjoy the walk. But when I got downstairs it was snowing a bit and the streets were slushy and covered with snow so I decided to take the subway.

When I got out of the theatre, two hours later, the sun was out and the sidewalks and even the roads seemed clear. I was craving fresh air because it’s been so cold this month I’ve opted for the subway and the odd taxi instead of braving the sub-arctic temperature.

So I decided to walk home.

Not the best decision I’ve ever made. A couple of blocks in and it was back to greasy, messy, slippery slush and icy sidewalks. By then I had passed the subway station and was too close to home for a cab. Cursing myself, I slowly inched my way home, finally abandoning the sidewalk and walking on the roads — which were still slippery but better than the sidewalks. I can’t tell you how many times I narrowly avoided falling.

You’d think that have been enough for me.

Wrong.

Yesterday morning I again decided to go out to pick up some non-essential items. Why? Because the forecast was for 20 centimetres of snow and I figured that today would really be a mess. So despite the bone-chilling cold (-28 Celsius) and lightly-swirling snow, off I went.

My shopping took no more than a half hour. When I was done and went back outside there was major snow falling and the sidewalks were treacherous. Walking home wasn’t an option, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the subway without breaking my neck so I decided to try to get a taxi.

Good decision except I almost wiped out walking from the entrance of the building where I was to the corner of the street where I saw a couple of empty cabs — only about 6 steps! Looking back at it, it was funny. I must have looked like I was doing the splits in slow motion. Luckily I just managed to stop myself from landing on my butt seconds before it was too late.

Okay, I’ve had enough now. I’m ready for Spring.