Global Warming...

...where are you?

In all my years living on the North Island, it's never been so cold for so long so early in the season. I mean, yes, we've had snow in the past. It typically falls for a few hours sometime in January, then melts before the kids have time to finish building their snowman. Sometimes it sticks around for a day or two--just long enough to pay for the local body shop owner's vacation in Mexico--before our regularly scheduled rain resumes.

And yes, we've had freezing conditions before. But I've never seen the water that runs in ditches and cascades down the embankments along the highway frozen solid. Last year, for a week or so, I had to go out each morning and break the crust of ice on the top of the water in my dog's bowl. This year, we had to bring the bowl inside--once we'd chiseled it off of the surface of the deck--because it had four inches of solid ice in it. As I watched a group of poor, brave, foolhardy, insane kids sledding across the street, the wind tore a Crazy Carpet from a little girl's mittened hand to carry it half a block before depositing it on the roof of my neighbor's toolshed. Guess when you only get snow a few days a year, it's hard for a kid to pass up the chance to play in it--even when you stand to lose a body part.

Now I know all of BC--all of Canada, in fact, and a good portion of the States--is in a deep freeze. And I know, those of you in Winterpeg or Edmonton or Toronto or Halifax are probably muttering under your breath right now about where I can stuff my wussy -5C (to which I will give the standard British Columbian's reply of "But, it's a damp cold."). But with gale force gusts nudging the windchill down to -10 and lower, with snow piling up inside my carport, with the windows rattling and the heat in my barely insulated house cranked, I feel like I've earned the right to moan.

So hear it is, my big whine: It's effing cold. I don't like it. So if the Sierra Club or whoever is in charge of this global warming stuff wanted to send some my way, at this point I wouldn't complain. Come on. All I'm asking for is five degrees.