Grin and Bear it*

I live in a city (indeed, a country) that defines itself by its winters. Winters are a family member, a core belief, a religion. And like any of those things, we grumble and kvetch about them but if anyone from the outside should dare say a negative word about them we'll turn on you faster than Snowmaggedon buries an outhouse.

We are a city that largely embraces winter; we have to - it makes its home here for about 5 months a year. The meteorologists predicted that this year would bring a particularly nasty one, and they were right. The Boy bought a shovel at the end of November in a flurry of panic and it hasn't made its way back to the shed since. The snow pile at the front of our house has reached our living room window, and there's still at least 6 weeks of winter left (Wiarton Willie is a liar and a ne'erdowell).

You also haven't really eaten a Beavertail until you get at
least one mouthful that's half-napkin.

So what do you do when the temperatures are chillier than Obama's reception at a FreeRepublic barbecue? You throw a party.  Skate on the world's longest ice rink, have your picture taken with an Ice Hog (not sexual, I promise), eat a beavertail (vegetarian), and marvel at the beauty before you as ice forms on the surface of your eyeballs, and you drift into a beautiful, slumberous death in the nearest snowbank. Fun!

I haven't been to Winterlude as part of a family in some time but with the temperature a balmy -10 degrees today, we decided to make a day of it. Or 2 hours of it. Which is about my breaking point for whimsy. There a few key elements for a successful Winterlude. 1) Taffy on snow 2) Beavertails. That should do it. 

Also, if you can photobomb a family picture or shove a kid out of the way to get your face in one of those "wacky cut out" photo opportunities, bonus points.

Yeah, those are ice bubbles on a sculpture
of a swimmer coming out of the water.
I don't even know how.

It was actually a really lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon, even though it did get too frosty for comfort by about 4:30 and The Boy's not so good with crowds. We saw some amazing scultpures (that hadn't melted yet - bonus!), ate both of the aforementioned "musts" and saw 3 dogs and 2 fallies!

Finally, the cold penetrated through our tshirt-sweater-coat top layer and our longjohns-pants-2-pairs-of-socks bottom layer and we participated in another fine tradition - a visit to the pub.

I try not to complain about winter if I can help it because, really, I love living in a country where the seasons are so clearly defined. I mean, sure, I wish autumn lasted about 3 weeks longer than it does, but I love the crisp feeling of winter air in your lungs, the smell of stick-to-your-ribs cooking in the oven and the complete silence that falls over the city when the snow rolls in.

I'm not going to marry winter or anything, but I'm okay with gviing it the occasional game of grabass outside the dog park, y'know? Y'know.

Between trivia night on Friday, a productive day and a fun night out with friends yesterday and today's tomfoolery, I'm going to try and keep weekends like this in mind when I think about winter. It'll be a cheery memory when we're shoveling for the 3rd time in a day and wondering if we can live off of a can of bamboo shoots and half a lemon instead of putting our boots on to walk to the store.

*Ugh. It hasn't happened to me in a while, but I wrote this blog entry and then it disappeared. I tried to get the last saved version but Blogger decided to autosave for me every 4.2 seconds, so i justmissed getting my old entry back. So helpful. Anyway, imagine this entry being longer and better written. Okay? Okay.