boarding time
After a week of crazy weather (more cold temperatures and thunder snow), I went up to the local mountain (really, more of a hill) with some friends on Friday night and went for a day of boarding yesterday. It was great weather - sunny skies, clear and crisp and apart from my knocking down all the boards and skis outside the ticket centre, relatively uneventful. I managed to get in quite a few runs and was relatively happy with my status. The day was going quite well until near the end where I slowed down to meet one of the friends and some newbie boarder slammed right into me from behind. I also took a couple of nasty wipes on my knees (black and blue war wounds to prove it) from some too-quick-turns, but we all hit the sauna, pool, and hot tub afterwards. And on the way back today, we stopped by
Cookstown for some shopping. :) A very relaxing, much needed weekend. And we made it back before the next dump of snow started.
snowy valentines
So we've been in this deep freeze for too many days to count. Though in comparison to New York state, where they received more than 100 inches of snow, I guess 20 cm is nothing. We were expecting a dump and got some Tuesday, and more on Valentine's. I spent mine at the
TSO, listening to Debussy and Stravinsky. The writeup in the
Toronto Star basically covered what happened. The conductor who was supposed to perform Stravinsky got stranded on his flight from NYC to Toronto thanks to the snow so they moved Debussy to the first part of the evening. They managed to pull the conductor from Montreal who was in town for the Canadian Opera Company's
Faust during that intermission so he could conduct Debussy. Then they had a backup for this Montreal conductor finish up Faust. A bit of a mess but it all worked out.
In other notes, florists were stranded and unable to make their flower deliveries on time...including mine! J. sent me a dozen roses with the note: "Happy V-Day. You might only have room to put this on the floor, but that's ok :P " A garbled voice mail from the concierge and now the flowers are brightening up my rather stark apartment. He even thought so far ahead as to order the vase with the flowers! Thanks, J, for making my winter a little bit warmer. :)
deep freeze
If this was what my first winter in TO was like, I don't know that I would have stuck it out. I'm referring to the mind-numbing, bone chilling temperature of -15C plus windchill (-30). Part of me was hoping to laze it out by taking public transit but the other part of me wanted to stick it out to see if I was up for the challenge. And so, for better or for worse, I've still been walking to work. Mind you, all you can see of me are my eyes as I'm pretty much covered up. I don't think I've ever experienced cold weather like this in this lifetime...today's high of -16 (with windchill being -22) was positively warm by comparison. The cool artic air is supposed to stay for the next couple of weeks. It's called payback for the nice mild January that we had.
