Thursday, February 28, 2008

Canada-land


I've said it a million times: "Remind me again WHY I live in Canada?!" I'm especially vocal about this when I've just come back from some idyllic tropical vacation or I catch a glimpse of some southern weather forecast. It's a balmy -15 today here in Toronto with a windchill of up to -30 and as I walked through the windtunnel that is the parking lot of my building, I cursed Canada for being so bitter and ugly outside in the winter time.

Recently though, I had this real moment of patriotism. This moment where I thought, yes, THIS is why I live in Canada.

It was Family Day weekend, the first of a wonderful new winter long weekend in Ontario. We were at a friend's cottage in Muskoka. We were with a big group of friends decked out in winter gear, wearing snowshoes and trodding along a frozen Bass Lake. We had beer. We had a fire pit. We made an igloo and it was one of those perfect winter days - no wind, a quite tolerable -8 and so sunny you need sunglasses to see through the glare on the mountains of white snow. As I stood there in my snoeshoes on the frozen lake, beer in hand, I looked around and thought, wow, we really couldn't be more Canadian, could we? And funny as it was to me at the time, I also realized that nowhere else in the world, could we play on top of the lake and in it all in the same year.

This is why I like living in Canada.

So next time my face is burning in pain from a 4o below blast of arctic wind and my lips are so numb I can barely speak, I'm going to try really hard to remember that moment.

And besides, only 2 more months till Spring ;)

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