LET IT SNOW

I had to shave this morning.

For the past five months, I’ve been spared this daily routine and only now do I realize what a great reprieve it has been.

A few whiskers are the outward signs that my body is returning to ‘normal’. Though I don’t feel like running 5K (my benchmark of normality), my core strength is returning along with an energy level that says I can take down the Christmas lights today or fix that bathroom door that doesn’t seem to shut properly.

Currently, I’m reading a book entitled A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. A fun read, it was a Christmas gift from Chris, my daughter Carolyn's boyfriend.

I’ve learned that a supernova is actually a collapsing star, that the Earth isn’t really round but an oblate spheroid, that the periodic table was inspired by its resemblance to the game of solitaire, that radioactive elements were not banned from products like toothpaste until 1938 and that dinosaurs likely disappeared because of the ash created in the atmosphere from a crashing meteor or erupting volcanoes, take your pick. And here I thought dinosaurs vanished because of an ice age.

The book also contends that in the early 1800’s in England, the drug of choice for young people was nitrous oxide or laughing gas after it was discovered that its use brought on a ‘highly pleasurable thrilling’. Theatres put on ‘laughing gas evenings’ where volunteers could refresh themselves with a robust inhalation and then entertain the audience with their comical staggerings. I think we call that going to Yuk Yuk’s now.

However, as the book was written a number of years ago, what’s not in the book is the reason for our lack of snow in Toronto this winter. Believe it or not, that reason is me! Like the little Dutch boy who saved an entire town by stemming the tide waters with one finger, I’m the one who single-handedly has rescued Toronto from the grips of Old Man Winter.

Up until now, I wasn’t ready to shovel a driveway, build a snowman or even scrape an ice-covered windshield. I was just too tuckered. But now, I’m back and I say bring it on Old Man, I’m ready!