Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Wild Winter That Was 2008.


You know, Montreal really does roll the winners as far as winters go. Who can forget the savage seven day stretch of -30 temps in January 89? How about the viciousness of the Icestorm of 1998? It's now the 10th of April 2008 and I still have over three feet of snow in my f@#king backyard.
We should have known that with the mild November and start to December that we would have to pay for it on the other end. The city really did its best to keep on top of the snow removal,at least our section of the city, but the sheer amount of snow dumped by four major ( 30cm plus) storms caused lengthy disruptions to traffic, life and living in Montreal this Winter.

There is an old Cucumber Rock song that goes ' don't know what you got till it's gone'. I came to learn just how true that is this winter. The whole point of living in a lower apartment is having the backyard for the dogs. Space for them to play in and call their own. When your four and five foot fences disappear they think they own the whole damn block. Let them out for a quick pee before bed and it turns into a T shirt & shorts chase down the alley in minus double digits yelling at two retarded jailbirds who can't quite pull together an organized getaway. Murray, the Samoyed mix used to be real good at it. Gone for days, till we could find out which pound he was at. I think the whole concept of leaving the general vicinity of the food dish was a little confusing to Nalin, and she was slowing him down. At one point we were having to tie the fluffy one up if he was going out. That didn't work for him at all. What's important in the end is that there were no major incidents and both of them made it through the winter safe and healthy.
The great thing about a cold brutal winter like we had was the lack of flu season. The warmer temperatures of the last few years bred virus on top of virus. Not this year. I've already got my fingers crossed and bought a new shovel for next year.