My plan to post every other day has taken its first blow, but I think it’s fairly justifiable.  The last post was the day before I left for a few days in Vancouver, where I was reminded just how beautiful it is, why I didn’t want to leave and what I gave up when I did.  There’s nothing like a straight view into downtown and across to the mountains, framed by rows of blossoming cherry trees.  Or, for that matter, the similar view from Seasons in Queen Elizabeth Park, and that while eating a some excellent duck and drinking BC wine from one of those dozens of awesome vineyards that don’t get their products past the province’s borders.  Late night bus rides down Hastings.  Having pastries and cider in the sun in Grandview Park¹.

Back in Edmonton, spring hasn’t quite started yet.  It’s only mid-April, after all: yesterday was a blizzard.  The desert-carcass tan that’s dominated the ground since the snow melted is only just starting to hint at shifting towards the lime-and-urine green² that will replace it once plants start coming out and the dust is blown into our eyes and out of our lives.  I know it’s tired to bitch about the climate here, but seriously, the temperatures overnight are still dipping below freezing, and they’re going to continue to do it.  My forecasting widget says that even the day a week from now where we’ll hit a tropical 14°C will be -2 overnight.  The five months of non-winter here are usually beautiful, like an abusive partner you were about to leave suddenly being extra-nice to keep you around.  But this year, not so much.  The freezing nights and mornings are like catching that partner watching you with hatred and clenching their fists while you sleep.

Anyway, back on the blogwagon.  I’ll aim for something more interesting by Friday.

1) Hell, even realizing that the Sweet Cherubim bakery that I’d previously overlooked is more than half gluten-free was awesome.

2) I remember that for years I hated the way landscape paintings here always used pastel colours to depict grassy fields, or wheat fields, or patches of trees around fields, or old farm buildings collapsing in grassy fields or wheat fields.  I’d always assumed it was a really lame stylistic choice.  It turns out that when you’ve seen what colour looks like in other places, using pastels when painting landscapes here is more documentary honesty than style.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 2:09 pm and is filed under General Rambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.