Walkin' in a temperately mild wonderland.

Back in Michigan when Jacqui would tell people she was a Canadian she'd inevitably get two responses. The most knee jerk reaction was for people to say cleverly:

"Canadian, eh?"

These people were a real laugh riot.

After this the second most popular response was:

"Oooh pretty cold up there. Brrrr"

In order to make their point at just how cold it was up there people would often rub their arms together and sort of shiver on the "Brrrr." As if we might not understand without the visual.

Sometimes people would combine the two responses in an amalgam of clever hilarity.

"Canada! Pretty cold up there...eh?

Would the wit never end we asked ourselves?!

Of course I can't judge these people too harshly because callous American that I am I think I said these exact things to Jacqui at the beginning of our tentative courtship time. Jacqui, a fiery Canadian and more importantly a British Columbian, mistook what were in fact the initial forays into the complex world of international flirting as uninformed criticism. After a good stern talking to, in which she delved into the climatory and linguistic phenomena of my North American neighbors, I soon saw the error of my ways. "Not everyone says 'eh?', Ryan. That's mostly just people from Ontario." She'd say derisively. "And where I'm from it doesn't really get that cold and we hardly get any snow at all." I smiled a superior American smile and nodded my head but looking back I don't know if the lesson on weather really sunk in. "No snow?" thought I. "Come now, it's Canada!"









Things are sinking in now.

























After living in the tundra-like waste of Southwest Michigan my whole life( along the shores of Lake Michigan, no less, where the dreaded phenomena known as "The Lake Effect" blanketed the lower left of the state in slippery, freezing whiteness from November until March. There's a reason Michigan looks like a mitten...) I had a hard time envisioning any place that wasn't a frozen expanse when the winter months rolled around. Well color me converted. It's only snowed twice since we've been here and that was only a light dusting that didn't last more than a day and made everyone sort of wistful "Look at the snow!" they'd say. "Isn't it pretty?". Of course there's always a trade-off. October was pretty miserable here. Rain, rain, rain every day and because it doesn't get cold fast enough there was no spectrum of majestic hues to paint the autumn leaves. But since winter has officially begun things have been quite beautiful. All the grass is still green for goodness sakes! I could definitely get used to this.