Some Summer

This week, Jonathan and I realized something. We realized that this week signals something called "the rest of Canada pushes back". And are we feeling it, quite literally.

You see, when we moved out here to the winter tropics, nobody told me that Manitoba and Ontario eventually catch up, that while I'm still adorned in my raincoat and scarf, Winnipegers and Torontonians are frolicking around in the latest summer fashions.

Now don't get me wrong. There were people in Vancouver wearing tank tops today. But those people are crazy. Or painfully optimistic. Painfully optimistic and stubborn. They are thinking, if the rest of Canada is done with hibernation then so are we. Two things wrong there. First off, Vancouverites don't hibernate. They soak. It's different. Second, I see the goosebumps on your arms and I know you are looking at me in my big winter coat thinking "Dammit, I wish I was wearing one of those instead of my favorite rock band t-shirt". You're not fooling yourself or anyone else. It's cold here. It hasn't hit 17 degrees yet, much less the temperatures I know have been gracing the rest of the country. Take this exact moment. Winnipeg: 17. Toronto: 19. Ottawa: 14 Vancouver: 11. Shall I add my friends that the sun is still shining in Vancouver right now, that it's only 6:45pm and that nearing-10-o-clock-in-the-evening Toronto and Ottawa are STILL boasting higher temperature? No I didn't. But I didn't need to. Even without that piece of information - that the time difference is actually working IN Vancouver's favour - it still sucks.

So yes, this week, Jonathan and I discovered that this is the time of year where everything else gets better everywhere else except here. This is the time of the year where Vancouver puts together everything it can muster and still fails to spit out a mere 20 degree day of sun shine. This is the beginning of when the city I live in fails to hit 30 degrees at any point during the next four months. And this is the when the rest of Canada pushes back. When the rest of Canada says darn you Vancouver and your hilly hills and your mountainous mountains (I am clever, aren't I?). Darn you and your "best city in the world" rating, your "work-play" condos, and your soya-bread crazy, yoga-at-lunch-enthused residents. Darn you and your miniature dogs, your ski-in-your-bathing-suit-in-April slopes, your above Celsius winters, your rivers, your coast, your Canucks and your Hollywood star sightings. We're taking summer for ourselves. Some of us have bugs, and those who don't have humidity, but at least the end of our winters aren't anti-climatic, the rest of Canada is saying. At least, when spring arrives we feel something different, something glorious, something warm. At least our seasons don't spill into each other like turkey dinner. At least we are not lukewarm all the time.

I think the rest of Canada is right. Vancouver weather kind of sucks. I mean, who likes lukewarm? It's so... boring. Lukewarm milk? Gross. Lukewarm shower? Disappointing. Lukewarm response? Discouraging. Weather is supposed to shake you up, make you feel alive, give you something to talk about. At the very least, it is supposed to change, and when it does for everyone else but not for you, it is hard not to feel a bit gipped, and jealous. Like when you were still in elementary school and your big sister was off to grade nine. "Why does SHE get a new backpack?". Or when you were still wearing diapers and it wasn't your birthday. "Why does HE get to blow out all the candles?". In this case, I ask, why does Winnipeg get to have all the hot weather?

Sigh. I am going to miss my swelteringly hot Ottawa summers and my Saskatoon bugs.