Thursday, September 06, 2007

Four letter words

So it snowed in Iqaluit today.

Snow, as the clever among you will note, is a four letter word. It wasn't the only one used by many residents around today. I mean, I came out of work at lunchtime and thought the rain was awfully solid feeling.

"Nah, it's way to early to have snow already."

And yet, while driving home it was clear that it was snow flurries landing on the windshild. I got to the apartment and snow was falling on my head as I stepped out of the car. I would have wept but I was too busy cursing at the sky that was producing snow. That might have been considered unusual, but I suspect a good chunk of the town was probably doing the same thing.

When I got upstairs Cathy was quietly sobbing in the corner.

We're just mentally prepared for the idea of snow this early. It didn't last any was gone almost as soon as it hit the ground. And there's the real possibility we'll have some on the ground permanently by Thanksgiving. But a few days after Labour Day? We're just not there yet.

If nothing else, I'm feeling better about the money we spent earlier this week. We had a deposit down on our cruise, but we hadn't booked the plane tickets to get us from here to Fort Lauderdale. We discovered that seats were disappearing quickly around Christmas and thought that we ought to book now rather than run into a racket later.

So about $3,200 later, we have two tickets to Florida. Anytime I spend that much money I always have a moment of buyer's remorse. But with snow today, I'm very glad to have spent the money.

This, by the way, is cheaper than flying home to St. John's because Canadian North has an interesting sale in which if you book a ticket to fly out of Canada within 24 hours of hitting Ottawa, they greatly reduce the cost of your ticket. As in right now it would be $1500 for a ticket to Ottawa. Because we're going to Florida afterwards, it's about $850.

Odd, but I don't care. Because if the snow we had today is any indication, by the time December comes along, I'm going to be very ready for a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

Snow! For fuck's sake....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Guess the Rock is looking better and better to ya!

Anonymous said...

it was so cold in Arviat for the past days that my husband was sure it will be snowing in Iqaluit. and it really did! he goes away to iqaluit about once a month.

Anonymous said...

_Wind_ is another four letter word. So is the _sand_ that pelts your face from the strong winds.

In Iqaluit

Anonymous said...

Believe it or not...it snowed in Toronto today. I was probably one of few to see it though as it was very light, melted immediately on impact and was accompanied by heavy rain...but it was definately snow! Curses!

towniebastard said...

The one thing I forgot to mention was the day after the snow we walked outside and noticed there was snow on the hills across the bay. While it was "warm" enough in town to make sure th snow didn't stick around, the same couldn't be said for those hills.

When I first moved here I was told once the hills had snow, you had about 2-3 weeks until there was snow in town. I guess we'll see.