Roger Pires Feb 23, 2012
When he's not offering his take on daily life, Roger Pires spends his days as a computer systems analyst. It's not exactly a glamorous calling but hey, it pays the bills. He enjoys hockey, canoeing, snowshoeing, and spending as much time as he possibly can outdoors. He lives in Udora with his wife and two kids, who are his prime inspiration for Ravenshoe Ramblings.
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The lost winter
When snow falls in Canada, we barely notice. Unless of course it’s July in which case we’re either in Alert or on a post-nuclear vacation in Pickering. But when we wake up to a world of white in the middle of February, most of us just say “oh how nice”, pray the snow blower is gassed up, and turn our attention back to our cornflakes. To those of us who by some genetic accident can’t live without our winter sports, the arrival of such crystalline bounty is accompanied by trumpets and choirs of angels. When we’re deprived of our winter sporting jones, we get ugly. We seek out the villains responsible for such tyranny of extreme weather. We trot out the usual suspects: El Nino, the Tar Sands, Mike Harris. Their handiwork has brought warmer temperatures to Ottawa than in Venice. If this keeps up we’ll be poling down the Rideau Canal in gondolas. No danger of Venetians cruising the Grand Canal on snowmobiles, though. Given the pivotal role Venice’s waterways play in the city’s sewage treatment, what flows beneath the Rialto Bridge probably lowers the freezing point by several degrees.
But back to yours truly, last seen with his nose mushed up against the kitchen window. In this, the winter of my discontent, snow has been as rare as a playoff goal scored by someone in a Leafs sweater. When I awoke to find winter had graced the Great Brown North, I made a sound audible only to dogs and the surveillance equipment at NORAD. In moments I would be brushing the cobwebs off my snowshoes and making tracks across the fields behind my house. I checked the calendar on the fridge. This marvel of timekeeping technology was conceived and developed by my lovely wife. It is fully colour-coded, one for each member of the family. It is maintained with a precision and accuracy IBM can only dream of. Most days look like an ad for Crayola. But by some miracle, this day was a glorious white; no events scheduled.
But it all seemed too perfect. The snow. The sun. The day off. My instincts as a father and husband foretold of impending doom. My spidey senses didn’t let me down. In the euphoria of discovering a blank calendar space I failed to notice the lengthy shopping list just above it. My wife pointed it out to me. Then she invoked her even greater powers as wife and mother and declared that today would be a shopping day.
Between studying languages and playing on an ethnically diverse rugby team, I acquired the ability to vent my spleen in several different languages without arousing suspicion. So when informed that I would be spending this glorious winter day as an errand boy, I bellowed “ora pro nobis” for all to hear. You know you’re ticked when you’re cussing in Latin (actually the phrase means, “pray for us” but I delivered it with a “be fruitful and multiply” sort of quality to it; besides, it sounds kinda dirty). But spouting off in a dead language doesn’t always have the desired effect. My wife and kids just looked at me wondering if this was the day they finally have me committed. It’s gonna happen soon, I know it.
We piled into the minivan and embarked on our voyage of the damned. My wife kept assuring me it was a simple reconnaissance mission: do a little pricing, take a few notes, stick to the list. And, I thought, perhaps we can pay a little visit to the tooth fairy as well. Predictably, my wife’s account of how the day would unfold turned out to be a work of fiction. Our excursion took a lot longer than promised and ended hopelessly over budget.
Unlike most “boy wants to go snowshoeing, boy gets shanghaied into picking out shower curtains” story, this one has a happy ending. The next morning I woke up in heaven. The bright sun had transformed my backyard into a trillion glittering gems. The unspoiled carpet of fresh snow begged for a pair of snowshoes to leave their mark upon it. I spent the day exploring the woods and fields of greater Udora – perhaps for the last time. The forecast called for the return of unseasonably warm temperatures followed by two days of rain - which confirmed the rumour that we had been enrolled in a climate exchange program with the Vatican. I don’t know if his Holiness skis or snowshoes, but maybe he can ask the Big Guy to return winter to its rightful owners.
