The adoration of Jack Frost.

Many of my posts are inspired by conversations I have with Yann. He’s my one-man test audience. Whenever a horrified look spreads across his face, I think, “Ooh, this is definitely blog-worthy.”

The night I posted about my impending exit from InstaCrap, the bedroom light suddenly switched off. I had angered God (who is now owned by Facebook).

My first thought was that Yann had grown impatient of me treating the bedroom as a makeshift office, and had shut off the light as a way to announce bedtime. This wasn’t rational as it’s not his style. If anything, it’s something I would do.

The glow from my notebook was enough for me to see that Yann wasn’t standing at the bedroom door as expected. I jump to conclusions poorly: the wind had knocked out the power, blacking out our building.

While waiting for Yann to fumble through the darkness to the bedroom, I reminisced on the time the wind toppled over a tree in my family’s backyard that was taller than our two-storey house. It fell opposite the house, through our fence, barricading 42nd Ave in Langley (I’m giving specifics because I have a few readers who will know exactly where that is). The next morning, a bunch of our redneck neighbours ran outside with their chainsaws to take advantage of free firewood.

Had the tree fallen on our house, it would have struck my parents’ bedroom. Having thought of this, I imagined finding Yann on the couch with a branch through his eye.

Then, there he was–his eyes intact–in the doorway holding a mini camping lantern. Not a hurricane lamp, of course, because those are reserved for real hurricanes, and not moderately strong winds.

I don’t always imagine things rationally. I imagine for the sake of imagining. Imagine that!

This week was Yann’s first time experiencing snow in Victoria. He’s from Montréal, meaning it’s been snowy for half his life! For this reason, he was not expecting to be impacted by it. What did end up happening was him being secondhand-impacted. He was stunned by the level of helplessness exhibited by Victorians.

“BC Ferries has cancelled all sailings! The elderly are fighting over the last milk carton at grocery stores! ALL SCHOOLS ARE… CLOSED?!”

We bundled up and had a mildly illegal snowy beach day. Here’s my beach outfit:

Reasonable for Montréal, overblown for Victoria, but I like to be luxuriously warm. There is no way I’d own this get-up if it weren’t for my stint as a Montréalaise. This whole outfit–excluding my specs–is worth about $800, I shit you not. It’s not cheap being this hot.

Here’s my adorable, persnickety, yet appropriately dressed boyfriend doing some beachside grimacing:

As I’ve hinted, we were at the beach illegally. We crossed a “DO NOT CROSS” tape to get down there. We risked slipping down the hill and tumbling into the sea, where we’d then be slapped around by seals.

“Imagine if the city of Montréal did this: there would’ve been tape right outside our front door,” Yann observed.

This is not a city that prepares for snow. In 2018, it snowed just 2.5cm. In 2015, there was none at all. The first time I ever saw those metre-long snow scrapers with a brush on the opposite end, was when I cleaned out a car at my auto detailing job in Calgary (2003).

“Whoa, look at this thing!” I excitedly showed the treasure I had just uncovered to a friend at work. Up until then, I had only ever seen those compact ice scrapers that fit in the glove compartment. My friend, who was a born and raised Albertan, was completely perplexed by my level of amazement. Later that year, I was exposed to my first real Canadian winter, and it was not fun.

But, January 12th wasn’t my first Victorian snowfall. I fled -30ºC with wind chill Calgarian winters to move here in 2005, only to learn that as long as I live in Canada, I will never truly be safe from the snow.

I’ll admit I enjoyed this week’s snow a tiny bit. Although, if it doesn’t snow again for the rest of the year, though, I’d be happy.

Stale experience aside, the look of wonderment on Yann’s face when he realized that Victorian civilization had collapsed under the weight of crystallized ice brought me great joy. It was probably the same kind of pleasure my friend experienced when she witnessed me losing my shit over that double-ended snow removal contraption.