Snow And Shrinkage

/ Diane Henders

So it snowed on Friday. Yes, in mid-August: http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/summer-snowfall-near-calgary-greeted-with-only-in-alberta-sentiment-1.3200450

Only a couple of weeks ago we hit the hottest temperature in 110 years of recorded Calgary temperatures: 34 degrees Celsius (93F). I know that’s not terribly hot compared to the rest of the world, but we thought we were going to melt. Then Friday morning it started dumping down rain, a north wind blew in, and by 4 PM it was 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 F) and… yes, snowing.

Leaping to the rescue of our veggies, Hubby and I drove to our garden outside town, where we pulled out our three big 30×40 tarps and covered most of one garden (the potatoes and onions had to fend for themselves). When I mentioned I was thinking of burrowing under the tarps to pick a couple of zucchinis before they got too big, Hubby replied, “No, don’t worry, they’ll shrink in this cold weather.” I promptly snorted tea through my nose at the mental image of shrivelled, flaccid zukes huddled shivering under the tarp.

Which, of course, reminded me of this scene from Seinfeld.

And while I’m in that, erm… area, let me tell you about the gigantic rod of hot meat I got in my Brazilian last night. It was amazing! It just kept coming and coming until I was so sore and exhausted I had to beg for mercy…

Wait, why are you looking at me like that? I was talking about a Brazilian barbeque restaurant. What did you think?

Yes, we went to Bolero for dinner last night: a meat-lovers’ heaven. Fixed price, all you can eat. There’s a salad bar, too, but don’t be distracted from the main event (which my friend Laurie terms ‘meatatarianism’). The servers keep bringing gigantic skewers of barbequed meat to carve at your table until you beg them to stop. Last night it was bacon-wrapped filet mignon, garlic parmesan sirloin, habanero pork loin, lamb shoulder, bacon-wrapped chicken, and a few others I can’t remember, including some squares of amazing grilled halloumi (Arabic cheese that has a very high melting point), and absolutely delicious grilled pineapple. Yes, I was in pain afterward, but it was so worth it!

Meanwhile, I’m slowly resurfacing into real life after my burial in the last-minute minutiae of releasing Spy Away Home. Emerging dazed and blinking, I’m looking around and realizing I haven’t done anything silly for a very long time (unless you consider gorging on meat to the point of pain to be silly).

This needs to be remedied – I don’t dare let my silliness levels drop too low or I’ll wake up some day to find myself dressed in a suit, sitting at a boardroom table and nodding seriously while somebody drones on about ‘leveraging synergies’ or some shit.

So please help me out here: What’s your favourite silly activity, one that’s guaranteed to make you laugh?

Oh, and in the mean time, here’s a little gem I found on Facebook that helps explain our attitude to snow in August:

Canadian temperature conversion

P.S. Spy Away Home is now available for pre-order at all retailers – click here for links.  Release date September 4, 2015!

39 thoughts on “Snow And Shrinkage”

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  5. idiotprufs is wrong — we in California start shivering at 50F! I had a Brazilian meatfest in a small town in Australia a few years ago; had never heard of it before. I’m not aware of any in the SF Bay Area, but will have to check around…

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    • Yes, we really enjoyed the meatfest, but it’s the kind of thing we don’t need to do very often. It usually requires a day of recovery afterward.

      Stay warm! 🙂 (P.S. Hope you’re not suffering too much from the drought and fires out there. For the past several days we’ve had thick smoke from the wildfires in BC, and I can’t imagine living with it for a whole summer.)

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  7. It occurs to me that I am the only one who “likes” all the posts from everyone else. If that seems over the top to some or if it is poor blog etiquette, please excuse my enthusiasm. It is just that this blog is a highlight in my week, and I enjoy reading it and everyone’s responses. I really do, in fact, ‘like’ the responses. Just so y’all know. Now, back to your regularly scheduled bloggage. Sonk yoo beddy moast mutch.

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    • Not poor blog etiquette at all! …At least as far as I know… and you know how socially aware I am…

      Nevertheless, I make the rules here in my tiny kingdom in Blogland, and I’m happy that you ‘like’ it – please carry on. 🙂 The comments are the best part of my blog, and I’d ‘like’ them all, too, if I had time!

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  8. Snow?
    I saw a weather map earlier where California was apparently off the scale hot; Japan is being bombarded by a hurricane; and we’ve had thunder and lightning. Something’s gone wrong with the weather. It’s official.
    Weather aside, my silly laugh out loud activity would have to be using gym equipment, Diane. Not only using it, but looking the part and using it how it should be used. Not using it how it should be used properly, but using it as I do, knees pinned behind my ears and trapped beneath an ever increasing set of weights whilst attempting to tone my thighs. I don’t actually go to the gym, you understand… the memory of that incident always makes me laugh out loud.

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  9. Snow? Seriously? SNOW?? While you were tarping down your veggies, we were sweating our brains out down here in hundred-plus-degree temps. Gad, the inequity of it all. I would’ve paid big money for a dose of what y’all had!

    Lemme see here. Silliness, huh? Gee, that’s a tough one these days. Can’t think of anything I do that qualifies as genuine silliness lately. Unless it’s blitzing blithely past the 253k word, 550 page mark with no end in sight in a fantasy book that I didn’t think I’d be able to stretch to 150 pages. I think of that more as insanity than mere silliness, though.

    Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I really should get out more. 🙂

    That reminds me. I’ve let my membership to Whack Jobs Anonymous expire. What was I thinking?

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    • Well, it could’ve been worse. At least Whack Jobs Anonymous didn’t drum you out of the chapter. And speaking of chapters… yep, writing is insanity, all right. Plain and simple. If I’d known insanity was so much fun, I’d have done it years ago.

      And yeah. Snow. Never mind oil pipelines; what we really need is a reciprocal heat/cold pipeline. You can have some of our cold, we’ll take some of your heat. (Oh, and please send watermelons, too!)

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  10. Diane,
    Rod of meat! FUNNY…..What I thought about was a restaurant I went to a long time ago in Porte Alegre in Brazil. Lots of meat on a rod….great times. The meat didn’t taste so bad either. lol

    Now for silly activities that made me laugh. That’s easy. Going on all the water slides at the water park with my grandkids. There was one where if you crossed the finish line it’s a big deal. Well I did, my grandkids didn’t. Then I had to explain to them mass + speed = longer distance. Basically I told them, Nana’s fat, therefore I go farther than you skinny kids. Then on another one, when I hit the pool at the end I did a forward flip. The lifeguard got up, my grandkids stood still looking concerned, and me, well I just stood up and starting laughing. It was so flippin funny…..I love hanging out with the grandkids. They are fun, they crack me up, and they love me unconditionally.

    Have a great week. I’ll be downloading Spy Away Home as soon as I get back from rafting the Grand Canyon!!

    Cait

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    • “…the meat didn’t taste so bad either…” – LOL!

      Since I don’t have grandkids, I guess I’ll have to go watersliding solo. It’s been quite a few years since I did that – the last time was at a very old waterslide that could’ve used some polishing. By the time I finished sliding after an hour or two, the ass-end was completely worn out of my bathing suit. Not my finest hour (or my best look), but it definitely scored high on the silliness scale!

      Have fun at the Grand Canyon – safe travels!

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    • Older son lives in George Town, Grand Cayman. He, his new wife, and their friends frequent a Brazilian steak house there (same format). Their term for culinary overload is ‘meat drunk.’ They took us there for the champagne brunch when we visited. It’s sneaky how that works. You take a sip from your glass, the hostess fills it back up. So you have no real idea how much you’re drinking. Or eating, for that matter. My kinda place! 🙂

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  11. Speaking of snow in August, true story – the 6:00 pm News girl says to the weather forecast guy, live on air, just as he walks on to begin his schpiel “So where is that 8″ you promised me last night?”
    Is that Brazilian restaurant in Calgary? I am putting it on my list. I was fortunate enough to eat at one in Panama but didn’t know they were in Canada.
    As a life time Leafs fan, I agree with idiotprufs. I am not sure even Hell freezing over would do it.

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  12. I’ve never seen a zucchini shrink. During zucchini harvest season we even lock our car doors (unusual behavior for us) so we don’t find “extra” zucchini in the back seat.
    Hot meat at the Brazilian? You had me going for a moment!

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    • My intentions with that sentence were completely innocent, I swear. *dodges lightning-bolt*

      I always find it ironic that zucchini is such an iffy crop up here at high altitude. Anywhere else I’d plant a single seed and be begging people to take the extra zukes. Here, I plant four or five hills of 3 plants each and hope I get one or two zukes off each. But the consequences are truly overwhelming in the rare year where we don’t have an early frost!

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  13. Oh I think id fall in live with your bbq place. We have a similar chart in newcastle for Geordies, its on a tea towel, makes me smile when I see it, as most people complain about how cold it is in Newcastle upon tyne, but its not as cold here in England as it is in Canada im sure.
    but looking outside it looks sunny and it feels hot, mores the pity.
    hope your veg didnt shrink too much in the cold.
    Its a good job us women dont suffer shrinkage in the cold, poor veg and men

    hugs
    karen

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    • LOL! Oh, I dunno; there have been times when I stepped outside in -35 weather and I’m pretty sure my boobs tried to retreat inside my body. 😉 And I guess I’ll discover the results (or lack thereof) of the cold weather when I go up to the garden this weekend. I doubt if the zucchini will be deterred by anything short of hard frost (at least I’m hoping)!

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  14. Snow in August? Didn’t you have snow in May too? You’re a good woman to maintain your sense of humor around that!

    What silly things do I do? Well, probably a lot unintentionally and probably not enough intentionally. 🙂

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