Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul Mark II
Hello Everyone,
Well, Once again things have a way of changing. One of our long term associates at the store is no longer with us. Unfortunately (for me), She was the only other one able to open and close the store, so, as usual (it seems) I'm back to 7 days a week. The temp has finally fallen here, right now its -49. Which according to our dog is cold. She may be a Arctic breed, but she's working on becoming a acrobatic performer. She finds the ground too cold for her feet, so now while out doing her business, she tries to balance herself on as few points of con tat as possible. Rotating frequently also seems to assist in keeping your feet warm. The only other thing she is teaching us is not to travel more than 3 feet from the door to get the job done. No more lingering to get the job done.
This week we also learned something about cold weather and vehicles. I had heard that you never fully turn your steering wheel in the extreme cold. For those of you interested the reason is that power steering fluid turns very viscous in cold weather and apparently 80% of the pressure in the steering line is in the last 5% of your turning radius. When you do blow out this line, you'll shoot steering fluid for miles. Trust us, I can follow our trail around town for miles, looks like we shot the truck and the blood trail is never ending.
The Northern Lights have been particularly brilliant this week. They have been brighter and more dynamic this week than we have ever seen before. The strange thing is I can usually tell if the lights are out before leaving the store at night. You'll hear people come in the store whistling, while these actions may seem unrelated, the legend of the lights is that if you whistle to keep the lights company, they will become more active for you, and it seems to be practiced or believed in this community. I have found myself whistling walking home at night.
Thats it for tonight,
Take Care
CG
PS. I've now had to enable Comment moderation in order to restrict abuses well as actively tracking addressee's. Comments will still appear after they have been approved. Inappropriate comments will be forwarded to ISP.
4 comments:
Geez-- -49 and you can still whistle. I am impressed!! I simply can't imagine being in that degree of frigid temperatures. Hey, I was whining and complaining last week during ice storm and subsequent power outage.
Your view of the northern lights must be spectacular and I love the concept of whistling during the show to enhance the experience.
With each passing week, we hear of another employee leaving us but we don't seem to be replacing many of them. In the last week, both Wilma and Anna (from overnight) have left as well as Celine from receiving. Then on Friday, Clark (Mgr of Shoes) said he was leaving Feb 2nd. So you can see that a number of people from your time are gone and many not replaced. You would almost think a conspiracy was happening. Not sure what is happening these days, but will keep you posted.
Your poor dog must be really feeling the cold as I had heard that picking up their paws like that, is an indication of discomfort. Have you ever tried to outfit him with those dog paw covers? It would seem to be the humane thing to do -- n'est pas??
Take care -- Rosalie
I can't imagine being in that temperature. I certainly would be doing more then whine.
I see Rosalie has updated you on the what's goings on in the store.I am still there and hanging in hoping things get better for us. The part timers are getting the minimal as are the full timers. I certainly hope we get the new store or the hours get better. There aren't alot of customers right now but it is January.Well hope to hear from you soon and take care.How is Christopher doing?
Hi Curtis, Melissa and Christopher
I was wondering why you had to employ the use of a moderator. Were you getting a lot of junk or negative feedback? You would think in this day and age, that people would know that whatever they do leaves a trail.
We had a few rays of sunshine earlier today, but have been given the heads up that much colder air is descending on Ontario over the next few days. I know it won't be as bad you experience, nevertheless, us hot-house types were getting accustomed to the "green" winter we had earlier in the season.
Do people pay property taxes there? How does it work in your situation? There was an interesting article in our morning paper regarding a mistake made by the property assessment group. It seems that an individual had severed a lot off his current holdings and this information was sent to the assessment committe for a dollar figure. With just a couple of keystrokes, someone assessed the property at 93 million, instead of 80,000. In turn, the local tax base was reflected to show this 93 million and added it to the assessment available to them. Their figures now showed they would be in for a nice tax figure collection close to a million. Anyway, the mistake wasn't caught in time and the county went ahead with budget figures etc. Now they have to redo everything to reflect this "shortfall" of one million in revenue they won't receive. The party who owns the land, never opened his assessment letter, but must have got a rude awakening when he received his tax bill.
Does the government own the land where your community stands or is it held by individuals?
Does anyone there follow the NHL? I see that the all-star game is happening tonight.
Well that's about it for the moment. Hope you are "weathering" the climate there and that all is well. Take care ------ Rosalie
Happy Owl!! Good to here from you! Tina keeps me up to date on you too! I have heard about the home steading and how very talented you are. I will check in on your blog and see what it's all about. I hope your cat is better soon, and good luck with the home chooling. I miss south ontario but as you say- weird winters. I find rain at christmas so depressing. We had snow here!! Do you ever get back to Alberta?
come visit again Happy Owl
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