Francophones

Amazing... spent the night at a dressy cocktail party, everyone lovely and dressed up. French is beautiful. And all I can think is how much fun it was to chat to people in French and English and know that we all spoke the same language. Seriously, how much older people look when they are dressy!!

"So when he'd finished speaking, he turned back t'wards the window, crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep, then somewhere in the darkness, the Gambler he broke even, but in his final words I found an Ace that I could keep."

3:34

The clock laughed at me, knowing where I'd been. In all honesty I almost laughed at myself. For all that I sat in a seat against the wall of Bifteck for almost five hours, watching the bar ebb and flow through the evening, I had a more random night than expected.

Insisting that I didn't want to see him, I hid at my table, safe in knowing that he wouldn't be coming by there. Oh but one of the girls we were with went to high school with both of them, and I was forced to admit to some extent of the whole sordid affair.

Even though I have never seen him before at the bar, another more emotional ex showed up as well, and I um'ed my way through two passings, wondering what to say. He was with two guys from our high school who don't live here, in town visitin, and one of whom I didn't recognize and felt silly afterwards saying goodbye.

One cannot ever avoid the call of nature, and passing by his end of the bar was required to answer it. Thank god he didn't arrive until somewhere around 1:30. I did however, meet the girl I was never allowed to meet. She seems sweet, I was upset that I couldn't just be her friend out of nowhere and have that to share with her. Bizarre that she believed I hated her, as I believed she did me. I ran into his friends all night until the lights came up and my last trip brought me to him. I have never been so happy to pee.

I also found myself up against the wall of male infidelity, wondering how I would be feeling if my boyfriend behaved as such. Its an interesting place, after enough beer to kill a cat, having to tell someone that if they want to cheat on their girlfriend then that is their own business, but I would have no part in it. Its hard to be non-judgmental and caustic at the same time.

Metafilter strikes again

Yikes, I never thought this could be a problem... but apparently... it is.

Crazy schemes

I have a new crazy scheme. Crazier than Oxford, crazier than staying here, crazier than moving to London even. Crazier than going home. Its Siberia.

Okay, so that's a lie, its not SIBERIA per se. Its the railway that runs through it. Oh I know, I've had my eyes on Russia and Eastern Europe in general for a while now, but now it's becoming obsessive. Like super-obsessive. I really really want to go. Really. Kind of insane how those sorts of ideas just jump out of nowhere, but here I am with time on my hands so I stumble onto random journals of obnoxious American tourists who spend too much time talking about women and being obnoxious to the point where I can't read their journals anymore and not enough time being interesting.

Yes maybe I do come up with a few too many crazy schemes, but I like to have options.

Speaking of options, it seems that when it rains it pours around here. Inundated with options for tonight, I picked one, which has now bailed, leaving my other ships sailing off into the distance and me with no drinking buddy for the evening. This is upsetting 1) Because I had a long/draining day and wanted to chill with a buddy and a beer 2) Because even though this time he really can't help it, he tends towards bailing 3) Because I generally hate bailers for whatever reason, and now feel guilty about this because he can't help it and finally 4) Because it is too cold to go for a walk. The last one is just thrown in for good measure, but really, in situations like these I go for walks, and 'Feels Like -28' is not my idea of walking weather.

Maybe I should be rethinking Siberia in winter.

Confused

I was hopelessly confused when my alarm went off this morning, that deep confusion that results from being jerked out of a very deep sleep (and very bizarre dreams) and immediately thrust into waking, being asked to react to a blaring alarm clock. It seemed to be minutes before I clued in. Right. Work. Hit snooze. Nine minutes. But I was wide awake, unable to return to sleep. Probably better that way, I sat for nine minutes and wondered what I would wear.

My tea tastes funny, and it seems that I can't remember the last time a cup tasted normal. I would switch to coffee but the time and effort it takes to make coffee is prohibitive. I blame my kettle breaking, forcing me to switch to a metallic monster that ends up with metal-y flakes at the bottom. Oh I worry about being poisoned. So today I used a pot to heat my water, resulting in another funny taste. Different from the first, but still funny. That kettle served me so well, for so long, I guess it was its time. But now I'm reduced to funny-tasting tea, when all I want is normal, delicious, wake-me-up kind of tea. Bah.

Its early and I ramble. Given at 8:30 I have to start The Longest Day: Work, coffee, school, school until nine tonight, when I will stumble home and collapse into bed. The Longest Day is something I chose, and usually find quite distracting. But at 8:00 when my alarm explodes I can do nothing more than stare blankly at the numbers, wondering why on earth I've been interrupted.

Personal limbo

This weekend has been endlessly useless in terms of my academics, having done little more than reading and taking a few paltry notes. I still have three to four pages to write before I sleep tonight. No problem, I think, its only seven.

Amazing how personal growth can sneak up on you, with a squeaky snnneeeeak it pulls up and taps you on the shoulder, you turn to find empty space, turn your head the other way to see it grinning mischievously, its eyes glinting with knowledge before disappearing. I never quite caught it to ask what it knew, but somehow I've been left with a strange sense of almost-peace. My mood is not changed much from last week, but somehow improved. As if I've been separated from that reality by a pane of translucent glass. This makes little sense to me, and if I cannot articulate it well enough for self-reflection, I cannot hope that you will understand. Take it at this: I don't feel better, but I no longer feel bad.

I booked train tickets today, perhaps contributing to a sense of accomplishment I have no right to feel. It took more than I expected to make the final decision, as sure as I have been for weeks that I wanted to go. So sure that I acted as if it were done. Perhaps the events of the weekend brought me to it, for some reason I feel nervous and peaceful at the same time. Perhaps that is not strange or unusual at all.

I found The Dead Letter Office on metafilter today. It is interesting and eerie and compelling. Take a wander through the halls. I wonder how many dead letters one can write, how many times one can expel truth and wisdom before running dry. I contemplate writing my own dead letter but cannot even think of where to begin. This is maybe why I am not dead.

Kill some time would'ya?

Last night I killed a lot of time, up in Rez with the lovely floor fellows Krista, Carly and Liz. So here is a list of some favourites, take the time to check them out.

Strindberg and Helium. One's a depressed philosopher, the other a floating Kirby-esque puff ball. Enjoy it on as many levels as I do. Leeeeeveeels! Miiiiiiiiiiseryyyyyy!

Gotta love Foamy and Germaine, my favourite squirrel and goth duo. I recommend the Amityville Toaster, Kavorkian Scarf and The Jiggly Butt, but they are all good. Gotta love an angry Squirrel ranting about things... who comes up with this stuff?

Daily Dinosaur Comics. My favourites include this one and this one. I am an agent of CHAOS!

Endless random cartoons

Of course we can't forget Teen Girl Squad or Strongbad's email-answering insanity. Its almost over!

And what would this list be without a shameless plug for Noel's Comic? Its thanks to him that most of these crazy animations and comics came to my attention in the first place!

That'll do for now, I should really get back to work. I spent waaaay too much time coming up with this list.

Beer theory

Naomi has a beer theory that makes a lot of sense. If you are out with someone, generally you will alternate buying beer for each other. Every time you think to get more beer, you will ask your friend(s) if they want another. They will agree, its time for another, and you will go get beer. As soon as someone goes to get beer without asking first (ie: just disappears and shows up sometime later with beer) you know that they are drunk, and by logical association you are too. Indeed, last night when Jo showed up with beer, having disappeared while I was busy being smitten with that cute girl with the red hair, I knew it was over. My own personal test of drunkenness comes after the fact: If your morning starts with a beer count, you know it was a dirty night. In this case, both were true.

Prior to hitting the town, I lamented to Jo that I wasn't fun enough, but was hopefully becoming moreso. He believes that his fun-level is declining. We argued about what exactly made someone 'fun', and concluded that it was a mix of things, from confidence to spontaneity to a healthy disregard for societal norms. If this constitutes fun, then man was I fun last night. Made friends in line with two very drunk French boys who came back to us all night exclaiming how great we were and how we should hang out again (nothing sexual intended of course) but alas, we never saw them before we left. The sheer randomness of the evening was astounding, and for the record, telling a woman you think she is beautiful is a fabulous idea, but it might make her boyfriend inclined to think you are going to have a threesome with them. Boys are silly. Further to that, kissing said girl will definitely make the boyfriend think it, so its important to set up first that you don't intend to go there. She was totally stunning though, it was too bad she was with him. But I too was with a man, good for protection and general dancing, and we danced like crazy until 2:30 and then dragged our sorry asses home. I probably could have kept going, but that's non-drowsy cold medication for you. Something must be going my way though, because I feel way better than I did yesterday... if you discount my hangover of course.

Lonely

I've been lonely these past few days. I don't know if its the weather, the fact that everyone seems to be busy but me, the fact that I am leaving this city sooner than I care to admit or a combination of all three. Not feeling 100% hasn't helped.

I feel like my friends are all being pulled away from me already, that I am here in body but gone in spirit, as if I was never here, and the city keeps spinning, frozen and glittering through the night. I think of people dancing, of my nights here, my days, those smiles in my heart that I promised myself would never fade.

I feel like being alone is something we are all struggling to get used to. I want to be at peace with it, and yearn for flashes and excitement, something to take my mind away from numbing the way I feel, numbing the fear. I keep pulling through the strands of my memory, songs and pictures and words. Right now it is Radiohead, High and Dry, and I can see that first night I ever spent in Waterloo, two and a half years ago, like it was yesterday. I was faced with strangers and hope, a future unfolding without my touch, a life growing freeform. David and I both knew the words, and we sang them drunkenly at each other. "Don't leave me dry," and my heart smiles.

Frankly the only nice thing about having a really slow academic term is the fact that I can take extra sleep while I'm sick and not feel guilty about it. I'm hoping to be able to medicate myself out of this so I can party hardy tonight. Go drugs.

Hopefully on the up-and-up

So my weekend was terrible. Just a series of randomly unpleasant/bad/annoying things that, if they had occurred on an individual basis would have not have been so bad. However, from Thursday night onwards they just kept piling up, leaving me feeling frustrated, irritated and probably a few other -ated's that I can't come up with right now. I am also sick, which started to develop yesterday. I'm hoping that its a mild disease, as I have a jam-packed week and don't want some evil disease mucking it up. I also hope it goes away because I think the cure for these doldrums is a good wicked cool night out to make up for a definite lack recently. Have a Campus date on Thursday, so I'm gearing up, not to mention Jo's band playing on Wednesday. Numoy might come to that, and I'd love it, because we haven't been out together yet this semester and I miss her dancing and commentary about sketchy men.

Am working tonight with Krista, and since she is arriving here to pick me up soonish I can't seem to bring myself to read anything. I spent all evening making soup too. Being me, it ended up with soup down the side of my fridge, but was very tasty nonetheless.

On to the inner workings of my mind that Numoy enjoys so much... yeah... right. I fear that I am slowly becoming jaded, bitter, unwilling to let myself go. This is bizarre, surely someone with such a squishy heart as myself could never turn into that. Yet I found myself thinking, "I just can't do this anymore" and knowing that one more emotional bump would be too much. I am shopping for armour, thinking about keeping things simple and guarding myself against another blow. Its going alright, I suppose.

Now to clean the side of my fridge... hmmmm...

This has definately been what we in the business call 'le bad weekend'.

Senioritis

I would rather play with my hair and examine split ends than do my schoolwork. I'd rather write this. I'd rather have a beer, I'd rather do just about anything. This is getting ridiculous. Its January.

Some truths

Its hard sometimes to admit the truth. Like telling a friend that no, you don't think that was a good idea. Its hardest to admit it to yourself. Like the fact that more and more, I wake up feeling lost and take longer and longer to shake it. Like how maybe, I have been hinging everything on excitement and neuroses and have instead woken up to the same old. That maybe I am in a rut, and actually enjoy it. That maybe I have overestimated myself.

I can't really decide which of these things made me stay out last night, but regardless, it was definitely not the best idea I ever had. Yes the fact that I was owed beer made it appealing, but why did I stay until 3:30? The beer was consumed by 2:30. I should have taken my leave. I should have said no to the beer. I should have picked up my balls and walked.

I did learn something that will serve me well in the future: people (most people) just want their lives to be simple and uncomplicated. Therefore, to keep everyone happy, keep things simple and uncomplicated. This is where I run into trouble, I like complications, I think they are fun.

Its sunny outside, which probably means it is cold, and I have to have a piercing removed and return Jo's bag. I should also seriously apply myself to my schoolwork. Hopefully this sense of personal displacement will pass.

Boy do I ever feel better...

... apart from overall exhaustion. Today I had the longest shift ever (feeling-wise, not time-wise) , and as those four hours dragged on into the afternoon, my usual work-insanity took on a different form. I had been relieved. I was lethargic rather than spastic, bored as opposed to bouncing off the walls. I was feeling calm, cool, and so so powerful. I still do.

It was only later that last night's heavily interrupted sleep started to take its toll. As much as I enjoy having someone in my bed to cuddle up to me in the middle of the night, after a while the novelty wears off. As Mo said, this is now 'Old Hat': we went through our honeymoon phase and this is just a pleasant interlude on our respective ways to 'God knows what'. As such, the sweet romantic relationshippy bullshit (that I think I'm meant to ignore this time around, seeing as how this is neither romantic nor relationshippy in any way) starts to get mildly annoying when it wakes me up for the fourth time. I cannot complain, however, about the way I was woken up this morning when the time finally came to drag ourselves out of bed. As Numoy pointed out during a quick play-by-play before class: that is definitely bf behaviour. Sometimes even my psychic can be taken by surprise. Overall? My foray into this strange realm of non-dating went well, and I am looking forward to many more in the future... maybe with less of a rush this time.

I have skipped out on napping to chat to friends and eat, both worthy causes. I was going to nap now, but its almost six and I have to shower before going to a meeting followed by hitting BDP (the perennial favourite) and then off to a theme party. I haven't had time to dress up, what with negotiating my sex life and working ten hours out of the past twenty-four. Ah life is good.... but maybe I'm just saying that from the glorious cloudiness of the sex haze.

Do a little dance...

Make a little love, get down tonight.

Last night I had a mission, and I'm pleased to say that it was not only a rousing success, it took a lot less effort on my part than I had anticipated. Woot. Go me.

Shocked and Appalled

Reading the deliciously informative metafilter today, I stumbled across a link to this blog. It turns out, so the story goes, that this man was fired from his job due to comments made on his blog (scroll down through the article to get to the comments). Now. Being a blogger myself, and in fact, a blogger that works at a bookstore, I too have made nasty comments about my boss and my job online in my own time. Does this mean I could get fired? According to the head honchos at 'Bastardstones', it does.

To parrot things that are posted on his blog and in the letter posted by a writer familiar with him in a work setting, this is a gross violation of freedom of speech and frankly made me feel slightly ill when I read it. The idea of a blog is that one can be (more-or-less) anonymous and post rantings, ramblings and general randomness of one's life. The internet itself is a bastion of free-speech. We can say what we want. My biggest problem is the scary infiltration of the public sphere into private life that we are seeing here. Could this be the wave of the future? There was once a time when the things going on behind closed doors would remain there. The philanderings of a President were no more cause for national alarm than those of Mr. and Mrs. Jones in Anytown U.S.A. Suddenly we are overwhelmed with information, and access to information, and suddenly everybody's information has become front page news. Suddenly its no longer restricted to the private actions of celebrities, or the comments of public officials (for the record, he is a moron). Mr. and Mrs. Jones should watch out, because one out of line comment on their private blog about their public lives could land them on the dole.

This is not free speech, this is bullshit. This incident (and not the only one!) shows the blatant disregard for freedom and individual rights that has swept into the world on the coat-tails of the New Millennium. This is me formally lodging my complaint. It is our right to post what we wish, just as it is our right to say what we wish.

Christ. I would expect this sort of bastardization of freedom in the United States, but I thought better of Great Britain.

I am such a headcase

I had an awkward run-in with Roomie on campus today rushing between classes involving me calling, him acknowledging and me trying to talk without much luck. Afterwards, I berated myself for being impatient and calling to him, rather than waiting to run into him after class. Spent all class worrying that my awkwardness had destroyed my chances to get lucky and that my new underwear would go unappreciated. He was not outside the classroom, nor at the entrance having a cigarette. Foiled. I walked home, vowing not to do anything stupid anymore. My machine flashed. I had a feeling. Sure enough, my power is intact and as potent as ever: it was a very apologetic message with a request to call.

Krista was as shocked as I was: Who is this guy?

Of course I haven't called. I have been busy. Curly came over for tea, which was nice, he's a chatty guy. And then I had to go to work.

I'm looking forward to a very packed week, sex or no sex, with of course fifteen hours of work to pay for all the trimmings. But really, sex would be preferable.

I think I now know what it is like to be a guy.

Nostalgia trip

Every now and again I engage in a nostalgia trip: diving back into whatever remnants of the past I have in my possession and forgetting today for yesterday. Call it escapism, it is often masochistic and always wonderful. Even if I return to today with sadness, it is tinged with the joy of feeling, of knowing how much I actually felt. This is a thing I have: its so important to feel things to their fullest. Krista calls it my squishy heart.

Here's the thing. My squishy heart demands that I hang on to everything I can from the past, specifically to allow me to dip back into it when the mood strikes me. So to this end, I have poems I wrote in at fifteen, high school yearbooks, ICQ conversation logs from second year, archives of email messages and photographs, boxes and envelopes full of the tangible remains of my relationships, and of course this blog. Some of these have been taken home in aid of making my move in April as painless as possible, but much of it remains at my fingertips, electronically stored for posterity.

Today I engaged in some brutally hedonistic reminiscing. So what? I have time (relatively), and I am not in danger of falling back into some of my more damaging practices. It left my evening somewhat wrecked, my mind occupied with thoughts of love, life and the grand questions. I blame my current (and certainly selfish) obsession with my own existence. Its not like I am living in the past, but sometimes its important to realise how far I have come and in doing so realise how far I have yet to go. Seeing how much has changed, how much is still the same. Wondering how so many years can be summed up in a few lines of text, a single book, a few bytes on my hard drive. Asking the grand questions.

Am I crazy? Is this escapism healthy? Normal? Bah. I never liked words like normal anyways. It makes me happy to remember. And if the past few years have taught me anything, its that more can happen in a few years than you can ever hope to hold on to, but the really important memories are so deeply embedded that reading an old email can bring it all flooding back.

The most fun a girl can have...

Its not lying, despite the great entertainment that may provide. Its new lingerie, and the potential opportunity to take it for a spin. I am of course, talking about my new lingerie and the potential 'd'ing opportunity with Roomie that I cannot wait for. I have been having flashbacks all day. But I digress. Sexy new underwear is fantastic. You can wear it, hidden away underneath your clothes, and even when nobody but you knows it is there, you exude this great 'I-am-wearing-something-sexy' vibe. Its hot.

Speaking of hot, I was apparently somewhere near hot last night. For some reason, even after putting very little effort into my appearance, I was getting stares left, right and dead centre. Perhaps it was the fact that I was out alone with a boy who was not my boyfriend (prompting stares to be directed at us in an attempt to determine if I was taken) but whatever the cause, it was pretty ridiculous. I am not used to it. As we were leaving I asked the most blatant culprit for a smoke, which he willingly gave to me and inquired if I was with my boyfriend. No, I said, he is not my boyfriend. Oh, well then, maybe I would have come over to say hello, he replied. So odd.

I can only conclude that its my twenties that have wrought this change. Apparently one's twenties are hotter than one's teens. Fabulous. Clearly Roomie feels this, and now that I have hot new underwear, I just have to wait for an opportune evening to come around. Hopefully my psychic friend will be right, and there will be d'ing a'plenty.

Don't be a bitch, bitch

Jo figures I should write a book of common courtesy, describing to people how they should be acting in social situations. I suggested I title it Don't be a bitch, bitch, but we decided that it was too insulting, and settled on the more subtle jibe of, Don't be stupid, dumbass. I won't get into the details of exactly what people were doing today to piss me off, but needless to say, people are inconsiderate, selfish, and in many cases downright assholes.

He came over last night for beer and chat, it was like an old-fashioned slumber party only with a boy, and without pillow fights. Waking up late, we had the traditional Place breakfast and now its finally time to get my day started (wow I suck). Three in the afternoon, I want to read and clean today.

Not much to comment on I suppose, I wore my 'you slut I love it' shirt loud and proud yesterday, and plan to keep it on call for when I really need it. As Krista said, if things come together properly I will be living the dream. Well, here's to the dream.

Only gonna make you love me more

Ah. Wow. Crazy.

The short of it is: I spent the night making out with Roomie and having suggestive reactions to his suggestive comments. Am debating if I can put up with a casual relationship to satisfy my need to get laid on a somewhat regular basis. Its fairly clear where it is going.

Favourite quote of the night? When I let him go home after we kissed for a while. I had earlier promised that nothing was going to happen. "We should get somewhere warm." I replied, "I promised nothing would happen." He answered with a question: "You never break a promise?"

No, I don't. As much as I wanted to. I know that it will happen, I can wait for the sake of my power.

I've got the power... Apparently

The night I arrived was spent over a few beers with Jo, and he advised me thusly: To call a boy within the first week of coming back would seem too eager, so the best thing to do would be wait a week at least. I accepted this logic, he is usually my most pessimistic/realistic advice-giver.

So, when a familiar yet unrecognized voice appeared out of my phone last night, I was prompted to ask who was calling. Sure enough, much to my pleasant surprise, it was Roomie. Strange. We chatted, good chat, during which I mentioned that I was having some people over to predrink for another Tuesday at Jello. He mulled that over, asking if we had ever been there together. I informed him that I had invited him several times but he had never taken me up on the offer, and would he like to join us? He asked me to ring him when we were leaving.

Numoy's response when I called her to express my shock: "He misses"

Before I could even think to dial his number, my phone rang. Roomie again. Apologizing that he could not make it, he had decided to go out with another friend. Sure, I said, no problem, did they both want to come? He informed me that he didn't know if he should go, on account of the fact that he would "probably get drunk and..." trailing off. I feigned ignorance, "and what?" I asked. He muttered something. I dropped it. He then thanked me for the invitation, and told me that if I "wanted to get coffee or something sometime" he would "really like that". My jaw dropped. "Sure, that'd be great, look I'm busy for the rest of the week working, but give me a call Friday or Saturday." Followed by urgings on both of our parts to "have a great night" and some awkward goodbyes.

Numoy rang to say she was leaving the bar and could she meet us en route. I blurted out the story. She replied: "He loves and wants to D". I needed a second opinion. Jo's realistic (and male) opinion: "He is still interested". I asked if that meant to purely D or interested in me emotionally. He reiterated "He is still interested"

Hmmmm. So strange. This time, I am not going to let it fall to pieces, or let him have the power. Its all me.

Beginning of the end

It has taken me less than twenty-four hours to feel perfectly at home. Jo came over last night for beer and commiseration, and I slept fitfully and felt odd, out of place and somehow disjointed.

My classes look good and fairly easy (I will admit to dropping my 300-level class in favour of a 200-level replacement... why damage my GPA further?), and I think I saw Boston there... who can blame a girl? I have had raunchy dreams about a certain someone for several nights in the past week, and I'm just trying to put them out of my mind for now. As Jo said, it is best not to expect anything.

Not much else to comment on at the mo, just finished making some tasty soup, and I think I will sit down to enjoy it. Its great, these first few days when nobody is working but everybody is around. Numoy dropped in for a visit, I missed her.

So here it is, the beginning of the end, the first day of my last semester. *sigh*

Out of sheer necessity

I will post a summary of my week. Really, it has been a moderately eventful week as far as those things can be measured in Vancouver, since eventfulness here cannot compare to eventfulness at home. I have crossed over from where I was, am no longer stranded here. Instead, there is something I can't quite put my voice to, and it bothers me. I am not happy here. As I said to Ju, "Its not that there is anything bad, its just that there is nothing good."

So, onto summaries. Katie and I hit the sparsely populated bars on boxing day. It was open mike night, so that meant some bad wannabes and some great original lyrics. Our hands down favourite line? "You know you're doing it right when the neighbors complain" Damn straight sister. I was also told that I was intriguing... that's a new one. The next night my own neighbor was having a party, and I spent the night chatting with someone I hadn't seen in more than five years. Strangely, we really got along. He even called the next day. Alas, I was already on my way out the door, and he hasn't called since. Boys. That event I was on the way to was a joint birthday party, everyone drank too much (including me, but I'm a little better at knowing when 'too much' becomes 'too much for my body to hold on to'). Results? Endless gossip the next day. Managed to also catch up with Lawrence and Jess, and spent a very very laid-back new years eve with wine, chocolate and movies. SO great.

What else? Well news from the east has always been my favourite home-time pastime. Roomie has been sending me msn messages a fair bit, and although I've been warned to "Stay away from that boy" I cannot help but think that maybe Numoy is right in her prediction that we will 'd'. I'll move slowly on that regardless.

That's my story, that's my week. I cannot wait to get back to Montreal's icy streets... although the lowest forecast temperature is -17, and its currently only -4!! Yay! Perhaps this winter won't be so bad after all. Knock on wood.