Weather Or Not.

A German friend, now sadly ex-friend, asked me once why in my emails I always talked about the weather.  I replied that this is a long-established custom in my dear little country.  That we are a nation with a resource economy-drawers of water and hewers of wood, if you will, Gentle Reader.  Our weather poses for us a life or death significance.  It provides us with wheat fields golden with grain that help feed the world.  Our fisheries are dependent on the accuracy of our weather forecasts.

And last but not least, weather-talk is a long-established and cherished Canadian tradition.  We likely get it from the British.  It keeps us from talking about other things.  Canadians hate arguing.  We like to get along with everybody.  We have one of the world's best and most successful national multinational strategies in the world.  I would think that this could be at least partly due to our ancient custom of weather talk.

If it's raining people will always say it's miserable.  If the sun is shining all faces break into beaming smiles almost as bright and blinding as the Day Star warming our earth.  If it snows it's mixed.  Most of us here in Vancouver anyway would prefer to see it on the mountains so no one here below should have to drive in it or slip on ice.  Meanwhile all the skiers and snowboarders are happy, the mountain resort operators are ecstatic and everyone's happy, no one is complaining.

Speaking of complaining I should mention here that we Canadians can be notorious whiners.  We whine about the weather, we whine about politicians, we whine about the weather, we whine about the economy, we whine about the weather.  See how good we have it here.  We live in the Great Northern Paradise, we live in Shangri-La with maple leaves and mack jackets and hockey pucks.

Canadians talk about the weather.  All Canadians, all generations, all ages, from the geekiest to the coolest to the hippest to the douchiest.  It is always a clear sign that a new Canadian has assimilated well into our culture when the first words that come out of their mouth are "rain sucks, eh?", or "Isn't it miserable!"

It hasn't rained today.  This is quite eventful during January.  There were a lot of clouds in the sky and some patches of blue, and many places where the Day Star was tossing honey-toned light on the water and the earth.  It isn't particularly cold and the air is clean and bracingly fresh.  This is why I don't want to live in the tropics.  I know that I would miss that clean blast of cool air that wakens and refreshes from the last weeks of October till the middle of April.  We're always glad when it's gone and we can finally wander outdoors without jackets and sit on the grass (where the dogs haven't beat us to it) and enjoy the shade.  But when that first gust of cold autumn air fills the morning and lingers till noon we are almost all suddenly and indescribably happy.

I have decided to stay away for a while from the café after removing my paintings last night.  It feels as though I was indentured to this establishment and now I want to enjoy being free, to discover and enjoy some of the many other good and decent coffee shops in Vancouver.  It is almost like being in a new city.  I did sit for a while this morning inside a café in Yaletown with my decaf Americano and sketchbook.  It was nice, the server pleasant and the music refreshingly indy.  I have Adele earworm from all the hours I have drawn inside the other coffee shop.  Nothing against Adele by the way but I always knew it was time to leave said café when I heard "Hello" being played for the third time.

So I hope, Gentle Reader, that you and my German ex-friend are now satisfied that I have answered your question and staunched your curiosity concerning our Canadian twee obsession with talking about the weather.  And to my German ex-friend, I hope you do read my blog from time to time and that even one day you will forgive me for what caused the end of our friendship.