I am the first to admit that this winter has been a tad tough on us Canadians, with lots and lots of snow. Thankfully it hasn’t been terribly cold here in T.O., but the snow has been relentless. We’re about 5cms away from breaking a record we set in 1939, if that tells you anything. But what I wanted to talk about right now is how the sunshine and warmer temperatures bring out the crazy drivers.

1. There was the dude in the Lexus who lit up a doobie while in front of me in the left turn lane. With the nice weather out, I had my window open, and did a double-smell take when the smoke I saw him blow out his window wafted into my truck. Not only was he a bad driver (he cut in front of me to get into the left turn lane a little earlier), but he’s now smoking up while driving. Talk about driving under the influence!
2. There was also the woman in the Corolla in front of me on the highway on-ramp. She was going a steady 60 km/h getting onto the highway, and then proceeded to change lanes and go all the way into the left passing lane, going about 80. Everyone else was barrelling past and around her going anywhere from 100 (the speed limit) to 120, and she was merrily ignoring everyone, puttering along at 80.
3. There was the diva in the spanking, white new Civic who insisted on checking her eye makeup while talking on her cell phone while deciding if she wanted to turn now or later.
4. There was the dude in the blue Golf who was just mesmerized by the sun and drifted over into my lane.
5. There was the man in the Pacifica with dealer plates who insisted on changing lanes without signalling, while he was talking on the phone.

I’ve got to keep in mind that as the weather gets warmer and nicer, we all tend to forget where we are and start to look around and pay attention to everything else but the fact that we’re driving. I admit I do this occasionally as well, however in a city like Toronto, where there are lots of people, if only just 1 in 10 of us is doing this, that’s a lot of swerving and general crappy driving. So I’ll be attempting to remember not to go completely mental while enjoying the nice weather, will you?

Yep, it’s a snow day here in Toronto, and no, it’s not because we’re not used to getting any sort of precipitation. It’s because we’re supposed to get 15cms of snow in the next three hours, plus drifting & blowing snow with all the wind, and then some freezing rain this afternoon as the temperature rises, and then some more snow. So I’m working from home today. No need to make the trek to work in the truck if I don’t have to. Now if my office was downtown or somewhere on a subway line, there wouldn’t be any problems, as I could just hop on it and get to work fairly easily. Instead, I work up in suburbia, which necessitates a car to get there (yeah, I could take public transit, but it would take me 90 minutes to get there on three buses, instead of 25 by car.) So I made sure to bring home some work last night, logged into my work email this morning and will be hard at work in a little bit. I actually did get up an hour earlier this morning just in case it would be okay to drive in, but after listening to the weather report and seeing the radar pictures, I’ve decided not to go.

Tonight was my swan song at Melanie’s trivia league, where I was subbing in for one of her teammates who couldn’t play for a few weeks. This week I was totally rocking my questions, getting 8 deuces (that’s two points each), and narrowly missed on a 9th. The best round was the audio round, which was female artists, and my particular question was about an “eclectic” artist. I got burned on this category last week when I had to name an eclectic male artist, and missed out on Lou Reed. This time as soon as the song played, I answered “Kate Bush”, and everyone was shocked. Particularly because I had made a big stink about the fact that I was getting an eclectic artist question. But I’m glad that it was Kate Bush, as she’s one of my favourite artists.

All in all the evening was a success, even though the rain that was falling all day turned to snow by the time I got to the pub. Sheesh, was that ever wierd. But it’s stopped now, so it’s all right, however the weather service is calling for freezing rain and possibly snow overnight. *sigh* Welcome to late fall in Canada.

Edit:  Whoa, not only are we supposed to get snow tonight/tomorrow, but we’re now under a Snow Warning, and they’re predicting between 10-20cms by the tomorrow night! Yowzers. What blows about this is that I’m supposed to go over to a friend’s house tomorrow night to visit as I’ve got a friend from the States in town. This is most distressing, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed it’s not horrendous. I’ll probably have to flip on the All-Wheel Drive on the SUV. I filled up the gas tank today at an annoying 104.9 (that’s $1.049 for those of you who have problems with decimal points) to make sure I wouldn’t be caught short tomorrow. I also got some extra food and cash out of the ATM, just in case.

Changing weather is always a fun thing here in the GTA. We forget how to drive whenever it rains or snows, even just a teeny, tiny bit. So this morning it was raining quite hard, and everyone was going really slowly. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow, when we’re supposed to get actual snow. It’s not supposed to be too “sticky”, but still, we’re on tap to get 5cms before the day is done. *sigh*

I went into the pub tonight for Trivia Night and it was like 4 degrees out with a breeze that made it feel a little colder. I came out 3 hours later, and it’s two degrees warmer, with no wind. While I know two degrees doesn’t sound like much, it’s a lot during this descent into winter. This temperature in March makes us Canadians start wearing just sweaters and light gloves outside, instead of scarves and wool coates, like we do now in November.

Trivia was a lot of fun tonight. I did much better than last week, especially because one of the categories was the End of the Game, and it was about famous finishes in sports. Very cool. Melanie was very excited about the horror & zombie movie category. Thankfully I got my answer (Shaun of the Dead), but Melanie knew every-single-answer, including, thankfully, her question. A fun time was had by all, and we even won! I’ve got one more game with the team as a substitute, and then it’s the end of the season. I’m having fun with the trivia, even if the rest of my friends think it’s geeky. haha. Okay, time to go to bed, as I’m supremely tired right now….ciao!