Patric J. Dufficy: Dealers in Hope

Here’s a light and somewhat funny topic…

I lived the first half of my life in Montreal and the second in Quebec City, but each year it becomes more difficult to just think about winter.
Ok, I’ll say things as they really are: “I HATE WINTER!!!”

WHY I HATE WINTER

I hate seeing nature dying in October, when all the plants and flowers start to look great with a decent size, they freeze and die.
I don’t like when my boogers freeze immediately when I step outside. 😉
I hate that my car become so filthy after just 10 minutes on the road that I can’t even open the doors without getting my fingers all dirty.
I hate having to put a coat, boots, and a hat, just to go outside for 10 seconds to get something.
I hate shoveling and snow blowing and become all sweaty inside my accoutrement but can’t even open my coat to vent the boiler without catching a terrible cold.
I also hate the snow plow man because he seems to waits for me to finish cleaning my driveway, get inside, have all my sweaty clothes off and as soon as I’m in the shower I hear his truck filling back my driveway with dirty heavy packed snow.
I hate having all my house windows closed for months.
I could go on almost indefinitely, but I’ll stop the list here, I think you got the point.

No, it’s not all beautiful scenery with white landscape unless you live in a really remote and rural place. As soon as you have more than a dozen cars passing in your street, the road becomes a nasty grey to almost brown-black slushy frozen ugly mud.

BATTLE OF COLD vs HOT
There is also a perpetual battle between the winter lovers and haters.
What I have to struggle with every winter are winter lovers…
I’m always trying to make them understand why I can’t love winter by doing some winter activities.
Often they throw at me this kind of suggestion: “If you would do some winter sports or activities, winter would be more fun.”
My answer is simple: ”How can I like doing winter activities when I hate this season in the beginning?”

I do believe that by doing several activities, in the long term it could reduce my hatred for cold, humidity and snow.
My problem is that I don’t want to like it!
It’s not like I have no choice to live here.
I have 2 clear choices; I learn to like winter or I go where there no winter. I’ll take option B.
It’s now my ultimate goal in life. Building a business I can operate anywhere on the globe and find a nice and warm place to live.
Then I’ll return to Canada for couple of weeks to visit my family and friends until I am no longer able to bear the depressing weather conditions.

QUEBEC CLIMATE
It’s a running joke here to say that some year we’re lucky to have 2 weeks of summer; the rest of the summer is often windy, rainy and cool.
One of the characteristic here is the constant humidity; we rarely have real comfortable or dry climate.
In summer hot days, there’s no wind and more than 80% humidity. As soon as the humidity drops in summer, it becomes chilly.
Autumn and spring are in general very humid, cool and windy.
Winter is also really humid, it seems to pierce through our clothes and body, when we have dry days, it gets so cold we can’t let any skin not hidden. It often reaches -5F.
We frequently have 20 degrees variation in 24 hours. No surprise why everybody get sick.

DISEASES SEASON
Winter is the season of diseases.
As soon as we reach December, more than half the people are sick with cold and flu.
In public places, all we can ear is coughing.
The sudden changes in temperatures are the main cause. Then, it spread like wildfire because every public places, work places and houses are so hermetically sealed that it becomes germ nests.
There are also many persons who suffer from allergies due to inadequately ventilated buildings.

So what would you choose if you were me?

Btw… It’s 5 degrees Fahrenheit right now.

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike