A “Winter Is Coming” Kvetch

I’m not truly happy unless the temperature is at least 82 Fahrenheit outside, with a mix of sun and cloud, and maybe a light breeze. (Is it just me or did that last sentence sound like a very specific order you would hear in Starbucks?) If it weren’t for my kids, who I kind of like, and having to work, that pays for my kids, who I kind of like, I would be a snowbird, hightailing out of Canada to someplace warm for six months, missing most of the Canadian winter. 

I was born in Canada. I have lived here, aside from a few months living in Maui, one year, a couple of months in Scottsdale one year, and a couple of years in New York. Yet every single time it starts to get cold outside in Canada, l am a walking massive human kvetch, acting as if it’s my first time living through a Canadian winter. 

I kvell over pre-covid snowbirds who, for the first time in maybe years and years, are staying put in Canada. Along with Canadian winter temperatures, we will also live through slush, clunky winter boots, heavy coats you never know where to put and are annoying to hold, having to take your shoes off when entering someone’s house, a personal kvetch, because under whatever shoes or boots I may be wearing, there’s a high probability that my socks won’t match. 

Also, everyone needs to take extra caution so you don’t slip on black ice. Every single winter, for almost my entire life, I have had one embarrassing and awkward fall, after slipping on ice, so much so, I consider slipping on ice, with an audience, a tradition. Last winter, I slipped in the middle of a cross walk in Yorkville. That was fun. Not. Thankfully I wasn’t hurt. And, though I was mortified, I kvelled, “Well, Eckler, at least you got your ice slip over this winter!” 

And if that is the one and only thing I can kvell about winter, that shows just how much I kvetch about the weather slowly, slowly becoming more Autumn-Like, and yes, the changing leaves are sort of pretty, but we all know what comes next.