Fixin to blog 3 February 2007, 06:28

Not a foodblog entry, but this one’s been on the simmer awhile. Time to don the rantypants.

Canada’s a cold country, and Edmonton’s no West Coast urban rainforest. This is a town where the wearing of fur is nearly conscionable (as long as it’s a warm fur coat). We could be accused of MEC orthodoxy, yes, yes. Any other cold weather gear my husband has is imported from Russia, if you take my meaning.

I know there’s despoilers out there. Y’all with your remote car starters: heck, while you’re reading this, your “vehicle” is probably idling right now.

Yeah, sure, I haven’t got my bike on the road anymore. (I’ll have you know, I have not one but three defunct bikes stashed about the premises; I think two of them are actually art!) And full disclosure, I haven’t passed my driver’s test yet—I’ve “stalled” just a few lessons and a ton of practice (plus one baby) short of that.

I can even understand staying inside on a really cold day. (But not when I have the opportunity to go to the dentist at 40-below windchill!) Sometimes being snowed in is kind of fun, and worth risking cabin fever. It leads to some creativity in the larder when groceries get lean, you mark my words.

But I’ve come to a kind of revelation about dressing for winter, something folks don’t seem to do nearly enough around here. They tend to fire up the car instead, beat it out the door without coat or hat on, then beat it into the mall from the parking lot looking like utter fools…just to avoid “looking like Nanook of the North.”

The revelation I’ve come to is this:

A car is not a hat.

Simply that. A hat does not take gas. A hat does not fart CO2 fumes. A hat keeps you warm. You are probably still paying off the car, while you own the hat fair and square, and probably paid cash. A hat weighs less than a car. A hat is not a ton of steel hurtling toward other cars at 80 kph. Your hat will never be a write-off. A hat will not keep you from getting in shape walking to the occasional errand.

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