The Weekend

My inertia this morning was such that, having torn myself from the comfort of my feathered lair to void my bladder, that mission once accomplished, I thereafter found myself seated at my computer at 5:30 a.m., staring blankly at a succession of emails from well-meaning acquaintances who seem to think their purpose in life is to save the world ("be sure to pass this along to everyone you know") from the harmful effects of one thing or another. It is a paranoia which even I find strange.

Monday is "Family Day", so we have a long weekend, something I consider a good idea, and I compliment the politicians for having engineered it. The delights of Valentine's Day didn't quite reach the same standard. As a sole practitioner and small businessman, I welcome the statutory right to close my door with impunity.

I marvel at the date, already the middle of the second month of the year 2010. While I wouldn't say that we're exactly hurtling into the future, nonetheless time seems to be speeding along. Last December, when I contemplated the distant closing of transactions on March 31st, I thought the future was a long way off. But now, April 1st seems only around the corner. It helps, perhaps, that we've been spared the mountains of snow which customarily befall us. It wouldn't, for example, have been entirely preposterous for me to have bicycled to work everyday this week. As it was, I contented myself to walk to and fro, relishing the dry pavement (in spite of the abundance of sand, residual from the last precipitation).

For Canadians generally, one must be prospective to get through the Winter. It is after all only the hope of things to come that enables us to withstand the miserable weather and prolonged darkness. Even the brief reprieve of a week or ten days in tropical climes does little more than accentuate the unpleasantness. Meanwhile, I content myself to replenish the stock of firewood and imported red wines, the appurtenances to a good book and a roasted prime rib of beef. It is a contemplative period of life, Winter. Aside from the culinary and related hedonistic indulgences, I occupy myself upon the Steinway, hammering out a new tune I discovered by accident several month ago, a haunting melody.