A bit of this and a bit of that

Those of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning might remember that some three and a half months ago I was bitching and whining about the heat.
The air-conditioning in our condo building had giving up and in a temperature of between 38 and 45 degrees C (100 - 113 degrees F), we were boiling in our units.

I remember sitting in front of a fan, my feet in a bucket of cold water, with a wet towel draped around my neck. All in an attempt to stay cool. The only time and place where it was sort of bearable was at night on the balcony, which is where I wrote some of these blog entries.

Now it’s a different story. Toronto got its first touch of frost last night and this morning it was bitterly cold. It warmed up a little during the day, but not much, the temperature was maybe 5 degrees C (41 degrees F). In the sun it was kind of nice, but the wind ruined every chance of warmth.

I don’t know which is worse, the heat or the cold. I suppose the heat. At least to protect oneself against the cold one can put on multiple layers of clothing, while with the heat there is only so much one can take off.

Still, I’m not looking forward to winter. From now until the end of March we’re gonna have to bundle up in sweaters and coats, scarves and gloves and shiver until our teeth rattle.

While it’s dry it’s not so bad, but oh dear, soon we might get ice and snow and that’s gonna make everything even worse. I like falling snow as much as the next person, and the white blanket does make everything look beautiful, but unfortunately that kind of beauty is fleeting. Soon the white snow turns into a gray mess, starts melting and creates ice patches. Uuuh, I can’t even think about it without shivering.

On a different subject ... as of October 29th we’re home owners. Yep, we bought the condo we’ve been living in for the past six years. During the whole of September we went condo shopping but didn’t see anything we liked. It was basically a case of, what we liked we couldn’t afford and what we could afford we didn’t like. So we decided to stay where we are.

On a different note still ... last weekend Dieter and I played in a ten-pin bowling tournament. We weren’t going to play at first, seeing the entry fee was $50 per person, but in the end we couldn’t stop ourselves. I noticed how much Dieter wanted to play, wanted to test his skills against other bowlers and truth be told I like a bit of competition too. So we entered.

Two squads were to play, the first squad at 12:00 and the second at 2:00 p.m. We played in the 2:00 p.m. time slot. We played four games qualifying and at the end of that round we were in first place.
Next came the finals which were three games round robin.
And we nailed it. We beat our opponents one after another and with only two teams remaining (we and another team) it was time for the slaughter.
Dieter played an amazing game and scored 246, beating the pants off the competition. I didn’t do too bad either and so together we took first place!
Prize money ... (drum roll) $800.
We floated home on Cloud 9.

Is this the beginning of good times to come?