Loads Of Bitches

Last night in Calgary there was some interesting weather. A couple of the areas in the south west of the city had what is suspected to be a tornado touch down. This isn’t like a football touchdown which is good or bad depending on which team you are a fan of, but the kind anyone in their right mind tries to avoid.

There are a lot of video and photos from people in the area that thought getting their cameras was a better idea than getting into some kind of cover. Luckily the damage was minimal, just a few houses and sheds destroyed, but no people were injured. I guess that as far as tornados go this was a pretty mild one. It didn’t even make the front page of the Herald. I will grant you that the Herald isn’t one of the top ten papers in the world, but I would have thought that a tornado would trump next years Stampede centennial, the name of a new pedestrian footbridge or the fact that our parking rates are the same as in New York city. It did make page three.

The city is waiting for Environment Canada to determine if it was indeed a tornado. I don’t know, high winds, ominous black, rotating clouds that look like the finger of God and of course the property destruction. I guess it is somewhere between a dirt devil and an F- five tornado. It wasn’t strong enough to drop a house on any evil witches, but if I had been there it would have been strong enough to fill my pants.

When did tornados become normal in Canada? The only tornados that I had heard of as a kid was when some trailer park in Kansas or Iowa was shredded by one. I don’t recall any in Canada. I will grant you that my memory is dodgy at best, but I am sure I would remember a huge circular wind that destroyed a city and killed hundreds of people. I remember dirt devils in the school playground and trying to catch them. I guess they were magical beings that would bring you luck if you managed to catch one, much like a leprechaun. I suppose that it is possible that our population has grown to the extent that there are now more human habitations where twisters used to play unnoticed.

The government assures us that the weather hasn’t changed (probably), but we are just in a thirty year cycle. Maybe...but what about the extra cold/hot winters and the extra hot/cold summers? I don’t know what is going on, but I want it to stop!

The problem with the whole weather thing is that there is nothing we can do about it except clean up afterwards and complain. If there is a plus to this whole weather thing, it is that I live in a house not built from straw or sticks which is located on a hill, and to the best of my knowledge there are no evil witches in my neighbourhood. Bitches we have loads of, but no witches.