Monday, October 16, 2006

Adrenaline Beats Caffeine Hands-Down

Although, today, I opted for both. At Starbucks, I asked if they'd add a shot of whiskey to my Pumpkin Spice Latte, which they didn't take very seriously. Little did they know, I wasn't kidding.

So ... Saskatoon and the snow. Interesting combination. It snowed lightly last night, but I guess that because of the specific temperatures, there was a crazy ice factor that happened. My car had about 3 cm. of snow on it to clear off, but it was the heavy snow that was iced to the car. My roomate Kathryn could barely get her driver's door open, and no other door for sure.

Once I got onto the road, things weren't bad in the residential areas, they were slippery, but moving quite well. As soon as I got onto Attridge (a main road in my books, it feeds into multiple neighbourhoods, and the speed limit is 70 km/h), I came to a standstill - for a reason. We were bumper to bumper traffic, and we were driving on a skating rink.

Now, I'm no stranger to winter driving. I did grow up in Calgary, and while tempered with the thaw of chinooks, winter driving and I have an intimate relationship. I hate it most of the time, but there's the resolve that comes with something that you know to be a permanent fixture in your life. I've seen slippery, but I've also come to depend upon the gravel and salt trucks that make sure that Calgarians don't lose their LIVES out there on the slippery, slippery roads.

On the main road that I referred to above, there was no gravel. That's right. NO GRAVEL at all. I was on that road from 8:00 - 9:30, which I consider to be rush hour. I've never seen an icy road like the one that I was on this morning. People were fishtailing like crazy, and braking was dicey at best. I kept a slow but steady pace (much to the chagrin of the black SUV that was RIGHT on my bumper most of the time). I was OK, but could do without the adrenaline that accompanies watching neighbouring drivers almost swerve into the lanes beside them (lanes filled with other cars).

It took me an hour and a half to drive a distance that normally takes me 15 minutes tops. Yup. Crazy. AND ... in that hour and a half that I SLOWLY and painfully progressed through some main thoroughfares, I didn't see ONE gravel truck or plow. I don't think plows could have done anything, but gravel trucks were beyond necessary.

When I got onto College Drive by the U of S, it was apparent that a gravel truck had been by, and it was smooth sailing ... driving like it was spring time in 1999.

I've heard various things about Saskatoon's infrastructure, most of them not very positive, which makes me want to contact the city and get a schedule of their gravel route, just so that I can plan accordingly and avoid the ridiculousness that I went through this morning. If I ever get one, I'll post it.

Sigh. Maybe I'll take the bus home - if they haven't gravelled I have no desire to go on those roads again. It is supposed to be 10 degrees on Wednesday, so it should all melt ... maybe that's why those cheap infrastructure buggers haven't hit the roads yet. Hmmm ... we'll see what they say about it on the news tonight.

I went to Costco yesterday, got lots of basics, and found for the first time the Kashi's TLC Chewy Granola Bars. I don't know if anyone will recall my previous post about Kashi, but I freakin' love the cereal and crackers that they make, and have been scouting out their granola bars. I've looked in Calgary Saskatoon at the grocery stores, and haven't found them. HOORAY for Costco, I got the peanut butter kind, and the Honey Almond Flax kind. I'll let everyone know what I think when I actually try one.

At 12:30 today (less than half an hour), I'm going to attend the 9th Annual Saskatchewan Law Review Lecture here in the U of S law library. The Hon. Chief Justice Bayda will be giving a talk on "Judicial Activism", and I'm super excited since this subject seems to be a theme that threads it's way into most of our classes.

The memo is coming along. I really don't feel panicked ... I think I'll finish writing it tonight, finish editing it tomorrow, and possibly hand it in tomorrow night so that I don't have nightmares about getting stuck in traffic and missing the 10:00 AM deadline on Wednesday morning.

Oh yeah - and I'm almost done the book Dating Amy: 50 True Confessions of a Serial Dater, by Amy DeZellar ... but I'm not going to finish it. I thought it would be a fun and spicy read, but (in my opinion) it falls a little short of the tone that it seems to be reaching for. I don't really feel like I'm missing out by not finishing it (which rarely happens with me and books), and I don't really feel any richer for having read the bit that I did. Kind of a disappointment.

I'm going to the library today, though. Hopefully for a couple more books that will actually be worth my time to read (is that too harsh?).

Any suggestions from all those out there in cyberland?

1 comment:

Nixie! said...

Wow, I thought our winter was bad this year when I experienced my car windscreen icing over for the first time! Hope your council gets into gear and gets the roads gravelled :)