East Ottawa Star
Published: Friday, July 17, 2009

The bright side of cloudy days

News flash: Summer is officially boycotting Eastern Canada. And it’s getting everyone down.  

Surely you’ve noticed it around your office or in the community, more than a few folks are whining about their Vitamin D deficiency and/or the money they spent on a new pool which hasn’t been used.

However, this SAD reality – not to be confused with a rare summer outbreak of seasonal affective disorder – sunk in this past Monday. We live on a long crescent and each side of my section of the street is lined with approximately 30 houses. That’s 60 houses, 60 families and well over 150 human beings. At precisely 7:12 p.m. on Monday, July 13, I went outside and stood there for a good 10 minutes.

The street was teeming with cars but not a soul was in sight. No kids on bikes, no dads puttering in the garage, nobody tending to their garden, no backyard barbeque aromas wafting my way, only Simon and Garfunkel’s sounds of silence.

But enough with the self- pity. We need to take a cue from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and, sing along with me now, “always look on the bright side of life, always look on the light side of life, if life seems jolly rotten, there’s something you’ve forgotten …” You get the idea.

This year’s rain and cold means that you are saving money on the monthly water bill. Seriously though, I haven’t watered my lawn since May … 2008! The family budget is also doing well … less heat means fewer trips to the beer store and LCBO, not to mention a lower hydro bill since the A/C isn’t cranked for weeks on end.

Ditto for the gas bill since the desire to get outside and whip up a few steaks or chicken on the grill just isn’t there. And I wouldn’t know where to find sunscreen at the drugstore since I’m still using a bottle of SPF 30 from some time back when the Senators were in the Stanley Cup finals and Dany Heatley liked playing here.

As for getting a parking spot and prime location at Petrie Island this summer, no problem whatsoever. But let’s not discuss the water quality, thanks.

As for my training for a couple of fall half-marathons, it has been glorious to run in moderate heat and not worry about rising at 5 a.m. to beat those days when the mercury tops 30 degrees.

Decreased “beverage” consumption combined with fewer trips for ice cream has also ensured that the spare “pneu” has remained as hidden as 2009’s smog advisory days.

And a good dent in the books-to-read-pile has been made since episodes of reality TV like Big Brother are proven to make you ‘stupidererer.’ Good grief, I only watched one episode and already I can’t spell.

So it’s not all bad, but it sure would be nice if Mother Nature could send us a heat wave or two, pretty please.

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Comments can be sent to Walter Robinson at orleansouttakes@transcontinental.ca.