I was walking to work this morning and thinking about how lucky I am to live within walking distance of work. And not only that, but I can walk the first two miles pretending I’m in the country: I walk through the Experimental Farm, cut through a piece of the Arboretum, then through a park, then I cross Carling and head up the wooded path beside the O-Train tracks. It’s not till I get to Preston and the Queensway that I’m surrounded by city, and that’s about the same time of day the streetlights go off and morning starts in earnest.
I see so many interesting things along my pre-dawn pseudo-country route. There are hundreds – maybe even thousands – of crows who congregate at the Experimental Farm. Did you know that the term for a lot of crows is a murder? I see a murder of crows on my way to work. And geese. And a rabbit and a fox. (The fox, sadly, was roadkill. I don’t know if that counts.) It’s too early in the morning for photographs, but I did get this one of the sunrise a couple of weeks ago.
The mornings are getting a little crispier lately – I wear gloves now, but my fingers creep out of their slots to snuggle up together against my palm. Winter’s coming, and I’m hoping I can keep walking to work in spite of it. I’m going to need really warm mitts though. I looked at the Mountain Equipment Coop site, and did you know you could spend $115 on mitts? The thing about $115 mitts is they make the $80 mitts look reasonable, which they’re really not.
But I’m lucky, because $80 mitts are not outside the realm of possibilities for me. I could do it. It would certainly seem excessive and I would feel guilty and I would think about the Snowsuit Fund and Underwear for Homeless People, but $80 mitts are an option. My hands get really cold, and I need very warm mitts. Do you think $80 mitts would be eight times warmer than $10 mitts? Because my hands freeze in $10 mitts.
If I was homeless in Ottawa in the wintertime I think I would perish. I have no idea how most of them manage to survive. When I ask them, they just shrug and say they wear layers. I wear layers INSIDE and I’m still too cold.
This is – according to Megan – The Only True Bluesman. He’s the one-armed guitar-playing panhandler. Check out the sign on the green thing behind him:
We shouldn’t need signs reminding us that people have a right to ask us for help. We shouldn’t have to feel guilty when we buy ourselves mitts because homeless people are literally freezing to death in this country. I think it was around 1993 that the federal government killed our national social housing program. Does anyone remember seeing people sleeping on the streets before that? I don’t.
We should bring that program back before we all get indifferent to the human suffering that goes along with homelessness. Wouldn’t we feel awful if our children were indifferent to it?
(This was just supposed to be a nice post about how lucky I am to see the crows at sunrise. Geez.)
It’s interesting to hear about politics in Canada, being an American. I like the blog, keep it up.
Mitts…I’m experimenting. I have to refinish the tips of a pair of thrummed mitts, and I’m knitting two other pairs. doubled (2 layers on one needle) hoping they’ll be warm. They’re for the Red Cross, but I’ll consider a pair for myself later. I’ve heard that real wool is warmer too. I’m already wearing mitts to walk the dogs. Do you carry a bag or wear a knapsack?
I love collective nouns like a murder of crows. how about a parliament of owls?
beautiful photograph
Intersting signage.
Another place that has a gigantic murder of crows is where St-Laurent crosses the train tracks. It’s very creepy.
I saw splurge on the mittens. Back when I lived close enough to my work to walk, I found that keeping warm was worth the money. I invested in good waterproof winter booths, A coat that covered almost all of me and some $20 wool mitts. The wool mitts were the weak point! The wind went right through them and I had to try to stuff them into the coat pockets and still carry my lunch. Not. Easy.
I have a bunch of extra scarves. I have too many and like few of them. Is there a program that delivers these things to the homeless?
I got some mitts at the MEC some years ago and they weren’t anywhere near $80. They were filled with some sort of technical fluffy stuff that wasn’t down and they are incredibly warm. I needed them while I was still cycling to work. I also have a pair of very old down-filled mitts I got for skiing back in 1976. Yikes. But the filled-with-fluffy-stuff mitts are the warmest.
Welcome, Monocle Babrie (interesting name – what does it mean?). As far as the politics goes, I’m probably not typical of Canadians. I always cheer for the underdog.
Gillian, I don’t think wool will do it. I need something windproof. I’ve had thrummed mitts in the past, and they didn’t work for me. I have really poor circulation in my extremities. Seriously, if you were going for a long and treacherous hike in the Arctic or the Andes, you’d want to take me along because I’d succumb to the elements first and then serve as a food source for the rest of you.
Oh, and in answer to your question, I wear a knapsack. I can’t carry anything with my frozen stumps, they’re useless.
Nursemyra – I love that one! A parliament of owls! It’s especially fitting here in Ottawa, since we have the Parliament Buildings. (Do you have owls in Australia?)
Tiana, you have to get back the crows’ creepy factor in order to truly appreciate them!
And that’s an excellent point you make about the weak link in the winter armor. You cannot be warm when any of your parts are freezing. I might have to splurge on the mittens.
But maybe not as much as I feared! Julia – those incredibly warm technical fluffy non-down well-under-$80 mittens sound like exactly what I’m looking for. I wonder if MEC will know what I mean if I go in and describe them like that? I’m going to try.
A singular of boar… that has to be the worst collective noun ever.
Ha! I like this one though: An ostentation of peacocks.
that peacock one is great. and yes we do have owls in australia
Posts, they take a life and direction of their own. MEC has $115 gloves. uhg. what a weird world.
Actually, Sue, I was thinking about you today because my hands are so cold too. I’m think about an old fur collar or even a coat, made into a muff. I really would like to find a solution that works for dog walking, cause I have to hang onto the leashes and then there’s pick-up.
How could you offer a helping hand to someone in need if your hands were frozen?
$80 for two hands which each have 5 fingers amounts to 8$ per finger. That’s only $16 to keep two warm fingers crossed!
Sad for the fox…
Ah, mathematicalize the problem – good thinking! Okay, $8 per finger still seems a little steep, but over four years it’s only $2 per finger. That’s more like it.
[…] I love about them. (Long-term readers might recall I’ve blogged about crows before. Here and here and here. […]