Rain and lightening and thunder

It’s raining hard on Montreal tonight – forecast was for “faible pluie,” and I am considering the amount of bottled water and can preserves I should buy. New York is afraid of planes overhead, but we in Montreal get nervous once it starts raining in January. Ben says not to worry: no chill is forecast after the rain, but when was the last time the forecast could be trusted? The snow’ll melt, that’s for sure. Most of it. And all the dirt that’s been covered by it in the past month or so will surface. It’ll start to smell. Not that that’ll bother me much. I’ve been forever spared the lilacs and all the other springtime scents. It’ll surely snow again before the winter’s over. It’s been that kind of year. Warm. Last year the snow held off until mid-January, having birds and frogs appear out from hibernation. Then the frost came and they died. This year, it’s been just a bit colder. Cold enough for it to snow. Just so. What a lot of people don’t seem to know is that it can only snow when it’s relatively warm – warm for winter, that is. Temperature’s gotta be between -4 and 0 degrees for it to snow. Above that, it’s too warm and the snow turns to rain. Below, the snow freezes up there in the clouds; the sky becomes a sheet of frozen gray. Below that, it no longer snows. When it gets really cold, the snow becomes a frozen landscape, and it stays that way. A congealed world. It’s a cycle: the leaves fall off, it rains, and the rain becomes colder. Then it snows. And then it freezes over for a few months. Then it snows some more before the rain reappears. And then the rain becomes warmer until all the snow is melted away, and the leaves sprout out in a fury. That’s winter. Not +10 at Christmas. And not rain in January. So just in case…
- 4 big bottles of water (must find a spout)
- kerosene for the portable BBQ
- 12 cans of bean soup
- 8 cans of beans
- 8 cans of tuna
- 8 cans of salmon
- 2 big sacs of rice
- cans of veggies: green beans, green peas, baby carrots, beats
- fruits sauces: apple, pear, combinations
- 12 cartons of soya milk
- batteries for the flashlights
- candles, for when the batteries run out