Dreading the Chairlift

Just in case knowing the weather here in Calgary isn't a number 1 issue for you, let me tell you - It's COLD here. This weekend I broke out the cross country skis, shoveled off the car and went to the hills. I lasted about 10 minutes (which may be exaggerating a bit). It was around -23 Celsius plus the wind chill. The bike trainer in the basement never looked so lovely. On Saturday afternoon (at about -22) I pulled the amateur move of walking the 7 minutes to and from the grocery store. I was bundled up and was enjoying the bracing cold, but I forgot one key scientific fact: lettuce does not do well in -22. Neither does celery, bananas, mushrooms, tomatoes or apples. Luckily my dinner was saved as the ice cream pulled through just fine! I know that when Jeff is away and I'm cooking for one my meals suffer, but a Sunday night of mostly tea and ice cream was particularly unique. On Monday the temp hit -28 with a wind chill of -42! When I successfully walked the 6 blocks from the bus stop I felt like I had accomplished something significant. I even called my mom to tell her of my latest extreme sport - bus commuting! This morning it was a balmy -20 again (warming up!) and I am faced with a looming dread - my first snowboarding lesson is tonight. Not only I have the 'first-ride-of-the-season-do-I-really-know-how-to-get-off-the-chairlift?' dread, I might just lose my nose to boot. I've researched it though and a comforting thought is that they shut down the chairlift at COP (here in town) when the wind chill gets below -30. Isn't that thoughtful. Yikes that's cold. And Jeff is missing the whole thing. Last night he called from his hotel room in some small town in Texas and left the comforting message that including the wind chill, there is 100 degrees Fahrenheit difference between us. He's been showing the pilots he's working with the snow reports for Sunshine and Lake Louise and they just simply don't believe it, and frankly I'm in a bit of denial myself! Thanks for the support, honey.