prairie summer

Today's soundtrack:
"Fireworks" by the Tragically Hip

As a transplanted Islander, I feel it is my duty to tell you, my dear Island folk, about the nuances of a prairie summer. Below is a list of recent aspects of summer that I've discovered:

1) Middle-aged, pot-bellied men feel there is nothing wrong with rollerblading in biker shorts. And only biker shorts.

2) Gophers are ridiculously cute, but also ridiculously stupid. If they just stayed still when something came close, they'd be impossible to see. Yet every time I am out riding my bike, the noise they make diving for their burrows forces me to look, then swerve, then try not to fall off of my bike.

3) Directionality. Specifically, the sun's directionality. There are no trees, no mountains, and rarely clouds to break up the sun. The result is that after a lovely dinner, one side of you is bright red, and the other side could pass for albino.

4) No matter which direction I peddle my bike, I am always riding into the wind. And what's more, the wind has the power not only to stop me dead in my tracks, but to push me backwards.

5) The smell of manure is in no way nostalgic for me, as it is for Mom. I'll take the smell of low tide over manure any day. Now, you may think it's impossible to smell low tide on the Prairies, but all you need to do is go to Regina and walk around Wascana Lake on a warm day.

6) When I rode my bike in Nanaimo, I'd hit a few bugs. Maybe. But here, it's as though the bugs are all kamikaze fighters and I'm the target. Mosquitos, flies, wasps, little green inchworms - anything goes!

But I'm not complaining. Oh no. Considering the spring you poor Islanders have had, and the miserable summer you're in for, I'll suffer through the suicidal gophers and mind-boggling wind.