THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT LIKE EVERY OTHER NIGHT

It's currently really cold outside where I live. To my Fijian fans, you probably imagine my Toronto life to be shrouded in ice and snow, but that's not the case. You ever been to Cleveland? It's like that -- four seasons, and a baseball team. Normally I'd have no problem hiding away in my warm cave and wearing layer upon layer of micro fleece, building enough heat to bake a potato in my pocket, but I feel guilty. You see recently I watched a CBC documentary that tried to tell me we Canadians are losing our fondness for winter. It showed images of whiny urban Canadians wrapped up and fleeing to our underground shopping malls. They then contrasted this with Russians taking bikini dips in frozen rivers and Swiss flaneurs sipping $300 hot chocolate surrounded by the most beautiful mountains this side of JRR Tolkien's imagination.

I think that Canadians still love winter but those of us who live in cities have the right to complain. If I had ponds, rivers and mountains (the holy trinity of winter scenes) in my backyard I'd be out there with a St. Bernard, an easel and some cross country skis (the holy trinity of winter gear). The documentary made no mention of salt and brown snow, the unnatural remnants of an urban winter. When I was walking to work today I thought to myself, "the road is so salty right now that if a giant came to town he'd eat the road as chips". How are we supposed to enjoy this season with dark thoughts such as those? And brown snow? Shit doesn't even exist in the picturesque, rural areas of our world and yet it makes up 90% of our urban piles.

I knew this guy from Hawaii who had never experienced winter, and the first time it snowed I invited him out to eat some flakes and pee in some drifts, but we were too late, it had already turned brown. He said to me "it looks like our volcanoes" then when my back was turned he tried some of the brown stuff, contracted a type flu that made his toes bleed and was picking pebbles out of his chompers for two weeks. I asked him if Hawaiian furnaces run on lava and he said, "we have no need for furnaces", I blushed, then he said "our air conditioners run on flapping birds" and I answered "yippeeeee!".

The Importance of Your Own Body During the Chilly Ones

Having lived in a home that does not heat up well, I know all about the relationship between our bodies and God's body (weather). This most important factor is core temperature, or the body's ability to accept and retain warmth. Before I go on, is this a myth or are you going to stop reading because it's a scientific fact? I remember Kramer talking about it on Seinfeld when he fell asleep in a hot tub. That show is not real so I'm skeptical. Anyway, after I play hockey (indoors, safe environment) my inner furnace is burning. It's like that part in Back to the Future 3 when Doc puts those super logs in the steam train. When I return home to my ice palace, my wife is surrounded by furs hot stones while I'm able to sit around nude with flaccid nips and a Popsicle.

Anyway, the winter is fine by me even though it dries me up like a grape in Chad, and I spend most of it wishing I could gain weight for once. Join me next weekend at the Snow Flake Jamboree where I'll be running a hot cider booth. Here's a little secret -- I'm not even serving cider but rather some muddy water steeped in sour candy. 9 out of 10 husbands can't tell the difference.