This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper

Late last week, the newspaper headlines were trumpeting the coming of "Snowmageddon," purportedly the mother of all winter storms, which was set to hit Ottawa on Friday and Sunday. (I love the term "Snowmageddon," and have since tried to use it in at least on sentence daily.) This is the same winter storm that dumped snow on such unlikely places as California and Nevada and walloped Toronto early Friday morning.

Fortunately, for Ottawa's sake, it missed, and both storms, though blustery, were not enough to cause any serious hardship. Faithful Readers may remember my posting this picture back in March, after a record-breaking snowstorm shut the city down for a couple of days:

Imagine something like that, only without the snow, and you'll get an idea of the Snowstorm to End All Snowstorms. There was a lot of bluster, but not a lot of white stuff on the ground, and the roads were basically bare, at least in the centre.

My church choir presented its annual Christmas cantata this Friday and Sunday - the exact two days that we got the bad weather. Our choir director was worried when he heard the weather forecasts, because it was this time last year when the Sunday cantata was snowed out. He decided to present the same program this year because so many people never got a chance to hear it last year - including myself, as I wasn't at the Friday night performance. This year, nothing got canceled, and the cold and blowing snow wasn't enough to keep people away. (I really wouldn't want to practice the same program for a third consecutive year.)

Which isn't to say that the weather hasn't been nasty. It's been consistently about -15°C for the past week, and usually quite gusty. Thanks to the 12-day-old-and-counting bus strike, I need to walk a considerable distance to go about my usual daily business, and that often means a long walk home against the wind. Even a half-hour long hot shower isn't always enough to thaw me out afterwards.

So I'm really, really glad Snowmageddon fizzled. Hope you Nevadans enjoyed your winter wonderland while it lasted.