Monday, February 16, 2015

#MicroblogMonday: Winter weekend whammy

It's been a whammy of a winter weekend: 

*  Friday was Friday the 13th. Fortunately, nothing bad happened. (Except that it was frickin' cold.)  :p 
*  Friday was also a professional development day for teachers hereabouts = day off school for the kids. I only heard about this second-hand, of course. ;) And so I was glad we decided to stay home & do the housecleaning, instead of venturing out to the local mall, which would have been crawling with kids. :p
*  Saturday was Valentine's Day (which I blogged about last week for #MicroblogMondays). It started off with a mini-snowstorm... and wound up frickin' cold. :p  But we still managed a bookstore visit before heading home for a cozy evening together and ordering in Chinese food for dinner, as planned. 
* Yesterday/Sunday morning, we woke up to temps of -26C, which felt like -42C with the windchill factored in. (Yes, -42C.)(And if you don't know Celsius, all you need to know is that -40C is exactly the same as -40 Fahrenheit. 'Nuff said. :p  ) 
* Nevertheless, we ventured out to the movies for an afternoon matinee of  "Kingsman." Because, Colin Firth, on Valentine's Day weekend. ;)  (Fifty shades of what?)
* I was expecting to see hordes of middle-aged women there (because, Colin Firth, albeit in a non-romantic role). Instead, there were hordes of teenagers, which seemed somewhat odd. When the credits started rolling, it all made sense:  the movie was based on a comic book/graphic novel. Which also explained some of the over-the-top violence. (Would I have known about this if I had my teenager with me??)
* Today/Monday is Family Day in Ontario. I've written about Family Day, and my ambivalence about it, before. I ran across an article in the Ottawa Citizen that called it "the stupidest holiday ever."  The writer was referring to the confusion over what's open and what's closed, who gets the day off and who doesn't, and not the fact that it's a made-up holiday labelled by politicians who figured that giving people a mid-winter holiday and slapping a warm, fuzzy"family" label on it would win them points (and you just KNOW they weren't thinking of families of two when they did it). 
*  But as I've said many times before, it's a holiday. In February. I'll take it. (Even though every day is basically a holiday for me now...!)
* Did I mention it's (still) frickin' cold??  
*  And how was your weekend?

(Still somewhat longer than a MICROblog post should probably be. Oh well.)

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.      

9 comments:

  1. Wow, that is COLD. I am thrilled to hear that -42 is the same in celsius as it is in fahrenheit, because I was thinking it was actually -70 or something like that. Something must be wrong with my math... We hit -30 with windchill, and that's just WRONG. It's been a tough winter. Colin Firth would definitely warm it up! I hope the winter relaxes a bit into spring in March and stops being such a tundra of awfulness. Snow and cold are fine, but it's too cold to go out and enjoy it! It sounds like you found some great things to do.

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  2. Brrrrr! Dang, you Canadians are hardy folks.

    What did you think about Kingsman? Should I put it on my (very loooong) list of films to see?

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  3. @Lori: We both liked it a lot -- it was fun and funny -- but I will admit I was a bit taken aback by some of the violence -- although it was sort of cartoonish/unreal/over-the-top (of course the movie was based on a comic book/graphic novel, but I didn't know that). Also, the movie is more about the kid than Colin Firth, and he is more James Bond (as played by Roger Moore) than a romantic hero. But he's still great. ;) If you like Colin Firth, and you like old-fashioned spy movies (James Bond, The Avengers, etc.), you will probably enjoy this.

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  4. I will quit complaining about it being frickin' cold here (It's 20 degrees warmer here, though still below 0F).

    Glad you had a great Valentine's weekend despite the cold.

    Is it spring yet?

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  5. Yeah, my car ain't starting today. Neither is Hubby's *mutter mutter, grumble grumble* So I can relate to the "cold" issues; we're essentially down the road from you. And it's bloody miserable.
    Family Day? Bah humbug. A pain in the butt; I don't get the day off (as a federal government employee) so it's a matter of finding childcare for Petite. Given the car issues this morning though, that's become a moot point! LOL
    Hope your day is good. Bundle up.

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  6. Wow, you've been busy! Sounds like it was a good weekend. And the movie review ;)

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  7. Fricking cold here too.

    Give me Colin in Pride and Prejudice and The Kings Speech. Not that I won't rent Kingsman...

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  8. Aaah Colin. The only Mr Darcy we will ever need. Swoon. Sigh.

    I heard a review on that movie commenting about the violence. But if you liked it, it doesn't put me off.

    I cannot believe you are living in -40 temperatures. Why would anyone want to live there?! lol

    Our weekend was cold too actually. We had a southerly blast come in from Antarctica, summer vanished for two days, and we even had to turn the heater on! We had planned on inviting people over for a barbecue, but cancelled it due to the weather. Fortunately, summer is now back!

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  9. We were off today and now are off tomorrow due to snow, so this feels like the never-ending weekend.

    I wanted to see Kingsmen, but am waiting until it's out on DVD. Don't want to see it enough to go to the theater.

    That is so cold. I feel guilty about complaining about our cold which is nothing like that cold. But it's cold to me!

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