Most of you were at the cottage this past August, so you missed the remarkable happenings in Leaside.
On the surface nothing seemed to be happening. That was so remarkable. Every single day was exactly like every other. Every morning we woke to blue skies and soft winds. Every day was sunny and warm. Every evening it cooled off comfortably for sleeping. It never rained; even cloud sightings became unusual.
Almost every day in August the weather forecasters predicted thunderstorms for the GTA. They never struck Leaside.
Nobody in Leaside wore long pants or long sleeves all of August. All of us, but especially the young, seemed to take off more and more clothing as the month went on. The already beautiful young women of Leaside became more beautiful still, the young men more handsome and tanned, the children all perfect.
The drought began to damage lawns and gardens. The cicadas were our high volume daily soundtrack, and we wondered when the day of the locust would come. Would there be a forest fire in the ravines?
We began to expect to see starlets strolling on Bayview, hear the Beach Boys and Otis Redding on the radios of passing ’63 T-Birds. Corona and sangria replaced coffee as the patio drink of choice. Developers started designing a surfing pool for the old industrial area.
It gradually dawned on us that early one night in August the whole of Leaside – I mean everything – had been raised up by alien force fields, separated from Canada, and deposited in California. That was the only way to explain this summer’s astonishing weather.
It was quite wonderful, but as so often happens with California, the weather gradually became boring. By Labour Day weekend – every day the same old, same old, not even a rush of excitement from the remnants of Hurricane Hermine – we were fed up with it and would hide from the sunshine by taking in matinées at Canada Square (some flick about a singer whose voice sounded like cicadas).
Leaside gradually came home, though not in time to escape more heat and blue skies in early September. As you read this, of course, we are back to normal.
But the aliens have their winter plans for us. In January we’re going to be rudely relocated to Nunavut.
