I made a very specific request during the holiday season that no one get me ANY candy or chocolate. And my request was heeded except by, well, my oldest friend, Schemida (not oldest as in age, but as in length of time we've been friends). Schemida got me a little tin can filled with runts, which were actually quite tasty. And yes, I did eat the entire can within an hour of our turkey dinner. But that was OK, it was my sin-allowed day.

What I didn't anticipate was getting any products that appeared/smelled edible but weren't. I ended up getting a jar of body butter, which is the same as body lotion but with a more appetizing name. Anyhoo, this wasn't jsut ANY body butter..this was CHOCOLATE body butter. As in smells like chocolate and is irresistible. I rubbed some on my arms this morning and am still fighting the urge to lick my forearm. So thank you to Schemida for the Runts and the chocolate-smelling body butter.As a self-confessed candyaholic on the road to recovery, they were just what I needed to, er, fall off the proverbial Cand(y)wagon! Just kidding!!!! Thanks so much, I love smelling like chocolate, it's intoxicating :)

In unrelated news: am I the only one that thinks all this warmish, non-January-like weather is slightly/very ominous??? I mean it's been a pretty weird winter thusfar, with lots of rain and freezing rain and temperatures hovering around the zero mark. Even more than usual, I hear people talking about the weather and these are the two constants that I have found everyone saying:

1. It's so weird/strange/odd/surprising
2. It's great/brilliant/so pleasant

Of course, as I am in the midst of reading 2030 by Robert Hunter, in which he proposes that global warming is happening at an accelerated rate (due to a positive feedback loop of carbon producing more carbon) and that withing 30 years the polar icecaps will have disappeared, well I don't see things quite the same. In fact I find it quite:

1. Disturbing, scary, ominous
2. Unsurprising, obvious

Now I know that most people would say I am an alarmist and attribute the mild weather to El Nino or natural weather patterns or the January thaw (I ask you..how can there be a thaw when there hasn't been a freeze yet????). And maybe I am, I certainly hope I am. I hope I am wrong, I hope the vast majority of climatologists and scientists that acknowledge the greenhouse effect are wrong. But what if they aren't? What if science is right and the politicians and media that are controlled by the big oil companies are wrong?

I know it's easier to imagine that the climate isn't changing and things will continue to be status quo into the future. It's so much easier than imagining the alternative because once you imagine the alternative you are forced to ask: What now? What can we do now to stop this from happening?

And the answers don't come easily.

Anyhoo - sorry for the seriousness of this post, I am just finding that this Canadian winter is not a winter at all and that kind of scares me. To read the blog posts of Anne and Jen as well, who've both commented on the unusual weather in Edmonton and Florida is also disconcerting. I don't know the answers, I'm not sure I even know the questions. All I know is that I have to do something, I have to take some action. This is the time to be proactive. There will be no opportunity to be reactive 30 years from now, it will be too late. This is the one time when it simply won't do to let a catastrophe occur and THEN put in measures to make sure it doesn't happen again (see 9/11 and Tsunami 2005). We need to heed the warnings - they are getting stronger and warmer by the day.