Winter in Toronto

This time of year, you can feel the vitamin D disappearing from your cells. Things can get a little odd. For some inexplicable reason, Toronto decided not to remove any of the snow from its streets this winter. Now, Toronto doesn't get a ton of snow, for a Canadian city. But a few million people, their cars, trucks, bikes, buses and streetcars, can only cope with so much. Eventually, the streets began disappearing. So did cars. People and pets were next. The mayor had to act. Last night, a squad of beeping, flashing, iron behemoths rumbled onto my street around 11 pm to do battle with the enormous ice floes that had turned driving in this city into one giant game of chicken. Like a family of winter-chomping Gigantosauruses, these creatures hurtled themselves over and over against the banks of what had once been snow, but now, after weeks of deep-freeze, was the texture and heft of concrete run through with shovelfulls of rebar. It took only four hours and twenty minutes of ceaseless battering to clear my block. By 3:20 am I could stand at my window, tears of joy in my eyes, as I surveyed the strangely denuded streetscape below. They had taken it all. Well, almost all. The bottom layer of ice remains, immovable, obdurate, an invitation to slip, to slide, to skid, to uselessly pump your brakes, and know that it is still winter in Toronto.

A few NBA teams cleared house as well just before the trade deadline. I'm happy for Shawn Marion and LeBron James, as they emerge, blinking, from a long winter into an early spring full of promise and hope. Miami needs Marion, and LeBron needed serious help. Ben and Wally - not to mention Delonte - could be just the ticket. But I think the trade made Chicago better too. (Honestly - hasn't the east become so much more interesting this year?) But closer to home, as fond as I am of Calderon and Delfino (and I am fond) my fingers are still crossed for the full, unbridled return of a healthy TJ Ford.

(Oh - if you're wondering what happened to my house league team, they too shrugged off their winter woes, and those six losses and one tie that began the season? They were followed by a six-game winning streak. Sweet!)