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The tragic-comedy of weather

By G.D. Maxwell The accepted formula for comedy is tragedy plus time: C = Tr + Tm. Time, of course, is relative. I think it was Einstein who said that… shortly after he and Mrs.

By G.D. Maxwell

The accepted formula for comedy is tragedy plus time: C = Tr + Tm.

Time, of course, is relative. I think it was Einstein who said that… shortly after he and Mrs. Einstein returned from a ski vacation where it rained the entire time they were slopeside. That’s a guess on my part so don’t hold me to it and, if you’re still attending high school, don’t use it on a test. Unless your teacher has a good sense of humour and appreciates the formula for comedy.

Some tragedies are so, well, tragic, the amount of time needed before they’re appropriately the butt of jokes is glacial. You probably haven’t, for example, heard any good tsunami jokes yet. Rumour has it you still won’t get much of a laugh south of the border over the Kennedy assassination. To be fair though, given the thin skin of 51 per cent of the population about Bush jokes – which seem to be a naturally occurring phenomena whenever he opens his mouth – inquiring minds have to wonder whether there might not be a first derivative of the formula yet to be discovered.

And it took the better part of one hundred and twenty years before anyone finally achieved enough closure to laugh about Lincoln’s death, e.g., "Other than that, how’d you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

All this is by way of prelude to a very unfunny topic, one I’d be happy to spend the rest of this column not talking about but, like picking at a scab, feel strangely compelled to comment on: the weather.

Sam Clemens said the weather was something everyone talked about but nobody did anything about. He also said something about death and taxes. If he were here right now, I’d happily beat him about the head with a stick… if I could find one that wasn’t so waterlogged it wouldn’t break at the first good blow.

You are, unless you just arrived, and even then you’ve probably arrived in time to get in on the glory, visiting or living in Whistler during the single most foul stretch of weather in the single most foul ski season since before the "wise spirit rose from the life-giving cedar," to borrow a well known phrase from our First Nations friends. That alone is worth a T-shirt: "I swam Whistler-Blackcomb – January 2005!"

How bad is the weather, I hear you ask? The weather is so bad that even the mountain’s Snow Phone – Motto: Blowing sunshine into the darkest cloud. – that took Tuesday’s weather report (overnight we had 17 millimetres of rain and two centimetres of snow) and converted it into a cheery "Whistler Blackcomb got TWO CENTIMETRES OF SNOW OVERNIGHT, actually reported Wednesday that conditions were "challenging" on the mountains. Of course, it also announced the mountains were virtually closed so one may overlook its somber tone.

But really, watcha gonna do?

Bad weather is the ultimate perp-less crime. So many victims; no one to blame. Unless, that is, you’re one of those whining environmentalists who believe the whole worldwide weird weather phenomenon is manmade. But then, if you were, you probably wouldn’t be here to begin with, would you?

I think it’s pretty clear, if you just cast a suspicious glance around, who or what we might scapegoat for this weather most foul. I know; it seems unfair to blame someone when no one’s actually to blame but that’s the way of the world. Get with the program.

The culprit, or culprits, is – or are – the snowboard world championships. If you’re not familiar with Whistler’s spotted history of hosting FIS events, this bit of blamesmanship might not be apparent to you. But truth be told, Whistler weather has a tendency to choke in the spotlight.

Around a decade ago, Whistler cut a deal with FIS to host a World Cup Downhill every year. In early December. Yes, it was a cruel joke and yes, there were any number of European resorts – Motto: Remember when it used to snow in Europe? – who had a good laugh at our expense, having palmed off the worst possible date for a downhill event. But being Canadian, Whistler made lemonade from lemons. For two years in a row, maybe three, the human mind having infinite capacity to blot out really traumatic events, the event was cancelled because of "too much snow." The fact that too much snow had, fortunately, fallen on what was otherwise a manmade course snaking down a naked mountain was a bit of detail people who write press releases consider unnecessary.

Two years ago this March, the Canadian Championships were held over the course of two weeks of the previous record holder in the Foulest Weather on Record. During that entire period, there was never a window of opportunity to hold a downhill race. Nervous Olympic™ supporters took solace in saying to each other, not too convincingly, "Fortunately, we never get weather like this in February."

This is not to say Whistler and Blackcomb aren’t the best damn ski hills on the planet; they are. But they’re also like the kids who run for class president and don’t realize, as they get up to give their speeches, they’ve dribbled mustard all over the front of their clothes. They just don’t do well under pressure. Call it bad weather karma; call it bad luck. Truth is, we’d be better off without high profile events in much the same way we’re better off without celebrities. Let ’em go somewhere else.

But the weather is the weather and we’ve got what we’ve got. So here are five quick ideas for things to do in spite of – or perhaps to spite – the weather.

• Put on your Gore-Tex jacket and go for a run. Have a friend take your picture wringing water out of your Gore-Tex jacket. Take the jacket back to where you bought it and tell them you want to file a warranty claim. Hey, at least you might get a new jacket out of this trip.

• Hustle over to the Chateau. Rent a large golf umbrella and a set of clubs. Play a round. It’s warm enough and rain never seems to bother golfers. Of course, the greens might be a bit slow but you can play everything as a gimme.

• Go to the hardware store and buy 10 bags of sand. Go to the video store and rent every beach movie they have. Stop at the liquor store and buy several large bottles of Appleton rum (shameless plug). Head back to the condo, spread the sand around the living room floor, crank the heat up to 30°C, slip into your bathing suit and order pizza. You’ll blow the delivery guy’s mind.

• Go watch the FIS Wakeboard Championships. Hang on the fence and scream "Swim!" as the boarders go by. Hell, if you’re going crazy why not everyone.

• Call your travel agent and book another trip to Whistler… for any time there isn’t a world-class event scheduled. After this week, that might be pretty much any time.

Enjoy. Stay dry. And be sure to call the highways report before you head back to Vancouver. With any luck, the highway’ll still be there.