Yesterday – June 27th – was my birthday.  I hate my birthday!  No, it’s not because I have some weird obsession with youth that women are supposed to have; I don’t care that I’m another year older.  But for as long as I can remember, my birthdays always kind of…sucked.  After all, Canada Day is just a few days away and that means vacation time for everyone which means that very few people are ever around to celebrate the day with me.  But as I get older, I’ve become more philosophical about it and I’m become more and more okay with a quiet birthday.

There are two things that I can count on for my birthday though: the jazz festival and toasty sunny weather.  Well….not this year!

Yup!  This has already been a year of crazy weather and this week was no exception.  But I’m not complaining too much.  I love storms!  The night before my birthday was a beautiful thunderstorm which was so exciting (although, I’m not too thrilled about all the tornado warnings!)  The next day though was crazy though!  I don’t remember ever seeing wind like that.  Wind speeds reached 77km/h with gusts up to 94km/h and as you can see from the above picture, it wreaked havoc on the city.  Downed trees and power outages were common.  Needless to say that the free stage performances at the jazz festival were canceled.

I love wild weather and even though it can sometimes be a downer when it goes on for too long or scary when trees start falling and tornadoes are being spotted near by, I can’t help feeling that it was a bit of a birthday present this year from Mother Nature.