uished tanned man sitting in the corner  Flower Girl Dresses , waiting for something.It's hard to say if it's genuine as a lot of people on board look like they're waiting for something.When next I look up there's a woman with him, equally tanned and distinguished.where 90% of the available liquids on board are bad decisions.As the ship pulls away from Grand Cayman, our final stop, our cruise director, Butch, proudly announces that this cruise is the first in a long time that they haven't left anyone behind in a port.That's gotta be a good feeling.DAY SEVEN (sea day)On this, our last day, I strive to do as many of the on board activities as humanly possible, starting with the 7 a.I'm the only one in attendance, to the dismay of the sleepy trainer.hosted by our cruise directors on one of the TV channels in our cabin.It's charming, until they start reading letters from people on board the ship, one in particular from a woman who has lost everyone in her life and this cruise is just the thing for her and oh god I can't get out of bed now.Jessica manages to pull me from the cabin with the promise of breakfast and bingo and my mood gets better.Being the last day, people are pretty relaxed, their party demons having been soundly exorcised.The only pressing matters are the portraits that people can buy, culled from the many casual and studio-style photos taken throughout the cruise.We linger and look at the walls of faces, awkward but happy soft focus shots.People are happy on this cruise.What's wrong with me?Jessica refuses to buy the glamour photo of us on a couch, me cradling her head in my powerful arms.DAY EIGHTLet's go home.Toronto loves to panic at weather horrors that seldom arriveIt snowed a bit in Toronto on Friday.Not a lot, just a bit  Fishtail Wedding Dresses , and by mid-day the rain had washed it away.It would have been a non-event, if not for the usual warnings of imminent doom by which it was preceded.There were at least two days of warnings of the major storm that was headed our way.Advice was sought from police spokespeople on how best to cope with the chaos that would ensue.Motorists were warned to top up their wiper fluid, stow some survival gear in the trunk and ensure the gas tank was full to cope with the traffic jams, and because a full tank makes the car heavier and better able to grip the road.Everyone was warned to give yourself some extra time for the commute to work, one of the dumbest catchphrases ever dreamed up, as if anyone has extra time when they drag themselves out of bed in the morning and begin the ritual preparations for the day.All for a bit of snow, which was soon washed away.You could wave it away as a missed call, weather being notoriously unco-operative, except that weather terror has become the norm.I can t speak for the rest of Canada, but in its biggest city there appears to have been a collective agreement among purveyors of weather information that more drama is needed to sell the product.There is a weather woman on one of the local stations we won t get into names here who is incapable of reporting a mild breeze without turning it into the storm of the century.She appears on camera each night, bundled against whatever fresh climatic horror is about to descend on the city, eyes wide and replete with foreboding.The lookout on the Titanic couldn t have transmitted greater alarm than she does at the prospect of a little rain.I ve been trying to work out what s going on, and have developed several theories:1.People have become conditioned by reality TV, by the 24/7 news cycle, by the technology-induced notion that every minor event in their lives must be recorded and transmitted to as wide an audience as possible to expect drama at every turn.Losing weight, picking a wedding dress, fixing up the basement, cleaning the junk from the garage no task is so mundane any more that it can t be turned into a 30-minute nightly soap opera starring perfectly forgettable people going about unremarkable activities.of people to stand in public and shout out their conversations over cellphones  Accessories , displaying the general dullness of their lives to a trapped audience?In this milieu, the weather becomes just another opportunity to put on a performance, and forecasters are more than willing to play along.Competition has turned what was once an afterthought maybe 30 seconds at the end of the news into another profit centre.Who would have thought an entire cable network could exist (and profit) by telling people what they could already see by looking out the window?There are televisions that are tuned almost exclusively to the Weather Channel (I know this to be a fact; I ve seen them), presumably to ensure the viewing audience will be apprised of the slightest change in the outdoor conditions they would be experiencing first hand if they weren t cemented to the couch watching TV.To compete, traditional sources of weather information have had to spruce up their broadcasts, with satellite radar, on-the-spot reports and much invented hysteria aimed at satisfying the viewer s need to hope tomorrow won t be just as humdrum as today.It s all a conspiracy of the travel industry, which finds it easier to sell holiday packages to sunny southern destinations if Canadians can be convinced they can t possibly survive another dull, grey, bitter day in February.It s also good for the boot industry.This has been a big year for boots, maybe because there s so little chance of them actually touching any snow).Canadians have been raised to believe they live in a harsh, unforgiving climate, and it s a reflection of the heroic nature of the population that we survive and prosper in the face of bitter winters and an unforgiving landscape.Maybe this used to be true, but not really any more.For one thing, an entire underground network has been built in the city centre that makes it possible to live, work and play without ever going outside.Even those who live outside the core and beyond the subway lines don t face anything like the challenge th.