In a completely out of character move, I decided to go out last night. I know, right! Not just out, but out to one of thems fancy Montreal cultural thingys that people are always telling me I should take advantage of. Last night was Montreal's La Nuit Blanche, an all night extravaganza to celebrate the end the Montreal Lumière festival. Just don't ask me what the Montreal Lumière Festival was, because I don't really know. Anyways, La Nuit Blanche boasts about 120 seperate venues with everything from a ferris wheel, to fireworks, to crazy art shows, to concerts. The majority of which were free. The Metro even ran all night for it.
But, don't worry, I am still the old lady you know and love - I came no where close to staying out all night. Mostly because Dylan and I both worked at 8 am today. But we did stay out past my normally ridiculously strict bedtime.
What did we decide to do at said festival? Well, we first headed out to this trippy art exhibit at some club that was originally a swimming pool. It was all black lights and craziness, but neat. We went from there to the Cathédrale to Marie-Reine-du-Monde for a classical church choir concert with the big organ and everything. It was super pretty (although whenever I go into a big old cathedral, I always have such mixed feelings). And, for our final stop of the night, we decided to spend the big bucks and pay $2 each for a flashlight tour of the McGill Redpath Museum. Now THAT was super fun. Seriously. Well, except that apparently everyone thought that it would be fun and we ended up waiting outside in the cold for about 45 min waiting to get in. There was a short lecture at first in french (by a lady whose first language was clearly English since she would switch whenever she got flustered and she would completely drop her accent when saying proper nouns). Then we were free to wander around and there were tour guides all over giving tours in English. It worked out well for us and it makes sense because it's McGill and the tour guides were all Anthropology students, but was kinda funny. Our first tour guide was this really laid back guy who was hilarious, but did really know his stuff, That ended up taking longer than we'd thought, so we ended up rushing through the rest because it was after 11pm and I was sleepy. We'll have to go back sometime since the rock exhibit is pretty big and Dylan does so love his rocks (well, and to actually see the exhibits lit up with more than a flashlight).
We found out about this whole thing through my coworker friend lady who I was supposed to go with, but she had a friend visiting and somehow got sucked into hanging out with this big group of people and eating dinner outside on a patio in about -10 degree weather. So we never ended up meeting up. And it sounded like she did not enjoy herself and I felt bad. The invitation, however, was really nice and hopefully it'll work out better next time.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Short Update
I'm afraid that there's not too much to report on our end of things.
This past week, Dylan and I have had rather conflicting schedules. All of a sudden, I'm off working 40 hrs/ week and our dear Dylan picked up an extra three shifts this week as well as staying late on one of his regular shifts. And by staying late, I mean that he ended up working 14 hours that day if I'm not mistaken. On top of all that, he is picking up a little extra cash shoveling snow from the walkway of an apartment complex for the month while the manager is on vacation, so he has to run off an take care of that a few times a week. Needless to say, we've seen slightly less of each other as of late. Seeing the other one sleep is almost like spending quality time together, right? It's such a crazy change from how things were a month ago. I like to think of it as practice for when he goes away on his trip.
But, have no fear! We both have Friday off. Which I'm sure will result in us just hanging out here, doing nothing like we normally do. Oh, the lives we lead.
And, with absolutely no segue, I think that working in a call center is going to end up giving me an identity crisis. Like most jobs I've had in the last few years, I've decided to go by Tamara. Since I introduce myself when answering a call, I thought that it sounded more professional than Tammy. It might have been a slight mistake on my part. Man, do I spend the whole time repeating my name and then I just end up going along with whatever name the customer says that sounds even remotely close. I've gotten Tara, Tam-air-a, a couple words that didn't even sound like anything. And more than one person has thought that my name is Camera. Seriously, that's not a name! My parents did not name me after a piece of photography equipment. If that's not enough, my last name was entered in wrong by whatever IT person for my user id to get onto the computers, so everyday when I log in I have to misspell my own name. In a few months, I'm going to have no idea who I am.
Ok, have a good night. And have a good time with your above-average sized apples, P-Face.
This past week, Dylan and I have had rather conflicting schedules. All of a sudden, I'm off working 40 hrs/ week and our dear Dylan picked up an extra three shifts this week as well as staying late on one of his regular shifts. And by staying late, I mean that he ended up working 14 hours that day if I'm not mistaken. On top of all that, he is picking up a little extra cash shoveling snow from the walkway of an apartment complex for the month while the manager is on vacation, so he has to run off an take care of that a few times a week. Needless to say, we've seen slightly less of each other as of late. Seeing the other one sleep is almost like spending quality time together, right? It's such a crazy change from how things were a month ago. I like to think of it as practice for when he goes away on his trip.
But, have no fear! We both have Friday off. Which I'm sure will result in us just hanging out here, doing nothing like we normally do. Oh, the lives we lead.
And, with absolutely no segue, I think that working in a call center is going to end up giving me an identity crisis. Like most jobs I've had in the last few years, I've decided to go by Tamara. Since I introduce myself when answering a call, I thought that it sounded more professional than Tammy. It might have been a slight mistake on my part. Man, do I spend the whole time repeating my name and then I just end up going along with whatever name the customer says that sounds even remotely close. I've gotten Tara, Tam-air-a, a couple words that didn't even sound like anything. And more than one person has thought that my name is Camera. Seriously, that's not a name! My parents did not name me after a piece of photography equipment. If that's not enough, my last name was entered in wrong by whatever IT person for my user id to get onto the computers, so everyday when I log in I have to misspell my own name. In a few months, I'm going to have no idea who I am.
Ok, have a good night. And have a good time with your above-average sized apples, P-Face.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Hubby.
Week two of training is officially finished! It's going well in terms of me understanding everything and I'm even laying some good ground work for making my very own first Montreal friend. She's really sweet, really smart, has good level of chattiness (e.g. sometimes we both just sit at the same table and read our books during break without any awkwardness), and we have the same taste in movies and tv shows. I have a good feeling about this one. But that's besides the point. I got off topic and it's only the first paragraph.
What is my point, you ask?
My point is this: Dylan is awesome.
I
Now, I know, I know... you're all thinking, 'Yah, duh. Of course he is! Tell me something I don't know.'
But I think that even something as obvious as the awesomeness of my hubby deserves to be restated every once and a while. And what better time than now? Especially since this is being made easier by the fact that he has recently been pulling out all the stops in awesome. Even if we completely overlook how patient and understanding and not totally-constantly-freaking-out-OMG-we-have-no-money!!! he was when I didn't have a job (which we shouldn't), he has made going back to work so easy for me. He makes us dinner every night, packs me adorable lunches to take to work with all sorts of little things he's made or baked to make it more interesting (my coworkers are all horribly jealous), he listens to me go on and on about work stuff (which isn't all that interesting, trust me!), he has yet to complain about how the alarm goes off every morning at 6:30am even on the days where he works nights, and he's been doing his best to wash dishes and do that sort of thing around the house now that I don't have as much time. And the other night he even took me out to a fancy dinner as a Congrats/early Valentine's Day thing.
All in all, he's a pretty rad guy. So, I thought that since Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and that romantic spirit trying its best to infect me, I'd take a minute and share with y'all just how blessed I am that he puts up with little ol' me and with a smile on his face no less. (I hope you'll forgive me for making you vomit 'cause of all the cheese.)
What is my point, you ask?
My point is this: Dylan is awesome.
I
him.
Now, I know, I know... you're all thinking, 'Yah, duh. Of course he is! Tell me something I don't know.'
But I think that even something as obvious as the awesomeness of my hubby deserves to be restated every once and a while. And what better time than now? Especially since this is being made easier by the fact that he has recently been pulling out all the stops in awesome. Even if we completely overlook how patient and understanding and not totally-constantly-freaking-out-OMG-we-have-no-money!!! he was when I didn't have a job (which we shouldn't), he has made going back to work so easy for me. He makes us dinner every night, packs me adorable lunches to take to work with all sorts of little things he's made or baked to make it more interesting (my coworkers are all horribly jealous), he listens to me go on and on about work stuff (which isn't all that interesting, trust me!), he has yet to complain about how the alarm goes off every morning at 6:30am even on the days where he works nights, and he's been doing his best to wash dishes and do that sort of thing around the house now that I don't have as much time. And the other night he even took me out to a fancy dinner as a Congrats/early Valentine's Day thing.
All in all, he's a pretty rad guy. So, I thought that since Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and that romantic spirit trying its best to infect me, I'd take a minute and share with y'all just how blessed I am that he puts up with little ol' me and with a smile on his face no less. (I hope you'll forgive me for making you vomit 'cause of all the cheese.)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Ok, we got back from Maine. Hung out more then people left. Nice, but not that full of adventure. Yadayadayada. We're into February, I think it's time for me to stop talking about Christmas (as awful as that sounds to my ears!). And as my dear friend pointed out, somewhat exciting things have been happening in my life since then that I've been neglecting to inform you kind folk of since I've been trying to play catch up.
Exciting post-Christmas things in my life:
1) I've started singing lessons. My dear hubby is not one for predictable gifts and he's been getting more and more dedicated to this task seeing as how it's somewhat difficult to surprise the person you've lived with for almost four years and see everyday. But this year, he managed to shock me with this. I didn't know how I felt about it at first, seeing as how I normally do everything I can to avoid singing in front of people. Well, that's a lie. I did know how I felt about it: terrified. I also questioned what exactly I'd learn, seeing as how I've been playing instruments since I was in gr. 4 and have done my fair share of choir. What was this lady going to teach me that I either didn't already know or was too old to be able to do anything about? I figured that I was just one of those people who couldn't. But I'm two lessons in and it's a lot of fun. And she's a really good teacher who really knows her ...stuff. So, it turns out that there may be hope for me yet and I might be able to not embarrass myself in the singing department forever.
2) Dylan and I have taken up skating. When his parents were here, they were kind enough to buy Dylan and I each a pair of used skates. Montreal is sick with free outdoor skating rinks, so we've been availing ourselves of them. Turns out that skating outside is for some reason just way more fun. It makes me feel so Canadian! The other night we went out with a coworker of Dylan's who grew up in Saskatchewan. Man, can that guy skate! And not just skate as in go quickly and not fall down. Like, actually, full on skate. I was absolutely amazed. I think he's the only real live person who can actually play hockey that I've ever known (other than people who played as little kids and whatnot). He thought it was hilarious that I was so impressed. He brought along a couple of hockey sticks and was helping Dylan learn a couple things like how to do hockey stops. And he even let me play and shoot pucks at the net and pass back and forth with him and Dylan. I think it was the first time I've ever held a hockey stick while on ice. I can see why people think it's fun! I morph into a five year old girl when I put on skates and I love it.
Hmm, what else... (hahaha, aren't I funny?)
3) I managed to get meself one of those them job thingys. FINALLY! We can finally live life extravagantly and go out and buy ridiculous luxuries like cheese or meat or maybe even some juice (on occasion - we don't want to spoil ourselves or anything)! I works at call center (another thing Montreal is filled to the brim with). Turns out that I'm actually not allowed to talk about specifics of what I do or who I work for online - they specifically mentioned online social network websites and personal blogs. Woah, working for big companies! Something that I am very much not used to. And I know that the point behind it is so that people don't go and spend pages and pages go on about how awful whatever is or how big of a jerk so and so is which I would never do, but I figure I'll err on the side of caution and tell you all more or less nothing about it. Which I know you are thinking is ridiculous since no one is going to stumble on my modest ol' blog and get mad at me for anything on here, but I'm ever the little rule follower! I've told most of you about it anyway.
Other than that, we're up to our eyeballs in snow with no real end in sight. Mere hours after our street got cleared yesterday, we got probably another 7 or 8 cm. Crazy real winters.
Exciting post-Christmas things in my life:
1) I've started singing lessons. My dear hubby is not one for predictable gifts and he's been getting more and more dedicated to this task seeing as how it's somewhat difficult to surprise the person you've lived with for almost four years and see everyday. But this year, he managed to shock me with this. I didn't know how I felt about it at first, seeing as how I normally do everything I can to avoid singing in front of people. Well, that's a lie. I did know how I felt about it: terrified. I also questioned what exactly I'd learn, seeing as how I've been playing instruments since I was in gr. 4 and have done my fair share of choir. What was this lady going to teach me that I either didn't already know or was too old to be able to do anything about? I figured that I was just one of those people who couldn't. But I'm two lessons in and it's a lot of fun. And she's a really good teacher who really knows her ...stuff. So, it turns out that there may be hope for me yet and I might be able to not embarrass myself in the singing department forever.
2) Dylan and I have taken up skating. When his parents were here, they were kind enough to buy Dylan and I each a pair of used skates. Montreal is sick with free outdoor skating rinks, so we've been availing ourselves of them. Turns out that skating outside is for some reason just way more fun. It makes me feel so Canadian! The other night we went out with a coworker of Dylan's who grew up in Saskatchewan. Man, can that guy skate! And not just skate as in go quickly and not fall down. Like, actually, full on skate. I was absolutely amazed. I think he's the only real live person who can actually play hockey that I've ever known (other than people who played as little kids and whatnot). He thought it was hilarious that I was so impressed. He brought along a couple of hockey sticks and was helping Dylan learn a couple things like how to do hockey stops. And he even let me play and shoot pucks at the net and pass back and forth with him and Dylan. I think it was the first time I've ever held a hockey stick while on ice. I can see why people think it's fun! I morph into a five year old girl when I put on skates and I love it.
Hmm, what else... (hahaha, aren't I funny?)
3) I managed to get meself one of those them job thingys. FINALLY! We can finally live life extravagantly and go out and buy ridiculous luxuries like cheese or meat or maybe even some juice (on occasion - we don't want to spoil ourselves or anything)! I works at call center (another thing Montreal is filled to the brim with). Turns out that I'm actually not allowed to talk about specifics of what I do or who I work for online - they specifically mentioned online social network websites and personal blogs. Woah, working for big companies! Something that I am very much not used to. And I know that the point behind it is so that people don't go and spend pages and pages go on about how awful whatever is or how big of a jerk so and so is which I would never do, but I figure I'll err on the side of caution and tell you all more or less nothing about it. Which I know you are thinking is ridiculous since no one is going to stumble on my modest ol' blog and get mad at me for anything on here, but I'm ever the little rule follower! I've told most of you about it anyway.
Other than that, we're up to our eyeballs in snow with no real end in sight. Mere hours after our street got cleared yesterday, we got probably another 7 or 8 cm. Crazy real winters.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Maine
Right, Our trip to Maine. Our lovely friend Japan Andrew was home for Christmas and since his home is in Maine and therefore decently close to us, we decided to take him up on his invitation to go down and see him. It was somewhat unfortunate because his visit to the States was almost completely overlapping with Dylan's family's visit here. But they were understanding and entertained themselves for the day and a half we were gone. Dylan worked until midnight on the night of the 25/26th, so we got a few hours of sleep and left here around 3am on the 27th. Drove peacefully through lovely Quebec for a few hours, until we got pulled over for speeding in Ayer's Cliff, a tiny town near-ish to the Vermont boarder. The police officer didn't speak much English and didn't seem overlyimpressed with us when he first came up, but when he came back and I answered a few of his questions in french his english really seemed to improve. It was magical! Considering we were maybe going 12 km over the limit, he just gave us a warning and told us to "drive prudently."
Crossed over the boarder no prob once we told him we were visiting our friend Andrew in Maine (this seemed to reassure the guard greatly that we didn't have any ill intents, I'm guessing that it was since nothing involving Andrew could possibly be malicious in the slightest). So we went on our way and drove through Vermont and got into New Hampshire. Around then, we decided we were bored of this whole driving thing and though we'd take a break in a snowbank for about 4 hrs that involved taking an hour-long nap (we brought along some blankets for just such an event) and then spend some time with the local park ranger in his truck getting to know him and his heater. Did I mention that this trip had us heading straight into a pretty big north-eastern snow storm? After a spur of the moment, brief party on the side of the road with the park ranger, a state trooper and a couple guys with a tow truck, we figured we had had enough fun for one morning and continued on our way.
We eventually got to Maine without further incident. Spent the evening catching up with Andrew, plotting future adventures with him, meeting some of his friends (one of whom we got into a fairly interesting conversation with about the differences between canadians and americans), and having his adorable mother try and feed us until we burst.
After an (at this point) amazing 5 hour sleep, we got up around 6am, showered, ate some breakfast, spent a few last minutes with Andrew, took the lunch that Andrew's mom had gotten up to make us, and were on our way back up to Canada. This time, despite it not being the fastest route according to the GPS, we stuck to the nice, clear interstate and made it back just fine. Apparently the GPS didn't know that it was the middle of the winter and that the smaller highways don't always get the same number of snow plows frequenting them. The boarder guard had a few questions as to why our car had B.C. plates since we'd said we were living in Montreal but I think our story about the banana bread Andrew's mom had packed us really won him over. I think as we were turning onto our street, I realized that I had my keys in my coat pocket and had therefore failed yet again to leave any keys with Dylan's family. Oops.
Crossed over the boarder no prob once we told him we were visiting our friend Andrew in Maine (this seemed to reassure the guard greatly that we didn't have any ill intents, I'm guessing that it was since nothing involving Andrew could possibly be malicious in the slightest). So we went on our way and drove through Vermont and got into New Hampshire. Around then, we decided we were bored of this whole driving thing and though we'd take a break in a snowbank for about 4 hrs that involved taking an hour-long nap (we brought along some blankets for just such an event) and then spend some time with the local park ranger in his truck getting to know him and his heater. Did I mention that this trip had us heading straight into a pretty big north-eastern snow storm? After a spur of the moment, brief party on the side of the road with the park ranger, a state trooper and a couple guys with a tow truck, we figured we had had enough fun for one morning and continued on our way.
We eventually got to Maine without further incident. Spent the evening catching up with Andrew, plotting future adventures with him, meeting some of his friends (one of whom we got into a fairly interesting conversation with about the differences between canadians and americans), and having his adorable mother try and feed us until we burst.
After an (at this point) amazing 5 hour sleep, we got up around 6am, showered, ate some breakfast, spent a few last minutes with Andrew, took the lunch that Andrew's mom had gotten up to make us, and were on our way back up to Canada. This time, despite it not being the fastest route according to the GPS, we stuck to the nice, clear interstate and made it back just fine. Apparently the GPS didn't know that it was the middle of the winter and that the smaller highways don't always get the same number of snow plows frequenting them. The boarder guard had a few questions as to why our car had B.C. plates since we'd said we were living in Montreal but I think our story about the banana bread Andrew's mom had packed us really won him over. I think as we were turning onto our street, I realized that I had my keys in my coat pocket and had therefore failed yet again to leave any keys with Dylan's family. Oops.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Hmm, let's see. Where did I leave off. Ok, so, on the 21st we went to the market, picked up a Christmas tree that lucky Dylan got to carry back here, decorated it up and generally hung out. Dylan made soup. Then Dylan and I headed off to the airport yet again to pick up the in-laws! It was relatively uneventful (read: evil airport men didn't yell at us to move after 5 sec of sitting at the drop-off/pick-up area). After some late night chatting and catching up, we pretty much all crashed.
Oh, around then it hit Dylan and I that in all the excitement of people getting here, we had kinda forgotten about that whole Christmas thing. Oops. Cue next few days being spent with annoyingly large crowds of people searching for presents to put under our lovely tree. Side note: Dylan and I only brought a few strings of lights, a strand of garland, and 6 ornaments (5 of which were My Little Pony and all 6 had come from the lovely Em). Our tree was slightly bare, but people kept telling me that going out and buying ornaments for our first tree would ruin the progression and story of all our future trees. Anyway, all of a sudden it was Christmas Eve and we had all of our presents acquired except for something for Dylan's daddy. Now, we did have something for him theoretically, but we wouldn't have it physically for a few days. So, since he needed to have something to open on Christmas Day, we decided to make him something. It sounded like a good idea to us, especially since making presents is the sort of thing parents swear they like. This being said, starting to make a present the evening of Christmas Eve is NOT a good idea. Especially when you're me and refuse to use things like, I don't know, the copy and paste feature. Oh well, it got done, even if Dylan and I were responsible for Christmas morning being less Christmas morning and more Christmas mid-afternoon.
Other Christmas Eve events included my sister giving my father the present of a webcam and setting him up with Skype, so I got to call and talk with/see most of my family for the first time in forever. Talking to 6 people at the same time is quite a difficult feat, but it was nice none the less. Then Dylan, his family and I all took a speed-walk through the neighbourhood to go to midnight mass, only to find out that none of the million churches around us were having one. Weird.
The rest of Christmas was good. Lots of puttering around while Dylan and his Dad somehow managed to cook an entire Christmas feast in our humble little kitchen. Dylan only almost lit the kitchen on fire once! That's an exaggeration; he just filled the house with smoke when he left his mulled wine unattended for too long. Good times.
Boxing Day, Dylan worked. So the rest of us split up. Us lady folk got dropped off downtown to do some shopping at Forever 21 (not my ideal way to spend the day, but I thought it'd beat sitting around at home alone and it turned out to be fun), while Dylan's dad and brother were going go to MEC and pick us up some more bagels. Except when we were leaving, Dylan's dad took the keys to start the car and then had to bring them back to me so that I could lock the door and I may have forgotten to give them back to him. Meaning that he couldn't turn off the car after dropping us off. Actually, any key can turn off the car, the turning it back on would have been the problem. And, on top of that, they drove all the way out to MEC (it's not amazingly far away, but it's hardly in the center of town) to find out that it was closed that day, then they drove back to the bagel store near our house to find that it was also closed (which is really weird, since they are normally open 24hrs). Needless to say, I felt a little guilty. They texted us just as we were finishing up, came and picked us up, and then we proceeded to get horribly lost. Not lost so much as led to the wrong place. There is a street way the heck in the middle of nowhere that has the same name as the street we live on. Guess which one the GPS decided to start giving us directions to? A little bit after we drove past a road that I was pretty sure was the last reasonable one to turn on to get home, I mentioned that I was pretty sure the GPS was leading us astray, that I thought we were getting close to the end of the island, and to be careful because it is fairly easy to be forced to leave the island without meaning to. More or less as soon as I said that, we saw the sign for the bridge and found ourselves taking a nice trip to Longueuil. It took a bit of work and a collective feeling of wanting to throw the GPS out the window, but we eventually made our way home.
This puts us right before Dylan and I took our trip to Maine, which is quite the story in and of itself, so I'll call it a night here. Sleep tight Internets!
Oh, around then it hit Dylan and I that in all the excitement of people getting here, we had kinda forgotten about that whole Christmas thing. Oops. Cue next few days being spent with annoyingly large crowds of people searching for presents to put under our lovely tree. Side note: Dylan and I only brought a few strings of lights, a strand of garland, and 6 ornaments (5 of which were My Little Pony and all 6 had come from the lovely Em). Our tree was slightly bare, but people kept telling me that going out and buying ornaments for our first tree would ruin the progression and story of all our future trees. Anyway, all of a sudden it was Christmas Eve and we had all of our presents acquired except for something for Dylan's daddy. Now, we did have something for him theoretically, but we wouldn't have it physically for a few days. So, since he needed to have something to open on Christmas Day, we decided to make him something. It sounded like a good idea to us, especially since making presents is the sort of thing parents swear they like. This being said, starting to make a present the evening of Christmas Eve is NOT a good idea. Especially when you're me and refuse to use things like, I don't know, the copy and paste feature. Oh well, it got done, even if Dylan and I were responsible for Christmas morning being less Christmas morning and more Christmas mid-afternoon.
Other Christmas Eve events included my sister giving my father the present of a webcam and setting him up with Skype, so I got to call and talk with/see most of my family for the first time in forever. Talking to 6 people at the same time is quite a difficult feat, but it was nice none the less. Then Dylan, his family and I all took a speed-walk through the neighbourhood to go to midnight mass, only to find out that none of the million churches around us were having one. Weird.
The rest of Christmas was good. Lots of puttering around while Dylan and his Dad somehow managed to cook an entire Christmas feast in our humble little kitchen. Dylan only almost lit the kitchen on fire once! That's an exaggeration; he just filled the house with smoke when he left his mulled wine unattended for too long. Good times.
Boxing Day, Dylan worked. So the rest of us split up. Us lady folk got dropped off downtown to do some shopping at Forever 21 (not my ideal way to spend the day, but I thought it'd beat sitting around at home alone and it turned out to be fun), while Dylan's dad and brother were going go to MEC and pick us up some more bagels. Except when we were leaving, Dylan's dad took the keys to start the car and then had to bring them back to me so that I could lock the door and I may have forgotten to give them back to him. Meaning that he couldn't turn off the car after dropping us off. Actually, any key can turn off the car, the turning it back on would have been the problem. And, on top of that, they drove all the way out to MEC (it's not amazingly far away, but it's hardly in the center of town) to find out that it was closed that day, then they drove back to the bagel store near our house to find that it was also closed (which is really weird, since they are normally open 24hrs). Needless to say, I felt a little guilty. They texted us just as we were finishing up, came and picked us up, and then we proceeded to get horribly lost. Not lost so much as led to the wrong place. There is a street way the heck in the middle of nowhere that has the same name as the street we live on. Guess which one the GPS decided to start giving us directions to? A little bit after we drove past a road that I was pretty sure was the last reasonable one to turn on to get home, I mentioned that I was pretty sure the GPS was leading us astray, that I thought we were getting close to the end of the island, and to be careful because it is fairly easy to be forced to leave the island without meaning to. More or less as soon as I said that, we saw the sign for the bridge and found ourselves taking a nice trip to Longueuil. It took a bit of work and a collective feeling of wanting to throw the GPS out the window, but we eventually made our way home.
This puts us right before Dylan and I took our trip to Maine, which is quite the story in and of itself, so I'll call it a night here. Sleep tight Internets!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.
So, it has been pointed out to me that I suck at updating. This may be true, since I think my last post was exactly a month ago. It is also highly unfortunate, since that means that I have all of December to update you on, which includes Hubby's family visiting, Christmas, a trip to Maine, and Dylan's staff party, and I'm sure a million less important things. I blame Clair. Her semi-regular updates normally shame me into at least say hi occasionally, but she's been dropping the ball lately. Ah, nerdy memories from the Great 8 Escape. Anyway, I guess I should get started! (Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that I'll have to break this down into a couple posts.)
Ok, early Dec. was fairly boring and consisted mostly of me trying to clean so that Dylan's mom wouldn't spend her whole time here 'just quickly wiping this' (which is exactly what she did when we moved into our sublet in June). And moving stuff around enough so that 6 people could function in our 2-bdr home somewhat successfully. Have I mentioned that the only seating we have is the futon, my computer chair, and Fredrick, the amoeba-shaped footstool Dylan rescued years ago? Luckily, Dylan's fantastically nice boss lent us some folding chairs so that people didn't have to eat Christmas dinner on the floor. Oh, yah, we also don't have a dining room table, so dinner was eaten around the coffee table in the front room/Dylan's brother's room. But I'm getting ahead of myself since they weren't even here yet. Before people arrived, (as in pretty much on the way to the airport) we also got Putt-Putt some new winter tires so that we won't die this winter. Part of this pre-family-arrival time, Dylan was off being poked with needles.
Then people arrived! Dylan's brother and his fiance got here on the 20th, and the four of us got a day to hang out before the in-laws (I say in-laws because it's the shortest way of referring to them, but know that I hate and in no way mean to call upon any negative stereotypes that are commonly associated with the term; writing Dylan's Mommy and Daddy just gets to be a bit much after a while) arrived. We went out for dinner and I admit, it was all my fault. We had been driving around looking for somewhere that had something other than sushi or really fancy looking french food, and we saw this noodle place and I made the decision to eat there. I think it was called Schezwan Noodles. My food, that was something, was good. Dylan had General Tao chicken and that was fine. His brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law ordered a combo thing that came with hot and sour soup. It was not good. It was, in fact, hilariously awful. It looked and tasted like watered down sweet and sour sauce (yes, it was VERY slimy) with whatever was in the back thrown in. It was special and probably not the best introduction into Montreal dining.
I would launch into the arrival of the in-laws, but it is late and this seems like a good place to stop. So I leave you with this. Dylan seems to think that there is some thing wrong with my iPod's scrobbling.
Ok, early Dec. was fairly boring and consisted mostly of me trying to clean so that Dylan's mom wouldn't spend her whole time here 'just quickly wiping this' (which is exactly what she did when we moved into our sublet in June). And moving stuff around enough so that 6 people could function in our 2-bdr home somewhat successfully. Have I mentioned that the only seating we have is the futon, my computer chair, and Fredrick, the amoeba-shaped footstool Dylan rescued years ago? Luckily, Dylan's fantastically nice boss lent us some folding chairs so that people didn't have to eat Christmas dinner on the floor. Oh, yah, we also don't have a dining room table, so dinner was eaten around the coffee table in the front room/Dylan's brother's room. But I'm getting ahead of myself since they weren't even here yet. Before people arrived, (as in pretty much on the way to the airport) we also got Putt-Putt some new winter tires so that we won't die this winter. Part of this pre-family-arrival time, Dylan was off being poked with needles.
Then people arrived! Dylan's brother and his fiance got here on the 20th, and the four of us got a day to hang out before the in-laws (I say in-laws because it's the shortest way of referring to them, but know that I hate and in no way mean to call upon any negative stereotypes that are commonly associated with the term; writing Dylan's Mommy and Daddy just gets to be a bit much after a while) arrived. We went out for dinner and I admit, it was all my fault. We had been driving around looking for somewhere that had something other than sushi or really fancy looking french food, and we saw this noodle place and I made the decision to eat there. I think it was called Schezwan Noodles. My food, that was something, was good. Dylan had General Tao chicken and that was fine. His brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law ordered a combo thing that came with hot and sour soup. It was not good. It was, in fact, hilariously awful. It looked and tasted like watered down sweet and sour sauce (yes, it was VERY slimy) with whatever was in the back thrown in. It was special and probably not the best introduction into Montreal dining.
I would launch into the arrival of the in-laws, but it is late and this seems like a good place to stop. So I leave you with this. Dylan seems to think that there is some thing wrong with my iPod's scrobbling.
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