I have been thinking about a good way to integrate my photographs into my blog, other than uploading them to a WordPress directory. I have a lot of family who don’t keep up with the blog, but who I am sure would like to see some of the photos I share, and I don’t want to have to spend a ton of time attaching stuff to emails here and there.
Then I thought hey- use your Flickr account! So of course I had to go and see how easy it was, and then I got to deleting old garbage images and doing some general house-cleaning around my account. And there was my boy, at his 1st haircut.
Look like anyone you know?
So, once I get my batteries charged up (I know, I said that yesterday. Seems the charger has gone AWOL and taken my iPod with it. I’m not a happy knitter…) I’ll take photos of the stuff I’m working on these days. A couple of sweaters, some hats, some socks… there have to be more projects on the go than just that. But then, who needs a full inventory? Not me. It might make me feel like I have to get more projects off the needles!
Until then, go hug your own Calvin. 
I just got back from a most wonderful trip. A much deserved break from everyday reality, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Only I didn’t have my camera with me, so you’ll have to make do with 2 crappy photos off my cell phone and some links. I’m sure you can all use your imagination and work with me…
Let’s preface the story with another, much shorter story. Over the summer, while living at the adventure house, I worked a lot of weekends. Pretty much all of them, actually. I have a number of friends living in Montreal, and I really wanted to see them and they me, but I couldn’t make it work. This past weekend I only had to work one of the two days, so I saw my chance and tried to seize the opportunity. Only… two of my co-workers decided to get married that day (Congratulations Jody and Adrian!!) so it wasn’t looking good insofar as finding a replacement to take my shift. Here’s where the story begins.
I sent my friend Amy a message on Tuesday asking if it would be ok if I came to Montreal mid-week. Like, tomorrow. She was super excited, saying that they were going to a show and they’d get me a ticket. Great! I get to go see Amy and Kris, and I get to see a show too! Awesome. Then I got rid of that Saturday shift. Woo hoo! I got in touch the Wednesday morning, saying I’d leave here about 1:30 and would arrive there 2 hours later, in time to pick her up from her research job. I was a little late leaving, so I called her up to say I’d meet her at her place instead. As I was driving, I had this nagging feeling that maybe the Saturday shift wasn’t the only one I had that week, and sure enough, I checked my planner to find that I had a Thursday evening shift. No problem though, I would go to the Wednesday show, hang out till early/mid afternoon Thursday, then drive back to Ottawa for my shift, returning to Montreal on Friday morning. All good.
Fast forward to Hudson, about 45 minutes from downtown, where I stop for gas and hear a racket coming out from under the engine cover. A minute later, the racket is followed by smoke. Fantastic…
Good thing you’re not waiting for me, I said to Amy, as I’m stuck in Hudson and I’ll have to keep you posted on arrival time. Half an hour later, after letting the engine cool, I was able to limp the car “home” to a friend’s house on the way, where I left it overnight. They’re really good friends, so they had me stay for a glass of wine before sending me on my way. I scribbled directions on my hand while walking to the bus stop and set off. (As an aside here, I should mention how funny I found it that I was taking the BMW as we used to call it. Bus Metro Walk!)
The nice thing about taking the bus, which loads of you know already but which I don’t get to do much since I don’t take the bus too often, is that it affords you lots of knitting time. (Glad I didn’t doze off like Franklin…) I knit my way downtown, got off the bus at Lionel Groulx like old times, down to the metro to hop on the Orange line to Mont Royal, where I would get on the… uh oh. Um… 97? I can’t quite read that scribble on my hand. Yeah. Must be the 97. Ok, take the 97 to… d’oh! Papineau? Yeah, that sounds right. Should probably check with the driver. Yes, Papineau is fine. He even called it out for me! Must be the rockin’ french I still manage to pull out.
Lucky for me the venue I was looking for, La Tulipe, was right there! And who is standing outside on the phone? Amy! I made it, unscathed, and only 10 minutes late for the opening band.
For those of you who are into Indy music, the opening band was Grand Ole Party, and they were awesome! A 3-piece band, 2 guys and a girl. Guys were bass and guitar, the girl was lead singer and drummer. She rocked it. If you have the bandwidth I totally recommend checking this out. It’s recorded live from a concert this month in Seattle, probably on a cell phone, but it gives you a good idea. The song is Look Out Young Son. If you like it, check out the other videos in the sidebar there.
Rilo Kiley was fantastic too, and a lot of fun. A more pop sound I guess than GOP. This is a video of a live performance of their song Arms Outstretched. Loved it. And if you want more of their stuff, there are their videos of Portions for Foxes and Does he Love You, which I must say is heartbreaking. They sang that one as their encore. I had a fantastic time.
At this point, my car still had to get to a shop to get looked at, so we called a place the next morning to arrange a time. Thursday afternoon was the earliest they could do, which was kind of ok really, since it meant that we could have a good breakfast and coffee, do a little shopping in the neighbourhood before taking the BMW (hee hee!) out to the West Island to pick up the car. I had to call in to work to say that I wouldn’t be able to get there (I hate doing that) but they understood.
We checked out a super little Atelier called Wooden Apples, (another review here) and I left with a couple of cones of yarn. A 3 lb cone of wool singles for $15! Not sure yet what to do with it, but it will be something good. Though I have to admit, it seems to be screaming mittens to me at the moment. That would be a lot of mittens… Also some plum coloured stuff to make little girl hats. I love little girls in deep colours. Photos once I charge my camera battery…
We talked for a little bit to the lady who owns the place, Amy Johnson, and I may end up selling some stuff through her shop. We’ll see. Exciting!
Following that grand event (two cones of yarn for $26!) we went back to the apartment, loaded up on a delivery we needed to make, and headed for a tea shop where Amy (my Amy) sells her scones. Let me tell you, this is world domination through scones! I don’t usually like scones, but these are to die for! I ate two. I’m thinking of buying the recipe off her. Go try them yourself at Camelia Sinensis at 351-353 Emery; 514-286-4002. Oh, and if you’re in Montreal and want to get some cupcakes catered, my Amy is your girl there too. Let me know if you want me to put you in touch.
Wow, this is getting long, and I’m only on the second day. Still with me?
Off we go to get the car (Penny) and take her to the shop. We were destined for Vaudreuil, which is almost 50 kms (30 mi) from where we were. Amazingly, things from here really started to come together. The BMW was seamless, the car started up and drove ok, and we got out to Vaudreuil without trouble. From there the guy at the shop gave us a lift to the train station where we would catch a train to downtown. And, since it was Car Free Montreal day, the train was free! Sweet. This is Amy waiting for the train…
See? There was knitting going on over the weekend… Speaking of which, Amy will tell you that she found out that she’s been knitting “Wrong” the whole time. I said not wrong, per se, but rather by another technique. Only problem is that the technique- knitting into the back of every stitch- results in a wicked bias when you’re going in the round! She’s all sorted out now.
We got back into town in great time, went and picked up Amy’s partner Kris from work, and the three of us set out for dinner at Chu Chai, (What? Shoe shopping??), which serves vegetarian Thai food, with the twist of having “fake meat” as we called it. Despite what you might be thinking, it’s delicious. Seriously! We had a great dinner. If you go you really should try the crispy duck… I totally had the “I can’t believe it’s not Duck!” moment. You will too. Seriously, all kidding aside, I am a meat eater and was perfectly happy with the “meat” in the dishes. We brought our own bottle of wine and ate at “Chuch”, their bistro next door.
We walked home again, gorgeous evening, and sat around the kitchen table chatting and laughing when the neighbour dropped in with ice cream, then another friend, and I totally felt like I was hanging out with the cool kids. So great!
Friday was a lazy morning day, strangely without coffee, and a trip to Cafe Santropol for lunch. Again, a hearty recommendation from me if you’re looking for an artsy, charming place to go for a wicked sandwich. The menu had loads of great stuff on it. It was hard to choose! My friend Andrew and I did some running around in the afternoon (he has a car) and then he drove me out to pick Penny up from the shop. The best part though, was that after all that befell my poor little car, what could have been wicked expensive only cost $118!! I was on cloud nine. And the weather was so beautiful as the sun set behind me that I took the only other photo that weekend.
So how many of you are still with me? Oh, I think I see someone over there in the back. Ok, I’ll continue. lol
Since Thursday night was no meat night, Friday was all meat. Southern BBQ ribs. Yum. There’s a place around the corner from Andrew’s apartment in NDG called Bofinger, and they do really good ribs. I couldn’t find a website, only reviews I didn’t agree with. So I won’t link to them. Anyway, suffice it to say that I really liked it, so there.
In contrast to all the out and about-ing I did with Amy and Kris, the time I spent with Andrew was a lot of sitting chatting and laughing about all the old times. Don’t get me wrong, I had just as much fun doing that as wandering around, and I think we may actually have managed to catch up on a lot of the last 10 years or so! Part of the bribe to get me to Montreal was a promise to take me out for Sushi while I was there, so Saturday evening we made the trip over to Sho-Dan on Metcalfe. I had been promised that I would not be made to eat anything nasty (as tends to happen to the relative newcomer at the table, as a joke), so we set to choosing our meal. When it came, there was a really funny moment when Andrew was pointing out what was what “Ok, so this is of course the salmon, red tuna, yellow fin, octopus…” and breezed past a pair of sushi pieces and said “This is the Sea Urchin…” continuing along with “the spicy salmon roll, California roll and veggie rolls”. Woah, rewind. Sea urchin? I thought we had agreed no Sea urchin. You said!! A look of shock and mild playful indignation crossing my face. He actually hadn’t meant to say that, since it wasn’t actually Sea urchin, but did he ever make me stop dead in my tracks! So funny.
After filling up on wonderful sushi and warm sake we reconnected with Amy and her sister Ali who lives in a further corner of the Plateau. Totally like old times, only not… Amy and Ali grew up in the house that backs on to the house I grew up in in Beaurepaire, which is a suburb on the West Island of Montreal. Amy and Ali moved away when Amy was 9 and Ali about to turn 6, so it has been a long while since they left. I remember them vividly of course, since I have 7 years on Amy. We’ve stayed in touch, their mum being a great friend of our family, but now they’re all grown up and moved back to the city. Andrew grew up 3 doors down from me, and was my brother’s Best Friend when we were kids. Oh man, the mischief they used to get up to! Nick and Andrew are still good friends, though Nick living out west makes it a little tougher. Andrew babysat Amy and Ali when they were little. Andrew’s mum (who looked after Penny for the night) and mine are also super close, and our families are almost interchangeable. Or at least, that’s the joke. So having the 4 of us sitting around in the living room of this grown up Ali’s apartment, talking about old days, new stuff, tattoos, squirrel attacks (Steph, you’d love Amy’s story!) and a raccoon in my bed over a bottle of Dep Wine? Thoroughly fantastic.
So, despite the lack of knitting in this post, I had to share the fullness in my heart. With all the crap that’s going on these days, it’s so nice to reconnect with people who know all your baggage and love you anyway. I don’t need to explain myself to these guys, and it feels so good. Hang on to your friends the best way you know how. They’re worth all the effort.
Guess who has internet access again!! Yay! I feel like a kid in a candy store. So I open up the email, nothing too exciting. But that’s ok, cause there are other things I want to check out. I log in to Ravelry, then realize that I ought to jot down a list of stuff I want to add, so that I don’t do the old Stare-at-the-cool-website thing, not knowing what to add first. It’s ok though, I open up my Bloglines to see what people have been up to over the summer (I know, I’m laughing at myself now, too…).
You people have been busy. 2191 blog entries! So now I have that big dilemma. Do I try (likely in vain) to read my way through the entries, do I make the rash decision to just wipe the slate clean and start fresh from tomorrow forward, or do I cherry-pick my way through, which will probably end up with me reading my way through most of them? Honestly. What’s a girl to do? This is tongue in cheek of course. What’s a girl really to do?
Get a house ready for sale!!
More on that later. For now, I am going to curl up in my bed in town and try to reacquaint myself with all those strange noises in the night that I am no longer accustomed to after spending the summer in the country. Crickets traded in for cars. Oh well. I have internet access, right?
I am on Ravelry! I’m excited. But you know what? With my internet access such as it is this summer, I have had all of about 10 minutes’ worth of use of it. And do you think I could remember what patterns I’m working on? What yarn I have stashed? Nope. Anyway, I have about 2 weeks left at the Adventure House, and then I get high speed internet again! Woo hoo! If you’re looking for me on Ravelry my screen name is Sarahfish. Big surprise there, eh? 
I know people have been wondering what I’ve been up to over the last month and a bit, and there has been lots. For instance, yesterday was Evan’s 4th birthday! He’s a big dude these days. In fact…
He can just about reach the water fountain on his own. And look at those freckles! While we were at the playground E and his buddy decided to play in the empty wading pool at the park, where the drain made a great echo. Evan’s buddy B LOVES to have his picture taken, and can pull quite the Cool Dude pose.
B is 5 already, and therefore much cooler.
I’ve been doing a bunch of climbing, and on Monday of the long weekend went to Montagne D’Argent, just outside of Mont Tremblant Quebec, a good couple of hours north of Montreal. Let me just say, for the record, that it was AWESOME!
I love that place. I had never been, but am determined to go back. It was a beautiful day, and I got to climb with great people, one of whom I haven’t really seen in ages. Fantastic.
Evan has been out climbing with me too, and impressed all of us by getting himself here:
For the record, that ledge below the one he’s kneeling on is above my head when I stand on the ground. And no, you can’t just walk up a ramp to get to where he is. You go straight up the face! Not bad for a kid who wasn’t yet 4…
Knitting has been kind of slow over the summer, a little here and there, but no major announcements of FO’s or anything. Too bad. I can feel the fall in the air though, and am looking forward to crisper weather when I can sit outside and knit with a coffee… Oh, didn’t I mention? Evan’s going to school!! I know my little image in my head is something of a pipe dream, and that really I need to be using the time to oh, I don’t know, maybe… look for a job?? But I think maybe I can steal one day of leisure to knit in the cool air and warm sun. Oh, and if you don’t mind, could you please be careful not to burst my bubble? Ok great. Thanks…
