Some things are just wrong.

Yes, some things just make you question your reality as you know it, such as:

Macy's having a Veteran's day mattress sale and

seeing the "What a friend I Have in Jesus" dude in Archambault, in the classical music section.
He must have been lost.

(Friday, December 08, 2006
Totally Un-PC

Are all metro buskers mentally ill or what?! I made the mistake of walking through the tunnel from Atwater metro to Westmount Square again this evening. And he was there, the "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" dude. He plays this same damn tune over and over and over and over and, well you get my point. And he strums this little blue guitar. I can't even tell what language he's singing in, but I'll give him credit that the song is actually recognizable. I came this close (I'll let you decide how close it actually was) to asking him if that is the only song he ever plays. It's certainly the only song I've ever heard him play! And then it just gets stuck in my head. And why don't even ask me why I know this song! And he looks like Henry from the comics would like if he were a real person and in his 60's! Next time I think I will just grab his guitar and smash it to bits. Dare me?!
Rant over.)

The roof, the roof, the roof is on...

Yes, our roof is all fixed up, just in time for the downpours we had 2 Saturdays ago. The Sunday was a much nicer day and Tim was curling in a bonspiel at Mount Bruno so I went walking on Mont Saint Bruno with Cathy and Vanessa as Eric was working. It was a little windy but the sun was out and we saw two deer. One on the way in and one on the way out of the park. I did have my camera with me but the first deer was moving too fast for me to get a good shot and the second one was just too far away.
I opted out of going out to supper with Tim and his teammates, who went to the Creperie in Saint Bruno. I got myself invited over to Cathy & Eric's instead.

Halloween was a busy night on our street. I got home from work with just enough time to put out our pumpkins and our few sad little decorations before the first trick o'treaters showed up.
Next year, Tim vows he will put on a big production to make the kids earn their candy! We'll see...
We must have had close to 150 monsters and princesses come begging at our door, most of them not from our neighbourhood. It certainly was a nice night to be out.

Last weekend, the Mount Bruno bonspiel continued and this time Cathy & I went walking with Vanessa on Saturday. Eric stayed at the club to watch his bro play and to take pictures (with Tim's "good" camera.) The boys stayed at the club for supper and the girls got invited by Cathy's parents to stay and have some stew and dumplings. Yummy!
After supper, I learnt how to play the card game "May I?" (it's close to Contract rummy.) We didn't play all 7 rounds but I was ahead when we quit playing. Not bad for a first time!

As of yesterday, our upstairs was still pretty much in complete disarray except for the cleaning we did and setting our bed back up so we could start getting a good night's sleep again.
Yesterday while Tim curled in Valleyfield, I did my Superwoman act and put all the other furniture back into place.

Yep, at this time of year, our world pretty much revolves around work and curling! Good thing I don't curl or nothing would ever get done around here!
(But I draw the line at cleaning up the basement...I'm still waiting on Tim for that one...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting.....)
:)))))

Rain, rain, go away!

Well, last Friday, Saturday & yesterday's rain has confirmed that our roof still leaks. Which is not good since the contractor was due yesterday morning to start repairing the water damage to our two front bedrooms.
So we spent most of the weekend emptying the rooms and re-organizing our upstairs so we still have somewhere to sleep and still have access to the clothes in our dressers while the work is being done.
Last night was our first night sleeping in the double bed. Cozy!

The contractor opened up part of the ceiling and took out the section of the wall which needs to be replaced. He couldn't do much beyond that as water was dripping down in various spots.
So last night we made the decision that it would be best to replace the roof entirely as it is 17 years old.
Luckily our roofer can start the job tomorrow morning so hopefully it will all be fixed before the expected rain on the weekend. And then the contractor can start up again on Monday.
And then I will be one step closer to having my upstairs back in order.

On a rainy fall afternoon

What to do on a cold and rainy afternoon?
Time to do some cooking (I had a frozen cabbage to get rid of so I now have lots & lots of soup for my lunches) and catch up on some blogging.

What's up? Well Tim's curling season is in full swing. His first bonspiel was in Boucherville already a month ago. The girls (Catherine, Vanessa & I) got to hang out while the boys (Tim & Eric) curled.
Vanessa is 7 months old now and on solid foods (if you can call mushed veggies and baby cereal "solid") so feeding her is a bit more involved. But she just gets more and more adorable and certainly more expressive.

We got our roof fixed and hopefully that will take care of the leak that caused water damage to our 2 front bedrooms. Now, hopefully, someday, maybe, we'll have the damage repaired. The contractor we were hoping to hire to do the job has been very unresponsive to even giving us a quote so we're kind of torn at this point whether to hire him but our insurance company cut us a cheque this week so, what to do, what to do...

We had my family over to celebrate my mom's birthday 3 weeks ago.
We had a simple meal with salad, potatoes and tournedos on the bbq. I found a recipe for apple cake with all whole wheat flour (if I recall correctly) and it turned out very tasty. The apples were from the organic farm basket we've been getting weekly & splitting with France. (She was supposed to get the cabbage I mentioned earlier but I kept it since it froze in the basement fridge.)

That Sunday we picked up France and went walking on Mont Rigaud and enjoyed the first day of autumn. We didn't get home in time to say our goodbyes to Anja, our German border, who moved out that afternoon. So we can now prance around the house to our heart's content without fear of freaking anyone out!

Tim had a spiel in Longue Pointe that week but I did not go to see him play and enjoyed some time alone at home & doing some errands around town.

I tried my hand at making pickled beets and tasted them earlier this week and they are quite good. So some of you might get a jar if you're lucky!

Last weekend was Thanksgiving and the highlight of the fall season for me. We went on Olaf's annual canoe camping trip in Saranac Lake in upstate New York.



Despite the rain on Saturday and Monday, we had a great time.

You can see the rest of my photos on Facebook at
Canoe Camping Saranac Lake 2007

And now the weather is actually more fall-like so I guess it's time to put away the sandals and capris til next year, sigh.

Why the only reason Fridays are better than Mondays is that it's almost the weekend.

One would expect Friday to be a mellow day, with the week winding down and tying up loose ends at work. One would expect this. Reality paints a different portrait.

Take yesterday. First, I got to the bus stop and the bus was actually early and already full so I didn't get a seat. Wouldn't you expect there to be less people taking the bus at 6:43 a.m. on a Friday? Not the case, obviously.

Then work.
I was at the "Japan" station this week in the lab. We make a curry sauce mixture that is destined for a customer in Japan hence we refer to this task as "Le Japon". On Fridays, they don't make any batches for Japan so I didn't have any sampling to do, only the tests on the production from the day before. You'd think I'd be less busy than the other days? Nuh uh. And I can't really explain why I was so busy in the a.m.
I did the test for salt content.
I did the melting point test.
I cooked up the curry sauce and had the others in the lab do a taste test.
I entered my results.
In between all this I did some taste-testing on the finished products side because my colleague on that job had a cold and couldn't taste anything.
And the next thing you know, it was amost 12 and it was time for us to go out for lunch.
This was a treat. We usually only have 30 minutes for lunch (although on Fridays, the 3 of us in QC eat together and stretch it out to 45) but yesterday was the last day for our colleague François in the R&D department so the 8 of us who work in the lab went out to Vinnie Gambini's for a goodbye lunch.
It was a good, but they were short-staffed (4 waiters instead of 7 and no bartender) so we were gone for a good 2 hours.
By the time we got back and changed, it was time for me to go down to the production department and do my weekly inspection after they had washed their equipment.
Then I had to go try on safety shoes.
Then I had to prepare all the sample containers and labels for next week for "Le Japon".
Then it was 3:30 and time to go back downstairs and do a final inspection.
Then I had to print up my report, tie up any loose ends around the lab and make sure everything was ready for Monday morning.
Okay, I'm really not doing the hecticness that I felt any justice here but before I knew it it was 4 o'clock and time to go!
Weekend, woohoo!

France had left me a message inviting Tim & me over for cabbage rolls so I walked to her place from work. Or more like moseyed my way over. But she wasn't home yet when I got there. So I went over to Katja & Jouni's who live a block away (very convenient!) and she joined us shortly after then Tim also arrived.

France told us all about her trip to Brazil and showed us her pictures after stuffing us with very yummy cabbage rolls and stuffed peppers.

Anja is away whale-watching in Tadoussac for the weekend so we got to sleep with the bedroom door open.
It's the little things in life...

Back to reality

So we're back to the old routine except for having a border in our home for 2 weeks. Anja arrived on Monday the 3rd from Germany. As in previous years, I've helped out Alain Forget, a German teacher at Ahuntsic Cegep, by providing a place for his visiting assistant to stay.

Last Saturday, we took it easy. We went and bugged Eric who was doing some sewing at his in-laws' shop.



And then I got taken out to see the Québécois film Bluff. Good storyline and an ending neither I nor Tim predicted. We then went out for a very nice supper at Cumulus, a resto in the 10-30 in Brossard.

Tim had his first bonspiel of the season in Boucherville on Sunday but his first game was at 8 am so I opted out going with him to spectate.
The weather was iffy so I debated whether to bike to the Shore and visit Catherine and Vanessa but they ended up coming into town and we went for a long walk up to Mount Royal.
It made me feel less guilty about the Ben & Jerry's I had the previous evening!

How I spent my summer vacation (part 5)

After settling back in at Jacquie & Matt's, we decided on Thai for supper. We went to a pretty cheesy looking place that had great food! The imperial rolls were particularly tasty and very fresh, not the run-of-the-mill rolls you get at most places. We even got serenated by our flute-playing waiter. The next day, we thought of maybe going to Annapolis but ended up taking it easy instead. Jacquie made us crepes for breakfast.



Then we went and did some shopping at REI, the closest thing to MEC down there...



When we returned from shopping, Jacquie made some Mexican food and their friend came over and related a bit of his research trip to Alaska.

If you want to see an excellent film (and as of this week, it is still playing at the AMC Forum), go see
Once.
One of the main characters is played by the lead singer of the Frames whom I went to see last spring at Le National. Tim and I had wanted to go see the movie ever since it came out in Montreal, but never had the chance to go. Well, lo and behold, it was playing at the Greenbelt theater so the four of us went to see it Saturday evening.

When we came back from the movies we sat outside and Matt made a fire in the chimenea and we ate chocolate pie, mmmmmmm!



We packed everything up and said our goodbyes on Sunday morning and started on the long journey home. We broke up the drive a bit by stopping at Chocolate World in Hershey, PA.




What a zoo! We managed to make it out of there with only 4 bags of Kisses and a 1/2 lb bar of Hershey's Milk Chocolate. And a coulpe of t-shirts.

We didn't make any other stops other than bathroom breaks until Plattsburg. It was just after 6 by then and we were pretty hungry so we stoppped for pizza at Little Caesar's before breezing through the border. Smart move to come back on Sunday and not on Labour Day Monday.

And that's about it for the trip.

I'm glad we got some hiking and camping in and visiting friends always makes for a fun and certainly more memorable time.

How I spent my summer vacation (part 4)

We arrived at Jacquie & Matt's in Greenbelt, MD on Wednesday evening.We had a really yummy supper with corn, salad, potatoes, salmon burgers and homemade peach pie with ice cream for dessert.

We'd decided that on Thursday we'd head to Virginia to the Shenandoah Valley and enjoy a bit of nature. We made it there by midday and stopped for lunch in exciting(!) Front Royal before paying our entrance fee at the North entrance of the National Park.
We drove along the Skyline Drive which has lots and lots of outlooks on both sides but it was pretty hazy so the views weren't so great. We did have a couple of deer run across the road in front of us in the middle of the afternoon, which seems like an unusual time of day for them to be out and about.
We then stopped at the Luray Caverns and took the tour through the caves and saw lots and lots of stalactites and stalagmites. (Do you know which are which?!)
Most of my pictures didn't turn out so well because of the lighting but I'd love to see the shots one kid took with a disposable camera!



We then picked up some food at the (evil, I know) Walmart Superstore and made it to Big Meadows campground for the night.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of munching just outside our tent and unzipped the window to see a deer wandering around our site.
It was time to get up by then (nature calls!) so I grabbed the camera and walked around the campground and saw a few more deer throught the morning mist.




After taking numerous photos, we had some breakfast and packed up and got ready for a hike.



Down, down, down, we went following part of the Appalachian trail and ended up at Lewis Falls. Or more like the Lewis Trickle. It's been a very dry summer down there.
Then it was back up, up, up.
The 3 1/2 hour hike it was supposed to be actually only took us 2. I really wonder how they calculate these things sometimes.
We were taking our time and enjoying the scenery and stopping to catch our breath so there's no way it would ever take you over 3 hours to hike it.

At the "waterfall", we encountered a couple from somewhere in Virginia and the wife had recently been to Montreal with her granddaughter and had a great time, loved the people and felt safe everywhere she went. It's nice to encounter people who have good memories of visiting your hometown.

After a picnic lunch we headed back to Greenbelt and hit D.C. long weekend traffic at about 3 o'clock. Joy.

How I spent my summer vacation (part 3)

Tuesday morning, after doing the White Water Walk, we crossed the border into NY state at Fort Erie. It luckily only took us about 15 minutes to get through. That wasn't the case in Niagara where there was quite a long lineup to cross the Peace Bridge.
Did you know that there are Tim Hortons' in NY state?! I wonder if anyone down there knows who he was. Come to think of it, how many people up here know that he was a hockey player?

We made our way down to Pennsylvania, discovering that its roads are very scenic, hilly and sinous in the West. But their interstates are worse than Quebec highways. (Is that possible?!)
We made it to Blue Knob State Park that evening and stayed in a pretty deserted campground. The next morning, we had a chat with some redneck dude who had pulled into the site next to us at some point in the night but we had not heard him at all, thankfully. We then went for a nice little hike, which felt good after spending much of the previous day in the car.

How I spent my summer vacation (part 2)

Niagara Falls really wasn't as tacky as I thought it would be. But, then again, I think we purposefully avoided the gawdiness, except for walking up Clifton Hill.





I think one can easily enjoy the falls just as much from the walkways without having to pay the entrance fees to the various "attractions" but we bought a pass that allowed us access to the Maid of the Mist, the Journey Behind the Falls, the White Water Walk and the Butterfly Conservatory.

Then again, I would not have been able to read all about my heroes, the Barrel Riders, if we had not gotten the package.
You see, I am "Official Barrel Rider", as appointed by Olaf (Pronouncer in chief), for the Facebook group "Visited Nifalls".



In the evening, we popped in on Lee and her fiancé (husband-to-be this weekend, I believe.) She's an old acquaintance of Tim's from way back in his high school days.
We stayed at a decent Travel Lodge that night.

How I spent my summer vacation (part 1)by Chris K

Tim took off on Wednesday afternoon for Toronto and stayed with his friend Carolyn and went to a client's office on Thursday before heading to curling camp (tee hee!) for 3 days.

I tried to get the house a little cleaned up before going away, then I left for Toronto Saturday afternoon via VIA!

I stayed at my friends' Mike & Jane place, they used to be my neighbours and good friends before they had to sadly move back to Toronta. Unfortunately Jane was away in Chicago for the weekend but I got to spend some time with Mike and their 2 kids, Kathleen who is 5 y.o. and Jack, 10 months.



We went to the busker festival on Sunday and had lots of fun and even indulged in some cotton candy. Man is that stuff ever sweet!


Also, strange but true, I bumped into Carolyn at the festival, just like that, out of the blue. Weird.

After Jack had had enough action for the afternoon, we headed back to their place and relaxed and then Tim showed up and we hung out a little before deciding to head to Hamilton. Don't worry, we only spent a short time there!
Just long enough to meet up with Coeli, a friend of Tim's from Cegep, for supper at an Irish pub called Slainte. The place was pretty authentic, the food was good and they had football jerseys for sale, albeit, they were a little pricey. We possibly would have stayed the night, but Coeli has a cat and after about 5 minutes in her apartment, Tim had a sneezing fit and his eyes were red and watering. Anyhow, we ended up (eventually, after going the wrong way on the 403) in Niagara-on-the-Lake at a very nice B&B called Merlot House, owned and run by someone Coeli used to work with. We had a lovely breakfast the next morning with a couple who were celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary. After checking out, we strolled the main drag of Niagara-on-the-Lake and went into a few of the shops. Tim and I both bought a couple of rings each, with celtic designs. I bought a Claddagh ring. I'd been wanting one for quite a while and finally found one to my liking.

Then, it was off to Nifalls!
Niagara Falls, for those of you who have yet to hear Olaf's story...

Vacation time again!

Wow, did the last two weeks ever go by quickly...Everyone kept saying that I must be so eager for my vacation to be here. Well, yes and no! Yes because it's vacation, but also not so much as it means it's now the end of August which means it's the end of summer, boo hoo. (Okay, you nitpcikers, and you know who you are, will now tell me summer isn't over until September 23rd, and to you I say phfffflt!)

Other than going by quickly, last week was pretty uneventful. We played our last regularly scheduled softball game on Firday evening and called it quits after 7 innings. Tim bought me a new glove and even if it isn't quite broken in yet, it is excellent! Good pres, babe!
We played again on Saturday morning to make up a game that had been rained out earlier in the season. Unfortunately, we lost both games.
Tim actually struck me out on Friday evening. I should have rushed the mound!
How did he strike me out, you ask, if we play on the same team? You see, in our league the «4 pitch» rule is in effect and the pitchers pitch to their own team. The batter gets a max of 4 pitches and if he/she doesn't put the ball into play after 4 pitches, the batter is out. So Tim's first pitch was perfect, but I didn't want to swing on the first ball. But I should have! The pitches then got progressively worse!
Oh well. It just sucked as that was my last at bat for the evening.

After Saturday's game, we went over to my parents' place for lunch and were joined by my bro and his g-friend, Melora. We stuffed ourselves on my mom's excellent cooking and I got zucchini cake to take home, yummy!
Sunday was quiet, Tim went over to help Paul with his kitchen and I relaxed and finished reading the latest Harry Potter. It was excellent!
We went over to Tim's mom's for supper and she had made ribs on the bbq, again, very yummy! We got field berry mousse cake to take home this time!

What's with all the cake, you ask? Uh, I turned 29 for the 7th time.
It's funny how unnoteworthy my birthday was this year. Which is how I intentded it to be but I guess I didn't actually fully expect it to be so!
Anyhow, for those of you who called or emailed, thanks for the wishes! For those of you who didn't know, that's the way I wanted it to be. For those of you who forgot, YOU SUCK!!! :)

La Minerve weekend

If you're on Facebook, you can see the pictures there...

Last Thursday night was spent getting things ready for the weekend and packing the car so we could head up North straight after work on Friday.

I managed to leave work at 2:45 and went to meet Tim at his office. We got on the road after picking up some Lebanese pizza at Andalos' and made it to somewhere in Laval before hitting traffic. The commuter lane was not any faster. I really don't know how people can do that day after day...Anyhow, we made it to La Minerve in about 2 1/2 hours, I think.
Cathy, Eric, Marc, Laurel and their respective offspring had arrived a few hours earlier and our hosts, Katja & Jouni & their 2, had arrived only shortly before us. We set up camp, dealt with the mosquitoes and greeted the last arrivals for the night, Maya, Katherin, Robbie, France (and Tigger.) We sat by the campfire and gazed at the stars and hit the hay sometime after 12:30.

Not having Olaf to keep me company in the early morning, I slept in til 7 on Saturday. And so day 1 of relaxing and having a great time with our friends began. The first arrivals of the day were Stéphanie and Olaf, later followed by day-trippers Julie, David & Arianne, Gillian and François (with their dog Chica) and finally Geneviève and Stéphane, who stayed the night.

We partook in the usual activities that we all enjoy so much: swimming, volleyball, frisbee-golf, bocce, hammocking, catching up with friends, reading, baby-watching, eating, uh, drinking and then some!

We all had various things that we cooked on the fire for supper but Olaf's grill with charcoal proved to emit a more reliable and even heat source for cooking on.
As usual, no one went starving and everything looked very tasty. We had some very envious looking dogs on our hands!

The rest of the evening was spent by the campfire, toasting marshmallows, talking, singing and listening to the guitar players. ( I won't mention the drinking!)

Sunday morning brought a few raindrops while some of the group packed up. Tim and I were in no hurry to get back to the city so we stuck around and waited for the sun to come out and only left in the late afternoon.

Driving slowed down, as expected, after St-Sauveur but we got home in about 2 hrs 10 min to the wonderful surprise of having the weekend papers sitting on the front stoop even if we'd called to temporary stop delivery.

So, that folks, was, in a nutshell, our first camping trip of the year and hopefully won't be our last!?

Back to my regularly scheduled programming

Two Fridays ago, (already!) we played softball and managed to get in seven innings before the game was called on account of lightning. We were winning so calling it quits at that point was fine by us even if it would have been fun to play a full game as it was pretty close. And we were playing the #2 team in the league.

On Saturday morning we packed up and headed to the cottage, sans bicyclettes, this time. We did a bit of hiking and nature walking instead. This is the view from the top of Owls Head mountain (in NY state, not the Eastern Townships.) The 2nd smaller lake on the right is Mountain View lake where our cottage is.






After the hike, I cut the grass around the whole property. Phewf, a good workout after the hike!
Meanwhile, Tim got the charcoal bbq going so for supper we had some burgers and grilled corn accompanied by fresh green beans from the garden. Dessert was cake and raspberries (we won't mention the whipping cream AND ice cream that I had...) It's been an excellent year for raspberries and I've taken full advantage of it every time I've visited my parents.

On Sunday, we took it easier and packed a lunch and went walking at Paul Smiths VIC and took some pictures. I've been learning to use Tim's Canon S2 as I loaned my camera to Paul & Murielle so they can document their kitchen renovations.










The best thing about the S2 is that I can take pictures of children without them coming out all blurry when they move. It's a tad faster than my A520.

We came home straight from Paul Smiths and then went to a bbq at France's to meet her roommate Clare.

Last Monday, my co-worker finally came back to work so no more 6:30 a.m. starts, yay! It's kind of weird to have three people in the lab again, we actually have time to breathe and sit down every once in a while.

Tuesday evening Tim was an excited and happy camper. I went to meet him after work and we had supper at Casey's followed by going to see The Bourne Ultimatum at Marché Central. It was very good, non-stop action. And I managed to stay awake for the whole movie!

Sunshine Whale

Ever seen a sunshine whale?

My little cousin Sam drew it for me...

Where did the weekend go?

So I'll now try to get back to complete sentences with my posts!
Friday night we played softball (I hope you have all clued in by now that when I say "we", I mean Tim & I!!!) in the intermittent rain. All around, we did not play a particularly good game and our last out was especially crappy as we got an automatic out since dude on first base stepped off before contact was made. What a sucky way to end the game. The rule is there so the runner does not lead off the base, but when your team is already losing by 6 runs, you'd think they'd have cut us some slack. Anyhow, we came home and ordered some gourmet pizza from F&F, so all was good!

On Saturday, I biked over to Cathy & Eric's and Vanessa entertained me while they got things ready for their bbq later that afternoon. Luckily we (this "we", being the general "we" and not just Tim & I, just in case you were wondering) weren't hit by the rainstorm that poured buckets on downtown so everyone was safe and dry outside. It was quite the party and the backyard ended up looking like a daycare with all the toys, the playtents and the chalk drawings. I had fun trapping bugs with Clara. She much prefers ants and spiders when they are safely under a plastic cover!

Sunday saw us going to my cousin Suzanne's 3rd child's christening in Senneville. This is Kate Louise, isn't she precious?!




After the ceremony at the church, we headed towards Rivière Beaudette for an afternoon with the family. We actually kept going to Lancaster for a pit stop at the LCBO for some wine & beer. We then sat around in the garden enjoying the view...







I had not seen my cousin nor my aunt Karlene in quite a few years so it was nice to visit with them and the rest of the family. It was also my dad's birthday, but unfortunately he didn't get much of a celebration.

On the way home, we were hoping to pick up some fresh corn but the farmer's roadside stand we passed was already closed so we settled on salad for supper.

And then the weekend was over way too soon.

A resume of July

Yuckiness of the month: Bought unsweetened, unsalted peanut butter.
Discovery: Has the consistency of sawdust and is just plain disgusting.
Result: Gifted it to Martin.

Started taking the bus in when I start at 6:30. This means I get up at 4:45. It is still dark then. Must make sure I have everything ready the night before as even I am a zombie at that hour.

Started getting a weekly basket of organic veggies. There are way too many green leafy things that taste bitter in this world. But swiss chard and caramelized onion lasagna is very tasty.

Started trying to eat fish twice a week. I think we are slacking at this point.

Crashed a bbq at Joe and Leona's. Always welcome, always well-received. Food is good.
Friends are better.

Celebrated Mémère, Tim's grandmother's, birthday by going out to brunch at Cumulus in the 10-30 complex. Made her day. Very good restaurant. Must go back.

Bought a mandoline (vegetable slicer-julienner thingy). It sucked. Returned it a week later. No hassles, no questions asked. Happy me.

Went to Kay's for a bbq for her birthday. No comment. You had to be there. Some of you were, so I needn't elaborate. It was interesting!

Went to the gym a few times. Weight is stable. Better than gaining I guess.

Went to La Ronde to see the fireworks. Got Tim to ride the Supermanège. Not the most exciting roller-coaster after you've been on the Viper and the Goliath but it did the trick. Fireworks were awesome.

Went to McKibbin's for pub night. Got my eyes checked and my prescription stayed the same. A good evening.

Saw David Usher for free on the street downtown. He is the best. Heidi is in love! Summer in Montreal rules.

Went to the movies. Saw Ocean's 13. It was good.

Caught a cold. Still lingering. I hate blocked sinuses. Snot is gross too.

Jacquie came to town. No words can do her justice. She rules! We miss her. She misses us. We must go to Maryland and visit. Oreo cake is just plain evil.
Food is good. Friends are better.

Our roof leaked again. Thank goodness we didn't fix the ceiling in the bedrooms. Haven't yet made it up on the roof to see where the problem is.

Rode my bike for the first time this month. Hot and sweaty. Still hate riding up Greene Avenue but it beats the less steep but longer uphill of Atwater.

Celebrated Jo-Anne's birthday at Guido and Angelina's in the Pepsi Forum. Food is good. Family is better.

Discovered I like black olive paste. Food is good. Having friends come over to share it is better.

Got a raise for year-end inflation adjustment. Over 2%. Happy.

Gave blood. Donation #50. Found out I test negative for a certain virus so my blood goes directly to Ste-Justine or the Children's. Makes me feel warm inside.

Gave in to all the hype and bought Harry Potter. Don't ruin it for me!

Bought a cabinet/bookshelf to reorganize our DVDs & CDs. Organization takes up a lot of space. Must rethink the CD part. DVDs all fit.

Phew, I'm exhausted!

June turns into July and now it's almost August!

So, faithful reader, do I just give up on catching up on my posts and start afresh with more recent events or do I try and summarize the month of July for you??? Such are the dilemnas on an early Saturday morning. Why is it that I went to bed later than usual last night and am awake earlier than usual??? Such are the ponderings of a fool at this hour...

Well, I do have a bit still from our vacation, so here goes:

After Mountain View, we came back to town on the Friday, not for our usual softball game, but to celebrate Heidi's birthday. We ended up going to Le Nil Bleu, an Ethiopian resto on St-Denis. Ethipoian is usually a good choice, predictable if anything, and, bonus this time, I was pleasantly surprised at the rapid service we got. I had been there many years ago before going to a Dave Matthews concert (oh, what a memory, but that is a story for another day!) and I had also been to Abiata more recently (also on St-Denis) and was less than impressed by the inattentive, slower than molasses service.

Tim took in his first golf game ever that Saturday and now he's hooked! It was the 2nd annual FTR classic organized by Olaf and the foursome was completed by Jouni and Mario, a student of Olaf's. We ended up at Katja and Jouni's for a bbq that evening and spent Canada day, oh joy, cleaning our ever-cluttered basement, followed by an evening at Ysabel's for some more bbq fare and various pot-luck items.

Our last day of vacation was spent going over to Jo-Anne's and then France's to help with some minor home repairs and then back home to the basement.

And then it was back to work. It wasn't too brutal considering it was my co-worker's turn to be on vacation so I had to go into work for 6:30 4 days in a row. Before I knew it, the week was over and it was time for softball again.

Food: the element that links us

So, since so much has gone on since I last wrote (summer is a busy time!), I figure the best way I can tie everything together is through food (big surprise there!) Yes, most of our friendly gatherings revolve around or at least involve food.
I love my friends and family!

Hiking in Charlevoix, way back in June, was lots of fun. The weather was perfect for hiking, not too hot and only a sprinkling of rain when we started off on Saturday. We didn't have to fight off the bugs too badly either. Tim had bought us some trekking poles and I am definitely sold on them. They made the climbing bits much easier to undertake and helped on the descents too. The group (there were 9 of us) ended up separated in two, with the slower, picture-taking, enjoying the scenery, catching our breath, having conversations crowd bringing up the rear. But all was good since we had the evenings at the refuges to socialize with everyone.

Oh, yes, the food...We certainly did not go hungry. Our trip was a 3 day hike with day 2 being the longest, at about 14km, I believe. We were staying in cabins with no running water and we had our gear carried from cabin to cabin so quantity of food was not an issue. The first evening's meal was prepared by Stéphanie and Olaf, consisting of chicken fajitas in vast amounts. Day 2 , again, did not see us go starving. We started with breakfast, courtesy of France and Julie, made up of French toast with candied apples, sausages and bacon.
Everyone pitched in that evening to help Maya make a bean and avocado salad, the perfect entree to delicious chicken mole which was served with corn bread. And can you believe that we had cheesecake for dessert too!
Tim and I served breakfast on the Monday. We had made 2 varieties of waffles at home, banana chocolate chip and whole wheat nut, which have a very good crunch factor.
Stéphane and Geneviève were responsible for lunches , supplying us with rolls, cold cuts and cheese for each of us to make our own sandwiches in the morning before beginning our hike.
We got back to town on Monday afternoon and spent Tuesday doing some shopping, having a nice lunch at Café Passion in St-Lambert and then had Tim's friend Kelly over for supper. We discovered something new while shopping at Loblaws and tried salmon sausages. They are quite tasty although some are of the opinion that they have a weird, unexpected texture they're not sure about.

Wednesday morning, we met up with Catherine, Eric and Vanessa in Mercier and then drove on to the cottage in Mountain View for their first visit there. In the afternoon, we went for a pleasant stroll in the woods at Paul Smith's Visitor Interpretive Center and then visited their butterfly house. Evere wonder what mating monarchs look like???





We pulled out the charcoal bbq from the garage and had some tournedos and more salmon sausages with corn and salad for supper.

The Colby-Critchlows made their way home via Plattsburgh on Thursday while Tim and I stayed on until Friday. We'd brought our mountain bikes so we tried out the Hatch Brook trail where we'd been previously swarmed with bugs when we went with Heidi. The bugs weren't anywhere near as bad as last time. We just had to contend with a few wild turkeys and a very territorial hawk.

On Friday, before heading back, we tried making our way to High Falls with our bikes but the trail is not meant for biking, no matter how serious you are about it. We ended up walking our bikes on and off when the going got tough and then finally gave up and left them in the woods just before the Falls.




So, I'll end this here before you lose interest and I'll hopefully be back soon with another post!

SUMMERTIME!

I really need to stop saying I will try and post more often cos that seems to backfire on me...Anyhow, Tim's birthday was a week and a half ago so we celebrated the weekend before. We went out to supper with a group of friends on the Saturday evening at Fourquet Fourchette. It's a great restaurant with great ambiance and great beer! They serve Unibroue products and much of the cuisine is prepared with beer. We went to the one in Chambly on the South Shore (they also have a resto in the city at Palais des Congrès). Chambly is a very nice community, I suggest a visit, there's the fort to see, bike paths and I'm sure lots more.

To continue with the celebrations, I took Tim to Kooza, the Cirque du Soleil show, on Sunday afternoon. The show has now moved on from Montreal to Toronto. It was pretty entertaining and the air conditioning under the tent was definitely welcome as it was one of our first hot, sticky, humid days. Ahh, Montreal in summer!

And then began my last work week before vacation! I only biked back from work on Monday (Tim had driven me there in the morning with my bike on the car rack) so it was a bit of a lazy week (outside of work, that is)

Friday was a nice way to end the week just before vacation...we had a semi-activity day at work. We finshed at 11 and then went and played softball followed by a catered lunch of pulled pork and roast beef.

Then it was our usual Friday evening softball game with the Curling league which was awesome. We played against the Royals from TMR and gave each other a run for our money but we, the Granite, came out victorious in an extra inning!

Then it was home to pack for our hiking weekend.
Which I might get to telling you about.
Eventually.
Maybe.
When I take the time to do so.

That's all for now!