Talkin' shop

As a small way to occupy my time and make me feel less crappy about myself, I've been tutoring a couple in English for a month or two. We mostly work on conversational practice: fluency, comprehension, that sort of thing. We meet twice a week for an hour each time, and goddamn if I'm not running out of stuff to talk about.

Things we have discussed:

Pets
Israel & Palestine
Parenting
Medicine (they're both doctors)
Media Coverage of Politics
Politics
Presidential Election
Funerals and Parties
Gift Giving
Special Holidays

Man, we've talked about a lot of stuff that starts with "P," haven't we?

I was hoping making this list would inspire me to new heights of creativity, but...not really. I guess I'll try to see what else I can come up with on my own. Any suggestions, internet?

Winter, etc.

Winter appears to have begun in earnest here. We had snow flurries for two days in a row, I don't think the temperature has gotten above freezing, and walking the new dog makes me cry because the wind is blowing so hard.

Daisy came a little over a week ago, riding up from Virginia with Will and Nick, Ben's father and brother, respectively. She is sweet and a little shy, but appears to be settling in okay. Ada has relaxed enough to resume laying around.

Getting my hours cut back at work was a pretty big setback for me, but it's at least given me time to work on straightening out a few things in my life and getting the dog settled in. Right now she is having a dog dream.

I'm a sucker for a sweet face. Plus she loves to stretch SO MUCH. Also now this post has pictures of two different cute animals, so hopefully you aren't mad at me for not posting for forever-and-ever, right?

Daisy is kind of a lame name--nothing good ever happened to any Daisys that I could think of. Daisy Miller died of typhus or something (too lazy to look it up) and Daisy Bell's boyfriend tried to pass off buying one of those bikes that are double bikes as being a kind of romantic thing when he was too broke to buy a real car. Then the robot in 2001 killed them both, I dunno. But she lived with Ben's mom for a good 6 months before she came up here, so at this point it's her name and we'll just have to go with that.

And now it's like I've waited so darn long to post stuff that things that would have taken up tons of words in the past--losing the job, getting the dog, cat laying down--I can just breeze over like they're no big deal. Except for the cat thing: her tummy is very soft and when she invites you to pet her tum, it is not a terrible trap so that is something I could go on and on about.

Lately it seems that the only thing I cannot do is go to the gym. I don't know why doing this is so scary, as the Y is mostly filled with old ladies, but doing new things is hard. On the other hand, being sad about job has made me especially fat and not working has given me extra time on my hands so I REALLY SHOULD do this, especially because of the trouble I've been having with my ankle. That's another story I'll breeze over, I suppose, because at this rate I'm going to keep coming up with things that I feel obligated to mention and then where will we be? Bored.

I will tell you about Daisy's origin story, then. B and I have been wanting another dog for quite a while now, but things just hadn't come together. We tried to adopt one and it wanted to bite me, and then we tried to adopt another and it wanted to bite Ada. So we took a break from Trying to Find a Dog and I let Susanne, Ben's mom, know to keep an eye out for us since she has dog radar. Radog.

On a whim, Susanne answered a Craigslist ad for a golden retriever-looking mix. She figured she'd go and look and report back,  but when she got there to meet with the owner, the dog was just dripping with ticks. The owner claimed that Daisy had been inside previously but then got moved outside because they had too many dogs. Outside in Virginia summers means ticks, like a bazillion of them. So because she is a good person with a heart of gold (hi Susanne! See how I'm not calling you that "m" word?) she just took the damn neglected dog, whether or not we wanted it. Which was of course the right thing to do times a million, and if you thought I'd disapprove of that, do you even know me? Why are you reading this thing?

Susanne ended up at the Petsmart vet on a Sunday night, waiting for a crap Banfield vet to prescribe some kind of anti-tick meds; she looked down and the poor dog was swarming with literally hundreds of ticks. Poor Daisy was anaemic because the ticks sucked out all her blood, and had three tick-borne diseases including Lyme Disease and even after the ticks died she was all scabby and dry and gross. But Susanne fed her a million fish oil caplets and took her to obedience class so things got better for Daisy. Moral of the story: Ben's mother is the patron saint of all dogs. And now Daisy basically just lives here and chows down on bones and expensive food all day, so I have a good feeling about this setup.

So, this first blog entry after a long absence is maybe kind of a let-down, I dunno. But you were probably coming here for pictures of cute pets so I'll try to keep 'em coming and maybe have even more next time! FIN

CSA veg

We got our first bag from our CSA today, and it's full of goodness:

Red lettuce
Green lettuce
kohlrabi
savoury
garlic scapes (fleur d'ail)
Chinese cabbage
a turnip
radishes
broccoli
yellow squash
green squash
basil
red basil

Any suggestions as to what to do with the more exotic ingredients here?

Also: "scape" is not an appetizing word. I've had garlic scapes in stir-fry before, but I haven't seen them elsewhere. They're curly!

Gibeau Orange Julep Trip

When I was visiting the States last, I managed to lose my wallet, and along with it, my Quebec driver's license and healthcare card. There's no way to get either of them replaced online, so Ben and I set off Saturday to one of the SAAQ offices.

The liquor store is SAQ and the driver's registry is SAAQ, in case you were keeping track. 

I picked the SAAQ near a strange roadside attraction on Autoroute Decarie called Gibeau Orange Julep, in the hopes of making the experience more of an adventure and less of a lame chore for Ben and myself.

"What's an Orange Julep?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied, "but my student says it's a thing we're supposed to do in Montreal."

He looked it up on Google.

"This seems promising," he said. "The Google keywords are 'hot dogs,' 'classic cars,' 'poutine,' 'hot rods,' and 'places to eat.' Let's go!"

So we did. The first stop was Metro Namur (not to be confused with Namor, who is the Sub-Mariner).

You'll notice a few things going on in this picture. First off, each of Montreal's metro stations has its own distinct architectural style, although they've all got an angular 60's thing going on. This station was evidently built in 1984, but they all have a similar vibe. Check out the cool lights, and more notably, the spikes on the escalators. Wikipedia says these sorts of things are anti-slide devices, commonly called "hockey pucks" because of their shape and size, and "their purpose is to prevent objects (and people) from precipitously sliding down the otherwise smooth metallic surface." While these don't look like hockey pucks, I'm sure these escalator spikes serve their purpose admirably. I have not spotted them at other stations, but I will now be keeping a lookout.

This is the Gibeau Orange from a couple of blocks away. It's a restaurant that is also a giant red orange. I do not know why it is this color, but that is not the color of a citrus fruit. Also there is some guy photobombing my picture here.

It featured a thematically appropriate sign with neon and everything.

Sometimes when you order clothes online, they caution you that the colors might not match up exactly, but if you're seeing this as an unnatural shade of red-orange, then you're in the right ballpark. What this picture doesn't impart is the presence of the speakers on lampposts blasting such hits as "The Reflex" and "Sister Christian" out into the parking lot. Which was awesome, of course.

Look close and you'll see a pretzel for sale!

The orange julep itself was dispensed from these cylinders. The insulated pipes coming out of it went into the ceiling. Ben and I both agreed that the giant orange was probably filled with the orange julep.

We got hot dogs and the usual sweet-ish, smooshy Quebec-style fries that I'm starting to enjoy a lot more these days. Ben and I both agree that if someone asks you if you want something "all-dressed," you should always say yes at least the first time. All-dressed hot dog in this case was relish, onions, and yellow mustard. I added ketchup. The buns on the smaller dogs were those fun split-top bread kinds that'd been grilled on a flat-top, while the Nathan's hot dog I got was on a normal but nicely toasted bun. I had the better quality hot dog, Ben had the better bun.

The drink itself is hard to describe, and evidently some sort of secret. My student told me it had "eggs or something." It tastes kind of like a dreamsicle.

The cup claims it's "MADE WITH SUNKIST ORANGES DAILY" and it has an excellent slogan.

So that was our adventure for the weekend. Later we went to a pool party and I wore an enormous sun hat, but there are no pictures of that. You can read more about the Gibeau Orange Julep here or here. Here's a scary recipe.

Where's the blog at?

Where have you been, you say? In Quebec, of course!

We're now headed into our second summer here in Montreal, and Ben and I will be finishing up our second French class this coming Monday. I see now why they call it "language interference," because half the time when I try to come up with a French word, I end up thinking something in German. So I am going to try to watch some more French-language TV, starting with this gem about le canard.

I like it here, I really do. I've settled into my job and they don't seem to want to get rid of me any time soon, so that is good, because I like it. I do one-on-one tutoring as well as class-specific labs and general workshops. Las semester I did a pronunciation workshop, which really allowed me to work with some of the knowledge I learned in my linguistics classes. It feels good to utilize the skills and knowledge that you have. I still don't understand how I managed to land on my feet after so many years of screwin' it up, but it appears to have been equal parts good luck and hard work.

 Ben's game was released earlier this year, and the portion that he worked on is really fun. I bought an extra Xbox so we could play the multiplayer bit together, and it's an enjoyable way for us to spend time. He's transitioned from a programmer into a design role, which is a cool career progression for him since he's more interested in design now.

Now I am off to watch my French show. Au revoir!

Lump to Professional in 60 Seconds

I'm now in my third week at my new job, and I am hopefully adjusting relatively well.

I've found myself spending what to me feels like a LOT of money getting ready to really settle in at this job--I'm trying to treat it like a career where I will be here for the indefinite future, which means one thing: clothes.

Before my first day, I went through my work clothes, such as they are, and threw out everything that was just too old, dingy, or stained to wear to a new job. This left me with exactly one pair of pants, maybe 4 skirts, 4 tops (not the band, sadly), and a dress or two. This may sound like a decent amount of clothing if you are a dude, but not everything GOES with everything else, and I also have a sad lack of decent shoes to go with everything. Lots of my pre-existing shoes have proven to be life-ruining blister-causers and shopping for shoes is an enormous pain...

The strangest part about this is that I usually try to tell Ben what I am spending money on, and so I have found myself explaining a lot of generally unexplained, unspoken, gender-coded rules for professional women. Ben doesn't expect me to update him every second I spend money, but we both have the habit of just letting the other party know if we spent or are planning to spend, say, over $100 on something--it's just to make sure we both have a handle on how much money's in the system.

Here is what I have figured out:

1. Professional women wear separates. This one's less of an unspoken rule because I specifically remember my mother telling me this years ago. If you're wearing a dress, then you need to be wearing a cardigan or a blazer or something.

2. Professional women wear outfits. This means that you've got shoes and jewelry that coordinate with what you're wearing.

3. You can't wear the same thing every day.

4. What this means is that you have to set yourself up so you have a working rotation of clothes (up to 3 pieces if you're wearing a jacket, shirt, and pants or skirt), shoes, and jewelry that all go with each other. Plus stuff like tights and stockings and whatnot.

So right now I am working on putting together a collection of crap I can wear to work so that I send the right kind of messages about myself to my students and coworkers. It ain't cheap, especially because I generally mail-order a lot of my clothes because I am both a chunk and particular about what I wear.

Anyway, I have been shopping a lot more than I am accustomed to, a fair portion of which consists of me putting things into online shopping carts and then never buying them because I really hate getting stuff when it's not on sale. The silly part is that we have the money for me to do this--with our salaries together we're certainly comfortable enough for me to spend some money to make sure I am presentable at work.

I wish I didn't feel quite so neurotic about this whole being able to pass as a Professional thing, because then I probably wouldn't feel the urge to write about it in my blog. But job stuff is what I've been doing recently, so there you go.

Mom vs. Blog

So this blog sort of has two things going on--two things that war. They can kind of be summarized as Mom vs. Blog.

So one of the main reasons I started this up was to share pictures and stories of what I am up to with parents and other people who are concerned with how we are doing here in Montreal. To that end I feel like I want to tell stories of things that I did and then add context within Montreal and all that sort of thing. That part is "Mom."

The part that is "blog" is the bit where I want to treat this as a blog and write about the things that I want to write about because it is my blog. Initially this was going to be a B & me kind of undertaking, but I've got more time to write these days and stuff is really starting to ramp up on the Mass Effect 3 release. I think Twitter has ended up being more of his speed, anyway. The "Me" aspect of the blog is the part where what I really want to do is to write about me, me, me.

So anyway, I think I am going to work on a bit more of a balance between the two M's. More complaining, less tour guide, but overall more writing so hopefully more of both.

So one unifying theme I've found since we moved here (other than things dying) is not one that I expected: blisters. Since we arrived I have been getting horrendous blisters. Heel blisters, top-of-toe blisters, bottom-of-toe blisters, bottom-of-heel blisters, ball-of-foot blisters. Now, I am doing a lot more walking here in Montreal than I used to, but I've found that I have been getting blisters over periods of time and activities comparable to things I did in DC.

For example: today I put on some low-heeled cute dress shoes I got a few years ago and went to a mostly-a-formality interview with HR at Dawson College. I walked a block to the bus, walked a block around the corner, into a building, up some stairs, and arrived. Feet began to hurt. I was like, "Craaap...I have worn these shoes before but now they are giving me a zillion blisters." After the interview I needed to go and talk to the dude who will be my boss and I probably said something awkward because my feet hurt, I don't even know, and I started to SWEAT like nobody's business.

Luckily, across the street is a mall where I hobbled to attempt to find some sandals; the shoe store I went to had apparently gotten rid of all of its sandals for fall and I wasn't going to cram my poor throbbing feets into a boot, so I got some of those foamy flip-flops and just wore them with my suit. I was all sweaty and probably looked like a hot mess at this point, but I couldn't go home because I needed to do some banking stuff with B.

The stupidest part of this is that this isn't the first time I have done this frantic hobbly quest for shoes at this same mall. A few weeks ago I went to meet B for dinner near there and threw on some old comfy ballet flats I hadn't worn since last summer, and promptly had all of the skin abraded off of four of my toes. I hobbled into a Zeller's (it's like a crappy Target) and picked up some black flip-flops which did not match my outfit but also did not cause me to experience excruciating pain.

So I don't know why the hell I keep getting blisters but I wish it would stop. I am not at a weight that exceeds where I was the last time I was wearing those shoes, so it's not like I'm too fat for my old shoes, and the shoes are not particularly worn out, either.

What it means is that wearing close-toed shoes is going to be painful for the next couple of days, right when my parents are coming to visit and I have just started to make progress on an exercise regimen.

All in all, this has been a year of crap-ass stuff and stressful stuff that I have had no control over happening: moved to a new country, dog died, dad died, and ONE ZILLION BLISTERS. There's probably something else in there but I don't feel like thinking of it because there's no call to angry up my blood if I don't have to.

For what it's worth, though, I am sailing through with flying colors. But my feet hurt.

Good news and bad news

The good news is...well, I don't know what the good news is.

The bad news is that Nemo has to go back to the good folks at the rescue. He started manifesting some of the problems that Penelope experienced, and we're just not ready to deal with that right now. I think he'll make someone else a good pet, but he's not for us.

For once, it's not the cat's fault, either.

A new addition to our family

This is Nemo:



Nemo is a rescue greyhound.

He is very calm and well-mannered, to the point where someone asked me the other day if he was old. No, I said, he's three.

Getting Nemo has been like having a puppy with a large bladder--he's never lived inside a home or been by himself (greyhounds live in kennels when they race) so he's housebroken and hesitant to be by himself.

The first few days with him were HELLISH. Ben and I had both gotten sunburnt while visiting the rescue kennel, he didn't sleep at all that evening and cried and cried, and then the next day we were both feeling sick. We both also missed Penelope something fierce.

Since then he has calmed down and begun to sleep through the night, although Ben accurately accuses me of having "separation anxiety anxiety." I worry about him getting stressed and barking or crying while we are gone and disturbing the neighbors.

So far I have been working on "away training," where I leave for just a minute or two at a time, to teach him that yes, I am in fact coming back when I leave. Ben wanted to go across the street for breakfast this morning, and I was too worried to go out :/

He is a very sweet pup, though, and I think in the long run it's going to be worth it.

So it looks like I might have found myself a job tutoring at Dawson, a local Anglo cegep. More news will be forthcoming when I have it. Academia gets a touch of the South about it in the summer, when things get ruhl slow-like and things will get done in their own sweet time. Y'want some iced tea?

Speaking of things being Southerny, it is hot as 3-syllable Hell (hay-ell-uh) here this week. It got up to 35C/95F yesterday, setting a daily record for Montreal. Luckily today looks like it will be more in the 31C/88F range, which is much more bearable but still pretty unusual for Montreal this time of year.

Nick and Sara visited us at the beginning of July, and I felt guilty because we got hit with another heat wave, albeit slightly cooler than this one. They were hoping to come up here and get some of our gloriously temperate summers, but no luck--of course, in our defense, it was like 10 degrees F hotter in DC that weekend.

After one night of roasty-toastyness during their visit, we went out and bought an air conditioner. It's relatively small in the grand scheme of things, and while it doesn't keep the apartment super cold, it does cut down on the humidity and cool things off on days like today. Last night we ended up moving out onto the futon in the living room to be cooler, and were able to sleep well. Except for the cat playing with her crinkly ball at 4:30 am. I solved this issue by putting it under my pillow when she wasn't looking and she mellowed out. Such is cat.

Yesterday, some people from greyhound rescue came and did a home visit, which a lot of rescues (dogs especially) require before you can adopt. They want to come and make sure that you're not a crazy pet hoarder who is going to let their dog run off-leash and eat the neighborhood cats and the contents of the medicine cabinet.

I busted out with some dog-savvy lingo and they announced that we were the easiest home visit they'd ever had. She asked if the dog was going to be allowed on the couch or bed and I was all blah blah blah resource guarding and she was all like have a zillion of our dogs please. See how I let you in on a variety of secret tips and tricks in my blog? Also, rubbing alcohol is really good for getting the chrome on your bathroom faucet really extra-spotless. Try it--it's fun!

I was 17

My father passed away sometime last night.

It's funny--I've spent the past couple of years working on remembering the positive things about my childhood instead of the negative ones, but I had not thought to remember anything good about my father.

So here is something:

I don't remember when it was, but at some point, when I must have been in my teens, my father and I went to Fallingwater, about two hours away from Pittsburgh. I wonder if the only reason I even remember this is the photos that I have of it--he wore a bright pink Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap.

My father had esophageal cancer. A little over a year ago, I accompanied him to a lot of his treatments at the VA hospital in DC and Martinsburg, WV. They were able to remove the cancer, but it eventually spread into his liver and, as I said, he died last night.

I did not have much of a relationship with my father over the years.

Now that my relationship with my mother is no longer so fragmented, I can think of a vast sea of actions and moments that point to the fact that she cared very much about me and did the best she could, despite both of our defects. The best I can come up with for my father is my hazy memory of our trip to Fallingwater. I remember being surprised at how ugly the faded orange furnishings were after having baked in the sun for years and years of nobody living there.

I traveled back to the US at the end of June, in order to sell our car and visit with my father before he died. We spent maybe three hours together at a restaurant in Western Maryland. He had become...small.

Perhaps I am too practical, but it seems to me that if I was only going to be able to make one trip down to Maryland, visiting my father while he was still alive did him a whole heck of a lot more good personally than going to his funeral. This, and all of the other decisions I made concerning him in the past year and change, are now mine alone to remember and negotiate.

Kitty stories

Kitty has arrived. The day she was scheduled to come, I packed up a lot of Penelope's things into a smaller box and missed her so bad I cried.

We talked over prospective cat names for a couple of days and settled on "Ada," after Ada, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and possibly the world's first computer programmer. Here are some cute things if you're interested in reading further about her. I also considered "George" after George Sands and George Eliot, who were both awesome historical babes, or, as Ben elegantly phrased it, "misbehaving women."

Ada is slowly settling in, I think; she wanders around making meows and meeps and wants attention. She has been eating the food we bought for her--say what ye will about its exorbitant price, but the stuff we put her on means smaller and less smelly poops so I think it's worth the $$.

Sadly, the stress has made her a little sick, I think--the cat lady told us she'd been adopted out previously and returned because she got a kitty cold. What she has is basically kitty herpes, and it's like the canker sores I get in that it flares up when I'm stressed or sick. She had a few sneezes and then today has a sad goopy eye that is essentially kitty pinkeye. After chatting with the cat lady on the phone, we got some eye ointment from the pharmacy and I smeared it at least in the general vicinity of the eye. As you can imagine, Ada was not amused, but she was gracious enough to not hold it against us and immediately wanted to get pets and purr afterwards.

On Saturday, Ben and I went up to the Plateau to check out a meet-and-greet that the local greyhound rescue was holding. We are still thinking of getting another dog, and I'm considering a greyhound because they are 1) ridiculously lazy and enjoy living in apartments and 2) ridiculously healthy and can live to 12 or 14, which is insane for a big dog. Unlike a lot of other dog breeds, they still do what they were created to do, which means that there's no room for hip dysplasia. Their main disadvantage for us is that they can have a very strong prey drive, which means kitties could be in danger. We spoke a bit to the rescue people and were told that maybe 10% of greyhounds could never live with a cat, while the rest of them seem to be able to distinguish between a cat in the house and a cat outside of the house. Cat in the house is not for eating or chasing, but cats outside are apparently free game.

I still don't know what to do about getting a dog. Penelope proved to us that mutts can be just as unhealthy as purebreds, and I don't want something that's going to be a cancer factory or a refugee from a puppy mill with distemper and who knows what else. Those dogs need homes, don't get me wrong, but as I tried to explain to the cat lady when we discussed potential animals with FIV (kitty AIDS), we'd be maybe interested in a compassionate adoption further down the line--an older animal, or one with a treatable disease or disability--but right now, my heart just can't handle it.

pets & neighborhood stuff

I have had a grand total of two job interviews while I was here, both for http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwriting-related positions, and hopefully I'll hear back from some of the other places I've sent feelers. Ben continues to do well at work; the game he's working on was shown last week at the big industry trade show, and looked pretty good!

Ben and I have started looking into getting a cat and a dog, now that we are settled in and feeling more secure here in Montreal. Last weekend, we walked along Rue Sherbrooke to a local pet store who was having an adoption event. The cat people were running late, so we spent a couple of hours walking around.

Rue Sherbrooke is one of the main east-west streets in Montreal. Sherbrooke runs through Westmount and into Notre-Dame-de-Grace (NDG); a nice shopping district with a grocery store starts on the other side of the park from us. There are lots of little boutiques and coffee shops and such--Westmount is a pretty bougie neighborhood, so most of it is pretty high end. There are a couple of boulangeries --bakeries, patisseries--sandwich/deli-type shops, and even a poissonnerie--fishmonger (a poissonerie is not the same as a poisonerie, which is what I typed initially and I guess is where you go for poisons).

One thing that every neighborhood here in Montreal has is a depanneur. There are different assortments of depanneurs, but they're somewhere between a New York City boedga and a convenience store. We have one across the street from us, which we go to if, like, we are halfway through cooking something and realize we don't have any pasta/eggs/milk/bread/canned peas. If it's a staple, there's a good chance it's at the dep. And yes, we do call it "the dep."

Anyway our walk down Sherbrooke was fun because there was some sort of sidewalk festival going on, so there was lots of street food and stuff on sale and people to watch. There was even a bouncy castle/slide, and anyone who knows anything will tell you that a bouncy castle = a party. The whole day was cloudy with some small drizzles now and then, but the weather really held until maybe 4 or 5. Ben theorizes that since the winters are so harsh here, that Montrealers feel they really have to take advantage of the good weather while it lasts, which might be an explanation for why there are so many festivals and such here during the summer. It might also be because the weather isn't super hot so it's a nice place for everyone else to visit.

So finally the cat lady showed up and we looked at cats. There are a surprising number of polydactyl cats here in Montreal, which is just kind of strange. Did Earnest Hemingway come through and not tell anyone? Or is there a Quebecois author I've never heard of who had an enclave of chats up here? Who can tell.

Long story short, we're getting a cat! Her name is currently Sara but it will be changed when she arrives, as we know and are related to far too many Sara/hs for us to keep the name. Yay!

I've never had a cat that wasn't a barn cat, so I am still totally freaked out when someone tries to hand me a cat. I feel like...a 24-year-old male asked to hold a baby. Like, "What am I supposed to do with this?" You don't go around picking up barn cats; it's just a bad idea because they are working cats, not housepets. I like the idea of a cat coming and sitting on me or wanting attention, but the thought of picking one up feels disrespectful AND foolish. I am also not as used to the idea that having a cat means you have a box of poop in your house (or a box of delicious treats if you're a dog), so I am going to have to establish some new habits, as well as do some general research on good cat products.

boring update

We're having our first set of visitors come up towards the end of this week, which hopefully means that we'll be more motivated to go and do things out in Montreal. And, you know, set up our futon...

Tomorrow I have a job interview to look forward to. A couple of ladies I've met have connected me with this place, and while they don't have any actual positions available now, something might open up before the beginning of the fall semester--it's academia, so sometimes a job that is a sure thing just evaporates because of funding, and sometimes money is found in a closet and a job materializes. The goal is to go in tomorrow and make a good impression--it looks like it will be the same kinds of things I've done in face-to-face tutoring, with things like study skills and note-taking thrown in for good measure (which is fine because I was already working those things in with the kids I tutored).

I got an application out for some online tutoring last week, which involved having to edit 3 sample student papers. I took a couple days and worked on them on-and-off until they were finished and I was okay with the work I'd done. The day I needed to mail them out, my computer did some kind of system restore and ate them, so I had to redo all three in the span of about 4 or 5 hours.

It's funny how things are all relative--I was stressed about applying for this job, I was stressed about losing all of my careful work, I was stressed about re-doing them in time. About half an hour before my self-imposed deadline, I got a message from my aunt telling me that my father's health had taken a turn for the worse, and that I needed to get in touch with him. And suddenly, all of this job stuff was a piece of cake. I finished the papers up and emailed them back, and I haven't stressed about it since.

Changes

I checked the mail last night when Ben and I got back from hanging out with some friends; I got a letter from the City of Westmount. I figured, oh, it's just a reminder that I got a ticket or something, but no.

The city finally had gotten around to mailing me Penelope's dog license.

We moved to another country and left our friends behind and Ben got a new job, but our dog being gone is still the biggest upheaval of all.

This morning I woke up and my computer had done some sort of system restore that meant I lost all of the work I'd done on a few sample essays for a prospective job. As soon as I realized this, a jackhammer started right outside of my open window.

The good news is, it started raining so I guess they went away. I know better to go outside because at this rate my umbrella would turn inside-out and I'd get splashed by a car.

So anyhoo, I'm at 2/3 papers and my brain is pretty darn fried at the moment.

In more cheerful news, B and I are maybe going to play some board games this evening. We took a nice walk last weekend that I'll post about, but a friend took some nice pictures so I thought I'd wait until then.

Spring!

The weather has improved! Our last bit of snow was in early April, but spring in Montreal is coming a lot later than I'm used to. To illustrate, the tree outside our window has just gotten enough leaves to be able to block the sun from coming in. It's a maple, and the leaves are still sort of droopy and soft-looking, like when a butterfly is waiting for its wings to dry out.

Healthcare-related post

Last Thursday, I started feeling...not right. My nose was doing that thing and the back of my throat was all that way--I presume that you probably have those personal warning signs that your body sends you when you are potentially going to get sick. That's what was going on with me. So some friends were having people over for board games but I let them know I wasn't coming because I felt like I might have a cold.

Over the next two days I first lost my voice and then developed an incredibly painful sore throat. By Sunday, it hadn't gotten better, so I hauled myself up and Ben and I walked over to the local Urgent Care-type clinic in Westmount. It turns out that their doctor had called in sick, so we had to hoof it further downtown to another clinic.

We walked in and this place was totally packed and blasting a radio station playing what I presume were the best hits of the 70's, 80's, and early 90's. The line to the counter was so long that it kind of blocked off the entranceway, so the sick people coming in had to squeeze by the sick people who were already in line. It wasn't a disaster area, but it looked like a crowded non-emergency waiting room, the kind of place that if you walked into in the States you'd know you could be there upwards of 4 or 5 hours.

"Okay," I thought, "if this is terrible I have to be honest about it and tell people on the blog in the interests of semi-journalistic semi-integrity."

As you're probably aware, one thing I was interested in checking out while I was in Canada was the healthcare system. I'm in favor of single-payer healthcare, where doctors and hospitals and such do their thing and the government takes the role of the insurance company and takes on the part of the bill that they're responsible for, as well as negotiating rates and all that.

Have you ever NOT had health insurance? Do you know what that's like?

I wrote a big long bit here describing what it's like to not have health insurance, but then I erased it because a) I'm not going to convince you of anything new and b) if you ever didn't have health insurance, you probably don't want to think about what that was/is like. I'm sorry I brought it up.

Anyway, because I didn't have health insurance for a particularly desperate portion of my life, I think that the world would be a better place if people did have health insurance. I'm willing to entertain something less-than-fabulous, or something half-broken, or something with death panels; I don't care.

So here I am, sitting in this germy waiting room in some of the worst pain I can remember, and I think, "Yeah, this might end up being terrible."So we sat there and paid our $120 cash (we're not on the gov't insurance just yet so we have to use Ben's work insurance, which means getting reimbursed after the fact). Ben went across the street and got me a smoothie from a Tim Horton's. I wrote him little sad notes on the back of a pap smear pamphlet they had lying around.

To my surprise, we were really only there for maybe half an hour before my name was called. I went back, hopped up on the bench, he took my temperature, asked me a few basic questions, wrote me a prescription, and I was on my way. Took maybehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif...4 minutes?

I went back out--Ben was surprised to see me so soon!--and we got the prescription and caught a cab home because we'd already done so much running around.

In retrospect, now that I'm not deathly ill, I am okay with the experience I had at the clinic. Doctor didn't actually tell me what he thought I was sick with, he just gave me some antibiotics and got me out the door. This isn't particularly awesome healthcare, but I also didn't have to sit in the waiting room for a good 4 hours until he saw me. All in all, it got the job done and that was good enough for me.

We went home and Ben made me lasagne the way I like, with bechamel sauce. Hasn't been until today, really, that I've felt human again, which means I was out for nearly a week. Of course since Ben was taking care of me and I wasn't doing my usual around-the-house stuff, there may or may not still be a bit of evidence lying around...

On a more positive note:

It's useful to remember, I think, that no matter how screwed up my country is (possibly because of how screwed up we are), we make AWESOME art. I was feeling kind of alienated there for a second, but then I remembered that we're also responsible for Angels in America and jazz.

Here are some daffodils I arranged last weekend in NYC at my friend Rose's place.

Ex-patriotism

Today is a strange day, because of a combination of events.

In case you've been living under a rock, there has been some pretty big news coming out of the States. Most of my Twitter and Facebook friends have had things to say about this; there were things I agreed with and things I did not, but I will keep such opinions to myself as everyone else has already said everything I may or may not have wanted to say.

Mostly this has made me think of where we were as a country and where I was personally ten years ago. On one hand, we've begun to wrestle in the public arena about things like whether or not you should be able to get married to anyone you want, which I never ever thought would even happen in my lifetime. On the other hand, there's a lot about being American that I don't care for anymore--it makes it difficult to feel patriotic and proud of your country when you get accused of being un-American when you dissent. I am morally repulsed by the idea that American lives are somehow more valuable than the lives of people who happen to live somewhere else.

On Friday, my friend Louisa (I HAVE A FRIEND GUYS) and I went to see Gore Vidal speak at McGill. Gore Vidal has always been a blowhard and a bitcher, which I respect, and he seems to be one of the last people I know of who have that odd, laconic, aristocratic American accent that seems to have denoted education and class at one point. If I were to describe to you a news broadcast where William F. Buckley (another person who has this odd accent) and Gore Vidal call each other a "crypto-Nazi" and a "queer" respectively, I doubt you'd think it would sound as unhurried as this does.

Long story short, Gore Vidal's various political opinions appear to have condensed themselves into "I don't care, I'm old." It's kind of discouraging that Gore Vidal, allegedly one of the greatest living thinkers, is fed up with thinking about any kind of solutions to America's problems, and is content to let us all go rot because he is old and has given up messing around with us. Not that I am alone in this. Mr. Vidal also disregarded requests for opinions on the Quiet Revolution and the Canadian election, and refused to conjecture at all about the future of politics, the world, or most anything.

Finally, today is Election Day in Canada (whether or not Gore Vidal cares, it's still happening). We played board games with some of our usual crew last night, and the Canadians were jazzed about going to be able to vote the next day.

One of our crew was a francophone--I told her to enjoy voting and to be sure to vote for me too, and she seemed uncomfortable to tell me that she was going to vote for Giles Duceppe, who is with the Bloc Quebecois, who in turn advocate for Quebec succession. Personally, I don't have a dog in this race, and I know for a fact that the guy and his party have quite liberal politics that I can get down with. I totally took a quiz and it said I should vote Bloc Quebecois! But I am an anglophone so I suppose it made her hesitant. Then she gave me and Ben a hug which was nice because I was raised by engineers and don't know when it is okay to hug people.

So here I am: I can't vote in the Canadian elections and there's all this sociopolitical stuff going on that I still don't get and am going to offend someone about if I haven't already, there's a big patriotic ruckus in the US going on that I feel separated from not only emotionally but geographically, and Gore Vidal, a Great American thinker, now thinks all Americans can burn hell for all he cares because he's moved to Italy and is old.

So I guess this might be part of being an expatriate--disconnected from old home, disconnected from new home. Glaring example of difference between old and new? We're unsure that we can find a bar to watch election results come in with some of our interested Canadian pals.