ange & lauren’s big mtl adventure

we have been so terribly, terribly neglectful of this blog. so here i am to update.

its friday. its less-friday than usual because i have to work this weekend, but friday none the less. back in toronto, i used to get rather excited for fridays to roll around because it meant i could don jeans to work for “casual fridays”. in montreal, every day is casual friday because we have an office of 3 (on a good day) so there is no one to impress. no client/vendor visits. casual fridays here would involve pyjamas and slippers, i suspect. don’t tempt me.

it has been a good month since we spoke last. some highlights include:

-i went to chicago for a work trip but it was my first visit to that city and i got to meet up with a family friend and her new baby/see a bit of chicago. nice place!
-i went to toronto and calgary for work too. tiring and fun.
-i successfully pulled off chana masala and made ange’s tummy very happy
-i also finally figured out why the cookies that i was making for ange were little hard nuggets of hate: i was using half the prescribed butter. apparently one stick is only half a cup. now that this has been corrected, they have turned out to be melt-in-your-mouth goodness. (Side anecdote: Ange tried to make the cookies on Saturday while I was still in Cowtown, and texted me to report that the dough was impossible to work with. turns out she didn’t read the butter package either. oops! they still tasted good, even if the texture [like my previous versions] was that of biscotti left on the back porch in January for 4 days prior to consumption)

but it hasn’t all been about me!
-Vivek came to visit and play a show in the village. it was great to have him couch surf for a couple of days.
-Nadia and Melissa also came to visit and we, par for the course, laughed more in one night than most laugh in 4 months.
-Ange completed another paper and got an A on her first paper!
-We saw Final Fantasy and I fell asleep during his set. I kid you not. Wonder how one gets tested for narcolepsy.

what else? we are truckin along.. I can’t believe its november 9th. where have the last 2 months gone? its almost christmas. I told Ange that as soon as the clock struck November 1st I was going to start decorating but I realise now that plan is a bit silly. I’ll leave it until November 15th, then its ho-ho-ho all over the plateau. look out world, tinsel is coming!

So, one great thing about living with your partner is having another mouth to sample your culinary adventures.

for example, veggie shepherd’s pie has been a big hit (and we will be eating it for weeks to come), whereas the zucchini casserole, not so much, thanks to uncooked rice.

this week we are going to try 2 new recipes:
-spaghetti with”farmhouse sauce”
-polenta pizza

I must say, I am the most excited for the polenta pizza for two reasons: 1. its fun and different to have a polenta crust and 2. i have never ever made polenta. finger’s crossed!

I am going to tackle apple crumble this weekend, and let it be a pre-cursor to apple pie. and ange and I are, in the process, going to gain thirty-five pounds each, i suspect. but OMG it will be worth it!

25 days!! twenty five mother f’in days since we moved here. amazing. in a week and a half we will have our homecoming (aka Thanksgiving trip) and get caught up with the family and some friends left behind.

this week has started off more with a cough than a roar, thanks to a bug i managed to pick up last week and have since transmitted to ange (note to ange: sorry!) . in fact, i am coughing as we speak. its miserable. we are misery embodied, and there is no one to take pity on us. except perhaps half the street that can see into our apartment when the drapes are open.

the neat thing about this city is that everything is narrower. we all live in closer proximity. the wide boulevards of Toronto? nothing near. this is a city of front terraces and cobblestones. i won’t even start on what the implications are for the automobiled set, i will simply focus on how it can make all of our meals, conversations, movie-watchin and cookin time the whole neighbourhood’s business. while that is kinda creepy from a privacy point of view, it somehow makes me feel safer. I know it makes ange worry that potential thieves will be granted easy access to the smokin hot television, but thats why we lock the triple paned sliding door.

exhibit a: last week i was puttering around in the office when i heard a very loud, very close crash. my first thought? hope someone isn’t trying to steal my car! so i padded out onto the balcony, forgetting completely i was decked out in powder pink patterned pajama bottoms, to investigate further. so did half the neighbourhood. people filled all terraces, front porches and the sidewalks for a 2 block radius. turned out someone smashed the front door window of the apartment building next door. it was just so neat to see the congregation of people, looking out to see what happened, and ostensibly lookin’ out for the neighbourhood.

petty criminals, beware!

in other news, ange has been working hard at school. she turned in her first paper sunday evening. i have NOT been working hard at school; instead i am filling up my days with work, some travel, shopping for produce and watching way too many documentaries, for better or for worse. for example, last night – i tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep, so i finally got up and went to doze in front of the boob tube for awhile. instead of dozing i got sucked in by this doc on host clubs in osaka japan. 2 hours later….. the lesson learned would be to tune in exclusively to… ummm… the french real estate network next time.

in addition to a couple montreal gems i already knew about (first and foremost, chu chai!) we’ve made a few other excellent discoveries that put toronto (and probably most of north america) to shame!

1. real vegetarian poutine (if you ignore the possible presence of rennet in cheese curds) at ma’am bulduc
2. jean talon farmer’s market is huge! the produce is cheap and plentiful! i’d say the prices are at least half of what they are at provigo (loblaws to the ontarians) and everything is fresher, more natural looking, and also plain old tastier! i am so thrilled that montreal manages to support three thriving farmer’s markets. it makes me feel so godo1
3. fair trade coffee from santropol, i was already familiar with their delicious sandwiches but we found out that you can buy fair trade coffee to brew at home for a price better than what we ever found in toronto!
4. the midnight kitchen is a student service that serves completely vegan lunches for a $2 donation. it is truly a complete meal, with protein, grains, veggies and/or fruits, and i hear includes dessert! i haven’t been able to make it yet but i’m looking forward to checking it out.
5. an organic fruit/veggie box on campus, once it gets too cold/busy/snowy for us to frequent jean talon market i think we’ll subscribe. we hear there may be even cheaper fair trade coffee available there so i need to check that out, too!

in other news, lauren and i had our official celebration of our two year anniversary last night and it included fancy vegan thai food at chu chai followed by games of trouble, checker, and backgammon! i also danced lauren around out apartment and sang phranc songs to her (yes, i was slightly tipsy). originally we had intended to explore some mile end bars but we were both feeling like a cozy night in. it was totally worth it!

now, i need to get to work!

we are now an rss feed on lj. go to http://syndicated.livejournal.com/mtl_adventure/profile to add us to you lj friends-list. new posts should then show up on your lj friends list when we update.

i’ve been mia but its for good reason. my laptop was just finally (mere moments ago) connected wirelessly. it’s about time. in the end it just took patience but now all three of our computers are online (my laptop, lauren’s work laptop, and her desktop).

earlier today i rediscovered a great little brunch/lunch place about 4 minutes from our place (which will make lauren happy since i’m a little hard to please when it comes to brunch and she LOVES brunch). today i also suffered a slight electric shock from hooking up our dryer to the large 220v electric plug and then our landlord came (nicest man, ever) to fix us up right. as soon as we buy laundry detergent, we’ll be ready to do some laundry. i’m extremely excited about that.

it’s hard to imagine we’ve only been here 7 days (we arrived around 2pm last saturday to an almost fully moved in apartment, thanks to my dad and brother) because we/i’ve been busy between unpacking, spending time on campus, starting my RA job, etc.

other highlights/lowlights:
+ our friend denise helping us move in, unpack boxes, and hang curtains!
+ enjoying some veggie poutine twice in the week we’ve been here.
- submitting a timesheet for 5 hours of work at a ridiculously low hourly rate (my hourly rate hasn’t been this low since the last time i was in university over three years ago!)
- both my classes being cancelled during the first week. kind of sucks.
+ lauren picking me up and dropping me off at school a couple times week.
+ always having someone at home to talk about my day with. and having someone to make me lunches in the morning. (lauren is the sandwich master!).
+ the awesome cross-breeze in our apartment.

as you can see, the positives outweigh the negatives.

several times since we’ve moved here, as lauren and i have been wandering around the neighbourhood, we’ve said to each other: “i still can’t believe we LIVE here.” really, i can’t imagine a better neighbourhood to live in. i love and miss toronto, but i am thrilled to be able to live here for at least a couple of years (and who knows what will happen after that).

5 days in to the new city. I can’t believe it has been almost a week already, and at the same time it feels like a month. part vacation, part whirlwind, and all adventure. the move thus far has been marked by tiny victories:

-safe/successful roadtrip
-unpacking all (almost) the boxes
-discovering veggie poutine
-purchasing (toute en francais) a laveuse and secheuse
-finding a great epicerie with good, holistic stuff at great prices, less than 5 minutes on foot away
-parallel parking like a champ
-finding my new office without any delay or more importantly without driving OFF Pont Champlain
-uncovering the WORST possible route in the world to drop ange off at school

so dinner is simmering on the stove and ange is at school attending a training session so she can facilitate talks on homophobia, anti-racism and sexual assault to first years. other than making it to work this morning, i’ve spent the day solo, tidying, organizing and a bit of lazing. i am looking forward to picking her up at 10 and hearing all about her day.

so far, so fucking good.

i’m in the midst of packing up my apartment. i have no idea how i have so much stuff. i am only two thirds done and it seems like i have a TON of boxes. upon counting it seems i have 12 boxes. i have no grounds for comparison since the last time i moved i didn’t have a lot of “stuff” but i sure am glad that lauren and i have the biggest apartment sized truck booked. it’s amazing i have so much stuff in my somewhat small apartment.

lauren is in montreal this week for work. how’s that for funny? she doesn’t find it that funny since she had to do all her packing over the last couple weeks and finish the rest on thursday. my goal is to finish up the vast majority of my packing by wednesday afternoon so that when she gets back, i’ll be free to help her and help decrease her stress.

the best part of lauren being in montreal is that she picked up the keys and got to take a look at the apartment. the best news ever was that after lauren checked it out she said, “it’s even BIGGER than i remember it.” she also said there was more kitchen and bathroom storage than she remembered, too. she did say that we’ll definitely need to paint, as the last tenants lived there for 6 years PLUS the colours are quite bright and not quite to our tastes…. so that would be the only downside to the whole “bigger than i remembered” thing… it will probably take longer to paint. whoops. at least our landlord promised to pay for the paint.

i just finished packing up and sorting through 4.5 years worth of stuff that i have accumulated here at the office. i am feeling a touch of the blues but wonder why i don’t feel worse.

good bye, old office. hello, new future.

Edit: they didn’t even get me a farewell card. CLASSY.