'snow mystery to me....

****while eating a giant chocolate chip cookie*****mmmmmm******.....

We just had a HUGE snowfall. first of the year. The streets are CHAOS, and the buses are packed with overheating, grumpy people. So, armed with a warm coat, high boots, and some kickass songs on my ipod, I found myself trekking home from work yesterday, and my trek took me past a park...

... and MAN, is it ever fun to walk thru calve-height fluffy white snow!!

easily a hundred times nice than slipsliding along slushy/icy/deathtrap sidewalks.

try it. you'll liiiike it.

Cheer in the most unexpected places!!!

Ok, I'm apologizing in advance for all the christmas themed posts that will likely wind up here. I know it's not 'cool' to love christmas. But i LOVE it with a vehement passion. Soooo much about christmas makes me smile, so it's bound to trickle down to these posts.

anyways.

Last night around 11pm I got on a city bus to take me about 5 mins to my place. (cold + lazy.) What did I discover? The entire bus had been DECORATED FOR CHRISTMAS!!! (yes. im so excited about this i'm yelling.) Red and green balloons were tied to each pole, the front area around the driver was awash with gold and red, fake poinsettas and tinsel garlands. And best of all, the bus driver himself - full of Christmas cheer - was making every passenger take a piece of candy out of a basket when they boarded. And all this on top of usually finding montreal's bus drivers downright surly. not cheerful!!!

It was amazing. I dont know what at that moment could have made me happier...

... and then 30s later i realized I'd taken the bus going in the wrong direction. But i couldnt help feel that somehow fate had intervened and put me on that bus. so i could see it, and smile, and then bring it to you. and you can smile. And that's a whole lot more smiling than if I'd just taken the RIGHT bus in the first place.


holiday hugs to you all :)

sorry for the super crap picture.
I took it on my super crap phone.

Fog gets in your eyes

Fog is like magic.
It's like drinking too much, or being sleepy. It has this ability to limit your senses in an incredibly tangible way, in a way that rubs right up against your nose and sits on your skin. It takes away your ability - or desire - to compose your environment into something comprehensible, something continuous. All we can know of or prove of the world is that which we immediately experience, and in fog, the boundaries of that place become really, really close...... and it's comforting somehow, at least for a short while.

Mes Habitants (aka, loving hockey)

I love the excitement that surrounds local sport teams and events. And being a good little born-and-raised Montreal, of course this means my team of choice is the Habs (aka, the Montreal Canadians.)

I never really cared that much about hockey until two tickets to an important game (montreal vs toronto, semifinals) land in my lap for FREE a few years ago. I grabbed a friend and we went, and it was ridiculously fun!!! The game moves so quickly; the puck dashes back and forth, and at the smallest sign of a move for the net, the crowd collectively holds its breath, then moans a little when the shot misses. Or, wait, a score?! The energy alone almost lifts you out of your seat.

The whole excitement surrounding a game is amazing too. Walk around town by the arena before a game, and you'll see ALOT of excited people, alot of little kids with beaming smiles, people of all ages with hope and enthusiasm in their faces. Jocularity abound. loud conversations.

BUT. You don't actually have to SEE a game to share in this enthusiasm. This feeling extends to outside the arena. Even a game watched in a pub can extend a bit of the experience to you. And then - wearing some sign of your teams makes you a member of an little exclusive club. Ok, its huge and not exclusive at all. But it gives you a feeling of special connection to others. When I wear my Habs hat around town, I get approving nods from complete strangers.

and I like that. alot.

What the Hug?

Ok. this one is SUPER obvious.

Hugs are one of the BEST things in the world. I think I'd sooner give up sex than give up hugs. And yet, people just DON'T HUG ENOUGH! I mean, when's the last time someone gave you a hug? Today? yesterday? a few days ago, weeks ago even??!!

To quote Jemaine and Bret - "why? why? why!? why why!?"

I cant think of ANY good reason why we shouldn't be getting hugged EVERY SINGLE DAY. H1N1 isn't a good reason. go get a flu shot. Then hug the nurse who gave it to you. You'll make his/her day.

trust me.

photo from www.reflection.sg

Old friends

You know those OLD friends you have? the ones you go AGES without seeing, maybe you see them once every year. or two. or ten?

And when you see them , and it's weird for - oh - 30seconds? and then it's like you're those silly 15year olds you once were, allllll over again?

No explanations necessary, no pretext, no nothing like that. you're you, and they're them, and it's just NICE.

Yup. I'm a very, VERY lucky girl.

Love takes flight

..or is about to land, as it may seem.

The other day, while waiting for our very own houseguest to arrive at the local airport, my housemate and I saw this man. And we loved him instantly.

Who he was waiting for, with that lovely, somewhat modest, but just spectacular enough bouquest of flowers? His wife? His husband? His long lost wartime soulmate? His mail order bride? His penpal of 20years turned truelove? his daughter? his son? Anyone at all?? Our guest arrived and we left before ever finding out.

Regardless, such shows of affection, tho cliché, tho easy and "predictable", are also amazingly rare. And EVERY single time I witness one, they make my heart thaaaat much bigger, and thaaat much warmer.

xo

All the leaves are brown

I went for a walk,
on a winters day,
No, kidding, sorry...

The other day, I took my housemates dog for a stroll, which is a lovely way to walk - not to get from A to B, but to just enjoy your surroundings. Especially when said-pup is a shortlegged little thing that needs to stop and smell EVERY plant, crack in the sidewalk, and vertical surface. Ya know, it slows ya down.

Which was good. 'Cause it gave me the moment to notice, hanging heavy like dew on an autumn windsheild, that scent of crisp air + wet decaying leaves, which - despite heralding the winter - is juuuuuuust sublime.

You gotta know when to fold 'em

Poker.

I Love Poker.

At first, it was the challenge of learning the rules, the hands, the bets, the terminology (check? check what?...)

Then I experienced Bluffing. Oh what an exciting and complex element to layer on top of this oh-so-logical, mathmatical game!

Then I started to understand the importance of knowing the probability of hands, which hands to bet on and when, when to fold off the bat, what is the likelihood that OTHER players have hands they are pretending to have..

Put it all together, add some good friends (or possibly strangers), pour some beer on top (really?! cause I don't have ENOUGH trouble playing as it is?!) and you've got one hilarious, often tense, but always fun-filled night.


SO! Who wants to join a weekly game??

water

drinking it, floating in it, splashing it on your face, over your feet, running through it on your bike, feeling it tap tap tap your face in big drops, little drops, in a spray off the side of a boat, hearing it lap at the side of a canoe, wiping it off a windshield with your finger, being completely immersed in it, being blinded by slivers of light reflecting off it...

Missed Connections

i love adrian tomine too.

There is something inside of me, some incredible hopeless romantic, some miserable self-loather, some delusional loner and sadomasochist who LOVES Craigslist Missed Connections.

For the uninitiated amongst you, this is a section of Craigslist ("Local classifieds and forums - community moderated, and largely free") where people post hopeful messages intended to catch the eye of some random people they've crossed paths with but couldn't get the guts to approach. This is such a thing that it even has a wikipedia article devoted to it. Or how bout Sophie Blackall's lovely illustrated blog?

Take as an example:

"I was waiting to cross the street at pine and st.laurent, you pulled up on your red peugeot bike, grey hoodie, sweet smile and long blond disheveled hair. You liked my shoes, I was overcome by your beauty and asked if you wanted them. You laughed and rode off on your bike. I thought I saw you look back. I wish you had come back... if you had I would've lamely attempted to ask you out. maybe by some insane stroke of luck you will read this and give me another chance to embarrass myself?"

This seems the kind of thing you're not supposed to admit to reading. or checking regularly. but I do. I don't really think some perfect mate saw me on my bike and due to my excellent taste in sweathshirts and bicycles wants to run off to some countryside town hall and elope. Rather, reading some of them makes me feel a bit warm and fuzzy inside.

What gets me is the hopeful belief in the power of love and fate. Everyone wants lightning to strike, everyone wants love at first sight with some beautiful stranger on the street (and not at a bar.) Everyone wants to believe in soul-mates. No one really believes it completely, but we all have at least one strong string of hope somewhere deep down in the darker (lighter?) parts of our hearts that someone noticed us noticing them and noticed us right back. Everyone has a life that is just mundane enough that they want it transformed in an instant by some act of fate and love.

And the anonymity makes it even better; not that it could be anyone, but that is IS EVERYONE. it's the faceless every-man. OR -woman.

And then there are those people who use it very meta-. who acknowledge that it's really a forum for expressing feelings of hope, of disappointment, and treat it as such.

My recent favorites:
Everyday I go out

I ride my bike literally all the way across town in the morning to work and at night coming home. I then come home make dinner and then go for another bike ride around the plateau or even downtown if I am really bored, then I go home, watch a movie and go to bed. In the morning I check missed connections from work, and there is never, not once anything posted about me. God damn you Craig and your list.

And someone's perfectly optimistic reply:
On a bike (Universe)

At some point in the near or space-mind-boggling distant future you will be engineering your mode of transport over seas and oceans or roads of impacted concrete and asphalt. You will not know until your feet hit the hard wood floor and you lower yourself onto a seat of synthetic material (the origins of which we contemplate). Someone will have written/thought out/telepathically communicated/hit you on the head with a missed connection. Except it will not be missed. A flicker in an eye or a slight movement directed at you will be your initial sign. Keep your senses sharp!

Dinners will then cease to be a solo activity. Menus will change and expand in their rotation due to an extra mind and tastes. Bike rides will become tandem. New routes and scenery will evolve right before your very eyes. Some films will be not to your liking but this is called compromise. At least they will be a little warmer due to extra body heat.

So, yeah, damn Craig and all his missed connections. Be patient and don't be missed.

I love Missed Connections. I might go write it a missed connection... see if it replies. maybe it will love me back.

i'm easily impressed

I love it when objects leave an impression in your skin. Like when my corduroy pillowcase leaves big lines on my face. Or when the seams from my undies remain after undressing.

Or when grass, grass, gets imprinted on your legs from lying in the park.

maze'o'bagels

The scene I fell upon making a late night visit to Fairmount Bagel...

kites

or in this case, a really cool string of mini kites, being masterfully lifted into the air by father-son-duo.

comments posted on my youtube videos!

really, it hardly even matters what they are. good. bad. creepy. vague. its all good.

a whole LIST of happy things!

thank you ffffound.com, i'd like to suggest you are part of that list too.

Buick Park Avenue

My gramma has a car which my grampa (who passed many years ago) bought OH SO long ago. like, when it was NEW. Yes, it's one of those huge boats that a little old lady drives from her house to the grocery store 3 blocks away and then back. I swear the thing probably has like 20,000kms on it. I have such FOND memories of this car, and my visits to manitoba to see her.

It has red velvet seats, fake wood dash, a tape deck, and enough space to carry a large family of mennonites comfortably to saskatoon and back.

i have intense fantasies of driving this thing to vancouver and back..........

hair today, gone tommorow

freshly cut hair is one of the BEST feelings.

You walk out of the salon (or your bathroom or wherever you cut your hair) a slightly new you, having shed some of the old you, and the world feels full of possibility.... that, and you look daaaamn fiiiiiine.

when people leave things behind for the delight of others

(hmmm my progress on this blog isnt great. ah well. just gonna keep pushing forwards....)

Came across this the other day at the eaton center, jammed into a gap on the front of the photobooth by the metro entrance.

randomly running into a friend on the street

actually, while crossing the street. ..so, in the middle of an intersection. and then you stand on the median with fast moving traffic on either side, talking about amusement parks for ten minutes.

and the sun is shining. and its a hot summer day. and you probably badly needed that lovely run-in today.

It's even better if you were coincidentally thinking of them, in a rather out-of-nowhere-fashion, earlier that day.

Making Jam

cause its fun and it tastes good and it saves money and it makes me feel like I'm resurrecting some lost domestic/culinary art...

friends being good friends

..like when they do things to cheer you up when you're not well. like bring you ice cream. or send you thoughtful, supportive messages. cause love gives you strength.

Cannoli

Delicious, crispy, sweet, creamy-goodness filling, with just the right dusting of icing sugar...

thank you, Alerti-Casserta. You so very much made my day.

being awake at 5am

There is something so special about being awake and out&about at 5am. when the sky starts to turn oh-so-paler-and-paler-blue. Whether you're just getting up, or just going to bed.

It's like the whole world is there just for you. ...and maybe those two people too...

and then sometimes, you're just sad.

and that's ok.

image stolen from this gal on flickr. ...hey, at least I credit it.

jokes that make me laugh outloud.

two goldfish in a tank, one says to the other, "can you drive this thing?"

pic courtesy http://kenglye.deviantart.com/art/my-goldfish-28555549
joke courtesy tim S. (thanks for that one, dahling, i needed it!!!)

This Picture.

sorry, i know i should credit it, but i got it thru the grapevine, and thruthfully, i just dont care that much!! if anyone wants to know, ask and i will track down its source :)

Getting long distance phone calls

It puts a happy warmth in my heart to hear the voice of someone who is on the other side of the WORLD, and feel huge distances evaporate, and to remember that my second family - the one made up of friends i love love love - spans the entire big bad world. Take that, unimaginable distances.

No one nose but you and me.. shh..

It is SOOoooo much fun to catch people picking their noses when they think no one is watching. But you are. but they don't know. and they keep doing it.

My favorite place to spy on others for this kind of embarrassing activity is in a car on the highway. People do all KINDS of things in their cars cause they think no one's watching. (yunn hunn Mr., I can actually see you quite clearly in my rearview mirror....) They pick their teeth. they pick their nose and then their teeth. They animatedly sing along to whatever bit of music they've chosen for that moment, normally some musical guilty pleasure, since this is the only moment they can really indulge in it alone.

so they think...

puffy fluffy goodness

Clouds. Sometimes, when you live in the city, they just come OUT OF NOWHERE. And you are shocked at the awesome sight of them, feeling like you haven't seen them in aaaages, and maybe even forgot that they were still out there, behind the concrete buildings and telephone poles and planes and billboards and maybe even trees.

And then suddenly there they are; thin waify noncoherent clouds, shockingly white fluffy clouds, clouds that ball up into big lumpy masses that are ominously dark underneath, with gold glowing sunlit edges. And you're spellbound.

ka-poooow!

fireworks make my adult mind take a tied-up-and-gagged-backseat as my inner child takes over completely.

ooooooooo, aaaahhhhh..... *face lighting up in wonder*

basking in busking

I have a huge appreciation for people who bring glorious bits of music into the most unexpected and otherwise completely unmemorable & inconsequential moments of my life....

a minor soy miracle.

While away for a year in australia, I learned to like, then LOVE coffee. but not just coffee. Lattees, cappuccinos, mochas, macchiatos... However, ne pas de cows milk for this lactose intolerant wimp. In Oz, no problem. Every single café had soy coffees as well. Even McCafés. In montreal, not so much. Rather; hardly ever......

But today, after brunch, just when I had given up on my desire to indulge in the day's coffee, ALAS, club social had a lovely, tasty, foam-heaped-on-top soy-capp for me.

I love you Club Social. Can we be BFFs?





(oh, and also good: Chatting with badtoothed strangers about soccer.)

(and Lindt Chilli Chocolate)


photo from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cappuccino_in_Tokio.jpg

and, Lemons.

Lemons bring me no end of joy. Definately one of my favorite ten things in the WORLD.


picture courtesy my friend Sarah's AMAZING holistic nutrition Blog. This week she has a great post on making yummy Lemon Granita with sugar alternatives. F'real people, check out her blog!!

When the city feels a bit more hospitable...

I was driving my moms car up st laurent blvd yesterday afternoon, and was stopped at the light where the exit-entrance for the St Laurent metro stop is. (that's a subway stop for you non-francos) This older woman stepped off the corner from where she had been in a looong line for the Bus#55, which takes you up the steep-hill section of the road just above the metro. She approached the window of the car in front of me, then looked a bit dissapointed and started to walk towards my car.

In an instant, I did that THING that city people do, I looked her up and down in an attempt to predict whether or not she was going to ask me for money. I hate having do this, but it comes second nature after so many years of city living... She looked safe enough, and could possibly have needed help of some kind, I wasnt going to wave her off just like that.

I rolled down my window, and she asked me, in wonderful quebec french, if she could get a lift a few blocks up the steeeeeep street; the bus had never shown (quel surprise), and she was on her way to visit her sick Aunt at the hospital.

So I forcibly overcame my modern sense of paranoia, and told her to jump in. I'll admit, I had flashes in my mind of her dropping the sweet voice, pulling out a gun, pointing it at me while saying "do as i say and no one gets hurt". Insead, we had a few minutes of lovely conversation about my moms car, and her sick aunt. She hopped out a few blocks later, and that was that.

Oh delicious Pad Thai from the faubourg, how I missed you.

So much so, in fact, that I used to tell friends in Australia about how tasty you are while they were busy drooling over their 'noodle box' pad thai. bleaaagh.

ONE good thing about temporarily living at home.

So here is the thing that made me happy today (and also very frustrated and elated and angry and uncomfortable and all kinds of mixed up feelings...)

Having a conversation with my dad where we ACTUALLY bonded and connected, and I feel he knows me better now, and I think I know him a bit better too.

Back from the depths!

Well well WELL! It has been a long time. In my last post I did mean summer '08, but here we are, summer '09, and I've just returned from a year of travel around Australia! The amount of happiness in my life has expanded to epic proportions over the past year, and I hope to share it with you guys through this blog in the days..months..years to come.

Lesson #1, happiness is best when shared.

much much muuuuch love,

claire