for sale!

And with a heavy heart, I put her on the market... I signed all papers today with the real estate agent...

all good things...

Today under a beautiful Montréal rainbow dancing across from a sun that was struggling through the rain clouds, my car of nearly 7 years was towed away... I might not see her again...

État Sauvage

an amazing photo exhibit by National Geographic and the Smithsonian Museum of Washington. It featured Vincent Munier and past Nature's Best Competition winners.

I love Vincent Munier's pictures, speciall the ones he and his dad made in Vosages, France; they are hauntingly beautiful twilight (or dawn) landscapes that made me cry the first time I saw them. But his pictures here were not that stellar - I guess there are only so many snowy owl pictures that I can look at - I am not a big bird fan, but I must admit, snowy owls are cute. Of course his muskox pictures were really great and there was also a little documentary on his muskox photographing project/journey.

The photos that won Nature's Best though were something - they were really really cute... a lot from Botswana and the African safari places... There were some amazing moments captured, but of course, I put here, my favorite species on earth - the cuddly little polar bears... I like tigers too!

bee mint

and I meant to say bee on my mint plant - my menthe de pomme, to be specific, which smells way better than any other menthe I've had. On my balcony...

Élixir

from the moment factory, a multimedia exhibition of lights, music and water fountains in Quartier des Spectacles... Amazing...

Raspberries

Raspberry season again... yep and gonna make that amazing Framboise Soufle I did last year... This time I didn't go crazy, well at least not as crazy as last time, as I did go crazy with the strawberries this year. These perfect raspberries, not too sour, from Ville de Saint-Eustache, a little north of Montreal.

LGBT Parade

It's that time of the year again... And faithfully I made it again this year... Not only because I get to see really cute, very kind-looking guys (every girl's dream, of course, only to be shattered in the knowledge that they are gay), but also because in general this parade alone makes me that much more open minded than the last year. It is not just seeing Stéphane Dion and Gilles Duceppe, but it's also about seeing the Jewish float, the Palestinian float, the bisexual parents and mostly seeing the spectators - a lot of straight couples do come to see this parade - I think I mentioned the East Asian couple among the 2008 parade spectators. I think it is really nice to see all those open minded people around me. Actually it stimulates my mind so I don't just go home and "se tourner les pouces" while watching mont Saint-Hilaire!!!

And then we went to Chipotle @ Jalapeno, where the food was nice and super cheap as long as you don't order the Mexican wine, La Cetto (Sirah 2007 from Valle De Guadalupe) which was really good, but a lot expensive. We had chicken tamales and chicken empanadas both which were really good. We also had a tortilla soup which I wasn't too hot on - I did like the broth and the crunchy tortillas, but the pork bits, I could have done without.

Speaking of really cute very kind guys being every girls' dream, I couldn't help but think 'isn't that every human being's dream, really?' and then I proceeded to think that gay men are actually the luckiest, as they get to pick from a pool of such people (trust me, such people are far and few between in the straight world, and that applies to straight boys and well girls, well I don't think they are very nice - don't forget I went to an all girls' school). This all reminded me of one of my all time favourite authors David Sedaris; he talks about his boyfriend Hugh, in his 'Dress your family in corduroy and denim':

On a summer evening in Paris, Hugh and I went to see 'The End of the Affair', a Neil Jordan adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. I had trouble keeping my eyes open because I was tired and not completely engaged, Hugh had trouble keeping his eyes open because they were essentially swollen shut: he sobbed from beginning to end, and by the time we left the theater, he was completely dehydrated, I asked if he always cried during comedies, and he accused me of being grossly insensitive, a charge I'm trying to plea-bargain down to simply obnoxious.

The picture ended at about ten and afterward we went for coffee at a little place across the street from the Luxembourg Gardens, I was ready to wipe the movie out of my mind but Hugh was still under its spell. He looked as though his life had not only passed him by but paused along the way to spit in his face. Our coffee arrived, and as he blew his nose into a napkin, I encouraged him to look on the bright side. "Listen", I said, we maybe don't live in wartime London but in terms of the occasional bomb scare, Paris is a pretty close second. We both love bacon and country music, what more could you possibly want?"

What more could he want? It was an incredibly stupid question and when he failed to answer, I was reminded of just how lucky I truly am. Movie characters might chase each other through the fog or race down the stairs of burning buildings, but that's for beginners. Real love amounts to withholding the truth even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings. I wanted to say something to this effect, but my hand puppets were back home in their drawers. Instead, I pulled my chair a few inches close, and we sat silently at our little table on the square, looking for all the world like two people in love.

- David Sedaris, in Dress your family in corduroy and denim.

See I told you - even when they are insensitive they are still so poignant!

Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue

So, I am that person who will try and never venture into the suburbs, and if I do, I roll up my windows and lie low, I don't want all the hill billies after me... The city is where my heart is, but I think I will enjoy living in totally rural, the likes of Îles-de-la-Madeleine or Nunavut, but suburbs to me is that limbo, stuck in between, people afraid to live, people afraid to die, people just afraid of everything...

So when I make up my mind to go into a suburb for a farmers' market, well... as I later learnt, that's a mistake. So I have been following this foodie's blog lately and I thought she was good, and she had some 'what I can find in the farmers' market of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue that I can't find in Marche Jean Talon' and then I read somewhere they are having a garlic festival this Saturday... So, off I go, with a reluctant friend in tow... and what did we find? Well... we... found... nothing... nope, not even the garlic fest! Ok, so the people were not ethnophobic like suburbanites are in general; they were in fact super nice and the tiny market of like 10 stalls was very helpful and friendly too. But I am used to Marche Jean Talon (I'll make a post of it one of these days before summer ends) and sometimes feel a little discontent even at Marche Atwater, which already has like 20 big vendors. So I was not impressed.

But we did comb the city and found this cool little resto for breakfast - Herbs (142 Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue) which was quite eclectic. They advertise themselves as 1980's San Fran cuisine, which I didn't know until just now as I looked them up, what more can you say about hippie? The teeny weeny kitchen was where the mama cooked and the nice teenage son and daughter served in the 10 table wood-floored patio in the back on the shores of Lac Saint-Louis. San Fran alright! We had antipasto sandwiches on soft fresh bread with an amazing pasta side with a nice vinaigrette and cracked pepper (I just love the bite of cracked pepper) and a black bean burrito also equally impressive with its grilled cheese top.

And then we went to this lock marina and watched some buffed men and women cross the locks in their shi shi boats. There were a couple boats that were ridiculously big, and every boat, sans a few, had what you expect boaters to look like - cocky red necks showing off their almost artificially toned bodies. I really really didn't like watching them, but was curious about the locks. Locks always fascinate me; I just can not wrap my head around the idea that some metal gates can hold such a lot of water in place like that - heck I have a hard time blocking the water in my sink when I want to do the dishes. But I couldn't quite figure out the purpose of these locks, as the water seemed the same level on both sides of the gate, always.

Anyway, we managed to get home before we became delirious... and I rushed to marche Jean Talon, just to get over the shock...

Moral of the story - do not go to Ste-Anne-de-Bellavue, ever... if you don't heed my advice and wind up there anyway, seek refuge at Herbs, immediately!!

Café Ceramic

It is this part cafe part cermaic place that you can go into, pick your own unpainted ceramic plate, mug, figurine, whatever, and paint it however you like to. There are these basic guidelines you can follow, and some stencils if you want and also some advanced guidelines for the artsy in you.

My gift to the recently graduated friend. That we did it on Friday the thirteenth, another story...

While we were there, I also got myself this cutest frog-salt-pig to put my amazing sel de mer du Atlantique in. Yes, there really is a difference in taste between sea salt and your Morton iodized salt. The frog turned out to be quite nice... I am sooo very proud of myself... now maybe I can kiss him at night and he will turn into a prince charming!

Nanook Of the North

So I talked in person to Gabriel Thibaudeau (of Metropolis fame, from by blog entry on that, for the uncultured amongst you *wink*)!!!

My fascination with the Innuit people and the first nation people in general continue. They screened Nanook of the North, a 1922 film by Robert J. Flaherty, documenting the life of Inuk Nanook and his family. For all you film nerds, it is considered the first ever feature length documentary. As a silent movie then, it has to be accompanied by a soundtrack, preferrably live. And like Metropolis, it was Gabriel Thibaudeau and an 8 piece orchestra, with two Innuit throat singers. The synchronization was not as perfect as in Metropolis, but the whole thing was a little shaky when one of the Iroquois throat singers showed up late, due to traffic!!!!

So when they killed a big seal in the starving winter months, and then they all started devouring it, raw, I thought, 'hmmm... can I do that if I go and live there with them?' after some back and forth I decided yes I can, of course I'll get sick a couple times, but yes, I can... it is like sushi... ok sushi with blood dripping... but I do love sushi so... But I figured, what I won't be able to do is, go stay in the igloo during a heavy snow storm and leave them huskies, them huskies that trasported us all around outside the igloo, with snow blowing in their faces, howling... No, I will probably not be able to do that.... And I will want to take them in, and everyone will look at me like I was some snobbish city person, which maybe I am...

At the end of the movie, this hippie walks to me and starts conversation about my photos and all, he says he knows the organizer and may he present me to him.... yeah right hippie... but it turned out he did know the organizer, I tell you those hippies... so I met some First Nation people, and I kept asking everyone where they were from and they were at most 300-500miles away from Montreal, not one from Nunavut..... after sometime I restrained myself from throwing myself at these people and begging them to take me to live there with them for like 3-6 months and see polar bears....

So through this hippie then I got to meet Gabriel Thibaudeau. Ok so it wasn't like MJ walking the crowds, even though for me it was like that - so he was pretty approachable. And when I met him, I didn't know what to say or ask - I just managed to tell him that I also saw Metropolis - he was impressed and he went on to tell me about how Metropolis was a hard project for him, as it was 2.5hrs and all... Anyway, it was really a cool experience - I can only feel bad about them suburbanites who don't get to experience all this richness....

Indian

Well... I am going to start writing about resto's I go to, just cos these names escape my memory otherwise. Now don't get me wrong, lots of bloggers out there keep dedicated food blogs, resto blogs etc with minute details of what they had and ambiance and all... I am not there... If this ever gets to that stage, I might consider moving this away into a different blog, just to keep my intense personal rantings out...

We were at Maison Indian Curry House, 996, rue Jean-Talon O coin Brinam, H3N 1S8, apparently the best Indian resto in Montreal. On a rainy Thursday expect to wait in line for about 15 min.s to be seated in the 25-30 seater. Small cramped restaurants, usually offer the best ethnic food... I must say the waitress was nice - I mean not above average, but I expected care-less from my experience at 'good crampy ethnic restos'. Ok it really is not crampy - but if you are in for a dress up dinner with plenty of legroom, well this ain't the place to be.

We had Masala Dosa Masoor Hot (that famous crispy Indian crepe with curried potatoes stuffed and a Thali (an assortment of curries in a little silver dish) with lamb curry and Naan and rice, and for appetizer Chat Papri (ever since one of my Indian friends introduced me to this back in Minneapolis, I have always looked for this North Indian saalad with bits of crispy pastry, channa, cilantro, sweet tamarind sauce and mint sauce). The Dosa was very very good, although the masoor is not recommended - too hot for my hardy Sri Lankan palatte even; the Thali and chat papri was very good too, but I have had better. The coconut chutney accompanying my dosa was a little too watery, but the sambaar and other sauces were good.

The two of us were seated at a 4-person table, and the waitress asked if we minded two other people sitting with us, of course we didn't. They turned out to be two Indian guys who made for pleasant conversation, with such characteristic South-Asian-man traits!! But they claimed they come here couple times a week and it is in their mind the best Indian resto in town - so I guess we didn't miss. "How do you like Montreal?" they asked these OMG-I-Love-Montreal us, this Brazilian-Japanese girl and this Sri Lankan me. "oh do you speak French?" "she does very well, but me, not so well" "oh of course if you speak French it's nice, otherwise you feel excluded" and I thought "but did you assholes try to seek out someone outside your very Indian circle?" but I was in a super happy mood, one of those moods when all your analities (I know it's not a word) seem not so important, so asked it in a more polite language; of course they hadn't and they were not going to anytime soon!!! There are people like Jacob Tierney who tried and were excluded, but people like these two Indians actually dampen the effect of issues like Tierney's.

Sort of reminded me of my hotel de glace episode that I wrote about earlier this year. When I started teaching in Minnesota, one of my mentors said "Students are like dogs, if you fear them they will sense it and bite". I think it is true for people in general.

Super cheap $23 with tip for two!!

Introverts

Ok... so don't freak out about the image... like all very red, blurry images in this blog, this too comes from my phone...

So... did I ever get to recount that I slept with a stranger, who was also a girl? And before our adult minds wonder into that beyond innocence (I use the term very loosely), I meant to say I slept in the same room with a stranger who was a girl, and we slept on two separate beds! there!

On my way to Sri Lanka this time I was stranded in NYC, for 24 freaking hours. This whole episode later earned me a $300 voucher from AA. But (isn't there always a but), that night itself was like Murphy decided to come a knocking on my door. So when I missed my flight close to midnight all counters were closed... when they finally re-opened the next day at 4am I had found another girl, Quebecois, who also happened to be going to SL via Doha... AA gave us each one night's hotel stay... but when we showed up at the hotel at 5am, the receptionist goes "well you have one night's board, you have to check out by 11am.". This other girl, in a moment of extreme genius, that I would not have thought of for the love of my life said "well I will use my voucher for one night and get a double room so you can stay with me; then at 11, you can use yours and do the same". Of course I said yes... and I must admit, I was prepared to share a bed, so to get two beds was a luxury to me!! And so we rested well and embarked on our new flight the next day...

My mom always says, "everything happens for a reason" and everytime we roll our eyes... But every time things do happen for a reason, I think of my mother's words of wisdom... If I had to go back, I would miss that flight again, and be screwed all over again by AA... She is a cool person to know... I mean I don't know *any* North American or European... no wait I don't know any non-Sri Lankan, with no ties to Sri Lanka, who has gone to Sri Lanka for volunteer work. I know a few North Americans who go to South and Central America... but really going to South Asia is a different challenge, harder at many levels. I know a couple people who went to South East Asia for volunteer work for the Cambodian war, but they did so when they were older and they did so with a whole bunch of other people from their country... This girl was 23 and she went alone!!

Back in Sri Lanka, she and I hung out, I introduced her to my brother and his girlfriend. She was there for an internship (but with no pay), but I thought it'd be nice for her to know a few locals; she already stayed with a local, who was once her classmate, but he was leaving the country soon.

We met for beer today at Vice Versa. We both had Clé des Champs from le Brasseurs et Frères (highly recommended beer blanche, if you are into that German wheat beer btw). But really the point of this post is not to tell you of the beer... and sorry for the long prelude, but it was necessary...

At some point the overall cheery she said "it was a little hard in Sri Lanka; I would go to my apartment after work and have nothing to do... I would just sit alone by myself"... I immediately apologized for my introvert brother and his girlfriend. She protested profusely - no one wants to be patronized. But so she would not think I was patronizing her, which I really wasn't, I recounted a party that I went to here, comprising entirely of francophones... and out of about 20 people, exactly four people made an effort to include me by talking to me, and they spoke mostly French. Later as I lamented the situation, I was told that the others didn't speak to me because they were shy as their English wasn't good, and lately I have decided this was in fact the main reason I was left out; after all Quebecois can be a little over sensitive to their English language capabilities and I guess like everywhere in the world it's been beaten into them that if they have an accent it is not good English, no matter how perfect the grammar might be. But on the other hand the 4 people who tried to include me, did talk to me in French mostly. But like I said at that time, "maybe they were shy to speak to me... but what they didn't realize was how much more shy I was that night".

Calling on all introverts: if your thought process permits you, please think about the one odd fish amongst you and speak to them. They'd be happy that you did, and maybe, just maybe so will you. In the very off case they turn out to be a bitch or an asshole, you still got nothing to lose - you walk away, and never set eyes on them ever again... Does it really matter what some bitch out there whose path you can very well keep out of, thinks about you? No! And no it also is not worth it, to punish the majority who clearly aren't like that... in my opinion!! :)

Divers/Cité 2010

Divers/Cité, the gay festival of Montreal, is not just about condom stands and two studs dressed in tight underwear next to a bed with the slogan 'jump in bed with pump'... it is also about music and art and just plain having fun.

But the drag queens from Cabaret Mado, I recognised all of them (is it disturbing that I am aquainted with drag queens on a first name basis? *wink* - ok I don't know their first names, but I recognized them alright!), were standing next to the adult video store with a hunk for a DJ!!! Oh why oh why oh why are all the lookers gay?

The bumble bees were running upto random passers by and hugging them and all. This one guy, another hunk, topless, stopped, with his boy friend. One bee ran upto him, unbuttoned the hunk's shorts, unzipped his fly, and made a disappointed face, put his hand inside, jerked off the hunk a few times, and zipped him up with a satisfied look. Oh yeah now he was alright, even I could tell from 20ft away!! :) The hunk and his boyfriend walked away, the boyfriend wasn't too happy obviously, but he did not throw a fit, not atleast right there!

And I wondered, what would happen if some random person walked up to my boyfriend and jerked him off? I like to think I am open-minded enough to let it go as a joke... But I am not sure reality will be that!

The next day one of my less than open-minded friends were going on a racist rampage on the Japanese people... oh he knew these for facts he said, one of his friends lived there for a couple months and she told him all these!!!! I had to tell them this jerk-off story and I said, had I been a tourist seen this would I had imagined that Montreal is one of those cities that people get jerked off by bumble bee drag queens in public? And I reminded him, for the more than 2yrs I lived in Montreal, it the only time I saw that, and it would be a little unfair for a tourist to assume that this is standard practice in Montreal. Reminds me of something I once wrote to one of my stereo-typing but well traveled acquaintances:

The problem with a lot of people today is that they have traveled the world as tourists and then they think they know a country, just because they were tourists there for one month.

Metropolis

Metropolis at Place Des Arts's Wilfred Pelletier theatre, part of the Fantasia 2010 Film Festival... the original silent sci-fi of 1927, with never before seen footage that was discovered in Buenos Aires... The movie itself was so so, but still refreshing to see non-beat-up-hollywood-present style. It was fun to see all the exaggerated facial expressions that was necessary at that time of silent movies.

But what really moved me was Montreal's very own Gabriel Thibaudeau and his 13 piece ensemble. He was just such a genius conductor, apart from using regular conductor moves he also used a whole bunch of other normal human reactions to provoke intensity and emotion of the music; I particularly liked the time, when the striking workers went to attack the heart machine, Thibaudeau put his two hands with outstretched fingers parallel and next to his ears and vibrated them in the air as if in fear and his ensemble responded with eerie music that built in intensity and climaxed with the city flooding. Amazing... it was the first time I saw live music in an orchestra pit, to a silent movie and it sort of gave me an appreciation for the synchronization of the two, live - you can not but help think, ok he's gonna miss this one, he is, he is....

My friend raised the very valid question as to if the movie questioned the validity of unionization and striking in general... Did it? May be...

Sometimes when I go to movies, I cry because the movie itself moved me. Sometimes though it is because I wanted to let it out for something else, but just could not... and yet other times it is just a combination of both...

But way back where I come from
We never mean to bother
We don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people
And at night we walk in to our houses and burn!
- Dar Williams in Iowa

bistro la cervoise

Bistro La Cervoise, 3976, Ontario est, Montréal

We were going to the Free Concert in Parks series by Orchestra Symphonic du Montreal (OSM) at Parc Olympique and before, we walked on Promenade Ontario and stumbled upon this cool bistro. Very nice ambiance and tasty off-the-beaten-path food. We had bison ribs (Côte levée de sanglier) and some duck crepe (I forgot exactly the name). It was very good. But the ambiance was stellar - red brick lined walls, eclectic orange and yellow decor, lights that I wanted to steal for my apartment and super friendly staff - I even got a coffee for free. They also have some artisanal beer, eventhough we didn't get to try any... I was sleep deprived from last night and didn't want to fall asleep at the concert.

And also, I must mention a word or two about this neighborhood, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, HoMa. Apart from having a cool name (oh look they put the Native American name before the French name - I have of course written about the great Paul Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, 'founder' of Montreal, whose statue stands tall in the Old Port in front of the Bassilique Notre Dame, with a smaller unnamed-because-they-really-don't-matter-not-now-not-then Iroquois soldier squatting at his feet, right?). So what was I saying now...? right this HoMa neighborhood.

The first I specifically heard about this neighborhood was this one time a friend and I were walking and he told me about the poverty and crime in this hood and when a hobo approached us with a long, sad story - my friend had the patience to listen and afterwards even remarked how perfect and eloquent his French was, "but" he said "these people scare me; I know they are my own people, but they do scare me". Yes of course hobos scare people, so do gays, so do blacks, so do Sri Lankans... poor poor you... But, I have mentioned my inability to to identify with the word "fear"? It comes from my mom - oh and I am not in denial that, this, will someday come to bite me, but I must admit, I have made so many fun discoveries, thanks to this trait.

In fact I have felt very comfortable in this HoMa hood, the unpretentious working class French (ok, that's my romanticism... they are really not poor as they used to be during the era of Michel Tremblay's books) actually comfort me. Every hood in Montreal has its slogan for me - Blvd St Laurent for the shi shi, St Denis for the bling, Plateu for the not-so-hip-anymore-from-tourists'-abuse, Mile-End for the bohemian, Bernard when you want to eat a thin-crust-pizza with arugula, cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella and feel infinitely superior to the mere mortals who are dining on a steak on St Denis, Vieux Port for the touristy, and HoMa, when you feel like the materialistic world is sucking you into a lifeless consumerism, to remind you that people are still super nice, and there exists some people who will still stop to take off their gloves and offer them to you as you rub your frozen fingers, that if you really want, you can still be down to earth.

Seeing all the blue fleur-de-lise my friend commented on how very French and hence separatists these people probably are and looked at me as if I would take my bazooka out. Seperation, I have lately come to realize, is not my problem; exclusion is. He went on to say how the waitress's English was really not good, he did have to translate quite a bit; but I hardly made the conclusion that communication was hard, myself. The secret, the waitress smiled, a lot, genuinely...

I know I have quoted this before, but...

As a photographer I have learned that women really do hold up half the sky; that languge isn’t always necessary, but touch usually is; that all people are not alike, but they do mostly have the same hopes and fears; that judging others does great harm but listening to them enriches; that it is impossible to hate a group of people once you get to know one of them as an individual.
- Annie Griffiths Belt, photographer National Geographic

ice cream man

look at this cutesy little icecram man on his bike... well there were two of them on the road in front of my home, leading into the highway, so yes the mighty cars are all lead footed on this stretch and who has time for some quaint little ice cream men right? So some asshole decided he'll honk, cos of course these guys were not going at brealk-neck speeds... Fortunately such impatients are far and few between, in this fair city!

Just Pour Rire

aka Just for Laughs 2010...

What can I say... Some nights in summer I am torn between going to this free concert or that free concert... how can you not love this city... (ironically a year ago the Just Pour Rire 2009 made me think along the same lines). But this time it was even more amazing with the Place de Festival all brand new and ready to host all the free festivals of Montreal. It truly did add to the ambiance. We walked around... couldn't do the sudoku this time, I did it every year.



Look at these beautiful angels and their shadow on the UQAM building...













































And then there was a human canon... yep that tiny red speck making a parabola from one picture to another? that's him... I have worked human canon ball problems countless times in college physics, but it's really the first time I've seen it...

House Warming Party 2

I have missed for too long, hanging out into the wee hours of the night with these guys. Sure we go out, but going to someone's apartment is so much more fun. This from the second edition of the house warming party that made me feel small. Tonight, again, I was the little star, a feat I have found hard to live without lately (hey, but I try... and if I try hard enough usually I succeed).

We all had such a great time, the clean freak, the allergic girl, the tired girl and everyone else. The next day would have been better if we hadn't let the French guy mix the cocktails... but we did, and we paid for that the next day... I was walking home from the party, and I thought I was walking just fine... but some random biker passed by, said "you can make it home, you can make it"... mmmheh...

And look at these 4, so cute... all of them trying to whip up a melody out of the keyboard... awww... At one point one of them said "we should form a band"... Now, the music I don't know, but I will surely go to their concerts, just for the cute factor...

Strawberries

Went crazy and bought a whole lot of strawberries, so made a whole 700ml bottle of crème de fraises, froze some, made polenta, made lots of chocolate-strawberry crèpes, ate them fresh and made a little photo session out of it too...

These from where Félix-Leclerc wrote most of his songs, Île d'Orleans.

Life...

is not bad... not bad at all...

So was at an obligatory house warming party... one of the few conversations with the largely ignored me went like this -

my name is marianne, what's yours?

I am ...

omg... do you have a shorter version? can i call you ...

no... and no, i don't have a short version of my name... and mine is shorter than marianne

in actuality, i do have several short forms of my names that my friends call me and I love... but it is a pet peeve of mine that people think my name is long...

the saturday gives rise to a largely depressed sunday... i try several things, they help... a bit... but then I finally decide to go for a run... and as I run, someone calls out my name... it turned out it was this guy who I met once two years ago, at the skating rink near my home, who taught me to skate...

so there it was - life's ironies laid bare... some people hear your name and say 'omg it's too long'; others remember your name two years after just one 3hr encounter...

And just like that I felt so much better

two socks two colors.

So you can't see it here, but this girl was actually wearing two different colors of socks, not like pink and blue so it would be punk, more like blue and green and they were not dark colors that would have made it hard to notice. But because the rest of her was dressed in a stylish (as in 16yr old stylish) way, i think she passed... from the UdeM metro...

pretentious double rainbows

from metro snowdon, after an evening of high pretense and a rain that fell hard, as if to wash away my shame.... But really it wasn't bad at all... As I would hear at the end of this week, "they look like they'll bite, but they're harmless really"... :D No, they were quite nice...

huh?

give minister Bachand 5c for his private health system of Islam?

Did Bachand say something against Islam? He's the finance minister of QC.

Élisapie Isaac

another wonderful night of the Montreal Jazz fest - tonight, Élisapie Isaac's concert... in Inuktitut, French and English... in tribute to my fascination with the Inuktitut and their land...

beautiful tributes to Richard Desjardins and Leonard Cohen. Moi Elsie - amazing!! Towards the very end she donned her sunglasses, together with the others on stage and sang, Chiquitita, out of all.

You really don't want to accept that you like ABBA, but you can not help but feel all your sorrows washed away like that... Back at home I youtubed a whole bunch of their songs and re-read about them. Winner Takes it All, detailing their personal lives, but such a beautiful (and true) song... Fernando, for those times you feel that the reasons for your existence is beyond some petty romance...

I was so afraid Fernando
We were so young and none of us were prepared to die
And I am not ashamed to say
The roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry


And since many years I haven't seen a rifle in your hand
Can you hear the drums Fernando?
Do you still recall the frightful night we crossed the Rio Grande?
I can see it in your eyes
How proud you were to fight for freedom of this land.

I wanna see the polar bears!!!!

Light...

is a wave and a particle...

Look at this beautiful diffraction showing the kids behind the bars of the railings of my condo... Reminded me of all the diffraction grating experiments I did back in college... I looooved light experiments...

Kids waiting for their school bus... Kids who know not of racial barriers - the value in being brought up in the city instead of the god damn suburbs...

Quebec Strawberries

Quebec strawberries - the best strawberries I have had... smaller and tastier than the Californian ones - see how they shine even when they are out of focus in the second pic... You can tell which ones are the Californian and which ones are ours right?

yum yummmm...

Portugese

Restaurant Casa Maison Minhota 3959 Boulevard Saint Laurent Montréal, QC H2W1Y4

In Montreal's Portugese neighborhood - a little shi shi, but makes for a nice date, with nice music, candle light and tables tucked in cozy corners... We had sardines and ... (I forgot the other...) Now I loooove sardines, and coming from an island, having grown up with fish I think that statement carries a lot of weight. The sardines were grilled and came with a garden salad that I could have done without, and boiled-with-herbs potatoes. Yum yum sardines... The waiter was mildly funny and very helpful with my numerous questions. We even learnt of a new fish store - San Miguel on Rachel and St Urbain. I'll have to check it out to see how it compares with La Mer on Rene Levesque.

Montreal in Toronto

Montreal Jazz fest given some press in Toronto...

Niagara Falls

I came here first in 2001 from the US side, ironically in June also... This is the apparently more beautiful, but surely more touristy, Canadian side...

Today I stood in front of this waterfall that made me whisper in respect (I know it sounds so kitsch to say that about the touristy Niagara Falls, but that's how I felt then...) the first time I saw it, a much mature woman, with a lighter air about relationships in general - enjoy it while you still love him and move out when you don't anymore... My heart is too big to be tied to just one man... ok, I really don't have a heart... but I like to say it like that... :D

Love is why I came here in the first place; love is now the reason I must go.
- John Denver

We discussed the physics of rainbows... and how we would not see the rainbow from the Canadian side in the morning as the sun is rising from the other side of the falls...

Riverbend Vineyard

ok so not as romantic as wine country Italy... but still...

On the way to Niagara Falls, in Ontario...

shee shee

351m high... 360 revolving restaurant...

Ok, so I am not the one to eat in the most expensive restaurants in town, that is the job of my French friend... In fact I think small holes of restaurants serve better food, at least in my experience most of the time...

But as we climbed CN tower the boys asked the ticket counter woman if we might be able to have dinner at the restaurant... they were told 'no'... I said 'oh well let's just go upto the restaurant and ask - maybe there are cancellations' and there we marched in, in our shorts, in our flip flops, totally in with the hippy tourist look... the maître d' took a long and painful look at us, conferred with some others and said 'ok... let me explain to you how this works... each one of you *has* to order at least one main dish' - yeah of course it didn't look from the way we were dressed, that we might not order just one main dish and share it four ways (in fact I really am not sure we wouldn't have done this if we weren't given all that prep talk)!!!! So we all individually spent quite a bit... twice or more of our per-diem, still we were not buying even the medium expensive dishes... But it was worth every bit of it... the restaurant was revolving... whoa!!!!! I was not aware of this going in... As we were waiting to be seated, I said 'look it is revolving...' and we were all soo sooo happy... :)

My French friend who wasn't there as he was out with his girlfriend celebrating his birthday, was not happy the next day we went here without him... We didn't do it on purpose, we just stumbled upon this... But in retrospect, I am glad he wasn't there... if he was we would have spent twice as much for some fancy wine, that tasted all the same to us... and some aperitif, and some cognac to finish off...

I love North America... if you can pay for it, you can enjoy it... you don't have to dress to kill... you might be given a long painful look, but you will get the green light at the end...

Brazilian

Senzala, 177, ave. Bernard O corner Esplanade, H2T 2K3

We were dead of heat stroke when we went in here, having complete a trip the Jardin Botanique.

The ambiance was super - almost like one of those Spanish terraces in Viky Crsitina Barcelona... well almost... :) And the food was great too. We had Bobo de camarao (shrimps and manioc with coco milk) or the Feijoada (beef, pork and sausage stewed with black beans, garlic and spices). Well actually they did not have shrimp that day so I had to opt for the vegetarian, which was still pretty good as I looove yucca (or manioc). Yum yum...

wealth gap

I love this vista of Kandy - poor slummish houses extending to government buildings, extending to rich mansions on the hill - Sri Lanka in a nutshell...

land of rice...

of many different kinds....

one of them in the Kandy market... the other on our way from Polonnaruwa, by the road side...

Universal Health Care

Sri Lanka has this - which means everyone gets treated (even if you are a foreigner, I saw a couple actually) and you even get basic medicine for free (!!!!!!) but there are looooong lines... But both my parents are teachers and Kandy is small enough that they know quite a few people... so we get to cut lines... Now, before you scream scandal, my teacher parents also got paid crap all their lives, so.... Imagine my surprise as I pulled out my wallet to pay for the pain killers and my brother said "what are you doing?"... it was free... I guess I had forgotten... or had never had to deal with this... Oh, don't now get me wrong, I was a sick kid, but I guess my parents took care of it all...

This was at the Peradeniya teaching hospital, where I went to remove my birth mark on my back... In summer when I wear tank tops and it is visible, my friends would say, "why don't you get it removed"... and I would ignore them... but this time my Mom said this... you know something is really ugly, when your Mom says so...

The other photo is from the boiling/disinfecting room for surgical apparatus... You might think it is primitive, but it really is very clean...

It was my first ever surgery in life... it would leave a scar that after 3 months is still very visible...

Children's Park

My dad used to take us here when we were kids... It was nice to go back to revive some memories... Of course it was now infested with lovers... But actually now that I think of it, this might not be the Children's park; this might be just the Wales Park (for a long time I used to think it was Wase Park... and that really doesn't sound good in Sinhalese - it sounds like the word for prostitute, so is a swear word - I personally don't think prostitution is bad, for the record!!)....

Anyway, for the nth time an entrance official questioned my nationality (they charge more from foreigners; which makes sense... even in North America non-residents have to pay more for tuition, yes?)... I showed her my stained finger from voting...

drummer

even presidential award wining drummers sometimes drop their stick... to which one of my disgruntled-with-SL-politics facebook friend commented, 'so why can't the president himself miss his step?"

Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic of Lord Buddha - Kandy, Sri Lanka

My GodMother

also my favourite aunt (which is not a feat so hard to achieve, I don't quite like my other aunts too much)... the woman who, when I was little took out this amazingly beautiful dress out and asked her own younger daughter "what do you think? shall we give it to her - she will return it to you once she outgrows it"... I didn't think of it much at that time, but as a grown up well aware of the "I-me-and-myself" mantra of the world that we call ours, I look back in amazement at this wonderful act of selflessness...

the woman who, as I made non-traditional changes to my life and began to live on my own, understood that such lifestyles are also so full of wonder... My parents didn't throw a fit at my divorce, my dad even wrote me saying "I am very proud of you for being able to make such a decision out of the norm", and my mom was very nice in her own way too... but up until this time I visited them, I never felt that my mom really ever came to peace with it... Long time before that this my aunt said "you are loving it living by your own... I can hear the freedom in your voice"...

For a woman, who lived all her married life under my uncle with control issues (I don't think he ever beat her, but I wouldn't put up with 1% of the crap that he gives her) she is amazingly open-minded... and progressive... Progressive... a trait I think many Sri Lankans lack... really lack...