Yes, I know...I totally suck at keeping up with this blog. Somewhere along the way, I've developed ADD. I know you've been waiting with baited breath until my next post. With that said, on with the show!
August 19th, 2011. We rolled in to Montreal with hopes, dreams, two cats and a boatload of uncertainty for our future.
August 19, 2013.
Just like our 1 year mark of being here, that day came and went without a second glance. It passed without a peep from either of us. We went about our daily routines without giving it another thought. I worked on my book (yes, I'm writing a novel. More on that in another post) and Bill was in Cologne, Germany for Gamescon, pimping his new game Lego Legends of Chima Online! I don't know why, but this morning it hit me. We've been here TWO years...wow!
I could attribute that we missed our "anniversary" to the fact that the novelty of living in another country wore off. I don't think about it everyday anymore. Not like I used to. When we first arrived, I had every emotion imaginable coursing throughout my body and mind. Excitement. Anxiety. Fear. You name it. I had it going on. Those emotions lie dormant. Not to be confused with extinct. For now, they're a distant memory.
Do I still like it or do I regret moving here? Those questions tend to pop up now and again. My answers are this: yes and no, respectively. I continue to meet wonderful people, forging new and lifelong friendships. Everyone I've met so far has been warm and welcoming. Haven't met a Canadian yet that I don't like. We've also made friends with those from Australia, France, Holland, India, New Zealand and other far off places in the world.
I've developed a love/hate relationship with the French language and
find myself cursing it daily! Hmm...note to self "learn how to cuss in
French." I know more French than I know Spanish so I've got that going
for me. It's a challenge and a pain in my ass but the gauntlet was
thrown down and I accepted. Win or lose, I'm not going down without a
fight.
My father always said, "A rolling stone gathers no
moss." My "stone" sat in one spot for many years. I think I've collected enough moss that I can roll around a bit. Once you hit a certain age,
bones become brittle and it's dangerous to roll anywhere. I'll do it now
while there's relatively no danger of me breaking a hip. Going through
life with too many "what ifs." won't work for me. I'm hoping this is one of many adventures I'll encounter along the way.
I do want to take this moment and talk about parking. As you may have read in one of my previous blogs, we moved last year to an area called the Plateau. Restaurant central, and parking nightmare extraordinaire, as I like to call it. Finding a parking spot here is equivalent to finding a Golden Ticket in a Wonka bar. No, scratch that. It's like finding the FIFTH Golden Ticket. I kid you not! When people see you walk toward your car, they stop and "assume the
parallel parking position", ready to pounce on your newly-vacated spot.
They sometimes make it impossible for you to get out for fear someone
may come along and "park block" them, stealing something they feel is
rightfully theirs. I can imagine a jousting competition over this and the winner gets the spot! I refuse to wrap a ribbon of any sort around either persons jousting thingy. Oh wait. That sounds too much like...never mind, and get your minds out of the gutter!
Monday thru Friday, each street has certain times you must move your car and depending on which street you park, you must move your car between certain times or suffer the wrath of the parking-ticket Nazis. They drive around in their little red, or red and white cars, slowing just enough to give you the feeling that a "drive by" is getting ready to go down, making you want to hit the deck. Whenever I
see their faces scanning the area looking for their
next victim, they remind me of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Seriously. Okay, so that may be a little dramatic, but it's close. Bill thinks I'm crazy when I don't want to drive anywhere during "busy" times (Wed-Sat nights). He doesn't get it!
Lets not forget the looks you get if you're only retrieving something from your car. Some of these people give the parking-ticket Nazis a run for their money! I'm not that bad, but when I do find an open spot, I parallel
park that bitch like a boss, not moving until my allotted time the
following week to avoid the "drive by."
After driving here for the past two years, I'm thoroughly convinced that I'm ready to take my place in the NASCAR circuit. You won't be able to miss my car. It will have a big green dollar sign on the hood as I leave those amateurs in my dust while I'm first to fly past the checkered flag in my Prius. That's right, I'll be in first place since I've learned to maneuver any given situation driving here. NASCAR? A cake walk. In the immortal words of Reese Bobby, "if you ain't first, you're last." Wonder if I qualify for Kickstarter to help fund this? FYI...I do not own a Prius. It just sounded good at the time. I'm an "in the moment" type of gal.
This summer has been kind of weird. We had snow flurries in May. It
didn't really get hot until late June and we've had a few days where we
needed a light jacket during the day. San Francisco or LA, anyone? I
know there may be some of you dealing with the unbearable heat right now. I don't envy
your 100+ temps lately. That's one of the things I don't miss about
being in Texas. The summer heat. The day we left Austin for Montreal, it
was 112. Nope, don't miss that one bit.
I love the summers we've had so far. Moving from a hot climate, I appreciate the days I can walk outside and curse the weather gods above for making it hot and humid. That, I'm used to. The cold, not so much. Do I like the winters? Well, lets put it this way...if we have another winter like this past one, I may have a "sudden issue in the States" that will need my immediate attention for five months or so. Yep, this past winter about did me in. Saying that,
let's talk winter and Montreal.
Some have argued the amount of snowfall we had one day was the most they had in the past 70 years. Really? I don't know who is right or wrong. I can only come to my own conclusion and that is: there was a crap ton of snow and it was a mess! It wasn't so much the amount of snow we had. No...that would be too
simple an answer for my reasons of possibly wanting to abandon ship this next
winter. The reason would be temperature.
Yep. Temperatures. Frigid? These temperatures would make
the most frigid person look like a whore. There were times I wanted crumble to the ground and let Mother Nature take her course. I would succumb to the wintery elements as she sealed me in a frozen tomb for eternity, suffering the same fate as the
Woolly Mammoth. I wonder if
someone would stumble upon my ice coffin a few thousand years from now? Cue the dramatic musical
score here. Yes, at times, I can put a dramatic spin on things (should
have pursued acting like I wanted). Some of you have been lucky over the years to witness my Oscar-worthy performances. I
have my speech already written, although the number of people I need
to thank keeps growing. I definitely would get "the music" and "mic cut." That reminds me, I'm ready for my close up. See? ADD strikes again!
However, this was not scripted. There were days it was so brutally cold, when I walked outside I
felt immediate pain throughout my whole face. I couldn't cry because my
tear ducts froze instantly. Even if I could, I'm sure the pain I would
endure having a doctor remove the icicles of my pity party, salty tears, would have made
national news or at least a youtube video. I've heard myths
about your eyes freezing but didn't know what anyone meant until I
experienced it myself. The first winter, I thought they had frozen. Nope.
That little gem was saved for this past winter. I rallied what was left of my brain cells that didn't freeze and
had to control my breathing. If not, I would have passed out. Did I
mention frozen teeth? No? It's REAL! At least for me it was. Guess I'm not doing a good
job of selling you all on Montreal, huh? So why are we still living
here? Because we like it. To top this off: Bill walked to work. Every. Single. Day.
Dressing in layers is something I've never had to do before moving here. It takes some getting used to. I have a versatile but very cute scarf and hat because if there's the slightest chance I could be encased in a block of ice for a while, at least when they thaw me out, they'll nod in agreement as they admire my fashion sense. So, I intricately weave my beautiful warm scarf around my neck and face to block old man winter's bitter kisses and bravely step out into the elements. Since breathing is essential to life and we only have two choices in the matter, I pick the lesser of the two evils. It physically hurt to breath air through my nose so my only other option was my mouth. To do this, it must be open. That creates a whole other issue; drool. Sound disgusting? Yep, it is. When it first happened, I thought my scarf was wet from snow then realized it wasn't snowing. Nope. It was in fact, me. Gross, I know. I actually Googled this and did research. I won't go into it, so if you're sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation of this knowledge and want to know the hows and whys, I suggest you do your own research. Oh, and that scarf? I had the urge to toss it in the nearest garbage can but alas, it was needed it for my trek back home. Drool and all.
Anyway, it's nearing the end of August and I'm sitting here blogging about winter and notice the tree outside my window and see the leaves are already changing. No longer a vibrant green, they're now a paler shade of green and a lot of them are turning yellow. Limes and lemons come to mind. Pretty soon they will all be yellow and begin to fall, yet another reminder that Autumn is rounding the corner with Winter bringing up the rear. Wait! What? I know those of you in Texas are probably singing "cry me a river" seeing how your temps lately are well into the 100's. That I don't miss. However, this is my river and I'll cry if I want to. See what I did there?
Do I wish I lived someplace the winters and summers were more agreeable with my wants? Sure, but that's not where this journey has taken me.
Not yet anyway. Like all things in life, change is inevitable and sometimes we
can control the outcome, other times we can't. The one thing we will
always be able to do is control how we react to those changes.
Lance! It's called a lance, not a jousting thingy! See, my mind is all
over the place. It's better I remembered it now rather than yelling it
out loud around my husband. You get the idea.
So to sum up: These past two years have flown by in a flash. Parking's a bitch. I'm now a contender for NASCAR. It's freaking cold in the winter and gorgeous in the summer. I still like it here, but I'm allowed to wish for warmer winters. I'm allowed to cry in a pit of despair when I walk outside and can no longer feel my face, fingers or toes. I know it's temporary until I can duck inside someplace and thaw out. That is, unless Mother Nature gets to me first and I do end up like the Woolly Mammoth: entombed in ice until scientists discover me. I wonder if they would use my DNA and clone me? Some of you may be screaming, "NO!" right about now. I may have to agree with you. Who knows what the world will be like? Woolly Mammoths may actually be roaming around again. For all we know, they would be running the place!
Next blog: Interesting things we've seen lying in the snow.
