Urban Wanderer

Awake in Shiodome

In theory this blog covers Montreal, but I seem to better at writing my sporadic posts when I am somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand miles away. It may be because when we travel with the Giraffe there is enforced hotel downtime for such things as naps and 7:30 bedtime and when I travel for work there is no Giraffe. It's probably a good time to mention that the sporadic nature of posting is likely to get worse as there is some big news...

Child #2 is on the way - tentatively named the Cashew (that was the size of the foetus when I decided on the name). We are excited and once again I appreciate the fact that pregnancy is not always fun. K has had nausea since 4 weeks (and she is now approaching 19 weeks pregnant). And the first time round, there's the advantage that there's no other child to focus on but this time we have the Giraffe and so I have more respect for how well she's coping. This time, I'm not finding out the gender before birth but K has already done so. If you want to know, ask her.

Since New York (my last posting) I have been to Phoenix, Houston, Calgary, and for the first time in my life to Tokyo. I have been here since Wednesday afternoon (it's now Friday lunchtime) and I leave in a few hours. Thanks to meetings, I haven't seen much but I'll share a few pictures. I have had some good Japanese food and been reminded that while I can manage Europe without much jetlag, Asia can be really tough.

As to Montreal, well it's the year for a mayoral election so we'll see what that brings. Winter has been bearable so far - snow is way down on last year's almost record level but January was cold and I was exposed to -28C for the first time in my life. Once again I was impressed with how everyone just gets on with life (though we do all talk about how cold it is). February has been milder with freeze-thaw cycles and the early return of numerous and deep potholes. To show how much cold weather gets to you, I prefer days of -5C and nights of -15C (23F and 4F respectively) to days of 2C and nights of -5C. It's drier and crisper at those temperatures and cold damp weather feels much worse.

Enough on weather - the Giraffe is doing well. He's now 28 months old and definitely quite a character - talking so much, repeating much of what we say and being a 2 year old at various points in the day. Of course, just when you get so frsutrated with your child, he does something so sweet that you forget all that, although one aspect of teenage life that I wouldn't mind showing up soon is the tendency to get up late. Even though your child waking you at 5:30 is better than any alarm clock, it's still not good.

Beautiful colors in Parc Lafontaine

  We have had a beautiful fall until recently and the park has shown another face in this season.

Where now?

So, I am getting worse at this and I even have an Ipod Touch to make updates more easily. My latest story is that I wanted to wait until the post below would unequivocally appear to be true and and I think we are at that point. I am pretty certain that the vice presidential nominee for the Republican party has been a significant reason in the change of support levels for the two parties. It doesn’t compare to the economic crisis that has exploded since early September but the lack of judgment and the cynicism of Sarah Palin’s selection is now clear to far more of the voting population. It has created great opportunities for Tina Fey and she has done a great job capitalizing on them. Sadly, I find her impersonation of Palin a more palatable character than Palin herself.

But other realities intrude – for those who don’t pay attention to less exciting politics; we had a federal election here in Canada. It started and concluded in the 7 weeks since my last post which makes for a refreshing contrast to the semi-permanent campaign in the US. And nothing much changed – Stephen Harper’s still prime minister in a minority Conservative government and Quebec

is the reason that it’s still a minority. The tone-deaf choice of making arts cuts (and pretty minor ones at that) weeks before an election was called had a result that most could have predicted. This province does need federal arts subsidies more than the rest of Canada because the market for francophone productions is much smaller. After an administration where Harper had shown he had a good understanding of necessary actions and symbolism to recognize Quebec’s uniqueness, this move allowed the Bloc Quebecois to argue, somewhat fairly, that the Conservatives could not be trusted to protect Quebec’s interests. We’ll see what happens next – I think we are fortunate to be living in a country that is in a relatively good position with respect to the current global economic crisis. Before the election, Harper was unwilling to admit that  Canada faced significant economic risks, but he’s now willing to admit a recession is possible – I’d sat highly likely is a better guess.

Summer in Montreal

Now that I am spending far more days at home*, I can reflect more on Montreal in the summer. We have had the second best football competition in the world and as the North American city with the most diverse recent European immigration mix, you can't go too far wrong during football events.Spain's win didn't lead to the excitement that would have followed a French, Italian or Greek win but it still provided some signs of excitement and the 21 days certainly allowed a few more flags to appear on cars. The Olympics are interesting but they don't seem to have much effect on this city.

As a parent, much of the joy of summer is in parks. We are fortunate because we live next to one of the best although the second half of July and first half of August were not exactly warm and sunny so a few afternoons saw no visit for the Giraffe or a hasty retreat in the rain. But this past weekend was delightful. I spent Saturday morning in the playground with a Giraffe in a wonderful mood. Sunshine and the laughter of my child make almost everything else in the world seem unimportant. And the father-son bonding time gave K the chance to cook up a storm (tomato soup, tomato sauce, some peeled garlic ad a few other items from our morning Jean-Talon bounty). And then yesterday, we made two trips to the playground. The picture above is from the patageoire - but the Giraffe no longer goes there (it's a paddling pool in English) because all he wants to do is run around the edge. So we go to the playground and the Giraffe enjoys the sand and the swings and (assuming K or I will follow him) trips down the slides. It's so much fun to be out in this weather with a child having this much fun and seeing all the other children playing in the pool or in the playground. And we haven't even made to the gay village's summer pedestrian mall yet.

* Subject to the whims of my job

Parc Maisonneuve, a bike rack and the Giraffe

The first picture of him on the blog - May 17, 07:30, Parc Maisonneuve

And now we're off to England

Two more

Items I forgot (Facebook is for those with short attention spans)

1) Snow Freedom Day for our front 'garden' was April 23 - thanks to the warm weather mentioned earlier. The largest snow piles around the city are still there but they are shrinking rapidly

2) This will be an LTH Forum GNR weekend in Chicago - so yummy is the order of the days ahead

Spring - Update 3

Before chilly weather returns next week, I thought I could make all of you who live elsewhere jealous by pointing out that this will be the 10th day in a row with sunny weather and daytime temperatures between 18C and 25C. 

And the Habs won a game last night without provoking rioting in the streets - it's better if la ville est hockey and la ville est tranquille and heureux.

Finally, Giraffe update - having spent last week saying lots of new words, this week he has discovered two tricks to make life more fun for K and I - shaking his head to indicate no (even if he means yes) and pointing at everything and saying that, knowing that we'll tell him what it is. The latter habit was cute for the first couple of days but... And last week he started daycare two days a week, which has not been the easiest transition for either him or us - lots of tears (some of them crocodile it seems) and stress, but he seems to be getting used to it and they do have lots more toys than we have at home.

Spring - the second instalment

Tonight has to start with a quick... Go Habs Go (and as I write it's 2-1).

Spring has arrived - and Montreal is such a great place at this time of year. There is certainly still snow on the ground (see below for tonight's state of our front yard) but the sun was out on Sunday and it was a balmy 7C and the streets of the Plateau were filled with people out walking and enjoying the end of the winter. The sidewalk cafe areas on Rue St. Denis were already set up and unlike many places, the population here was willing to sit outside enjoying a drink even though it was still chilly. And the better weather means the Giraffe is enjoying the chance to walk outside - Easter Sunday saw his first trip to the top of Mont Royal and he learned about walking (and of course slipping) on snow and ice. He also managed to flirt with plenty of undergraduates - thankfully he has no idea how cute girls think he is - we can save that trouble for a few years. Combined with the rapid increase in his vocabulary (as of this week, buses, which are probably his favorite object, have gone from being aaaaaahs to busss - and if you know me, you'll know how proud I am)

Spring in YUL

Well, it is spring, but March 21 dawned in Montreal with a temperature of -10C at 8:00 this morning and the promise of 5 nights of lows between -12 and -17 to follow...

And when we got back from our trip after missing two more snowstorms - this was what the front of our condo looked like...

February

Well, I suppose that it should be titled January as that was the month that passed with no posts. Having failed to predict the results of the Iowa caucuses I did bow out of political projections for a while, though I should have bet on Rudy not winning Florida..

We did get our absentee ballots for the Illinois primary, and both K and I mailed them in ten days before the primary - and I thought it might be worth getting them registered so we could ensure that nothing untoward happened to them (we did live in Cook County, IL after all). And they made it to Chicago in time for a lopsided Democratic primary  (there's not much chance that the endorsed candidate of RM Daley fails to do well in Chicago and when that candidate happens to be a US Senator for Illinois, well...).  Quite obviously, it's been an interesting primary season - watching from outside

The biggest change of the last six weeks has been with the Giraffe. Then he was a crawling powerhouse. Now he's walking everywhere and having a lot of fun chasing and being chased. He went to a gym class last Monday at Centre Marcel de la Sabloniere and it was so much fun for him and for me. He's also beginning to pick up a ot of words - some are unintentionally funny. At the gym class, the second half featured balls - which he calls a bolll, with the longest l in any word I know.

And we have been remarkably good at staying home so we can enjoy this snowy, snowy winter. We have managed to go for 6 weeks without family air travel (we did have a day trip to Burlington, Vermont for our necessary butter and cheese run - and a return through the smallest border crossing we have seen - US Route 11/Quebec 223 at Rouses Point, NY. The best part was getting to the Canadian border and having a sign at the immigration window asking us to wait until an officer came - and of course, we did).

The next update will be from the US - we are off tomorrow morning for 9 days split between Phoenix, San Antonio and Chicago, and the Giraffe will add 2 more states to his current list of 6 visited, with some airport time in California, and a true visit to the Lone Star State. A bientot.