Friday: All of my dreams of spring gardens and not so sensible footware were violently dashed by a mid-afternoon snowstorm. Tabarnak! Being that L. was also feeling a little drained we opted for our usual Friday night routine of burgers and fries at Nouveau System Hotdog Beaubien followed by some DVDs at
Club Video Beaubien. I was starting to get a little impatient in my stupid high-heeled boots as L. agonized over picking the perfect combination of films. We finally settled on an eclectic combination of French indie-horror,
Ils, Japanese coming of age comedy,
Kamikaze Girls, and old school UK thinking man's gorefest,
Hellraiser.
Since it was still rather early we opted to watch Kamikaze Girls first which L. enjoyed way more than he thought he would. I laughed myself stupid and managed to get weepy. Then it was on to Ils (Them), which was frankly a little disappointing, but still not bad considering it was obviously made for almost no money.
Saturday: The day started off with a bang as both Annie & Frank invited us out for breakfast. Being that Frank & Isabelle had to come in from the suburbs and wouldn't be around until close to noon, we opted to meet Annie & Mel at
Coco Gallo again. It's really nice having so many good places to eat around us. We had our usual server, originally from New Brunswick who remembers me because we have the same French Immersion accent.
After a quick weekly grocery trip it was back home for taxes. Weeeee. After about 4 hours of struggling, it looks like we're getting a hefty chunk of money back, so that's good. And L. only starting hyperventilating once.
Just as we were finishing up the taxes, Frank and Isabelle showed up so we could go grab the dinner and then find somewhere to watch the game. We were hoping to watch it at our place, but Isabelle's deadly cat allergy meant she could only stay inside for about half an hour at a time, so that was no good. Instead, they took us to an excellent little Italian restaurant just a couple blocks from our place called
Elios which we had been meaning to check out but just hadn't had an opportunity yet. The fresh pasta was tasty and prompt and L. and I opted to indulge in some homemade Italian style cheesecake to finish.
After dinner I headed back to the apartment to make some calls, shower and get ready to go out dancing with our friend Chris. L., Frank and Isabelle headed to
Bar Chez Serge to watch the Canadiens game and I was supposed to meet up with them later, but the bar was packed so they left after the second period. Frank and Isabelle decided to call it a night and L. watched the end of the game while we waited for Chris, who was also watching the game.
A bit around 11 PM we met up with Chris and his friends at
the Green Room, about a 10 minute walk from our house in Mile End. Being that the weather was still nice, I was marveling at how "Montreal" I've become in such a short time. I mean, look at my get-up:
I fit right in with the young and hip crowd, sort of. L. and I tried compared the venue to something in Vancouver but couldn't. First of all, the hipsters in Vancouver don't dance, at least not the ones I've met. And I can't think of a bar in Vancouver where no cover, DJs and $4 beer specials would mix. But I'll accept that I'm biased.
The music was an interesting mix of 80's Brit-pop, DEVO, Mash-Ups, 60's R&B, dance-punk and French electro. Not all of it was exceptionally danceable, but there were only a couple tunes that I really didn't enjoy. Chris and I meanwhile entertained ourselves by mocking the DJs with their twin hairdos, black-rimmed glasses and head bobbing.
Being that we're old, we called it a night around 1:30 PM and walked home.
Sunday: Despite saying that we could make breakfast at home, I woke-up craving a restaurant breakfast so we made our way towards Deli-Joe on our way to dance class. They were jam-packed so we instead headed up to
Premiere Moison in the
Marché Jean-Talon for fancy sandwiches. While it wasn't cheap ($15 for two for sandwiches, one soup and one salad), it sure was tasty and left us feeling much less gross than a greasy breakfast would have.
After lunch we hustled our way down to the Village for Salsa lessons. L. was stressing because we'd only been able to practice once last week, but I think we did okay. What was a bit of a problem was the new dance we learned in class:
Bachata. I was doing pretty good, the basic steps are rather simple. It was the hip "thrust" that was giving L. some difficulty. I did my best not to laugh and the instructors were all very good at giving us some extra attention and telling L. to relax and just enjoy himself.
After dancing we popped in to Bureaux en Gros to pick-up some stuff to organize the office. While we were there we picked-up a paper shredder, but when I got it home it didn't work. Boo.
Later in the evening I went to Chris' place for a meeting to discuss plans to possibly help put on a movie night in the near future. Sadly, by the time I got there the meeting was over, but Chris filled me in on the details. Everything is still in the very early planning stages, but it's exciting to be involved with a group of people keen to get something going.
Being that I fell asleep on the metro on the way to Chris' I opted to skip the movie and headed back home where I promptly passed out.
I recently came across this article in the NY Times about how exercising willpower in one area of your life can in the short-term, negatively affect your ability to exercise it in other parts of your life, but in the long run will improve your willpower overall. While the article specifically references financial restraint with reference to the apparent economic meltdown happening south of the border, the results certainly apply to almost anything where willpower is involved.
