French Slang... Tuesday? : Hockey Edition

In this episode, which is dedicated to the Habs, we go over some classic hockey terminology.



Also, for the record we had nothing to do with the riot last night. People are stupid.

Weekend Round Up: Movies, Gardening, Bloodsports

Friday: By the time Friday rolled around I was dead dog tired. Never did recover from our whirlwind trip to the Saguenay and I trapped in a bad habits of going into work late and leaving late. After work I walked down to Mile End to buy cosmetics at the organic grocery store we found a couple of weeks earlier. Called L. at home and he met me there so we could find a place to eat together. On the way to the Polish restaurant/general store L. had spotted on his way to meet me we ran into an old friend of my sister's. I told her that my sis would be visiting me in June and she gave me her number so they could hook-up.

At the Polish place we got the platter for two, which consisted of two kinds of perogies, cabbage rolls, Polish sausage, goulash, potato dumplings & something called "hunter's stew". It all had a wonderful homemade taste and was all together delicious and extremely filling. Actually, a little too filling for me, if truth be told. That said, I would gladly go back for their chicken perogies any day.

After dinner we went back to the house so L. could change as we decided that at least he should go to the party we'd been invited to by Mark & Andrea. I was just too tired. L. walked me to the video store so I could grab some DVDs I knew he wouldn't want to watch and he continued on to the Metro. I settled on an eclectic triple bill of Primer, Paprika and The Sea Hawk.

After thoroughly bending my brain with the first too films, I was still up watching ol' Errol Flinn when L. came home around 2 AM. Turns out the couple with the two cats who were on the flight from Vancouver with us were at the party. Small world.

Saturday: Since the weather was still good we decided to focus to getting stuff together for our garden since L.'s dad would be arriving soon to help us with it and we hadn't even started demolishing the faux deck yet.

After a surprisingly tasty breakfast at a new place on Parc in Mile End, we opted to pop in to Rona to start amassing supplies. We got a crowbar to start the demo, as well as planters and lots of dirt. I also grabbed a bunch of seeds and a little rake and a trowel to start working the soil.

When we got home, I determined that we didn't have enough soil and we also needed some rocks for drainage so we ventured out again to Home Depot to pick up the rest of what we needed. L. and I both put out our backs carrying home big heavy bags of dirt and rocks. I spent the rest of the afternoon building my Martha style tiered planter (thanks for the tip, Bean!) and cleaning the garbage and weeds out of our front "yard". L. meanwhile took charge of cleaning the inside of the house in anticipation of our hockey watching guests.

I was anticipating an easy Habs victory, meaning that they could move on to the next round of the playoffs. But no. They let an early lead go as we all howled and wailed at the television, deeply disturbing poor K.C. I think he was just upset we hadn't gotten him a little Canadiens jersey yet.

After the game Andrea had to make an appearance at a birthday party and I convinced everyone once else to follow me to the creepy sports bar near our place to watch the Georges St-Pierre/Matt Sera UFC match. Yeah, that's right, UFC. I had recently discovered Georges St-Pierre on RDS late one Friday night about a month ago. Actually, the fight I saw was the titled bought he had lost to Matt Sera where St-Pierre had been strongly favoured, but had gotten his ass handed to him in violent and mildly disturbing fashion. Hearing that a rematch was on the horizon and knowing that it was going to be held in St-Pierre's hometown of Montreal I was very interested in seeing the fight, but after the Canadiens' shocking loss, it was imperative. I had to see someone from Montreal win something that night!

We quickly found a spot amongst our fellow depressed Canadiens fans and settled in for the fight. There were four matches before the main event and we quickly determined that we could guess the winner from their entrance theme. Dude who entered to the Verve Pipe did not do well. Our boy St-Pierre came out to a French Rap song, so we knew he'd do well.

There were a number of Canadians fighting, including St-Pierre. The first fight involved a kid from Toronto named Mark Bocek who lost, but he stayed in all three rounds despite crying blood through two of them, so he did okay. However, this show of true Canadian grit augmented our disappointment at Kaleb Starnes of Surrey's performance, dancing around so his opponent, Nate Quarry, couldn't even take a swing. My other faves (incidentally they also won their respective fights) were Mancurian Michael Bisping and Rich Franklin.

Finally it was time for the main event. Everyone was channeling their hockey frustrations towards Matt Sera. Although he comes from NY, to us he represented Boston. And we howled with blood lust as Georges St-Pierre charged into the octagon and pummeled Sera like he should have the first time. While Alain was hoping they would go at least three rounds, it was called near the end of the second round, St-Pierre winning on a TKO.

Sadly, Andrea arrived just as the match finished, so she missed out on our vicarious vengence. Alain and MC had to go home, but Mark and Andrea followed us back home to watch a movie. Being that Andrea needed some serious cheering up we pulled out the Showgirls box set again, although this time we abstained from the drinking game. However, we did play a quick round of Pin the Pasties on Elizabeth Berkley just for fun.

At about 3:30 AM, Mark and Andrea said their farewells and L. and I crawled into bed.

Sunday: Annie called at 10:30 AM to see if we were still up for breakfast before salsa dancing. Being that neither of us could move, we opted to skip both, knowing that skipping a second week of dancing lessons essentially meant we were dropping out of the class. But we promised instead to join up the next classic ballroom class offered at the same studio in May.

After lying in bed as long as we could we moved to the couch and watch Right At Your Door, a surprisingly effective low-budget apocalyptic flick we'd missed at last year's Fantasia. While the ending was a little too Twilight Zone for my liking, it was still quite well done and I totally recommend checking it out, especially if you have a crush on Rory Cochran like I do.

After the movie we decided to get dressed and located some cash, cheap food and more DVDs. We ended up at Le Roi Du Smoked Meat in St-Hubert plaza where we ate our meal in the company of an Italian bridal shower upstairs. Luckily they had Mulberry Street, another one we missed at Fantasia which L. has been obsessed with, at the video store. I also got to pick a film and for some reason opted for Richard Kelly's epic mess, Southland Tales.

After enduring Southland Tales, where about every three minutes L. and I would look at each other and say "Uh, what?" we opted to at least make a real dinner to make up for our complete lack of motivation in every other aspect of our day. Then it was on to Mulberry Street, which did not disappoint. If you like old school survivalist horror, see this movie. I highly, highly recommend it.

Sadly our viewing of the film was interrupted by a mini-infestation of some sort of horrible multi-legged bug I had never seen before. They came one by one, but there were three of them. Each dispatched in turn by L.'s boot and quickly disposed of so we knew it wasn't just the same one. Even K.C. was scared of these things, backing away as is skited across the floor. Somehow, despite all this we managed to get to bed a decent hour so that we could start the week in better shape than the last one.

Weekend Round Up: My Saguenay Adventure

Friday: Went into work super early so that I could leave at 4:00 PM without dipping into my vacation time, which was hard because I was starting to come down with a sinus cold. Spent the day starring at my monitor in a fog, but still managed to get something done. At exactly 4 PM, I met L., Annie & Mel in the parking lot and we started our trip north.

It took about an hour to get off the island, and if we had waited even half an hour later it would have taken three times that long. Mel managed not to get into any road rage incidents with anyone, which was good and I prayed to St. Christopher as I do anytime I get into a car with someone in Quebec. Not that I've converted or anything, it's just that scary.

After a quick supper at a St-Hubert Express in Trois Rivieres it was back onto the road. Sadly it was too dark for me to enjoy the view on the treacherous Parc, and it had started snowing, but the trip was pretty uneventful. We got to Annie's parents' (L.'s taunt Denise and oncle Evans) place around 10:30 PM and we hung out in the kitchen talking and looking at Annie's sister Jasmine's pictures of South American beetles.

At around midnight we bid our farewells and Evans gave us a lift to L.'s cousin Valerie's charming little trailer home where we would be spending the night as Valerie was actually in Montreal for the weekend at a dance conference. Again, Saguenay hospitality was offered in spades and L. noted that a boy cousin probably wouldn't have thought to leave out towels for us.

Saturday: After a restful night we called L.'s step-dad Yves who was also in town for L.'s cousin Dave's anniversary memorial (the real reason for our trip) who picked us up so we could all have breakfast together.

Being that it was nearly noon, finding a place for breakfast was a bit of a struggle, but we did manage to find somewhere that was still serving. There was some minor drama regarding the coffee and I thoroughly confused the waitress by asking for black tea (I got Earl Grey and an apology).

After breakfast we toured around the Saguenay at bit on our way to the fromagerie Boivin (cheese factory?).





The Saguenay is a very interesting and beautiful city, that is actually three cities merged together: Chicoutimi, Jonquière and La Baie. L. had lived in all three areas at various times, and the cities that make up Ville de Saguenay were actually made up of smaller cities and towns. It is actually a Fjord but is mostly agricultural, with rolling hills and fields. The main industry is still Alcan, one of the first to settle in the area. We actually found out recently that my uncle Martin (my mom's sister's husband) had done co-op work for Alcan while in college in Arvida, now part of Jonquière.

Unfortunately the weather was a bit inclement and it started snowing again. We drove around taking photographs and L. bought a bag of warm, fresh, squeeky cheese curds. That's right, squeeky. That's how you can tell they're fresh. In joual, the sound they make is "skouik, skouik".

Around 3 PM we arrived at L.'s dad's place in Jonquière. It's a beautiful Victorian era apartment, originally built by Alcan when they opened their first facility. It even has a dining room! Yves hung out a bit with us all and L. got to play with Nicole's dog Noisette.

Later, Nicole's daughter Katherine showed up with a giant tourtière, the official meal of the Saguenay. L. had two helpings and we saved him some for breakfast. After dinner we all sat down to watch the Canadiens game, when L.'s half brother John and his mother, Florence, came by for a visit. It was a very nice surprise as it had been a couple years since L. had last seen John and we had a very good conversation about video games and film. It turns out that John had been interested in pursuing a career as a game designer, but stumbled into starting a degree in art instead.

It was a little overwhelming for me to meet so much of L.'s family all at once, but most people I had met before and everyone was so welcoming and genuinely nice that it was really a pleasure. Everyone seemed very excited to meet me, and L. boasted that I was the reason he had decided to move back to Quebec.

Sunday: Went to my first Catholic mass. Ever. It was actually less scary than I expected, due mostly to the engaging young priest with a goatee and skate shoes under his robes. After mass we went for a brunch buffet with the rest of the friends and family, where L. had (believe it or not) more tourtière. I met more of L.'s family and he and his cousin Caroline talked about how somebody from their side of the family better start having babies soon.

After brunch we visited with L.'s tant Reine and oncle Arthur while Yves gathered his stuff as he had been staying with them for the weekend. Arthur taught us about L.'s ancestor's (apparently the Malthais side of the family is originally from the Isle of Malta) and Reine asked if my parents spoke French at home, probably the best compliment I've ever received.

Then it was off to Ste-Foy (next door to Quebec city) with Yves so we could catch a bus back to Montreal. Luckily we were able to catch an express bus and made it back in time to catch the third period of the game.

Concert Mini-Review: Hot Chip

As part of my Total Life Reboot I've been trying to get back into music, and have been listening to a lot of Last FM. I've then been cross referencing the new bands I've discovered while listening at work to the local concert listings in the Hour and Mirror weeklies to discover shows to go to. And that is how we ended up at Hot Chip last night at the Metropolis.

It was our second trip to the Metropolis, the first being around Christmas for the St-Phonic gig. It is one of the larger club style venues in Montreal, similar to the Commodore in Vancouver, only with two bars and a balcony. The place was already quite full when we got there, and happily enough we seemed to fall only slightly on the older end of the crowd.

We only caught a bit of the opening act, whose name escapes me -- which is probably for the best since they were terribly underwhelming (actually, kind of just plain terrible). Got drinks at the upstairs bar, which I guess worked out because the bartender first gave me half a shot before the dispenser thing malfunctioned, so he put in another full shot, then tipped over my cup and spilled about half my rum on the bar, so he added another full shot to what remained, meaning that my rum and coke was about 50/50 rum to coke.

After our bar misadventures we headed down towards the stage to meet up with Chris and Lee (different Lee). This is where we discovered that they actually have a guy with drinks on a tray selling them to people near the front of the stage. How civilized!

The show was great and it was great to see so many people (straight men included) dancing like little maniacs. I danced also like a little maniac and maneuvered my way towards the center of the stage.The lead singer reminded me a lot of Mark Mothersbaugh, only tinier and nerdier with an even more beautiful voice. L. was impressed with the musicianship of the group, especially considering their overtly dance-y sound. I was more moved by the lyrical content and energy.

Here are some tunes to check out:

Shake a Fist
Boy From School
Ready for the Floor

French Slang Saturdays: Joual

Hey kids,

No video this week as L. and I are in the Saguenay visiting L's family.

However, I figured I'd throw up a few links about joual [n] [prounouced: zwahl], the working class dialect of Quebecois French. The word itself comes from the French word for horse, cheval as in pronouncing it in one syllable. It is also important to note that because joual is chiefly a spoken dialect, spelling variations for joual words are common.

From the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Joual Vert - The unofficial dictionary of Quebecois French.

A CBC files about Michel Tremblay and his landmark play Les Belles-soeurs, which was the first internationally recognized play written in joual.

The Sweater

In honour of the Canadiens playoff win last night, a modern take on a classic Canadian story.

Bonus: Cute story on cbc.ca about Habs fever.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Junior

The NFB (ONF out here) does a free screening series on Tuesdays at their Cineroboteque downtown and this week Marie-Claude and I checked out a very interesting documentary about junior hockey called, appropriately enough, Junior.

Filmmakers Isabelle Lavigne and Stephane Thibault followed the Baie-Comeau Drakkar for an entire season, focusing not on the drama on the ice, but the drama off the ice. In fact, there is no game footage in the film at all.

For people not that familiar with the behind the scenes of Major Junior League hockey, the film is definitely an eye opener. The majority of the players have agents and the business aspects of the league are obvious. While the coaches do believe that they can turn these boys, generally in the 16 - 20 age range, into major league players, they have other considerations as well: filling seats, keeping league officials and team owners happy and potentially propelling their own careers.

The film opens with Benjamin Brault, one of the Drakkar's star players being lectured by a man we eventually learn is his agent. His face is that typically blank canvas of the teenage male visage, equal parts stoicism and dumbfoundedness. We are not sure how much of this he is absorbing, but we are equally unsure of how much we want him to absorb. For a kid who really does look like he'd rather hang out with girls and party all night, there is a lot of pressure coming from a lot of different places.

The film is particularly hard hitting because of the techniques employed by the directors. There is no game footage, and there are also no interviews. All reactions are authentic, as they happened. The sense of the audience really is that of being a fly on the wall, in the locker room, in the coach's office, on the bus, in hotel rooms. We are even privy to a secret trade negotiating meeting in a Tim Hortons (it really doesn't get much more Canadian, does it?)

Typically poker faced players and coaches are subjected to unending close-ups, the better to catch a tell-tale eyebrow twitch or shift in focus. The close-ups are so tight as to almost induce a sense of claustrophobia in the viewer, which ultimately increases the drama in what are in a lot of cases one-sided or one word conversations.

It is also interesting that the Drakkar are not a particularly winning team. They struggle through most of the season and the heartbreak of the players is obvious, particularly when they don't even manage to win the last game of the season. It is not often that you see that many teen aged boys all crying in the same room. We are also privy to last minute trades against the wishes of the player and painful surgery.

While ultimately a very quite film, but powerful enough to be recommended as essential viewing for anyone with children with ambitions of playing major league sports.

The film will also be airing on Radio-Canada on May 1st.

Resolution Reflections

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.

Using my own recent New Years resolutions as an example, while eating apples and flossing regularly were initially the tasks I had the most success in completing regularly, my goal of blogging regularly fell sorely by the wayside. It wasn't until a couple of months later, once I was confident that eating healthy and flossing were a part of my regular routine was I able to start focusing on my blogging goals.

Sure, I'm not exercising as much as I was in January, but I'm also finding that I don't need to. Walking to and from work everyday is enough to maintain my goal weight and a pilates session once or twice a week tones everything else up to where I like it. The addition of long weekend walks and dancing lessons certainly means I get enough exercise to be considered "healthy", and I didn't even need to join a gym. I would still like to visit a yoga studio once a week, perhaps in lieu of my at-home pilates; as a way of multi-tasking on my goals for this year: stay fit & meet people.

This is certainly the best I've ever done at keeping new year's resolutions, but it is also the first time I have ever taken keeping resolutions so seriously. Obviously, moving across the country is a drastic way of rebooting your entire life, but I might as well take advantage of this opportunity, right?

Weekend Round-Up: Snow, Taxes and Dancing, Dancing, Dancing

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.

French Slang Saturdays: Tanner & Tannant

Sorry it's a day late, but it's a two for one to make up for the tardiness.

Tanner [v]: Annoyed, fed-up. Implies a certain amount of resignment of the part of the speaker. Conjugated in the usual fashion.

Tannant [adj]: To be annoying.