Mmmmm.....tasty!

I just took a walk down memory lane as Adam directed me to this article in the Detroit Free Press:

Guinea Pigs for Dinner

While not completely thrilled by any French Canadian cuisine (yet), I was a bit humbled by the memory of my diet in Ecuador. Not even a 'no thank you' helping of cow liver or pit fired guinea pig for me, thanks.
Though, we are really really curious about the "crispy spinach" which we have now been served twice at Chinese/ Korean restaurants. Somehow the chef crispifies the spinach and then covers it in SUGAR?! But not for dessert. What? Is that authentic?

Adam and Ralph enjoying aforementioned snow.

Mother Nature Reads Our Blog

There is SNOW in Montreal! We have been graced with more than 17 centimeters of snow since Tuesday morning and I am thrilled...really. After weeks of hearing about the abundance of snowfall from friends in the Mid-West, particularly in Southwest Michigan, I started to get anxious for our own winter wonderland. Mother Nature most certainly read my plea on this blog for a winter I could appreciate.
WooHoo!
This storm was preceded by one of the coldest days I can remember (like Minnesota cold...as in your teeth feel cold and you can imagine the icicles on the inside of your lungs cold). Luckily, the system has warmed up a bit...unfortunately, enough to create some frozen rain overnight, a recipe for disaster on the roads. I literally just saw the Montreal Gazette change the headline from "Icy morning for Montrealers" to "Snowy morning for Montrealers." As long as we don't have to drive anywhere, I'll be thinkin' this snow is just the bee's knees.
Adam is still riding his bike, yikes...but, rest assured he wears a helmet and has reflexes like a kid who has been bouncing back from skateboard falls all his life.

Homeward Bound, soon anyhow...

Loyal Blog Followers,

I hope our absence has not caused our loyal readers dismay or caused defection. We have been quite busy as of late with our respective jobs and the like. I have my first Ph.D. committee meeting this week and have been preparing for that as well as organizing reviews and answering questions as part of my duties as TA for the evolution class. The final exam for said class was originally scheduled for Monday the 8^th but had to be moved due to Quebec’s provincial election. So… it was held today! I can’t imagine the students thought it very ‘cool’ (that’s a word the youngsters here use to describe something they like) to have an exam at 9am on a Sunday but, you know, it builds character. With the exam out of the way I now get to spend the coming week grading all of them!!!

!!!IMPORTANT NEWS ALERT!!!

For those interested Grace and I will be coming back to our great state of Michigan on the 20^th of December and will be there probably until the 4^th of January. To say we are excited would be somewhat of an understatement. You could employ almost any adjective, positive and negative, to describe our life so far here in Montreal and our first four months of marriage (err…only positive adjectives here, OF COURSE!). A bit of a recharge and some ol’ home for the holidays spirit (read: getting fat on Connie’s (Grace’s mom) food and a few drinks at Crunchy’s) is just what the doctor ordered.

END IMPORTANT NEWS ALERT.

We made kombucha tea this past Friday. This effectively means putting a little disc of bacteria and yeast into sugar sweetened tea, with the result being a slightly sweet, acidic tea that of course, like any good oddball food from East Asia, has numerous purported health benefits. After the Christmas break we plan to start vermicomposting to get rid of our organic waste. Living on the third floor of an apartment building in the city is not very conducive to compost piles and constantly throwing away vegetable matter really eats at my conscience. I’ll spare the details of what vermicomposting actually entails as they might offend the sensibilities of some of our readers.

Anyway, we look forward to seeing those of you that we will and wish we could see those of you that we won’t!

- A & G

P.S. Canada has been experiencing somewhat of a political meltdown/crisis/kerfuffle lately. You should check it out.

Birds of a feather...

Over the weekend Adam and I each had our own moments of great naivety or airheadedness. That we both have these ditsy moments assures, for me anyway, that we are in fact as compatible as we pretend to be.

In explaining to me that an evolution exam will be rescheduled over a weekend....
Adam: "There is a law that says that the university can't schedule exams on a provincial election day."
Grace: "Oh really?"
Adam: "Yeah, so it's got to be that Sunday the 7th because the provincial elections are on the 8th."
Me: "Oh, the election is that Monday?"
Adam: "Is it a Monday? I don't know."
Grace: "Umm, well you just said that Sunday is the 7th."
Adam: "Oh...then yeah."

And then in my moment of glory.....
Last night we went to see Synecdoche, New York. Since then we've been collaboratively trying to interpret the film's abstract themes (not an easy feat). The movie going experience came up again this morning.
Grace: "Oh hey, this has nothing to do with the movie, but did you see the woman who came out of the bathroom with me? Her jacket looked just like one of those SECURITY parkas but it said ANTI-PIRACY in block letters on the back."
Adam: "No, I didn't see that. Wow."
Grace: "Yeah, she must feel pretty strongly about napster and stuff to make a statement like that with her outfit."
Adam: "No, I think she probably worked for the theater and makes sure nobody pirates the movies."
Grace: "Oh, yeah."

Oh goodness.

Sunday with the Serbs

We live on Avenue Melville here in lovely Westmount, and coincidentally, there is also a Serbian Orthodox church on the Avenue. As you may or may not know I (Adam writing) have been to Serbia and have actually been in the company of Patriarch Pavle, the most important man in the Church. The reasons for my being in Serbia would require quite a long explanation but here's the short version. During World War II my grandpa, Clare Musgrove, was flying in a B24 on its way to Romania to bomb the Ploesti oil fields. His plane was shot down over the then Yugoslavia and he fell, quite literally, into the hands of a group of Serbians sympathetic to/under the leadership of General Draza Mihailovich who subsequently led his, and many other's evacuation out of the country and back to safety. In 2005 my grandpa (who I accompanied, see photo below) and a few other airmen posthumuously presented the Legion of Merit award to Mihailovich's daughter. For more detailed information, BUY THIS BOOK!, it features my grandpa's story quite heavily and details the large-scale, behind enemy lines rescue that was little publicized post-war for political reasons. Anyhow, the church was having a bake sale today so we thought it would be a good opportunity to stop by and say "Hey, I've been to Serbia!" and basically show off that I knew something about Serbian history and had some connection to the country.

Fortunately, the bake sale also included a hot lunch sale and since it was cold outside and it was lunchtime, well, the pieces just sort of fell into place... Grace and I enjoyed our bean soup and bread, coleslaw and crepe but felt a bit out of place and were wondering who we could approach to chat with. Fortunately we noticed there was a bar (yes, a bar) in the church reception room. Fondly recalling my first experiences with slivovitz I thought that it would be a good opportunity to initiate some conversation. Unfortunately, the barman didn't speak any English but he summoned someone who did and this was the man with whom we began speaking. They unfortunately did not have slivovitz as you can't get it in Quebec but they were very quick to offer both of us other drinks. I accepted a brandy, Grace however thought it was a bit too early (this was lunchtime Sunday, recall), and requested a gingerale. This would not do however and they eventually convinced her to drink A MIX of Bailey's and Peach Schnapps! Over our drinks I showed them some of my pictures from my trip and we talked about my experience in Serbia. Everyone was extremely nice to us (we didn't even have to pay for the drinks!) and invited us to come to future church events. When I showed them my t-shirt with General Mihailovich on it this warranted some extra excitement and we were introduced to the former President of the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church. Well into a bottle of wine himself (these Orthodox religions really know how to do Sundays) he was quite interested in telling us how great the American people are but how terrible their goverment is. Keep in mind that even though *most* of us remember the Clinton years fondly, this was also the time during which NATO, with Clinton's support, bombed Belgrade (this was still quite evident in 2005). He also extended many invitations our way and promised that the next time we were together we would surely drink slivovitz. As the crowd had begun to filter out we thought we should also take our leave and bid 'adieu' (get the religious/French wordplay??!!). Fun day.....

Long time, no blog!

Well, I hope we have not lost any of our faithful readers in our blogging absence.
Since we started the blog I seem to categorize my thoughts and activities into either blogworthy or not blogworthy. As of late, all have fallen into not...until today I guess.

After Halloween, I magically turned our McGill grown pumpkins...


into cookies!

I'll spare you the recipe, 1. because they are SO last season and 2. they have a whole heck of a lot of sugar, which I can happily not revisit knowing how many cookies I have personally consumed over the last week. The before and after pics are fun though, aren't they?

Looks like I made the cookies just in time as our faucet sank days later and we're patiently awaiting kitchen renovations. In the meantime, this is where our sink used to be...
Yuck. I'd be a drama queen if I didn't mention that this condition will likely last less than 24 hours.

Ralph and I continue to frequent our beloved dog park when I'm not job hunting. The conversations there have mainly been about what kind of dog the US president elect will end up with to appease his allergic daughters. Rumors today hinted that he's leaning towards a golden poo.
Anyway, we've also been taking long walks up the mountain, where Summit Park is located. Summit moonlights as a dog park, it's actual designation is a bird sanctuary...somehow that works. Here is the view from the park:


And, last but not least (we couldn't have a posting without a link you know)..
I encourage everyone to visit the site Etsy Molasses. Our friends Xander and Alana have created the store as a way to generate support for their pending adoptions of two Ethioian infants. In addition to their own creations, their friends and family have donated handmade items to be sold on the site. I think it is a great idea, I even made a contribution..see if you can find it! You know, Molasses would be a great place to do some Christmas shopping.

Anecdotes

Well, not that it's really news but....


That's the cover of the English language newspaper here, the Montreal Gazette. Here's the front page of La Presse, the main French language paper.

We watched the election results come in last night at the Thomson House, the McGill grad student pub. That's right, we have our own bar (spouses welcome). Anyhow, we went with another American couple and were probably the most docile attendants. These Canadians really get excited about U.S. politics. John McCain's concession speech was excellent, very gracious.

Happy that Michigan stepped into the 21st century by passing both ballot proposals, too bad California took a step backward. Our old boss William White , owner of the Traveler's Club (that's him blowing the tuba), just narrowly missed out on representing the 8th District in the U.S. House (JK!).

And just for fun, today's lesson is...the difference between 'discreet' and 'discrete'. I thought there was one spelling, whoops. Etymologists feel free to weigh in.

We saw Happy-Go-Lucky this weekend. We both enjoyed the movie but it was $20 for the both of us for a matinee!

Finally, watch out Madonna...


AND, Adam forgot to mention in this posting one of the most exciting things to have happened this afternoon...
The weather was amazing today so I decided to meet Adam at a downtown park while he ate his lunch. Ralph and I arrived a little bit early and noticed a news crew fussing about. The park happens to be an unofficial off leash dog park and so Ralph was off and running towards the commotion. As I came up on this peculiar scene, a news anchor from CBC Montreal was asking Ralph to sit as she fed him treats. She then asked me if he could stay for a while and with my permission Ralph was filmed for some hokey segment about the weather and elections or some such nonsense, where she may have used the phrase "dog days of summer." Ha. Ralph is famous, or at least his drooly mug might have made the local news.

Halloween

Look! Our Halloween costume...we went as a Family Portrait. We even managed to borrow a real live baby.

en francais, s'il vous plait...

There will be some new regulations for immigrants to Quebec starting 2009. Fortunately, we didn't have to sign any documents saying we promise to learn French. Not that we're opposed to the idea of course, but, it's just not going as well as we thought it might have... It has been both a blessing and a curse that we have little trouble getting around speaking only English. Then again, because of our status here in the country/province (temporary immigrants) no one is really interested in investing time or money in our learning of the language.

N.B. This does not mean we are immune to criticism, or as someone so eloquently put it to Grace, "Learn some f@&*ing French".

But I won't whinge too much about the language issue here, I'm under the impression it's bad form. Looking forward to the Halloween weekend, we've got a few soirees to attend (soir is 'evening' in French).

au revoir

Brrr.

We are currently experiencing our first snow of the season here in Montreal. Technically, there were flurries at some point last week but Adam was told that it was actually "slow rain" that we witnessed, hmmm...suspicious. As we woke this morning though, there was some accumulation on our bike seats outside-- no room for denial.
As I took Ralph walking this morning and the cold winds nearly knocked me off balance and into a shrub, I started feeling cynical about the four seasons. I started wondering why even though I consider myself to be someone who can sincerely appreciate cold weather and especially snow, I am almost never excited the first time it snows. Based on my own experiences, I get excited for Spring because winter always overstays it's welcome. I am always gung-ho about summer because I like swimming and flip-fl0ps. I get excited for Fall because the leaves change colors and I like wearing light jackets (in fact, I think they are my favorite article of clothing--my closet proves it).
Well Winter, I have something to tell you....I do really like you, a lot...BUT, you never give me the chance to appreciate you. To make this relationship work here's what you need to do:
1. Arrive later. Please give me a chance to wish you were here before you make your appearance. Let me miss hot chocolate and my mittens before you force them upon me.
2. As I said before, leave earlier. Let me be sorry to see you go. What if you called it quits after the holidays? That would work for me.
AND 3. You know those days when there is not really any wind, the sun is shining through the clouds, and it snows those big beautiful flakes? Why don't you open up with one of those, because remember, first impressions make lasting impressions.

Bon Appetit

We are slowly but surely figuring out the science of grocery shopping here in Montreal.
Ideally this is our preferred method of buying eats:

1. We go to the produce store, Fruiterie Westmount, for fruits and vegetables. The selection is good and the prices are affordable.
2. We go to Fruits Rocky Montana, which is also best classified as a produce market but they also have a fine selection of beans, rice, bread, and cheese! Pros: Well priced Cons: Further away from apartment.
3. We go to Metro, the chain store. Fine selection of all the most expensive groceries in all of Montreal. Unfortunately, Metro is also the most convenient place for one stop shopping and the only place we find certain staples (i.e. Raisin Bran, soy milk)
4. We go to the Marche Atwater, which is the 2nd largest farmer's market in Montreal. Aside from the fact that produce selection obviously slims out this time of year, we seem to get so distracted with all the pretty colors and the people watching that we forget to pick out food.
   

Isn't that interesting? Not really, I know. But, we do come up with some interesting meals upon returning from these shopping excursions! Tonight was no exception; faced with a bunch of food items that seemed not to go together...we came up with this:


It's a salmon salad! I think probably inspired by a good ol' Traveler's Club menu item*, we concocted a sesame oil & citrus soy vinagerette. We had some Marine Stewardship Council certified salmon burgers, but no buns so ta da! And why not throw on some pita bread, yummy.

*Seems like a good opportunity to voice our political opinions too,"Waitrons Unite, Will White for Representative in Congress!"

Enjoy your weekend!

Tech Notes Cont'd

Grace has inspired me to do a little picture posting of my own.

This is a photograph of the personalized greeting card given to me by my lovely wife. If you can't read the top of the card it says "These are a few of your favorite things..." I'm a pretty lucky guy.





This is the view out of the window of my former lab/office. The window in my new office essentially serves only to let in light from the hallway. Seems like a downgrade but the trade-off in terms of chair comfiness is well worth it.




And finally, one of the small miracles of Canada. I bet that guy in the background drinks these for breakfast.

Tech Notes

Even though Adam and I got free phones with our cellular contract, they're pretty fancy for us. Last night I figured out how to put the pictures from my phone onto the computer, what an achievement in technology! I had been under the impression that the pictures had only the potential for the screen wallpaper so they're not very interesting, but I'll share.....

This was taken at the planetarium, we had hoped that they sold prints of the same poster in the gift shop...no such luck, so we'll settle for a picture on our blog.


And this...is a sign posted in the bathrooms at McGill. I disobeyed this one, mostly out of habit but also because I was already using my hands to take the picture. I wonder why the language police haven't demanded the translation also be posted.

I really like my dog.

As many of you know, I am somewhat obsessed with my dog. Molly actually once suggested to me that while it is appropriate for you to love your dog, it may not necessarily be appropriate to be in love with your dog. That however was in reference to Pete, and he was the best dog ever (no offense to Ralphie who is nearly tied for that position). With Ralph I believe I have found a balance of affection and care that does not make me a lunatic. With that said, I do try to make sure that Ralph is happy in Montreal too. The transition has been hard on all and he is no exception.

Like Adam and I, Ralph has had to endure some noteworthy changes since we have resettled here. For starters, his diet has been completely altered. While in the states we were able to provide him with a fine cuisine of lamb and rice, in Canada we just found the cheapest kibble bits we could get our hands on given our budget constraints. In order to compensate the sacrifice he has been forced to make, I have baked homemade treats a couple of times. What’s more, he has gone from having a series of comfortable couches to laze about upon, to having a relatively uncomfortable davenport that even his human counterparts aren’t very fond of. Additionally, the level of noise has increased substantially for our four legged friend, much to his confusion. Not only do we reside across the street from an elementary school that seems to have recess from 8am to 3pm, there are several dogs in the building that are prone to seemingly unmotivated fits of barking, crying, and whining. Ralph is confused by all of this noise. Most importantly though, Ralph has had to leave behind all of his friends (Charlie, Hank, Amos, Silas..err kinda Silas when he isn’t trying to bite off Ralph’s face, Babu, etc.).

The saving grace to all of this madness has been our local dog park. The park has been a safe haven of sorts-- where Ralph has made fast friends with a handful of other canines in varying shapes and sizes. We have made it routine to take him there most evenings for a little game of chase or ball before dinner. Unfortunately, the dog park may be in jeopardy. The community is calling for an additional ice rink on the property where the park is located (Canadians do love their hockey). Though there seem to be no concrete development plans of this project, Ralph and I were turned away from a visit to the park the other day as city employees were deeply engaged in soil testing the land. I have let Ralph remain oblivious to the possibility that his playground may be yanked out from under him. I may not be able to keep the secret for much longer, proponents of the project (namely hockey moms) seem eager to get this show on the road. I fear that this could be detrimental to the progress we have made in acclimating Ralph to the neighborhood.

Perhaps I could use this story as an anecdote to dissuade the city council from moving forward with these plans. Perhaps Ralph could provide the sympathy we need as a catalyst to SAVE OUR DOG PARK.

Stuff of Thought

We went to see McGill alum Steven Pinker speak this evening at Moyse Hall. It was a great lecture (this is the exact same talk he gave tonight), and in true McGill fashion there was a wine and hors d'oeuvre reception following (I have yet to go to a university function that has not had FREE drinks and food). The real highlight was getting the chance to speak with him face to face and ask him questions about the way in which we use swear words.

Additionally, my absentee ballot came in the mail today. It is an interesting feeling, approaching pride, that I have to be voting from "abroad". Can't wait to fill it in.

Red Wings didn't look so great last night. Same story as the last game I was able to watch, too many turnovers. These are the sort of things that make people superstitious...

Shan't be a terribly exciting weekend as I've got various work-related responsibilities. Weather's been beautiful though, prototypical autumn.

Turkey Day, the Canadian way!

Well, since the last time we blogged we celebrated our first Canadian Thanksgiving, we witnessed a frenzy at the polls to vote in the third federal election in four years (only to reelect the incumbent), and Adam started grading his first batch of evolution exams.

Our Thanksgiving lacked the warm, cozy, familial comforts that one would typically expect. Instead of lazing around on the grey day that it was, I woke only to find that our cable had been turned off! Oh no! The lease we took over here in Westmount came with approximately 2 months of complimentary cable…and we’ve been here for approximately 2 months. Oh no! While worse things have happened, it seemed like poor timing on a day like Thanksgiving. Luckily, we’ve still got Jeopardy with the rabbit ears.

Ralph and I have been taking many a long walk as the weather and leaves have been really nice. We went south of the train tracks today for the first time and discovered that there is a giant Home Depot less than a 1/2 mile away from our front door. Shocking. Who knew? I had just been saying that an interesting part of urban living is that there is always more to discover. To our great advantage, Montreal actually does have more to offer than home improvement shopping and we will report our explorations here!

In fact, over the weekend we spent an afternoon at the Montreal Planetarium for a show titled Extinctions. I won't recommend it to anyone who already has anxiety about natural disasters, as they discuss the chance of supernovae emitting radiation only to potentially destroy entire galaxies (a bit of exaggeration here) under the right conditions. No thank you, I think we have enough to worry about.

Sans titre

Well, last night's Red Wings opener certainly didn't pass the smell test.

We have a three-day weekend as Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving/Action de Grâce. No plans for said long weekend although my flippant suggestion that we start Monday with mimosas seems to have turned into reality. . . we live such a lavish life here in Montreal. Also coming up next week; the Canadian Federal elections. While maybe a tad less enthralling than our home country's, there's still some good drama.

All for now as Grace has made her first successful roux and used it in a lovely baked macaroni dish...

à plus tard,

Adam

We Can(ada) Vote!

Got my absentee ballot in the mail...yay! Thank you to the City of Mason. Adam wants to make T-shirts that say "Be nice to me today, I'm voting in the U.S. election."

Adam writing... I am looking forward to voting as well as Michigan's ballot has two very interesting proposals this go around. The first "A Legislative Initiative to Permit the Use and Cultivation of Marijuana for Specified Medical Conditions" and the second "A Proposal to Amend the State Constitution to Address Human Embryo and Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Michigan" (link from Citizen's Research Council of Michigan). Wonderfully contentious issues, it's great to see them on the ballot. We've really been rolling with these ballot proposals (see Affirmative Action).

The hitch here is that I don't know that I'll receive my absentee ballot in time and may have to use the FWAB (Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot). Based on the form I've seen there is no section for ballot proposal voting, guess I'll have to talk to the consulate! --Grace just made a point that it is the Federal ballot, so unless I get the ballot I'm probably out of luck--

Wings season starts tomorrow and since they're playing the Leafs I'll get to see them here on CBC!

Nearly two months in....

Welcome to our blog. We thought about creating this outlet many weeks ago but only got around to it when the internet was working especially well today. Additionally, inspired by this blog:
http://jmatoday.blogspot.com/ we decided it was high time to make our own! Heck yeah!

From G: This past Saturday we headed South to Vermont (it was our second time in as many months to visit the homeland). While last time we went to let Ralph swim in Lake Champlain, this visit was motivated by more purposeful intentions to mail our wedding thank you notes at 42 cents (U.S) rather than 96 (Canadian). The savings afforded us a lunch at Olive Garden... eating at an "Italian" restaurant provided us an oddly satisfying American experience. We also took Ralph to several (yes, more than one) dog parks and Adam to a skate park. Then we went to a gas station and tried to buy $11 worth of iced tea with nickels and dimes. We have been unable to exchange our U.S. denomination piggy bank in Canada; unfortunately, the confused looks given by the teenage girl behind the counter at the Citgo made me squeemish about buying more than 40 ounces of said tea. The weather was fabulous. Our only regret is that we weren't able to see any moose on the 2.5 mile stretch of highway in which the only signs say Watch for Moose. Darn.

From A: Despite losing my set of keys and thereby jeopardizing our chances of ever riding our bikes again my Sunday Kombucha fix was satisfied. The keys eventually turned up and we rode away happy. Took off to the Morgan Arboretum on McGill's Macdonald campus for some sort of Oktoberfest celebration. Had a free apple, a German sausage and took the dog for a walk in the woods, so all told it was a success. Nothing much else doing, except of course the Lions getting embarrassed...again.