(If you didn’t see them, here are part 1 and part 2)
Jumping back to Mona Awad’s reading list, we’ll start with The Geography of Pluto, Christopher DiRaddo. You might think the story of a gay man breaking up with his ideal boyfriend and losing his mother to cancer would be awfully bleak, but this book manages to make the protagonist’s struggles with loss and grief into something oddly optimistic.… [Read More]
(This is a continuation of the Montreal Reading List, part 1).
In the last installment, I was using Mona Awad’s Reading List as a starting point for my own. So far, most of the authors and books mentioned were from the 1940s-1960s, and described the Montreal of those periods and earlier.… [Read More]
I’ve been meaning to write on the subject of fiction set in Montreal for quite a while. I’ve been trying to read as many books as I can that are set here.… [Read More]
I’ve been trying to write a post here about the situation with the unhoused in Montreal in comparison to Los Angeles. It’s turning into a term-paper-like research project, though.
So in the meantime, here are some nice spring flowers at the Jardin Botanique.
For Sylvain’s birthday, Manon organized a day-trip to Brockville, Ontario, “City of the Thousand Islands” — a historic town on the Saint Lawrence.
Some of the 1000 IslandsWe took the train from Montreal, a two hour journey, arriving mid-morning.… [Read More]
In response to my Crabapple evolution post, one person commented to me that “[T]he trees are ugly 51 weeks out of the year. They’re only pretty during the one week that they bloom.… [Read More]
From the front-facing window and small balcony at the apartment, there’s a view of the street below and the shaded courtyard of the house across. When we first arrived, the trees were mostly bare or just beginning to leaf out.… [Read More]
Did I just mention that one of the advantages of our north/south migration is experiencing some seasons twice? Well, here’s some Springtime evidence of that.
At the botanical gardens, the magnolias are in bloom, and the Japanese garden has a variety of fruit trees still with blossoms: cherries, crabapples, and plum trees.… [Read More]
This year, finding a furnished apartment was much more difficult than past years. Whether it’s the “end of the pandemic” or the housing crisis or some other reason, it was not easy to find a furnished apartment that would be willing to give us a 5-month lease.… [Read More]
When we first decided to embark on this adventure, it seemed like half a year was a long time to spend in a place. But how quickly the winter just flew by!… [Read More]
