New Year's in the not-so-frozen north

I am back from Montreal, tired and happy and still thinking about plausible ways to deal with there being more cool things to do than energy to do them with. It didn't help this time that when I listed them in order from lowest to highest interest, the one I would most readily have done without came first. Meaning that on Friday afternoon, I thought I had the energy for that outing. By Sunday noon, I suspected I didn't, but couldn't resist, and got fuzzy enough not to follow through on the fallback of "I can do half of this and then go home and have a cheese sandwich or something." Still, plants and dim sum and spices and good coversation, and I didn't get sick (we had a bug going around). Not getting sick may also have been a drain, though less of one than being sick would have been. What I think I need to do is make a plan and stick to it, including sticking to the "I will sit with a book and a teakettle" part.

I should write more later. I have photos to get off the camera, and smoked pepper and grains of paradise to experiment with, and lots of chocolate. I have had some really good conversations with nancylebov for the first time in too many years, as well as catching up with jonsinger and spending time with papersky and rysmiel and Z and his girlfriend and Rene who lives next door and rezendi (who is almost never in Montreal when I am, even if he has to visit New York or Harare to achieve that). I also have lots of chocolate.

It was cold when I got there, but warmed up quickly (we were getting highs just a couple of degrees below freezing), and the snow came in relatively small chunks, well within Montreal's ability to clear quickly. It was colder last night when I got home to Manhattan than it had been when I walked out the door in Montreal at 8 a.m.