More random Montreal thoughts

[redbird]

List format again, and possibly repeating things I posted from Montreal.

• On the bus back from the airport yesterday afternoon, I was reading Sue Grafton's Q is for Quarry in bits, got to a description of a very generic piece of rural semi-desert California, looked out the window at a less-than-delightful bit of Montreal outskirts, and found myself thinking "I'm glad I live in reality." Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots may also have been a factor here.


• Both one of the US immigration/customs people (the man whose job is to tell people what line/inspector to go to) and the woman at the Starbucks in the wing for flights to the US commented on having seen me yesterday. Either I'm quite memorable, or the Bronx Zoo elephant t-shirt is; I didn't even unpack my hairbrush last night, though I did change into a fresh, non-sweaty bra.


• Mushrooms in cinnamon sauce might make an interesting hors d'oeuvre (perhaps in mini pastry shells) or even appetizer; they're disconcerting when the dish is called "veal marsala," and the sauce, which is odd on the mushrooms, is moreso on the veal.


• Conversely, tarragon-flavored chocolate works, but I think I liked the ones with just tarragon that Andrew Plotkin brought to Minicon a couple of years ago better than Cha Noir's tarragon-and-strawberry-cream. Tarragon does go with strawberries, but the strawberry flavor overwhelmed the tarragon.


• Maple Delight continues to live up to its name.


• Rather than spending C$35 or more on any of the introductory French books available at Indigo, I spent C$10 on a used text, a secondary-school book that starts with a simple introducing-the-characters conversation, all in French, which reminds me of one of my Spanish texts and my brother's first-year Latin text. ("Que estudias?" Estudio la leccion una." "Roma in Italia est. Italia en Europa est.") What I read was papersky's Lois McMaster Bujold, rysmiel's Jasper Fforde, and bits of The Worm Ouroburos, which requires close enough attention to the language that it's not a good bedtime book for me. Also, I'm wondering where the manticores are.


• Alternate history may produce airships, but I want ornithopters.


• I'd been avoiding that New York skyline mug in Papersky's kitchen for at least three years; it's fine now.


• I meant to cook more than I did, but it was hot.


• I like having an ISP that promises to be "your home away from $HOME".


• An ad in LaGuardia Airport, for some financial thing, asked "What do you want?" and the part of my brain that answers that sort of question came back "Peace, order, and good government."


• I hadn't realized one of the major advantages of Montreal (Dorval) airport until I was walking down a corridor at LaGuardia: Dorval has no random televisions repeating insipid news stories.