23 May 2006

This past week has been intense and wonderful. It seems that I hardly set foot in Pittsburgh before magically winding my way by car through PA, New York and whatever parts of Canada we flew through (95 miles per hour!) to get to Montreal.

That is not true, of course. After moving into my new apartment in Carlisle, I trucked out to Pittsburgh, where Madeleine and I unpacked the car and then repacked it for my month's stay in Montreal. In between, our beloved neighbors Barb, Chris and Morgan had their house sale in preparation for moving to HAWAII! Having just moved myself, I was eager to pass along anything we had not been using, and donated items to the house sale. Of course, I just wound up buying more things, but they were things I needed.

So Mad and I packed up the pooches and headed out, arriving in Syracuse, NY just before dark. We chose a cheap motel, and then discovered that the rooms were parallel to runway 10 of the local airport (one trucker knew the flight schedule by heart, which he reiterated while perusing an online personals site). We moved on to the next town, a fishing village whose name I forget. The entire town was crazy about Haddock (yes, the fish) though no one could tell us why, and the restaurant we ate at had it flown in. Ike and Sophia slept soundly in the car, and had a breakfast of leftover Haddock and broccoli.

The next morning, we explored Watertown, NY, a town that Madeleine rememebered fondly from her cross-country-by-van trip from 13 years ago. We found a forrest with a river running through it. The bank was edged with huge, black flat rocks flecked with fossils. We found a few portable specimens, as well as some quartz. The beavers had been busy felling trees, and Madeleine found a "beaver stick" as well as some huge wood shavings. We wore eveyone out, piled into the car, and about 10 minutes later happened upon a diner with the most amazing short-order cook. I imagine the people who eat there regularly, die early but satisfied.

Truly, the highlight of the trip for me was driving 95 miles per hour up route 81 and whatever they call the highway in Canada. The sky was clear, and we were in the slow lane getting passed by everyone. I was slow in comparison, mom. Honestly. We will drive much, much slower on the way home, as the trip to Norristown will not be as long.

We pulled up to the address on Jeanne-Mance street early Tuesday evening, and met my lovely roommate Natasha. She is 34, fluent in French (and English), a freelance writer, and general artist at life. She has a way with people that is just brilliant and hard for me to wrap words around. She genuinely enjoys people, puts them at ease, is gracious and authentic - and a sagitarious, which makes all this even stranger. She has extended herself and her circle of friends to me, and they are equally genuine, generous of spirit and friendly. I could not have imagined or found a better roommate.

She has taken to calling Isaac the "drunken sailer," as he slips across her hardwood floors. Over the past week, she has accumulated a collection of area rugs and pieced them together throughout the house. It looks like one of those games where children try to avoid touching the floor. Her home is beautifully, sparingingly decorated, and I feel guilty about destroying that harmony, but console myself with the knowledge that she is protecting her beautiful hardwood floors, and also we'll be gone in three weeks. She's a fan design, and her stacked Cambell's soup cans and general kitchen kitch help me feel at home. So do the grey skies, rain and cold, but that started lifting today.

Well, there's much more to write about last week, but I will get to that later.

With love,
M