2002-08-28 - 8:44 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Presque Rien", Francis Cabrel

Well, I've been away for the better part of two weeks, and I've spent most of that time with people other than Poindexter. This means I can't tell you about much of it -- even though a lot of it was hysterically funny -- due to my policy of not talking much about people whose permission I haven't got to talk about them.

However, I discovered that someone with whom I am personally acquainted -- I will not say who -- keeps their hotel room snack bar key in their toiletry bag during their stay, because they "don't want someone to come in and raid the minibar". This induced some hysterical laughter on my part. Who would do this? The housekeeping staff?

If anyone out there has ever experienced such a thing, PLEASE be sure and tell me about it. I must know.

So let me try to remember if there was anything else that happened.

First, we went to Montreal. I was there for a conference, but in my company, "conference" means "free vacation" and everybody brings their families along. Poindexter couldn't come, due to a deadline at work, so I brought my parents again. It's a hell of a lot of fun, and there hadn't been a conference worth going to since Vancouver in 1999, so it was long overdue.

I did, in fact, present a paper at this conference, and I did a damn fine job if I do say so. It helps that I don't get nervous, for some reason. Must've been all those piano recitals as a kid. My dad is nationally famous for his presentations in his field (and it's an extremely dull field, so the fact that he can make it so exciting for people means he is a genius at giving presentations). He had given me a few pointers back in grade school when I had oral reports and I still remembered them.

Since my presentation was in the last session, it had a more relaxed feel. My coworker and I shortened our presentations a little. The last person in our session, however, saw that as an excuse to LENGTHEN his, and talked more than TWICE as long as everyone else. Not only that, but he had a laser pointer that he was totally in love with, using it on every goddamn slide, and wiggling it around. Ugh.

Well, Montreal is a completely different place in the summer. I hardly recognized it. And I almost think I liked it better in winter, when it seemed that we were the only people there. It was more romantic then.

Although there's definitely some benefit to having people around in warm weather. All our heads were snapping at all the scantily clad men and women. There seemed to be a lot of tanned, shirtless, well-built men on bikes, whom my mother and I enjoyed. And there were plenty of well-built women for my dad to gawk at. There's no shortage of eye candy in Montreal in the summer.

Two places with yummy food: La Maree (French, expensive), and Le Taj (Indian, cheap). I had onion soup with the most amazing cheese I've ever tasted at La Maree -- I ate there alone the first night and then went back their and dragged my parents along the next night so I could have more. Other than that, I did not have time to experience as many great restaurants as I had hoped.

BTW, I do not recommend going to a fancy restaurant alone. I was surprised. I have always done a lot of things alone and not minded (often even preferring it), but this is not one of those things. It was so goddamn boring. I think nearly half of the fun of eating really good food is being able to share bites and sigh over them with my companion(s).

We did try poutine at La Belle Province, which was like a diner. Poutine, if you've never heard of it, is to Montreal what the cheesesteak is to Philly. It's french fries with beef gravy and what tasted like melted lumps of provolone or mozzarella. I would have liked it much better with real beef gravy (theirs tasted like the Heinz gravy-in-a-jar that my dad loves). The way the gravy melts the cheese is yummy. My mother and I plotted to make roast beef with gravy and then make poutine at home with it.

OK, what else. We took a bus tour, coworkers plus families. Previously I had always turned my nose up at bus tours, since you only got a superficial view of a place. Not to mention those tours are always filled with old people.

Well, shame on me for sneering because of that last bit, seeing as how I am fussy eighty-year-old woman in a thirty-year-old's body. It was actually quite relaxing, and an excellent way to see a few big touristy bits (the Notre Dame Basilica, for example), get a glimpse of residential neighborhoods (always a big interest of mine), and find out what places I'd be interested in spending a more time at. Mom tells me that the tour guide (his walkie-talkie thingie covered his mouth, preventing me from understanding anything, grr) talked about aspects of living in Montreal, which I find more interesting than tourist attractions and was surprised to find on such a tour. Very cool.

One stop was the big Oratoire Saint-Joseph on the top of Mont Royal. Apparently there were some miracles here, so there are a lot of people making their pilgrimage and the walls of one room are lined with cast-aside crutches. One of the pilgrims was kneeling on the steps climbing up the side of the huge hill in front. The building looks like Italian Renaissance on the outside, so I was expecting something really cool inside, and I took the escalators up, up, up to the place where they do the Masses.

Oh.My.God. I don't think I've ever seen something so ugly in my life. No, wait, I have, except it was in a cheap, modern, suburban church that was ugly on the outside too. I was shocked. See for yourself. See those chairs? Those are METAL FOLDING CHAIRS. Check out the ugly organ area too.

If there's one thing the Catholic religion is good for, it's ostentatious opulence, and this place was a complete disappointment to me.

Otherwise, I had a good time. I missed Poindexter terribly, though. I still want to go back, with him. Being on vacation without my best friend is just not the same.

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