We call it the mosquito, and my philodendron quakes every time he gets it out.
Lily no longer hides in the closet, but still watches it with great suspicion. I think she would have already pounced, if it weren't for the awful noise it makes.
Karen's travel tips If you arrive in Quito on a Sunday evening, better have snacks with you! The carpets roll up and the metal doors come down at 6. Well, at least they do in the neighborhood where we are spending the night. There are a lot of restaurants close by, but nothing open. Add to this that apart from a tuna wrap at Dorval airport the only thing I could eat on the plane was the fruit salad (the steward kindly gave me two), and the pineapple juice, by Monday morning we were both feeling somewhat light headed when we set off down the many, many, many steps down to the commercial district (visualise Mount Royal, only steeper, no hand rails, and a descent at least twice as far, with your head spinning). Needless to say, we were a bit early for breakfast in the commercial district, but a cafe kindly opened early for us, and I essentially inhaled eggs, avocado toast, fruit salad and an almond milk cappuccino. Serge, who had ordered a larger breakfast actually ran out...
When I logged in to start writing this, the first item was my stalled letter from last year. Oy Vey! Yes, well, sorry about that, but 2023 was too hard to sum up and not sound depressing at the same time. Dad unexpectedly punched his express ticket out in April, and things did not improve from there. Enough said. The main lasting bright spot from last year is Sarah's new cat. Meet Helga, a ball of the softest fluff I have ever met. Given how tumultuous her life was before she arrived here, she is surprisingly at ease with her new life. Hopefully, she finds it refreshingly peaceful, and not too quiet. She loves to watch the action, and doesn't even hide when the vacuum cleaner is running. The shelter told us she was about two, and she was seized with her kittens from an 'unclean' home by the health department and then evacuated through 3 shelters because of the forest fires last year. When Sarah got her to our vet to clear up a lingering case of ear mi...
This year, new ways to get to Montreal were introduced to the South Shore, just in time to mitigate the chaos caused by the closing of the LaFontaine tunnel, 8 months after the fact. The planning abilities of governments and NGO's boggles sometimes. Essentially they told the thousands of people suddenly cut off from their place of employment to 'take a bus' without adding additional bus routes. There is a reason we don't use the buses around here. Most of them don't go where you need them to go, don't go when you need them, and cost a fortune to take. Actually, after 25 years, they finally did do something about the last part. They forced all the disparate bus companies to use the same regional pricing and zones. So now I can get to work for $3.75 a trip, instead of $6.50 + $3.50. lousy scheduling between busses means that it takes an hour longer than it should. Really lousy planning means I have to go three towns over, and come back one because of jurisdiction...
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