Copper roof

So, in a post from earlier this summer I told you that the Oratory was sheathed in scaffolding due to the replacement of the copper roof over the nave section of the Basilica. I'm happy to report that the work moved along at a pretty good rate in spite of the buckets of rain we got all summer long and the west side of the roof is now completed. I don't know about the east side because I have no way of getting to a vantage point from which I could see it, but there a not nearly as many workmen up there, so I imagine that the work on that side must be finished or very near to it. Here are a few shots of our lovely new roof:


There you have it! I hope you all have a chance to come and see it in the next few years...before it becomes oxidized and turns green like the dome! lol

Have a great week!

Prairie dog!

Here are two view of this adorable little critter that my boyfriend and I came across while on vacation in Kelowna in 2007. I was absolutely thrilled when we came across him and then positively giddy when his friends showed up as well and they started chirping away because I had never see prairie dogs before. The climate in Montreal is rather inhospitable to them, so the only place I could ever hope to see one would be the Biodome, which just isn't the same. When it comes to animals, nothing thrills me more than to see them in their natural habitat.

If you would like to see critters of every description, swing by Camera Critters, there are plenty of them to go around :o)

Have a great weekend!

Skywatch Friday

Wow, am I the only one who felt like this week just flew by? The summer has flown by too of course, we're getting out first little push of cool pre-autumn air here in Montreal today, the wind definitely has a bit of a chill in it. It was anything but cool when I took this Skywatch Friday picture though, it was a balmy 27 degrees with hardly a cloud in the sky, as you can see. Just some of the lovely wispy ones that I love so much, floating above the Bonsecours market and basin in Old Montreal.

I hope you all have a great Skywatch Friday and an amazing weekend and don't forget to go and check out other Skywatchers' photos here

The case of the missing boyfriend

So, my sweetie was at a conference in Philadelphia last week and on the way back, instead of flying into Toronto and just going 'home' there, he was coming home to Montreal for the weekend. I was totally pumped for it because I figured that since he was getting here on Thursday night instead on midnight on a Friday night like he usually does there was a very good chance that I would get to see him. I saw that he had some flight delays due to weather on Thursday night and couldn't figure out why because I thought he was coming straight into Montreal and all the nasty weather was out in Toronto, and I mean really nasty weather, tornadoes and all. From what I could tell, he had finally made it off the ground in Philly a little after midnight and landed here at about 1:20 A.M., so I was expecting to hear from him on Friday...but I didn't. Nor did I hear from him on Saturday or Sunday before he left. This is rather strange behavior on his behalf. Our not being able to see each other when he comes to Montreal can happen. His family is very clingy and he has a zillion friends here, some of them that he sees far less often than he sees me since they don't have the time to make it up to Toronto to see him, but normally he calls or writes to let me know what his weekend is going to be like and to let me know whether we'll be able to see each other or not. So I was understandably disgruntled about not hearing from him on Saturday but then I became concerned on Sunday. When I finally spoke to him last night, I found out why I had not hear from him and it goes something like this:

1- I had been watching the wrong flight. His flight did not take off on Thursday at all, it was canceled due to the weather, because the flight he was taking had a connection in Toronto.

2- Since it was canceled, he had to stay in Philadelphia overnight and miserly Air Canada wouldn't pay for his hotel or find one for him because the delay was due to weather and not, say, a mechanical failure on one of their planes.

3- Air Canada booked him on another flight on Friday which was overbooked and then on a third one that also didn't work out, so he outright gave up on them and booked his own flight with US Airways which flew directly from Philly to Montreal. In all it took him 26 hours to get here and when he got here, his bag hadn't made it. They had lost it and have still not found it and there's about 1500$ worth of clothing in there because he was at a conference and needed some snazzier stuff. Fortunately his camera was not in his checked bag and he left clothes in his condo in Montreal when he moved last winter.

4- Since US Airways lost his bag, he spent most of the weekend on the phone with them as they called him with updates and he would call them for some and in between that he had promised to visit a friend he hadn't seen since April, help his brother move the last of his stuff into his new house and to clean the drains there and he only made it here on Friday night and had to leave Sunday at 5:00...yeah, he didn't have time to check his e-mail and call and he knew that when I found out what had happened I would understand. Which I do. When he has issues like that, all he can think about is the issue. After five years with him, I well know that.

5- Since US Airways lost his 1500$ bag and will only compensate him for 400$ if they can't find it, my sweetie is applying for a Visa Platinum card which offers full luggage protection if your luggage is lost. He had one the last time his luggage was lost but then he canceled it and boy, does he regret that now...

500 hits!

I've been keeping a closer eye than usual on the counter included with my reader origins map lately because I noticed that I was getting close to the 500 mark and when I checked the counter this morning, I saw that I had made it 502!!! I'm so amazed that I've already had so many readers come to visit my blog, I've only had it online since the end of march! I never expected anyone to come and read it aside from my family and close friends, so I just wanted to say thank you so much to all of my faithful readers, I'm very touched that so many of you come to read my blog so regularly :o)

As for the photo to go with this thank you post, it was taken on July 19th last year at Montreal's annual fireworks competition. I try to make it out to see the fireworks at least once every summer, which isn't too difficult since there are one to two competitors a week from mid-June to the end of August. I was in a very festive mood when I took it since I was at the show that night as part of a party I was having with my friends, so I found it perfectly appropriate for today's post as well :o)

Magique

So last week I introduced you to Quinn and as promised, here is her daughter Magique. She was the only female out of Quinn's litter of five kittens and he character exhibits that fact quite appropriately. She's spunky, very energetic, fearless and can be an unholy terror when she decides to cause trouble in order to get attention. She has a goofy side too, she will throw herself on the floor and roll over onto her back and loll there until I rub her tummy, something that I have never seen any other cat do.

To see other great critter shots, head over here.

Skywatch Friday

This picture of Downtown Vacouver was taken from Stanley Park, one of the biggest parks I have ever seen, it actually takes up at least half the city of Vancouver! My main focus here was actually not the city itself, but the beautiful Angel's Hair clouds above it :o)

So there you have it, I hope you all had a great week and have an equally wonderful weekend. You can go and check out more Skywatch photos here to get off to a good start.

Camera Critters!

This is my very first Camera Critter post, so welcome to anyone new who may never have been to my blog before, feel free to look around! This particular critter is the mother half of my mother-daughter feline duo, if you look around you will see her again as well as her daughter Magique. If you feel like waiting a week though, I will use Magique for next Sunday's camera critter post.

You can go and see other Camera Critters here.

Have a great week!

The Time Traveler's Wife

I went to see 'The Time Traveler's Wife' with a friend of mine today and this in spite of reading this absolutely vile review this morning. It was so extreme that it lost all its credibility and made me want to see the movie even more, if that's even possible. I read Audrey Niffenegger's novel on which the movie is based just after Christmas and absolutely adored it and had been impatiently waiting for the movie ever since then. Let me tell you, that I was not disappointed in the least. 'The Time Traveller's Wife' lived up to all of my expectations and is quite possibly one of the best movie adaptations of a novel I have ever seen. It is beautifully filmed, the actors have amazing chemistry and the soundtrack fits the film like a glove.

My recommendation: go see the film, but it will help if you read the book first. If you don't read the book first, do go with an open mind, otherwise you may end up like the vile movie reviewer, although I don't think anyone else could ever be that extreme. I seriously don't know what she had put in her coffee before writing that review, but she needs to never do it again...

Oh, and one more suggestion: bring tissues, ladies, you will need them. I had none and regretted it :op

Skywatch Friday

So, see this brave fella up there fixing our antenna? Doesn't look all that impressive, right? Well, look again from this vantage point...he's there, look closely!
Uh, yeah, better him than me! He does have an awesome view of the city from up there though, I can guarantee you that!

Happy Skywatch Friday, and go check out other Skywatchers' photos for this week here: http://skyley.blogspot.com/.

Have a fun, hopefully sunshine filled weekend!

Skywatch Friday

Hi all!

I hope you had a pleasant week! Here's a fun Skywatch shot I took during my trek through Old Montreal last Saturday. I loved the way the little wispy clouds seemed to wrap around the bare flagpole at the top of the Bonsecours Market's dome, making it look like they were stuck there!

Now hurry on over to http://skyley.blogspot.com/ to see lots more awesome Skywatch photos!

Oh! And make sure you have a fun weekend while you're at it ;o)

Balancing Act

Hi everyone! I took these shots of this young man, who is training in circus arts, practicing his act in old Montreal this past Saturday. I honestly thought he was brilliant, he was doing the craziest things with his little boxes as you can see. But I also find that his act is an excellent reference point for life, which is, as I'm sure you can all relate to, one huge balancing act. We all have to balance many things in life. Our personal life versus our professional life, time with our significant other and time with our friends, time spent on various projects at work or school, leisure time and time spent tending to our many duties at home, not to mention our budgets, diets and those of our children or those we are caring for for others: 'No, you may not have candy for lunch!'.

Yes, one huge balancing act. Sometimes we can spend the longest time feeling perfectly stable, like we have our act completely under control, until suddenly something happens, and it really doesn't take much, and our entire act falls apart and we have to rebuild it again, sometimes with a part of it missing, a part that had been important to us for some time. It can be person or an activity or even a personal object that we lose and that we always kept with us, but we have to build our act up again without that piece and keep on going because, as I'm sure we've all noticed, life, astonishingly enough, does keep on going even if we feel like it should have stopped...at least until we've found a way to find the balance in our act without that missing piece.

So yes, kudos to this guy for his brilliant act! If he can balance his life as well as he balances with his boxes, he shouldn't have to run after life to catch up when he's sent off kilter too often ;o)

Red Parasols and Simon's Cat

I hope you all had a great weekend! Things went pretty well on my end, namely yesterday when I headed into Old Montreal for a walk and a visit to my favorite stationary store, Papeterie Casse-Noissette. They don't have a web site, but take my word for it and swing by if ever you,re in Montreal. They're a little hole in wall but they hold all kinds of treasures for anyone who enjoys writing. Amazing notebooks, high end pens, original wrapping paper and ribbon, greeting cards, you name it, they have it, but in small quantities to fit their small, charming shop. You can find them at 445 rue St-Sulpice, just pas Notre-Dame Basilica and right after the 'Noël Éternel' shop that all the tourists loooooove having their picture taken in front of.

Anyhow, on my way back to the metro after buying my 2010 agenda at the stationary shop, I happened to look up at the roof of the Place d'Armes hotel, one of Montreal's swankier places and I noticed that they had set up a bunch of red parasols and potted palms on their rooftop terrace bar and I loved the contrast they created with the white ledge. What do you guys think? I thought it was totally awesome, so it turned into the last picture I took before heading home, you'll get to see another one or two for Skywatch Friday later on in the week.

On another note, have you guys ever heard of Simon's Cat? If you haven't, you need to go and check out his website right now! They're the most awesome little videos ever, they make me laugh every time I watch them, even though I've seen them all way more than once.

So there you have it, I hope you all have a great week!