Thus, you can imagine the shock and incomprehension that arose when I got up from the computer yesterday afternoon and found myself standing eight feet away from a maintenance man on the other roof.  After two years of never seeing other humans from our windows — just pigeons, the occasional squirrel, and a faded plastic 20 oz Orange Crush bottle that Pete and I have developed a curious attachment to — it doesn’t really compute.

You can also imagine my relief at having made it a habit to remain relatively modestly clothed while in the privacy of my own home, even on hot, muggy late summer days like the ones we’ve been having this week.  Maintenance dude, you should be thanking me for my vigilance — our encounter could have passed from “startling” to “embarrassing and awkward” very quickly.

* Of course, Montreal — a city that averages over seven feet of snow each winter — almost exclusively features flat rooftops on both residences and businesses.  It’s nice that we mostly don’t have to worry about the icy danger heavily advertised around the McGill campus, but it also makes me glad I’m not a homeowner.

I’ll also occasionally come to surprisingly realizations about people, the past, and the ever-uncertain future.  Like I did yesterday.

To wit: I realized that I should scrounge up some sheet music for some of the songs sung by Hugh Laurie in the old Grenada television adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster, in order to facilitate sing-alongs within the Jejune household.

Of course, I realized that I’d also need to see about moving to a larger apartment, in order to accommodate an all-white grand piano.

And then I realized that I’ll have to start going about my business in dapper formalwear, and figure out the address of the Drones Club.

And then I realized that what I really need is a Jeeves, floating or oozing or shimmering abound me, extricating me from scrapes and generally ensuring a certain quality of life that I’d find most agreeable.

I imagine that finding a Jeeves will take a lot of time and energy.  But some sheet music, and a freshly clarified vision of this ideal future, should fortify me for the task.

I should preface this by mentioning that, in our particular circles, D&D has been all but completely normalized as a social activity.  There’s no shame or self-consciousness about the shroud of intense nerdliness that hangs over any and all collaborative role-playing activities, probably because of their ubiquity. One could take our social networks in Madison and draw an elaborate web of crisscrossing interconnections illustrating who was playing in whose campaign at any given time.  It’s not my thing, but Pete thoroughly enjoys it, and there are certainly worse hobbies for one to pursue.

Anyway, I kind of love the campaign that he’s running at present.  The participants stop by the store before coming over to our place, pay for all the food themselves, and cook up some sort of elaborate dinner with a separate vegetarian portion set aside for me (asparagus-cheese-potato gratin, for instance, and I also remember some particularly excellent garlic mashed potatoes on the side; bacon is usually added to everything at some point).  Someone then does all of the dishes, and they all quietly file out by 10 pm.  It’s amazing.

So, yeah.  Free, fantastic home-cooked dinner, and they clean the kitchen for me afterwards.  I actively look forward to D&D nights.

I sometimes reciprocate by experimenting with dessert recipes that I’ve been wanting to try out.  This week’s experiment was (were?) Halfway Cookies, which were new to me; they’re apparently one of those recipes that are ubiquitous in old church and community cookbooks, but fell out of vogue.  (See also: Tunnel of Fudge.)  They are… pretty great, actually: like a dense, buttery cookie bar with a still-slightly crunchy chocolate chip layer on top, and a sweet, crunchy-fluffy meringue topping.  (Pete thought that the meringue was flavored with coffee, but it’s actually just made with brown sugar.)  Pretty sweet, which I like; hold their shape well; more interesting, flavor- and texture-wise, than a standard cookie bar with icing.  Also, apparently, very uniformly light brown in color.  Behold the tan-ness:

Delicious nonetheless.

Also recently acquired, though I haven’t tried them yet (see: Halfway Cookies), are some Cadbury’s Twisted Bars, a.k.a. a Cadbury Creme Egg made into a candy bar.  Even though the eggs are still plentiful (and cheaper) in these parts, I couldn’t not buy some.  I feel kind of like they made them just for me!

Exciting life in these parts, eh? Desserts, D&D, and candy.

Recently, though, I’ve discovered a far superior alternative to the lengthy shipping times, customs transits, and erratic delivery schedules of the mail service.  Apparently, when you live in a major city, you can buy some things in person.  I know!

We’ve been in dire need of wool wash — yes, I can hear many of you replying that you had no idea that such stuff existed, but I produce a lot of hand-wash-only woolens and it’s good for the fibers and you don’t have to rinse it out and it smells good — for some time, but I was balking at the idea of having to pay $8 shipping for a smallish bottle.  After some online sleuthing, however, I found that a local yarn store carried what I wanted.  And I took the metro over there, and I looked at some yarn, and I bought the wool wash, and I didn’t even have to wait or pay shipping!

Similarly, thanks to changes in whatever seasonal pollens are wafting through the air at present, I’ve been suffering a particularly intense dual outbreak of eczema and hives.  I’ve been treating it with both emollients and steroids, yet still woke myself up multiple times per night scratching furiously at my legs and arms.  And lo!  Encased in pink, itchy flesh, I walked myself over to the Lush shop and bought myself a little pot of Dream Cream.  Instant relief!  No waiting, and no more angry epidermis!

Apparently, not all products need be purchased online, then shipped to Ohio, where you pick them up and carry them home a month later.  The More You Know, readers.  The More You Know.

See, like so many apartment-dwellers, I jealously collect quarters and dollar coins for use in my building’s coin-operated machines.  Since I make almost all of our grocery and household purchases in cash, I’m able to generate a pretty good supply.

I also use my elementary math skills to spend whatever change I collect.  Yesterday, I stopped by the drugstore to pick up a tube of fancy dentist-recommended enamel-reinforcing toothpaste — since I now refer unnecessarily in certain and self-pitying tones to my future root canal, despite not knowing whether said root canal will occur next visit or in 15 years — costing $5.83 after tax (sigh).

I had a $5 bill and a motley supply of coins that weren’t dollars or quarters, so I handed the cashier the $5, a $2 coin and 8 cents.

And this is where the complete confusion happens.  “It’s… $5.83,” he repeated to me, more slowly and this time in English, staring at the money I’d placed on the counter in front of him.

I’ve worked retail.  I know that I’m far from the only person to hand over odd-seeming configurations of coins in order to get a more compact array of change back — in fact, it’s where I picked up the technique in the first place.  But I almost always get the same blank stare of misunderstanding, and have to bite my tongue to stop from snapping at the cashier to just let the cash register do some basic math for him and to give me back my $1.25.

Instead, I end up saying something obvious like “that should be enough” and giving them a slight eyebrow, which is in return received with varying degrees of sullen incomprehension as we look stubbornly at each other over the counter for a moment, in a silent grudge match, with the money lying between us.

But I persist.  Because I’m nothing if not stubborn about maintaining my tiny square of moral high ground, and I do enjoy that extra laundry money.

I’d like to thank you for your prompt–in fact, virtually immediate–response to the recent re-submission of my article, “Minor Revelations about an Obscure Author and his Even More Obscure Influences.”

That said, it came as news to me that, while both reviewers commended its potential and recommended resubmission in their responses to my first draft, you had omitted the portion of the cover letter where it was specified that this resubmission was encouraged to take place someplace else.

To avoid similar confusion in the future, perhaps you should make such details clearer, and consider including the “rejection” part of the readers’ responses among the feedback made available to the author.

Rest assured that “Minor Revelations” will take its high potential and valuable contributions elsewhere.

Yours most cordially,

Katie J.

Of course, this meant that Pete and I happily ended up spending most of our spare time on the first day running errands in Plattsburgh, New York.  I am proud to tell you, however, that when we were going grocery shopping, I overheard another pair of customers — not us! — gazing admiringly at something or other in the grocery section and marveling, “Now this?  This would cost $4 in Montreal!”  And while in Target, the following bus pulled up right outside:

… and started unloading little old French ladies into the front door.  Every time that you think I’m getting hyperbolic about American shopping over here, just remember the chartered bus driven 1.5 hours across the border to the poor, picked-over Plattsburgh Target.

(We also snagged lunch in the food court, which reminds me that I need to write up a separate post about my everlasting love for Taco Bell’s 7-Layer Burrito and nachos with synthetic bright orange nacho cheesy product.  We never eat fast food except when on vacation, and… mmm.  Burritos for lunch next week, methinks.)

(Or maybe I won’t write up a separate post about my love for the 7-Layer Burrito and nacho cheesy product.  I’ll just state it again and move on: damn, sometimes Taco Bell can be tasty, you guys.)

The only downside of the bike route extending through the Adirondacks as opposed to rural Quebec was that, although it was every bit as scenic as last year’s route, there are virtually no places to pull over and quietly take photos; there are many more other cars and bicyclists, and (of course) many more mountains and trees and things occupying the shoulder.  So, in the absence of any visual documentation, let me tell you that it was still a gorgeous drive, and that the wide, freshly-paved road surfaces of New York state are apparently an immense improvement over Quebec’s.  And we took a hike on the second day before we left, and the entire forest smelled like a Christmas tree.  I’d like to bottle that scent up in a jar and carry it around with me.

We also left the cabin on the second day in a car crammed with two sore additional passengers, their backpacks and panniers, and a poor lone watermelon that had been overlooked during the previous night’s feast.  The problem was that we wouldn’t legally be able to bring said watermelon back across the border, but it seemed like a pity just to throw it out; due to the lack of room in the backseat, it was carefully cradled in a lap the entire way back while we tried to figure out what to do with it.

Fortunately, we caught up with the riders in Mooers, right before the border and about 90 km into their ride, and I don’t think that I will ever see anybody quite as enthusiastic about a watermelon ever again in my life.  If you’ve been on the road in the sun all day eating and drinking heavy food, I guess a watermelon is exactly what you want to see.

joyous post-ride watermelon, originally uploaded by Bork Bork Bork.

This weekend, for the first time in a very long while, we have absolutely no plans to leave the country.

All good North Woods vacations require a lake. This one was no exception.

While our particular lake was a fishing lake — there was a separate fish-cleaning building on the premises, and the shoreline was weedy and mucky — it had a rowboat and two kayaks, which were used to take would-be swimmers out into the deepest part of the lake.  I am a particular fan of the bob ‘n’ float, or bobbing lazily around the water buoyed by a life jacket.

Climbing back in to the rowboats and canoes in order to get back to shore, however, was a considerably less dignified operation.

Jen contemplates some of Woodman’s cheese selection, originally uploaded by Bork Bork Bork.

Woodman’s, where we used to do the bulk of our grocery shopping, is itself a peculiar entity. It is massive, cheap, and dingy, but employee-owned, so not as evil as one might assume.  Its fruit and vegetable selection can be pretty sketchy, and their check-out lines unbelievably long, but their selection of other goods and household items is both larger and less expensive than virtually anywhere else I’ve ever been.  And, in a city with the largest producer-only farmer’s market in the United States, you’re not hurting for options.

Anyway.  The jewel in Woodman’s mammoth crown is its cheese section, 1/4 of which is featured here.

This is the Wisconsin-based block cheese section; Pete is holding a massive block of Super Super Sharp Cheddar in his left hand (not to be confused with the mere Super Sharp Cheddar in his right) that weighs 2.75 pounds and costs $19.02.

Not pictured are the equally large sections for imported and smaller varieties of block cheese, shredded cheese, and cream cheese / sour cream / soft cheeses.  Now, one of my chief regrets is not taking advantage of this bountiful harvest to make a super-awesome, super-rich batch of mac ‘n’ cheese.  Next time!