Spring’s sprung

I spent a lot of time with family over the past week; my mother visited for four days and my sister & brother-in-law were here for a day and a half. The visits were nice; my mother wanted to hike up Mont Royal and browse the fabric district, and my sister wanted to stay in, have a few drinks, play silly card games and catch up, so they complemented each other well. I broke with my tradition of abstaining from religious observance during Lent by attending a Mennonite church service with my mother, which always makes me feel nostalgic on the rare occasions that it happens. I don’t so much miss attending church as fondly remember the time when I felt like that congregation was the right place for me. Anyways, it was nice to be there for a day.

The temperature’s supposed to be a consistent three or four degrees above zero all week, which makes it feel like spring after months of the mercury staying below -10°C. I celebrated the vernal equinox by buying a bike toy (a gadget to log my speed and distance) and dreaming about warm-weather rides in the coming weeks. Today I saw a bike lane installed on Mont Royal in the Plateau (bike lanes here mostly consist of a lane on the side of the road separated from car traffic by metal poles, which are removed from mid-November until the end of March), and it made me happy. People keep telling me how Montréal explodes with life in the spring and I sense that coming very soon. It’s very exciting.

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Random movie recommendation: last night I watched a lightly fictionalized flick about a man who successfully flew as a Pan-Am pilot, passed as a pediatrician in Georgia, practised law in Louisiana, taught as a professor in Utah, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged cheques, all before the age of 19. The DVD included a few interviews with the actual con artist himself, which were great viewing too.