Another Saturday was spent under the sun in spandex. Yann and I gave Route Verte #5 a try; we’re going through all the route numbers, almost in order.
#5 took us through a forest of refineries to the northernmost (or easternmost if you have that much faith in Montréal’s cartographers) tip of the island. Just before we exited the island of Montréal, we happened upon a small park inhabited by anthropomorphic animals in baseball shirts standing on stumps.
Attending a social gathering, especially one composed of mostly Francophone hearing people, is decidedly not a Laura thing. But if it’s a friend’s birthday, I try to give the gift of my presence at their party.
At last Sunday’s party, the birthday boy, Paulo, looked at me in the eyes and challenged me to the “Circle Game”. This is the game where someone dupes you into looking at their hand as they press thumb and index finger together to form a circle, which happens to also be the sign for “asshole” in ASL.
I know none of you have tested my granola guide, otherwise, I would have been awarded a medal by now.
You probably found the idea of combining honey, nuts, dried fruit, and rolled oats to be too daunting, so I’ll be sharing an even easier recipe. (Easy if you have a food processor; impossible if you don’t.)
Instead of continuing to argue with Yann about the varying quality of stunt mattresses, I am going to write about today’s bike ride in explicit detail.
Since my crash two weeks ago, this was the first bike ride worthy of wearing bib shorts. On Tuesday, I finished my antibiotics like a good patient, but came up with a new reason to visit the doctor: “My arm looks better but feels so much worse!”
This new doctor prescribed me some pale yellow tablets and promised me I’d be ready to wrestle a ManBearPig in under a week. As I was absolutely sure I wouldn’t be able to find a ManBearPig in the city, Yann and I cycled out to Oka (118km round trip).
Since my accident, I’ve been spending way more time on the love seat than in the saddle. Likewise, I am on way more drugs than usual. I was hoping the painkillers the small-town doctor hooked me up with would evoke some blog-worthy introspection. Alas, painkillers don’t do that. Not even morphine. At best, it made sulking on the love seat a little less uncomfortable.
It took exactly a week before I felt I had recovered enough to go on a benign adventure. On Saturday I found myself back on a gravel path, only I didn’t have a bicycle beneath me.
This particular path– Le Réseau-Vert–runs alongside the Canadian Pacific Railway line for about 3km through the borough of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie. Up until the beginning of spring, it was a simple unmarked car-free path. The city then decided to add some gimmicky park benches, tables, a playground for doing calisthenics, and information panels.
Being without my bicycle forced me to slow down and appreciate this $1 million upgrade. I was able to stop and smell the roses/learn a bit about my ‘hood. In French.
I was not disappointed.
Continue reading “What you don’t need to know about Montréal.”
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