New sewing machine from garage sale. Love at first stitch — the motor has the best sound, it doesn’t jam, and it comes in the greatest plaid case.

Cute embroidery, mint tea, interesting work, good projects. My wrist surgery was pushed back, so I’m embroidering and typing while I can!

Good news, new challenges.

I do. On this hot day, from the comfort of the deserted coffee shop (everyone is at the bar, watching the World Cup final), I’m finding it hard to concentrate on summery writing work when there’s such gorgeous yarn being sold at Quince & Co.

(Coming up in February: a post titled “Remember summer?”)

I spent a good part of today lying on a blanket, picnic-style, in my hallway, enjoying the crossbreeze from my open front and back porch doors. The weather here has been hot and humid, so hot it’s hard to concentrate. I have found myself at the local malls more than I like to admit, simply for the pleasure of an air-conditioned stroll through the sales racks.

Yesterday brought rain, a crazy downpour complete with gusting winds and lightning. I stepped out of the hair salon where I had been hiding out, avoiding the dreaded walk to the metro, and noticed that the rain wasn’t even cold. Stepping in puddles felt oddly like a warm foot bath.  People on the metro stared at the soaking-wet girl, wondering if it was a cool-down technique.

I weighted my options for today: step out into that muggy outdoors, make the trek to the coffee shop and spend my hard-earned cash on iced-lattés in the relative comfort of a cool, crowded room, or stay home, lie on the floor and drink lots of water?

I stayed home and embroidered.

Haven’t you heard? Embroidery’s the new knitting, at least for me, while I wait for the surgery that will make my wrists pain-free. I’ve embroidered flowers to hang on my wall, matching pillowcases that I’ll be too afraid to use (Delilah the cat likes to chew through bed linens) and I’m working on something summery.

Unlike knitting, embroidered linens and decorations don’t really have a purpose: they won’t keep me warm, I can’t wear them to work. Still, it’s an enjoyable way to occupy my hands while listening to yet another episode of This American Life.

A translation, Gonzales‘ Solo Piano for the millionth time (35th, actually, according to iTunes), a candle, a cat roaming around a clean apartment. Fancy ice cream on sale. New fabric, new yarn, new vintage belts. Iced tea with a friend. Lots and lots of work on a documentary project.

I like this.

I’m now one of those annoying people who have apps for everything. Well, not everything. I’m still waiting for the Royal Bank to come out with an application that works as well as ING’s.  I don’t yet have a knitting row-counter or stitch dictionary.

Here are the ones I use constantly and that have made my life (dare I say it?) easier.

• Email, of course. I wake up at 6am, feed Delilah (the cat) and check my email on my iPod. It’s faster than starting up my computer, and I can go back to bed if there’s nothing important.
• Simplenote. It’s the cleanest, easiest notetaking application. You can email the notes to yourself in one click.
• Lose It!, when I need to track what I eat. The caloric information isn’t always perfect (there are a lot of American fast-food entries) but to keep track of what I eat, it’s simple and fast.
• Mtl Mobile. Every Montrealer should fork over $4 and buy this! Every schedule for the busses in Montreal, Laval and Longueuil, downloaded to the iPod. I can check what time the next bus is coming from the metro platform.
• Instapaper. Everyone should fork over $5 and buy this!  Before I leave the house, I open every new link on Arts & Letters Daily and save them to Instapaper. Same thing for any other interesting article. I read them on my way to class. Much easier than dragging my laptop.
• Couch to 5k. More on this later — it’s a beginner’s running program that I try every year. I usually drop out after a few days, but this year I’m still going strong after almost four weeks, and I credit this app for my success.
• Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. It saves all of his recipes to the iPod. Useful at the grocery store.
• Skype. Super useful when I have a wifi connection.
• Bejeweled 2. It’s J’s fault. One round of this game lasts one minute, so it’s easy to say “I’ll just play for a few metro stations…” and then forget to look up.

I volunteered at the AEBC conference this weekend and learned about, among other issues, the problem with the availability of accessible media. The CNIB will be pulling out of library services by 2012 and it’s not clear who will take over. I can’t imagine not being able to borrow library books, or having to fight with my province to gain access to reading materials.

(Another I’d-never-thought-of-that tidbit: the newer digital touchpads on Interac and credit card terminals are quite problematic for visually impaired people: the choices are to carry cash all the time, or give the cashier your PIN so zie can run the transaction. Hmm.)

Attending the conference was… I’m trying to avoid “eye-opening”, but it really was. First, I learned how difficult it is to avoid visual language when directing someone to a location: “it’s behind him, on that side, after the blue door”.  I also learned that I’m slightly allergic to dogs, which means I was sniffling through one of the presentations, in a small room with about 20 service dogs.

Finally, I learned that when your service dog gets sick, it can be a very scary experience. The bond between a person and their service animal is special, unique, incredible.

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In other news, I’m going back to yoga today, finally!

Courtesy of isamizdat on Flickr

Even after almost 10 years of living in Quebec, I’m not yet used to alternating sun and rain.  In BC, it would rain for days and days, then be cloudy for a few more, and then we’d see the sun for a few hours.

We just had a rain storm and now, ten minutes later, the sun is shining.  I never minded the Vancouver rain very much, but this is definitely better.

Now the lecturers have voted to continue the strike for a third time.

I think it’s time to do the humane thing and euthanize this semester.  What are the options? At this point, it’s either we stay in school ’till July, preventing us from taking summer courses (Université de Montréal only has one summer semester), have non-union workers teach the courses (unsatisfactory at best), or resume the courses (with eight classes left) in the fall.

I want my Bachelor’s (it’s about time!), but not this way.  Let’s just forget it and start fresh in the fall.  Without commenting on the issues at stake, can you imagine the classroom atmosphere if classes were to start again this week?

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On a completely different note, I treated myself to my first Boustan experience.  Until now, the name “Boustan” only brought back memories of a Sacred Writings class with Boustan Hirji.  Now the name evokes a delicious chicken shawarma with pickled cabbage and garlic sauce.  Montreal has a million Lebanese places, but this (and the spot in the food court at Alexis-Nihon, trust me and have the potatoes with extra garlic sauce) deserves the fame.  As a bonus, there is a picture by the cash of the owner sitting down with Trudeau père, circa 1998.  Awesome.

[European] cities were built for families, for lovers, for children young and old. They were built to live in, not to pass through. And if the Americans have been able to grasp this concept, we can no longer accept any further excuses from our political leaders.

Read the rest here, from the always-awesome Spacing Montreal.