Today Diane and I headed up to Montreal with Deb. Hannah and Olivier’s apartment was free… (they just moved to France !).. so we went up to do some  non-shopping.
I was trying to figure out when the last time I was up in Montreal.. I cant think of a time I’ve been up there since the pandemic… is that possible ?!?!  

The drive up was fun.. I enjoyed being a passenger as Deb drove

We walked around for nearly 10 miles !.. We ducked in a few stores but didnt really buy anything

We walked buy Leonard Cohen ‘s house.. always cool to see the place

We were lucky enough to get early dinner reservations at Sushi  Momo  a vegan (!!!) sushi place on St Denis in Downtown. Diane and Deb had been there before and both raved about it.. It was incredible. All threee of us at the Prix Fixe mmenu.. whcih included 16 pieces of chef’s choice vegan sushi.. that allowed such a veriety of stuff. THe tastes and textures we’re amazing.. marinated root vegies became salom shashimi.. seaweed pods became fish roe.  I’m not a big fan of ‘fake meet’ for the sake of people who are missing meet.. but there was nothing fake abotu this. 

We were done with dinner by 6.. so we headed out for anotuer walk around the city on the way back to the aapartment.. It was about 3 degrees F ( -16 C) so we walked quickly to keep warm. We went down to Old Montreal then followed the river back towards Griffentown .. The city was beautifully lit..

We found some cool stores including one that photographed peoples iris’s .. then created art from them. It was so cool.. we couldn’t resist !

Lots of fun stuff to see in this town !

then back to the aprtment to warm up and rest our feet !

Great day in the big city !!!

nite  all, nite  sam 
-me

Today was my first day of vacation. I did soem programmign work from home.. but spent the rest of the day getting readd y for the kids visit.   

Diane and I took a quick hike up Catamount trail. We had our spikes on.. so we got off the road as soon as we could. We walked alone the river on the old overgrown logging road, then came down the saem way. It was a beautiful morning

Later on, Lauren and gizzo came over for dinner. It was nice to catch up with them. THey’ve had a very hard and busy couple of months. Kaurens brother Jeff. died suddenly about 6 weeks. ago. Jeff lived in Hamburg Germany with his family.. he was a percussionist. He’d come kayak camping with us onec.. and I’d hung out with him several times since.  He’was a great guy.. super funny and kind. Lauren and Giz went over to Germany as soon as they heard.. THen Lauren went back for Jeff’s celibration of life.. 

then 9 days later, Laren’s mother’s partner Elisa died suddenly as well. elisa and Laurens mom had been together for more than 30 years. It was a shock to everyone.. especially so soon after Jeff’s passing. 

In the middle of all that. Gizzos youngest daughter got married in Florida.. WHich was great, 

It was good hanging out with our freinds and hearign about the lows and highs. Life is such a mystery soemtimes.. no maybe all the time. 

We love our friends.. 

nite all, nite sam
–me

Busy day at work.. getting ready for the end of the year. I  went out for lunch to meet my friend Ryan.  His fiancee Maria passed away  suddenly  on september 11th due to an asthma attack (see here ).  Maria worked at Beta as one of our HR members. I didn’t know her well.. but the interactiosn I had with her were  great. she helped me write my job description as a consulting mad scientist.   she was so fun and  smart. I ran into Ryan last week and could see how much he was hurting. Today we met for lunch at the barnyard just to talk. I got to learn a lot more about Maria.  Ryan and Maria had been together for 8 years. They we’re going to be married about this time next year. She was a dead head and was up for anything.. freindly, smart loving.. and tons of fun. 

it was good gettign to hear Ryan talk about her.. and about how he and Maria’s family are doing. It’s hard to know what to say to someone this close to loss. .. .. We talked about dealing with other peoples reaction when grieving.. and about how physically exhausting it is to grieve.   
I could tell that Ryan was glad to be able to talk about Maria.. and what his life is like now. it was heartbreaking.. and at the same time good talking..  
Please keep Ryan. Maria and their families in your thoguhts

note all, nite sam
_me

After work, I cam hoem , picked up duana and we went to pick up Finn. We like takign him out for dinner.. it’s our excuse to eat freind ch freis !

we’ve known finn since he was a baby.. now he’s bigger than me !
time flies !

nite all nite sam

_me