(no subject)
Vermont was all farms and factories. Everything just waiting to be shipped off to somewhere more exciting, myself included. But it was beautiful. Quiet. A nice place to retire or start a family.
I went to Quebec City, which was a lot like France and a little like Hell. The limited attractions of the area were way further apart than expected. Oh Quebec. Everything's in French, of course, and the maps NEVER make sense: faulty metric-system inches of ink lines which the legend didn't say equated to hours and hours and hours in the car with my dad's angry Texas mispronunciations, Amy's icy glares, and my mother, who honestly spend that whole day crying. Crying behind the wheel, though, because she trusts no one more than her jerky, spastic steering that re-awakens the stomach aches that have tankfully stopped invading first thing each morning, taunting, "You're pregnant, you're pregnant! Check out some Vermont real estate!"
So we did little more in that city than hit up an adorable french restaurant with sort of pallatable food and a couple of pile-o-junk fire hazzards with "Gift Shop" signs. Ah, well. I'm here for Montreal. It's the whole reason we came to this hemisphere instead of working on our freckles in Mexico.
It was heartbreaking to see my mom not get to her whale watch before the tour operators' closed. She wanted to check the activity off in her latest (only) Bible, "1,000 Places to See Before you Die." She obsessively highlights conquered territory in its many pages. To me, it sounds like surefire disappointment. Could even a travel agent visit all 1000 places while still living the life of a middle-class, employed mother of 4? Why not pick up a copy of "792 Deathbed Regrets"? I didn't tell her this. I just sat in the backseat with my headphones playing out of one ear. The other would listen to bickering and that terrible way my mother whispers everything when she's pissed off. The eyes watched dandelion snow floating around while the brain knew the wind that blew all that fuzz from the flowers did not make any wishes, because it's just wind.
***
But now I'm in a hostel in Montreal and my parents are gone. I drank wine all evening around a table with people from all different countries. Everyone is so nice. They open their mouths and you can't wait to hear which accent comes out.
I went to Quebec City, which was a lot like France and a little like Hell. The limited attractions of the area were way further apart than expected. Oh Quebec. Everything's in French, of course, and the maps NEVER make sense: faulty metric-system inches of ink lines which the legend didn't say equated to hours and hours and hours in the car with my dad's angry Texas mispronunciations, Amy's icy glares, and my mother, who honestly spend that whole day crying. Crying behind the wheel, though, because she trusts no one more than her jerky, spastic steering that re-awakens the stomach aches that have tankfully stopped invading first thing each morning, taunting, "You're pregnant, you're pregnant! Check out some Vermont real estate!"
So we did little more in that city than hit up an adorable french restaurant with sort of pallatable food and a couple of pile-o-junk fire hazzards with "Gift Shop" signs. Ah, well. I'm here for Montreal. It's the whole reason we came to this hemisphere instead of working on our freckles in Mexico.
It was heartbreaking to see my mom not get to her whale watch before the tour operators' closed. She wanted to check the activity off in her latest (only) Bible, "1,000 Places to See Before you Die." She obsessively highlights conquered territory in its many pages. To me, it sounds like surefire disappointment. Could even a travel agent visit all 1000 places while still living the life of a middle-class, employed mother of 4? Why not pick up a copy of "792 Deathbed Regrets"? I didn't tell her this. I just sat in the backseat with my headphones playing out of one ear. The other would listen to bickering and that terrible way my mother whispers everything when she's pissed off. The eyes watched dandelion snow floating around while the brain knew the wind that blew all that fuzz from the flowers did not make any wishes, because it's just wind.
***
But now I'm in a hostel in Montreal and my parents are gone. I drank wine all evening around a table with people from all different countries. Everyone is so nice. They open their mouths and you can't wait to hear which accent comes out.