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Springing into Spring.

Well, finally Spring is showing signs of making an appearance here in cold, cold Québec. This is what my backyard looked like the second week of April, though, so I’m not holding my breath. They’re jumping on the trampoline, which is still 2 feet below the snowline, illustrating that there is still about 6 feet of snow on the ground. Last night was the first barbecue (hamburgers) and sitting in the sun on a lawn chair. May is in two more days, so we’ll see… although I heard something on the radio today about it snowing tonight. Sigh.

28 April 2008 Random
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Bad, bad Dunkin Donuts!

Last week, while I was in Vermont, I had an opportunity to catch up on several years’ worth of back episodes of the few TV show I liked (back when we got TV), Law & Order, for instance, and Home Improvement (I know, I know, but I like it). I also caught up on what has been going on in advertising and was shocked to see Dunkin Donuts latest campaign “Order In English”. In case you haven’t seen this ad series, it features all sorts of people at a coffee shop counter attempting to order coffee with names like “Latte Vente” (i.e. Starbucks) and other such names, usually in Italian, Spanish or French. They can’t pronounce it and are frustrated. The entire campaign basically says to Americans that : a) it just isn’t normal to try to say anything in a different language; b) they should object to being “forced” to order in anything other than English. Now, I live in Québec where the official language is French, which puts a whole new spin on this unfortunate idea. (more…)

15 March 2008 Random
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Purple skies

Today was the weirdest mix of weather conditions : snow, sleet, freezing rain, plain-old-rain and HUGE wind, making it seem much colder than it really was, but at the end of the afteroon I take a walk down to the mailbox and am positively blown away – not by the wind, but by the amazingly purple sky. I don’t remember ever seeing a sky this colour. It is a rich, deep blueish purple, kind of like blueberry that thinks it’s the Queen. Wow! I’m spending a week in Vermont, all alone, while my kids ski in Colorado and my husband writes new tunes in our Québec house. The goal : redo my website, work on personal projects in development, draw, sing, play my accordion, drink a few nice glasses of wine… and peaceful doesn’t begin to describe how wonderful it is (although it’s half over). However, the sound of chat windows opening up now and then (Adium) keep me from missing anybody too much… the up side of too much technology.