Morning Coffee with(out) a Smile

Anybody that knows us will confirm that Joseph and I are extremely gregarious. We also love strong coffee in the morning. Naturally, we like to know the names of our baristi and to make daily smalltalk with them; "hey Joe, how are you today? do you know what we did last night?"

When we lived on the Upper West Side, we would go to The Sensuous Bean every morning for amazing coffee and engaging conversation. So many interesting personalities work at and run The Sensuous Bean. Over 2 years on the UWS, we spent more time than we'd like to admit just chatting in that coffee shop.

Sigh... how we miss The Sensuous Bean!

Living in Montreal's Mile End, we're a stone's throw from St. Viateur, which has the best cafes in the city. Cafe Social and Olympico are old-skool Italian cafes... lots of worn-looking middle-aged men hang out there all day, watching soccer (sorry, football) and playing cards. Their espresso is lemony, zesty, delicious, and will have a 2mm layer of froth on top. Don't bother asking for soy milk, because they will laugh at you and curtly tell you to go to Starbucks. I asked to be lactose-intolerant?

Most days I want a latte, so I go to Le Cagibi, a quaint vegetarian restaurant/cafe. Cagibi is unique. The decor is pure kitsch--1950's dinette sets, vinyl records, indie zines, and your grandma's bric-a-brac--mini bowling pins, pictures of cats and dogs, porcelain statues... you get the idea. The music consists of oldies, indie rock, and Jay-Z thrown in there for diversity and even more kitsch. Local hipsters fill the vinyl-upholstered seats; girls in striped shirts and low-hanging jeans, retro frocks and rectangular black-rimmed glasses, studying and chatting away on their ibooks, sipping their lattes. Cagibi doesn't just have soy - they embrace the soy lifestyle!

The problem with Le Cagibi is their staff. Yes, the staff is capable, courteous, cute in a hipster/indie/ sexual- orientation- ambigious sort of way, and they make a mean latte too... they were even shouted out in Montreal Mirror's Rant Line "I love all the BOYS at the Cagibi. That’s the hottest sack of dirtbags I’ve ever seen." But the problem is: I don't know any of their names.

Joseph and I have tried to learn their names, but our friendliness simply is not reciprocated. Clearly, it's not the language barrier; their English is perfect so they wouldn't speak French to us in the first place.

Joseph postulates: they think they're so cool that EVERYONE wants to be their friend, so they are friendly to NOBODY. This prevents them from having to learn ANYBODY'S name in the first place.

Too bad, WASHes of Cagibi... it is YOU who are really missing out.

Montrealers do it in the COLD...

I am continually shocked by Montrealers' infatuation with scheduling outdoor activities in the middle of the winter.

I was in a little park down the street where there's an adorable children's holiday playground. They also sell Christmas trees and have live music.

So it was 5pm--already dark outside--these kids were running around the wonderland, playing in the bitter cold and snow. To give you a sense of the how cold it was, it took 5 minutes for my face and ears begin feel that "pins and needles you've-been-out-in-the-cold-too-long-and-are-in-danger-of-frostbite" pain. I looked it up on line, and with wind chill factored in, it was -22 degrees Celsius (-7 degrees Fahrenheit), yet these children seemed content and happy!

But to the Montrealers, it's not just about kids playing in the snow. It's about weeding out the weak and doing the funnest things at the COLDEST times and in the COLDEST places possible. For example:

Igloofest is an outdoor concert series that happens in Montreal in the last two weekends of January, at night, on the quay (wharf). So they compound being outside in late January, with the nighttime cold, and the extra chill of being on the water! Why?

Let's have a look at yearly temperatures in Canada.
Wow, it appears that Igloofest is, indeed, held at the ABSOLUTE COLDEST time of the year! at the coldest time of day, in the coldest part of Montreal!!!

Will I be at Igloo fest? Hells yeah!
Josh Wink and Spank Rock and other awesome artists are performing for a $5 cover. I'm SO not missing that...

Will I be complaining the ENTIRE TIME about how COLD I am? Probably. (sorry Joseph)

It beats sitting at home watching movies or being packed like a sardine into some stuffy nightclub with sweaty 16-year-old Quebecker cokeheads, eh?

Real Fur vs. Fake Fur + Smoking

Wearing fur--REAL fur--pisses off a lot of people. Fortunately, the people that give me a hard time about wearing fur tend to be smokers and fake fur wearers. This works out great, because the way they feel about my real fur is how I feel about their smoking and uninformed fake fur wearing.

I was at Disco Crisco Twister at Arlene's Grocery in NYC on Sunday night:
Friend - "Is that coat real"
Me - "Yes"
F - "Is it recycled?"
M - "Yes"
F - "Good, because you're not the kind of person who would buy a NEW fur coat, are you?"
[I'm thinking, I'm not the kind of person who can AFFORD a new fur coat]
M - "It's recycled, and I'm really warm"
F - "Well, fur coats are really cruel"
M - "You're right"

Meanwhile, she was running around in her fake fur coat looking for a cigarette.

I have some thoughts on smokers and uninformed but self-righteous fake fur wearers, which I'll share now.

Smokers:
Smoking is arguably one of the cruelest things one can do to their lungs, most damaging things one can do to their health, and most obnoxious and intrusive habits one can impose on their non-smoking friends while hanging out in close quarters... Furthermore, smokers are naive for getting addicted to sleekly-marketed cancer sticks while in their teens and early twenties.

Self-Righteous Fake-Fur Wearers:
Besides inherent tackiness, fake fur is not "green". Believe it or not, the production of fake fur requires a considerable energy expenditure and releases toxic petrochemicals into the environment. The pollution of fake fur coats is way crueler to the environment than recycled fur, which does not harm the environment at all.



Despite the research, to many many people I'm still Cruella Deville in my glamorous recycled fur coat.