Results! The city comes through!

So those of you who have been following this blog know that I have been bitching and complaining about the lack of street cleaning on my side of the block because of people who don't move their cars during the 9-10 am street cleaning time on Tuesdays. I've gone back and forth with the parking department and the borough, complaining every week. Some weeks they come by and give tickets, other weeks they don't showing up right after the cleaner has already passed by and just driving up the street. I guess because it is now after 10, they can't give tickets. I called furious after that one and the lady told me they were débordé (overflowing with work) which seems weird to me, since it is a revenue-generating activity.

I've put signs on the cars and almost dumped the garbage from the street on them. But my more mature side prevailed and I realized that the fault might be that many people who don't live in the neighbourhood don't even realize that you aren't supposed to park there during that hour. The two signs that state this are far away at each end of the street and there are a myriad of confusing parking signs in between.

So I started to take that tack with the people at 311 that the problem was a lack of proper signage. After the second try at this, directly with somebody from the Borough of the Plateau Mont-Royal, I was given a dossier number (11-119537) and told that they would open an investigation, sending some planners to do an investigation into the block. I basically assumed that I was going to have to keep on following up with this, with further calls, perhaps a physical visit to the office (which is on my way to work). This call was on May 31st.

Well blow me down, when I walked out of my apartment last Friday I stumbled upon this:



They must have installed it while I was at work and I didn't even notice until the next day. That is some pretty fast work! Under two weeks. Tomorrow is the day when the street sweeper comes, so we will see if the people notice the sign. I'll certainly be on the case of the parking bureau as well. But I have to say that I am quite satisfied and impressed with this level of service from the municipality. So to whomever oversaw dossier #11-119537, made sure it got to the right people, to whomever came and did a survey of my block and to whomever actually loaded up the sign, brought it here, dug a hole and put it up, I send you a great big Briques du Neige THANK YOU!

My experience with the new street fair closing time

So I was out on both Thursday and Friday nights of the Frénésie de la Main until the new closing time. On Thursday, I was at Laika with a couple of old high school friends. On Friday, I was at Frappé with a larger and constantly evolving groups. In both cases, the group I was with and everyone around us was sitting around, drinking beer, people watching and socializing. In both cases, the cops coming seemed utterly abrupt and unnecessary. It just made no sense. Everybody complied and the merchants were well on board, getting us prepared mentally for the early closing ahead of time.

I didn't hear anything about Saturday night, but based on the other two, I bet the cops were quite happy with the way it worked. I'm glad for them as individuals with jobs that their jobs were easier and that they didn't have to put up with too much trouble (though I don't know what happened farther down the Main). What was quite amazing was that as we were walking up the street to home, it started to drizzle. When we finally did get in the house, at around 1:30, the heavens opened up and it rained about as hard as I've seen it rain here. It's almost like God is also in agreement with this new council decision! I'm sure the cops were particularly happy about that. Too bad they didn't have a similar downpour in Vancouver.

The sense that I get is that a majority of responsible Montrealers is paying for the bad behaviour for a few, which is often one of the symptoms of overzealous authoritarianism. The group I was with on Friday was made up of many people who grew up in Montreal and are now in their 30s and 40s, responsible, employed citizens. Many of them were not aware of the new law and they were quite shocked and upset. I directed them to Alex Norris' facebook page.

My personal theory about this new law is that the counsellors did it to make a deal with the police. Either the police just have a great deal of sway with the borough council or they offered something the council wanted. My (completely unsubstantiated theory) is that the police new the new road closures were going to demand some serious police oversight and involvement and they told the counsellors that if they wanted to get solid help with that (which they have gotten), they wanted support on the early closure. Total conjecture, but it does paint Projet Montreal in a more positive light.

Because the negative light is that they are promoting a yuppie agenda, one that encourages increased property values and a culturally safe lifestyle for upper middle class property owners. One of the bartenders at Laika told me that they also made all the terrasses take away the ashtrays and that now smoking will no longer be allowed on the terrasses, because of the mess they made. I find this worrying. The Plateau is attractive because of its diversity and rich cultural life. Noise and mess and late nights come with that. If you move here and start complaining about the noise, you are an asshole. You want your cake and eat it too. Go get your quiet out in the suburbs, please. Message to Projet Montreal, yes I want a clean Plateau, but not at the expense of the social culture that makes this place what it is.

Squirrels and skunks and raccoons oh my!

So it's been an animal-tastic week here at Briques du Neige.


Squirrels
Sadly, the first encounter was the dog I walked finally actually caught a squirrel. She chases them all the time and the few times she has actually outpaced them, she doesn't do anything. This time, I think the squirrel was either really old, sick or already injured, because he was super slow. Charlie got at him before I could get to them and a little fight went on, where she kept biting the squirrel and the squirrel was going after her throat, but clearly couldn't get through her thick mane of hair. I finally got over to the dog. It took two pretty solid kicks to her ribs to get her to let go and then I dragged her away. Looking back, I saw the squirrel leaning against the tree it was trying to get up looking not good at all. There were no holes or anything, but at the very least it looked stunned. I hope that Charlie was only lightly biting at it (dogs can do that), but she may well have broken bones, which probably spells death for the poor little guy. Had we been in the forest and it was obvious the squirrel was badly injured, I probably would have found some way to put it out of its misery. But we were right by the children's swings (whenever Charlie does something bad, it's always in front of the worst possible witnesses: she loves to take a big dump in front of a blanket full of picnicking McGill girls for instance). I'm so soft when it comes to animals and seeing its look of fear and survival left an impression on my mind that did not feel good. I hope it survived to live on for a while.


Raccoons
This is a funny one. After years of walking Mont-Royal and the alleys of Mile End, I have still yet to ever see a raccoon or a skunk. I hear that there are plenty here, but I guess my timing is off. It's nothing like Vancouver where walking home from a bar, you have to actively avoid the bold beasts (both raccoons and skunks) and Cali where I used to have to beat them out of our kitchen with a broom when they came through the cat door (not skunks, fortunately). So one evening last week, coming back down the trails on the mountain above the Grandeur Nature battlefield, I saw an adolescent raccoon up in a tree. He was eyeing us warily, looked to be in good health. I was quite excited and went and told all my neighbours.

Later that week, I ran into one of my neighbours who was going for a walk himself and he told me that in the evening, up at the belvedere (I guess that is french for the look-out, which is a great vocab word to know and have), the raccoons come out and get fed by the tourists and eat from the garbage. So this week I went up there myself and holy crap its a raccoon party. They are everywhere, following screaming children, standing up on their hind legs and begging, pulling the lids off the garbage cans. It's kind of disgusting, though they are pretty cute. I had a hell of a time holding Charlie on the leash as she was slavering at the bit to get at those little raccoons. Kind of makes my one sighting down below in the forest a little less special!


Skunks
I read that there are quite a few skunks in Montreal and that they can also be seen in the Mile End alleys. I've certainly smelled them from time to time (though given the quality of weed these days and the clouds of smoke billowing off the tam-tam on Sundays, sometimes it's hard to be sure). Supposedly, they eat a certain grub and when it rains a lot, there are many more of those grubs. So last night when I was coming home from watching the game (NBA Finals, thank you, game 5 great victory by Dallas over the evil Heats), I saw a couple ogling something in front of my apartment. It was a nice-looking skunk, sort of noodling around directly underneath the curvy stairs that lead up to my front door. He (or she, I didn't check) really did not seem bothered at all by my presence. I prudently took the stairs on the far side. My cat really wanted to go out front when I got back, but that certainly wasn't going to happen.


So yeah, not anything really exotic, but exciting for me, nonetheless. Go Canucks!

Go dig for wells in Westmount!

A very clever protest sign seen at the manif against the big oil companies last summer downtown.

The Rapture on the wall

This graffiti mural is so awesome. There is so much cool shit going on here. On the left hand side, it's a multitude of apocalyptica: nuclear explosions, erupting volcanoes, war (see the tiny bombers over the future-city), asteroids, UFOs and the very prescient flooding. Then on the right, the Hands of Wisdom part the curtains of reality to reveal a refuge of untouched nature (at the foot of the Rockies, perhaps?). Is this simply a hippy interpretation of The Rapture? A call for ecology? A cry for help from a transplanted west coaster?


(click for the larger picture)

Dead Soldier

Place des Festivals en hiver

Winter shot that I never put up. I was catching a bus, so I didn't have time to play in that bubbly wonderland. Looks cool though!