Lui: Ah, ché pas trop quoi faire de moi-même. La carrière, la vie… J’filerais pour quelque chose d’autre, mais je sais pas quoi.
Moi: Ben voyons, prends sur toi. Tout va bien, regarde autour de toi, c’est l’été, on est dans le parc, fait beau, le monde est beau, y’a un spectacle de musique, le festival de Jazz, la Carifiesta…
Lui: Osti que t’es fatiguante quand t’es heureuse, toi.
Moi: Ben quoi?
Lui: Carifiesta? Tu te réjouis de la Cari fucking Fiesta??? Come on. Si j’avais un blogue j’écriirais un post intitulé Cari Fucking Fiesta, ou Happy People Suck.

I enter the cafeteria this morning, jonesing for my morning shot. There’s a conversation going on already, and a guy I don’t know but have seen around is saying,

“Ugh, I hate superheroes anyway.”

I walk by him and, putting my trusty Wonder Woman mug under the coffee faucet, shoot him an unmistakable “you suck” look.

“What?”

- Well, that’s like saying you don’t like Jews. I mean, what if there are superheroes around, whose daytime identity is to be game developers?

- I’ll take my chances, he smiles. Have a nice day, Wonder Woman.

I get out of work about ten hours later (hey, we’re Beta). The Anti-Supite is impatiently waiting to jaywalk across the busiest street in Montreal, calculating just the right moment to dash between speeding cars. I walk up discreetly behind him.

“You know, if you get hit you’re on your own”.

He waits. Too bad.

- Hi Mom? Are you guys free to do something this weekend? It’s been ages.
- Yeah! But, well, we’re busy installing the new pool tomorrow, and we have things to do Saturday and Sunday.
- Gee, not even free for a brunch? It was like that last weekend too!
- What can I tell you? It’s crazy. How about the next weekend?
- I can’t. (Haven’t found a clever alias for him yet)’s in town and I won’t be available.
- Oh! Invite him over to swim in our new pool! We’ll be glad to meet him!
- No. Way.
- Why not? Afraid of showing yourself in a bathing suit?

Pause.

Giggle.

- Oh God. MJ, you’re not supposed to talk about this with your mother.

via Patrick.

On the first of the two long weekends, I made myself a nice dinner. After grilling chicken that had marinated all day, I took some of the leftover marinade and used it as a sauce over the cooked chicken. I really enjoyed the meal, then realized that the marinade I had used as a sauce was uncooked, of course, and had had raw chicken steeping in it all day.

Oh no, I thought. I quickly looked up Salmonella poisoning online and found that the symptoms lasted up to a week and were not the kind you wanted to experience on a hot date. And I just happened to have one on those planned in the near future.

I called Info Santé and asked them what to do. The nurse seemed alarmed when I told her what I’d done, and told me to call the poison center. The latter told me that the vinegar in the marinade should have killed most of the Salmonella, and that that was my best hope.

Vinegar kills Salmonella, does it? I decided not to leave things to chance and downed a glass of one part water, one part white vinegar. Just to be sure.

Disgusting. Daft. But the date went swimmingly.

Une journée orageuse, un spectacle de drags, le Mont-Royal, un après-midi terrasse au Jazz, quelques soupers maison, un show au Spectrum, une journée dans le Vieux, les tam-tams, les feux d’artifice, le musée d’art contemporain, quelques sérénades. Même Montréal s’était fait une beauté pour l’occasion.

Pas mal pour un deuxième rendez-vous.