Music

10/31/2009

1 Comment

 
I was going to get groceries the other day and I passed this man playing the accordion.  I like buskers, they make the streets happy (or romantic, or interesting, or whatever depending on what music they're playing).  So, I threw some coins into his case and struck up a conversation. 

You see, I used to play the accordion.  Well, I used to TRY to play the accordion.  It's a hard instrument!  I was inspired to take it up after being in Argentina.  Buenos Aires has a huge tango scene and tango, I discovered, is a super cool and sexy dance.  I took a few lessons and our instructor said that tango is a walking dance: if you can walk, you can dance tango. 

Here's a video to demonstrate the coolness of tango: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E4mBoGX6Dw&feature=related

So I asked the accordion player if he knew any tango songs, and he played one for me!  And then he followed it with a French song, which was so beautiful it made me want to practice the accordion again.
    

    
 
Yesterday I bumped into a cute guy.

Ahhhh-yahhhh.

I was walking up to an intersection and I see this guy dressed like a pink bunny.  He was clearly quite drunk and, did I mention, very pink.  It was also the middle of the day. 

His friends were egging him on and I thought, "hey it must be a bachelor party." 

So here I am, innocently waiting for my light to cross the street when one of his friends (a rather hot looking fellow) comes up to me and reads some phrase in French.  It had something to do with pants and I'm pretty sure it was sexual in some way.  My French is bad at the best of times, but when faced with a cute guy reading a sexual phrase in French, I can get pretty confused. 

That's, um, pretty much the whole story.  We chatted and I wished him luck on his mission to intoxicate his friend.  The morel of this story: walking = the possibly of chatting with interesting people (who happen to be hot guys).  
 
Every week (ahum, or two weeks or so...) I do my laundry.  I don't have a washing machine but the people in the apartment above me do.  They brag about this fact by overloading their machine and flooding our kitchen.  I'm not bitter. 

Anyways, I have to go to the laundromat.  This is where the walking part comes in handy.  I fill a garbage bag full of smelly clothes (right hand) and bring detergent and study notes (left hand) and my purse (shoulder), and then I trek the many blocks to the hot house of weird flowery smells (aka the laundromat).

Today, as I was walking with my arms full of laundry things, a man laughed at me.  Like, really laughed.  At me.  I felt like that dog my brother and I once laughed at because it was ugly to the extreme (the poor thing looked sad and turned it's back on us. I learned that day that laughing at dogs is mean).  I just smiled at the guy and kept walking.  Then I karma hexed him. 

My last laundry adventure was not so much fun either.  For some dumb reason, I let my purse (which should be on my shoulder) slip down to my right wrist.  Then, without me realizing it, the purse dropped onto the cement and I merrily walked away without it. 

Upon arriving at the laundromat, I quickly discovered that my purse was missing.  Dumping my clothes, I raced up and down the streets in a great search.  No purse.  I gave up and hauled my clothes back home (the lady at the laundromat thought I was strange). 

BUT, when I got home I got a phone call from the nice Montreal police.  The day was saved!  My purse had been rescued!  I hurried to their station and learned that Montreal police are nice, as well as very good looking.  Very good looking.     
 
Okay, so I haven't been so good at this blogging thing.  This is a new/strange concept for me; writing about myself.  Well, I don't really want to write about myself, I want to write about walking.  So I stare at the blank blog screen and think...left...right...left...right.  Which no one wants to read.  (Although, I may resort to that when I run out of things to say).  I really just want to get people walking by showing them that life without a car is interesting and possible (and exciting, and scary, and weird, and safe, and world-saving).   

I was walking the other day and I saw a grown man in a suit intentionally crunching through the leaves on the edge of the sidewalk.  He was by himself, just stamping along, his face a mixture of happy and troublemaker.  When I see interesting people like that I always wonder what it'd be like to visit their home.  What does the home of a suit-wearing leaf cruncher look like?  I bet it's painted yellow.   
    
 
Hello everyone!

This is my first post, so I'll just say hi.  I hope you all have comfortable walking shoes.