first snow and beyond

it's snowing again! oh joy! it looks so beautiful!

so the first snow in montreal has come and melted already. it's been nothing very spectacular, but nice enough. i'll soon miss not being tired of snow yet.
paraphrase of a paraphrase: "i know everybody says 'winter is coming', but what do you say when winter is here?" - "you still say 'winter is coming', because winter keeps coming." so yeah, it is a bit like this in these parts.
i'm not taking pictures of the new snow yet, because it's a changing landscape as i type. i just wanted to share some shots of the first one, almost two weeks ago:

walking in the neighbourhood at midnight. ( in this one i can even spot my staircase, far in the distance. behind the 6th car :)) )

in the days right after the snow, when it froze quite thoroughly, it was pretty dangerous to walk around.

then a few days later it all calmed down and got into the normal swing of things. here, complete with yellow schoolbus and christmassy porchlights.

christmas things started appearing as soon as the snow hit. i know everybody had been waiting to bust them out since hallowe'en, so i appreciate the patience of MOST people in only putting the snowmen out when there was snow to put them out in. 

it happened as it always happens: at first i thought the decorations were amazing/absurd, but as the days go by, those first ones i'd seen turned out to be the tamest of the lot.

i always pass by this santa on my way to the metro and my favourite part is when it's windy and he 's quite literally blowing in the wind

quick note about snowmen: i usually find the snow in montreal disappointing because it's too fluffy to stick together for snowballs and snowman-making. but this time, after it first froze down hard, it probably melted down a bit, enough to be pliable. i thought the best/quickest method to make a snowman would be to just collect medium-sized frozen bits of snow from the side of the road and put them together, but there were also plenty of brave souls who attempted the more traditional method.
i have to say i haven't seen big snowmen though, just smallish, almost toy-sized ones.
here's my favourite, in front of the house right next to mine. i did laugh out loud when i saw it:

otherwise, i've been hibernating quite pleasantly. days are shorter, rhythms are muffled, the isolation more complete and enveloping when there's snow on the ground. the guilt for doing nothing lesser, as most people are either doing little now but shop for the holidays, or wish they were doing nothing.

i present you this version of "the bear and the maiden fair", as image of my life these days, where the bear is my bed and the book is lev grossman's "the magicians" (quite magical!). and where i'm definitely not wearing a flimsy dress! but yeah, apart from that...

i got my plants back, some kitchen gadgets that you don't care about, and i apparently buy dishes at church bazars, while everybody else buys christmas decorations.
a word about christmas decorations: i love them! i fully intend to have a christmas display in my kitchen. i've been buying a thing or two here and there (for less than $1, at dollarama or miniprix) but i want to pick stuff rather than buy in bulk. the thought of getting a batch of 12 shiny globes just because they're cheap simply nauseates me. i only buy non-breakables, in the idea of slowly building up a personalized stash of decorations. and i like every item to be pretty.
i saw a box of ornaments in the street the other day - 12 or 16 of them, mostly intact. i left them there for someone who wants that kind of thing. (if someone wanted to pay me to take them off their hands, i guess i would though.)

this was my kitchen yesterday at noon: a bright very cold day, waiting for the snow again.

"le bonheur est simple"

c.