Pit Caribou

 If you are ever in Montreal and want some really good beer check out Pit Caribou.  It's the Montreal outlet for the brewery of the same name in the Gaspesie and has really interesting beers.  The brewer likes to experiment with wild harvested yeasts and barrel aging.  Some of the results are outstanding.  They don't have a kitchen but they do tapas like things and a couple of platters built up from charcuterie, cheese and seafood from artisan sources.  I had the seafood platter which included some delicious smoked trout rillettes and bourgots.  I'm not really sure what the latter are.  Some sort of large meaty crustacean I think.  Tasty anyway.  It's up on the plateau close to Mont Royal metro.

Trip cut short

The Padmini news is not good and I simply can't cope with feeling guilty about K having to deal with the situation on her own and my own deep sadness.  I sat through four brilliant performances in the art song finals this afternoon and felt nothing.  Nothing at all.  Sure I could forensically and bloodlessly dissect the performances but how can one write anything meaningful about music when it's eliciting no emotional response at all.  Bottom line, I'm heading home tomorrow.  What should have been a great time for Katja and I to spend some quality time together has turned into a grisly emotional (and expensive) mess.  I'm not sure when I last had a proper holiday; 2009 I think.

And in other news

Another good rugby buddy has died.  Chuck Schandl who I played with many, many times.  Brain cancer at 58.  Fuck, fuck, fuck!