Thank you to those who offered sage suggestions of camping stools from Canadian Tire for under ten dollars. I will resort to that when I am sick of the camping chair that I found in the garbage this week!
Ah, Montreal. Mysteriously benevolent Montreal. How is it that you can provide me with such bounties of free food, cheap coffee, and arts and crafts? You provide me with almost anything for free – all I need is patience and a sharp eye. Currently, said eye is peeled for chairs. Any seating implement on the curb is magnetised to my vision. I have furnished our living space with seven chairs in the past two weeks.
One is cushioned, orange, green, and regal.
One is of the leather padded folding variety.
One is a sky-blue fake velvet armchair, currently the shining star of a fabulous new reading nook (window, lamp, and low table incl.).
With the exception of the latter, I brought them home on my bicycle (two at a time, once). The armchair came with a complimentary lift from a French woman picking up her kids from school in a van. She drove me, the chair, and my bike thirty minutes out of her way in rush-hour traffic because she noticed me fruitlessly balancing the chair on my bike at about 0.23 km/h. I would say that the ice cream I bought her kids upon successful delivery was a price gladly paid for a lift, a cozy chair, some lovely and interesting conversations, and warm feelings in my soul.
Now I’m trying to quit chairs. Floor lamps?
Dear Mother;
You taught me well. I can furnish a house for free. I will forget the time in grade school when I leafed through a book from the top of someone’s garbage on my street during lunch break, only to be teased to mortification later by some espying peer for being a ‘poor’ ‘garbage picker’. Many years later, I have a come-back: ‘Have fun paying top dollar for your ethic-less crap!’ There is pride in taking others’ garbage and making it your treasure. Just be careful of bed bugs. Don’t confuse flax seeds with bed bugs (could’ve saved myself a brief episode of cardiac arrest with that one). Thanks again ma,
Love, Your Daughter Dearest
On that note, this Sunday Building Project is a little slice of the town of Mount Royal, drawn from the perch of a TV on a lawn, rendered useless for TV viewing by the recent conversion.
5 comments
Looking good Sister O! I am happy to see you have found a place in Spacing! I love your drawings and I look forward to seeing more! I hope you are well and I miss you and the gang at the Potato!
Delightful!
Personally, I try to stick to solid wood pieces, as there are fewer places for those creepy critters to hide.
I love how well Montreal does alley shopping — the fact that most people have leases coming up at the same time turns it into a big festival of furniture swapping — and I’ve seen the same couch being swapped again, one year later, which I found quite funny.
As for the critters, I’ve seen people write, in both official languages, that there are bed bugs, nice of them in a city where recycling furniture is so popular.
Oh Lauren!
I love your drawings, I love your writing and I love your garbage-picking ways. I’ve been hauling home other people’s castoffs all my life, following in my own mother’s footsteps. I recently put stuff out on my front lawn for people to pick through and take, and I find being on the giving or receiving end of such “transactions” hugely gratifying.
Fabulous Lauren! I can’t say my mummy would collect curbside garbage to bring home, but she did cull through the Sally Ann on a regular basis bringing home books for us young ones to read. “Girls Own Treasury” and “Rupert Bear” stand out in my memory. Mum used to bake the books in the oven to sterilize them, so we the children had reading material with nicely browned edging! Carry on the family tradition! Lovely sketch by the way…