In preparation for the scary Montreal winter, Pedram and I originally did…nothing.  No one else was seeming to panic as the days suddenly started steering towards freezing at an exponential rate, so we also were staying calm, thinking that we still had time before our true winter began.  Plus, we had other things to think about, such as why were all of our neighbors building wooden forts on their decks?  No seriously, I joke you not — this is how our entire block looked:

We knew it was Yom Kippur, but Wikipedia was leaving us clueless regarding the most recent activity.  The singing, the eating in the fort built outside the house, and what exactly are the green sticks being carried around by men?

But, atlas, our blissful ignorance was completely ruined when we took a short trip to upstate New York to see what all the hype was about leaves changing.  And eventhough I pleaded with Pedram to spend the weekend instead as couch potatoes, he won the battle and we passed our time watching leaves change color.  And it was quite pretty.

But we also woke up one morning, and voila, the ground was covered with snow.  Apparently, this was just a fall frost, but it was enough that Pedram had his “ah ha” moment of clarity regarding our upcoming season of snow, and bought almost all of the snow jackets and pants Lake Placid had to offer.

Me, I waited until the following week, on a bitter cold grey afternoon, when I was walking outside.  Suddenly, a flurry of snowflakes descended upon me, causing me to stop in my tracks.  Could this be the first snow, which lands in Montreal, and packs up 6 feet tall and never melts until May?  As I was paralyzed in fear, the dog I was walking had the opposite reaction, completely excited by the scene, catching some in his mouth, throwing his enormous paws on my shoulders to incite the same reaction.  Needless to say, even though the snow was faint, and disappeared immediately, I spent the week buying coats and hats and scarves.

And so I am prepared.  I think.

In other news, we also have been taken over by centipedes.  Gross.