26th Feb, 10
A friend of mine came to visit last week. A refugee from Vancouver who came all the way to Toronto to get away from the maddening Olympic crowd. He been here a few times before and after about 5 days, we kinda ran out of things to do. So for his last weekend I thought we’d skip town and go to Montreal for the weekend. Yippee!
Montreal’s close enough that you’d think we go more often but we haven’t been there for like 2 years! What’s really weird about this trip is that this is a “just because” trip, meaning we didn’t go because I had a show to do or The Boy didn’t have an horsie article to write. Nope, we went just for fun!
I was going to blog about our adventures, the vintage shopping and the chicken Nazi (Montreal’s version of the Soup Nazi), but The Boy did such an excellent job covering the trip, I thought I’d just post some of what he had written. I’m posting the part about the shopping ‘cos that was my favourite. For the full article please go here.
Here he is ladies and gentlemen, in his own words for the first time on Dear Diary. The Boy!
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…Saturday was all about shopping. This is Amy’s area of expertise. I’ve dedicated an entire portion of my TripleDeadHeat Features section to our shopping exploits as I tend to find a lot of cool racing stuff.
The first vintage store we walked into was a goldmine. This little place called Friperie St-Laurent was chock full of old tyme (pronounced Old-Timey) treasures. I heard a squeal from the corner of the store and turned around to see Amy laughing and waving this odd pastel dress.
It did not look like anything Amy would normally wear. But what do I know?
“Look! Just look,” she laughed.
And then I got it. The whole bloody dress was covered in jockeys on horseback.
The Lovely Amy…

I think Amy is likely taking one for the team here but she told me that she liked it and saved me the embarrassment of having to buy it myself and live with the shame of that.
The rich fabric of thoroughbred racing

Amazingly, the dress fit her like a glove and now she has an outfit to wear to the Queen’s Plate this year.
Elegantly Equine?

Directly next door to Friperie St. Laurent was yet another vintage store. We were in the place no more than a minute when Amy came over waving a hanger in front of my face.
It was by far the ugliest cardigan I have ever seen. A yellowy-cream coloured monstrosity with red trim around the cuffs. The sort of thing you buy to wrap around the bottom of your Christmas tree.
“Look! Just look,” she laughed.
Sure enough. All around the body of the cardigan were jockeys on horseback. Can you believe it?
This stylish sweater was fit to be worn by only the dandiest of the debauched denizens of the track and I breathed easier knowing there was no way the thing would ever fit me. The cardigan was a size small and I have arms longer than Zdeno Chara.
Though I’ve tried, I can’t seem to find a photo of this ugly gem on the Internet. The “designer” is Herman Geist - the tag said “1980s $45″. Search at your own risk.
At any rate, the odds of finding those two items doorways apart are longer than the chances of me cashing any of the four Derby future wagers I made this year.
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What a crazy dress right?! The Boy’s right in that it’s not my usual cuppa tea but it’s so fugly/beautiful I could just frame it and hang it on my wall! Maybe if I style it right and add a big hat, I can kick Kentucky Derby Barbie’s butt this year.

O.K. now you gotta read the whole thing, especially the part about the Chicken Nazi. Seriously that’s exactly how the restaurant is! We finally got our chicken after waiting 2 years and 4 hours. But boy was it worth it!
