I have bilingual plumbing. The faucets in the kitchen read 'C' and 'H', for 'cold' and 'hot', while the faucets in the bathroom read 'F' and 'C', for 'froid' and 'chaud'. This means that I burn myself twice each day, once while doing the dishes, and once while brushing my teeth. There is a metaphor in there, but Montreal is too nice a city, and the summer is too beautiful a season, for me to draw it out. Red hands are the price I pay for freedom.

I arrived in Montreal two Sundays ago, crossing the border late at night, unshaven, sweaty, with my old car packed to the rafters with luggage. The border guard stared hard and then waved me through, and soon I was crossing the Champlain bridge towards the beautiful night skyline of the city, the dark mountain looming in the background. Fifteen hours later, I was in an airplane bound for Poland. It was a strange way to arrive in a country - no time to settle in, no celebratory dish of poutine, no chance to even open all the bills I had hurriedly thrown into a paper sack on my way out of the house in Vermont. But it made for a happy arrival a week later. My first big-city apartment, with the bright happy lights of the XXX ADULTE pornography store underneath it calling out "welcome home, stranger!"

I've written in the past about a charming tendency for things in Canada to default to an individual size. Go to a restaurant with friends and you automatically get separate checks. Rent an apartment and you will find that it has its own separate entrance and street number, even if it means having to climb three floors up an outdoor metal staircase. Mailmen must have legs like stovepipes here; I can't even begin to imagine how people avoid breaking limbs in the wintertime.

My own apartment (a sublet) is on the second floor of a building in a gentrifying Greek neighborhood, with a Jewish neighborhood just a few blocks away. Fresh bagels and rotating meat are available to me 24 hours a day. Climbing up into the apartment, I can see directly over the frosted glass of XXX ADULTE into the "new arrivals" section, which is the height of convenience. I can also see the small TV where the bored clerk and his assistant watch non-pornographic movies all day. They are in a film noir period right now.

The porno store is a little bit of an abberation - the neighborhood is more geared towards restaurants and tiny grocery stores. The Greeks won some kind of a soccer game just two days ago and there has not been a moment of peace since. Every few hours they wake up from their alcoholic stupor, realize yet again what a stunning victory they won, pile into their cars, and drive along the avenue with their horns blazing, big Greek flags waving out the car windows. This causes the waiter in the restaurant downstairs to rush out into the road and wave his even larger Greek flag, which drives the Greek drivers completely insane and turns the stacatto honking into one long, ear-splitting wail. If Greece ends up playing Israel in some final elimination round, my life here will become pure hell.

Canada is in the grip of election fever, insofar as Canada can be said to be in the grip of any fever not related to hockey. The city is covered with durable, defaced posters for the Bloc Québecois (Un Parti Propre Au Québec), the Parti Conservateur (Vous N'Avez Rien A Perdre) the Equipe Martin (Nous Sommes Vraiment Desolés) and the NDP (Ne Nous Oubliez Pas). I realize there are probably profound currents at work here, but I can't get past the fact that the main political parties are called "Conservative" and "Liberal". This aversion to euphemism is entirely un-American, which may be why the Canadians are indulging in it. Reliable sources tell me the Liberal party currently holds power in Canada, but lately they have been sweating a bit as the Conservatives make a strong showing. Today's papers have the race dead even, and tomorrow is Election Day.

It seems that the ruling Liberals (I love saying that) have antagonized the country by mixing corruption with incompetence, which is a terrible mistake. Voters like their corruption clever and diabolical, and they like their incompetence well-intentioned and honest. Political parties can pick one, but people get upset when they try to get away with both. There is nothing Iraq- or even Monica-worthy in the scandals that have hurt the Liberal party, but by the standards of Canadian politics the situation is serious. And the press has been scandalized by what it calls the unprecedentedly vicious tone of the campaign, though to an outsider, it looks about as divisive as a runoff for the East Poultney Board of Selectmen.

I must keep reminding myself that I am a guest and a stranger here, and that following Canadian political life requires lowering one's excitement threshold. The front page article in the Globe and Mail just a week before the election covered Conservative leader Stephen Harper's daring decision to throw out a baseball at the Toronto Blue Jays game (the other candidates were invited, but feared the metaphorical dynamite of a missed or underpowered throw). He made the throw; and tomorrow we'll see if he can swing the election.

It's like a whole other country up here.

I wish I were so clever, but the title of the post is adapted from an old Onion article, mirrored here