Dogpiling

Carly Martin

05 Sep 2025 — 5 min read

Happy Friday team. Hope everyone has had a nice last two weeks, maybe participated in some end of summer activities. This week's newsletter is chock-full of stuff so, sit back and enjoy your read.

September Ins and Outs

Unfortunately, last month's ins and outs came very late so these feel a little half baked.

Ins

taking notes for grad school with colored metallic gel pens
stardew valley co-op
a post being-very-brave-at-the-dentists dunkin breakfast
wild blueberries

Outs

coming home from the store with said wild blueberries in your backseat, short stopping because someone cuts you off on the VFW Parkway, spilling the wild blueberries all over the car creating a wild blueberry mush all under the seats that you have to pull over and clean out somewhere in West Roxbury

Got That Dog

Last week, I was in Maine helping out my sisters with a hefty dog walking schedule. Amy and Brooke have recently dipped their toes into the world of ultra-mini business ownership, as they are the on-call dog sitters for, what seems to be, the entire condo complex where they live. We collectively took care of 6 dogs in the condo complex (7 if you include the family dog). Here are the dogs ranked by vibe.

In last place we have Tanner. Tanner is a "purebred" cockapoo. His mom is the most anxious person you've ever met from the state of Florida and she checks in via text 4-6 times a day. Tanner is not allowed to take walks on the main road as he does not like tractor trailers, black trucks, or bicycles.

In fifth is Emmy. Not for any egregious reason, she just kinda has the personality of a beanie baby.

This is where the ranking gets tough because I like all of these dogs and really, they're all kinda switching around for upper rankings depending on the day. However, Bo gets the 4th place slot today. Bo is a 150lb American black Lab who also goes by the names of Bo-seph, Mr. Bo-dacious, Bo Diddley, and Oh "Bo" Handsome. He does not settle for a walk less than 2 miles and the only way you can get him to move if he lays down is if you point to the kind of car his person drives and ask if he's in it.

Mr. Bo and Emmy do, in fact, live in the same house

Bronze goes to Yazzy. Yaz is some kind of doodle, her people are normal and she just wants to hang out. Your hands do smell a little reminiscent of a barnyard if you scratch her for too long but that's not her fault I don't think.

Maggie slides into second only because I've only taken her on exactly one walk, but a great first walk it was! Very sweet old lady. She stops and waits at crosswalks and likes to say hi to the kids at the summer camp down the street.

Taking the first place spot is the one and only, Lucy. Miss Lucy Chanel is a sassy pittie mix from Connecticut. Her one ear is extremely expressive and she looooves a toy to destroy.

MTL 4 LDW

For Labor Day weekend, Nat and I trekked to Montreal to see all of what the province of Quebec had to offer. First off, this city is gorgeous. There is so much fun stuff to do and see, it's extremely walkable, it's a real city so things are open past 9:30pm, and was just overall great for a weekend trip. It's kind of nuts that getting to the heart of the city is a little over 2 hours from where the Talbot VT property is, and that is truly the middle of nowhere (celebratory). Crazy to conceptualize that in two hours of car travel you can go from rural farmland to one of the most efficient metro systems in the world. For all of the public transit nerds in the audience, the STM is currently the 4th most travelled metro system in North America behind NYC, Mexico City, and Toronto.

Aside from the metro, Montreal is worth visiting if you're down to have excellent meals every time you sit down somewhere. Nowhere we went in 3 full days was a dud imo. On Saturday night we went to a ramen spot, Yokato Yokabai, which was attached to a michelin star Japanese spot and was awesome. We went to some great cafes like Dispatch, Onna Cafe, La Finca, and Lili & Oli. We also had some great wines at a wine bar called Vinvinvin in La Petite-Patrie neighborhood.

1. Onna Cafe 2. Yokato Yokabai 3. B&B breakfast in Magog 4. Bernie Beigne

We also stayed basically on McGill's campus during move-in/orientation week and saw many a freshmen in matching t-shirts parading up and down Rue Sherbrooke. The legal drinking age in Canada is 18 and so freshman move in, I guess, is the drinking event of the century. We were witness to many a suspicious looking water bottle concoction on the subway and many folks figuring out how to be drunk in public for perhaps the first time. Nat and I agreed that we are so glad there is not another phase of life quite like the week before classes start freshman year of college.