Several years ago my sister brought me a small blank notebook from Italy with a beautiful blue and white stenciled paper cover.  I loved it and wished I had some special use for it.  

I didn't, so I put it in the top drawer of my night table with some other special letters and notebooks, like one my mother brought me from Russia in 1990, a tiny one with a beautiful black lacquer cover with a tiny figure in the center.  I like using the special things I have instead of letting them sit endlessly in a drawer, so last fall while packing for a trip to Montreal I decided the blue one would be my sketchbook only for trips, and put it in my backpack.  I have to figure out when to use the Russian one.

I was visiting a friend in Montreal before going to a family wedding in Toronto.  One afternoon while my friend was busy I went to a patisserie near her apartment, where she would meet me after her appointment. I decided this would be a good time to do a little drawing in my blue book.  It was a beautiful place with lots of glass and exquisite looking pastries and I wondered, as I was drawing, if someone looking at these later would know this was not Santa Monica, if the people would look French Canadian, and if they could tell that it was early November in this northeastern city and thus very chilly.