It keeps getting worse

Well, it's about 5:00 am and, except for a few possible minutes of dozing, I haven't been to sleep yet. I got home from work around 5:30 pm to see a small puddle on the floor and a wet patch on the ceiling. It turns out someone on two floors above was doing renovations and decided to empty the washing machine onto the floor, so it's affecting at least three units.

A little bit of water I can deal with, but a while after I got home a chunk of ceiling fell down. Then a while later it started dripping. That was followed by increased dripping, more ceiling falling down and a second leak in the laundry room. At this time the drip shows no signs of slowing. Ebow and I are both overtired and cranky. I wish it would stop.

As of someone gently rapping

The last couple of weeks have busier at home than usual. The upcoming election has resulted in a number of political types coming to the door. Several times it's been volunteers for the local Liberal candidate, but one day it was my NDP candidate herself. I was wearing one of my nerdy t-shirts - it's got a Venn diagram with two circles; one says "Music I like", the other says "Music you like" and the area where they intersect is labelled "Music I used to like". The NDP candidate read it back to me, laughed uncertainly and clearly didn't understand it at all.

This week I was invited to a party in a neighbouring apartment on Saturday. All the neighbours were going to be invited. There would be food and a muscial portion to the night. Some people were going to play guitar and sing and anyone was welcome to sing as well if they liked. While not necessarily my thing, I thought it might not be a bad way to meet some of the people in the building. Then it was mentioned that there would be a "media presentation" that was based on, but not directly related to beliefs of the Baha'i faith. I spent time at Nuit Blanche instead. 

I'm going to stop answering my door.

Art all day, and all of the night

I spent some time at Nuit Blanche last night. It's an all-night art exhibition throughout Toronto. It started just before 7 pm and went until sunrise. I didn't stay out till morning, but I spent about five hours roaming the streets with thousands of other people - all of it within easy walking distance of my apartment, and that was only one of the three zones where it was taking place.

There was a wide variety of pieces. Some were video (a subtitled movie of driving through Toronto was shown on the wall of the power station I can see from my window), some were sculpture, some were performance. There was music and dance. A number of them were participatory - the Zombies in Condoland piece was in the park outside my building where people could dress like zombies and stagger around, another allowed people to draw pictures on a piece of paper and attach them to wireframes, and another encouraged people to send a postcard to someone they didn't know from a different area of the city.

One piece had two opposing screens and video of what appeared to be boiling milk would play while a voice spoke. Then it would go still and silent and the other would do the same. Possibly more interesting that the piece is that it was in the old Maple Leaf Gardens which is no longer used. So I got to stand at centre ice under the scoreboard where the Leafs played for 60 some years.

Are you ready for love?

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds played at the Koolhaus last night. The opening band was Black Mountain from Vancouver. They put on a great show. I'd heard and liked them already, and this just confirmed it. Solid half rock / half psychedelic with a little bit of Black Sabbath thrown in.

Nick Cave wasn't quite what I expected, I'll have to admit. He put on an awesome show, though. High energy all the way through. Considering his albums, I was surprised he didn't play keyboards more - only one song - and I didn't even know he played guitar. It was loud and rockin' the whole night. What was great was that he played a good mix of new and old. He even played a few requests from signs in the audience.

On a side note: I have to record two bits of awesome dialog. I overheard the two broke (as they said repeatedly) college girls standing in line behind me.

Girl One: These boots weren't made for standing around; they were made for lying down.

Girl Two: There's nothing quite like shaking hands with someone you've fucked to make it transaction.

I'm not even going to ask how they paid for the tickets.

Pumpkin time

I found a pumpkin ale at the LCBO from McAuslan, our favourite Quebec brewery. It's good, but not quite as good as the pumpkin ale you can get at Steamworks in Vancouver - that's like drinking a pumpkin pie. Mmmmmmmmmm... pumpkin pie...

It's just a little pin prick

I had an appointment at the travel clinic today. It's six months until my leave starts, and the vaccine for Hepatitis A and B is a six month deal. One now, one in a month, and another at the six month mark. It's worth talking to a doctor who specializes in travel medicine. I had no idea that some countries will require proof of yellow fever vaccination within a year of the last outbreak. And Iguazu Falls in northern Argentina had an outbreak this year. If we get down there we'd have to see it and Peru won't allow you in without proof of vaccination. It's also good to learn that Buenos Aires has good doctors.

If you can guess the secret word...

I went to Word on the Street yesterday. It's a publishing and book festival held in a number of cities across the country. I've been to the ones in Calgary and Vancouver, but this has been the largest. It was inspiring to see the number publishers and magazines there are to be published in. It was also a little depressing to see all the unknown authors - some of them at the stalls, some waiting at the booth to sign their books - and no one around. The stalls for retail places were the most popular. People swarming around on the chance of getting a deal on a book. But looking at the small press books and realizing how much competition there is making me rethink some things.

Never that simple

Fuck me. It turns out she's still selling this place after all. But she's going to make it a condition of sale that I'm here until April and she'll pay the rent. It can not go on like this. It just can't.

One thing settled... maybe

Bitter got texted today that our house swapper sold her other place, so I don't have to move. There were no extra details, but presumably she's no longer selling this place. One might think that would be enough news for one day, except...

She quit her job. She's also going back to Russia for a wedding at the end of the month, so will be looking for work when she gets back to Vancouver. I can only hope she can pay her bills.

My new toy... er... tool

I'm typing this entry on my new Acer Aspire One. It's a new computer in a class that they call a netbook. Which is just fancy talk for an ultra-small laptop. This one has a screen size just under 9" and is very light. I got the Linux version which also has a sold state hard drive - so no moving parts. The downside is that the HDD is only 8GB and half of that is taken up with software. I don't intend to use this as my main computer, so that should be fine. I spent a good part of the afternoon sitting on the patio at a new restaurant a couple of minutes away writing, which is what I wanted. It's small enough to fit in the little backpack I have and a couple of hours of battery life. I would have published this post from the patio, but they didn't have free WiFi, so I'm doing it from home while it recharges. It seems to recharge quickly and boots in under 30 seconds too.

Things I miss about Vancouver part 1

I've been here long enough and written enough good things about Toronto that I can mention some things I miss without sounding whiny and homesick. Other than Bitter, of course, who I miss a lot, I miss:

• my friends
  
• my condo
• my BBQ - man, I've grown to rely on that thing
  
• walking around the West End
• the mountains - good lord, where are the fucking mountains?
• the ocean
• cooking - cooking requires the proper tools and should be done with music, wine and a companion

Instability becomes stable after long enough

Apparently it's been a while since my last post. The housing situation is still up in the air. This place is still for sale. The price dropped, so since Saturday there have been a bunch of people through here. Eventually someone will make a deal on it. I investigated the possibility of another house swap, but that person was just as flaky as what we've got. Craigslist is fine for selling your old end tables, but don't use it for anything important. Bitter is still in Vancouver, bouncing from place to place. She seems to be doing alright, but not having a home base is hard after a while.

Getting out of the house

There was a showing at my apartment today for some prospective buyers. What I didn't do was leave roach motels out in obvious places with fake roaches inside. What I did do was take my laptop over to the Elephant & Castle to do some writing. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they have a new fall menu featuring food and drink pairings with Unibroue, one of my favourite breweries. Not a bad way to spend the time - writing, eating and drinking La Fin du Monde and Maudite. The other good thing is that it's across the street from the apartment, so I think a return trip will be in order. Perhaps more than one. Next time, however, I will make sure the laptop is fully charg-

Labour Day long weekend

Labour Day was beautiful, sunny and hot in Toronto. Saturday night I went to M&G's place to help break in the new barbeque. Sunday, a little worse for wear, I intended to go with someone from work over to Toronto Island. Being such a gorgeous weekend, everyone else wanted to go too. The line for the ferry was enormous. I'm sure anyone from Toronto would have told us that, but how were we supposed to know? Instead, we walked along the waterfront and eventually found a guy selling tickets for a boat tour. My co-worker bargained him down from an unreasonable $12 to a much better $10 for a 45-minute trip across the harbour to the island and back. Toronto Island looks like a pretty nice place. There are quite a number of houses out there, but much of it is like a huge park. According to the guide, a busy day in the summer can see upward of 100,000 to 150,000 people. That's a lot of ferries.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The last two weeks have been crazy, busy and stressful. To catch up with things:

• Bitter is back in Vancouver at her previous company on what will probably be a 4-month contract
• our house swapper is selling the condo we're (I'm) currently in
• we went to Montreal for 5 days

There's probably more that I've forgotten. La belle ville was great; hot, sunny and gorgeous. We love Montreal and we spent time walking the streets, sitting on patios and drinking beer. We stayed for a couple of days with Bitter's friend and her husband (whose wedding was the reason we got to Montreal the last time). We also stayed in a lovely B&B or Gîte du passant for a couple of days.

The person we swapped condos with has two condos in Toronto. She needs the money and tried to sell the other one, but couldn't sell it for enough to keep from losing on the deal. She wants now to sell this one and have us move to the other one. It's farther from work and has no view, although the kitchen is nicer. It would be more inconvenient, but the only other real option seems to be to call it all off and go home.

Bitter is back at the company she left on a contract. It's a different position and she'll be managing a conversion project they need to do by the start of the next year. It's a good opportunity and it allows her to be back in Vancouver for a while - which she misses a lot. She's already gone to several of our favourite restaurants.

Walking the streets

Some further adventures on the streets of Toronto. Last weekend we checked out Cabbagetown in the rain. It's a very cute area east of where we live. There's a strip of shops and restaurants along Parliament, some gorgeous houses, a couple of nice parks and a graveyard. We spent most of the time following the suggested scenic route through the neighbourhood, but did stop for brunch. There was supposed to be a good food/kitchen store, but for some reason we couldn't find it.

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and the Distillery District. Cabbagetown was very low key and neighbourhoody; the Distillery District was touristy and much like Granville Island. The old distillery buildings have been repurposed as shops, artisan studios, galleries and restaurants. The streets are all brick and there are no cars. It's a bit more expensive, but has some very cool art, and jewelry. Bitter got herself some new earrings, but reluctantly left the $220 ones behind. The rest of the day was spent on patios with beer. As it should be.

Toronto retards

We met up with some friends from the old county last week - good old Spruce Grove, Alberta. I also went to my first Blue Jays game since we moved here. I'm not really a baseball fan - the number of games I've seen since my dad used to fall asleep in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons (when golf wasn't on) is quite small. But it was a good time, and the Jays won, which apparently doesn't happen more than half the time.

Bitter was unable to go to join the girls for "We Will Rock You" the night before (while we guys were doing the guy thing by going to the game), but we met up with Archie, Veronica and Archie Jr. the next day. Bitter met them in the afternoon and I caught up with them after work. We were able to show our prowess at navigating in Toronto by leading them on a half-hour walk to end up exactly where we were when we started. We're so, so cool.

If Tim Burton had directed Moulin Rouge...

Saturday night we went down to the Rivoli on Queen West to see Amanda Palmer in concert. Probably the oddest concert we've been to, so far. A significant portion of the audience dressed up - sort of goth, sort of not. She is part of Dresden Dolls who we also hadn't heard of before. I read about her recently as she was involved in a project with Neil Gaiman for her upcoming album and then discovered she was playing here. So, having prepared ourselves by watching a few Youtube videos, we wandered down to check her out.

The opening band was Vermillion Lies which was like an Edward Gorey cartoon brought to life and set to music. Macabre, theatrical and very enjoyable. Two sisters (one of whom wore a coat and tails and had an inked-on moustache) who played a variety of instruments, many of which were regular household objects - toolbox, typewriter, washboard, kazoo, marionette, bells.

Amanda Palmer wasn't quite as bizarre as some of her videos would indicate (she pretty much stayed at her keyboard the whole night), but she is a very dynamic performer. Her style is best described as punk cabaret. She's got some good songs, and her encore was a version of Radiohead's Creep done on the ukulele as she wandered through the crowd.

Who rocks the most?

While out in the country on the long weekend we passed through Rockwood several times. That's an awesome name for a town. Rockwood! It also happens to be very cute.

The next town over is called Eremosa, so the area between them is called Rockmosa. That has to be the best town name ever! Rockmosa!! [makes rock 'n roll devil hand sign]

Country mouse, city mouse

So, the August long weekend was spent with Bitter's family. During the three days we saw cousins and grandams and uncles and nieces and nephews. A very full weekend. With the cousins we spent some quality time on Friday eating, drinking and hanging out.

Saturday and Sunday involved nieces and nephews: once at Grandma's, once at their own place. Four energetic children between 12 and 6 with nothing to do at Grandma's is not my ideal time, but we survived. The next night at their own place, where they could run and do what they liked, was much better. BBQ, firepit and jumping on the trampoline in the dark. Whee!

Monday saw us venturing to Wiarton - home of Wiarton Willie the groundhog. A six hour round trip and the little bastard didn't even make an appearance. To be fair, he wasn't the reason for the trip, which was beautiful and Wiarton is a nice little town at an inlet.

Guelph and Georgetown are also very beautiful.

Goin' to the country

Tomorrow I make my first excursion outside Toronto. Bitter is already out in Georgetown with her Grandma, and I will head out tomorrow after work on the Go Train. This will be the first time in close to eleven years that I've been out there. There's also the chance that we'll get to see some Alberta friends, who are currently living in Sudbury, but camping near Guelph for the next few days, while we're out there.

I don't really know if Georgetown/Guelph counts as the country or not. It probably depends on whether or not you live there. And no one out there is reading this anyway.

A night at the movies

I know I said that this blog was going to be about the experience of traveling and living in other places and not about the regular crap of life like what movies we see, but this is different. Maybe. Sort of. So, we went to a movie last night. The application I use in Facebook to track the copious amount of wine we drink was offering a chance to see an advance screening for a new movie called Bottle Shock. For free! About wine!! What's not to like?

The screening was at the Varsity Theatre on Bloor, which is quite nice and similar to Silver City theatres out West. We got in a little later than we intended (talked to a couple of people, stood in line, got referred to more people before finding the guy standing out front with the tickets - but that's what you get for going through some application on FB), so we ended up sitting in one of the front rows. The movie was alright. There were several elements that were familiar (father and son reconciliation, underdog vs. the establishment), but the scenery was good - the wine fields (some might call them vineyards) of northern California. If I won the lottery, I would totally buy a winery. Right now.

We left the theatre with a strong desire for some wine (they should have at least had some tastings), but ended up at a Korean BBQ place with a pint of Sapporo. Enh. What are you going to do?

It's a day in the beautiful neighbourhood

Today we ventured into The Annex. It's an upscale neighbourhood a little northwest of where we live. The shopping along Bloor is similar to Robson in Vancouver and the houses are very nice and very expensive. While some areas we've seen so far are mostly older-looking, brick row houses, these were mostly standalone (with some duplexes) and newer-looking. Margaret Atwood and other celebrities apparently live in the area.

We also found a cute little shopping area south of Bloor and Markham (not technically The Annex). We stopped in a few shops and had coffee on a patio.

On the way home we walked through the U of T, which has some amazing old buildings, and we sat in Queen's Park for a while. It was a gorgeous day after thundershowers yesterday.

It's Bryan Adams on the phone, it's Bryan Adams on the phone...

We went to The Cameron House for a concert last night, which is a sketchy little dive bar on Queen West. The stage was in a small back room. There were never more than 40 people in the place at one time. Richard Laviolette was the first up - an intense singer/guitarist that was folky and had a strong conviction about Native rights. Next was Tripping Hazard, a decent power trio, but they did get points for incorporating cello. The drummer was fantastic. Imagine a Linux-loving sys admin with anger management issues let loose on something he could hit.

The final act was Wax Mannequin. We'd heard about him from different, completely unconnected, Toronto people. He's a great performer and is apparently known for songs such as The Price and the one where he starts meowing in the middle. Very strange, but well worth the $10 cover.

Toronto restaurants part 6

Two restaurants with M&G:

Kalendar is in Little Italy at College and Euclid. It has a nice patio and the food was very good.

Epicure is at Queen St. W and Denison. We started on the upstairs patio, but moved inside when the rain began. The food was very good, but probably the slowest service I've seen yet - apparently this was unusually bad.

Baldwin Street is a two block neighbourhood close to where we live. In that two blocks are probably twenty or more restaurants. They sit side-by-side in converted homes in the middle of a residential area. We found it completely by accident when walking home from another restaurant.

Margaritas has good Mexican food, but only mediocre sangria. While we were there the restaurant lost power for half-an-hour while the hydro company replaced something where the power cable attaches to the building, so we got to watch them work while we ate.

Bocca is Italian and has decent, reasonably-priced food. The patio is good.

Graphic novel nirvana

I stopped collecting comics years ago, but this week I have been visiting some comic stores in pursuit of graphic novels. I've always liked the form, and in some ways it's better, since you can read an entire story arc without having to wait a month for the next issue (or longer with some of the independent publishers I preferred).

On the way home from the parade I noticed a shop on Yonge. The street presence is just a dingy doorway leading to a scary flight of stairs. It's named The Hairy Tarantula and the cramped space upstairs has the best selection of graphic novels I've seen here so far. The staff were also friendly and helpful, which can be rare in the usual nerd/elitist atmosphere of these places, especially considering I can't pass as a 30-year-old fanboy anymore. Several cats were sleeping in various places around the shop - another good sign. The guy who ran the place was bald (I think) under a ball cap and wore a bra under a button-up shirt that was tied up below his chest, exposing plenty of belly. He was helpful and chatty and mentioned another place I might have to check out as this place didn't have a couple of books I wanted. Someone might have to take away my credit cards, although I think the membership has already paid for itself.

Merry Krishnas

I heard some sort of commotion out on the street on Saturday, so went down to check it out. The Hare Krishnas were having their parade down Yonge Street. I'd seen this in Vancouver and it was the same here. There were three huge, brightly-painted carts, decorated with flowers. Each had a huge tent-like thing above the cart attached to some sort of pole. As the cart moved down the street, the pole moved slowly up and down, extending the awning (or tent or whatever you want to call it) high into the air and then collapsing it. The carts had two large ropes, which the followers, out in front, used to pull the carts through the streets.

Festival update

I got a call from Bitter last night from the festival. UNKLE had just finished a great show and they were waiting for Cat Power to start. Kings of Leon also "freakin rocked" later on. The venue is over an hour away from where they are in Dublin, by bus, and she's only starting to get on local time, so not much sleep. Tons of people, tons of fun, but they stop selling beer at 10:00.

When Irish eyes are bleary

Bitter left for two weeks in Ireland today. She'll be traveling with a former co-worker and resident of our couch in Vancouver. So, it's Jaded and Ebow again for a little while. Not that a guy and his cat won't have as much fun hanging around the condo for two weeks as going to the Oxegen festival and touring southern Ireland.

It's not the most prepared for travel that Bitter's ever been - there's no Excel spreadsheet this time - but the concert tickets should finally be on their way to the hotel and the bus tickets to get them to and from the concert should be able to be picked up in Dublin when they arrive. There were a few stressful days moments when it wasn't certain that the tickets would either arrive in time or be delivered, but that got sorted out just in time today. Let's hear it for the awesome service of Ticketmaster!

Anyway. Two weeks of music, Guinness, and rain. It's almost enough to make you miss Vancouver.

Toronto restaurants part 5

What can I say? We like to eat.

The Sultan's Tent near Front and Church has good Moroccan food. We did the four-course prix-fixe in the rear dining room which included the belly dancing performance (not by us). The atmosphere was dark and cozy, with curtained dining areas that were opened up when the dancing started. The food was quite good, but expensive. The belly dancing was interesting, and worth seeing once. The food is worth going back for, but next time we'll sit in the front, order à la carte, and skip the tourist experience.

The Pomegranate at College and Lippincott has Persian food. We went there for my birthday, and it was very nice celebratory dinner. The food was excellent and reasonably priced. The restaurant is small and intimate, with authentic-looking decor. Our wine was served in pottery cups rather than glasses. We both had the specials, so we'll have to go back to try some of the regular dishes. It's definitely a do-again.

Canada Day

We had our first visitors! We cleaned up our experiment in minimalist living (which consisted of throwing everything with a cord into a box and sweeping up the cat hair), and had M&G over. It was a beautiful day, we consumed many beverages (including some very boozy Manhattans and using all of our glasses), and we played Rock Band, Guitar Hero and assorted sporting games. Yay Canada!

The keys to construction

The crisis of the week has been the Vancouver condo. First, there is construction going on to fix some leaks in the wall of our unit. Second, our house swap partner lost her set of house keys. Initially, it looked like we wouldn't be able to get a set of keys, but the entire building would have to be rekeyed at our expense. This added to the complexity of having the contractors doing work inside our unit and arranging access for them.

The end result is that spare keys were worked out for the meantime; the construction should be done by the end of next week, with a minimum of disturbance; and the building will be rekeyed, but all the owners will share the cost. Probably about as good an outcome as could be hoped for.

Rockin' in the Wii world

Rock Band for the Wii came out this week. Bitter was in the right place at the right time and we now rocking out all the time. I'm not totally sold on the guitar controller, compared to Guitar Hero, but Rock Band is great. Both of us can play at the same time and switch instruments. I've already completed the easy level on drums and am working my way through medium level on guitar. There doesn't seem to be a way to do the solo tour using bass - just guitar. The other minor annoyance is that the Guitar Hero controller won't work with Rock Band and vice versa, so we might need to get a second guitar if we want to play both guitar and bass at the same time. Until then, the two of us are fine and if we have anyone over, we'll have to stick with the power trio.

Toronto pride

We just got back from the Toronto Pride Parade. It was similar to the Vancouver one, but there were many more people watching, and the parade was much longer. We finally left after two hours and it went on for a while after that. It was a huge street party. We were at the barricades for most of it, so we had a great view, but got sprayed by water guns several times - and we got a free condom.

Jazzeteria

The Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival is on now. We've managed to get out to a few events so far.

Saturday night was Leon Kingstone and Dan Eisen (sax and piano) at Commensal, a restaurant around the corner. The music was okay, but the cafeteria-style restaurant took away somewhat from the atmosphere.

Sunday night was PJ Perry (a four-piece band with PJ on sax) at The Rex. The Rex is the local jazz venue. It looks like a dump and the last time I was there they only took cash - no credit. PJ Perry was the first live jazz we saw, about twelve years ago, back in Edmonton at the Hello Deli. It was good to be able to see him again here. It was a great show. We're not used to being out that late on a Sunday night though - we're not as young as we were twelve years ago.

Monday night was Brenda Carol & ClaireVoyance with Christine Bougie (Brenda on vocals, Christine on guitar, with keyboard, bass, and drums) at the Hot House Cafe. I'm pretty sure I saw some of this band at the Hot House two years ago when I was out during the jazz festival. It was good, but tended toward prog rock for a significant portion of the time.

We're taking tonight off, but hopefully we'll get to a few more shows.

Toronto restaurants part 4

It's been a while since I updated restaurants, but here goes.

Made in China on Yonge, south of Gerrard, has okay, cheap Chinese food.

Ginger 2 on Yonge, north of Gerrard, has okay, cheap Vietnamese food.

Commensal on Elm and Bay is vegetarian and is cafeteria style. You get a tray (this one is wet, this one is wet, this one is wet... did you dry these in a rainforest?) and a plate and it's a buffet, so you go along and pick as much as you like from the little metal bins and you pay by weight at the end. Not really cheap for a filling meal. I also don't like food that pretends to be other food. If you don't eat chicken, don't make your tofu look like chicken. If you want something that tastes like, and has the texture of, chicken, eat chicken. I like eating vegetarian, but I don't live in a tofu fantasy.

Spring Rolls on Front and Market has good, cheap Thai food. There are quite a few locations, so I don't know if they're all as good.

Hot House Cafe on Church and Front is decent and reasonably priced. Lots of pasta dishes and a few other entrees. I've heard that it has a good Sunday buffet, so we may have to go back for that.

Subterranean homesick blues

When I left work today the ground was wet and I saw people with umbrellas. If it was raining, I thought, maybe this is a good time to try to take the PATH home. I had made it part of the way home before via the underground mall system, so why not try it right from work - my office connects directly to the PATH. What a pain in the ass. People told me it was confusing, but a 15 minute walk home turned into a 45 minute expedition. Worst navigational aids ever. The signage is barely helpful - where it exists. Half of the travel time was spent walking in circles. They have helpful coloured signs to tell you direction - blue is north, for example. But try and find a blue sign! I would have been better off getting wet. And when I finally resurfaced, the streets were mostly dry. At least now I have it figured out.

My Morning Jacket

We saw My Morning Jacket at the Kool Hous last night with M&G. They (the band) put on an awesome show. The albums are good, but they're much better live. It ended up being a two-and-a-half hour concert including a 45-minute encore. G gave me earplugs which were well worth the price - Bitter's ears are still ringing. Wooh!

Toronto streets

A quick note about activity on the streets. Toronto seems to have more activity on the streets than Vancouver. The homeless or people asking for handouts are a little more aggressive. I've seen two protests so far: one was a woman picketing in front of a Bell building, with signs and everything, asking them to giver her what they owe her; the other was a group of 20 - 30 people outside the Scientology building - in Guy Fawkes masks - protesting against the "cult". Down the street from here, at Dundas Square, is a popular spot for the religious types. You can find out all you want and more about Islam on a regular basis. It is also the favourite spot for the resident pamphlet-giver (he likes to shout out "BeLIEVE in the Lord!" at random intervals - presumably to scare the hell out of you). And yesterday I witnessed the naked bike ride through downtown.

Apparently Vancouver has a naked bike ride, too, but I have not seen it. I also realize that the Fisheries building and the Armed Forces recruitment centre do seem to attract people with megaphones and free time, so maybe it's not a significant difference. It feels different, though.

More flash and bang

I've just spent half an hour, an hour, watching a thunderstorm and the people in the Delta Chelsea across the street watching the storm. I thought I saw a very localized reflection of lighting in the windows of the hotel, but it was someone with a flash camera taking pictures. I'd love to see if any of them turned out.

I was chatting to Bitter over Facebook; the storm was full force in Georgetown, but not a whisper here. Within half an hour the sky was lighting up and the rain was pouring down.

Someone from the Vancouver office was here this week and caught Monday's storm. She'd never seen anything like it, being from the Lower Mainland.

I swear I saw a bolt of lightning right through another building across the street. Then five minutes later I saw all the lights come back on for several floors. Fuckin' fantastic!

Like a frightened mole

Crazy thunderstorms and heavy rain tonight. I haven't seen this much thunder and lightning (okay, heard thunder and seen lightning) since Alberta. I've experienced lightning about three times since coming to BC and more than that in the last two weeks.

Bitter took the Go Train this afternoon out to the country (Georgetown) to stay with family, so it's Jaded and Ebow for the next week.

Got caught in a downpour on the way home from work. Sunny all day, then it decides to rain about two minutes after I leave the building. I was able to duck into the PATH (the underground mall downtown) and make it almost all the way home (with a stop at the LCBO without leaving the safety of the tunnels). This was good practice for winter.

The day of infinite dogs

It's hot. Yesterday was 33 degrees and humid. We checked out the rooftop deck in the building, and it is on the roof. It's got some sidewalk blocks and that's it. No plants, nothing to sit on. I don't foresee many summer nights relaxing on the rooftop terrace.

Today was a little cooler, but still hot and sunny. We headed down to St. Lawrence Market to pick up a few things and to visit the many cheese shops. On the way we passed the Luminato Arts + Culture festival in the Yonge/Dundas square. Huge weather balloon things hanging over the square and live music on the stage. The highlight, though, was farther along when we stumbled upon Woofstock. Front, Wellington and Church streets were blocked off east of Yonge for "the largest outdoor festival for dogs in all of North America". Bitter was in doggie heaven - big dogs, little dogs, cute dogs, ugly dogs, brown dogs, white dogs, yellow dogs - hundreds of DOGS!! It was a good day.

No more bitching about furniture

We have the last of it. A table, two very comfy chairs and two chairs that are practically unusable. Ebow is in heaven, moving from one comfy chair to the other. As far as the other two, I have no idea how that design got past the testing phase. That's the risk you take when you buy online.

Bitter did a great job of assembling and arranging everything. She took the sliding doors off the solarium and stacked them against one wall of the dining room. With the 8' palm she pilfered rescued from the garbage room and the stainless steel table, it looks very cool. It really makes no sense without seeing it, but it does look cool.

In other news, we have two chairs for sale. Brand new. Barely used. They're awesome.

Now we're cooking

Our first homemade meal in Toronto. We made Greek salad last night. Yes, we went high-tech. The food and accompaniments were easy enough to procure, however, when the time came to make it, we discovered a minor setback - no salad bowl. We eventually used a combination of the bowls we ate out of and what I can only guess is a glass ice bucket that was here when we got here. It was a bit awkward, but it worked, we ate, and we enjoyed it.

Update: Just after posting, the question was asked, "Why didn't you use a pot?" I just want to know where this genius was when we needed him.

West meets east

So, on Saturday, during the few precious moments we weren't sitting on our new couch, we made it into Chinatown. A quick search will tell you that there are several Chinatowns in Toronto and area. We went to the only one that really matters - the one that's a 10 minute walk from where we live. Open air food markets, shops selling fifty kinds of crap, and signs you can't read. Pretty much like the ones in Vancouver or San Francisco, but they might be a good source of cheap fruits and vegetables. Every time I mention the Dominion store around the corner from our place, people say, "Oh, that's the expensive one." And there doesn't seem to be an answer to, "Well, where's a cheaper one?" This may be the answer.

From Chinatown we drifted into Kensington Market. Very cool shops and restaurants, narrow streets, lots of people. One store was nothing but spices. We will have to return here.

On the way home we passed through Chinatown again. It always comes back to Chinatown.

A place to sit your ass

We have a couch! Something soft to sit on! We're spending some quality time this weekend sitting on our new piece of furniture watching some TV. Oh, yes. We have a TV! A 32" LCD. Yay us! We officially have more gadgets than furniture. So, sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking coffee. Because we have a coffee maker now too! Oh, the joy of living!

Toronto restaurants part 3

We've had better luck so far this week.

Salad King off Yonge at Gould is a great, cheap Thai place. No idea why "salad," but it doesn't really matter. It's busy and loud with long stainless steel tables - almost like communal tables. Lots on the menu and everything we saw looked good.

The Beer Bistro at King and Yonge is a little pricey for what you get, but they have a great selection of beer - many of them Belgian. We had a Gulden Draak for the first time since leaving Vancouver. All the meals have beer in them somewhere. The Kobe beef tacos were a little disappointing because they tasted like chili. The spicy mussels were good. We sat in the back at a counter that opened right into the kitchen - the chef's table. That let us watch the kitchen while we ate (we saw them make our food) and got us free fries.

Toronto restaurants part 2

I wanted to use the Restaurants application I've been using in Facebook or a restaurant review website (like dinehere.ca for Vancouver) for the places we eat here, but we haven't been able to find any online source that has any significant number of restaurants listed.

The Beacher Cafe at Queen Street East and Maclean was a nice cafe along the main drag through The Beaches. When we didn't see anything appetizer-y on the menu they were kind enough to whip together some hummus and pita bread for us.

Hemingway's at Cumberland Street and Old York Lane is apparently one of the places to be seen in Yorkville. We didn't see anyone and I don't think anyone was looking at us. Very nice rooftop patio. The food was good.

Cafe Nervosa at Yorkville Avenue and Bellair St had good desserts and very good coffee. We will have to come back for the coffee.

Toula in the Westin at Queen's Qay and Bay had the worst service ever. The food was okay, but the service was slow to the point of rude despite the fact that only two other tables were occupied. Yes, two. It would have been three, but another couple left shortly after being seated. It's a nice view over the water from the 38th floor, and it looks as though it should rotate, but doesn't.

We'll meet them on the beaches

We took a bit of a break on Sunday after buying pants for work on Monday.

(I didn't bring any dress pants with me since they all needed to be replaced anyway. We didn't expect to be doing the other shopping that we did, so pants got left until the last minute. Not a great idea, especially when they need to be hemmed. The good news - there's a place that will do hemming in the main floor of our building. The bad news - they're closed on Sunday. Two pairs of pants ended up being dropped off this morning and picked up tonight. The pair I wore today were temporarily shored up - with Bitter's help - but don't tell anyone.)

So, for our Sunday break we took the streetcar ("Ride the Rocket") out to The Beaches. It was a beautiful day, gorgeous sun. We walked along the boardwalk and I think there were actually too many dogs for Bitter to spot them all. It reminded us of the strip in White Rock. People and families and dogs out enjoying a walk in the sun.

We came back into the city and went up to trendy Yorkville with our swap partner and a friend for dinner. No celebrities, but lots of expensive cars. The mildly embarrassing moment of the evening was when Bitter took the opportunity to tell the owner of a brand new Ferrari that I and our new friend were in love with his car. Don't mess with her. Really. Don't.

Toronto restaurants part 1

Despite spending most of our time shopping for necessities, we've managed to eat at a number of establishments already. Oh, wait - that's because we still can't cook at home.

Donatello at Elm & Bay is a nice Italian restaurant. Our swap partner works there as a hostess. She got us a good seat by the window our first night here. The goat cheese and crab ravioli was very good. The bruschetta was also good. We would like to go back.

Danijela's Simply Delicious at Queen & Lansdowne was very good. We've been told that the service and the food is a bit random, but the night we were there it was excellent.

Stratengers at Queen & Bermount was okay. The sign says it's an institution or some such. The food was fine, but the service was quite slow. No real desire to return.

Mochizuki at Elm & Bay is the first sushi Bitter has had in Toronto. Much less scary than she thought. You can sit at the bar in the centre of the restaurant and little plates of sushi come by on a conveyor belt. You grab the plates you like (different colour plates are different prices) and they charge you by the number of plates you have at the end. Pretty good, we will probably go back, but would like to try some of the cooked dishes.

Not quite what we expected

We made it to Toronto safe and sound. Ebow was very good for the bulk of the trip, but had a bit of an accident on the landing - much to his embarrassment. The place is a little disheartening. We knew it wouldn't be as furnished as what we left in Vancouver, but all we had on arrival was a bed, a few bathroom things, and a few kitchen things - glasses and plates, but not even cutlery. It's been three days and we haven't been able to cook anything yet. That means three days of shopping. At this point we would really like something to sit on. Now we have the wireless router set up so we can sit in bed and search for furniture online instead of sitting on the laminate floor or on the box the dishes came in.

We walked to down Queen Street East today into Leslieville, looking for furniture stores. It's amazing that they think we're willing to pay $1200 for a couch that our parents would have thrown out in the 70s. The weather was beautiful, though, and I even got a bit of a sunburn.

Ebow misses his cat tree. Hopefully, we'll get him one on Monday. He spends most of his time sleeping on the bed - the only soft surface in the place. It's much smaller here and he's started to scratch at random things - no doubt looking for the secret door to the rest of the apartment. It would be nice if he found it soon. Maybe there's a chair in it.

Haven't you gone yet?!

It's been a busy week. The last strata meeting was Thursday, so once the AGM minutes are done, I'm no longer council secretary. Work in Vancouver was done on Friday. For being gone for only a year we've spent a lot of time saying goodbye. Two on Friday night, one on Saturday, and two more today. The bulk of the time over the last three days has been final preparations to move, though. For doing a house swap we seem to be doing a lot of packing, too. Most personal items are now in storage, with a few more to go tomorrow (poor Ebow will be without his cat tree). Clothes to take with us on the plane are basically done and everything we're shipping is finally ready to go.

As usually happens when we move, we realize how much stuff we have. And we have too much stuff. Far too much. The next year will be an interesting experiment living more simply - despite everything we're taking with us. When we get back, the plan is to get rid of even more. We need to travel more lightly through life.

Friday night was a wonderful (but expensive) dinner at Hapa Izakaya. Sunday was a wonderful (but expensive) dinner at Raincity Grill. This morning was a reasonable and good (but very slow) brunch at Locus with non-stop Americanos. Tonight was a cheap (but good) dinner from Red Burrito.

A little bit of panic as we question what we're doing again and whether the house swap will turn out to be a good thing or not. One more day to wrap everything up and clean - then we leave for Toronto. This had damn well better be worth it.

All yesterday's parties

Two more farewell parties this weekend. One Friday night where we met up with The Three Wild Women at the Boathouse - bad influences, all. It's an experience being the only guy in a group of rambunctious women and a ready supply of alcohol. Some topics of conversation my mother never warned me about.

The other party was here last night with some friends. The scotch lasted just long enough, but we could have used just a little more for martinis. It was very good to see everyone.

It's also good to have friends who can put you in your place sometimes. I was reprimanded several times for being too typically "Jaded". I think I need to hear it a little more often - from sources other than Bitter.

The Case of the Artful Blogger

It's only indirectly related to this blog and our experiences, but Bitter's trip home brought it to mind. Her brother has had a blog for several years now. Most of the posts are filled with ambiguous references and obscure (and sometimes mixed) metaphors. Why write but to communicate? There are legitimate reasons for withholding from your reader - increasing interest, creating mystery, etc. - it's part of storytelling. But ultimately there must be answers; there must be some sort of revelation. Otherwise you're just a cock-tease. How successful would the Sherlock Holmes stories have been if Holmes had caught the criminals, but left it to Watson to figure out how?

Tick, tick, tick...

It's two weeks until we leave. Because we delayed the move by a few weeks I've already gotten, "what are you still doing here?" at work. My friend and co-worker is off to New Orleans for what I'm sure will be an awesome vacation. The next time we'll both be in the office, it'll be the same office.

Travel updates

The revised house swap contract was sent off yesterday, but no response yet. To be fair there's a lot to look at, but she's been very prompt with responses in the past. Of course, she had to wait for us, so...

Bitter arrived in Edmonton yesterday. The mountains were wonderful, the Fox Hotel in Banff was very nice (I'd never heard of it either), and everything worked out fine, despite the fact that she didn't take any of the 42 recommended courses of action - flying to Calgary, then driving up through Banff and Jasper to Edmonton (I'm not sure this was recommended - it's almost reasonable); her mother flying to Vancouver, then both driving to Edmonton; flying to Edmonton, then driving down to Banff and back to Edmonton. Is an accident that happened over 12 years ago the reason for all the alternatives? By that logic, no one should be allowed to do anything.

Today with her family, tomorrow afternoon and dinner with mine. No visit with her brother this time. It's too hard with such a short visit. I don't see the problem, since he seems intent on distancing himself from his immediate family, but I'm not directly related either.

The music was just too damn good

I'm Jaded and alone this week. Bitter is on her drive through the Rockies for a trip home before the move east. Friday was her last day at the clothing company everyone loves to hate. She said goodbye to four years and many friends. The next day she said goodbye to the one who slept on our couch after the liquid farewell party.

(Now that she's off work, the promise is that she'll stop chewing her nails.)

The trip today got off to a good start - not quite as early as Bitter hoped, but pretty close. She went armed with several CDs made specially for her for the trip, which should should take 15-20 hours driving time - Vancouver to Banff, Banff to Jasper, Jasper to Edmonton. By Abbotsford one of the lovingly hand-crafted CDs refused to play further and also became stuck in the CD player. Since several songs played fine, I put full blame on the CD player. And because a working CD player is important on a long journey, the vehicle was replaced. Sadly, the CD was lost. The remaining ones will just have to pick up the slack.

A matter of trust. And judicious practicality.

I went to see a lawyer today to look over the house swap agreement. Very scary. His focus is on protecting yourself, so he's all about what can go wrong - which is good. But there's so much that can go wrong. I know it's about making sure both sides are protected, but it sounds so unfriendly. Even making sure the other party is who they say they are, that they have ownership of the property, that they have employment and that they have good credit.

I don't think we need to do everything, but this weekend we'll have to go through and add some things and clarify some others. You want to trust people, but the truth is - especially when you meet them over the intarweb - you need to take some basic precautions and make some basic provisions to protect everyone. They don't know how irresponsible we are either.

This flight tonight

Bitter's last day of work is Friday. She booked another flight tonight. She'll drive back to Edmonton via Banff and Jasper starting Sunday and then fly home next Thursday. It's a little sooner than we expected, but hey, you go when the flights are cheapest.

Sometimes family makes it hard. Sometimes they can't just be happy that you're coming home. Sometimes they don't believe you can make your own decisions. Sometimes it's not just because "you'll always be their child".

Next week will be a long week. But she'll be able to drive through the Rockies again. It's been a long time since we've that. And it will be nice to see her family before we go. Really.

Friendship

It's too bad that some friendships start when you're about to leave a place. It could also be the leaving that makes them possible.

Got a ticket on an aeroplane

The plane tickets have been bought. We go to Toronto on May 21st. Now we need to get an acceptable cat carrier. I think accommodating Ebow will be the hardest part of the move.

I'm a rock star, Baby!

I am a rock star. Don't let anyone tell you differently. The first of the farewell parties was this weekend. Bitter invited some friends from work over for food and drinks. One brought Rock Band; one brought his new 42" LCD TV. With the size of our condo it was like have a movie screen in our living room.

Rock Band is awesome, but I have one complaint: the drums. There seems to be no way to successfully play them without the annoying whack of wood on plastic. Even the music doesn't mask it.

Anyway, most people seemed to have a good time. And performances were generally good. They would have been better had a certain Jaded drummer not consistently brought the scores down. Kudos to everyone who sang. And extra marks for the one who sang Paranoid without, I would guess, knowing any of the words. Fortunately, in Rock Band that's not a handicap.

What I find interesting about Rock Band or Guitar Hero, though, is that when I pay attention to the music I do worse. Maybe the timing of the onscreen notes and the music don't quite sync. The best way to do it would be to turn off the music so I can concentrate. Of course, that way I wouldn't hear the screams from my adoring fans.

Vultures... I mean realtors

We had our condo on the market for almost a month. In the "hot" Vancouver market we thought it would sell for sure. It didn't, but that's okay; we arranged the swap, which allows us to keep our place - which we love. As soon as we delisted, realtors started mailing and calling (how did they get our number?). They all start with, "I see you've recently been trying to sell your house." One even said she had several people interested. Where were they when it was on the market? Is there a whole subsector of realtors that wait for places to be delisted? I don't get it. I do get the calls and letters, though.

Anyway, onward...

We received the first draft of the house swap agreement, so it's time to start this. We leave in a about a month for a trip that will last just over a year. First we go to Toronto where I will work until April next year. Then I will take a leave for three months and we will travel - we might stick to the plan and see Europe, or maybe we'll change our minds and go to South America. At the end, we will return to Vancouver.

We have arranged to swap our condo in the West End with someone who has a condo downtown Toronto, so next year we can return home. We will travel, avec chat, somewhere between May 17-24 and I will start in our Toronto office on the 26th - same job, different office. Cube space has been somewhat limited lately, so with any luck they will have a place for me to sit.

The last couple of months have been stressful sorting out the details - changing cities, leave, trying to sell, trying to buy, trying to find renters, finding a swap. It seems like it's all coming together, though, and we're at the stage of making sure we see our friends before we go and visiting our favourite places (i.e. restaurants).

So, a new city to explore, and two jaded and bitter Westenders unleashed upon the world.