here comes the sun

What a joyful day it was, yesterday.  Fifteen degrees! Toronto citizens burst onto the streets like long-buried mole-people rediscovering light.  I took my bicycle into the local bike store, Cycle Solutions, and joined the line-up of hopeful cyclists with their rusty steeds. Young Sean the bike mechanic took very good care of me. After my third bike was stolen, I bought this one cheaply on Craigslist, and according to Sean, I made a wise choice.  He stroked various fittings and metal bits, pointing out what good quality they were, chatting in fluent bike-ese which unfortunately I am not able to speak. He filled my tires and oiled various bits, and sent me out into the sun for the first bike ride of the year. A grand moment.  

If your bike needs some TLC, you couldn't do better than Sean, or any one of owner Kale's tecchie guys, at Cycle Solutions on Parliament Street.  Brush up on your bikespeak first, that's all. 

Later my neighbour Monique, a Frenchwoman who married a Canadian, had a "cinq à sept" gathering for wine and nibbles, just of the people in her condo and nearby. It's people like Monique who provide much-needed neighbourhood glue; we can live beside or near each other for decades and hardly ever speak beyond the meaningless "How are you?" Monique brings us together on a regular basis so we can go deeper. There are some really interesting people living a stone's throw away from my front door, and last night, from cinq to sept, I found out more about them.

Yesterday, for those of you who are interested, it was one degree in Paris. Fifteen in Toronto, and one in Paris. Why leave this tropical paradise? I'm staying home. 

No, I'm not. No, I am definitely not. One degree, here I come.