A great day today at the Cabbagetown Festival, riding my bike around - up Parliament Street, still closed to traffic and packed with people, all the restaurants with tables on the street, and lots of other street food (I had a fantastic Thai meal for $6); music on every corner, booths selling stuff, service organizations and politicians hawking their wares. I stuck my tongue out at the Conservative booth, yes I did, because I am not mature.
My favourite sight of the day was the Filipino Line Dancing club, a group of shy middle-aged to elderly Filipinos doing their foot-slappin' thing on the street to recorded country western music. What an array of people throughout the neighbourhood - two women in niqab with their children, a large Caribbean family, a large Sri Lankan family, a woman with a shaved head except for a very very long blonde ponytail at the back, a crazy man in camouflage flailing wildly to a rock and roll band, four skinny well-dressed gay couples walking hand in hand, an elderly African man in a cap, looking as if he'd just stepped off the plane from Dar es Salaam, two aggressive lesbians covered with tattoos, two sweet young mothers covered with tattoos ... my neighbourhood, as diverse as it gets.
I had the pancake fundraising breakfast at the Farm - two pancakes, two sausages and coffee for $5, plus all the farm and four million visiting children for free. And then wandered through the crafts fair, where I could not resist the young woman who takes old books, uses the covers and sometimes a few inside pages and turns them into blank notebooks. Had to buy a few of those as gifts. (One for Chuck and one ... for myself.) And a tub of succulent watermelon, already cut up. Still waiting for my Senior Women's 4th Prize.
Forgot to mention that I saw another TIFF film the other day, these tickets a gift from my friend Suzette - "The Way," with Martin Sheen, directed by his son Emilio Estevez - which is actually Sheen's last name. It's the story of an American who goes to Spain to recover his son's body, and ends up walking the Camino in his son's name and rediscovering his own humanity. Very moving, a beautiful film. I've been very lucky in my TIFF freebies this year - gorgeous and meaningful movies. This one too, highly recommended. It was great to see such a tight bond between father and son on stage, as they answered questions, and on the screen, as Emilio actually played Sheen's son. The resemblance is uncanny.
Spent a bit of time tonight beginning the Great Shift - putting all the flimsy summer things away, getting out the solid wooly things. Work starts tomorrow night at Ryerson. Work! Paycheques! Sensible clothing! That means no more peaches, but lots of good apple eating. And MacZine will be so spiffy.
Both of us, moving on into fall.
P.S. Among the many riveting things that David Suzuki says in his film, one of them is this: that the most powerful words anyone can say are, "I'm staying." I'm staying. He is talking about the Native relationship to the land, to people who aren't thinking about what the land will provide next year, but many years from now.
I've said those words myself, in Cabbagetown, on several occasions when there were good reasons to move on. And here I am. A friend calls this part of Toronto "Cabbageland." I call it home.
PPS. It's hours later, and MacZine is still hard at work, backing up - get this - "618,339 items." That's how much data I have stored on her. Did we ever live without these machines? Surely not.
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