Giant hate on for Toronto right now. City council just voted not to take down the hideous, crumbling, lake-blocking Gardiner East expressway and replace it with a boulevard, as any civilized city would. No, our stupid stupid stupid city is going to keep it and fiddle around and waste time. Transit is at ZERO in this city! Zero! Stupid stupid stupid!
Okay, enough of that. No point. We voted John Tory in, after all. The bar for Toronto's mayor was so low after Rob Ford, we would have voted in a piece of blue cheese. Instead we got a conventional right-wing businessman, and now he'll keep the Gardiner and the suburbs will be happy. Thank you once again, horrible Mike Harris who destroyed this city.
Sigh. Moving right along.
I try to keep my email inbox at or below 30; after a couple of busy days, it's now at 119. Just crazy - stuff coming in and not going out. It feels like a meteor shower sometimes, points of light shooting at me.
Yesterday's misery - because poor weather was predicted, I got downtown to Ryerson at 6 for a 6.30 class, but since I was so early, I thought I'd drop into the new Muji store across the street. It's so gorgeous, Japanese design, file folders, storage boxes, pencils and notebooks, plus the usual clothing - just lovely. So I meandered, and suddenly the skies opened. It was 6.15. After waiting a bit, I made a dash through hurricane level wind and rain, and in just seconds, running across the street, I was drenched, my pants clinging, freezing and wet, to my legs, my sweater soaked, my shoes and socks sodden. And now I had to teach a class.
What the storm looked like from the Toronto Islands. That's me, running like crazy right underneath.
I rubbed my legs to keep them warm, but cut the class short so I could go home and change. Everyone had a chance to read, but there was not as much discussion as usual, because Teacher was sopping wet. I owe them an hour.
Went home to get warm and then set off across town to spend the night at Anna's. She had an ultrasound early this morning, so rather than having to wake Eli and take him with her, she accepted my offer to sleep there. This morning, heaven - an adorable semi-naked man got into my bed, looking at me with big brown eyes. We had some pillow talk. He was listening, with his extremely keen ears, to what was going on just beyond our walls, on King Street. "Dere's people going fast and some of dem is walking," he said, and I said, "And there's people in trains and cars and streetcars too," and he said, "Some of dem is walking." Then, huge smile: "And some of dem is doggies!"
Some of dem is doggies. So true. Later he was standing at the sink, filling a bucket to do his favourite thing, water the garden. "Glamma," he called, "de bucket is fulling."
We played one of his favourite games, "Smash crash," with the monster trucks; he rode his birthday Ironman bike in the yard; we ate a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast - he had the centre and I the crusts. And then his mother was home with the best news: "HEAD DOWN." Her babe is no longer in the breech position. Ready to go. A few weeks yet.
We went for brunch at Mitzi's nearby and then they to the playground and I home, through the clogged streets of this benighted city where my favourite people on earth live, and stupid mayors and their brainless minions, God help us, live too.
redux: “the long calendar of the year” (Dickens)
2 hours ago
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