biking

Happy Birthday to Anne Walker!

Biked down to the Martin Goodman Trail this morning by myself for the first time. It was a pretty nervewracking experience on the way out there, navigating through downtown rush hour traffic and construction. Whenever I got too freaked out, I got off my bike and walked it on the sidewalk...as a result, a 5 minute trip (that's how long it takes Jeff) to the trail took me nearly half an hour. :-) When I finally got out to the Martin Goodman, however, it was great fun. Rode along the harbourfront, past Ontario Place, up to the hill where Jeff had his rollerblading accident. No pedestrians that time in the morning (around 8:00 a.m.), a few rollerbladers, quite a few cyclists. The trip back was much easier. David and I are going biking tomorrow morning.

On impulse, Jeff and I went to Chapters late last night (the Bloor St. Chapters is open until 11 pm), bought some magazines and books. Jeff bought a bunch of O'Reilly tech books, I bought the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook...I'm starting to experiment with some vegetarian recipes. Kathy Cogswell (Mark Osier's s.o.) has been giving me some advice. I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm trying to get more vegetables into my cooking (and less meat). I'm also a cookbook fanatic, in case any of you didn't know. When I lived out in the country, I had accumulated about 50 cookbooks (I ended up giving most of these away when we moved to the city). I'm one of those weirdos that actually *enjoys* reading cookbooks. Since I got online, however, I haven't been cooking that much. I'm also too embarrassed to tell you how often I've burned meals as a result of forgetting about the time while I'm online. :-) Anyway...
After book-buying, Jeff and I went to the coffeehouse. He bought a caramel macchiato and I got steamed cider, and we showed each other our purchases (I also bought the most recent issue of The Writer's Journal because it said very kind things about Inkspot :-)) and talked a while. Very nice evening.

HEY! Last night, Jeff said he heard news that chocolate is supposedly going to be in short supply in a few years. DOES ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS???

biking with david

David and I went for our first bike ride together this morning! Met at 7:30 a.m. in front of my building, were back by 9. I wasn't nearly so nervous about traffic, though I did have a close call with a taxi. :-) We stopped off where the Waterfront Trail began and fed some ducks with bits of David's blueberry granola bar. Gorgeous weather...sunny, blue skies, not too hot this morning.

For those interested, Writer On Line interviewed me for their May issue. The URL is http://www.novalearn.com/wol/.

Updates on the Chocolate Crisis! Researchers are apparently predicting a shortage of cacao beans (from which chocolate is made) in as little as 5-10 years. More info about this terrifying possibility available from Heraldlink.

Speaking of food, I had my first mango yesterday. I was wandering through Chinatown last night and was intrigued by the colourful displays of interesting-looking fruit and vegetables I've never tried. On impulse, I picked up a few mangoes. Very yummy fruit! Very messy, though. Does anyone out there know how to properly eat a mango?

Had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant on Spadina last night. Jeff and a bunch of his guy friends were going to the Dave Matthews concert afterwards. We ordered a dish that involved taking a rice-paper, dumping a bunch of stuff in the middle (mint leaves, lettuce, carrots, bean sprouts, beef) and rolling it up into an edible package. Very messy, but lots of fun. One of the guys had a digital camera and took a group picture (see Today's Picture).

pseudo-ut practice

Going to UT practice tonight but probably won't be doing much actual practising; Allison's feeling under the weather. It'll be fun just hanging out, though. Looking forward to Jodi's housefilk this Saturday! If you want more details, please do email Jodi.

babysitting

Went to the Pickle Barrel last night with Allison and Jodi last night, did some book shopping, came back to Allison's to gab and eat chocolate. :-)

Went to my first aerobics class in a while at 7 this morning. I'd forgotten how perky those instructors are. :-) I'm absolutely positive that they are not quite human...how else could they be chatting and joking around whilst doing ab exercises that are killing the rest of us? The least they could do would be to PRETEND to be out of breath, even for a few minutes.

Did some babysitting yesterday, got Annie her first pair of sandals. The salesguy and Ruth tried one sandal on Annie's foot. She was fascinated. So fascinated that when they took the sandal off to try other styles, Annie yelled until they put another one on. When she finally got her new sandals picked out, she had great fun clomping about (still with the aid of someone's hands to hold onto) the store, admiring her new shoes. After shoe shopping we went to a park with a playground. Sara and I played in the sandbox, pretending that it was a vast ocean and that a little boy and a little girl (represented by a small pebble and a tiny acorn cup) were trying to swim to safety. I made lots of waves and wind. Sara scooped up Peter and Susie (she names everything, and Susie is a favourite) and staggered dramatically away from the sandbox, pretending that *she* was being tossed and dragged about by the ocean while I made appropriately scary thunderstorm noises. She staggered over to a field of dandelions, where she accidentally dropped Susie and she & I spent about ten unsuccessful minutes looking for the tiny acorn cup in the grass. Ruth cleverly distracted her with a tuna-and-pickle sandwich.

snow

Lots and lots of snow in Toronto today. I far prefer snow to freezing rain. Freezing rain is, to me, Wimp Weather. Y'know, weather that hasn't really made up its mind. Hm. On the other hand, wimpy weather that manages to knock out power for weeks at a time for some people isn't really all that wimpy, is it?

UT practice tonight, our last practice together before Confusion (I'm going down a bit early next week to visit with my sis-in-law and her husband...my sis-in-law's name, by the way, is Debbie Ridpath!). I hope Allison still has some B & J's Chunky Monkey in her freezer...I forgot to ask last time.

My current reads are:

• Milan Kundera: The Art of the Novel (on loan from Rand)
  
• The Complete Canadian Home Business Guide To Taxes (dull but necessary)