my neighbourhood

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Today's Blathering is part of a WordGoddess collaboration project. The assignment: to post photos from around our neighbourhoods. As those of you who regularly read my journal know, I've already posted a lot of pictures of my neighbourhood in past entries. Here are some more, all taken of locations within walking or running distance of our apartment. I took the photo above during a recent morning run.





I love Toronto. I used to live out in the country, grew herbs and wildflowers in my rock garden, woke to the sound of birdsong instead of fire engines and honking traffic. A pastoral setting, I know, but I started getting cabin fever by the time we decided to make our move to the city.

Weird, I know, especially just after waxing eloquent about how much I love the cottage. I do love the cottage, and I love the outdoors with a passion that rivals my adoration of all things chocolate...but at heart, I'm a city girl. I love the bustle and action of downtown Toronto, the easy access to bookstores and coffeeshops and theatres, the underground subway and network of shops, the hum and rattle of streetcars along King Street.





Our condo straddles the entertainment and financial districts in downtown Toronto. On one side is Roy Thompson Hall, home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Princess Of Wales Theatre and the Royal Alexandra Theatre. From my home office window, I can also see a plethora of nightclubs, the neon-lit Rubiks cube of the Paramount Theatre and Chapters complex a few blocks away, MuchMusic television station headquarters.

If I step out the front door of my building, I can see the CN tower and the Skydome, both minutes away by foot. Streets in my neighbourhood tend to become gridlocked with taxicabs just before and after games and theatre performances. Finding parking can be an (expensive) nightmare. I never drive in Toronto; I walk, run, or take the subway or bus system most of the time. Some opt for four-legged locomotion:





When the World Science Fiction Convention rolls into Toronto next year, I suspect that I'll be the closest resident, with the Metro Convention Centre being a 3-minute walk away. (To those thinking of asking: sorry, crash space has already been spoken for :-)).

I love standing at the base of the CN Tower on a sunny day and staring up all the way up the tower to the top, shading my eyes and gawking like a tourist. I think the Skydome's pretty cool even though I've only seen one Jays game (they lost). I hate the bizarre sculpture of sports fans, which, to the appropriate eerie soundtrack, would make a great thematic focus in a horror movie:





On the other side of our neighbourhood is the financial district, with its towering office buildings and sea of suits and cellphones during rush hour. Weird to think that I used to be part of this surging throng when I worked as a programmer/analyst for TD Bank's head office about fifteen years ago, working in one of the black monolith towers designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

I love the hodgepodge of architectural styles (anywhere from very cool to downright ugly), the juxtaposition of old and new. I really like the Royal Bank Plaza building, whose mirror-glass facades contain real gold and are gorgeous in the sunlight. You can see it in the second photo on this page, the building second from the right.

The interior of BCE Place is another of my neighbourhood favourites (see photo below), which houses Toronto's oldest surviving stone building and oldest intact streetscape.





I could write far too much more about my neighbourhood, so perhaps I'd better stop here. Besides, I've already Blathered and posted photos about my visit to Kensington Market and Chinatown, local grocery stores, people-watching along the harbourfront, and too many photos I've taken on various neighbourhood runs.


And hey, even the Pope's coming to visit my neighbourhood this week. :-)

otters and sunrises

I woke at about 5:30 a.m. because of something moving in the forest. Something big. The wisest thing to do would have been to go back to sleep, but we're going home today, and I knew it was probably my last chance to see a cottage sunrise for a while.

Before checking out the sunrise, I wanted to investigate the forest noise. There was definitely still something back there, moving around, snapping big branches underfoot. I was tempted to wander into the forest a bit to check it out, but decided not to. Chances were good that it was a moose, but there was also a small but nonzero chance it could be a bear, in which case it was probably not a good idea for me to try sneaking up on it, especially since everyone was still sleeping and wouldn't know where I was going.

The sky near the horizon was just turning a pale rose when I got to the boathouse, so I knew I still had a few minutes. I made myself a bacon (Canadian back bacon, eh?) and tomato sandwich and ate my breakfast out on the dock while the sun rose.

It's been a good visit, and I actually feel like I've had a vacation at the same time as being happy with the amount of writing I've done on my novel.

My favourite moment during the visit was yesterday morning around 6 a.m. I was first up (as usual) and was on my way across the deck to the boathouse to do some writing when my still-sleep-fuddled brain noticed how utterly beautiful the lake was. The sun was just peeking up over Lewis's Island, and the sky was a brilliant blue. Mist was dancing across the entire surface of the lake; vague wispy tendrils floating like white fire, drifting.

A lone canoeist was paddling his way along the distant shore; I could only see his silhouette. The light was amazing, golden and warm. I snapped a few photos but gave up after a few minutes; I realized that there was no way my camera could accurately capture the breathtaking beauty of the scene, the birdsong in the forest, the trilling of a loon pair far out on the lake. I sat on the dock for an hour, watching the morning sun slowly burn the mist off the water.





Lots of wildlife around. An extremely cute chipmunk has been busying about, ecstatic over my gifts of peanuts. Four ducklings paddled by the boathouse as I was writing yesterday. The mother was nowhere to be seen, and JBR says there used to be five ducklings. :-( Two of the ducklings clambered awkwardly up on the shore to peck at the grass, then slipped back into the water, peeping until the other two peeped back, obviously letting them know where they were. I hope the remaining four make it through the summer okay.

Less than an hour later, an otter splashed around in the lake just off our dock. He frolicked around a bit, staring at us from time to time, then swam off. We see a family of otters playing in the water around here occasionally, always fun to watch.

visitor centre

Happy birthday to my brother-in-law, Kaarel!

Today's Blatherpics are from our visit to the Algonquin Park Visitor's Centre yesterday afternoon. Jeff and I tend to visit the Centre at least once a year, usually with our visitors. In addition to housing some interesting science/biology and historical exhibits, the building is air-conditioned with a decent bookstore and a cafeteria. It's a great place to take children on a rainy day, or just to browse for a change of pace during a long visit.





Jeff's family contributed towards one of the exhibits in the Centre, commissioning a sculptress friend to create a bust of Tom Thomson, a famous Canadian painter and member of the Group of Seven, whose mysterious death has evoked much controversy and speculative books over the years:





It was interesting to examine the reproduction of the Tom Thomson cairn after seeing the real cairn on a lake tour boat trip only a couple days before:





And each time that Jeff and I go to the Visitor Centre, I always visit the Wolf Howl exhibit. When the Centre was first being built, people had the opportunity to donate in someone's name to sponsor exhibits. Jeff and I donated in the names of my brother and his wife. A plaque with all donor names is displayed beside each exhibit. Jim and Diane both loved Algonquin:





Unbelieveably, I'm still on track re: my novel writing. My goal by the end of this month is to have written about 37,000 words. Next month: finish the first draft (I'm aiming for a total of approximately 50,000 words total for a middle reader novel), revise/edit.

This coming week will be pretty busy since I have a column due for Writing World in addition to two sets of biweekly updates for the site (since I'll be away in California during one of my deadlines) and a Muse's Muse column, in addition to my daily Market Watch and novel writing goals.

Hey, and I've even started writing a new song while I'm at the cottage! :-)

poll: garlic?

Remarkably, the heat wave that reportedly has hit Toronto never fully reached us at the cottage. Yesterday, I even ended up wearing a t-shirt, sweatshirt AND fleece jacket in the evening to keep warm!

We've settled into a bit of a ritual here now. I'm first up around 6:30 a.m., head down to the boathouse (the main cabin) to work on my daily Market Watch column, Blatherings, and my novel. I have cereal with blueberries and milk. The others come down a short while later, make coffee, have breakfast, go read books on the dock or in the boathouse. JBR comes down with a cup of coffee to chat. I go for a long swim in the lake, usually my main exercise of the day.

When Jeff wakes up and comes down, I retreat to our sleeping cabin and work on my novel for the rest of the morning. Unless he decides to cook up a big breakfast with everyone, in which case I have a second breakfast (oink). Yesterday he made pancakes, which optional blueberries for those who wanted them, with real maple syrup, yum.

Around 11 or 11:30, I take a nap. Sometime in the afternoon, we all do something together. Yesterday we went for a hike on the Rainbow Lake portage. It was somewhat buggy, but a good walk, with lots of steep hills. I ended up coping with the bugs by spraying a bandanna with Muskol and wearing it under my cap, Lawrence of Arabia style. Worked like a charm, too. :-) We saw another moose, female this time, as well as a muskrat swimming across the river.

As you might have guessed, my favourite cottage activity these days is napping. After napping, however, I like swimming. I'm not the greatest swimmer, but I'm confident enough to swim a fair distance from the dock. No sign of the snapping turtle during our visit. I do some workout-type swimming (I can't do any running here at the cottage since there's nowhere to run) but take breaks by floating on my back with my face to the sky, arms outstretched, eyes closed.

It's incredibly relaxing, floating out in the lake like that, and something I can never do in the city.

One of our guests made a delicious mushroom risotto last night, with a garlicky broiled vegetable dish appetizer. I'm a big fan of garlic, but tend to avoid it unless the friends I'm with are eating it too, just so we can all be stinky together. I love garlic cloves that have been baked a long time in the oven, and spreading the resulting mush on toast. My mouth is watering, just thinking about it.

Poll: are you a garlic fan?

Do you like the smell? The taste? Do you like eating baked garlic cloves? Do you like cooking with it? When you and your partner or close friend are dining out, would you hesitate about eating a garlic-heavy dish if he/she isn't?

Hey, only a couple of weeks until Conchord! I've been practising on my guitar every day. Can't wait to visit with Scott and Amanda Snyder before the convention, and to finally meet Zoë. :-)





Today's Blatherpics

ScottD gave me permission to take and post one photo of a fish he caught off our dock. He ended up throwing the fish back into the lake because it was too small.

The second photo is of a Lola, a frozen treat I mentioned in Blatherings a while back and that some people were confused about.

poll: favourite casual restaurants?

Best wishes to Graham Leathers, whose new show opens on Friday. Gray recently bought a new digital recording set-up, by the way, and once the Fringe Festival is over he says he's going to work on his solo filk CD, aiming for a FilKONtario release date.

Today's photos were taken at Webers, on the way to the cottage. Webers is a fast food joint that has long been a traditional rest stop for many families on the way to and from the cottage; they serve up to 6,000 people on a Friday in the summer. My family used to stop at Webers when we went camping every summer in Algonquin Park (correction: Ruth says we never did this as a family! I must be losing braincells.)





The first employee ever hired by Webers, Michael McParland, still works 3-4 shifts ever week in the summer. He wears a headband and a button that says "KEY MAN". He was there when we visited, looking pretty cool.

The ordering process at Webers is remarkably efficient. While in line-up, someone comes to take your order, rings in into the cash register, then gets your payment. By the time you actually reach the serving counter a few minutes later, your order's usually ready.

The cookstaff are enthusiastic, friendly. Sometimes they sing, and not even with a "this is part of our job description" attitude, but like they're actually having fun.

Sometimes we take food in the car, but most often we choose to dine in the grassy picnic area, or (if it's raining) in one of the train cars converted into an informal dining area. I love the hamburgers, but I confess I can't be entirely objective about it; for me, they are associated so strongly with wonderful childhood memories and past/present excitement about going to the cottage.

So what about all of you?

Poll: What are your favourite casual restaurants?

What are or were your favourite casual eating places? Beloved greasy spoons? Why are they your favourite? How often do you go there? How about places you've really enjoyed outside of your hometown? Here are just a few of my favourites in places other than Toronto:

- fish & chips place in the UK that Lissa and Phil know about

- milkshake place in Winnipeg that Graham & Dave & Tom know about (honey-cinnamon was my favourite, I think, yum)

- Indian place in Buffalo that Rand and Tanya know about (chicken malai to die for)

I'm sure there are others I can't recall now, so I reserve the right to add to this list over the next few days. :-)