Author: Dan Dickinson

Cover photo by Murai .hr on Unsplash

There’s just too much

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The absolute dead zone of movie watching continues, but the tear through TV shows (to say nothing of the old shows we watch over and over and over and over and over) is going strong. To wit:

  • We killed Queen’s Gambit in 24 hours, like pretty much everyone else. We also loved it, like pretty much everyone else.
  • Someone recommended the Starz documentary Seduced: The NXIVM Story, and it was okay. Interesting story; weird, soap-y way of telling it. Slightly bizarro for me was seeing Callie from Battlestar Galactica, who I’d kind of had a crush on, as a cult sub-leader. 😦
  • Lindsay had watched most (all?) of Grace and Frankie, and convinced me to join her on the re-watch. I really like it. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are just so strong. So are the rest of the cast.
  • We’re throughs season one of Line of Duty, and are well into season two.
  • We destroyed Big Mouth season 4 over two days. So smart, so profane.

We’re almost done the latest season of Westworld but stalled out. We also stalled out a few episodes into season 1 of Succession. I started Lovecraft Country but don’t quite know what to make of it. I have yet to start the last season of Mr. Robot or Killing Eve or even The Mandalorian for crying out loud. Plus countless others I’m missing. So yeah, as much as we’re on a tear, we still have some work to do.

.:.

Cover photo by Murai .hr on Unsplash

Cover photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

Still in the house

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We’ve been in the new house for five weeks now, and it’s already hard to remember the loft. Space. Floors. Walls. We can have non-disruptive work meetings and/or private conversations now. It’s really quite a luxury.

There are neat little design features left behind by the previous owners (one of whom was an industrial designer, so…that tracks) like a solar-powered skylight shade.

Kramer has taken to sitting in the windows and watching the squirrels and birds, occasionally even greeting me as I walk up to the front steps. He’s claimed the guest room as his own, more or less, as well as the little nook under the stairs up to the 3rd floor.

Our neighbours are nice too. Last Monday we joined a few of them in the back laneway for some drinks on a nice snowy evening. There are some whisky and wine fans in the neighbourhood, so we’ll get along just fine.

I’ve also been really enjoying the more proximate merchants, even if it’s in a very altered way during the lockdown. Mercury has become my go-to shop for proper coffee. We finally tried Avling a while ago, and were very impressed with their beers — their food options look solid too. We’re close enough to Ascari now that they, along with Chez Nous, will likely become our go-to wine pickup spots. Being this close to Ed’s and the Leslieville Cheese Market and Leslieville Pumps is both wonderful and problematic. Nutbar has been a fun new find. Apparently a Freshii and an A&W are meant to be built around the corner. And some day we’ll be able to visit all the merchants like Queen Books again.

We’re still missing a lot of furniture, and there’s still plenty to do — I’m getting the feeling that will always be the case — but it very much feels like home already.

Blind birthday beers

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Last night, for a friend’s birthday, we took part in a fun thing: a blind beer tasting (on Zoom, naturally) between people over five households. Each person bought five beers, wrapped them to obscure what they were, and safe-dropped them with the coordinator who then distributed them to each of the households.

So, last night we signed on, and tasted all twelve beers one by one, each time guessing what they were. There were, as we’d guessed, a lot of sours. Lindsay picked a smoked lavender stout from Avling; I picked up a seasonal east coast IPA from Radical Road. Both were hits.

Lindsay and I tied for the most accurate guessing. All in all, it was a really fun night, and a cool way to celebrate a friend’s birthday, even if she did try to kill us all with Delirium Tremens.

Begone, 45

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I should have more to say about the US election. I just don’t have it in me. And, truth be told, ever since I read this Atlantic article (published pre-election) about how Trump might try to gin up enough trouble to keep himself in power, I’m probably more nervous about his seemingly-clumsy protests and machinations than most.

I am just gonna leave this here though:

Cover photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

In the house

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Hey, we’re in the new house! Moved in Friday, and have fumbled our way through a sea of boxes since then.

Kramer is here too, after a few days alone in the loft, a tough (but not as tough as it could have been) extraction followed by a 4-day hunger strike. But he seems to be adjusting well, and is back to accepting our pets and scratches.

We’re still living out of too many boxes and ordering every meal, but we’re here. We’re working more effectively. We’re meeting neighbours. We’re enjoying the backyard due to an unexpected spate of warm weather.

It feels weird to have a house. But it’s starting to feel really good too.

By the way, I’m sure I’ll have something to say about the presidential vote at some point, but for now I’m still electorally hung over.

.:.

Cover photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

Cover photo from LeslievilleMural.com. Mural by Elicser Elliot.

Riverside → Leslieville

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A couple months ago I wrote about buying a house. It had a sixty day close, so the math says we’re moving this week.

The sale officially closed Monday, and I picked up the keys that night. People are coming tomorrow to pack our stuff, and the movers come Friday. At some point we’ll have to move Kramer. We’re dreading that.

The loft we’re in now was a perfect fit when I bought it back in 2017. I’d always wanted a hard loft, and it was in an exciting new (to me) part of the city. But now, in COVID times, with no return-to-the-office seeming imminent, the openness that once made the loft charming now makes it stifling, as does the lack of outdoor space. That said, I like the loft and the building so much I’ve decided to hold on to it and rent it out — a pain in the ass I do not need, but I was loathe to part with the place, especially in this market.

I remain very excited (if a little apprehensive) about the house. It has four bedrooms, which — after having only an open loft with no walls for 3.5 years, might have been an over-vector — and a beautiful back yard. It’s on a street which has always been one of my favourites in the city. It’s only ten minutes’ walk from where we live now (though if Google Maps is to be believed, once one crosses East under the train tracks, one lives in Leslieville) which means many of our neighbourhood favourites — I’m looking at you, Chez Nous and Boxcar Social — will remain.

Wish us luck over the next few days. Especially with Kramer.

.:.

Cover photo from LeslievilleMural.com. Mural by Elicser Elliot.

The Lower Don

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Three years after it re-opened (and us living practically next door to it) we finally walked part of the Lower Don River trail today. We Uber’d to the Brickworks, mistakenly thinking the trail was accessible from there, then walked the ~15 mins to the access point. What was meant to be a ~0:50 walk turned into ~1:20, but it was really nice. Even with the cars grinding down the DVP just out of sight, it felt nice to be surrounded by trees and water and scurrying wildlife.

We walked south under the Bayview exit, then under the Bloor viaduct, under Gerrard, and under Dundas, before climbing up the stairs to Queen Street. It immediately felt super-weird to be back in that kind of density.

It probably felt the least like Toronto of any place in Toronto I’ve been, but also made me feel more connected to the city than I have in months. I’m glad we snuck this in the week before we move to more than a stone’s throw from the Don.

lower don river trail
Image from BlogTO

.:.

Cover photo from the City of Toronto site

Cover photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Outstanding, Miller.

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The latest TV kick has been British crime dramas. Lindsay started Broadchurch (imdb | rotten tomatoes) before I did, but I caught up and we finished the whole thing. It’s just so good. All the hype, lived up to.

Then we binged The Stranger (imdb) and Safe (imdb | rotten tomatoes), both written by someone named Harlan Coben, whom I’d never heard of, but I take to be a mystery writer of some kind. Anyway, The Stranger was pretty entertaining, but Safe suffered from Michael C. Hall’s presence in the lead role. I’m sure his dialect coach was trying very hard, but my goodness. No.

Now, with some recommendations from a friend, we’ve set our sights on Retribution and Line of Duty.

.:.

Cover photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

UTI

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A few weeks ago our cute boy Kramer started peeing on our stuff, sometimes just in little drops. That’s usually a sign of a UTI in male cats, so we hurriedly procured some over-the-counter urinary tract health drops (and a few natural cures, just in case) to help him pee. It helped for a couple of days, but then a week later things got bad again. Real bad.

We knew it could get much worse too — left untreated in males it could turn into a deadly blockage. After calling around to some vets, we tried — for the very first time — to get him into a carrier so we could bring him in to a vet. It…did not go well. The poor little still-kinda-feral guy was fighting for his life, kicking and scratching and hissing and spitting. I think he thought he was being taken away from us. 😦 Anyway, we just couldn’t get him in the bag.

One of the vets had recommended Toronto Mobile Veterinary Services, so we called them. They turned out to be a godsend. Within a few hours (we were lucky they had an opening, and were nearby) they came, got Kramer into the bathroom, gave him some shots, drew some blood for testing, and even trimmed his nails. They left us with a bunch of meds which, within a few days, seemed to have him healthy again. It wasn’t cheap (COVID has made things really difficult for them) but the vet who came — her name was Dr. Tina — simply could not have been more helpful, sweet, encouraging, or calming. Eight hours after being in a state of total panic, we felt such relief. She followed up with us in the days after to make sure Kramer was okay, and even gave us advice for how to manage his move at the end of the month.

After our clumsy transportation attempt + his medical ordeal we thought it would take weeks for Kramer to forgive us, but a few hours after the vet left he was asking us for attention and scratches. This past week he seemed totally back to normal. The only downside? From now on we have to feed him wet canned cat food, which makes me BARF.

.:.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

RIP, Eddie

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I did, in my youth, go through a pretty solid Van Halen phase. It petered out around the second Sammy Hagar album, but I knew all the DLR albums inside and out. Because I was a drummer the Van Halen brother I was most interested in was Alex, but I recognized the genius of Eddie Van Halen. He was the band, really.

The band has long since faded from my musical rotation, but hearing that Eddie passed away last week still felt like I’d lost something important to me as a kid.

Also, it was only after he passed away that I learned something I’d always wondered as a kid: did Eddie Van Halen really play the guitar on that tape in Back To The Future? Turns out: yes.