I remember those days…first day back at school, all kitted out with new clothes. Enjoy it, pal; soon enough you’ll be tearing the hearts out of frogs while women do the same to you.
[tags]nephew, first day of school[/tags]
Category: Family
Oh please oh please oh please…
How hot is it?
It’s hotter than Satan’s asscrack out there. I’ve only felt humidity like this once before: in New Orleans.
It’s days like this I pine for dear old Nova Scotia. Dear old moderate, damp Nova Scotia.
.:.
So yes, there is a plan underway for us to become vegetarians. We plan to ease into it slowly, over the next few months, and by the new year hopefully we’ll be fully veggie (though Nellie plans to eat fish; I haven’t yet decided whether or not I will) and not sliding down a slope of protein deficiency.
On making these plans, it occurs to me that I will have become, in my father’s eyes, a vegetarian atheist Upper Canadian banker. It remains to be seen whether or not he’ll let me in the house. If he does, I believe it will be just to assert his dominance at cribbage.
[tags]humidity, vegetarianism, cribbage[/tags]
"Jim Henson knew his place"
For the sake of my waistline, I really need my family to stop visiting Toronto. Last night we took another brother and his wife to Fieramosca — our second visit in as many Saturdays — and left the place stuffed, as always. The staff actually ribbed us a bit, saying “OK, see you tomorrow night!” as we left. Smartasses. I had the salsiccia e quaglia alla griglia, a sausage & quail plate that TimmyD got last week (which I just had to try), my brother had the linguine di mama ninetta (a favourite of T-Bone’s), and the ladies shared the seafood pasta for 2. The hostess Mani (sp?) gave us some Tiramisu to keep us busy while the ladies had their after-dinner glass of Amarone. 3.5 hours later, we managed to waddle home. Oy.
Sadly, we didn’t get to spend much more time than that with them. They arrived mid-afternoon, after trying to deal with some lost luggage, and after we got some food into them the ladies went shopping while my brother and I sat and Starbucks and caught up on things. Then we popped down to Henry’s to find them a new digital camera (and may have found one ourselves: the Canon S3 IS), swung by the condo to have a look, strolled down to Front Street and then came back up on the subway (fighting for seats with Indy fans) to relax before dinner. While relaxing we put it on Just For Laughs — there was really nothing else on — and saw a very bizarre, very funny ventriloquist act by Nina Conti…it was weird to see this beautiful woman do a surrealist comedy act with a smarmy monkey. Anyway. Good fun, but it’s too bad they could only stick around for half a day.
Now then…to find a salad…
[tags]fieramosca, henry’s, nina conti, molson indy[/tags]
Stars, deaths & disasters
Dang. Last weekend we saw a pink-topped hearse driving around, promoting the new Andy Warhol exhibit at the AGO (curated by David Cronenberg); we’d have stopped him if we knew we’d get free tickets.
.:.
My brother and his wife should be arriving soon (the other one, not the one who just left on Tuesday). They picked a great weekend to visit: great weather and tons of festivals going on.
[tags]andy warhol, david cronenberg, ago, family visits[/tags]
"And like that…[they're] gone"
The Brits have been seen off back to London. We dropped them at the airport this afternoon after spending the day enjoying Ontario. We wandered around Elora for a while, checking out the gorge and a few shops (including Stÿll, which I think is worth making the trip back for) before jumping in the car and heading to a nearby lake. It wasn’t as impressive as we’d hoped; we just drove along it until we found a spot where we could walk down to the shore. It wasn’t the nicest lake, so we just jumped back in the car (but not before I snagged a chocolate milkshake from a walk-up snack bar) and made for a town. We passed through a little rain — as it turned out, the only rain we encountered; pretty lucky as the forecast had been calling for storms — before reaching Orangeville. We poked our heads into an art gallery, a chocolate shop and a restaurant for lunch (it used to be a pub, or so my pub guide said, but it had been replaced by a restaurant…which I think may have made me sick…anyhoo) before getting back in the car and heading south. We arrived at Pearson in good time, got our guests checked in and on their way, looking for a pub on which to watch the footie match (which Germany lost after Italy scored very late in extra time).
We jumped back into the car once more (after I searched frantically for my Blackberry, which I — whew! — found on the floor) and I fought back post-lunch nausea long enough to return the car to a downtown Hertz, squish onto a subway and get home in time for some prime-time chilling. By the way, I like Toronto a lot less when I have to drive in it.
TimmyD blogged the whole affair on The Plummet Onions. It was great to have them here, great to show them a little more of Toronto, and great to know that it wouldn’t be too much longer before we see them again.
.:.
Recent tidbits:
- Jeph’s indietits have gone too far this time: you do not diss the Godspeed.
- Spacing doesn’t like the new Philosopher’s Walk. I haven’t seen it for myself yet; have to check it out soon. It used to be one of my favourite spots in the city.
- The shortlist is out for the Polaris Music Prize; Like Quinn (from From Blown Speakers, a blog which I’ve only recently encountered) I assume Broken Social Scene will win it, but am pulling for Wolf Parade.
- This tornado touched down not far from where my brother lives. My other brother, that is, not the one who just left…but who’ll be visiting this weekend!
.:.
Finally, I’m sad to say that Ash, the tiny-but-fierce cat and companion to our friends CBGB passed away this weekend. She was ancient and storied, like all great legends. I’ll miss her padding around CBGB’s place, I’ll always smile when I think about how she fell asleep on my lap on the way to Collingwood, and I’ll always laugh when I think about poor Ed having to pick her up with hockey gloves. Hopefully the smiles & laughter will come as easily to CBGB as missing her will.
R.I.P., Ash.
[tags]elora, styll, orangeville, indietits, philosopher’s walk. polaris prize, tornado, ash cat[/tags]
Waterfall (and I don't mean Tom)
It’s surprisingly pleasant sleeping next to rushing water. I had visions of being kept awake by a dull roar and a constant need to urinate, but it was actually really nice. The bed, while comfortable, squealed like a choir of rusty crickets if I so much as moved my head.
Still and all, I managed a decent sleep, and we’re up now, hoping to take advantage of the last day of our vecation before it rains. Wish us luck.
[tags]elora, river gorge[/tags]
I suck at pool
After an unspectacular (though, in the grand scheme of things, probably pretty good for such a tiny town) meal, we set out to have a drink before returning to our rooms. Being 10:00 the hotel bar was closed (!), but they directed us to a place up the street.
It was a pool hall / sports bar kinda place…cheap beer, free pool and TVs tuned to wrestling. We decided to play some pool; I suck, as it turns out. I’ve just never really played. I managed to win the second game by sinking three in a row, but then lost the last one by scratching on the 8-ball. Ah well. The best part was that the bartender gave us a bunch of free credits on the jukebox, so TimmyD and I went to town. It seems that I play better to Soundgarden.
[tags]elora, bar, jukebox[/tags]
Elora
We were up early this morning to pick up our rental car, grabbing some road muffins along the way. We made it out to our aunt + uncle’s place outside of Guelph in really good time, before 10:00. We had a great visit there; our cousin and another of our uncles joined us for lunch (we had strawberry shortcake…droooooool) and I showed everyone the miracle of whipped cream on a gingerbread cookie. We left around 3 to continue our journey.
Only a few minutes north was the town of Elora, where we’d booked a night at the Elora Mill Inn, overlooking a gorge with rushing water. It’s a cute little town; we walked around for a bit, had a drink in the hotel bar overlooking the gorge and had a few minutes to relax in our rooms. Now we’re about to head out for some dinner.
[tags]strawberry, guelph, elora[/tags]
Karate Snoopy
OK, where to begin…just after I wrote that last post England lost to Portugal on penalties. Needless to say, the crowd at the Duke of York was mightily pissed. Still, we soldiered on, determined to enjoy Canada Day. However, our nation’s birthday isn’t quite the event that my brother experienced in Ottawa, so there wasn’t really much to do festivities-wise…we walked down St. George, cut through the U of T campus, walked along College and then down University, had a gawk at the new opera house, walked across Queen to city hall, stopped in the weird little waterfall park off of Richmond, walked across to the condo site, and then strolled down to C’est What for a cold beer and the first half of the France/Brazil match. During halftime we made it back up to our apartment, settled in and watched the second half while Nellie had a nap on the floor.
That night, after a few hours of downtime, we all went to Fieramosca. As usual, it was too much great food; we were all stuffed by the time we left. I had a relatively simple penne with chicken, sundried tomato, zucchini, and asparagus; Nellie had gnocchi and TimmyD has a plate of sausage (which I had a bit of; daaaaaaaaamn) and quail. After much limoncello with the hostess, we walked home.
This morning: no rest for the wicked. We all met at half-ten (that’s what the frickin’ British call 10:30) and hit Eggstacy for some breakfast; we left, more than a little bit stuffed but ready for some shopping. Some shoes, some clothes and some books* later and we’d had about enough of Bloor Street.
After all the shopping we spent a few hours on the patio at the Bishop & Belcher, then collected ourselves at our place before heading out to the Auld Spot for dinner. Once again, I was more than impressed with the food (Nellie liked hers a great deal this time). We left, getting home in time for me to write this, check some feeds and pack for tomorrow.
That’s right, I said pack; we’ve decided to spend a night out of the city. We’re visiting our uncle & aunt near Guelph, and from there we’re going up to Elora for the night. It’ll be nice to see…you know, trees. Etc. I’ll post again when we’re back on Tuesday, at which point our visitors should be jetting back to old blighty.
* TimmyD pointed out a book, based on this website, which is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. We laughing hysterically in the stacks at Indigo, and at home I was actually on the floor laughing as I read it. There are pictures. Nellie says she’s never heard (or seen) me laugh that hard. I understand that some people won’t find it that funny. If you don’t find it funny at all, then I can’t be friends with you anymore.
[tags]england, portugal, u of t, toronto opera house, c’est what, fieramosca, eggstacy, bishop & belcher, auld spot, elora, mnftiu[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 