I’m writing this from a substandard hotel room in Oshawa. (So, saying “substandard” might have been redundant.) We’re here helping my niece move in to her new school.
After some seriously confusing airport-COVID adjustments at Pearson she found us. We sucked down some Jack Astor’s lunch and were on our way, with the Google directions lady helping us nimbly sidestep some serious traffic. Before long we were in Oshawa, pulling off an incredibly efficient (and therefore only minimally terrifying) Walmart visit before visiting her campus, doing some more shopping, hanging out on the quad (memories!), grabbing another meal at Baxter’s Landing, and finally getting her set up in her room. We let her get settled in and headed to our room for the night, getting here just in time to watch the Raptors tie the series up at 2-2.
We’ll be here a little longer today, to gather up some more things for her room and stuff her full of more food before heading back.
It felt — it always feels — weird to focus so intently on something so inherently micro and personal to us in a week when so much is/was/isn’t happening around us all, but it still feels important to share.
We bought a house.
It’s ten minutes’ walk east of where we are now, so it’s familiar, but an exciting change at the same time. It’s narrow but high, and has a backyard, so we’ll have the space, separation, and outdoor space we’re craving during COVID. It’s a leafy street that we’ve both always wanted to live on.
It’s my first house (after owning three condos/lofts) so I’m heading into more complexity than I might have wanted pre-COVID, but we’re excited. The planning has begun with great enthusiasm. As has the design — I now have a Pinterest account, for god’s sake.
I kind of didn’t believe the Schitt’s Creek (imdb | rotten tomatoes) hype when I was hearing it. Despite the cast’s more senior pedigree it was a CBC show. I don’t usually pay attention to those. But then Lindsay watched it and swore I’d like it, so I started. By the middle of season one I was pretty much locked in.
Today, maybe two months after we started it, we finished the series. It definitely made me snort-laugh more than most other recent series I’ve watched, and left some all-time classic lines in my head (e.g., “Where is babay’s chamberr?”). Meanwhile Dan Levy’s reaction when Eugene Levy tries to hug him but gets caught on the seat belt is straight gold. But it was also sweet and joyous without being cloying, which is hard to do, and the final wrap-up mini-doc after the last episode made us cry quite a bit, so. Yeah. Good series. Highly recommended.
I’ve forgotten to write about them, but in recent weeks I’ve watched Run (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and, in an attempt to catch up to Lindsay, season one of Broadchurch (imdb | rotten tomatoes). We also watched Waco (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which, well, meh.
Two years ago (more or less) we adopted Kramer, our cat. Here’s how I described him at the time:
He was a feral outside cat for over a year, so he’s still pretty wary of us — we can’t touch him, or even get near him. He usually sleeps under our bottom step where we can’t reach him.
He hangs out with us far more often, rarely sleeping under the stairs anymore. We bought him a stand so he can stare out the window at birds and squirrels. He shows us his belly when he sleeps. He can’t quite meow, but he squeaks at us with enthusiasm. He demands to play with us on a regular basis, and will now even hang out and play when company is over vs. just hiding behind the bed.
In the past year, and especially in the five months since COVID hit here, he’s continued to warm up to us. He now lets us pet him all the time, and in fact demands it. He half-meows outside our bedroom in the morning until we come play with him. He sleeps near us most of the time. He purrs, occasionally. He’s even jumped up on the bed or couch with us, if we lure him with treats.
It’s hard to even imagine, given what he was like two years ago.
The way the NHL season was going in February I’d pretty much given up any hope of seeing my Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs. They were well out of a playoff spot.
Then, when the season was put on hold in March, I didn’t think it would come back this year. But they, along with the NBA, had a plan to resume…and said plan featured a play-in round for the 5th through 12th seeds in each Conference. That meant Montreal had a chance. A weak, outside chance given they were the 12th seed and would play the 5th-ranked Pittsburgh Penguins to get in, but…a chance.
Turns out they won the series, 3 games to 1. Maybe they shouldn’t have, since it ruins their chance to win the #1 draft pick, and now they’re up against the even stronger Philadelphia Flyers. But still…when you have Carey Price and a bit of luck, you can do some damage.
Between unexpected hockey and a (hopefully deep) Raptors run, there’s more sports on TV this summer than either Lindsay or I expected. I’ll let you guess who’s happier about that.
In other news, I had a second excursion for dinner this week, this time at Gare de L’Est for dinner with my boss, just to get caught up in person.
More than fourteen years ago brother #1 visited from England, where he was living at the time. An impromptu decision to get out of the city for a bit led us to Elora, and a night at the Elora Mill Inn. This last weekend Lindsay and I, desperate to get out of the city for the first time in 6+ months, ended up back there.
It was always pretty, but it’s definitely gone through a reno some time in the last fourteen years, so that was nice. Also nice: our room had a huge terrace overlooking the river gorge — and, as it turns out, the pool — which is where we spent most of our time.
Our first night there had dinner downstairs in the restaurant, and it was a good one.
Oysters
Burrata and farm herbs on grilled sourdough
Lobster and melon salad with sea buckthorn, mint, hazelnut
NV Robert Moncuit Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs
Beef tenderloin with swiss chard dumplings, coal roasted mushrooms, sage
Duck two ways
Antinori Pian Delle Vigne Brunello di Montalcino 2003
Red fruit sorbet & ‘spark’ with cherries, raspberries, strawberries, Tawse sparkling
We spent the rest of the evening, into the wee hours in fact, relaxing on the terrace, enjoying the weather, watching shooting stars. Just, enjoying the peace.
The day we had a big sleep in, drank coffee on the terrace, ordered a late breakfast (the staff was very nice in overlooking that we’d missed the cut-off time), drank Pet-Nat mimosas, and read outside until the sun crept too close.
Our one excursion into the town itself led us to a scenic lookout over the gorge, a little walk down the main street, beers & sausage on the patio at Elora Brewing Company, and a quiet sit by the Grand River.
The terrace was so nice we decided to have dinner — charred tomato soup with basil creme fraiche; pan-roasted Chassagne Farms hen with potato butter, arugula, mushroom jus; grilled mozzarella sandwich with focaccia, rosemary pesto, baby-kale cashew salad, and a bottle of The Farm Chardonnay — up there.
The next morning we hit repeat: more coffee & breakfast & reading on the terrace, before heading back to Toronto. It was so nice to get away from the loft, and the city, and into some combination of luxury and nature.
Despite the specific requests of victims and victims’ families, it will be an independent panel and not a public inquiry. The panel will have no ability to compel testimony, and will lack the transparency of an inquiry.
We might as well give it a name, this odd feeling of having been heard, understood—and ignored—by government.
It’s a familiar enough sensation, after all. It’s not that the lines of communication have broken down. It’s not that the message isn’t getting through. It’s not even that governments are inert or inactive. On the contrary, they’re whirlwinds of action. They’re just doing… something else… besides what circumstances warrant and populations demand.
This odd feeling is all I have after Mark Furey, Nova Scotia’s justice minister, and Bill Blair, the federal minister of public safety, announced the end of three months of confusion about how governments would respond to the April mass murder around Portapique, N.S. They’re convening a review. It’s like a public inquiry, only toothless and secretive.
…
Before the ministers’ announcement, I asked Dalhousie University law professor Archibald Kaiser for some comment on the delay in announcing any sort of inquiry. Kaiser sent me a long, thoughtful essay. “Instead of reassuring the public, the behaviour of governments has been opaque, tardy, uncertain, avoidant and condescending,” he wrote. “It is hard to make sense of why there have been so many bungles and missed opportunities in the aftermath of Canada’s worst mass killing.”
Paul Wells, Macleans, July 2020
The news of the government’s decision was met with protests this past weekend. Despite the CVs of the appointed panel, I fear their output will be met with disappointment. And the families and loved ones will be left to deal with the questions and doubts.
This week saw more excursions, including our first visit to a patio — Chez Nous, to be specific. It was nice to finally sit outside, sip some cool wine, and…talk to people.
Let’s see, what else? Watched Midsommar (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was weird and scary but beautiful and excellent. Had a sudden, happy memory of a mixed CD called This One’s Worth Saving given out by Dalhousie radio station CKDU in my third year of undergrad. Protested some police bullshit.
Slowly, I am re-entering the world outside the loft. Last Saturday we walked into the east to meet a friend and drink Rorschach beers in a (very brown) Woodbine Park. Two days ago I went to the dentist (a new one; no need to get on transit to visit my old one) after a long wait — my last appointment had been scheduled for March 14 but was obviously cancelled.
I still haven’t been on a patio. I think I’m ready, but Lindsay isn’t quite yet. No matter; we have plenty of wine to keep us company right here in the loft.
We’ve watched some rough documentaries over the past week: first the documentary series Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (imdb | rotten tomatoes), then Athlete A (imdb | rotten tomatoes). The latter was exceptional — just extremely well done, thoughtful, well-constructed, and responsible in execution and scope. Still, between that and occasionally dabbling in the Waco miniseries, we’ve needed some light palate-cleansers as well, tossing in episodes of New Girl and The Good Place here and there as needed.
Maybe once this crazy heat wave (which, as I type this, has been temporarily replaced with rain at last) subsides we might attempt a patio. Until then: baby steps.
Growing up we had at least three (maybe more?) newspaper subscriptions. We got the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, the Amherst Daily News, and the local weekly, the Citizen. This last is obviously gone, and I’m pretty sure the Amherst News is just a section of the Saltwire site now.
When I moved to Toronto I eventually subscribed to the Globe and Mail, then The Toronto Star, then both at once. (I loved newspapers and might have subscribed to more, but you couldn’t have paid me to read the National Post, and I don’t even consider The Sun to be a news source.) Reading my weekend paper(s) used to be a treasured Saturday morning ritual, but I let my both subscriptions lapse many years ago. I couldn’t really justify the paper usage or the cost versus free, high-quality, online alternatives.
Over time the thought of losing good journalism began weighing on me though, so I opened an online subscription. Granted it was the early days of the big media sources figuring out paywalls, but man was it clunky. I had a paid Globe subscription that never actually let me read pay-walled stories, so I gave up.
I’d always been more ideologically aligned to The Star than the others, and recently considered trying an online subscription again, but then they were purchased by a private equity firm. So we’ll see whether that ideological alignment lasts. In the meantime, I’ve hung fire on re-subscribing.
What I have begun paying for is newer, independent media, which doesn’t (as far as I know; I’m not invested enough to dig too hard) receive government funding for a dying business model (as opposed to receiving funding for journalism, which I would support). I have subscriptions to The Logic (for Canadian tech/innovation news) and The Athletic (for sports news), and have recently signed up for the West End Phoenix. I haven’t received my first issue yet, but I’m psyched. And while I don’t live in Nova Scotia anymore, much of my family does, so I might just sign up for the Halifax Examiner too.
It creates more things to manage, but I feel like my dollar goes further this way, and more directly to the people doing the work.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 