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I didn’t really have a leg to stand on.
Submitted entry: I think one of the difficulties with doing infrequent entries is that I feel obligated to have something really exciting or poignant to say because, after all, I’ve had a whole month or more to mull it over. But the truth of the matter is that mostly I don’t have anything earth-shattering to say. So I wait longer and longer before writing and then feel that the entry, when it does come, should be more and more interesting. This results in my being unable to just talk about a simple quiet weekend. Today, though, Sage isn’t feeling inspired about writing an entry and so I am given the opportunity to just write an entry about what, other than the civic holiday [Sage’s note: pretty much a made up holiday because people in Toronto wanted a nice day off during August], is pretty much representative of a normal weekend for us.
Saturday morning Sage, Paul, and I actually managed to get up and ready to leave the house before 9:00 - certainly a noteworthy event if you know us. We then went off to an animation workshop. The workshops are fairly short and consist of watching a short animated film followed by a short project. This time we did a claymation movie of a Caribana float. I love seeing what Paul comes up with when he works with clay. It was tainted, though only slightly, by my listening to a woman sitting next to us telling her five year old son what he was to make, what colour he was to make it, and prompting him to answer the workshop leaders’ questions to the group. Please, lady, it is a kids’ workshop, not a contest. Give the kid five waking minutes in which he doesn’t have to perform for someone.
After we did that we headed towards home but Paul decided he wanted to stop at what had to be the world’s worst Subway franchise. He seemed to enjoy his sandwich but I found mine rather anemic and tasteless and Sage couldn’t stand the smell of the restaurant (which, IMO, smelled like every other Subway ever but I agree - that doesn’t mean it is a good smell.)
After lunch we all headed home where Paul and I played for much of the afternoon, experimenting with a helium balloon he was given at the workshop. After a few games of trying to keep it from reaching the ceiling, sort of the opposite from the usual keep an air-filled balloon afloat, we connected paper clips to it so that we could equalize the lift from the helium with the weight. Once weighted down like this we used it to ferry messages to each other and to investigate the air currents both naturally in the apartment and created by our running and walking by it. After a few hours spent this way I was restless and ready to go back out in the world so Paul and I decided to investigate the local Whole Foods. I really had high hopes for this store. The one in Albuquerque was fantastic if not a bit pricey. I expected the same of this one, what with it being next door to a Rolls Royce dealer in the middle of Yorkville, to be on par. Unfortunately, though, it turned out to be rather dismal, nearly empty of people, poorly lit, and with a disappointing selection. While I knew academically that I wouldn’t be able to get red or green chile there, I was disappointed to find that the best salsa that they had was Mrs. Renfro’s. That wasn’t totally disppointing, though, as we were quite fond of it when we lived at the yurt. The difference is that in the Ozarks it is one of the cheap grocery store brands while here it was one of the more expensive brands. Even with the exchange rate, $4.39 was a bit much to pay for something that cost only $2.39 in the Ozarks - and that was when it wasn’t available at the grocery salvage.
Still, Paul, and I did get a bit of shopping done and loaded both our packs to the breaking point and started walking back to the subway along Yorkville ave which was almost painfully trendy with limousines, european cars and people clad in designer clothes on both sides of the street. Sage jokes, only half-seriously, that I probably walked past like eight celebrities but am so bad at recognizing them that I would never have known. After all, there are a bunch of movies being filmed here as we speak. Within about a block of the subway, though, it wouldn’t have mattered if I could recognize them or not as I was beginning to get a visual aura telling me that a migraine was on the way. Paul and I headed for the subway where Paul read and chatted a bit. He’s beginning to get interested in hypothetical discussions - stuff like “What was the world like half way in the past?” which when I asked for clarification meant “what do you think the earth was like before there was life?” We were both getting fairly sleepy and by the time we got home we were both ready for bed.
Sunday got a rocky start. We were all up and ready fairly quickly just like Saturday but hadn’t really figured out who was going where. Sage had planned since the day before to go out on a photo-gathering trip. Paul had planned since the day before to go to a store and pick up this stone skull at the science centre that he’d been wanting for some time. The skull came with a hammer and chisel and had various “pirate treasures” embedded within. I, not being wise enough to plan anything for my day, felt a bit crabby that I was going to be at everyone else’s mercy as to where I went for the day. Looking at the sunny day starting outside I began to resent the fact that my day was looking like it would be spent sitting inside watching Paul chip away at his skull while the day went on outsied without me. A day in which, I’d just learned, there was a Hot & Spicy Food Festival happening.
So Sage and I crabbed a bit at each other in which I really didn’t have a leg to stand on since everyone else had their plans and I didn’t have any until about fifteen minutes before. Finally we figured out a plan that we could all live with. We’d go get the skull for Paul, Sage would go out on her own, and then Paul and I would go to the zoo. This plan worked well for a few minutes. Until the skull was in Paul’s backpack at which point he wanted to go home and work with it. And I thought then that Paul had been waiting literally since there was snow on the ground to get this thing and of course he wanted to use it right away. And so I happily got back on the bus with Paul and Sage and headed home where Paul and I got off and left Sage to go about her day.
What a great idea it was to go home. Paul and I had a bunch of fun for several hours chipping away at the skull. And after a couple hours, Sage decided it was too hot (it was, after all, above 22 degrees outside) and came home. After about an hour of us all being together at home I decided to head out and check out the food festival after all. All told, it was a disappointment. I think mostly it was disappointing because I’ve lived here as long as I had. Sure there were hot and spicy foods, but nothing particularly exotic, spicy, or that I couldn’t get at almost any festival. Indian food, Jamaican patties, and roasted corn are all very yummy but I was expecting extremely hot food with lots of vegetarian options. No luck, though. So after making the rounds for a few more minutes I headed out. Sage then called and reminded me that there was a movie I wanted to see on the other side of town at a theatre I had never been to. So I hopped on a streetcar and headed over. Unfortunately I was up against two challenges. The first was that I had 20 minutes to get to the theatre, and the second was that I had no specific idea where the theatre was (and Sage was at the playground so there was no way she could find out the street address). I finally got to Ossington station about the time I was meant to walk into the theatre. Thinking the most likely place the theatre was was towards downtown I began to walk only to find that my instincts were wrong. (What happened to my innate sense of direction which allowed me at one time to find an amusement park in Rhode Island knowing only that it was an amusement park on the coast?) At the same time I was getting really hungry. Lucky me, though, as on the block I was on there were three Ethiopian restaurants. For some inexplicable reason, Sage will never go out for Ethiopian food. No matter that it is spicy, vegetarian friendly, and delicious, she thinks she won’t like it. So I found one, “Kokeb Restaurant” and wandered in. Being about 4:30 in the afternoon, I was the only person there other than the people who worked there. The menu, written both in english and in Ethiopic Script, a beautiful way of writing I had never seen before moving here, was fantastic. Several vegetarian options, the most expensive of which was about $7.00. I chose that dish, the vegetarian combination platter and within a few minutes was presented with a plate almost a foot and a half in diameter covered with Injera - a soft, flat bread with small scoops of five different dishes and green salad in the middle. A second, folded piece of injera was provided on the side. The food was so delicious but for the first time in a long time I was served a meal so big I couldn’t eat it all. This meal would have been better suited for two people than one, and ended the meal with fresh-roasted (as in a minute before I drank it) strong, thick, ethiopian coffee that hours later after everyone was asleep and I was wide awake I’d regret having had.
After the meal (total $9.50 - too cheap for all I had), I decided to wander and ended up walking for about an hour before feeling lonely and about to be swallowed up by the anonymity of the city and I headed for the subway again. After all I crabbed that morning about not having time to myself, it only took a few hours before I was really done being by myself.
Today, we’re somewhat at loose ends as to what to do. We might go out but today it is meant to be really hot [Sage’s note: a humidex of 38C!] so Sage will likely stay home, Paul, too, might stay home as the heat aggravates his runny eye. We could end up each going out for short forays into the outside world before returning to the air conditioning again.
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