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Escalator Love

People in the first flush of love have no dignity or shame and do things they would never consider doing otherwise, like spending an entire escalator ride hugging and staring into each other’s eyes. Not passionately, just…obnoxiously.

Todd Ooo, look. Here’s a vegetarian chili recipe that feeds thirty children.

Sage Perfect for a Montessori daycare.

Todd Ha. I thought you were going to say “cult”.

Friday Paul and I went sledding. It was only the fourth time I’ve been in my entire life, and I wanted to stay for hours and hours. Paul’s sled was very basic and on our hill there were lots of fancy sleds with seats and steering wheels. As we headed home Paul said wistfully that a toboggan would be nice to have. Not 24 hours later there was a huge, mint condition orange taboggan leaning up against the wall in the recycling room. I gleefully took it upstairs and we headed out for a day of sledding, and we found out why it was in the recycling room. Paul would get a quarter of the way down the hill, the sled would twirl, and he’d finish the hill backwards, ending in a little jump at the end someone else had made of hard packed snow.

I stood there wishing I hadn’t left my gloves at a friend’s house, then looked a little to the left and saw three gloves lying in the snow. Two of them a matched pair. (No, I didn’t wish for world peace after that, although in retrospect I probably missed a chance to change world history.) I put on the gloves and tried to solve the sled problem. We finally figured out that if Paul started with the sled facing front and began facing backwards, he could finish the hill facing front, but he preferred the other way. Three bigger kids happened by and tried to go down facing front, but it turned backwards on them as well. Mysterious.

Eventually Paul got tired and I took off the gloves and hung all three of them from shrubs. It’s a tradition I really like that I’ve never seen anywhere else – when people in Toronto find a lost item they pick it up and put it somewhere close at eye level. During winter my neighbourhood is a veritable feast of scarves, hats and gloves fluttering in the wind. To be sure, it’s a very small act of kindness, but I like what it says: Hey, I see you dropped your hat. I’ll just put it up here, so if you should come by this way again you’ll be able to find it.

We headed home and put the sled back in the recycling room. It was gone within three hours. I have every expectation of it making the rounds of most of the kids in the building before one maddened parent throws it in the dumpster.

Man on the subway platform.