Happy Canada Day! I am so happy to be a Canadian! As much as I hate the weather, the endless months of snow, cold and darkness, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Except maybe Italy. Or Mexico for the winter months. Or a stint in Thailand. But I’d always come back to Canada, my home and native land.
After all, Canada has produced some of my favourite things: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, John Candy, the whole SCTV crew, maple syrup, poutine. Enough said.
I’m still savouring the past weekend. It is impossible to go wrong with a summer’s weekend, even ones that are sprinkled with rain.
Friday was a gorgeous night when the temperature felt just right on the skin. Cool but not cold, just soft and pleasant, perfect for sitting on a backyard patio with grapevines overhead. We had a roti-off with friends who have been singing the praises of Bacchus roti, while we were more partial to Vena and Gandhi. Not all of the contenders were represented but we had a mini roti-off between Bacchus and Gandhi, unveiled in all their roti glory from behind a homemade curtain to heighten the drama of it all. So far, Bacchus is in the lead for best roti in Toronto. It will be hard to compete with their mix of channa, squash and spinach. So yummy and creamy and delectable.
The evening continued with full bellies, beer and a game of Uno with candles flickering in a gentle breeze. Summer transforms the simplest of meals and activities into something magical.
I look forward to the ongoing battle for Toronto’s best roti, an Uno re-match and breezy nights with friends. Life is good in the summer.
Farrah Fawcett truly was a seventies icon. I don’t know any boy from the seventies who doesn’t have her image in that red bathing suit burned in their memory.
Charlie’s Angels was my first taste of girl power. I loved the idea of three hot babes taking on the bad guys, using their wits and wiles, working as a team to solve crimes. Charlie was merely a disembodied voice and Bosley provided comic relief. I wanted to be Jill Munro, the sexiest angel. Kelly was glamorous, Sabrina was smart, but Jill, with that mane and those shiny giant teeth was the epitome of karate chopping dream girl hotness. I was certain that if only I had Farrah Fawcett hair I’d be a foxy heroine as well. Unfortunately, I had stick straight mousy brown hair that would not obey a curling iron.
Friday night, when Charlie’s Angels was on television, was always a treat. I’d settle on the couch with my sister, mom and grandmother, multi-generations of brown haired ladies vicariously kicking ass and feeling the sisterhood power for an hour.
Farewell Farrah. You totally rocked.
At last this week feels like summer should: hot, sunny and glorious. The Sweetie and I decided to frolic at Centre Island for the day. We traipsed to the ferry docks, slathered with sunscreen and dreaming of riding the giant plastic swan that swims through the pond on rails.
The ferry was closed due to the Toronto City worker’s strike. Gahh!
I never expected to be a reverse Norma Rae, but I have little sympathy for the city worker’s strike. When people are losing their jobs or hanging on to them by a thread, it feels wrong for employees of the city who are being paid taxpayer’s money to strike just because they want to bank their sick days for retirement. The Sweetie and I have already had a few heated debates where he is trying to defend their right to strike but as someone who is self employed, I have zero job security, zero benefits and zero sick days, let alone sick days I can bank for my retirement, so I am not overwhelmed with sympathy. I was even less sympathetic when my dreams of a tacky swan ride and soft serve ice cream were thwarted.
Luckily it is summer and the sun was shining and it is hard to remain cranky when the weather is so beautiful. We strolled around Harbourfront like tourists and had a wonderful day despite the city strike. Furthermore, if we had made it to the island I never would have met Bill. He was sitting on the boardwalk surrounded by pigeons eating bread straight from his hands. Bill was kind enough to teach me his special bird feeding method- start by scattering crumbs to whip them into a bit of a frenzy, then hold a piece of bread (crusty Italian is their favourite apparently) in your palms and wait, quietly. Eventually I too was a pigeon whisperer and had birds landing and pecking from my hand. There will be other opportunities to go to the island but a lovely interlude with a gentle, generous man felt like a surprise gift and far outweighed a swan ride.
Sometimes the best moments are accidental ones, although if it had been a cold and miserable winter’s day there would have been nothing but cursing at the city workers and a surly subway ride home. Thank you summer, thank you Bill the bird whisperer and a back handed thank you to the striking city workers.
The Sweetie and I attended an amazing event the other night at the Baycrest Centre to support our dear friend Sarah Robichaud. She is the founder of Dancing With Parkinson’s, an organization that helps people with Parkinson’s Disease through dance and music. Sarah runs a dance class twice a week for people with Parkinson’s, helping them find a way to enjoy freedom within their bodies. Studies are now showing that music and dancing helps initiate movement and bypass pathways in the brain affected by lack of dopamine. It’s an exciting and hopeful prospect.
The event provided an opportunity to see what happens in the class, as well as seeing choreographed performances. It was incredible to witness the grace and beauty of the performers.
What is even more striking is seeing the joy these people obviously feel when dancing and how movement makes them feel like their body is their own again rather than being at the mercy of this awful disease. The courage, dignity and humour of the people on stage was astounding. I spent the entire evening crying into a single crumpled and very damp tissue.
Sarah is an inspiration. Many of her dance students commented that she is the light in their week and that her energy, charisma and enthusiasm keeps them going. I was struck by the love and energy she pours into this project. It almost made me forgive her for also being drop dead gorgeous and having a gravity defying dancer’s body with an apple bum. She ruins my catty and desperate theory that beautiful women can’t also be smart and kind and funny.
It was an entertaining and positive evening. It was also a true perspective maker which I need on a regular basis. I may bitch about my pot belly and saddlebags (and I bitch a lot) but when I am reminded of how lucky I am to have a body that is healthy and functional I realize I have no reason to complain. I sometimes need a good slap on the face to take me out of my vanity induced haze. So nice that this slap arrived in the form of a gentle, beautiful performance. I came away from it awed, humbled and inspired.
I saw these beautiful photographs on sfgirlbybay and was instantly filled with longing.
Oh to have a dog. And slim ankles. And fantastic boots. Sigh.
I am desperate for a dog. One day it’ll happen. If only so I can get the plaque I saw recently that said “children are for people who can’t have dogs.” The Sweetie and I laughed and laughed and I couldn’t wait to prominently display it for those who think it is okay to ask why I don’t have children and then give a faint sniff of judgment. I stopped laughing and put the plaque down when I remembered that I don’t, in fact, have a dog and it would just make me feel like a loser with commitment and responsibility issues.
I keep putting off getting a dog partly because of my aforementioned commitment and responsibility issues, but for valid reasons as well. For one, I have a canine hating cat. I have witnessed the cat chase loping Labrador retrievers and scratching the noses of feline friendly canines. I worry that I’d bring my old shelter dog home and the cat would instantly attack, making it’s life a living nightmare. The cat is a persistent, wily grudge holder. I know this for a fact, having been the object of his disdain for years since coming between him and The Sweetie. Despite the fact that the cat now coldly tolerates me, I still suspect that one day he will find a way to murder me in my bed. Nonetheless, he remains irresistibly cute and has seniority, therefore his comfort must take precedence.
Along with the lovable but murderous cat there is also my ongoing dream that soon The Sweetie and I will travel to India for a few months. We have been formulating this plan for a decade now and aren’t actually any closer to making it happen, but it feels like it will any day now, sort of, and what would I do with the old shelter dog then?
So I wait. And dream. And pine for a lovely dog I could call my own. As I stare wistfully at pictures like these, envying the lucky portrait people and their lovely dogs and shapely knees.
