realia

temperance street detail

Door detail. Bell Canada building, Temperance Street, Toronto

christmas market amidst the bluster

It's blustery and damp. So far, that's what the winter has been: blustery and damp. Cold and clear is pleasant to walk in; blustery and damp gets down through your bones. Despite that, we walk over to the Distillery District to see the annual Christmas Market, and many folks and their families are braving it too.  We sip some mulled wine under a patio heater and then check out the vendors in the booths lining the cobbled "streets."

Clouds obscuring the CN Tower, behind the Dominion Public Building, Front Street

 We retreat back westward and land in C'est What for some cosy and a snack.

Walking home later, we've got homemade soup on our minds. Even the CN Tower looks as if it wants to hide under the covers.

 

view from a window

Canada Permanent Trust Building, Toronto

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I am participating in a long conference call and so I camp out in a vacant office so I can close the door and put the phone on speaker.  The office overlooks Adelaide Street and one of my favourite downtown buildings, the Canada Permanent Trust building. I get watching the office workers on several floors and it strikes me that each floor is a separate world of its own, each person oblivious to the others moving about above and below. That gets me to thinking about the thousands and thousands of office workers moving about the the windows of all the office buildings downtown, like worker ants. The thought of being a worker ant makes me a little depressed so I turn my attention back to the meeting and get on with my job.

coffee shop and bright pink bike

 

I love this building at the corner of Richmond and Spadina and its picturesque spot for a coffee shop tucked in the corner, off the street.  That pink bike is part of a multi-location art installation; day-glo painted bikes which are a tribute to cyclists who have been killed in the city streets.  Toronto is not a bike friendly city.  As timing would have it, in the last two days the city has been working to remove bike lanes from a downtown north-south artery, spending much more money to remove them than the previous administration did to install them. Ostensibly the bike lanes are being removed to improve traffic flow.  Funny thing though - just as the bike lanes are being removed, parking metres are being added.  I can't work out how parked cars in what was once a bike lane will improve traffic flow, but then I'm not a civil engineer am I?  Let's just hope there aren't any of those day-glo bikes erected for cyclists now navigating traffic amongst the parked cars and improved traffic flow.

 

olympians on bay

In my office, midday, I hear a kerfuffle going on outside on Bay Street. I find the parade of athletes from the 2012 Games, and I'm really glad to see the rousing reception they get from the people in the streets.

a day like that

 

Sunday morning loafing about around the farm. Eating eggs and bacon and fruit and sitting outside drinking second cups of coffee. Thinking about important things like, "remember antennas?"

Seeing lovely Kathleen Edwards at an outdoor event the second time this summer, and in fact the music is terrific all day long, and the Windsor Salt Band at closing time makes us not want to leave.

Two up on the hill, playing with that golden sunlight.

More golden sunlight, on golden gals.

The party's over, but there's a river I've known. I'd forgotten that in Amherstburg the sun sets on the river, and it takes us a long time to leave the park when the light looks like that.

A gentle evening; Sunday afternoon wine drinkers and food tasters all gone home to get ready for a new week.

Playing

 

Detroit River, one more time.

Bonfire, talking; it's too warm in front and chilly behind. But it's a pleasant shuffle, forward, backward, forward, backward, toes stretching toward the flames...

 

bright sun and a bright comedienne

Out for a walk, taking a break from the office this afternoon.  At first I'm chilled from sitting in air conditioning all day; but I'm perspiring before long - the sun is bright and hot.  

I'd like to say I wander aimlessly, but really I point my compass away from the humanity crowding the sidewalks.  At one point, I walk into Lombard Street, also named "Gilda Radner Way" after Gilda's Club.  I'm enamoured with this particular building, which turns out to be the College of Makeup Art and Design, and as much with the sun playing on the building's fascade.  

consumers' gas building

The Consumers' Gas Building, Toronto Street, Toronto.  Now, the Rosewater Supper Club.

stage door

Stage door of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres, Victoria Street, Toronto

Finishing up a proposal today, and I don't get out of the office until mid-afternoon, when I take a half-hour walk.  I wander around Victoria Street, over a few blocks I find particularly charming.  The stage door of this Ontario Heritage site is one of the reasons why.

when buildings weren't named for corporations

It's August and as I seem to do every August, I grab hold of summer with the strongest arms I can muster and threaten to never let go.  It calls me outside, August.  Fortunately, I have the kind of job where I can get up and go for short walks throughout the day as I need to. 

The Graphic Arts Building is around the corner from my office.   I always stop to admire its imposing classical features.  It's been converted to lofts; unlike so many other historical buildings in the city, it wasn't merely preserved as a "front" to a tower behind it.  It's refreshing to see the five storey thing there amidst all the towers in the surrounding financial district.

I would like to live in a building like that.