realia

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.

three quarters

Last night, Friday, I get home early and make split pea soup.  Ceri comes over and we open a bottle of wine Leonard gave us last weekend.  D'Angelo Foch, bottled, we note, when my 27 year old youngest daughter was 11.  Len wasn't sure if it would be wine or vinegar, but it sure is wine and we linger over it.

Later Ceri takes off to go prepare for his trip back home, and then Cathy comes over - she'd come into town for a colleague "transition party" and some sister time.  We drink more wine and talk and she sleeps over.

Saturday, it's sunny, clear and gorgeous and we decide to walk over to the market and to have brunch on a patio.  When the sun's out, it's hot; when the clouds cover it, it's cool.  That picture up there - it's me hanging on to the sun moments.  We are not ready to give up outdoor meals yet.

It's been a really good three quarters of a day.

view over brunch

Saturday brunch on a patio.  What does one do when thinking about the quickly diminishing summer and wondering how many more outdoor meals there are in a year?

Look up!

road trip!

Saturday morning Ceri and I walk up in the pouring rain to collect our rental car for what is has become the annual long weekend road trip to Amherstburg to see friends at the Shores of Erie Wine Festival.  After collecting Carly and Kelsey at their respective homes we get on the highway and point south-west.  There is a dodgy hour or so, trying to get coffee and sandwiches behind a busload of seniors at the first available highway stop.  Eventually though, the rain clears, and the sky puts on a show and suddenly we're almost there.

consumers' gas building

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

rainy

Neither the heavily overcast sky nor PhotoShop can disguise those dirty windows.

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.

summer friday beer o'clock

Friday of my week back to work after that luscious and restful week off.  Work is getting busy again and I have to wrestle my mind back into work mode.  I have to wrestle really hard.  It is, then, a most welcome Friday beer o'clock with my best people at the Flatiron & Firkin patio.  I always admire these flourishy brackets on the lovely Flatiron building.  It's Friday.  It's summer.  Life is good.  

arches evoking

The Allen Lambert Galleria.  Or, the "Crystal Cathedral of Commerce."  It is quite dramatic and very beautiful; meant, I read, to evoke a forest canopy or a tree lined avenue.  I think it evokes the hundreds of green glass towers that are constantly redefining our skyline.  Reminding me, again, of that lurching Emerald City.  Bay Street, Toronto.

pleasantly tired

Hydrangeas blooming at York Quay. Magical splashes of blue, purple and pink on a Sunday morning.

Ship and Ferry. Waiting for Cathy and Stan at York Quay.

Bike ride out to Humber River. Funny what you find when you stop for a drink of water in Toronto.

Sugar Beach. Apres bike ride.

Jazz Fest at the Distillery District. Kept noticing this girl in the second storey window near where we had planted ourselves to listen to music for awhile.

Found this museum-ish display near the public loo at the Distillery District. How beautiful are those colours?

Distillery District, Toronto

Distillery District, Toronto

 

Coffee in bed.  Meeting up with Cathy and Stan for brunch.  Rain not happening.  Bike ride.  Jazz fest.  

Coming home this evening, I see a girl who looks strikingly like I did 35 years ago.  It's like seeing a ghost.

Pleasantly tired is how Ceri describes himself at the end of today.  I concur.