my neighbourhood

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Today's Blathering is part of a WordGoddess collaboration project. The assignment: to post photos from around our neighbourhoods. As those of you who regularly read my journal know, I've already posted a lot of pictures of my neighbourhood in past entries. Here are some more, all taken of locations within walking or running distance of our apartment. I took the photo above during a recent morning run.





I love Toronto. I used to live out in the country, grew herbs and wildflowers in my rock garden, woke to the sound of birdsong instead of fire engines and honking traffic. A pastoral setting, I know, but I started getting cabin fever by the time we decided to make our move to the city.

Weird, I know, especially just after waxing eloquent about how much I love the cottage. I do love the cottage, and I love the outdoors with a passion that rivals my adoration of all things chocolate...but at heart, I'm a city girl. I love the bustle and action of downtown Toronto, the easy access to bookstores and coffeeshops and theatres, the underground subway and network of shops, the hum and rattle of streetcars along King Street.





Our condo straddles the entertainment and financial districts in downtown Toronto. On one side is Roy Thompson Hall, home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Princess Of Wales Theatre and the Royal Alexandra Theatre. From my home office window, I can also see a plethora of nightclubs, the neon-lit Rubiks cube of the Paramount Theatre and Chapters complex a few blocks away, MuchMusic television station headquarters.

If I step out the front door of my building, I can see the CN tower and the Skydome, both minutes away by foot. Streets in my neighbourhood tend to become gridlocked with taxicabs just before and after games and theatre performances. Finding parking can be an (expensive) nightmare. I never drive in Toronto; I walk, run, or take the subway or bus system most of the time. Some opt for four-legged locomotion:





When the World Science Fiction Convention rolls into Toronto next year, I suspect that I'll be the closest resident, with the Metro Convention Centre being a 3-minute walk away. (To those thinking of asking: sorry, crash space has already been spoken for :-)).

I love standing at the base of the CN Tower on a sunny day and staring up all the way up the tower to the top, shading my eyes and gawking like a tourist. I think the Skydome's pretty cool even though I've only seen one Jays game (they lost). I hate the bizarre sculpture of sports fans, which, to the appropriate eerie soundtrack, would make a great thematic focus in a horror movie:





On the other side of our neighbourhood is the financial district, with its towering office buildings and sea of suits and cellphones during rush hour. Weird to think that I used to be part of this surging throng when I worked as a programmer/analyst for TD Bank's head office about fifteen years ago, working in one of the black monolith towers designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

I love the hodgepodge of architectural styles (anywhere from very cool to downright ugly), the juxtaposition of old and new. I really like the Royal Bank Plaza building, whose mirror-glass facades contain real gold and are gorgeous in the sunlight. You can see it in the second photo on this page, the building second from the right.

The interior of BCE Place is another of my neighbourhood favourites (see photo below), which houses Toronto's oldest surviving stone building and oldest intact streetscape.





I could write far too much more about my neighbourhood, so perhaps I'd better stop here. Besides, I've already Blathered and posted photos about my visit to Kensington Market and Chinatown, local grocery stores, people-watching along the harbourfront, and too many photos I've taken on various neighbourhood runs.


And hey, even the Pope's coming to visit my neighbourhood this week. :-)

otters and sunrises

I woke at about 5:30 a.m. because of something moving in the forest. Something big. The wisest thing to do would have been to go back to sleep, but we're going home today, and I knew it was probably my last chance to see a cottage sunrise for a while.

Before checking out the sunrise, I wanted to investigate the forest noise. There was definitely still something back there, moving around, snapping big branches underfoot. I was tempted to wander into the forest a bit to check it out, but decided not to. Chances were good that it was a moose, but there was also a small but nonzero chance it could be a bear, in which case it was probably not a good idea for me to try sneaking up on it, especially since everyone was still sleeping and wouldn't know where I was going.

The sky near the horizon was just turning a pale rose when I got to the boathouse, so I knew I still had a few minutes. I made myself a bacon (Canadian back bacon, eh?) and tomato sandwich and ate my breakfast out on the dock while the sun rose.

It's been a good visit, and I actually feel like I've had a vacation at the same time as being happy with the amount of writing I've done on my novel.

My favourite moment during the visit was yesterday morning around 6 a.m. I was first up (as usual) and was on my way across the deck to the boathouse to do some writing when my still-sleep-fuddled brain noticed how utterly beautiful the lake was. The sun was just peeking up over Lewis's Island, and the sky was a brilliant blue. Mist was dancing across the entire surface of the lake; vague wispy tendrils floating like white fire, drifting.

A lone canoeist was paddling his way along the distant shore; I could only see his silhouette. The light was amazing, golden and warm. I snapped a few photos but gave up after a few minutes; I realized that there was no way my camera could accurately capture the breathtaking beauty of the scene, the birdsong in the forest, the trilling of a loon pair far out on the lake. I sat on the dock for an hour, watching the morning sun slowly burn the mist off the water.





Lots of wildlife around. An extremely cute chipmunk has been busying about, ecstatic over my gifts of peanuts. Four ducklings paddled by the boathouse as I was writing yesterday. The mother was nowhere to be seen, and JBR says there used to be five ducklings. :-( Two of the ducklings clambered awkwardly up on the shore to peck at the grass, then slipped back into the water, peeping until the other two peeped back, obviously letting them know where they were. I hope the remaining four make it through the summer okay.

Less than an hour later, an otter splashed around in the lake just off our dock. He frolicked around a bit, staring at us from time to time, then swam off. We see a family of otters playing in the water around here occasionally, always fun to watch.