Platform 327

Well, I gave it the old college try, but after 3 months I’ve come to a conclusion: the day shift does not agree with me. When I worked the 4:00-to-midnight shift, I would wake up at around 10:00 in the morning, have a leisurely breakfast, a swim, maybe do some exercising and still have plenty of time for errands and a little bit of writing or whatever. I lived in a clean apartment and was actually losing weight. When I came home from work, I watched an hour of TV and crashed. No rush, no stress.

Now the alarm goes off at 6:30 and I smack the snooze button a few times. I get out of bed with barely enough time to leave the house by 7:45, usually show up to work 10-15 minutes late and come home to an apartment full of dirty laundry, messy dishes and rotting groceries because I don’t have the energy to clean, cook, or do much of anything but stuff my face with pizza or KFC while zoned out in front of the TV for 5 hours before it’s time to go to sleep and start the whole cycle over again.

August 14, I’m back to nights. I’m looking forward to it. No more crowds at the grocery store, no more waiting in line for a dryer in the laundry room, and if I need a couple more hours sleep one morning, by gum, I can sleep in. I miss it.

Only a few short hours until it’s over, over, over. It’s too bad crushing heat and choking smog forced a change in plans for the last 2 days of my vacation, but sometimes doing nothing on a vacation is just as important as doing new things.

With yesterday’s record high temperatures, James and I figured that a 3-hour walk in the woods would be a bad idea. The plan turned into him coming into town to buy some clown-sized shoes for his gigantic feet and then spend the afternoon lazing about.

Today, the last day of my vacation was spent… lazing about. I spent hours alternating between the pool and the sundeck. I tell ya, after some of the shithole apartments I’ve lived in, this place is a freakin’ 5-star resort. Who needs to spend tonnes of money and hours in customs lines to have an enjoyable vacation?

Things are drawing to a close. *sigh*

Yesterday, day 3 of my home-based vacation, was dominated by the longest single bike ride in my living memory. I decided to take a trip down the Waterfront Trail, head east and see where it took me.

Initially, it took me past a bunch of really ugly industrial areas. I soldiered on, though, because I new something better had to be on the horizon.

Once again, this trip was a learning experience. I now know where The Docs Entertainment Complex is. Heard a lot about it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. I didn’t really see it this time, just the big fence around it, the back of the drive-in movie screen and a whole bunch of “Parking For The Docks” signs. Pretty much all I needed to see, really.

The next venerable Toronto landmark I found was a sign pointing the way to the Toronto-to-Rochester ferry service. Right. So what do you think, Toronto? Is the sign still up due to undying optimism that the service will once again be available, or is someone too lazy to take the sign down? You decide.

I was told that if I take my bike down Cherry Street that I should check out the Distillery District. Well, I was on Cherry Street according to the map, but I somehow managed to miss it. Is there some really long sideroad off Cherry that goes there or something? I’m still a little baffled that I missed it completely, especially since the news this morning said that there was some big circus festival there all day. Ah, well. Next time.

I did, however, manage to find Cherry Beach. I also learned about another event that I’d never heard of before. Did you know that there was a Toronto Waterfront Triathlon? Me neither.

After Cherry Beach, the Waterfront Trail took on a completely different mood. It became a serene trail of trees and wildflowers, every once in a while offering a glimpse of some boats bobbing quietly in the harbour. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m still amazed at how many different faces this city has.

The next point of interest was Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Street Spit. It was another of Toronto’s newsmaking landmarks that I had never visited before. I was not at all prepared for the sheer size of the park. I can also understand why it’s such a haven for bird watchers. It’s another place where you could almost forget you were within the confines of a city. Almost. The skyline of Toronto is always visible, and every once in a while you see spots where the wildlife hasn’t grown over the piles of rubble the Spit is made out of.

I also started to get a little worried at one point. I had been riding for a long time and was starting to lose my bearings. Luckily there were some helpful people that pointed me in the direction of a little secret (secret to me, anyway) path that led to a bridge and a shortcut back to the main park road. The hot dog vendor at the end of that road was a welcome sight, let me tell ya.

After a hot dog and lemonade, it was back on the trail. Up Leslie, across Lakeshore Boulevard, and into Woodbine Beach. I had to slow down here a little bit because the park was really busy and there was a lot of traffic on the trail. Well, that and there were quite a few ladies in very small bathing suits soaking up the sun or playing beach volleyball. Hooray for summer.

I ended my trek at Kew Beach. My friend Ravi lives in the area, so I gave him a call. Turned out he was in the west end doing some stuff.

After my long ride out, I needed some time out of the sun and heat. I was also out of sunblock. A few minutes in the air-conditioned comfort of the local Shoppers Drug Mart accomplished both tasks. I also made a quick stop at Ben & Jerry’s for a nice, refreshing lemon sherbert.

Cooled down and once again protected from the harmful rays of the sun, I hit the Waterfront Trail again and headed back the way I came — minus the Spit, of course. In all, I was about 4 hours on my bike yesterday. I can’t remember the last time I did that. If you had asked me the day before yesterday, I would probably have said there was no way I could have done it. Go me!

Y’know, doing all this exploring on the bike makes me hate this city a little less. The people still mostly suck — including those who work at the Fiddler’s Green pub who left and I waiting for half an hour on the patio and not serving us a drop, even though tables all around us had the beer flowing freely.

I had finally decided that I wasn’t going to give my money to them, so we went to Mullins. Nice place, good patio, cute and attentive waitress. What more could anyone ask? I didn’t have that much beer, though. I was exhausted.

With today’s 36-degree-plus-humidex weather, I think my outdoor plans will have to be cancelled. Vacation Day 4 will be spent indoors with a lot of time wiled away by the pool.

I got $12 less on my paycheque this week.

Fuck you, Stephen.

Today was the day I did an uber-tourist thing. I did a bike tour through Sites On Bikes — a 3-hour tour of the Toronto Islands. Part of the reason why I went on a guided tour was to meet some new people on my vacation, maybe experience the tour through the eyes of some real tourists. Just my luck, I was the only person booked on that tour today. Meh. Oh, well.

If you haven’t done a Sites On Bikes tour, I highly recommend it. It’s not one of the cheapest ways to spend an afternoon (the tour I took was $40 per person), but their bikes are great to ride and there’s a lot of information packed into the tour. Did you know there was museum upstairs at St. Lawrence Market, or that the building was Toronto’s first city hall? I sure as hell didn’t. How about the fact that Toronto Island used to be a peninsula and Lakeshore Boulevard ran along its southern edge? News to me.

Getting on the ferry to the island brought back some distant memories. I hadn’t been across the harbour since I was a kid. It was fun. Although I don’t remember the boats smelling so bad or the skyline being shrouded in so much smog the last time I made the trip. Oh, well.

The tour started at the Wards Island end. Today was the first time I had ever been through the residential part of the island. If you haven’t done so already, take the ferry across to the island and take a bike ride or a walk amongst the houses there. You’ll understand why the people who live there are so flippin’ nuts.

One of the most interesting things about the island is how you seem to pass through completely different environments every few minutes, from the odd little residential neighbourhood to Colonial-style parkland, into the bustle of an amusement park and zoo and then into seemingly pristine wilderness.

Of course, after the ride I came home and once again had a good swim and some time on the sundeck on this scorcher of a day. I love living here.

Actually, today is day 2, but I didn’t blog about day 1 yet, so here it is.

The original plan for this bloc of vacation days was to head to the Muskoka Novel Marathon, but buying a new computer (and ongoing stupid spending habits) killed the budget on that one. This vacation was to be spent closer to home. Rather than stay at home all day and rot in front of the TV (something I’ve done too many times), I decided to do some of the cheap-to-free touristy stuff around town. I got a bit of a head start last weekend when I took the Uptown Toronto Discovery Walk. I had no idea I lived so close to so many little hidden parks.

But on to the vacation recap.

Yesterday was one of the most relaxing days I’ve had in recent memory. I woke up in the morning, had a leisurely swim and then took my long-neglected bike out for a ride. The plan was to follow a bike bath I saw on the Toronto Cycling Map that follows the Don Valley up to the Science Centre, Sunnybrook Park, and into Edward’s Gardens.

That was the plan, anyway.

My first discovery on my bike trip was just how close I live to Riverdale Farm. I knew it existed, but until yesterday I never knew just where it was. I’ll check it out in more detail soon. I didn’t stop yesterday because I figured I had a good, long bike ride ahead of me.

From Riverdale Farm, I hit the bike trail… or at least a bike trail. I started to think something was wrong when I was pedalling up an increasingly-steep hill. Wasn’t this trail supposed to go along the bottom of the valley? I kept going, however, determined not to let that hill make me its bitch. When I got to the crest, some woman having a smoke in front of a daycare centre congratulated me. I couldn’t say much because I felt like I was going to die.

I sat on a bench, sucked down a bottle of water, checked my pulse and then pulled out the cycling map to get my bearings. I had emerged from my aborted valley ride at Broadview and Danforth. I thought I had to go back to Castle Frank, take a few back streets and bing, bang, bong, get back on the trail.

I went back to Castle Frank, hit a few back streets, got completely turned around and came to the realization that I didn’t think I knew how to read maps as well as I thought I did. I did find a couple of really nice little garden parks. Can’t remember what they were called and will likely never see them again (unless they show up on a Discovery Walk), but they were nice.

After a little more aimless biking through some pretty swanky neighbourhoods, I ended up within the valley again and, lo and behold, I found a trail. I figured I was on the right track.

The “right track” didn’t seem as right as I thought, though. The nice, paved trail I found myself on suddenly turned into a rather rough trail. After a few minutes of rough trail, things degenerated into a little dirt trail which, after Wednesday’s rains, was a rather slick mud trail. And I was on my way uphill again.

Riding my mountain bike in the mud was actually fun for a while. After all, it’s what that bike was designed for. Besides, I was still on an emotional high from making it up that last hill. As the mud got thicker, however, my legs began to remind me that I have the fitness level of a 76-year-old accounting professor and I still had to get back home. I figured that if I managed to make down the mud-slicked hill without taking a tumble, it would be a fabulous day.

And a fabulous day it was. Of course, one of the best things about cycling in Toronto is that if you head north on your outbound trip, the trip home, due to the city’s gentle slope towards the south, is easy as pie. I got onto Mount Pleasant and hardly had to pedal home at all.

When I got home, I checked the map again and realized that turning around was a better idea than I thought. I was no where near the trail I was supposed to be on. The path I was on went through David A. Balfour Park — quite a bit west of where I wanted to be. No matter. I still had a fun bike ride and a bit of an adventure.

The rest of the afternoon was spent by the pool and lying in the sun. I’ve been living in this apartment for a few months now, but I hadn’t had a swim yet that felt as good as the one after my off-road biking trip.

I saved a penny at the dollar store today.

Thanks, Stephen.

Two movies in 2 days. I don’t want to even think about popcorn for the rest of the year. Ugh.

I was supposed to see Superman Returns in IMAX 3D with James on Sunday, but that didn’t work out. Went all the way to Mississauga to find all shows sold out. So then it was back to Toronto to find… all shows sold out. We ended up going to the Varsity to see X3 which was actually one of the best movie-going experiences I’d had in a long time. The Varsity VIP theatres have nice, comfy seats and the staff actually brings your snacks to you. The movie wasn’t bad either. There wasn’t a whole lot of character development in this X-Men installment (other than Storm becoming a seriously annoying fucking bitch), but that’s excuseable in a 3rd movie. There was a whole lot of action and stuff gettin’ blowed up real good.

Today, there were tickets to the noon IMAX showing of Superman Returns available… in Mississauga. Since the movie wasn’t going to be in IMAX any more after this week, I figured I might as well make the trip. I gotta tell ya though, after the plush Varsity VIP seats, being crammed into the normal theatre seats in a capacity-crowd theatre was not impressive. The movie wasn’t either. Superman Returns was an okay film. Not great, but okay. A few nifty scenes, but the characters and performances were lacking… something. Certainly, the “IMAX Experience” wasn’t even close to being worth the effort I put in to trying to see it. First off, the didn’t do the whole thing in 3D, which kinda cheesed me off. Little green glasses would flash on screen to tell you when to put the 3D specs on on, then little red glasses would tell you when to take them off. I spent more time holding the damn things than I did using them. The scenes they decided to make 3D were, for the most part, less than spectacular as well. The first time the little glasses flashed, we got to see a 3D goat standing in front of the farmhouse and then a cornfield. Whoopty-freaking-doo. The scene with Superman chasing the falling plane - the one we’ve all seen a hundred times because it’s in the commercials - was done in 3D and that was kind of neat. Then we got to see about 30 seconds of Superman flying in 3D before the credits rolled. That was it. That long scene with Superman flying with Lois over the city - the kind of thing that IMAX 3D was freakin’ invented for - didn’t get any special treatment.

The day before the superhero film festival, Saturday, I went to Vaughn to pick up a minidisc player I bought on eBay. So along with popcorn, I don’t want to see any suburban busses for the rest of the year either.

I was supposed to help someone move this weekend, but I haven’t heard from her at all. Ah, well. I gave up a trip to Ottawa to help her move, but it turned out I couldn’t afford the trip to Ottawa anyway. I can’t afford to go to the Muskoka Novel Marathon in 2 weeks either. The credit cards are all ramped up again on - you guessed it - bar tabs. Looks like I’m going to have to quit drinking again. At least until I can stabilize the finances again.

Oh, and my brand new computer, the one I spent two weeks saving all my CDs into, has developed a flaw. Yesterday, a line appeared across the middle of the screen and it won’t go away. Hooray for warranty service. Hopefully it’s something that won’t take a whole lot of time and I seriously hope it’s not something that will require replacing the whole system. I don’t want to have to deal with loading CDs again.

Okay, that was a long entry. Maybe it makes up for no entries in a long time. Whatever. Time to end it.