Went a few rounds of squash for the first time in years, and in addition to being trounced by everyone else in the foursome, I walked away with another important “skooling”: stretch!

Nearly every muscle from the waist down is reminding me of its existence right now… It was a good time, though, thanks guys!

About this time last year, I made my first visit to Europe by settling down in Paris for 10 days. At the time, I did very planning after buying the ticket, and cut down on my luggage by planning on finding a French laundromat. I ended up going with my small suitcase, and a typical school backpack to hold my laptop and other electronic gear. I reasoned that, armed with a Paris guidebook and a laptop (i.e Internet), I’d figure it out once I arrived. The use of Google Maps on my mobile phone also helped a lot.

This time, I’m travelling with even less luggage (a travel backpack that’s about 3/4 full), and about the same amount of planning - except that I’m not taking a laptop or any other kind of eletronic supplement. Just some printouts that I haven’t yet finished reading.

On the up side, travelling with so little with me feels great. On the down side, it’s a bit disconcerting to be without the Internet to help me. Also, unlike French, I can’t claim to know even a little bit of Italian. Oh well, at least this way, it’ll be interesting no matter what!

Exploring the newest addition to the living room: a box with a hole in it!

Unfortunately, the lid is a bit tricky to use:

Put a golf ball in the box, and it turns into a fishing game! Having short forearms makes this game harder, though.

Now it’s a magic box; put your head in to look at it more closely and it disappears…

For my suburban lawn owning friends, which slowly but surely are growing in number…

Eco-lawn is a blend of fescue grasses which, according to its Canadian distributors, Wildflower Farm, grows about 4 times slower than your average lawn grass, which means one-fourth of the mowing for me and you.
…
But wait - there’s more! The Eco-lawn blend has a much longer root system than traditional grass; the roots reach over a foot into the soil to extract nutrients and water. The result? No need for watering or for expensive and toxic fertilizers.
…
unless you are really attached to your Eco-lawn sporting a closely-cropped buzz cut, you actually never have to mow it at all. The blades of grass are so fine that, once reaching a height of four inches, they will simply fold over on themselves, creating a lush “sea of grass” look.

http://www.ecotality.com/life/?p=83

With everyone going places and doing things in the city for this Labour Day weekend, it seemed appropriate to try to do something a little different as well. So I put together an ambitious plan composed of (very) early morning inline skating, followed by a King Eddie brunch, a viewing of Balls of Fury, and finally a hot pot dinner.

The first part, inline skating, went pretty smoothly. Skating in the financial district on the weekend is fun in some ways (very empty) and not that pleasant in others (urban obstacles). I think the main kink in the plan, though, was the ambitious distance involved: 9.5 km, from the financial district to Ashbridges Bay follwing the winding bike path. The original plan before checking the distance was to go there and back!
var map; var directionsPanel; var directions; function map20070903() { map = new GMap2(document.getElementById(”map20070903″)); directions = new GDirections(map, directionsPanel); directions.load(”from: 66 wellington street west, toronto to: 222 cherry street, toronto to: 499 unwin avenue, toronto to:ashbridges bay park road, toronto”); } google.setOnLoadCallback(map20070903);

Following the bike path went past the T&T Supermarket at Cherry Street. It’s newly open, and every bit as T&T as the rest! Well, they don’t serve bubble tea. The dim sum is there, however, and they have a small patio as well! Stopping at T&T for a bite put the dreams of a King Eddie brunch quickly to rest.

The skating experience was long and tiring (2 hours), and some parts were a little bit bumpy for skating, but it was quite a relief to finally reach Ashbridges Bay, and the luxurious paths therein. The ice cream vendors there were welcome, too.

After a slow streetcar ride back, a storage of skates, and a change of clothes, it was off to Spadina: MEC and EuropeBound for backpack shopping (Italy!) and Chinatown for hotpot ingredients. While the backpack shopping was inconclusive, Chinatown was very fruitful - some Asian pears I bought with trepidation turned out to be deliciously sweet and crunchy. I still think Korean pears are better, but I’m willing to give the Chinese knockoffs a try more often! I also found yam noodles - the “bundles” according to one Hipster. The expedition came at a cost, however, and the movie was sacrificed to keep the hot pot on time.

Hot pot was luxuriously long, and enjoyed on my now pigeon-free balcony while the sun set. It was relaxing and pleasant; I guess living downtown I don’t really notice street noise anymore. I even let my cats out to roam and enjoy the space, although they repaid me by rolling around in the accumulated dirt. I’ve lived in this apartment for several years now, and this is the first time I’ve used my balcony for anything. I think I’ll do this more often, now that I have chairs and a table I can put out there easily. In the winter, I can even run an extension cord and my small heater!

The final adventure of the day, however, was after hot pot was done, and cleanup was underway. Moving the dishes indoors, I diligently washed them all, and prepared to head out, when like a good parent I noticed: my cats were missing. My subconscious had alerted to me that it had been suspiciously long since I had last seen a cat in my small apartment. Balcony door was ajar, but they weren’t out there. They weren’t in their usual apartment hiding spots. Irrationally, I unlocked the front door and looked outside. Kitchen? Washroom? Bedroom? Nowhere. I checked the floor below the balcony several times; I know my cats aren’t stupid and they’ve got good balance, but could they have tried to jump for the ledge and jumped too far?

Thinking furiously, it dawned upon me. They had used the table to get on the balcony ledge with ease, and then had walked along the ledge to the neighbour’s balcony! Peeking my head around the corner, sure enough there was the scaredy-cat, having leapt down into that balcony with no way to get back. The other, being more fearless/foolish, I reasoned/hoped to be in the balcony two away from mine.

Knocking at my neighbour’s door, I found it to be exactly the case. Thankfully, my neighbour had access to both the requisite apartments, and I rescued both my cats swiftly. They were very relieved, to judge by how tightly they clung to my shoulders, and so was I, not the least because I didn’t have to do any death-defying balcony rescues!

Like any good parent, I administered punishment for my cats’ poor behaviour: I gave them a bath. Surprisingly, they handled it more calmly than they usually did; perhaps they were thinking that a bath at home was still better than being trapped away from home.