Touring the province

Originally, our summer vacation was just going to be to Toronto, then Timmins, with one point in between (North Bay). A family canoe trip was planned for the start of the Timmins portion. I wasn’t too keen on that, so I was just going to hang with Dad during that time.

But then, the canoe trip started to get generally low on participants, to the point where it seemed a bit pointless. So Jean and I decided to add a few more points between Toronto and Timmins.

Toronto

Of course, the impetus for this portion was the Queen + Adam Lambert concert that I’ve already written about. The concert was on a Sunday night, but we went to Toronto on Saturday. We traveled by Greyhound (and just for added fun, took the Ion—Waterloo’s new light rail transit—to the Greyhound station). On the way, I grew nostalgic for the days when Greyhound could get you to downtown Toronto in about 90 minutes. Yes, the bus left a bit late, and yes, they’ve added stops, but the main reason it took about 3 hours to get there was traffic. Traffic, traffic, traffic.

So we arrived around 3:00, and we had a 5:00 dinner reservation (because we didn’t book far enough ahead to get a better time). So we high-tailed it to our hotel, the Beverley. There we experienced the world’s slowest elevator ride on the way to the smallest room I’ve ever stayed in, at least in Toronto. But, it was pretty conveniently located to everything we had to get to.

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‘Tranna

And the first of those places was Buca Yorkville, where we had our dinner reservation. It’s pricey, but they’ve never let us down, and with a small exception, they didn’t this time, either. The waiter was helpful at guiding through the menu and in picking a wine.

We started with some oysters and raw salmon, then for mains, I had the risotto and Jean the braised octopus, which was really amazing. My dessert was a hit, but Jean’s, a take-off on tiramisu, was the only misstep of the meal.

Appetizers at Buca
Starters
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Squid; tasted better than it looks
Dessert at Bucca
Less successful dessert

Sunday morning after breakfast we went to the AGO, where we decided to buy their new, cheaper annual pass, which will pay off as long as we go at least once more this year. We first went to Yayoi Kusama’s celebrated Infinity Mirror room where, we were surprised to discover, we were given a grand total of 60 seconds to look around and take photos. Good thing that’s not the only thing we had planned to see!

We also visited a special exhibit on women and photography (as subjects and photographers) and viewed some of the permanent collection of Canadian art.

We followed that with a bit of shopping, at places like Mountain Equipment Co-op, then went for another early dinner. This time it was at Taverna Mercato, an Italian place near the Scotiabank Centre. The food was pretty good, but boy, was it loud—packed to the rafters with a mix of Blue Jays and Queen fans.

Our return trip to Kitchener was by Via Rail. It got us there in less than 90 minutes. (Too bad there are only two Via trains per day.)

Tobermory

We stopped back at home for the car and more luggage (and lunch), then made our way to Tobermory. We hit quite the thunderstorm on the way in to town. It had eased by the time we got there, but it remained a rainy evening. So we skipped walking around and just had dinner—some rather good local fish at Leeside—and watched some TV at the hotel.

Manitoulin Island

We were booked on the early morning ferry, which was punctual, so fortunate that breakfast at Leeside was fast. It was a beautiful day, so once on the island we decided to drive to the Cup and Saucer trail and walk that.

Even at this relatively early time, it was quite a popular destination! We even took a side trail at one point just to ditch some people. But it is a nice walk, and gives you some decent elevations, at least by Ontario standards.

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View from the top of the Cup and Saucer
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Me in my stylin’ hiking clothes (including new hat from MEC)

We then drove to Little Current for some lunch and to check into our hotel. This was the nicest booking of our trip, at the Manitoulin Hotel and Conference Centre. Along with a fast elevator and big rooms, they offered beautiful views and a pool that we actually used. We had breakfast at their restaurant, and that wasn’t bad, either. For dinner, we got into a popular little restaurant after a short wait at the bar, and both enjoyed local fish dinners, of trout (me) and white fish (Jean).

Sudbury

It was about a three hours drive from Little Current to Sudbury, where we stayed at the Day’s Inn right by Science North. (This was our fourth hotel in four days, and it was starting to get disorienting.) We had a good lunch at an Italian wine bar, Di Gusto, before taking a walk, then visiting Science North.

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A view of Science North on our walk
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One of the exhibits featured the Body World plastinated bodies
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They also had butterflies

For dinner, we got into the Tommy’s Not Here restaurant. It was quite good. I had one of their specialties, the lamb.

Timmins

We made it to Timmins on Thursday, and our visit was mostly about family. My sister Michelle also arrived this day, with her husband and one son joining the next day. (The other son was working at camp and couldn’t get away.) My other sister was also scheduled to arrive the next day, but her flight ended up cancelled due to mechanical difficulties! That was a bummer all around, especially for her.

The initial event drawing us to Timmins this long weekend were celebrations of my aunt’s 90th birthday. But my Dad thought he would take advantage of the family traveling there to also hold an inurnment ceremony for my Mom’s ashes. That took place on Saturday a morning, a simple ceremony at the cemetery.

Father Pat, Michelle, and Dad with the ashes

Dad then hosted a lunch at the house. He decided to have it catered, which obviously reduced the workload a great deal. The company, Radical Gardens, did a nice job. I think the extended family enjoyed the gathering.

Sarah-Simone, Neal, and Dad with the spread (I’m in the background, there…)

We had a couple more family events that weekend, these ones focused on my aunt Irene, who is a fantastic-looking 90 and still sharp mentally. My uncle Gilles hosted a pot luck / pizza party in his yard Saturday night. He had tarp up in case, but the weather was cooperative in any event. Then there was also slightly more formal afternoon affair on Sunday at the McIntyre Lion’s Den, also catered by Radical Gardens.

In between all that, Jean and I managed to visit with some of his family as well!

The drive back from Timmins seemed interminable, but basically went as well as can be expected on a holiday Monday. Now to figure out where we might go on another little driving trip in the Fall…

Very Important People at the Queen show

I’ve already written about how the stress of fast-moving Queen + Adam Lambert tickets led me to invest (sure, let’s call it that) in VIP tickets this time around. It was mainly for the better seats, but Jean wondered what else was included.

Not sure, I responded. Some kind of separate entry. Maybe a keychain or something.

Unofficial poster of the Toronto show. Design @nicole42.
Continue reading “Very Important People at the Queen show” →

Movie review: Yesterday

The movie Yesterday has a great premise. And a great trailer about that premise.

Yesterday movie trailer (YouTube)

In case you missed it (and don’t want to watch it now), said premise is that after a mysterious, world-wide blackout, the entire world has forgotten that The Beatles ever existed. Save one guy. This guy–Jack Malik, a failed singer-songwriter–capitalizes on this anomaly to ignite his career by singing Beatles songs, claiming they are his own.

Even though I know–I know–that great trailers can be made for really poor films, I liked this one so much I made a point to go see this movie on opening weekend.

And… Maybe it’s not quite as great as the trailer? But it was still a very enjoyable, funny, fun, romantic movie.

Romantic? Yes, at heart it’s a romantic comedy about Jack and his manager, Ellie. Ellie has been carrying a torch for Jack for years; Jack has somehow failed to notice. Now she’s letting him know. But his increasing fame is, as one can imagine, nothing but a complication.

It actually fits in well with the story of him trying to build a singing career on singing Beatles tunes, given that they wrote so many love songs. And that part of the movie–Jack introducing the world to The Beatles canon–is as fun as you’d hope. (“Interesting you called it the USSR [re “Back in the USSR”]. Russia hasn’t been called that since before you were born.”) I especially liked the detail that Jack keeps munging up the lyrics. He knows the songs–of course he knows the songs, we all do–but he doesn’t necessarily deeply know the songs. He’s no Beatles guru, and he can’t look up the lyrics on Google. So he has to wrack his brain trying to remember them, and doesn’t always succeed. We get changed words here, reordered verses there, and a truly epic struggle to put “Eleanor Rigby” together.

Also good? While there is plenty of appreciation for The Beatles work (look, those are some catchy songs), it’s not instantaneous nor universal. Many of Jack’s early attempts to revive his career by singing their songs is met with a shrug.

I enjoyed the film’s twists, including the controversial one that I don’t want to spoil (but you, unlike Jack, can Google what that is). You can’t ponder the premise too deeply, of what the world would really be like had The Beatles never existed (no Oasis, sure, but who else…?), or what the nature of this “blackout” really is. You really just have to go with it. And thereby be rewarded with a film full of people that are great to spend time with.

And some pretty nice interpretations of the songs…

Ireland

We headed out for our one-week trip to Ireland without great expectations. We had done some research and put together an itinerary that seemed manageable in the limited time we had. We had a lot of friends who had been to Ireland repeatedly and gave recommendations. I had no reason to think we wouldn’t like it, too, but weren’t so much looking forward to anything in particular there as just the fact of getting away and being off work for a week.

(Photos by Jean unless otherwise indicated.)

Weather

We first checked the weather a week or two in advance, and it did not look good at all! Pretty much saying it would be raining daily—in fact, that we would be leaving each area just as it was clearing up, then going to another rainy one.

Well, no one goes to Ireland for the weather, I thought. Still…

But forecasts have a way of changing, and this one did. Apart from one partly rainy day in Galway, we basically had… A whole lot of sun. And the last day in Dublin actually started out warm enough that we didn’t need to cart around a jacket.

Maybe good weather isn’t essential for enjoying Ireland, but it never hurts!

Continue reading “Ireland” →

Cheap Trick

As I kept telling people, Cheap Trick was not a band I’d go out of my way to see in concert.

But Kitchener’s Centre in the Square is only a 15-minute drive away. So when I heard that Cheap Trick was playing there, on a night I didn’t have anything else booked, I figured, why not?

I was somewhat into Cheap Trick back in the day. I owned the At Budokan and Dream Police albums. I knew all the words to “The Flame”. I thought that Robin Zander and Tom Petersson were babes and hung their pictures on my wall.

But it wasn’t a band I’d particularly kept up with lo these many years. Still, when it’s easy, and I could score 4th row centre seats at a reasonable price, why not go?

Initially Jean thought that he couldn’t join me, but his work schedule changed such that he could. I was pleased to have company, and he ended up pleased to be at the show.

My goodness, they were entertaining! 30 seconds in, and Robin Zander made it clear that he had lost none of his vocal power.

He also still looks pretty good…

Continue reading “Cheap Trick” →

Well, that worked out

Back in December, I wrote about going through one of life great stressors: buy tickets to a hot concert on TicketMaster. (And yes, I am mocking myself by calling that a great life stressor.) I said in that post that my experience of rather easily acquiring floor seats for Who concert was likely at once-in-lifetime thing.

Well, not so. Because apparently the key to having a less stressful ticket-buying experience is to get tickets to see The Who (vs Queen + Adam Lambert who, thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody, are one of the hottest touring acts this year).

I wasn’t even going to make an effort to get pre-sale tickets for The Who concert, but then I stumbled upon a code. I tried it, it worked, and there were only two (2) people in the “Waiting room” ahead of me (vs. 2000 for Queen + Adam Lambert). I found seats that were OK, not wonderful, but acceptable, so got those.

But then came the general sale and I thought, well, what the heck, let’s see what’s available. In the Waiting room, there were two (2) people ahead of me. Then when I got in, I was able to calmly peruse and see that there were far better seats available than I had already purchased. At not much more than I paid for those.

Then I did get slightly stressed, but soon figured, what the heck. Surely I can sell the first two?

And I ended up with floor seats again.

I fairly promptly put the first two seats on sale, not trying to make a profit, but just priced to get my money back. Ticketmaster adds their own charge, though, so they would have been more expensive than the originals.

Then I waited. The show was on June 1.

May 1 rolled around, and no interest. I decided to drop the price. Ticketmaster limits how much you can drop it by, but I went for that. But still no nibbles.

And then I got this message:

And you know what that meant? That meant I could get a full refund on the two tickets I didn’t need.

(Reason for the reschedule? Possible Raptors playoff game. Go Raptors! I guess.)

And this rather makes up for having to wait longer, and having the show be on a Tuesday instead of a Saturday, which is less convenient. But I also heard that the shows–The Who playing with a full symphony–are good, but do need some kinks worked out. They should be in fine form by September.

This is my brain on perimenopause

Saturday there was a light dusting of snow on the ground, which is not what you want to see in April. The day was gray and cold. The hopes that spring had sprung were somewhat dashed.

And yet, I felt great–optimistic, even chipper. I had slept well. I was able to focus on my tasks, enjoy my food. Appreciate the comic stylings of Crazy Rich Asians (the film, available from your local library).

What struck me in particular was how long it had been since I’d felt that good. And yet, in terms of what’s going on in my life, there’s no real reason not to feel generally content.

The good feeling must have sensed it was in a foreign host, for it fled in the night. I took a while to fall asleep, than awoke with various worries, at 3:00, 4:00, 5:00. Once up for good, I met a day that was still cool but quite nice and sunny, so I pushed to do things I thought might help. Take a walk in the sun. Play the piano. Listen to my “Get Happy” playlist.

It was in the middle of the song “Happy” (by Pharrel Williams) that I became weepy, overcome by the thought that some injury or illness 10 years hence would interfere with my retirement plans.

For freak’s sake. It’s ridiculous.

I bought a book about menopause. It’s most definitely not happening yet (though I’m pretty excited to have made it all the way to day 29 without a period). But there is this “perimenopausal” stage? And I’m in that.

One of my emotional issues is that I can get fixated on worries about my health. I thought that if I could read about what symptoms I could attribute to a perfectly normal process of aging, that would help. Only then I got worried: what if some of my symptoms can’t be ascribed to that?

So I actually made an appointment with my doctor to discuss any physical changes that I had noticed, just to make sure they didn’t sound like anything bad. (Like endometrial cancer.) Which they didn’t. So, thanks Canadian healthcare system, now I can read my book. (And hey, the itchiness is a symptom of pending menopause! Who knew?)

From the “Moods and you” chapter:

The mood swings associated with menopause often aren’t predictable. One day, you’re laughing with your partner as you make plans for the future. The next day, you’re crying over a greeting card commercial and snapping at your partner over, literally, spilled milk.

Stephanie S. Faubion, MD: The Menopause Solution

(Jean still has a bit of post traumatic stress over my (over)reaction to his crime of eating the last banana. Maybe someday he’ll be able to tell you about it.)

Now, it’s not exactly unknown to me to gets fixated on strange worries–I recall once that a series of stressors led me to somehow get into an emotional spiral whenever the Canadian dollar fell in value. Admittedly, we were about to go to Italy, but it wasn’t exactly a Venezuela (hyper deflation) situation. Plus, we were about to go to Italy! That’s a good thing!

But that was actually a long time ago, and this whole moodiness thing has been happening for months, though sometimes more acutely than others. And it’s not always related to some logical event. Like, McSteamy’s death obviously made me very sad, but that was a normal response, and I didn’t get to wallowing in depression afterward. Instead I’m raging about bananas, worrying about what I’ll do if I have a stroke or something when I’m 72 (and to top it off, my math was all wrong on that worry), and feeling anxious about Jean going away on business for a few days (something I’m pretty used to? And he calls me daily!).

In fact, research suggests that some anxiety symptoms, such as nervousness and worry, occur more frequently during perimopause than at any time before it.

Stephanie S. Faubion, MD: The Menopause Solution

Huh. This is my brain on perimenopause.

And that could go on for years, I guess (seguing into whatever wonders menopause itself brings), so what do I do?

Back to the book.

Which tells me that I’m exhibiting all the symptoms of stress, at least to some degree: Eating less. Lacking focus. Short fuse. Sleep problems. Control issues. Aches and pains. Motivation issues. And those overlap with some depression symptoms. I don’t think I’m full-out depressed yet, but it’s threatening.

The book reminds that exercising regularly is important, something I haven’t been quite as good about as late. And that mindfulness can help, while I haven’t meditated in ages. “Practicing gratitude” is another concept I struggle with. Not that I don’t realize I have many things in my life to be thankful for, but thinking about them doesn’t seem to bring me comfort. Maybe because I don’t think I’ve done much to earn them. Maybe because I then become worried about losing them.

Then there’s the whole “talk to someone” idea. Which I also generally suck at. (They’re my problems. Sharing them with you will make me look weak.) But here I am telling you, anonymous (and not-so-anonymous) blog-reading people. (If you actually scrolled down this far, congratulations!)

But, maybe I should find a group. Maybe I should tell a friend (like, in person). Maybe I should explore cognitive behavioral therapy.

Cause it may be perimenopausal, but it’s the only brain I got.

Short bits

Trying to write a longer, coherent blog post on one topic was not working, so here’s a series of short takes, instead.

What I’m watching

All of the time I’ve not been spending writing has really opened up time to watch TV. Nothing is at the level of Travelers, but here are the current favorites, per source.

Warning:

Will not include Game of Thrones, because I have yet to see a single episode of that.

Network TV: The Orville

Seth McFarlane’s take on Star Trek. I’ve always liked this show more than I would have expected, and it’s become kind of serious this year, making me like it even more. Hope it gets renewed!

Netflix: Santa Clarita Diet

Back for season 3, and I’m still loving it. You have to admire Joel and Sheila’s ability to make a marriage work despite her being undead and thus having to eat people.

Crave: Orphan Black

I know, finally, right? I always thought I would like this show, but it wasn’t until my free 3-month trial of Crave that I finally put it to the test. Tatiana Manslany is just amazing in playing all these different clones (and clones pretending to be other clones). And the story has so much twisty goodness! We’re nearly done Season 2.

Amazon Prime: Catastrophe

The humour is a bit much for Jean, but I’m going to see it through! After all, it’s only six episodes per season, and I only have two left (episodes, not seasons). A very unsentimental look at marriage, but I think I love it for the sentimental reason that these two really love each other.

Also because they’re really funny.

How is Zoë doing?

Very well, thanks. She’s adapting to life as an only cat, and getting way more attention than she used to seems to suit her. She’ll never be cuddly, exactly, but she does like to be pet, tolerates being picked up, and will even lie down on us, as long as we put a blanket barrier between her and us. (Bit of an odd duck, Zoë.) She’s also been pretty chatty, and occasionally even purry.

She also likes her new cat tree

News, ugh

I’m rather missing the days when, as a Canadian, you could feel kind of smug while reading the news from elsewhere. But now we have Quebec passing blatantly racist laws, unashamed they violate Charter rights; an Ontario government denying help to kids with disabilities; the Trudeau Liberals deciding that Canada should not be so welcoming of refugees after all; and Alberta about to elect a party full of alarming candidates, including the leader.

Reading about Brexit has almost been a relief. Of course, that’s also a story about irresponsible leadership, from so many sides, causing harm—and you have to feel bad for those who voted to Remain. But the degrees and varieties of incompetency have just been so interesting! (Though with yet another extension, the drama might start to wear thin.)

And, if you haven’t already read the comparison of Brexit to building a submarine out of cheese (an oldie but a goodie), do yourself a favor and do that. Here’s the first tweet:

Then you can see the rest of the thread, and the responses, here: Guy Explains Brexit In 12 Hilarious Tweets And It Will Crack You Up.

We will still need a song

I’ve been listening to more George Michael lately, after watching the George Michael: Freedom documentary on Crave. It was so good! Assuming you have some fondness for George Michael, of course. It made me realize that I really needed to check out his oeuvre beyond the Faith album and the “Freedom ’90” song. He made good music long beyond that.

Heard some good live music, too. Like The Beatles One show last night, a good reminder that this band could really put together a tune, and that a shit-ton of them went to number one. We also enjoyed hearing a subset of the KW Symphony perform Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” (subset because that piece doesn’t require a whole orchestra), led by guest violinist Nikki Chooi. It was just riveting. The whole 40 minutes of it.

Also exceeding expectations was Drayton Theatre’s performance of the musical Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. A terrific cast, creative staging, enormously fun song list. And really something to see the usual Drayton crowd of grandparents, kids, parents all totally there for this celebration of gay pride.

Finding fiction

A tip on reading more books that I’ve found useful is to just embrace having more than one on the go at a time. Prevents any one book from feeling like a slog that is stopping you from moving on to your new, shiny books.

Personally I aim to have at least one fiction and one non-fiction book in progress. Non-fiction isn’t so hard to line up—just go with subjects I’m interested in. Fiction is tougher. I now see why so many people love genres of fiction: makes it easier if your aim is to have a bunch of mysteries, romances, or sci fi novels at the ready.

But if your genre is, basically, General Fiction? Quite a bit tougher to narrow that down. I seek inspiration everywhere.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

Source: Spotted it in a book store (but later bought the ebook)

A love story, of sorts, between an eccentric owner of record store—as in LPs, at the time when everybody was buying CDs (and maybe cassettes)—and a mysterious young woman who swooned outside the shop one day. She claims to know nothing about music. He agrees to teach her about it.

That’s the best part of this book, to me—the in-depth discussions of great exemplars of different types of music: jazz, rock, classical, R&B… Makes you want to rush out and listen to what’s being discussed. Fortunately, the book comes with a Spotify playlist:

I do not know what the book’s main character would have thought of Spotify…

An American Marriage by Tayah Jones

Source: Barack Obama recommendation

A novel about a recently married couple in which the husband is wrongfully convicted of sexual assault. The wife has no doubt of her husband’s innocence; nonetheless, he faces a long incarceration away from her. How do you manage that?

Much of the novel is told as a series of letters. The story does not proceed on a predictable path, but it is plausible one. Thanks, Obama.

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

Source: Kobo (ebook seller) recommendation

A work of fiction built around the story of a young woman who has an affair with the older, married, male Senator she’s an intern for. Shades of Monica Lewinski, yes, though that affair is mentioned in the novel as the news that drives her own story out of the headlines.

What’s interesting is that the story is told exclusively from the point of view of the women involved: the intern, her mother, her daughter (the story covers many years), and the Senator’s wife. And you’re not always sure who is who, at least not right away. I loved the approach and really got caught up in this novel.

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

Source: New York Times best books of 2018

This one didn’t work out!

The novel is in three parts. The first two seem unrelated. The third is supposed to bring them together. I read the first part, about a love affair between a young woman and much older man (a writer). They were interesting characters, but they didn’t really do much. There wasn’t much plot happening.

Before proceeding, I look into other reviews. They said that the second part was less interesting than the first, and that the supposed connection you find out about in the third is tenuous, maybe unfathomable. So, I gave up on this one.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

Source: Recommendation from The Washington Post

Cassandra Bowden, a flight attendant and a binge drinker, wakes from drunken stupor to find that the man she spent the night in Dubai with has been murdered. What to do?

If there’s one genre I do tend to return to, it’s the thriller, and this one is somewhat reminiscent of The Girl on the Train. Unlike that novel, however, it’s clear early on in this story that Cassandra did not murder her lover. But her lack of memory about what happened complicates her situation. And her frequently poor judgment often makes things worse.

This was a pretty fun read. I got it as a library ebook and had to binge read through the last parts because someone else had put a hold on it and I wanted to know how it ended.

Non-fiction

I’ve been in a bit of a rut here, of musician bios.

Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite is Roger Daltrey’s breezy, easy-reading autobiography. You can tell that it was built from Roger telling his story to the writer he worked with, who assembled the pieces into a coherent narrative.

It is an interesting story, starting in the deprivations of post-war London and continuing up to closing out the Olympic Games, making a triumphant return to Hyde Park, and nearly dying of viral meningitis. With many entertaining anecdotes on the way, from Keith Moon’s antics to the many women in his life (and a number of surprise children) to The Who’s financial challenges and musical triumphs.

I can recommend this one as being appealing even to more casual fans of The Who, as Jean and I listened to the audiobook version (read by Roger Daltrey) and Jean was approving. He had a much higher opinion of Mr. Daltrey by the end of reading this than he had going in.

Unlike with Roger Daltrey’s book, which I preordered and read pretty promptly, this one has been sitting on the bookshelf for a while. I ended up quite enjoying it, though.

This Ray Davies’ second autobiography. Though it does some moving back and forth in time, it’s told in a much more straightforward fashion than his first, which employed a faux, third-party narrator. Here, Ray just writes his own story, focusing on The Kinks relationship with America, and therefore covering the period starting in the early 1970s when the band’s work ban was lifted. It includes the whole 1980s “arena rock” period during which I discovered The Kinks and became a fan, so was of particular interest.

Ray discusses some of his relationships he was in during this time, but with considerable discretion, so if you’re hoping for dirt on his volatile relationship with Chrissie Hynde, you’ll be disappointed. It’s mostly about the music, the band, and his uneasy relationship with the US itself—culminating in his shooting by a mugger in New Orleans. Getting shot is no joke, it turns out…

Another book with a soundtrack (yes, there’s also a Part 1; I just prefer Part 2)

52 candles

Not a particularly significant birthday this year, so I wasn’t thinking too much about it. However, some months ago, when looking to pick a date to go see Sting’s The Last Ship in Toronto, I figured why not pick my birthday weekend.

Then events got built around that. I took the Friday off (to do a whole lot of nothing special—but still better than a work day). And I noticed that the KW Comedy Festival was having their opening gala the Thursday night before, so I got tickets.

I don’t think it was as strong as last year. My favorite act of the first half was Arthur Simeon, originally from Uganda but now living in Toronto. In the second half it was Emily Galati, the only woman featured, along with the headliner, Sean Majunder. The rest of the comedians were a bunch of white guys. And to be fair, one of them, host Derek Seguin, provided the evening’s most hilarious bit, in his description of the challenges of man-scaping.

But overall, it was some absurdist comedy, which is not really my thing, and a lot of jokes about their kids, or about why they don’t have kids—maybe one of the few safe subjects for white guys to joke about these days? But not as effective, for me, as Simeon, Galati, and Majunder’s takes on politics, social media, racism, and sexism. Tricky time to be funny, I guess, but the event would have benefited from more diversity than it had.

Everywhere you go, always take the weather

When we booked our bus to Toronto, we discovered that the Greyhound schedule isn’t as good as it used to be. Not as many buses, and they all have more stops. (This is just annoying. It’s not as though the train service is any better on Saturdays.) There was one bus that would have gotten us there around 10:50, which would have been ideal, but it would have taken three hours. So we went with the one that scheduled to arrive around 11:30, because it was only supposed to take two hours.

I didn’t think the forecasted 2 cm of snow would really affect it, but I was wrong. For one, I think it was somewhat more snow than that. Regardless, it slowed down all the traffic. We clearly weren’t going to make our 12:15 lunch reservation, so I texted my sister about that, and suggested that she could order for us, and we’d aim to arrive by 1:00.

Off the bus, we had trouble finding a cab, so we called an Uber, and initially had trouble finding them, too, but we did connect. Only to find that they had the wrong Holiday Inn listed as the destination, which I needed to change in the app. Which was not as easy to do as one would hope. By the time I finally got it to work (Jean’s suggestion to turn off wifi was key), we were there!

Fortunately, hotel check-in went smoothly, and calling a second Uber to take us to lunch was drama-free. We ate the O&B Canteen at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. A bit pricey for what you got ($19 for a burger?), but everything was very good.

I didn’t know a whole lot about The Last Ship other than that Sting wrote the music (it was not one of those musicals built around an artist’s famous songs), inspired by the ship building heritage of his home town. But it was really good! Strong cast, great singers, and a very moving story. In the first half, I was kind of with the capitalists (“Be realistic! The ship building industry is dying!”) and identifying with the characters who felt they just had to leave the town to secure their futures elsewhere. But by the end of the second half, I was totally with the workers.

We had an hour after the play before our dinner reservation, which gave us time to walk back to the hotel, and stay there briefly before walking to dinner at Buca Yorkville.

That was a fine meal. We started with three kinds of house-cured fish, which were small taste sensations. We added in a nice rosemary foccacia that was served with the most amazing olive oil. As a main, I had chestnut-stuffed ravioli with porcini, that was just fantastic, and a side of Swiss chard.

Buca Yorkville mmmmm!

Jean had the day’s special of uni spaghetti, also good, but not quite as good as the ravioli.

Uni Spagetti (Sea Urchin)

The wine with that was the waiter’s suggestion of an Italian Riesling, which did work well.

For dessert, Jean went with the waiter’s suggestion of the affogato using decaf espresso, and it really was delicious (they make their own ice cream). I also enjoyed the cranberry millefeuilles that I had.

Birthday Girl!

Apart from the candle on the dessert plate, as my birthday bonus I got a takeout of fresh pasta with little containers of olive oil and pepper and little containers of cheese. And instructions on how to cook this into a meal for two. This I did this past Thursday, and it was very nice.

The whole experience somewhat reminded of New York dining: Impeccable service, fantastic food, but no dawdling. One course arrived promptly after another, and we were done by 8:00. Probably because they needed the table for someone else.

Lazing on a Sunday afternoon

After that rather packed Saturday, it was nice not to have anything planned ahead for Sunday, other than our bus back. We had breakfast at Cora, and decided it was better than the Cora we’d tried previously (forget where, but not the one in KW). We then decided to visit the ROM, as they were featuring this year’s winners of the Wildlife Photography contest. That exhibit was terrific, again. The work to get some of those shots!

We then visited the “Treasures of the Earth” exhibit, that I don’t recall having been to before. It featured some beautiful minerals, gems, meteorites, and rocks, and had a section on Canadian mining, in which my home town featured prominently.

Gold from Northern Ontario mines

Since Richmond Station is very difficult to get dinner reservations at, but recently started opening Sundays, we thought we’d try to just go there and see if we could get in for a late lunch. It worked! We got a table.

To start, with shared the duck liver pate—creamy and rich. Then I had the lamb forestiere cavatelli, while Jean had duck two ways. We had a half-glass of sparkling to start with that, then a glass of red each. We were left too full for dessert.

Duck Paté at Richmond Station!

All that was left was to gather our luggage back at the hotel, then get to the station. There was a bit of Uber drama here too, that I won’t get into. But we made it to the station in plenty of time, and that bus was not delayed.