This is my new favourite website. It's like porn. Toronto apartment hunter's porn. I've been looking at it almost every day for the past three days. There is no rush for me to find somewhere to live, but you don't understand: I have lived in this tiny basement apartment for over THREE YEARS. And while it's cute and familiar and in a nice neighbourhood and I like the tile in the kitchen and the bathroom (I'm very picky about tile), I have outgrown it. Also my last houseplant is very unhappy and I'm afraid it will die if it doesn't get more natural light soon.
Not that I am in any particular hurry to move. I have to give 60 days' notice and I will need to get a deposit (first and last month's rent) together for my new place, and I'd like to get rid of some debt first, before I go incurring more debt with movers and curtains and bookcases and beer and pizza for the friends I plan to rope into helping me move. I'm thinking of giving notice in December or January. Not the best time to move, but I might be able to get a good deal because a) the vacancy rate is at an all-time high in Toronto and b) landlords get a little desperate for tenants in the lean, cold hungry months. Also by then I think I will be thoroughly sick of my commute.
My new place of work is in, ahem, Scarborough. The north part. The part of Scarborough where you can see Markham. The part of Scarborough where, when I cross the street in the afternoon to catch the bus home, I'm actually standing in Markham. The part of Scarborough where it would make more sense for me to live in Markham rather than in midtown Toronto, where I live now. Including the fifteen minute walk to the Summerhill subway station on the Yonge line, it takes me exactly an hour, door to door, to get to work.
And it's that fifteen-minute walk, down a long, unbroken street that looks more like a transit corridor than a residential block, in the winter, on the ice that this world-class city doesn't remove from the sidewalks, is what's going to clinch it for me. The subway ride, to the end of the line, is not so bad - I can read and I don't have to worry about missing my stop (I have been known to do this). The bus ride can be a little tedious, but I can look out of the windows at what used to be rolling countryside. But that walk - that long miserable walk - fifteen freaking minutes! and that's in good weather - is going to make me very unhappy. I have to walk to the end of my block, wait to cross Avenue Road (and the light takes about three minutes to change if it's red), cross Avenue Road (four lanes of traffic), walk down the long long corridor to Yonge, wait to cross Yonge, cross Yonge to get to the subway - that's going to get really old, really fast.
As it stands right now, to get to work on time, I have to be out of the house by 6.45 AM. Work starts at 8, and I'm opening the library, so I have to be there. And that's OK, because I am very excited about this job and I'm looking forward to it. But, there's such a thing as quality of life. And my quality of life will be vastly improved if I move a wee bit closer and above ground.
I've got my eye on Yonge and Eglinton - east or west on Eglinton, it doesn't matter. There's a dedicated lane for buses in rush hour and according to a friend of mine who lives there, the buses come every 3 minutes. There are lots of pubs, restaurants, cafes, fruit stands, shops, a huge bookstore, movie theatres, transit, and people. All very important to me.
I think I could be happy there. It's not too far from downtown, and living there, with access to a dedicated bus to a subway station three stops above where I am currently located, will shave about 20 minutes off of my commute, if not more. It doesn't sound like much, but trust me on this, it will make a difference.
So, I've been looking at the listings for that area and day-dreaming. Here's what I'm thinking:
I would prefer a one-bedroom (a 2 - or 3 1/2 for my Montreal readers) in a low-rise building, with hardwood floors and east, south or west exposure (north is kind of depressing and gloomy)
Air-conditioning is nice but I can live without it.
Utilities included is fantastic but I'll settle for heat and water.
I will consider a bachelor or studio, but only if it has a balcony.
I will consider a high-rise, but I want to be on a lower floor - like 2nd or 3rd - because I hate waiting for elevators.
I don't care about the view as I spend most of my time at home reading or surfing the internet or watching TV or sleeping.
I would also like a place where I am allowed to have a cat.
I don't need a fitness club or a pool because I have those things through work and through my alumni membership at Hart House.
A five-minute walk to the subway station is ideal, but I can also settle for a five-minute bus-ride or a ten-minute walk.
I'd also like to be able to paint the walls - I'm envisioning yellow for the living/dining area and light blue for my bedroom - but I can live with plain white.
I will not tolerate:
ugly tile in the kitchen and bathroom - eg. dark green marble-effect with gold veins or similar. It's just wrong
dark pink, brown, or other gross dark colours on the walls. Nasty, and hard to paint over.
cockroaches
vertical blinds
So, really, finding a place should be a cinch, no?
08/19/2012
Movin' on up
08/14/2012
Travelling Cat Show
The boys loved their cottage vacation. Loved it. If there were kitten-sized "I heart Lake Paudash" t-shirts for sale at the General Store in Cardiff , Harry and Marmalade would be wearing them. They had a brilliant time.
OK, so they were a little unhappy with the three-hour drive to the cottage. Fair enough. But within ten minutes of our arrival, they had made themselves completely at home and were checking out the view of the lake from the sunporch. Marmalade was desperate to go outside and I finally relented, and carried him down to the dock for a cuddle in a Muskoka chair. He was looking around and smelling the air and the look on his face said, "This is PARADISE!"
Unfortunately, we left in such a rush on Saturday that I forgot to bring my camera. So I have no pictures to show you of Marmalade and Harry cuddling in an overstuffed armchair by the woodstove, or of Marmalade looking longingly at the lake from his perch in the sunporch, or of Harry squinting in an early-morning sunbeam. Nor do I have pictures of me trying to get them to take their deworming pills (fun fun fun!), or of Phil laughing at me while I tried to pry their mouths open so I could shove the pills in, or of Marmalade spitting out his pill five times in a row. And there are no pictures of our Sunday morning canoe trip, or our visit to Bancroft.
Next time.
07/10/2012
$162 later...
Phil bought me flowers for Valentine's Day (what a sweetheart).
However. Flowers are a no-no at my house, because of two stripey four-legged terrors who can't leave well enough alone, and who must be part goat, so fascinated are they with greenery of any kind.
For a few days, I rotated the flowers - which I was keeping in a vintage milk bottle from my old hometown of Longueuil, QC - from room to room in the apartment. Dining room when I was home, bedroom with the door closed when I was out, bathroom with the door closed at night. Every time I moved the flowers, both cats trotted ahead of me, looking up as if to say, "Are you going to give them to us now? Please? Can we eat them yet?"
Harry got bold and started jumping on the dining room dresser - where he never goes - to nibble the leaves. So I got the spray bottle out, and I used it.
But then one evening, I forgot to remove them from my bedroom. And I left the door open.
I was sitting in the living room watching TV when I heard a crash that sounded like a full bookcase falling down, and the skittering of at least one set of paws on the parquet. I ran into the room, Harry running past me in the opposite direction.
Miraculously, the flowers and the bottle were still standing. An antique china dresser tray that usually holds my watches and some necklaces, had landed on an armchair. Perfume bottles, nail clippers, watches, necklaces, safety pins, spare buttons etc were scattered on the floor. Nothing was broken. Marmalade was hiding under the bed.
So all was well. Or so I thought. I cleaned up, scolded Harry and brought the flowers to the dining room.
About twenty minutes later, Phil arrived for dinner, and Marmalade came out of the hiding and joined us in the living room. Limping. And it wasn't a slight limp, like "ow, my foot hurts a bit". It was grotesque - he would hold his paw right up and crooked towards his body. He lay down on the floor and looked pathetic.
Well, me being me, I freaked right out. It was after 7, so I called the emergency vet clinic, hustled Marmalade into his carrier, and grabbed a cab to the clinic.
The vet looked at his foot, pronounced nothing broken or dislocated, and a nurse gave him a shot of an anti-inflammatory.
For $162 plus cab fare, I was able to sleep through the night knowing that my cat wasn't going to be a cripple because of his obsession with flowers.
And the flowers? They went down the garbage chute. Next year, we'll get each other chocolate.
12/08/2011
Changing views on Guns
Having quite a few hoplophobes in my family and being on the board with a few more I often find it odd how much views on guns have changed over not so long a time. I'm reading a book, copywrite 1984 called Don't Shoot the Dog. It is about behavior training both in animals and people. We're considering getting a dog so I'm reading about dog training. This book, by Karen Pryor, is the seminal work that introduced people to something now called clicker training (of which there are many subsequent books.) (If you go to the web site, check out the video of the agility cat. Amazing!)
Anyway, back to the subject of this post. Now the name of the book wasn't actually the suprising thing. What suprised me was something I read in the book just yesterday in the discussion Methods vs. Principles in shaping behaviors:
"Most trainers, most books about training, and most teachers of training are concerned almost entirely with method. "Place your hands on the golf club as in the drawing"; "Line up your rifle sights before you aim at the target"; "Never lean into the mountain"; "Beat the eggs with a wire whisk in a clockwise direction"...
Did you notice that? Aiming a rifle in the same sentance with golf and cooking as if it were no big deal. People shoot rifles. No big deal. I would be quite suprised to see such a sentance in a recently written training book, unless it was a book more likely to be read by people who shoot (such as a book on training hunting dogs) but this book is hardly that. The previous book by the author was "Nursing Your Baby" and this book has an aprobation from the chairman of the La Leche League.
Special thanks
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Resume
Sherika Clarke
10405 Kushtaka Circle
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[email protected]
Summary of Qualifications
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1998 - Present
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Freedom != Perfection
I was at some meeting and someone brought up something bad that happened in Afghanistan recently (something not reflecting perfection) and someone made the quip "Another country we so-called freed." Um...excuse me. Removing a dictatorship, and removing a place for the Taliban to gather and bringing in a democracy does not mean that the the country will heretofore have no more problems and will be perfect. It seems to me the whole idea of freeing and transitioning power means letting them fail, letting them make errors, but giving them the chance to rule themselves with self determination.
And while I was in the meeting I noticed the "No War" button one of the people were wearing. Well gosh, I'd like no war too. It would have been great if the Taliban hadn't ran planes into the World Trade Center. I'd love it if people did not use misdirection to blame us (or any non-Muslim's) for their oppression and maltreatment of the people. No terrorists would mean no war. The war that we are fighting is no aspirin factory bombing, and war over there is, quite frankly, better than war over here. No war, yeah that would be great. Unfortunately that wasn't an option. The choice was here or there.
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Curriculum Vitae
Yahaira Taylor
7658 Artemus Avenue
North Dakota Bismarck
[email protected]
Summary of Qualifications
Graduated With Honors from Northwest University
10 years of freelance writing experience (specifically for Internet visitors)
Superb competency in Spanish and Latin
Devoted, group-oriented member of staff with a taste for specifics
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FoxyStilezArticles, Toronto Canada
2005 - Present
Team Leader
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CV
Tim Anderson
5893 Hampton Green Loop
North Dakota Bismarck
[email protected]
Qualifications
Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Utah State University
10 years of crafting experience (explicitly for Internet audiences)
Great fluency in Latin and English
Dedicated, company-oriented worker with a taste for particulars
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FoxyStilezArticles, Boston USA
2005 - Present
Crew Supervisor
Responsible for planning a worldwide group of writers to meet a challenging set of development goals and objectives.
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Curriculum Vitae
Elena Ali
1877 Kincaid Estates Drive
Alaska Juneau
[email protected]
Summary
Graduated With Honors from Brown University
10 years of creating experience (mainly for Online viewers)
Superb fluency in English and Latin
Dependable, staff-oriented individual with a flair for particulars
Job Experience
FoxyStilezArticles, Boston USA
2005 - Present
Team Senior Officer
Responsible for organizing a worldwide workforce of writers to fit a demanding set of growth aims.
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Resume
Evelynn Clark
994 Fox Run Road
New Mexico Santa Fe
[email protected]
Summary
Graduated With Special Honors from Syracuse University
10 years of crafting experience (explicitly for Online readers)
Exquisite fluency in Spanish
Dedicated, staff-oriented individual with a aptitude for specifics
Business Experience
FoxyStilezArticles, Boston USA
1999 - Present
Writing Team Senior Officer
Accountable for organizing a international crew of copy writers to meet a complex set of production goals and objectives.
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