Happy Pride

Pride 2009.

We took a cab to Saturday’s Dyke events, to preserve S’s energy for the rest of the day.  Met up with some friends, walked with the Dyke March for a bit (which is one of the things that makes the Saturday superior to the Sunday), then went to the 519 beer garden.  Where once the beer garden was a place you could sit on the grass, hang out with friends, meet people you hadn’t seen in a while… this year it was, basically, taken up entirely by people in serpentine lines queuing up to buy beer.  After a couple of hours (one of which I’d swear was spent entirely in line), we left and headed for nearby Local 4 – tasty food, good service, reasonable prices and we didn’t have to wait to get in.  We caught up with some friends to eat some gelato and listen to some music, then headed home.  Fairly early.  Apparently S’s pregnancy is affecting us both – she gets tired quickly and I get “sympathy tired” .  or as I tell her, it’s like I’ve been pregnant for years, and now she gets to better understand what it feels like to be me.

The 55 SPF Hawaiian Tropic spray-on sunblock worked well to protect the expanse of base skin I exposed to the glaring sun.  To my profound disappointment, however, it stained my new, stylin’ and oh so comfortable shorts .  At first it was just a little bit of yellow at the waistband, so I threw the shorts in the wash – but when I took them out, the stain came through everywhere the sunscreen touched the shorts.  The pockets where I put my hands, the waistband, the bottom of the legs.   All stained orange.  Hawaiin Tropic + Diesel = $70 poorer.  Thank god I bought them at Winners instead of paying full price.  But still…

Today it’s Sunday, and we’ve decided to stay home instead of watch the parade (although we have seen a bit of it on CP24).  Turns out it was a good decisions since it has been raining  a bit today.    Typically we don’t get rain on Pride – because we are the chosen people.  But at least the benefit to light rain is you don’t have to find someone with a supersoaker to cool you off.  And taking the day off from the festivitis allows S’s feet to recover, us to watch Harry Potter on DVD and try to take the stains out of my shorts (so far, in vain).

 

Note: Vinegar and Didi Seven seems to be doing the trick.  Woo!  Almost stain free – I’ll give it another go after work.

Blame it on the Boogie

I turned on CBC Newsworld and learned that Michael Jackson is dead.   My jaw actually dropped.

Shaft

My evening was made by the guy in the dark green Chevy, circa 1970 ish, blasting the theme song to Shaft  at the red light at College and Elizabeth.

Father’s Day

Yesterday was Father’s Day.  My Dad’s been dead a number of years now, so Father’s Day is a bye for me.  I sometimes think about my Dad on Father’s Day, but usually the day passes largely unnoticed.

This year, I noticed it.  Radio personalities mentioning father’s day and what would be happening in their families.  Ads for it on t.v.  References to what the weather was going to be like on the day. 

Since parenthood is looming for me, I’ve been wondering (and have often been asked) what parent name will be used for me (Mom, mamma, ?).  And I have wondered if I’d share Mother’s Day with S or claim Father’s Day – justifying it as the day to celebrate the parent who didn’t carry the baby. Plus, there are sales on some excellent gadgets for Father’s Day.

But listening to all the pre-Father’s Day commentary this year, I don’t feel a bond to the festival of the male parent.  I’m not sure I feel a real bond to Mother’s Day either.  But I have plenty of time to sort all that out.

Keeping Time

The Limes Aretemisia watch I bought S had stopped keeping good time.  It would loose 10 minutes over a few days.  The see-through back allowed us to see that there was a thin arc of plastic that was in the way of the rotor.  Eventually we took the watch to Shane Ede.  The plastic was from the spacer and easily pulled out.  But the watch also needed cleaning/lube (suprising since it was only 2 years old), so we left it there and came back for it a week or so later.

When we came to pick it up, I had him look at my Nomos Tangente which used to keep really good time but was now about a half minute fast per day.  He wondered why I had all these German watches and asked me what I paid for this one.  I sheepishly gave him the answer and he didn’t sound taken aback (whew!) but said for the price they should be able to make it easier to regulate — the screws were too close together for his liking.

He and I had a discussion about women and modern jazz, then he “treated” us to a listen to his Sainkho Namtchylak  Lost Rivers CD.  It was very interesting to listen to – for 2 minutes or so.  Sainkho is a throat singer, but not in the husky Inuit kind of way.  This was more screeching birdsong.  The more staccato stuff was really amazing, and it was amazing that she could make those sounds not just once, but over and over again.    But overall, I won’t be buying that CD anytime soon.

Shane’s an interesting guy though.  I kind of feel sorry for all the watch afficionados who mail him their watches for repair but don’t get to talk to the guy.

Meanwhile, S emailed Limes /Ickler again, asking if they could send her replacement screws for the screwbars that holds her watchband on.  Even though she used loctite last time, another ball worked its way off (took about a year though).  And Limes sent her 6 replacements, for free.  It’s a shame it keeps happening, but the customer service is excellent.

And as for watches, I just bought myself a Casio AMW-340 from Sears – 30% off for Father’s Day shopping.  This will be my beater watch to replace the one that was stolen.  Because it’s new, and I like new things, I’ve been wearing it since I bought it.  But I miss the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of the Nomos.  Hopefully the battery in this one will last longer than the one in my last quartz (needed replacing every year.  Why?).  If not, I’m pretty sure I’ll feel a compulsion to buy a solar powered quartz to replace it.

Luminato weekend

One of the best things about Toronto is that S and I can walk to a movie theatre after work on a Friday, catch a movie, then listen to a free concert at Dundas Square.  Friday night’s concert was “Goran Bregovic: musical superstar of the Balkans”.  I wouldn’t have stopped for it based on the title alone, but we couldn’t help but stop to listen (we couldn’t watch – the crowds were too thick).  It was fantastic.  The music was amazing.  The crowd was huge, people were dancing and singing along. 

We walked home and the next day headed to the Infant/Child choking, first aid and CPR classes at the Jewish Community Centre as part of the Baby and Me Fitness program (overall, not very useful.  But it was a handy reminder of stuff I learned in a short AED/CPR course at work).  Part way through the class, we couldn’t help but notice the local participants in the World Naked Bike Day as they nakedly rode their bikes along Bloor and down Spadina.

After the classes were over, we took the streetcar down to Harbourfront where we strolled amongst the Luminato performances (very Cirque du Soleil) then went to our favourite harbourfront patio for pizza.  Sitting in the shade, listening to music, watching the crowd, watching the boats.  Perfect. 

Walking home, our route took us past the Woofstock booths in the St. Lawrence Market area.  The booths were all shut down for the evening, but there were still plenty of dogs around, some on patios while their owners had dinner. 

And on the home stretch, we chatted with a neighbour and ended up learning about a lot of the past owners of our house — so many of which had been caterers or cook book writers.  (Oh, and that our house had been known as “The Drugstore” for a while.  I’m glad that nickname hasn’t lasted).

Yep – an excellent day in an excellent City.