May 12, 2013
Every Day is Mother’s Day…
…when one is self-absorbed and self-indulgent (hello! Over here! Waving!!). And every day is doubly Mother’s Day when one is 38.5 weeks pregnant, but today in particular. My own excellent mom was kind enough to let me lounge around at home and be the centre of the show with my little family (though we’re looking forward to seeing her next weekend). I was given tea and croissants in bed this morning, and a gift from said little family–the book Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which my clever husband had noticed me to eyeing in the bookstore last weekend. I think it will make an excellent post-baby read. And then I was left alone to reread the wonderful poetry collection Arguments With the Lake, which I’ll be reviewing later tonight. But that wasn’t all! Today, I was informed, we’d be having Afternoon Tea at Dessert Trends. And it was delightful, delicious and fun.
Harriet was a bit challenged by the constraints of afternoon tea today, but she managed to hold it together, and we understood why she was not quite at her best. Yesterday had been her 4th birthday party (celebrated 2 weeks early due to baby’s imminent arrival) and perhaps an ice cream party and afternoon tea are too much for one weekend when you are just 206 weeks old. It is also possible that the fancy green tea eclairs weren’t entirely suited to her palate, though she found the scones and jam quite acceptable, mango tart as well. We were very happy to eat whatever she couldn’t manage.
Her birthday party yesterday was a splendid success! It was held at The Big Chill Ice Cream Parlour, and attended by 12 of her marvelous friends who were surprisingly very enthusiastic about the game I’d entitled “Disappointing Pass the Parcel” in which the parcel was filled with citrus fruit. They were also very good at “Pin the Scoop on the Sundae”, and nobody mentioned that I am the world’s worst party-game planner. We had hot dogs, ice cream AND cupcakes, so all the food groups were met. Harriet was a spectacular birthday girl who made me very proud, and she had fun, which was the most important thing of all.
Her friends and their families kindly contributed birthday gifts via Echoage, which puts half the gift toward a charitable donation (Harriet picked The Stop, and is quite excited that they’re getting a gift for her birthday) and the other half toward the purchase of her first bicycle. We went to buy the bike today, and were thrilled to get the Norco Rainbow bike. The weather today was disgusting, so she wasn’t able to ride it properly, but still mastered the art of pedaling via riding around up and down the hallway, which was very exciting. Can’t wait for the sun to come out again so we can hit the sidewalk!
July 4, 2012
The City's Sublime
If ever there was a centre to my personal geography, I suspect that the Toronto Islands would be it. My grandparents used to take me there– I remember the day they bought me a $13 day-pass to the Centreville amusement park, and it felt like being handed a key to the world. I’ve rode that ferry with at least 3 different boyfriends, which is particularly significant when you note how few boyfriends I’ve ever had in total. The Islands were key to my development as a feminist, as a person— I remember the liberation of fleeing the city on my bicycle to read Mrs. Dalloway on a south-facing beach, and how no one in the whole world knew where I was. Later that same summer, I swam naked at Hanlan’s Point and felt more powerful and fabulous than I had ever felt in my life.
I spent my 26th birthday on Ward’s Island, with friends who braved a 90 minute-long wait at the ferry docks because I didn’t have a phone so they couldn’t call to cancel once they wait had got ridiculous. We had dinner at the Rectory Cafe on our 3rd anniversary, and it was really the most tremendous thing, to jump on a ferry boat after work, such an extraordinary way to spend a Wednesday. We’ve taken out of town guests there, had picnics with friends, partaken many times in Wards Island ice cream, played frisbee, rode our bikes, once lost a three-legged race at a company picnic (against children), and shivered and swam in the lake.
We’ve gone every year at least once since Harriet was born, though our visit last weekend was the first one in which she was old enough to appreciate island goodness. We all love the ferry boats, which we know best from Allan Moak’s Big City ABC (I being for Island Ferry, of course). We spent our morning at Centreville, whose day-pass hasn’t been $13 for many years, but is still great value and we had a wonderful time riding the carousel, log flume, tea-cups, train, swan-boats and antique cars. Harriet couldn’t quite fathom that she’d entered a world in which she was permitted to drive.
After, we had our picnic on the banks of the lagoon, bread and cheese and fresh strawberries, then took a trek over to the Franklin Children’s Garden where Harriet had a fabulous time spotting the characters she knows from the Franklin books, watering the plants in the garden plots, and tracing her way along the snail trail. Then it was time for splash-padding and sand-digging, and re-applying our sunscreen. As the day got long, we took a long walk along the boardwalk to the Rectory Cafe for dinner. And when we were finished, we approached the Ward’s Island docks just as the boat was arriving which we boarded so it could take us home, exhausted but revelling in the goodness of a perfect day.
“Neither entirely land or water, but containing elements of both, the Toronto Islands are a fitting site for memorial rituals because their fluctuating sands reflect the fleeting passage of life, buffeted by storms of fortune and bracketed by the permeable border between here and the hereafter… Without mountains to serve as an urban muse, the islands have become the city’s sublime. Visiting the islands, valuing them, Torontonians experience something truly akin to transcendence.” –Amy Lavender Harris, Imagining Toronto
May 28, 2012
Harriet turns 3
Harriet turned three this weekend, and highlights included a fire station tour as part of Doors Open Toronto, much fun with good food and sunshine, and a fantastic party yesterday with ten friends, their siblings and moms and dads. We had a wonderful time, and the party met with my definition of party success, which was that Harriet didn’t cry. Or at least not until after everyone had left, and she was sad because, “There’s only one kid now. I want my friends!” But during the party itself, she had the most wonderful time, dancing, running, laughing, cupcaking, pinning tails in hilarious manners, and delighting in her wonderful pals. A terrific celebration of a girl who’s just as good. And now we’re all a bit tired…
April 22, 2012
The Famous 5
So many things I love are a part of this photo. Also, we had a really wonderful trip to Ottawa this weekend. Lots of reading on the train, hotel fun, good food, friends, and, speaking of friends, we were the beneficiaries of some amazing hospitality. Long live the Mini-Break!
March 25, 2012
Ice cream
The ice cream shop at the top of our road has opened for the season! They remarked upon how enormous Harriet has grown, and they were kind enough to refrain from mentioning that she was also very filthy (and do note, she has since been bathed). In other local news, yesterday I went to the movies for the first time in nearly three years. We saw Friends With Kids, and I really liked it (its portrayal of breastfeeding in particular, which goes a long, long way). We also bought tickets for a train journey to Ottawa, served clafoutis to friends at brunch yesterday, started reading Tales from Moominvalley, finished watching Downton Abbey Season 1, and are having to wait for Mad Men Season 5 to come out on DVD because we do not have a TV. Which is sad, but also nice to know that my dream of continually having Mad Men before me is forever coming true.
March 4, 2012
D is for Deli
Location: St. Lawrence Market
The thing about walking to St. Lawrence Market is that the trek justifies a lunch of a sweet cheese bagel, peameal bacon sandwich, banana crepe, cabbage roll, pierogies, a smoothie, a pickle on a stick, and a pepperette made of elk meat. All shared between three people, of course, which is further justification. We spent a splendid morning there yesterday, made even better for a stop at Ben McNally Books en-route, which was the first bookshop in six we’d found to be carrying Kyo Maclear’s Virginia Wolf, which just came out this week. We had big plans to take the subway home, because for Harriet, transit is always a trip’s highlight, but the subway was closed to due a broken watermain, so we had to haul the stroller onto the streetcar. Which turned out to be much more fun anyway because on a streetcar there’s a view out the window.
February 5, 2012
Our Saturday Morning Book Crawl
On Friday, I read about the opening of Sellers & Newal, a new bookstore on College Street, and then hatched a plan for a Saturday morning book crawl. In order to make a “Saturday morning book crawl” attractive to my husband, I mapped out a route that involved stopping at Sam James Coffee Bar, and breakfast at the Lakeview. It was a sunny, gorgeous morning and felt just like springtime. The walk down to Dundas and Ossington was particularly lovely because we hadn’t seen the sun in ages.
After breakfast, we walked west on Dundas to The Monkey’s Paw, where I’d never been before but had heard so much about. It’s a bookstore of secondhand curiosities, and if we hadn’t had a monster child in tow (with a case of the “nearly-threes”), we could have browsed for ages. Highlights included vintage cookery books, a wall of Penguins, Toronto-health pamphlets on 
baby-rearing from the ’40s, a book by Shari Lewis on making puppets and several old typewriters whose Hs Harriet wanted to press. Old atlases, books about UFOs, goatherding and sex. The air was marvelously redolent with dustiness and books— “something smells funny in here,” was how Harriet so charmingly put it as soon as we walked in the door. I ended up getting a copy of Dennis Lee’s Garbage Delight, which I’d never read before but it turns out to be the best of all wonderful his picture book. (My favourite poem inside is “Worm”.)
Then we went to the new store, Sellers & Newal, and I browsed while Harriet (who had decided she wouldn’t wear shoes) was held captive in her stroller, and read to from Garbage Delight by her father. So many cool books here, and not much dust because the store is brand new (as well as bright and airy). Lots of good Canadian fiction, books on advertising, typography and graphic design, a set of Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books, affordable paperbacks, collectable hardcovers, and a shelf that was built out of a coffin. Oh my! I was happy to get a copy of Steven Heighton’s essay collection The Admen Move on Lhasa. 
And then finally to Balfour Books at their excellent dust-free, light-filled location near College and Bathurst. Which is where my family won the Patience Prize as they sat up at the front near the door (you can see them in the picture) and not once asked me if I was done yet. And because they were so considerate, I did my best to be done as yet as possible. I finally got my hands on a copy of Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels, which my friend Patricia has recommended, because she says that those of us who only read Fifth Business in high school don’t know Robertson Davies at all.
And by then it was nearly naptime, so to home. Harriet was wished good dreams, and I curled up on the couch and read and read and read (and knit).
November 6, 2011
My favourite day of the year
It really is my favourite day of the year, this one with 25 hours in it. It meant that this morning we could get up and be lazy, and still be at the AGO for their 10:00 opening. And that it was ROM Members Day at the AGO meant that we got in free, which meant no fretting about getting one’s money’s worth, and that we could hang out in the gallery for an hour or so, and then retire to the cafe (and this, plus the lazy mornings, are exactly how we roll). Then this afternoon, I spent four hours working on tomorrow’s Giller Prize post for Canadian Bookshelf, and by the time I was finished, it was dark outside. And though I love summer madly and despair the winter days, I do love those dark evenings with my family tucked inside our house, the lights a golden glow. Particularly because we had wine leftover from last night’s dinner with friends, and it was delicious. (As had been the dinner itself, meat lasagna from Tessa Kiros’ Apples for Jam, the cookbook that never fails). The overall goodness of the day only underlined by the glorious weather, sunshine so warm that I didn’t even need to wear my new hat (but I did anyway, because I made it myself. I have the biggest head in the universe). And that tomorrow we’ll wake up at 7:00, and it finally won’ t be dark out.
- Check out my friend Nathalie’s time-change blog post, Got An Extra Hour? Read Books With Clocks.
September 18, 2011
Eden Mills 2011
Last year, our Eden Mills Writers Festival experience was diminished by the efforts we spent on trying to get Harriet to fall asleep to no avail. Today we accepted that there would be no sleep (highly controversial), and had a marvelous time. The weather was glorious. We also particularly like Eden Mills because it functions in accordance with our family philosophy of not leaving the house early in the morning, and so there were pancakes, and pajama lazing. Then we hit the road, and the traffic was easy. The leaves were not as autumnal as in year’s past, but I was also wearing capris and sandals, and that was nice. We rolled in Eden Mills around 12:30, and so the day of literary festivalling began.
It was my fourth Eden Mills, by the way, and Stuart’s and Harriet’s third. The first readings I wanted 
to see were the poets, but they were indoors in the Chapel, so Harriet and Stuart stayed outdoors with Harriet’s outdoor voice. And I heard Priscilla Uppall and Lorna Crozier, who were so, so wonderful. In exchange for missing the reading, H&S split a cupcake, so everyone was happy. Then we went to the children’s readings, where we heard Andrea Wayne von Königslöw, and Kari-Lynn Winters. I skipped out partway through Winters, however, so that I could hear my friend Julia read at the Fringe Stage, and she had her audience utterly engaged. It was a pleasure to see her there.
After that, I met back up with my family, and we went to hear Claire Tacon and Alison Pick. Then to the Organic Ice Cream sellers, who delighted everyone involved. We stopped on Publisher’s Way to do a bit of shopping, and to meet with our Biblioasis and TNQ friends. (It was a friend-filled day. Today Eden Mills was populated by some of our favourite people.) Must admit, was a little disappointed to see other indie presses missing, in particular Brick Books because I’d been looking forward to buying Stephanie Bolster’s new book. Alas, my heart was delighted by the new addition of Demeter Press, however, and the chance to meet the fine people there (whose work I’ve been a champion of in the past). We ended up buying Claire Tacon’s In the Field, Amanda Jernigan’s Groundwork, Rocking the Cradle by Andrea O’Reilly, and Andrea Wayne von Königslöw’s How Do You Read to a Rabbit?
We went to see the magician next, who was awesome (though Harriet went into a frenzy when he started making balloon animals, 
screaming, “I want monkey right now!” and we had to talk her down, because there weren’t enough to go around). And I wanted to stay for the last session to hear Johanna Skibsrud read from her new book, but Harriet was fading and we’re smart enough now to no longer push our luck. She’d been so good all day, and so Eden Mills was over while the going was still good. (I did get to sit across the aisle from Skibsrud at the poetry readings though, which was kind of cool).
Last night I’d googled “Places to Eat Near Eden Mills”, and discovered a small town called Rockwood about ten minutes away. We drove there, hoping something would be open, and stumbled upon The Heaven on 7 Bistro and Pub, which was so delicious, the perfect end to a perfect day. Harriet was on her way out and spent most of the meal under the table, but we delighted in our dinners, and Harriet came up to partake in cheesecake. Then home again, home again, and Harriet agreed not to tantrum as long as we listened to Elizabeth Mitchell’s “Freight Train” on repeat, so there was a lot of that. Fortunately, traffic was kind to us again. Then home.
