this spring weekend was a rarity for toronto – a lovely weekend without rain that would shatter glass.  the most amazing phenomenon spontaneously occurred throughout our fair metropolis – people went out and gathered in droves everywhere nice and close to the lake – it was astounding. 

i went into my office at harbourfront for a few hours on saturday.  throughout the week, it’s fairly dead – being occupied by a fairly limited number of office employees and tenants of the condominiums at the top of the building.  literally overnight, patio tables were overpopulated, lineups formed for every service that was available and people were scattered all throughout the shore looking out over the glorious blue lake ontario in the fabulous mild sunshine and cool lake breeze.  it was truly an idyllic setting!  so unfortunate that i was there to work.  i did enjoy two picturesque (if difficult – since i haven’t been exercising throughout the month of april because i’ve been simply too busy at work) runs along the lakeshore and through my lovely high park, so it wasn’t all work this weekend.

the drive was another fun thing that i never do often enough.  spring is the season in which i learned to drive.  i would seek out the least populated, widest streets in edmonton and cruise around where no one could see me veering over the lines and u-turning at the lights, until the cool springtime sun would set far in the west.  tomorrow, i have training at the microsoft headquarters in mississauga, and since i have to be there at 9am, i thought it would be wise to do a trial run out to this foreign area so as to avoid any navigational issues tomorrow morning.  it was a good idea (although it’s a fairly straight-forward and simple path along very major roads to get there) because i always feel more comfortable with even a little bit of preparation before some special and particular demand.  once i found microsoft, i drove all around mississauga to try and get a sense of what it was all about and where things were.

i discovered that it’s not my fault that i get lost so often in ontario.  you can start out on a street here, and suddenly, without any warning or indication, it will become a completely different street that has nothing to do with you using the previous street as an indicator to get to some place or other.  at least twice, i started along a street that was named something that i recognized, drove a kilometer or two, and found that the street had become something totally unrecognizable.  i did however manage to find the only petrochemical plant i’ve seen since i left alberta, and i drove down mississauga road, which has the largest assemblage of castle-like mansions that i’ve ever seen in one single street.  i took some pictures with my phone, but bob has my bluetooth USB receiver, so i can’t upload them to my blog.  the sun set far in the west, and i was instantly 15 years old again, taking the car out illegally without a supervising driver, driving through the millwoods suburbs, discovering that the boundaries of the world were not so impenetrable as i had once though.

i know this is a kind of lame adventure, but it did get me out of the house and expanding my horizons, so i think that it totally counts.

- g

adventure cost:
combo #4 at wendy’s (i’ve had a craving for two months, but there seem to be no wendy’s in the core of toronto) - $6.15
(i’m still on the same tank of gas i bought like a month and a half ago).