Off the Cliff

I've already forgotten what 2018 was like. Look at my journal to refresh me. 2018 was snow in April, then rain and hurricane winds, that brought down trees and wires, and heat from May through Canadian Thanksgiving, after which it was just rain. As tonight, in fact. Me-wise, it was a six-week spring sinus infection that killed my sense of taste and smell, interspersed with recurring noroviruses and punctuated by cracked ribs. I mean, on top of the whole ongoing knees and hips and elbows drama. Nothing new happened to me but an abortive run-in with the jury system, the aftermath of which did, I admit, leave me feeling very happy, reading the Inferno in an Aroma coffee house near the Superior Court House, or one of them.

But there's a reason why I find little to mourn in the old year.

Made the mistake of looking at the handout for my knee surgery, assuming and rightly that they'd have exercises I was supposed to do. All of which were 'these things I have done from my youth upwards! and my physio says I'm doing them wrong'. But it was the follow-up at home that had me going No bloody way! Rent a walker. (Actually, you need a walker for the hospital, and someone to deliver it to said hospital after your surgery.) Rent crutches. Rent reach-a-things to put your underwear and socks on. Rent toilet seats with arms. Rent bath chair to use in shower. Use walker to get on to toilet or into bed, uses crutches to get down stairs, use- what? a second walker? to get around downstairs. I think they're assuming a household with able bodies in it to fetch and carry and drive one hither and yon, which in my case I certainly have not got.

I've calmed down a bit since and shall grill them if all this (including the 'possible hallucinations after surgery' are meant for very elderly patients, and if certain warnings are only meant for people with hip replacements. But I'm half convinced to try the effects of a 20 lb weight loss instead. Because I don't see me managing a walker with my twingy lower back and piriformis, or crutches with my arthritic elbows; and I especially don't see me not biking for three months after surgery, when they'll let me use a stationary bike after six weeks.

The dead days are earning their name, aided by rain and a return of the norovirus that required me to cancel two appointments today, both of which I must still pay for. In consequence, I have been semi-crippled most of this week and have finished a buncha books.

1. Sun and dry.

2. Plague at work has thinned the ranks of tinies so I had yesterday off. Am sorry for the feverish tinies and their desperate parents, but a sunny holiday is nice.

3. Went back to the Evil Empire of Walmart and got a 4x tshirt. Still not as long and roomy as my first one, but covers what needs to be covered ie I can answer the door in it, which I can't in my usual sleep shirts.

Also bought a pair of 3X pants, floppy cotton-nylon blend. And must take them back because in pants, 3X is enormous on me. Sizing- the mystery of the universe.

4. Alas and alack, staff and parents have been bringing in Christmas cookies. The chocolates I can resist, but I never met a sugar cookie I didn't like.

5. The RoFo gov't stiffed us casual staff of our salary supplement for December, but work still rustled up a $100 bonus, which helps.
( Memeage )

How ironic that I'm currently up to the Hoarders and Wasters in the Purgatorio.

So a while back I ordered some Laura Ashley flannel sheets from a place called Wayfair. Sheets arrived with commendable promptitude. Not as soft as the ones from Canadian The Linen Closet, but well enough to give me two unpilled fitted sheets. (Three if you count the ones I got 30 years ago from my younger brother. The pillow cases of those are rags, but the sheets are still quite robust.) Therefore I ordered a flannel duvet cover in a grey arabesque pattern- paisley, supposedly- to replace the yellow/grey squares and the brown/ green checks of my current two, both of which swear mightily at my bedrooms' colour schemes. Duvet cover arrived with commendable promptitude but- was the wrong one. A Mondrian white and sage and brown. Not exactly checks, but certainly squares (or rectangles) and still the wrong colour.

I emailed them and they solicitously asked for details- what did the invoice say (it said 'paisley'), what did it look like, could I send them a pic? Which I did: even tracked down the online details of the Mondrian for them. Guy called me personally to double check on everything, apologized, said they'd send the right one at once, and I could keep or recycle the unsatisfactory cover, which I thought handsome of them. (They're in California, as it turns out, and evidently think it not worth paying the freight back.) When I'd checked the paisley cover again it had gone out of stock, so I was glad to get the last remaining one.

Tuesday I get a voicemail from the guy handling my account, saying their records show the delivery has been made, they'll close the account, but if there are any concerns please call him on his cell- which I could do, having America wide calling, but prefer not to. Also got a slew of emails: one from him, one announcing my delivery, one asking for feedback on how manager had managed my case. Great. Come home after hell day, see no package on the porch where previous packages had been left, come in and find the box sitting on the bench in the hallway. Delivery man had had recourse to next door just in case, and they'd obligingly left it in my house.

Great service. I don't even mind the Wayfair ads that now appear on every webpage I visit, and the email ads that crop up almost as often as honto.jp's ones.

But when I open the box it's another Mondrian. Email my guy and have heard nothing back since. I guess Mondrian squared are better than eye=searing checks, but oh dear.

Succeeded in the Last Task of getting snow melt (ecologically friendly, will not harm children, animals or concrete.) Rode it home on the bike in the gusty winds of winter, cursing mightily at the weight. But then considered that last year, those 10 kg/ 22 lbs were on me, not the carrier. Which is, I suppose, a cheering thought.

Also took a pair of pants to the seamstress to have the elastic replaced. Now, these are a pair of boulevard pants ie picked up from same, without pockets, and three-quarter length, none of which makes them especially desirable. And it'll cost $25 for the operation. New ones would run me much less-- if I could find them. But they're also warm without being fleecy, a combination that's increasingly rare, and the only other wearable warm pants I own. Warm pants for me are men's lounge pants in non-plaid colours (plaid is the dead giveaway of lounge pants, as are cute reindeer etc) because nothing else is long enough and elasticised at the waist, and for some reason solid colours are impossible to find.

And I can wear them over my thinner pants, of which I have a plethora because somehow they do make women's cotton trousers in my size, and take the upper layer off in work's overheated space. So go me again.

And now we've returned to our regularly scheduled winter precipitation, that was interrupted so briefly by yesterday's downpours and leaf soup in all the gutters. Did note as I sloshed to the laundromat (that duvet cover grew no cleaner) that at this time of year the sidewalks are coloured brown.

Radio silence is down to the fact that this intestinal bug and its dramatic weight losses is not only draining, it's recurring. Has recurred twice since last weekend, and while the dramatic weight loss looks good on the scale, it doesn't make it any easier to get up and down from chairs or the floor, or to do stairs. Which is boo hiss all round. And dispiriting, because a few years ago I could *run* at this weight.

Loss won't last, of course, because even though I eat lightly and have for a week, it seems the one thing my body will tolerate is lovely sweet and sour caraway rye bread.

Stiffness and owies are doubtless also due to cold damp weather. This has been a precipitous year: what I'd give for five consecutive days of sun and seasonable temps. It's a normal 6C today, but raining.

Thus have accomplished very little. Did finish Goldenhand, which yes I know it's YA but oh seriously all this shy young lurve schtick 'oh what can be his soft emotion which enters my breast, why these blushes and confusion, why am I so undone in his presence?' is really a bit much.

Should reread Foxglove Summer just to find what I missed there as well as in The Hanging Tree. Probably should reread Broken Homes as well because I never got a fix on who or what Oberon is and there he is in the comics evidently being something else.

The snow didn't stop overnight or turn to rain, but was still falling as semi-sleet when I woke up. So got implements from the basement and shoved not shovelled (no heavy lifting, remember?) it to the side of my sidewalk (insufficiently broom-swept the night before) and my brother's and the Islamic Studies people's (untouched since yesterday afternoon.) Came in to hear the answering machine recording. Shift worker has the intestinal plague, can I be 2:30 person. My ordinary shift at 3:30 was covered by benevolent FT staff ('I don't want you to strain yourself') so I'd booked acupuncture for that afternoon. However: needs must when the devil drives, so I said yes, though I shall make a grand profit of $5 for 3.5 hours after deducting the cancellation fee.

Then trudged off in the snow to the bank, because I was penniless, and the Bathurst Station, because my Presto card has mysteriously vanished into thin air. And yes of *course* I should have registered it long ago so they could send me one in the fullness of time (mail has been delayed or cancelled by stealth rotating strikes) but I didn't, so I must buy a new one. The machines in all the stations will only sell regular cards, not students and seniors, but the webpage said the Gateway news stand in certain stations does. (So it's not a question of ID, evidently.) Station attendant knew nothing about this system and advised, as ever, to go to Shoppers Drug Mart. But not any Shoppers located near a subway station, oh no. The ones that aren't getting enough traffic, so the Presto cards serve as loss leaders. Shoppers are rip-off artists and it amazes me that anyone would buy from their overpriced selection.

However. Got down to the lower level, asked about Presto cards, guy says they do sell the S-cards (seniors and students) but the TTC hasn't delivered any to them in ages, in spite of repeated requests. Sounds like they want people to buy a regular card for the convenience of the thing and forego the $1.15 saving on each ride. This situation will become even more dire when they get rid of tickets and tokens entirely next year.

But the snow continues to melt and tomorrow, please God, I can bicycle, and will, to that Shoppers out by Dovercourt, and get a new Presto. I keep hoping it will turn up in a pants pocket or in the recesses of the Bag of Holding, but doubtless that will happen only if I buy a replacement.

Having today walked more than I have since, oh probably the last time it snowed, in April I believe, I'm quite zonked. Also left boot doesn't fit again: without insole it's too large, with insole it cramps my toes. Must wear thicker socks, I suppose. But the exercise does seem to have snapped me out of my invalidish mindset- oh I must rest my poor poor ribs, oh I shall lie on the bed all day with books, oh the housework can slide another day or week. My body may have a different idea tomorrow, but I hope to be mobile again.

Odd disquietening thing happened yesterday. Went to my acupuncture studio down Spadina, locked bike to bike stand by the curb, had appointment. Came out, bike was no longer there. It was leaning against the store next to the studio building, and the open lock was sitting on the carrier. No idea how, because the keys were in my pocket, but the rubber casing had been twisted around which has happened before when people tried to meddle with it. So... someone unlocked my bike but decided not to take it after all? Just to show that they could? (For once I *know* I didn't leave it leaning against a building with the lock open. I will sometimes wonder if I actually locked my bike to the stand, because on occasion I've succeeded in locking the bike to nothing but its own frame. That usually happens if there's another bike there with a short lock that makes it hard to angle my own in. But I do turn the key on the lock and I'd never leave it leaning against a building.)
( Wednesday again )

A prelude to the snow flurries forecast for tomorrow. So why were there swarms of midges dancing outside the window?

Could it stop raining ever? I seem to recall one day this week the sun came out oh so briefly- Tuesday?- and the city glowed. But ever since it's spit-spot rain or thud on the window AC rain or at any rate, rain, usually falling on the bicycle I leave locked outside. Must dig out the WD-40 or the lock won't lock anymore. At least the wind storm on Tuesday caused no outages here. Was, in fact, kind of a dud compared to the other storms this year. I could even bike in it.

While waiting for Books to arrive I thought I'd read Eco's Baudolino at last, that's been sitting on the shelf looking at me these many months. Only it isn't: it's the bio of Leonardo that's on the shelf. Baudolino has vanished, the way books always do in this house. So I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd instead, because even though I know the schtick, I remember nothing else of it. Hadn't even retained that it's a Poirot.

Also vanished is my sense of taste; or at least, is much diminished. This is probably now a feature of the allergy season. At least it disinclines one to eat.

The good: excused jury duty, medical.

The bad: results of x-ray, two cracked ribs on both sides. No heavy lifting 6-8 weeks.

The good: no heavy lifting, 6-8 weeks. Sorry Emma, Auden, Xavier, Waylen, Marc, Twins et al.

I like to read, yes, but this is the second weekend I've spent indoors reading while reprising the last act of La Traviata, and it's getting old. Although I suppose if I wander into Old City Hall in a week's time, hacking, sneezing, strangling and weeping the way I have been this last week, they'll send me back home pronto.

And I did finish Sabriel in a day, which I've intended to reread for years and of which I remembered absolutely nothing from 2003. So there's that.

So what have I been doing in this late October week when in happier days (2012) I was discussing Marvel films with Sabina and dragons with Genevieve? Coughing, mostly; drinking too much ie at all; eating out every day but today; and being called in to do shifts for other people when really I want only to sleep and sleep and sleep.

I shall do that this weekend, and barring Dolorous Phonecalls, Monday and Tuesday as well.

At least the General Meeting is over for this year. I had two babies both of whom fell asleep early and slept practically until meeting's end. One I actually woke up after 90 minutes so that her mother, alone for the week, might actually get her to bed before midnight. The other I let sleep, because if both parents insist on attending the meeting, they can live with the consequences. The avenging angel, I.

1. The thermostat is set at 20C and my house is still cold. (This is because the thermostat was actually at 16. It's now at 20 and the house is too hot.)

2. My android phone keeps giving me messages that the battery is overheating and asks me what I want to do about it. One option is 'dismiss' and I forget the other, but nothing much happens whichever one I click. Phone doesn't seem noticeably warm in any case. Google about, find the number combination that will tell you your battery's status (and no, it's not an option on the battery menu), check battery's status, am told it's dead. Still functions, but is dead.

3. Thought I had allergies, appear to have a cold, thus spent tedious weekend mostly indoors. Did finish Lucy Mangan's Bookworm: a memoir of childhood reading, which is well enough though I disagree with her on many things, including the superiority of Randolph Caldecott over Walter Crane. I can see why she (and Maurice Sendak as well) say so, but I prefer Crane to Caldecott for the same reason I prefer Botticelli to Raphael.

Speaking of Sendak, I also prefer Wild Things to Night Kitchen, and possibly Outside Over There to both, though not for the kids, of course. Night Kitchen is just too much Little Nemo in Slumberland for me, and Laurel and Hardy gave me nightmares as a child.

More pleasantly, finished Moominsummer Madness and The Exploits of Moominpapa. Moomin mère is the antithesis of Mangan's to my mind abusive mother, though Mangan doesn't quite say she is. Shall continue reading Moomins for the gentle pleasure of the world, so different from this one.

My mother had an unparalleled genius for losing things in her bed, or rather, in her half of the bed. Cigarette packs, library books, spoons, newspapers... I may have done her one better last night. Was sleeping, woke up to cough, nightguard flew out of my mouth and landed on the floor, Buggrit said I and went back to sleep. This morning I looked for it on the floor. Not there. Looked under the overhang of the futon platform drawers and the unclosing bottom drawer of the Ikea chest. Not there. Pulled chests of drawers out from the wall, releasing dust bunnies, which vacuumed, but no nightguard. Pulled platform drawers out, ditto ditto and ditto. Shoved Ikea chest to the wall, pulled heavy cumbersome platform into middle of room, peered at other side that sits next to wall. Nowt.

Ah well, thought I, there goes the surplus cash I'd thought to spend on a stove. Sighed, dragged futon higher on platform because it had worked its way down last time I flipped it, checked to see how it lined up with the top edge: and there on the floor at the head of the bed was my nightguard. Futons, so inert when you want them to move, so movable when you want them to stay put. Then shoved everything back where it belongs with my poor poor elbows and wrists, turned on air purifier, and took heavy dose antihistamine because dust bunnies in October are simple overkill.

However: room is now vacuumed and dusted and I have my nightguard back.
( Reading Thursday )

Chiz curses of this week was the internal shenanigans that prevented me from having dim sum with Petronia yesterday, last chance before baby and all. And as that was probably the highlight of my social season this fall, I am dejected. However, now that the bug seems to be fading (touch wood), so too are the wanhope and aches that accompanied it, for which I am properly grateful. There's always next year's convention, and baby will still be at the portable stage, so one may hope.

Toronto is at the blue and yellow stage of autumn and the weather is cold enough that the trees can be seen to advantage, which is something else to be happy about.

Very achy at work yesterday, went to get muscle relaxants from backpack, muscle relaxants weren't in any of the compartments. Could have sworn I had half a pack's worth left, but they weren't anywhere in my house either. This morning I reached into backpack to check for something and the first thing my hand touched was half a pack's worth of Robaxacet. I hate my bag of holding so much.

In a happier mood, last night was devoted to atmospheric dreaming. In one I was at a tony wine tasting laid on for my father by my godmother at the old-fashioned law office where he used to work, all walnut panelling and brass fittings and discreet lighting. (His real office was in a sterile 60s office building lit by fluorescents.) My brother was there too, but I had a feeling we'd kind of crashed the event. I wasn't supposed to, of course, but I opened one of the bottles, which is to say I sliced it in half down the middle and remarked in surprise to John that there was no core or pit in the centre- it was all yellow wine right through.

An earlier dream was about doing cleanup at the daycare, which wasn't the daycare but a second floor open-concept loft-like space with wooden walls. I was trying to get the last kid to go home with his parents (kid is the son of our local trans activists) but he kept on talking as is, in fact, his wont.

And in between was a sexual dream about the two oldest dragon brothers who sort-of kind-of kept morphing into Papuwa's Magic and Servis. I'm happy to encounter either set of brothers again in my dreams, and more than happy to have an erotic dream at all, because that just doesn't happen in the post-hormonal state.

Strange to see trees red and yellow stripping off their leaves in the wind when the temperature is 27C or 80F. Especially when the weekend was three days of grey damp chill requiring heat at night. I could perhaps have borne the (almost literal) washout of the holiday weekend better if this warm front hadn't been forecast to happen sometime, like maybe the holiday Monday. I could have been happy with the cold if it had been a little drier. I could at least have gotten my dark wash done and hung out. But as it is, meh: this Thanksgiving was pretty much of a letdown.

I read the Inferno partly because Sabina referenced it when she was here last spring, in the context of a deplorable family of payday lenders, IIRC. (Not sure I do- was comjng down with a sinus infection at the time and details are hazy.) It would never occur to me to associate modern day loan sharks with those guys sitting in the rain of fire, but hell, why not?

But also, at this very moment G is in Dante's Florence, as I was almost 40 years ago, and so there feels a connection that way as well. Mind, now I've read some background to the ever-pestiferous Guelphs and Ghibellines, I'm content to leave Dante's Florence to its own devices and move on to happier times under the early Medici. One feels that Florence must have been hell to live in during those centuries, but the resulting art was worth it.

My bike headlight has disappeared. I mean, the light on an elastic band supposedly used by workers who need their hands free, that I wear over my hat at night. Had it on Tuesday coming home from acupuncture, should have put it somewhere by the door or back in the pannier, cannot find it. Gremlins or maybe, alas, did put it back in pannier whence someone abstracted it some following day. Dollar store that had them has closed, maybe hardware guys have the same for, be sure, much more money.

After Bite Outdoors does indeed smell of ammonia, which I find reassuring. Won't help if, like the cook at work, I come down with Lyme disease.

Heat on last night (at 16C) leads to lovely morning lie-in in night shirt but no pyjama bottoms, amidst the flannel and wool and plethora of pillows. Would happily stay there till late morning, as I happily curl up there when it goes dark at 7 at night, but Work. Or, as last night, Dishes. Coming down to empty sink in the a.m. is a pleasure, but one comes down with coffee cups and glasses, so the pleasure is short-lived.

Wimp that I am, I caved and turned the heat on this evening. Just enough to take the refrigerator chill off the place, because outside is still in the teens and it shouldn't go below 10C tonight, a perfectly reasonable temp. But I'm laid low by allergies and the remnants of gut unhappiness and the aches that recurred in spite of yesterday's massage with the splendid Naoko, back from vacation, so I shall indulge me. Besides, it's going to rain for the next three days, so indulgence is warranted.

Naoko actually managed to stop my knees hurting for however short a period, which was amazing. Press in certain spots and the bones open up; I need only find which spots those are.

Weekend was necessarily quiet and FWD, reading Christie stories on my tablet. Today I managed the regular Sunday laundry and accumulated dishes, and also cleaned out ancient vegetables from the fridge and took them into the overgrown backyard and dumped them in the composter. The fridge crispers are now clean and empty. Then I cleaned the humidifier from the bedroom and soaked all parts in vinegar, ready for winter. So that's two little foot-dragging chores accomplished. I could make a list of all the others but then I'd never do them: it works better if I have a spare loose-ended moment and do it then when I'm not aware that I'm doing it.

Back to the Rainy Willow Store, because I'm not sure I want to read Mercedes Lackey's psychic whatevers being Smrtrthnu ie Sherlock Holmes. Possibly A Study in Sable gets better, but somehow... I doubt it.

Is it still full moon? Does that explain the three testosterone-poisoned loonies on bikes encountered this evening, zipping round corners, passing me on the right, zooming past me on the left only to brake abruptly in front of me when the light turned red. Add to that one pedestrian oaf ambling into a red light and not bothering to stop when I rang my bell and missed him by inches.

And the worst of it is that all of these goofuses are still alive, in spite of their evident death wish.

Just finished?
WJ Burley, Wycliffe and the Last Rites
-- a series, but not an inspector who really grabs me that much. Probably as well: autumnal will-less reading of British Inspectors is a bad habit.

Agatha Christie, The Sittaford Mystery
-- on the tablet, where it didn't parse very well. Well enough, I suppose.

Nalo Hopkinson, Brown Girl in the Ring
-- reread from 2010 and even better than I remembered. Helps to have a little knowledge of voudoun under one's belt and not just a vague awareness that there's a loa called Baron Samedi. As a regionalist, I'm for once delighted by the specific Toronto locales. They work because the book is set in a post-societal breakdown world where the well to do have fled to the suburbs and downtown TO is left to the mob and the cast-outs.

Reading now?

Still with Tell My Horse. The horse in question is the voudou priest that a loa takes possession of and 'rides'. The loa passes on messages by saying 'Tell my horse' ths and that, and when the priest comes back to themself, the onlookers do jut that.

There's someone who's reading through Shakespeare a few scenes at a time, which tiny morsels approach might work for me and my doorstoppers. So possibly I'm still reading Piers the Plowman while still not convinced it's worth it. As middle English goes, it has neither the fun of Chaucer or the strangeness of Gawain and the Green Knight and I'm probably reading it for sheer nostalgia's sake when I can't even remember which university course it was that I was *supposed* to read it for.

Next?
Forest of a Thousand Lanters by Julie C Dao.

Abandoned?
Raymond Buckland, Cursed in the Act
-- the one with Bram Stoker's stage manager and walk-ons by paper-thin historical people. Henry Irving has been poisoned! Henry Irving is not sufficiently poisoned that he can't go on tonight. Harry Rivers says, 'We must first find out who poisoned Henry Irving.' No, really? Not the most intelligent of books, this.

Mark Chadbourn, World's End
-- oh dear oh dear. As many Goodreads reviewers note, the premise is amazing. "All over the country, the ancient gods of Celtic myth are returning to the land from which they were banished millennia ago. Following in their footsteps are creatures of folklore: fabulous bests, wonders and dark terrors: there are dragons buzzing jet planes and shapeshifters on industrial estates, but their existence threatens the very fabric of the modern world." The execution OTOH is- oh dear oh dear.

We survived the 70-80 kmh (45-50 mph) gale without losing power, go us. I did walk the bike to Fiesta in the working-up-to-a-gale high winds in order to get bread and raspberries, and let said winds blow me back. Very dusty by the newly landscaping corner lot. Downpour later on must have settled the dust, temps went from 31 to 24, and are now headed to a seasonable 8C overnight: though possibly another cold front may blow through before that happens.

Fell asleep last night round about 7 or 8 with lens in and light on. Single glass of wine doesn't usually have that effect on me. Pulled myself back down to sleep whenever I came to the surface in order not to have a troublesome three or four hours of wakefulness, because these days it might have turned into 'irrevocably awake from 1 a.m. to 9.' Instead I was up finally at 6 something, did my exercises, and got to the coffee shop before 8 when the pastry was still warm, and still being brought up from the kitchen, and the place was empty. Dispiritingly, it starts to fill precisely at 8 when I shall never again be awake to repeat today's performance.

Reading Hurston's observations of 1930s Haiti is also depressing. Should skip that section and go back to the voudoun chapters, but my completist conscience won't permit. The voudoun section has its own blinkety-blink passages, like the one where a master is being interred and the title passed on to his successor. Hurston has no problem with the bit where the dead master is asked if he agrees to the succession and the corpse sits up and nods, but she's totally kerblonxed by an overwhelming sense of evil that attacks the assembly a few moments later, source unknown. 'American readers may not credit this'- the sense of evil- but are expected not to turn a hair at corpses that sit up. Yes, I've read similar things about Tibetan lamas as described by Americans, but enh- you expect that sort of thing from Buddhists.

1. Last night's acupuncturist did a dynamite job on my mug-swollen biting knees. Went down with braces on both legs, came back with braces in my backpack.

2. Sweet sweet ativan sleep in central AC on my embracing futon. Spent the previous two nights in front bedroom to use the window AC and tossed and turned into the small hours, trying one unsatisfactory pillow after the next. Last night was oh, so pleasurable, not even my phone's 7 a.m. alarm could bother me.

3. Shameless self-indulgent lunch at AGO Bistro in the belief their special hand-crafted cocktail would ease the back pain after my three hour shift. Didn't quite, but I had virtuous potato and parsnip soup, and rather too many slices of artisanal bread with unexpected baba ghanoush and sea salted butter (that's $9 for the bread alone), so that's three veg right there. Then calorific 'bergamot lemon tart' and their coffee, the only coffee in TO that tastes like first class hotel coffee in Europe.

4. Day being warmer than one might wish, the pleasure of stripping down to underwear, wrapping self in terrycloth sheet in the fan wind, cracking open a mini-Pepsi, and catching up on the online pages I didn't have time for this morning.

5. Accomplished three feet-dragging errands: stack of books to library including the hardcover Sleeping Murder whose cover had come loose from the spine: not my fault that I know of but might have been; topped up Presto card that didn't need topping for tomorrow's doctor trip, but now I can use it with gay abandon: *and* the two-hour limit is now in effect so I might get to doctor and back on one fare; took bike into a bike store about spongey rear brake expecting to have to leave it for some time and pay, but guy just took out allen key, untwisted nut at back, pulled wire shorter, and twisted it back. 'Next time we might have to go into it.' Good- my long-postponed tune-up will happen at Sweet Pete's, when it happens. (Also priced electric bikes while there. Over $4000 with the tax, so only when I win a lottery because I'm sure it will at once be stolen. Can't see me shoving that thing up my front steps with my twingy elbows. Keep believing that a new bike would be easier to peddle, keep believing that peddling old bike must return some muscle definition to my legs.

6. Down to Lil Smith library for a book that I couldn't read in e-format: pages required. Picked up a couple of promising mysteries while there.

And then...

Dropped by work because to be told dryer wouldn't dry. Well, it would get hot but it wouldn't tumble and no one knew if that was dangerous or not. So loaded unwieldy bag of half-dried blankets onto bike, a procedure which always makes the bike fall over no matter how it's locked to the stand, and took them to the refurbished laundromat three blocks away. At least it *is* refurbished, with efficient new machines and air conditioning, so for $1.25 I got all the toddlers' blankets done for tomorrow. Hope there's a solution, even if only drying in non-tumble, because the balkiness of my bike with a squashy parcel on the back makes me curse like a sailor. There are a lot of sharp bits on a bike to gouge you when the front wheel swoons and falls down.

7. But temps have dropped and it's a blue breezy night, already cooler than last night's low, and I may need another antihistamine to deal with the fallout of same. But windows open! for a day at least.

Cold, grey, wet: essence of school autumns remembered. The rain was that fine misty spray that nonetheless falls steadily and goes on all day. That I didn't get soaked to the skin is down to my rain gaiters and the 'water resistant' nature of the jacket. A real rain soaks through it in no time flat, but droplets just pool on the fabric like dew.

How right I was to buy a little space heater. Takes the refrigerator chill off the bedroom and is not needed once duvets and blankets have had their effect. One lies burrito-folded, reading this and that, and listening to the rain (still) falling outside.

Found a large mosquito bite on the back of my leg this morning, which was annoying since my AfterBite has vanished and I must have spent my ammonia on the raccoons. At the end of the day, at work, I had three more. Maybe they're not mosquitoes, though they bump and itch the same. But work is still the same building where I was bitten twenty times by invisible noseeums a dozen years ago and had to undergo two courses of antibiotics to prevent flesh-eating disease.

In spite of my s-i-l's cheerful advice on how to get out of jury duty ('Say you think he's guilty when they ask if you have any biases') (or even better- 'November? I think that's when my client's trial is coming up') I'm resigned to doing time in the jury box. This has convinced me I must get my knees as strong as possible in the next two months which necessarily involves getting my weight as low as possible. Began well enough on the weekend, easing down on the food and gearing up on the exercise; couldn't walk today because of monsoons, but resisted the urge to buy a cocktail at a bar or some wine from the store. Alcohol may prove the greatest challenge, because I'm convinced that's what I need when weary and aching after a long day. Must convince myself that wine, certainly, will give me a headache at this time of year and alcohol will upset my stomach, and that water and stretching removes the aches and stabs much better. Good luck to me.

Some day autumn will come. Wednesday was an unspeakable 34C, and even if the last two days have been a little cooler- tshirt weather rather than tanktops- it's still the greasy mug of a warm September in Tokyo.

Which may be why my summons to jury duty selection feels so last-strawish. It's not till November, fortunately. By which time I may have returned to rationality and welcome the break from work.

I would say 'Good-bye, August; don't come back' but alas, August has not left yet. Temps may be under 30 today but the humidex was pushing 40. The maitre d' of my favourite Japanese restaurant was condoling with me on the subject when I entered its dark icy depths at 4:30. 'Young people don't understand how worrying this is because they've never known normal.' Agreed, oh agreed. No more cool autumnal Labour Days, not for years past. It's always a continuation of August's soup.

The more surprising then that I should pass the merry Morris dancers dancing in Taddle Creek Park as I did, I could swear some time last year, but can't find the entry for it. Enquiry informed me that this is nothing seasonal, like May Day; is merely a meet up on the long weekend and will continue tomorrow at Dufferin Grove. The merry Morrisers are all middle-aged and grey these days, unlike the happy days of my youth when I dated one for a couple of months. I fancy they're the same people as 35 years ago. Well, except for a long-haired youth who came bounding a foot in the air with each step, the show off.

Last month again failed to stick in the mind, even though I bought (unsatisfactory) new singlets at Old Navy and semi-satisfactory new shoes up at Eglinton. Went to AGO Bistro two or three times. I find the place soothing, even if the prices outside Happy Hour are heart-stopping. Finally figured it's because the staff, or at least the ones I get, are solidly middle-aged and trained in the European tradition. They have a gravitas lacking to the bright young 'Hi, I'll be your server tonight' wakamono. Certainly the gentlemen are amiable enough but they have a decorum that makes me feel, oddly, like a cared-for child: oddly, given that I'm ten or twenty years older than they.

*Rilke didn't write "Whoever has no house now, will never have one." He wrote "Whoever has no house will never build one." Or something like that.