etc.

People in California are friendly. Is this a known fact? I haven’t heard it commonly noted that Californians are friendly, but that was certainly our experience during the trip (not that I’ve heard that Californians are unfriendly or anything, it’s just that some places have those wildly generalized stereotypes, don’t they? Like “Canadians are polite”). Monterey was understandably friendly, being a small, tourist-dependent town, but San Francisco was friendly too, which surprised us a little. It wasn’t just people in service positions too, it was random people on the street, on buses, in shops, in restaurants. There were people holding doors for each other, people giving up their seats on buses for each other, and people striking up conversations with strangers. So civilized and such a treat! I got so used to it, in fact, that yesterday I started talking to a stranger when I was waiting for a streetcar (we both got to the stop at the same time and just missed the streetcar; I saw it go by and she didn’t, so I thought I’d mention it to her) and her response? She huffed, turned to me, yanked her earbuds out of her ears, and barked, “WHAT?”

Oh yes, it’s good to be home.

• I would like another cat (a third!), a brand new, squeaky kitten, but the mister is quite firm on this point. So are the existing cats, they won’t have any part of it. Damn them.
• I am knitting the exitsing cats a blanket, one they will have to share because, while I have good intentions and plan on knitting two, I know that I will make it to the end of the first and say to them, “there isn’t a chance I’m making another one of these, my dears; you will have to share.” I’m using Lion Suede (in ecru), which is a heavy, soft, chenille-like yarn, which isn’t tons of fun on the needles, but oh! the feeling of the knit fabric between my fingers, it’s delightful. I think the cats will enjoy it, even if they have to wrestle for it.
• I’m weary to-day. I’ve been weary for a few days. I am ready for Spring.
• At the moment, my teevee roster includes Lost, Veronica Mars, Project Runway, The Sheild, Battlestar Galactica, and 24. As you can see, it’s a pretty substantial roster, but I hardly ever talk about these shows at all here. I’m not sure why that is, exactly, except that I watch most of this teevee peripherally, with my laptop on my lap, while I do interwebby things. Like right now, for example, I am blogging while Jack pulls out an arrow from the shoulder of an “other”. If you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about; it’s not quite worth explaining, so my apologies to non-teevee-viewers.
• Last week, I bought an issue of The New Yorker. I haven’t bought The New Yorker in ages, months, maybe years, and all of a sudden I feel like I need to incorporate some decent vocabulary into my regular communications. Words like vernal and behest. Anyway, decent vocabulary aside, there is a very good article by Malcolm Gladwell that deals with how to solve the problem of homelessness rather than manage it (which is what most cities do) using power-law theory. As Gladwell says, the theory is economically sound (it costs less to rent homes for the homeless than it does to run shelters and provide other such services, including health care) but morally problematic (giving a free apartment to a homeless person is not “fair” when there are plenty of people who are not homeless but living below the poverty line & struggling to make ends meet). We have a dire homeless situation in this here city, and I have no good ideas on how to solve it, so I’m always keen to read what others have to say on the subject, even if I have slight philosophical reservations with their solutions.

First up, thank you for your kind comments on the sushi bag! 15 comments on one post, I think that’s an e-j.com record!

Secondly, and unrelatedly: lately, I have been feeling like a reclusive crafter. I’ve been following a pretty regular routine of work-all-day, craft-all-night, with the occasional break to restock craft supplies and see family. I realized last night that I haven’t been to a stitch n’ bitch since last August (oh dear, it’s worse than I thought), and even though we’ve had some nasty winter weather between now and then, I really can’t blame the weather for lapsing into hermetic tendencies. And a lapse it most certainly is, since solitude is a bit of a natural state for me. So, while it is all very well to indulge oneself in solitude if it feels right, I can’t help but think that I am probably missing out on a vibrant local craft scene, one that is largely unknown and altogether foreign to me. So this morning, I set out for a bit of Internet sleuthing to get an idea of just how vibrant this local craft scene really is, and lookee here:

• Speakeasy – a gathering of local craft types with monthly shows dedicated to different media.
• Cabbagetown Arts & Crafts – with a pretty impressive fall sale.
• Church of Craft – my kind of church. Monthly crafty meetings, lots of special events, and Pedal to the Medal, the annual craft show, in December.
• Ladyfest Toronto – “Ladyfest Toronto is a community-based, non-profit event designed by and for women to showcase, celebrate and encourage the artistic, organizational and political work and talents of women.” And a fine looking art/craft/zine market too! Last year was Ladyfest’s first year and there is no word yet on whether or not Ladyfest 2005 is in the works, but I’ve sent a couple of e-mails and made a couple of calls and will let you know what I find out.
• Craft fair in the works? – a thread on Craftster that started in the Fall, petered out over the winter, and seems to have picked up steam again. I think I might have to throw my hat into the ring.

And so, into the breach! I can never resist a good craft fair (I’m going to two this weekend), so I think I’ll start by volunteering to help out at one or two, and maybe even get brave and rent a table at one of the fall fairs. I’ll keep you posted so you can stop by and check up on me. You know, just to make sure I’ve actually left the house.

An hour after I donated a book to the library I work at, I stumbled upon a clothing exchange operated by the local OPIRG chapter (a grassroots social justice group) where I picked up two free shirts. Maybe one book ≠ two shirts but I like it that good karma = free stuff.

Also, if you’re from these parts you will already know all about Conan O’Brien taping four episodes of his show here. You will probably also know that the city has ponied up a million dollars to facilitate this, and while I am usually the last person to defend government spending of public funds, there are far more egregious uses of said funds to worry about these days. And as difficult as it is to measure the tangible results of this sort of promo-based spending, it’s been interesting to watch the effect the taping has had on the city, and Canadians in general. At least the irony of the fact that it takes an American to get Canadians all boisterous about their Canadian-ness is not lost on us.

We had no power for 41 hours and 26 minutes and the neat thing is we weren’t overly inconvenienced by it. We had lots of candles, we camped out on the deck when the weather was nice, and when it wasn’t, we hunkered down in the basement and amused oursevles and the cats with bad singing and hand-shadows on the walls. What we didn’t have was batteries so all the news we got was from the short car trips we took and whatever was communicated to us over the telephone, which meant that we missed most of the political finger-pointing that has been going on over the past two days and the reports of the “criminal element” hamming it up. From what I could see, most people were being good citizens, offering rides to those stranded on the side of the road and directing traffic when the concept of the four-way stop became inadequate and/or too difficult for some to grasp. I took some pictures.

Ever since my commute went from a 15 minute bus/subway ride to an hour in my warm, zippy car on the highway, I have found it increasingly difficult to suffer the convenience of the TTC for any inter-city trips. So when I have to get downtown without a car, more often than not I take a taxi rather than public transit. And since I am therefore becoming a cab-saavy traveller, I was blown away by a little episode I experienced on Front Street yesterday.

If you live in this city and have cabbed in it even once, you will know that we don’t have taxi stands in Toronto, it’s purely a hail-one-of-you-see-one cab market. So when I was standing on Front Street yesterday, scanning the horizon for cabs, I was surprised to see a long line-up of people right in front of me, all collectively mumbling under their breaths about the lack of taxis. So I walked to the front of the line, and surely enough there is a post with a sign that read “Taxi Stand.” Only someone forgot to tell the cab drivers. Because, like me, there were many people along the street hailing cabs left and right, and taxis were stopping for them, but the poor chumps standing in the Taxi Stand line were being passed over because, presumably when you are standing at a Taxi Stand, you shouldn’t have to hail a cab, they should just stop for you.

So somewhat bemused, I joined the line at the Taxi Stand to wait my turn (ludicrous). I should tell you that most of the people in line were incoming tourists, the stand being right in front of Union Station, the main train station in the city. So while the line of 30 people in front of me became more and more nonplussed at the hailers getting cabs and the standers not, a taxi pulled up at the end of the line for a little old lady-hailer with her shopping in hand. Well, one of the standers had had just about enough of the iniquity of the situation by now, and while the little old lady loaded her shopping into the back seat, the agitated man reached in and started pulling the bags out, which got the little old lady very confused and resulted in a tug-of-war for the last bag and ended with her falling over in a befuddled heap on the sidewalk.

Obviously things had gone downhill very fast and while I felt some sympathy for the standers (me now being one of them), I felt even worse for the little old lady because this is Toronto – we don’t have taxi stands here.

It has been very cold in Toronto for a very long time. We’ve had temperatures as cold as -20° C for weeks, and that’s not saying anything about the wind chill. And the copious amounts of snow that fell in December are still with us, not in brown, icy clumps, but in white, frozen drifs, everywhere. And while it has been bright and sunny for most of the past two weeks, the 7 minute walk to my car at the end of the day has been tear-filled, ear-burning, and extremity-numbing. I usually like winter: the warm oversized clothes, socks in bed, the joy of constraining your cat in your lap for hours for the sheer pleasure of the heat. But it’s only January and I am already dreaming of Birkenstock weather.

This is a month of milestone birthdays for my family. My grandma turned 80 nine days ago, and my sister turns 30 today. That whole thing about not being able to choose your family gets me because I feel quite fortunate in knowing that I would actually choose every one of them everytime. Happy 30th birthday Ab!

Today is the National Day of Rememberance & Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. In 1991, the House of Commons approved an act to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre at l’École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989 that resulted in the death of 14 women, and to reflect on the broader issue of violence against women. Last year I attended a candlelight vigil at Philosopher’s Walk at U of T; due to certain proximity issues, I won’t be doing that this year, but I’ve found many other ways to mark the occasion.