Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Hot, humid and Smokey!

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Guess what – I did feel better on Sunday! So, in the early evening, at about 6 p.m. my husband, our dog Midnight and I headed out to the Taste of the Danforth.

Yeah!

It was hot on Sunday, but not quite as hot as they’d been predicting. Only 27 Celsius or so – but with very high humidity … so by the time we got to the street festival it felt like 37 Celsius or so (98 F)! Hot! When it’s that humid out you just feel sluggish moving around in the heat … yeah, so why not go out into a huge crowd where it was likely even hotter? LOL

We lucked out and got a parking spot near the start of the street festival, so within minutes we were able to walk to the closed off street festival.

The air was hazy – partly due to the humid weather and partly due to all the open grills cooking up Souvlaki and other delectable food items! Oh and it was crowded! News reports estimated that approximately 1.4 million people attended the festival from Friday evening until it’s close at 8 pm Sunday.

Here’s a photo of the crowd:

Crowd at Taste of the Danforth 2

The picture doesn’t really show how crowded it was … basically think about a four lane street crowded with people for several blocks (maybe 2 miles or 5 km of people along the street?), then you’ll get the idea.

As you can see from the picture above there were food stands, amusement rides like a big Ferris wheel, a fun slide, a crazy house ride and more. There was also a rock climbing wall, beer tents, and a few bandstands where Greek and other multicultural bands entertained the crowds.

Fun stuff!

Chris and I and our dog walked about half the street festival as we tried to find food that we wanted to buy. We ended up getting Gyros, Spanokopita (spinach pies in Filo pastry) and several spicy vegetable Samosas. Everyone we passed looked hot and sweaty due to the heat! I’m sure, despite the food that people lost weight as they walked around! I doubt anyone there needed Solo Slim that day! Not me anyway! I was soaked!

Oh and as I waited off to the side with the dog as Chris bought food for us at various vendors I must have stood in a stream of smoke from the grills. When I got home all I could smell was smoke!

I would have hopped in the shower pretty much as soon as we got home, but as it turned out the biggest electrical storm of the summer started up just after we returned home.

I wished I’d thought to take pictures of the lightening! We spent two hours watching the storm overhead. Big thunder and tons of lightening! There was sheet lightening – cloud to cloud, and big solid strikes that looked like the lightening was hitting just behind one of the houses across the street.

I’m surprised that 1. we didn’t lose power and 2. that no big trees in our immediate area came down either from the wind or a lightening hit.

So anyway … I ended up smelling very smokey for a few extra hours – until I felt that it was safe to get in the shower!

Anyone else in the Toronto area go to the Taste of the Danforth this weekend? How did you like it?





Taste of the Danforth – a food and music street festival Opa!

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It’s that time of year again when people flock to my neighborhood in droves for tasty Greek food, music and cultural experiences. Yes … it’s time for the Taste Of the Danforth – one of the city of Toronto’s biggest street festivals.

The festival, which started yesterday at 6 p.m. and ends on Sunday at midnight is just blocks from my home. It’s nice to have such a big – mostly free – event so close to my home. Luckily we live far enough away that we hear little noise from the Million or more people that attend the Taste of the Danforth each year.

I wasn’t feeling so hot today … to tell the truth I’ve felt pretty awful for a couple of weeks straight now (thanks Crohn’s!) so as much as I wanted to attend the Taste of the Danforth I just couldn’t. Perhaps I’ll feel more up to going tomorrow, however I’ll have to battle the heat tomorrow as it’s supposed to reach 32 c with high humidity so it will feel like it’s over 40 Celsius (104 f)!

Even though I haven’t gone to the street festival yet this year I’ve still had a taste. My husband was out early this evening with his sister and brother in law who’d come into Toronto to see a Blue Jay’s baseball game. He met up with them downtown for drinks and as he was coming back home by subway I suggested that he stop off on the Danforth on his way home (two blocks from the subway station he got off at) and pick us up some food.

So he brought home 2 Gyros (mixed meat sandwich wrapped in pita), Spanokopita (spinach pie/filo pastry), Baclova (very sweet dessert) and one chicken souvlaki stick. Just a taste of everything. Delicious!

Our dog got so excite at the smell of the food when he came home that she started jumping around and almost knocked over the tv stand. Lucky for us it only teetered a bit before settling.

If I do feel well enough to go to the Taste of the Danforth tomorrow I might try some of the other types of food available. People probably think that it’s mainly Greek or mediteranian food that you can get there, but you can get Thai, Indian, Sushi, Mexican, Spanish …. just about everything. After all, the Danforth is one of the most multicultural areas of the city – so why not experiment and try new foods?

If you are in the Toronto are this evening or on Sunday I strongly suggest that you stop by the Taste of the Danforth festival (on Danforth Avenue from Broadview to Jones). You’ll love the experience!

Redneck neighbors!

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I think my neighbors are moving out next week. Yeah!!!

They moved into the house next to us in early January and it’s been one thing after another with them since! Ok … they’re nice enough when you talk with them, but honestly some of the things they do just drive me nuts or make me shake my head in wonder!

I wrote about them a while ago on one of my other blogs- how they don’t really take care of their Lab/ American Bulldog mix puppy, how the guy bought a third car – a boat of a car (Buick Regal) and now every second month it’s parked in the driveway … well wedged in our tiny shared driveway so that we can’t access the driveway or side of the house from the front … and so on.

Then there’s the tires! In the past month the guy has rolled a total of eight tires into their backyard. What he’s planning on doing with them I don’t know, but there they sit with weeds growing in and around them. LOL

Oh and I’m sure many of you know that we’re having a garbage and city workers strike here in Toronto? It’s been more than a month! All residents are supposed to hold on to their recycling, but the city has set up temporary dumps (much to the dumps neighborhoods dismay) so we can still get rid of our real garbage. You know, the smell stuff!

Has our redneck neighbor taken any garbage to a dump site? Nope! There’s maybe 6 bags of smell garbage sitting in the driveway along side their house and uh … 12 to 15 bags of recycling … all of it smelly!

I can’t open the windows at the side of the house because of their smelly garbage and all the flies it’s attracting.

We’ve asked them several times, politely, if there were going to take their garbage to a dump site soon. As it turns out the guy is a little scared to take it because some of the dump sites have huge delays and the strikers and residents get into scuffles. I still think it’s time he tries taking the worst smelling of the trash away. It’s becoming a health hazard!

We’ve only got two bags of recycling. We try to be efficient and given the strike we try not to buy a lot of prepackaged stuff so we’ll have less to recycle. We also only had two bags of garbage and Chris has taken those to dump sites when they were full.

Now that we know the neighbors are about to move we’re wondering if they are going to take all their garbage with them or just leave it there. Unfortunately I suspect they’ll leave it. They are apparently going on a trip to the Outer Banks once they move … so even if they take their garbage with them I guess it will sit at their new rental home until they return. Argh.

It’s so frustrating living beside people that just don’t care about the home they’re living in or about the neighbors. I guess since they are renters and know they aren’t staying nothing matters to them.

Do you have redneck neighbors too?

Jazz in the Park – every Wednesday

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In keeping with our plan to attend at least one of Toronto’s many interesting events or festivals once a week throughout the summer, Chris and I went to an outdoor Jazz festival last night.

It was Chris’ birthday yesterday and he loves Jazz music so he suggested we go to the “Mosaic Does Jazz” Jazz in the park festival that’s being held every Wednesday evening from 5 pm until 8 pm at the Coxwell Parkette from July 1st to Sept. 2nd. It’s close to our home and man, was the music ever fantastic!

We saw the Terra Hazelton Quartet and as I said the music was great. The singer had a beautiful bluesy voice just made for singing Jazz songs. She was accompanied by a Jazz guitarist, a bassist and a drummer.

We had thought that the music was to start at 8 pm so we didn’t actually get there until about 7! Oops! We brought a friend from work, our dog and three folding chairs and parked ourselves about 15 feet from the center of the stage.

I didn’t realize that there would be other things going on in the small park, but when we got there we noticed that there were a couple of vendors selling food like hotdogs and hamburgers, a coffee shop, a person doing massage, someone doing therapeutic touch and a jewelry booth with lovely pearl jewelry. I’m sure there were a few other tent booths that I missed.

There was a good crowd. Probably people that lived in or who were shopping in the neighborhood. Lots of kids too. One little girl, maybe a year old, kept trying to climb onto the stage! Oh and our dog barked whenever anyone applauded and that warranted a “woof” from the singer. LOL

Oh and in response to the person that commented on my post “time to stop letting life pass me by” where I first talked about attending a Toronto event once a week …

He said “An event every weekend? Isn’t that kind of overdoing it? Doing nothing can feel like a waste of time, but doing too much can be too.”

My response … well I’ve been sick and on medical leave from work for the last few years. Believe me, I haven’t done too much and I’m sick of it. Toronto is a great city with tons of things to do in the summer (despite the garbage strike stinking up the place!). Believe me, I won’t overdo it as my body won’t let me. Going to a park to watch musicians play won’t overextend me nor will going out for a couple of hours to one of Toronto’s many food festivals. I just want to get out and do things when I’m feeling up to it and as I said summer in Toronto is the perfect time to attend events, try foods that you’ve never tried before and just get out and feel alive.

I hate it when the power goes out!

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The power was just out here from 3:30 until about 4:30 pm. I hate it when the power goes out. I was in the middle of doing something on the computer – just about to publish a post in fact and boom … out goes the power.

For a while we seemed to have several short power outages each month, but it’s been pretty good over the last year … well except for that transformer that blew up in January that was just across from the hospital that’s just down the street from us. That caused the power to be out for about two hours.

At least we have a gas stove and a barbecue so if the power had been out for a long time we still would have been able to cook. Actually if was out for a few hours we’d probably have to cook as we have a lot of food in the freezer that would be thawing! LOL

While the power was out I was BORED. I couldn’t do any work on the computer or watch TV so I thought I’d go into my backyard and take some photos of the flowers that are currently blooming. Only problem was that my neighbors were in the driveway and their backyard BBQ’ing and talking loudly. I like quite when I’m taking nature photos so I ended up just staying inside with the dog and reading a magazine.

I have the news on now and I’m trying to find out what caused the power to go out, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to talk about it.

Does the power go out in your area every so often? For short periods or hours at a time? What do you do when the power goes out?

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