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Stayed in Sunday and Monday due to snowing at near-freezing temperatures. The cold is one thing but I hate being around the possibility of ice. No, I didn't enjoy Boston winters, why do you ask? Plus I don't travel with snow boots, just crocs and shoes.
Yesterday was slightly nicer and I had a dental cleaning, plus some shopping, and going for shawarma. I rediscovered how *long* the wait to walk at Dufferin is. Toronto definitely not optimizing for pedestrian comfort. I also had two car scares on the shawarma walk: crossing Bloor, a truck tried to run the yellow light and would have been stuck in the intersection if we pedestrians hadn't waited to let it pass. And combing back, some other car left-turned into a driveway in a way I wasn't happy with.
It occurs to me that when Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes talk about stroads, they mostly use examples of suburban six+ lane roads with lots of parking lots and businesses (thus creating tons of intersecting paths and chances to hit someone.) It occurs to me that while urban streets are rarely so wide and fast and don't have quite so much parking, a fair number of them do have the proliferation of driveways and intersection risk.
Unrelatedly, I think I'd never actually run a dishwasher before staying at this place. Most places I've lived haven't even had a dishwasher. If they did, well, I live by myself and am used to washing up after meals, so I didn't use them. If staying with people who did have one, I might unload or load the thing, but left running it to the owners.
But my current hosts seemed really insistent that I use it rather than and wash, and there's no drying rack or scrub pad (though there's a brush), so I acquiesced. Actually ran it once without obvious problems. But the second time I used more soap, and... SUDS. Apparently you're not supposed to use dishwashing soap (which they do provide) in a dishwasher. Or more precisely there's hand dish soap and machine dish soap.
books: Shogun, Clavell. Long, decent. Simply dropped a plot point.
Circe, Miller. A re-read. Still good. Though Circe has a very inconvenient set of "weak god" powers.
Complete Persepolis. Had never read the second half.
Reading All the Birds in the Sky for a book group. Critics seem to have liked it a whole lot more than I am; I would have called it "poorly written" and "joyless", not a Locus and Nebula winner.
Yesterday was slightly nicer and I had a dental cleaning, plus some shopping, and going for shawarma. I rediscovered how *long* the wait to walk at Dufferin is. Toronto definitely not optimizing for pedestrian comfort. I also had two car scares on the shawarma walk: crossing Bloor, a truck tried to run the yellow light and would have been stuck in the intersection if we pedestrians hadn't waited to let it pass. And combing back, some other car left-turned into a driveway in a way I wasn't happy with.
It occurs to me that when Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes talk about stroads, they mostly use examples of suburban six+ lane roads with lots of parking lots and businesses (thus creating tons of intersecting paths and chances to hit someone.) It occurs to me that while urban streets are rarely so wide and fast and don't have quite so much parking, a fair number of them do have the proliferation of driveways and intersection risk.
Unrelatedly, I think I'd never actually run a dishwasher before staying at this place. Most places I've lived haven't even had a dishwasher. If they did, well, I live by myself and am used to washing up after meals, so I didn't use them. If staying with people who did have one, I might unload or load the thing, but left running it to the owners.
But my current hosts seemed really insistent that I use it rather than and wash, and there's no drying rack or scrub pad (though there's a brush), so I acquiesced. Actually ran it once without obvious problems. But the second time I used more soap, and... SUDS. Apparently you're not supposed to use dishwashing soap (which they do provide) in a dishwasher. Or more precisely there's hand dish soap and machine dish soap.
books: Shogun, Clavell. Long, decent. Simply dropped a plot point.
Circe, Miller. A re-read. Still good. Though Circe has a very inconvenient set of "weak god" powers.
Complete Persepolis. Had never read the second half.
Reading All the Birds in the Sky for a book group. Critics seem to have liked it a whole lot more than I am; I would have called it "poorly written" and "joyless", not a Locus and Nebula winner.