Posts
To think that I saw it on Mulberry Street! Well, on the walk and subway ride to Dearborn Street, really. I took the long way to the subway today. If I remember to allow the time. I walk one or two subway stops beyond our local station for the exercise. But when I haven't allowed time for that, I walk briskly around the block before entering the station. This is my nod to the need for exercise.
Today there was a line-up of ten people at the fare booth. Either it was manned by the slowest clerk in the TTC (and they have some pretty slow ones: old guys on the verge of retirement) or, because it was May 1, everyone in the catchment area was buying a Metropass for the month. Exasperated, I finally slipped behind a hapless purchaser, dropped my ticket in the slot, and raced for the subway, which I could hear arriving. I missed it.
Oh yes, during my circuitous walk to the subway I couldn't help seeing that—this being May 1—the Toronto Construction Season has officially begun. The south side of Bloor Street was blocked off for what appears to be re-surfacing, which reduced the traffic from four lanes to two. The eastbound, downtown-headed drivers (who wouldn't be caught dead on public transit) were proceeding at a crawl, if at all. I sensed the air filling with road rage.
Ian Rankin kept me from noticing a single thing on the subway. I was lucky enough to find a seat, and my eyes didn't leave the page once during the trip.
Back on shank's mare, I felt my heart open toward the Asian family that runs the flower store on Broadview just below the Danforth. Their storage area is a shed/garage behind the shop. In order to bring out their seasonal flowers and plants they must push the tall, wheeled, plant-loaded racks over the gravel and mud of the driveway and onto Dearborn, then around the corner and past the coffee shop until they reach their store, at which point each rack has to be emptied and the flowerpots and buckets of cut flowers and flats of plants arranged on the wooden shelves in front of the shop. This morning five of them were at work—one of them a woman my age who was alternately tugging and pushing her much-too-heavy cart.
After the turn I saw a For Sale sign put out by a smart owner. The front yard of the house sports a large magnolia tree that is just now in full bloom, and the For Sale sign has miraculously appeared just as the tree is at its most magnificent. Coincidence? I think not.
Scylla abounds in many of the little gardens I pass, although my own is almost gone, already superseded by grape hyacinth and my lovely, vicious vinca.
No comments:
Post a Comment