It’s pretty much business as usual around here, in the cozy bedrooms north of civilization. Which is to say, as usual, there is rampant inaccessibility, unavailability, and inedibility. Follow along with the bouncing ball, if you will.
There is a bus that goes from Newmarket to the Toronto Yorkdale subway station and back. This bus used to run every hour on the hour, until suburban bedtime, which, according to GO transit, is eight o’clock. Now, to serve us better, it only runs every second hour between mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I found this out when the previously available 15:25 northbound bus failed to materialize. I am always misplacing my printed schedule for the #68 bus, so I had printed off a new version to lose that very morning, and that very morning, the internet confidently told me the bus would depart from Toronto at precisely 15:25 as usual. I arrived at Yorkdale with enough time to snag a Tim’s tea before the bus. Which was nowhere to be found on the screen that shows arrivals and departures. I went up to the wicket to enquire WTF is the #68, and the GO guy was happy to report that the schedule changed on November 4. He helpfully handed me a paper copy of the new schedule. Maybe he could send one to the internet as well.
So, armed with the new schedule, I set off downtown for some R&R, intent on catching the four o’clock bus. I arrived at the stop with three minutes to spare, which spared me from too much time in the gale force wind and ice pellets. The bus arrived. The bus is now a double-decker bus, doubling the capacity of the more comfortable coach-like bus that held, at most, five or six people per journey. I reached for my Presto card, which should have been right where I put it, in my right-hand coat pocket. It was not. I checked all other pockets. No Presto card. I sheepishly backed off the bus, and walked home, retracing my steps in case my card had fallen out of my coat. Sure enough, my card was on the sidewalk, just at the top of my street near the mailboxes. I waited an hour, and caught the five o’clock bus. Crankiness fully intact.
Two weeks ago, when I was by myself for dinner and being lazy, I conjured up take-out from the Chinese restaurant a few blocks away. Despite my sloth, I was feeling particularly adventurous and decided to order the Pad Thai. My sloth went into remission long enough to allow me to walk out to collect my dinner. That’s when everything went sideways. The Pad Thai had rice noodles and some kind of red sauce, and that’s where any resemblance to the standard components of the dish ended. It did not have bean sprouts. It did not have peanuts. It did have random vegetables, like broccoli, and onions, and something that looked kind of like bok choy. It tasted like crap.
Then, just a few days ago, with my Pad Thai amnesia fully manifested, I picked up the phone to order my mainstay, Cantonese chow mien. The restaurant phone number was disconnected. So not only can I not get Chinese and Thai food within walking distance, I cannot even get bad Chinese or Thai food within walking distance.
You can imagine my pent-up frustration. The best cure for pent-up frustration, in my experience, is to take it out on the gym. I grabbed my duds and headed off to the LA Fitness spinning class. As I walked across the parking lots in the pouring sleet, I though the better of deciding to leave the house. But I forged on, knowing I would feel so much better after the gym class. It feels so good when you stop. I stashed my stuff in a locker, filled my water bottle, selected a bike, and got ready to sweat like a pig. I, and my fellow sweat machines, waited patiently. Five minutes went by. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen minutes went by. No instructor. I bailed, did some half-hearted weights and sit-ups, then put my coat on. Just as the breathless instructor hurried in the door, a full forty minutes after the start of the one-hour class. I skated home on the freezing rain, not very sweaty at all, well in time for my eight o’clock bed time.