Off the Cliff

Old age is when you can wrench your knee while lying in bed, which I seem to have done this morning. Walked to massage on it but taxi'd back because massage, as ever, makes things worse before it makes them better. Shall try a brace on it tomorrow though it's the knee that doesn't like braces. But it kept me from going out to lunch where I would have had a Cosmo or two, and french fries or rather frites with my main, and probably tiramisu for dessert. Saved from the evil to come. Though not for long: my former coworker who bakes is coming over tomorrow night with cookies and a pound cake, intended for various next doors, but I have never been able to resist A's cookies and half my next doors are currently away.

My Mrs. Bradley reading turns up a chiller whose first third is half Wicker Man and half Midsomer. Though now Mrs. Bradley has been called in, it appears things will default to the usual murder investigation. But there may be more weirdness yet.

 Doorbell rings. I grump my way off the sofa and limp to the front hallway and even though my porch is dark, I already know who it is. Two guys wearing broad-brimmed hats. It's the Orthodox Jewish missionaries again, though why they operate as they do mystifies me. Wish me a happy Hanukkah (or Pesach or Rosh Hashanah, as per season), ask if I'm Jewish, turn away and head down the steps when I say no. Pretty scattershot approach, that. Especially as they're going to ask my Turkish next door, Iraqi Prof north of him,  Lutheran Swedes north of that, and then into the Italianate portion of the block.

Though now I think of it, do the Orthodox proselytize? I thought not. But do Messianic Jews dress Orthodox? This is confusing.

Fifteen minutes later doorbell rings again. Am tempted to ignore it but it might be my garage tenant coming early, so grump me off sofa etc etc. And it's Sadie's mom from the south wishing me happy solstice and giving me a frozen mini-pie to celebrate. So that's ok.

Crapshoot weather. Will we have ice pellets, freezing rain, wet snow or rain rain tomorrow? Put down a sprinkling of salt on steps and walkway as a prophylactic to guarantee the last. And by luck, as I was doing so one of the Chinese nainais rattled by with her shopping buggy and collection of beer cans etc. My porch is dark so she didn't see the bag of cooler cans and the three wine bottles on the steps, but I was able to hail her and offload the same. Glad to be rid of those.

Am staying in tomorrow, whatever. Almost all Christmas cards are mailed and the remaining recipients are more New Years types anyway. Have also put in a grocery delivery for Sunday with the heavier staples and/ or stuff I go through fast, like soy milk and diet Pepsi. Which last I'm trying to wean me off of by substituting apple cider instead. Preferably watered.

Grocery deliveries feel like the prison world closing in once more. I got to the library and returned my one book in case snow and ice render the ways impassable, as they used to even when I was more or less able-bodied. Got raspberries from the corner greengrocers there, but foresee having to go to frozen pretty soon. And finally finally made it to the dollar store for a new pair of rust-coloured double thickness gloves, because my old pair is not only mismatched, one thick and one thin-and-freezing, but black, and I've misplaced/ overlooked them in my walker/ backpack three times this winter alone. Went out to lunch at the local, had my last pastry at the Bloor coffee shop, and hailed a cab because my joints objected to the incipient weather change and the oddly chill dankness. Had a nice chat with the fatherly Ethiopian driver, though it feels odd when someone in their 70s gets guys being fatherly, especially when he could be younger than me. Can't tell because he was a smoker and that ages the skin. Thus was able to get my statins from Blawblaws so no need to worry about that. (Of course my other scrip arrived half an hour later, as per email, but that one can wait.)

Because I never get head colds and my allergies usually involve stuffy noses, not runny, I've never been a tissue using person. But somewhere in the early pandemic I bought a box or two because toilet paper was being hoarded and now I can't seem to do without it. I clean my glasses with tissues, even though I have several handkerchiefs for the task. (Well, actually, left over from Japan that wots not of paper towels.) But there are three things I cannot keep track of: pens, bookmarks, and handkerchiefs. They slip down into the cushions of the sofa or fall down the side of the guest room futon or just... get covered up by stuff and only emerge weeks later. So for now, Kleenex it is. At least it's recyclable?

Snowed this morning. Good neighbour Chris shovelled my walk and steps. If I can move this week I must buy him a thank you present of some kind. The usual bottle of wine is fine but I'm never sure about buying alcohol for people with Iranian SigOths. Even Prof Islamic Studies though not Muslim- Zoroastrian, maybe, or Christian Gnostic-- doesn't  drink, or if he does, doesn't put his bottles out for the Chinese grannies or Italian signoras to pick up.

Have written and posted my long distance cards, and am fighting inertia to do the local ones. All I want to do is sit on the couch with beanbags  wrapped about my achy bits and read Mrs. Bradley. Did succeed in doing a long-delayed dark wash and in making what was supposed to be a curried ginger, squash, apple and sweet potato soup. But the ginger had gone green, somehow I had no cumin seeds, I held off on adding the sweet potato until the squash was properly softened, then left it to simmer for too long and let it burn. Luckily it was in a teflon pot and certainly the onions were beautifully caramelised. I'd also picked up a package of bruised pears from the Used Produce display and thrown them in with the rest, and they definitely added a certain je ne sais quoi to the mix.

Clear-cut December: dry light, sharp corners, clouds that run ahead of the wind-- and what a wind, aided by the new wind tunnel at Bathurst and Bloor. Thank you for nothing, Mr. Mirvish. But my views on the unholy marriage between climate change and developers' slavering over thirty/ forty/ fifty storey condominiums is well known.

Days like today say 'late 1980s' to me. What the defining moment was has vanished, though I have a fleeting memory of a coffeeshop on Bloor, one of the first in my 'hood to serve café au lait. Which seems all wrong: there must gave been other places, Second Cup started in 1975 though for all I know they didn't serve espresso drinks until much later. You wanted Italian coffee types, you had to go down to College St.'s Italiaville. (Come to that, the most popular Annex restaurant in the mid-80s was one that served pasta! Such a departure! because if you wanted ritzy Italian ie not spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce, you also had to go down to College St. Everything else up here was eastern European meat, meat, and for a change, meat; or greasy spoon diner standards. Though I could go for a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes, if that were findable anywhere.)

Well, now it's Korean Japanese, and that's what I had, though my regular waitstaff weren't on today. Still, I got out and walked, so yay for me. I'm still sleeping ten or eleven hours a night in the wake of last Monday's booster, but my arm has finally stopped aching. So maybe I might be up before 11 tomorrow.

Is DW changing something around or what? Gives me a total blank screen until I start typing and then I have the entry box again. Unless I stop and then it's blank screen time again until I resume typing.

Accomplished yesterday, though it was one of my owie days. Got my Chrsitmas cards, next year's calendar, and next year's daybook from Midoco, got a new sinus rinse set at the pharmacy because the old one was looking grungy (nothing like squirting bacteria up one's nose) also eardrops for wax buildup though what I wanted and they didn't have was polysporin for ears. Which I forgot to look for at Loblaws today. Couldn't bicycle because  knees objected even with the setting turned down a notch, but managed 40 minutes today, so yay me.

Did the math and subscribed to Kindle Unlimited because $10 a month is cheaper than buying half a dozen Mrs. Bradleys at 2.15 a pop and then discovered that the first month is free. Discovered also that it's scarcely Unlimited because after I'd snagged two titles I was informed that I'd reached my borrowing limit. Also it seems that I don’t actually own the titles I'm reading? That I've borrowed them only? Must look closer at the ToS.

Evidently one must see one's prescribing physician face to face every two years so today I did. Ascertained that Queen's Park subway has elevators, knew that Bathurst and St. George do, so set forth bravely ninety minutes early because not only am I Like That, so is the TTC. (Local joke: TTC stands for Take The Car.) First problem was that my boots were too loose so that the toe with the unhealed ex-corn rubbed annoyingly, and the walk to Bathurst thus took 30 minutes instead of 15. Second problem was the St. George elevator out of service (and I *did* check for outages as advised but of course...) But there's an up escalator which took the rollator just fine. Guy in a motorized wheelchair led me to the elevator when we got to Queen's Park and up we went. Unfortunately the elevator debouched in the MARS building, which is a warren very much like the Toronto General Hospital it replaced. In theory it connects to the Elizabeth St annex where my doctor is, but not in any way that I can see.

So I took myself outside onto College St, all torn up and single lane one way, so that bicyclists were whipping past me on the sidewalk. Found a little paved path to the side that went in the right direction and followed that, bumping painfully on the unmelted salt, until it ended in a flight of steps with no handrail. Retraced my route and trudged the long half block to Elizabeth St and the long half block down to the entrance and argh.

Appointment over, I got myself to the ground floor of the annex and tried following the signs that promised to lead me to the subway entrance through the MARS concourse. Then saw a sign saying 'exit to University Ave' ie right back to where the subway entrances are. Memory said there's an Aroma coffee shop just south of the MARS complex and I was getting hungry, so out I went: onto a curved drive that I have no memory of, a biting north-west wind that whipped my neckwarmer out of my hand when I went to put it on, and a taxi just pulling up with a patient. Reader, I succumbed and took the cab back up to Bloor (and it *was* backed up, because not only is College torn up, they park their equipment in the lanes north and south of College, reducing University's three lanes to two.) Chatty cabby said they should double-shift the work to get it done faster because 'look, 3 o'clock and they've stopped for the day!' True, but efficiency is not a Torontonian virtue.

Had him drop me off at one of my pre-pandemic fave restaurants which has erected plexiglass dividers between tables and where the same waiters are still working, still know to bring me a glass of white wine without asking, and are so happy to see me again: and very much vice versa, because I don't get around much anymore. This helped a little, but only a little, with the twingy walk home. I can't figure what's going on with the city's snow shovelling. I know we had a bobcat clearing my block because I saw the tire tracks, but the two blocks south of me have ice fields in front of several houses-- but only on my side of the street. The west side is all clear.

Anyway, that's that for another two years. Some day, she sighs, I shall be able to walk again.

First snow. Sadie's mom (I think) shovelled my sidewalk, walkway, and stairs. For which I'm grateful but so wish it hadn't been necessary. Am not ready for the confinement of winter. Makes me feel that nothing has changed in a year except that one knee no longer hurts.

Rained all yesterday so I stayed in and defrosted the mini fridge in my bedroom. Once a year whether it needs it or not. Managed a little vacuuming in said rooom, including a spider that had the temerity to walk across the ceiling, which is why I rejoice in having  a proper vacuum cleaner there. Should also have vacuumed the cobwebs that lurk in corners but my elbows were having rainy day conniptions so it will have to wait. For the same reason didn't get the windows shrink-wrapped, now that temps are plunging back to normal.

Also did two dish washes. Saving up the washing up for several days is supposed to conserve water but then the water gets too dirty and I need to refresh it so... Yes a dishwasher would be best, but then I'd need to redo the entire kitchen and to do that I'd need to redo the bunker and there goes 100K plus aggravation of dealing with contractors so no, not happening.

Got out today to buy staples and also bread. Been eating low carb and roasted veg these past few days which has resulted in the usual low carb tum upsets that nothing will soothe but the whitest of white bread. And marmalade, a rare treat.

Even with the warm temps this week I still haven't wanted to get out of bed in the mornings. This is because lying in bed doesn’t hurt and getting up, after a brief respite last week, does. Also I can always go back to sleep and enjoy my sociable dreams. That this results in stiff neck and shoulders is a minor drawback but I still have to stop.

I was going to take a water pill today but my body forestalled the necessity. After my third bathroom trip in as many hours I looked at the clock, registered it as New Time 8:15, and said Sod it, I'm not getting up  at this hour, and went back to sleep. Which led to a nice dream that I actually remembered, about visiting my sister in her dormitory room in Japan where she was studying. Room was actually western style with, I think, pale blue carpeting on the floor. My sister played an exquisite tune on the instrument she was studying before leaving for a lesson with her sensei. I knew what the instrument was when I was asleep, but it turned out to be one of those dream amalgamations that has no single equivalent in the waking world, like 'a flute that is also a violin' sort of thing.

My spate of limberness did not in fact survive yesterday's lack of exercise ie walking. Back hurt and right knee panged, so I dosed myself up and limped out to get coffee. Shall hope this works for tomorrow. I bicycled half an hour yesterday but clearly that doesn't help. Which is a bit worry-making. Winter is coming and, unless we stay mild, walking in winter is not always possible. I'd hoped things would have strengthened up by now but evidently not, or not always.

Out of curiosity I checked the active ingredient in my codeine cough syrup. It's hydrocodone which was the essence of useless last year after the operation. I believe that it once- once in a ten day period- had the happy-making effect of the cough syrup and was never as effective a painkiller as the anti-inflams. Weird. Perhaps the sugar makes a difference, because the syrup is so sugary it crystallizes.

Toronto drivers like to complain about the War on Cars whenever a bike lane is put in or speeds are reduced etc etc, and my usual response is 'diddums' or occasionally Suck it up, depending how scratchy I feel. But after today I might just believe in a conspiracy against drivers, even if one should not ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

As in, today I have an appointment at College and Yonge.  I call my usual company for a cab,  and call 90 minutes before for a usual 20-30 minute ride because I am Like That. First warning signal is no human dispatcher: now it's automated 'leave address and closest intersection.' Do, and wait. And wait. And wait. After 35 minutes cancel ride and head out to subway where taxis often hang out. Flag down one of Usual Company's cabs on the way. Driver is surprised that no one came: 'There were four cars in the area.' Oh well. And no, no cabs in front of the subway today either.

College is now a no-go area: tracks are being upgraded, great swathes of it are closed, including the stretch in my area, and it's one lane eastbound only after that. So we take Harbord, the e-w street north of College. Which is fine until suddenly Harbord is closed too. So we detour up to slow-moving Bloor and back down to Harbord where construction has ended, over to Bay (parallel to Yonge) and down that to avoid Yonge's perpetual construction/  bumper to bumper horrors. Then I walked over to Yonge because in spite of city stupidity and congestion, my wonderful driver got me there ten minutes early.

But when I'm finished the same problems arise. There's no way for a cab at Yonge and College, so I walk over to Bay and up another few blocks to where at one point there was a hotel where I hope to get a cab. But the hotel is now condos and the driveway in front of it is gone. I try to call for a cab from there but it's so noisy inside the building that I can't hear the robot voice. Finally squeeze into a corner outside and talk to the robot an d wait. And wait. And flag down another Beck taxi even though the driver isn't wearing a mask, doesn't have the usual plexiglass shield inside,  and has all his windows closed. 

It's only the middle of the afternoon but traffic crawls up Bay until it gets north of Bloor and then it stops where the condos start a-building again. Stop start, stop start, and know things will get worse once we turn the corner onto Dupont, the northernmost e-w street, because then you have condos, parking, and delivery trucks. We deak down through the Annex and finally cross Bathurst into My Territory, where I dismiss the driver several blocks from home because I need a latte and some pastry to recover. 

The chiz is that I have to go back to the same area in two weeks and am already trying to find alternative routes. I might even try the subway.

Quite a lot of leaves fell in Wednesday's all day rain, including the maple across the street that glows so lovely under the streetlamps at night, and the aspen beside it is half denuded, reminding me of what November will look like. My own two trees have shed enough to cover mine and NND's front steps and walks. I swept some this afternoon, but I need a leaf bag and rake to do the job properly.

The view up the street is still autumn brocade-- old gold, maroon, lemon yellow, bright red, deep green, and various others. Walking in the other direction earlier and passing under a stretch of all gold maples, I flashbacked to a length of gold velvet I'd had in my early teens. I've no idea where I got it from but the why I remember clearly. It reminded me of the production of Richard II that was my first experience of live action (or, come to that, film action) Shakespeare. Presumably there were other bright colours involved in it, but the sumptuous gold and velvet was what stuck.

My childhood reading of that English classic, The Gentle Falcon, had acquainted me with the historical background sof the play, so that I could explain it to my fellow students. We saw Richard because that was what was on, not because we were studying it. The choice that season was between Richard and King Lear, and presumably the nuns thought the former to be less traumatising. Good call: everyone who does Lear loves to pull out all the stops with the storm and my startle reaction to sudden loud noises would have been sorely tried. 

Otherwise I trundle about on aching muscles, not joints. Am being disappointed on the food front. Went down to the greengrocers to see if there were still strawberries to be had and there were: Ontario for $7 a carton or organic for half that. So I got two organic cartons that have the bonus of being in papier maché boxes, not unrecyclable green plastic crates. Turns out they have no taste at all. Then tried out the new fried chicken place that replaced KFC, Mary Brown's. Supposedly a Canadian Maritime chain, supposedly better chicken than Popeye's. And yes, the chicken was plump and tender but you have to ask for the non-spicy version or else they slather the bun in hot sauce. I'm not only not a fan of hot as a sensation, I hate the taste of hot sauce,  period. It kills the flavour of anything you put it on, much as catsup does. And catsup at least has sweet noted in it; hot sauce is sour.

So, having eaten the chicken without the coating or the bun, I came home intending to stir fry some broccoli and tofu in ginger. I don't use enough non-olive oil to buy bottles of peanut or canola or grapeseed or anything you can heat to high temps, and anyway oil is also getting expensive. But I was pleased to find small bottles of stir fry oil at Loblaws, that I could use up before it went rancid. What I hadn't noticed was that it was garlic-infused oil which I think is intended to supplement, not replace, a more regular oil. And though you don't need much for the small portions I was cooking, still however I feel about garlic (not a great fan), garlic definitely still dislikes me. Stomach has been rumbling all evening.

On the up side, my Ima Ichikos arrived in extremely prompt fashion. Worth the additional $25 I paid for delivery, though why the Japanese PO still won't deliver things by airmail or SAL is a mystery to me. Or maybe they do but Buyee insists on using a delivery service for everything overseas.

Evidently everyone agrees that the year's fall colours are spectacular. A pity I wasted half a day not seeing them because my bed was so warm and comfy and I didn't want to face the day. With reason, because for no reason at all all my muscles hated me. But I went out anyway and had the bulgogi I didn't get yesterday, with macarons for dessert, bought from the new patisserie that doesn't take cash. Then walked home as the western sun turned the leaves to flame, or to lemon often enough, because it's a vibrantly yellow fall when it's not being a deep and unlikely shade of red.

Oh,and I also vacuumed my bedroom because the bright sun showed up all the dust bunnies. I assume this has to be done every week now, even with the windows shut and the furnace off. I have no idea where all this shed skin comes from. But the oddity was that though I get low back pain from vacuuming and always have, and though every other muscle was unhappy with me doing things like walking, my back was quiet as a lamb. Welcome but puzzling.

Tomorrow is municipal elections, and though I have no idea how to vote tactically to get rid of our useless mayor, I must vote anyway. Mayor Tory the tory will get back in, I'm sure, because business likes him as they like his drug-pushing comrade, Premier Ford. Toronto's politics tend to be much farther left than the rest of the province, but it's still the province's financial centre, and at times like this it shows.

One of the more irritating things in this current round of My Body Hates Me is that the glute spasms, which are indeed muscle spasms and acutely painful, have started occurring when I'm lying on the side room bed reading or whatever. They've been much better overall, what with the stretching I do, so I can't see why lying propped up should invariably lead to conniptions. Especially since they don't happen when I'm sitting on the sofa with my feet on the hassock. But the sofa is in the coldest room in the house and the side room has the space heater. No fair, I say, no fair.

However after record-breaking lows, temps have soared up to the mid-teens with beautiful sunny skies-- light jacket weather which might actually get me out of bed at a decent hour. I had two 1:30 appointments this week and had to set an alarm for both, because I'd happily sleep past noon otherwise. Granted, grey rainy cold days are sufficiently painful that it's common sense to stay in bed where one is warm and reasonably pain free. But then you miss half of the current amount of daylight, and when it's sunny and warm, you miss the glorious fall colours. At a quarter to November those leaves may fall at any moment and some have already done so. Maples, mostly, so that the sidewalks and gutters are awash in deep red. That's the other side of the street. The trees my side, including the lindens and ironwood, remain obstinately green, and any maples about are simply fading to yellow. 

So there I was patting myself on the back over how well I was managing to heat the person not the space. Thermostat pushed down to 15, thermometer showing 20 or 18, haven't had to use the furnace even with single digit lows. Come home from the afternoon's piggery to hear the unmistakable sound of the gas meter doing its thing. Thermometer may register 18 still  but thermostat thinks that justifies turning on the furnace which I have happily running for who knows how long now. Ah well. I have an $180 credit on my account, thanks to somehow paying last month twice, so next month at least is taken care of.

Did succeed in closing the rusted in place outside sliding window in the perpetually cold side bedroom. There's two more panes of glass and plastic between it and me, not to mention a shoji screen and curtains so I don't know what effect it will have but psychologically very satisfying. Tomorrow the front room windows, though I'm still hoping for a major warm spell in November. I can hope: long range is for seasonable temps ie cold.

Was rooting about the mudroom the other day in search of something I won't find until I cease to need it, when I glanced at my bikes and thought Wonder if I can get my leg over the bar now? Tried and couldn't. Well, what about the smaller one? Tried and... couldn't. This left me disheartened, because it seems I'll never bicycle again and never walk unassisted again and oh woe is me might as well move into assisted living now.

Today I was going to hang some clothes on the line-- the window for which BTW is closing rapidly: if you don't get them there before 10 they won't be dry by 4. They promised us a warm fall which so far is not happening: highs are in the normal mid-teens which doesn't warm the house or dry the laundry. And I thought let's just try the bike, and this time I got my leg over the bar no problem. I'm still wobbly doing it and wouldn't dare trying to actually ride it, but still. Progress of a sort. But really, everyone was all about getting your range of motion back and nobody said a word about being steady on your feet. Certainly in the spring I was unable to stand on the scale because it wobbled and now I can. But sheesh, that took six months??! Equally, in the spring I could walk without the rollator for short distances but now muscles cramp constantly and I daren't let go.

Picked up a P.D. James from a Wee Free earlier this week when I was dining out and forgot to bring a book. Began reading and thought 'actually this isn't bad' and then my hamburger arrived. Picked it up today and within a page there she was again, burbling on for paragraphs and paragraphs about the beautiful proportions of the rooms in a Georgian house. Back to G. Mitchell who is currently burbling about Edinburgh. I can stand her geography porn much better than James' architecture porn because Mitchell's geography doesn't involve moral judgments, while James' architecture certainly does. In James, spoiling the lines of a drawing room by making a huge space into something more efficient is a crime worse than either murder or incest.

Mind, Mitchell occasionally prattles on, giving you information (like who is sitting where in relationship to whom at a dinner party) that actually has no bearing on the case in hand. Actually that dinner party happened before there was a case at all, and the whole set-up was one grand red herring.

The first cold spell always feels colder than it is. What would have been 'thank you, God' weather a month ago (high 18, low 13 ie mid 60s, mid 50sF) is 'can I turn the heat on?' now. Shall get used to it. But I've had to adjust my reflexes: for three months I've walked on the shady side of the street and now I must seek the sun.

The other thing Gladys Mitchell does is flora porn, but I rarely notice it because almost all English writers do. Those weedy things that grow in ditches get lovingly named and itemized: loosestrife, vetch, cow parsley, columbine, ragged robin, viper's bugloss, field scabious (some very unfortunate names there), bellflower, cowslip, foxglove, and the snake's head fritillary. Makes a city child's head spin.

Weighed myself again, first time in weeks. I'm maintaining in spite of riotous indulgence in alcohol and pastry. Which means I am indeed getting enough exercise with my walking. And if I cut the empty calories I will lose. But though empty, those calories are necessary, either psychologically (cake) or physically (alcohol.) There must be some way around this but I can't think what.

Petronia said she was going to watch the Queen's funeral on YouTube, which I didn't  because I was too stoned to do much of anything earlier in the week. But I somehow wandered into excerpts last night, because Mitchell mentioned The Flowers of the Forest, a Scots song that somehow escaped my notice in my Scottish music buying days fifty years ago, which turns out to be what gets played at royal funerals. And somehow from there got into clips of the ending of Return of the King which I will never watch in its entirety, not only because of Jackson's ham-handed mangling of the text but because I really can't stand the greasy hair on all the male humans. Hobbits don't have greasy hair. Women don't have greasy hair. But the men of Gondor and Rohan have never heard of shampoo. This bugs me far more than it should. Anyway, had a little weep over Bilbo and Frodo leaving Middle Earth, and then went to bed.

Went and looked at bank balance today. Balance was oddly hefty so called up individual transactions. City did not deduct my property taxes on the 15th. Now, sometimes the withdrawal is delayed if it's a weekend, but usually it shows on the 16th. So maybe this is my Poor Old Woman tax rebate? Which if so means I'm more flush than I thought and can buy both a vacuum cleaner and another quarter's worth of lenses.

As a hint that this might be so, I put on my hapi coat to go to the super in today's heat and discovered a five dollar bill in the pocket.

And after going out, I turned around at the corner and came back  because the western sky looked extremely unsettled. Downpour commenced fifteen minutes later. My weather sense for TO's climate is the finely honed result of decades' practice.

Would that other abilities remained finely honed. I blanked on the word 'quantum' and not only couldn't think of it, I couldn't even think of any related words that might lead to it. Flailing about I got to Somebody's cat-- not Schrodinger but some kind of blind stab at it. Luckily Google intuited my intention.

Prof Islamic Studies has an apple tree in his back yard. Apparently he's had it for years but this spring was the first time it flowered and this fall the first time it's borne fruit. Alas, tree is now so tall that half the apples fall on their neighbour's garage roof, and the other half get gnawed at by various urban fauna.

The other bad news is that New Balance is owned by  a Trump supporter/ major donor.  I hope my shoemakers remain open so I can get my current pairs resoled at need, because one can't support the man but equally, nothing is as good as New Balance shoes.

Well, I could have done a laundry today- hamper is getting fullish- but I slept in past ten and it was going on noon by the time I was exercised and fed, and the wildfire smoke was supposed to reach us midafternoon. The fact that I was already smelling woodsmoke seemed less like fires and more like people messing about with house building. So I went and got my prescription that the drugstore now emails me reminders of-- and won't let me have any earlier than when they say, which frets my belt and braces soul. I want to know I have it on hand a fortnight ahead of time. Mind, these are one a day meds, so the pharmacy knows when I'm due to run out.

And then I futzed about and decided I wanted a hamburger, so trundled down to Pour Boy and had chicken and rice vermicelli and veg instead. And by that time the light was looking eclipse-like and the sun was westering in orange haze, so I put my mask back on and came home. 

Have still not called the junk guys to remove the wood from my old deck, nor the furnace people to ask why the furnace fan clunks when it turns off. I grow increasingly feral and contact avoidant and don't know what to do about it. Though I'm seeing petronia tomorrow and that might jumpstart something.

Strangle-cough,  tickle-throat, post-nasal drip, earth-shaking sneezes to clear all the previous.

Mug. Even when cool, mug, hence sweaty grime, sodden clothing, twinging joints.

Wasps. Fruitflies.

Special to this year: canvassers. Must make a sign for the front door warning them to stay away. Crippled people with social anxiety don't need to talk to you to decide which candidate to vote for.

'-Thus in the world there is no earthly trust.'

I was coming back from my coffee shop when a woman I don't know stopped me and asked  'Are you Canadian?' and when, puzzled, I answered in the affirmative, she said, 'The Queen just died' and started crying. 'I just saw it on my phone and I had to tell someone. She was queen longer than I've been alive. And I've had so many losses...' and couldn't continue. I consoled her as best as I could, but what could I say?

It is and isn't a shock. Failing health, yes, but I was expecting something drawn out over several weeks like the Shōwa emperor, with bulletins every morning and a gradual sinking. Not  'Tuesday greets new PM, Thursday dies.' For sure that's how heart attacks and strokes work, but again, I wasn't expecting either of those.

Booming overhead like catastrophe

ie the air show, once again. Should have gone out for coffee before this, but oh well. I don't need the pastry that goes with coffee, especially since the one time I got out this weekend I bought two slices of pie and ate them both in the course of a day. I do so love pie...

Otherwise we're having a cold dip. Yesterday was 16/61, last night I froze with the window fan on, but we'll soon be back to muggy 25/77 daytime temps. The promised sun keeps deferring itself so my laundry is ditto. Things have loosened up a bit physically but spasms still happen, and I wonder if I'm going to be using a walker for the rest of my life.

Finished my two Mrs Bradley's, found my other two library books unpleasant, should probably try getting through the Anne Perry I picked up but it still reads bloated to me: like wading through sticky mud.

Even when temps are seasonable as they were so gloriously yesterday, the elastic of one's waistband- both waistbands- and the elastic of one's bra will be soaked through after ten minutes' walking. Underwear can go to the laundry but you're supposed to rinse out sports bras every evening, which means it won't be dry by the next day, which requires having a number of sports bras. This is a nuisance.

Evidently this is a year for wasps. I believe they may have made a nest under my front steps because for sure I see them going in and out of the cracks. Oddly, this is preferable to having them out the study window because the window has no screens and wasps wander in, get caught in the net curtains, and become both loud and stroppy about it.

It's also a year for fruit flies. This is a problem when you have ripe or ripening tomatoes, because they can't go in the fridge. I have mine covered with a towel, which works so far.

None of my new summer trousers fit with my post-op weight gain so I've been relying on the old comfy pair from the dollar store. (I do have other pants from the Before Times but they both slide down my hips because I still weigh less than when I got them.) Yesterday I saw the store had them in stock again: same material and colour but slightly different configuration ie closed at the ankle. But they had 3X size so I happily bought a pair. And discovered once again that an Indian 3X is what we call a medium. So it's back to the bicycle machine for me, after rash indulgence yesterday (two Cosmopolitans) and today (small strawberry rhubarb pie).

Evidently muggy was not the word for yesterday. The humidex was *37* all yesterday evening. No wonder I dripped on the way home.

Today was marginally better in that a temp of 22 had a humidex of only 30, but of course it rained. Once again I got out between cloudbursts to pick up meds. And could have made it to the library for more holds this evening after the rain turned to magnificent purple and gold cumulus clouds, but elected to wash dishes and vacuum the living room instead. Then essayed getting onto the floor- easily done from the couch- and the exercise my chiro gave me yesterday- a variation on the bridge that can't be done on a mattress and that I can barely do on the floor. Of course, then came getting up which is letussay problematic. Or problematic on rainy humid days when knees refuse to play nicely.

Because it's allergy season I can't drink wine and don't want to drink tonic, so yesterday I bought various coolers to try. And my but coolers work remarkably well to iron out the achey pains. Fewer calories than I would expect, less sugary than my local's Singapore Slings, but also- really not something I should be drinking at all.

Christopher Fowler does not like Agatha Christie, as he says so very often either directly or in side swipes. But I'm finding Fowler's recs unsatisfactory, so when  I returned the tedious Miss Hargreaves yesterday, barely forty pages in to its 300 and many,  I got a collection of Christie short stories and read them tonight most happily. 

Oh, and that Innes was truly like a reverse Murder on the Orient Express, and even more unlikely. Shall say no more for fear of spoilers, but yikes.