Off the Cliff

It's supposed to stop raining tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to get out of bed before noon, which I haven't for three days running, either because I sleep in to past 11 or because I wake up, realize everything will hurt more if I get up, and go back to sleep. Or try to. Last night I couldn't get to sleep until past 2 and then kept waking because cold or owie or both.

Did get out to the super between rain showers and it was nice enough in its Novemberish way, but still. Grey dank and leaf-sodden is getting old. Also bro and s-i-l have had the cough of doom for two weeks, which is probably covid in spite of bro's constant precautions, so no visits from them. 

There's a copy of the Hasui print my icon is taken from, going locally for a mere $850. And I am oh so tempted to shake the money tree and buy it. But money tree needs to pay for my never-ending physio (is there no cure for low back pain?) so I won't.

It may be the shortest day of the year, but because of the astronomic thingy I never got straight, it shortens from the start of the day and sort of? drags the light in the early direction? so that now it's light at 5 where two weeks ago it was dark. This is fine by me because getting up at 9:30 a.m. as I did today counts as 'up early.' The joys of retirement: rarely having to be anywhere before noon and no longer fretting about whether I'll be physically able to work.

Lost the laundromat bingo though. Place was crowded with maskless types and someone was doing massive loads in the dryers and someone else grabbed the dryer I had my eye on between me doing sniff test and me getting clothes from washer. Fortunately the dryer that failed the sniff test to start with had aired out, so no stinky dryer sheet residue. But the new coffee corner plays music, LOUD, and plays Christmas music, which is worse. (Four more days. Only four more days.)  Granted there were legit carols in there too, but O Holy Night at top volume is still painful. So in the interim I walked the loooong block to my old coffee shop, where a nice young(er) woman opened the door for me both in and out. Saw Zoe, my step grandson-in-law's SO, queried about other step grandson-in-law's wedding, it's happening in August,  he wants to wear white and the bride wants to wear black and it all sounds sasuga Daycare H's family.

Leg has been miles better than before. Still a bit swollen but no longer pangy in the muscles and tendons. To compensate, both knee and ankle have started aching again. Mind, in this weather even the operated knee aches. Cold is not kind to joints.

Today was a Leg Will Not day, something that happens increasingly often. Seems I need an hour's worth of acupuncture and cupping, and thirty minutes will not do. Yesterday was no fun either, but I walked some of it off. Today I walked as well, to the LCBO, and gin has made things much better. Also took Ibuprofen, that my doctor wants me to limit severely, since NSAIDs after 70 cause heart attacks. But as I pointed out to her, if it's a toss-up between maybe a heart attack and definitely sitting on a sofa all day moaning in pain, I'll run the risk. At least I no longer reach for the ibuprofen by reflex. Let the tylenol do its pathetic best, and then reach for the ibuprofen.

Somewhere towards the end of 2019 or maybe early in 2020, the laundromat guy had the makings of a coffee bar erected in a corner of the building: which then sat untouched for nearly four years. Last time I was in a carpenter was attaching frontage, and Friday when I went in the coffee corner was up and running. The lattes are too strong for me but they also have pastries, oh dear. I could maintain that I only go there once a month but I think it's closer to two or three: and may increase if I keep on having bad leg or bad knee days. 

Chuffed to discover there's a government dental subsidy for the impoverished aged, then annoyed to discover you can't apply online though they say you can. But they want you to sign the thing by dling it and printing it and mailing it to them. And how many of the impoverished aged have laptops and printers, I ask me? With Adobe Acrobat reader which you must use, accept no substitutes. Library doesn't expect to be back online before January when the snow falls. I might think the gov't was, good heavens, trying to discourage people from applying.

I suppose for some people who live in the future, Canada Post's 'weigh it yourself, measure it yourself,  print it yourself, pay online with a credit card' system may be a boon, but I think you still have to bring it to a postal outlet.  And the option of inputting the details to a smartphone and then having them print the label may save time, but they still require that you pay in advance with a credit card, which frankly I'm not prepared to do. And they still require a phone number for your recipient, which one may not have. Yes, I know- invent one because odds are good they won't call. But it's an awful lot of faff IMO.

If I had a printer and if you could just toss the parcel into a post box I might be tempted. But I don't and you can't. So at some point-- maybe the weekend when temps will hit 5C and tomorrow's snow is melted-- I shall limp to the post office and mail my parcel. Or cab it. Physio is adamant that my swollen leg is not owing to the cyst but I think different. And my grumbling knee is certainly caused by it. Ah well. If my doctor us right, using Voltaren will cut the inflammation from six months to four. I should be mobile by (sob) March.

I lost my harmonica, Albert.

(Can't remember what song that's from.)

Meaning I've lost the stylus for this thing.

At least it was sunny for the Santa Claus parade yesterday while I went to the laundromat up the street from where the parade was massing. They say it kicks off at 12:30 but I was still hearing marching bands at past 1. Maybe they take a while to get going. And the caravan of cars going home was still happening at past 2, all northbound streets and any side street you can name, though the drivers were much more courteous than in past years, for a wonder. 

Then it clouded over and rained all night and this evening it's snowing.
 
Today I thought I'd go up to Highway Robbery Medical Supplies to see about upright walkers and getting my brakes tightened. I made it, barely, my leg in spasm and my knee crumbling all the way. To meet with an extremely unhelpful sales clerk: evidently no walker comes higher than mine (which I can't believe-- you mean someone 6'6/ 2 metres  tall has to hunch over my 5'8 walker?), no we don't carry upright walkers (the clerk last spring said they could order them), and no we don't do maintenance, here's the number of someone who might. Does he do house calls? She doesn't know and cares less. Took a cab home and tipped handsomely because just getting to Bathurst and Dupont is hard enough. All major streets are parking lots these days, but of course Bathurst has always been a bitch.

I hope the leg pain has something to do with weather because then things might get better some day.

How interesting. I go up to my doctor's ($75 in cab fare there and back and no, she is not 'just round the corner' from her old place.) Ask her to ascertain if the Baker's cyst behind the knee is in fact a Baker's cyst and not, say, a blood clot. It's not a blood clot but equally it's not a Baker's cyst either. She could find nothing behind my knee to cause the stiffness and swelling and *extremely painful* shenanigans in the calf. (Physio worked on those a bit yesterday, just pushing gently at the calf while I tried not to scream in agony, then said 'It's much looser than it was last week.') So off I go for xrays and ultrasounds tomorrow. Mh.

And I am done with Beck cabs and their automated voice messaging dispatcher. State my address clearly 'Five forty three Blahblah St, Toronto.' Chirpy computer voice: 'If this is five-oh-five Blahblah St, press one. If not, press nine and try again.' 'Five hundred and forty-three Blahblah St, Toronto.' 'If this is 543 Someother St., press one. If not press nine and try again.' 'Five. Four. Three. Blahblah. Street. Toronto.' 'If crackle fi-crackle crackle Stree-crackle' Hang up and call Diamond and get, oh frabjous day, an actual human being. Diamond it is from now on, especially since both drivers took devious side streets whenever the traffic on Yonge or Bayview or Eglinton started to turn into a parking lot. Which it did on all three, at one o'clock on a Thursday. Construction, I must assume.

And of course, no sooner had I put my call in than a garbage truck rounded the corner and started picking up the garden waste. Thursdays are not the day to take cabs. But luckily there were three empty spaces right in front of my house and the thoughtful truck driver pulled into them so cars could get past, one of which was my cab. This is why I called for a cab ninety minutes before my appointment. And in the event I was in and out by the time my appointment was due to start.

Also I am not yet diabetic, which was a relief. Pre-, of course, but given my sugar addiction not a surprise. 

I didn't know Byatt was Margaret Drabbble's sister. I found Drabble as unreadable as Lessing back in the 70s: the horrible lives of women who must, for some unrevealed reason, marry men was Martian territory to me, and this at a time when I still thought I was heterosexual. But lord those writers were Horrible Examples to avoid-- by, evidently, being celibate. 

(When people asked why I wasn't married, I'd answer, 'I don't have to be. I have my own money.' As much now as in Austen's day, I was convinced. Which may prove only how asexual I actually was, even if I had no word for it at the time.)

I read an early Byatt and looked at Possession, but never could get into her. Also, whatever I may think of Jo Rowling now, Byatt's snit fit twenty years ago because people were reading Harry Potter and not reading Seerious British Writers, ie her, left a bad taste in the mouth. But the real nail in the coffin was her spoilering The Shepherd's Crown and then humphing about What's the problem with that? meaning she had no notion of how genre conventions work. I never got the impression that she was a large-hearted person: rather the reverse, actually. And maybe it's an occupational hazard with writers of a certain generation, but that doesn't mean I have to cut her any slack. If Pratchett could be a decent human being, I think she could have done better.

Sun in a dry November, especially a warmer than average November like this one, lifts the spirits amazingly. Have been humming Sting's Fieldsof Gold for two days now as I trundle about the city. Physio today followed by laundromat. I cleverly left the face cloths to be washed draped over the bathroom waste paper basket as a reminder to take the scrubby nylon cloths too. They live behind the shower curtain so I'm apt to forget them. Alas that I didn't have a mnemonic for my terrycloth sheet as well, which I only rememberd once I was at the laundromat. At least there was hot water for my towels and sleep hoodie. But now I discover what the deal is with the new washers whose price seemed to change arbitrarily. It's not arbitrary. Cold wash is four dollars, warm is five, hot is six. There are still a few one price for all machines but they don't take the large loads.

Had a donwanna morning, loath to get out of bed, wanting only to roll back to sleep. But doing that got me once again the persuasive 'Remember that person you killed back in the 70s?' dream, so I perforce had to pull myself awake to shake off the horrors, which only disappear once I'm actually out of bed and into the reality I'm trying to avoid. I think I need a few more meatspace people in my life. Chatting with my Korean physio helps but once a week isn't nearly enough. This is why I wanted a dog, she says wistfully, so I could chat with all the other dog owners. But even if I could walk, dogs mean getting up at 6 a.m. which I simply can't do.

So, fingers crossed, I seem to be doing good day- bad day with this cyst. Which is a relief, because after Friday I was resigned to 2015 levels of crippledom. But yesterday I actually got down to the cellar to put through a wash. And the good news today is that the laundromat has its hot water back so if I feel wobbly on those handrail-less stairs, I can always go there.

Today has been swollen-owie and only foam rollering my leg has kept me relatively mobile. But equally, though getting up from the couch is iffy now, it's iffy in quite another way from before ie it's not my knee that complains but the back of my leg. So maybe quad strengthening is having some effect after all. 

Alas that in Tuesday's despair I bought booze to curb the pain and one bottle of same was Bailey's Irish Cream, which was the only thing that would ease the agony of inflamed teeth back when I had them. Granted I'm eating less and healthier than ohh a week ago, I doubt it's enough less to offset the delicious calories of Bailey's.

The new pocket pedometer arrived but it isn't up to the old one. When there's a 400 step difference between it and my phone in the phone's favour, something is definitely up.  But it still counts steps when I move while the phone insists it must be in my trouser pocket to work, and nowhere else.

In amongst last week's wanhope I thought to start crocheting me a new neck warmer so fetched out the green yarn that matches my winter coat and plunged in. Crocheted the first row, turned and crocheted the second and then-- was left with a row of stitches on my hook and no way to crochet a third. Got my Joy of Crocheting book from the bedroom but it said I should have a strip of crocheting dangling from the hook and I didn't. Looked at YouTube videos and couldn't see what I was doing wrong. Gave up in despair. I still can't tell you what it is you do but the memory came back to my hands a few hours later-- you pul the wool through two loops not one, basically- so now I do a few rows a night. I can only do single stitch because that's what I was taught and it's my hands that do the remembering, so I can't do what I haven't learned. I can't follow written instructions, picture instructions, or video instructions. My grasp of spatial relationships is almost non-existent, which is why I have to be very careful when reaching for things or moving objects around, or otherwise I knock stuff over. At least I've mostly stopped walking into doorframes. 

It seems to me that in classic mysteries of the Agatha Christie sort, the know-it-all who hints darkly that they suspect someone whom of course they will not name, promptly becomes the next victim. Of course one must not murder one's detective, but it would help if someone at least bashed Gideon Fell over the head when he starts doing his 'I know but I won't tell you' routine. Actually, I think he did get knocked about more in earlier novels but at the moment he's keeping schtum while the bodies pile up in reckess abandon.

Otherwise, this being the last guaranteed dry day for a bit, with high winds forecast as well, I got a laundry on the line at last. We're also back to a run of warmer than average temps, so no furnace till late next week. Anyway, I have underwear and shirts enough to last me a fortnight. Glad that's done.

The last time I walked past Spadina, my phone said 4000-some steps. Today, in spite of doing 1300 in the morning, it will barely go over 3,000. This must come from carrying it in the breast pocket of my winter coat. Am certain I went over 5k in any case.

The reason I was limping two and a half subway stops was someone on a neighbourhood FB asked if anyone had a toaster oven going spare.  I have the beast I bought in early lockdown that is both slow and complicated to use and I could use the counter space. And because she has mobility issues too I said I'd bring it over to her street. What I'd forgotten was that three years ago I could still bike and had brought the thing home on the carrier. It turned out to be too big for the walker's basket so shou ga nai, I put it in a bag and put the bag on the seat with the bag handles looped over the walker's ditto, and gingerly trundled it over. Toronto may be all smug about its curb cuts that supposedly accommodate wheelchairs and strollers and whatnot, but all I can say is I hope I never have to use a motorized wheelchair let alone a standard one, because there's always a ridge of broken paving between the street and the incline, unless the incline itself is cracked and broken. Even taking things slow and using the lift thingy, I nearly lost the oven twice, once being actually rescued by a kind young thing who grabbed it as it was sliding off. I hear that Americans envy our accessibility but in the words of the old song, It's not that we're much better, it's just that we're less worse.

Still I got to see the houses with their decorations still up, on a blue and gold windy evening, so there was that.

Somebody moved in to next door, and because the move was into the back, must have moved into the downstairs apartment. Wonder if J is still there- it's her house, after all.

There will be a power stoppage Thursday morning, 9:30 to 11:30 they *say*, to replace a transformer. If it's the same transformer that keeps blowing and causing brief blackouts, then thank Ghu, but I may sleep in Thursday in any case. Temps go wintry this week but I still am reluctant to keep the furnace on overnight. Think of all those people who live in old farmhouses and simply bundle up. I've put the under blanket back on the bed- that's the ratty blanket I sleep on top of, which rests on two quilts to make a nest of sorts, a trick I learned in Japan. 

Acupuncture yesterday was most effective. One accomplishes so much more when things don't hurt. Hope it may continue.

My lenses are on backorder and will be in stock Nov 2. Which I should have figured for myself. That being so, I doubt the backup place will have them either. Pity. That $70 could have bought me a snazzy meal somewhere. However my eyes have adjusted to being mono-ocular faster than expected and a good thing, because the lens eye still wells and itches. Age, leaf mould allergies (rain and unseasonable warmth) who can say? So I continue to beaver on through MDZS and its anvillicious queerbaiting, but OK we were all young once and this is doubtless her way of doing UST. And meanwhile there's mysterious and no doubt tragic backstory, which is one of my kinks.

Also Heaven Official 1 is In transit, so must get through MDZS 2.5 and 3 before it arrives. With this incentive Lydia Bennett Witch doesn't stand a chance, so back she goes too. As soon as it stops raining.

Evidently the 'oh dear' part of yesterday's scale was water weight because I spent most of last evening disposing of same, up and down, up and down, and this morning I was nearly two pounds lighter. So I don't know why my knee was having such conniptions, but it was, even after acupuncture. Have applied both ice and heat and trust things will be better tomorrow.

This is a very slow autumn. A couple of maples on the street are bright red but the others, including the one across the street from me that usually glows beautifully under the street lamp, are still a washed out green. Maybe they'll turn eventually, but more likely they'll just drop off, like my cherry tree.

Four thousand steps today onaccounta walking past Spadina to Nick's Shoe Repair to see if my boots are resoleable. I googled the hours just to make sure they were open- it's Saturday they close at 2-- but when I got there... no more Nick's. Or Dorfer Shoes next door, either. Outdated webpages, fooey. Yes, when I first googled I got a listing for a Nick's down on Yonge-- way down on Yonge-- but I assumed it was a second store. Yeah, well. I vaguely recall that end of the world round Adelaide is being torn up or something so nope, not taking the walker down there, esp if there's no elevators at King St. 

Kitchen Table is still on the block so I went to see if they still had party sandwiches. Nope again, so I bought some (cold) blueberry pancakes and sat in the park to eat them. Only they were blueberry banana pancakes- label was handwritten, in cursive, so I hadn't registered it-- and I hate bananas. So much for that. Stopped by the LCBO and bought two bottles of wine to console me, then limped the rest of the way home.  Exercises have accomplished this much, that my knee and my back take turns hurting. Today was the knee-- but of course they only trade off when I'm using the rollator. Walking without, as when I put the garbage out, will set both of them screaming.

Came home, collapsed on couch, and eventually went upstairs to see how defrosting the mini fridge was coming. It wasn't, because I hadn't turned the thing off, just down to the lowest setting,  and left the door open so poor little fridge was trying desperately to cool down. Shall try again tomorrow.

And seriously wonder if I'll ever get strength back in my legs.

The cold is currently blowing in. Farewell, our summer weather. (Didn't use the AC last night, woke up sweaty this morning. Give me a day or two and I know I'll be moaning Cold so cold ohh it's so cold. But thus autumn, always.)

My physio, as is the habit of physios everywhere, on checking my exercises says Ur doing it rong. Clamshells are to be done slooowly, and held for three seconds each time. This makes my morning pre-breakfast pre-walking exercise sessions interminable. But if it works...

I hope Wishart isn't going to develop Patterns, where it's the unsuspected Nice Guy who's always the villain. Like Cadfael, where it's always the smooth charming young man. Of course I'm reading them so fast that I can't remember who dun it in the second last one I read. No matter. Marcus Aurelius is on his way to me-- may even make it to the library in time for the Monday holiday-- and that should provide a change of pace.

Have an Uncanny Valley hangover today on account of not being able to find my pyjama bottoms last night (which are really repurposed viscose pants, because pyjama bottoms are cut too narrow for the way I sleep.) Usually I step out of them in the morning and leave them lying on the floor, but sometimes I hang them on the ladder chair. And last night they weren't on the floor or the bed or the chair. I even checked under my bathrobe, also on the chair and which I haven't used in a couple of days. They weren't anywhere. Poltergeists or a glitch in the matrix or something: anyway, black water seeping into reality. Until today when I went to check under the bathrobe again and registered that its texture was too smooth for terrycloth. On the dimness I prefer to keep my rooms at, my black pants had blended into my royal blue bathrobe and I hadn't noticed. So reality reasserts itself. Sort of. More or less.

Things still being stiff and spasmy on the left side for no good reason at all, I accomplished very little today. But finally cooked up the rabbit livers bought a day or two ago. I wanted chicken, but all Fiesta had was organic livers for five times the usual price, and I thought rabbit might make a change. Very disappointing: less flavour than chicken and tougher. Oh well. At least I used up the leftover ginger and oranges, even if I didn't get the broccoli cooked to go with it. Iron overload, and not really needed when I cook my livers in my cast iron frypan.

Well, if you stay up to 3:30 ayem reading Marcus Corvinus, you can't expect to wake up much before noon, so I consider myself virtuous to have been up at 11:30. Though not so up as all that, given the time needed for exercises and all. Also was dreaming of being at the cottage with my bro and Mom and Dad, remarkabe because I never dream of my parents these days, and an amazing rainbow in colours that rainbows don't come in, and going off to get them something from the store but being distracted by the appearance of a charming 3 month old baby girl, and 'Sorry, I have to go play with this little one.'

Windy day, extremely windy in 'knock 'em down' fashion, but that might have been the fault of where I was walking ie along Dupont to Spadina, with all the condos a-building, and then down Spadina to Bloor where all the condos have been built. Well, highrise apartments,  anyway. Also they're tearing up Spadina on the west side at Lowther-- sewers, one hopes-- requiring a detour to the east side amid both the rubble and the crocodiles of school kids coming up from ohh I dunno, the JCC or something. Though there seemed to be a school tour of high or middle school kids congregated outside the Native Canadian Centre, so they might have been coming from there. Anywaym I limped down to my old sushi restaurant that I frequented two years ago, pre-operation. And it still seems I was in better shape then than now, except for the knee. But I strongly suspect I was a good deal lighter then than now. Whatever, I keep on keeping on, hoping that walking will strengthen *something*.

Why I was walking on Dupont was to get to the Shoppers Drug there, one of the select few that sells Seniors and Students TTC passes. My current Presto card is a regular one, and minor though the difference is ($1.05) and little as I use transit, it still bugs me to pay full fare. So now I'm set up for the future, if any.

I seem to have spent all of yesterday thinking it was Sunday, being mightily confused when PostSecret hadn't changed since last week, and being mightily confused this morning when the weather page kept showing me Sunday's forecast no matter how often I refreshed. Clearly I need to get out more. Which I did not do today because it kept looking like rain.

Firefox looks as lousy on the tablet as I expected, has no bookmarks bar, and seems to have crashed Livejournal into the bargain. The Down or not? webpages assure me it's up but I can't access it on either tablet. Technology, feh.

Because the lows are getting into autumnal mode, and because a low of 10C/ 50F feels positively wintry after a run of 22C/ low 70sF at 6 a.m., last night I put the down duvet back on the bed. With the result that I refused to get up this morning even though I was awake at 8. Well, and had to get up briefly because cool temps start the debloat process which means shedding water weight. But then I rolled back to sleep not once but three times in my wool and feather nest and had pleasant dreams of my brother and Peter C from uni setting up some kind of computer/ tv/ Wurlitzer for me in one of those familiar settings that will never précise exactly.

Otherwise had a massage that loosened up a few tendons. But things still spasm afterwards. This is getting really old.

One must move to move,of course, but an achy joint day might not be the best time to wash my stairs, given that the elbows wouldn't grease. But they're slightly cleaner than before, and I wasn't up for the task of vacuuming the downstairs and washing the kitchen floor. Also hung up my orange shirt for September's Every Child Counts, only a third of the way through, and wasn't that an undertaking. I can't reach the porch hooks without a step stool and I was fine in June hanging up my Pride flag on its rod but today, holding a shirt on a hanger, I was all wibble wobble I'm-going-to-fall. I hope that was just fallout from yesterday's gardening, sweeping a bag full of linden whatevers from the front walk, because bending down repetitively stiffens the hamstrings something chronic. But otherwise I must believe I've actually lost strength in my legs.

Did a laundry,  mended the strap on one of my shopping bags, and otherwise sat  on the sofa with grateful beanbags warming my poor poor lumbar area and read M. Didius Falco in Germany. Made the mistake of looking up Varus' legions which led me down the rabbit hole of early imperial Roman politics which led to the usual revulsion that Rome has always induced in me ever since my mother gave me I, Claudius to read at an early age. (Really, what was she thinking of?) Horrible horrible people: almost worse than imperial China which lord knows is bad enough. I never could understand why people wanted to be emperor of either, or wanted their sons to be,  if female. Had a prof in uni for Drama to 1642 who was entranced by Marlowe's Tamburlaine and besotted by the speech that ends 'The sweet fulfillment of an earthly crown.' And couldn't for the life of him understand the jaded looks his students gave him as he warbled on. I ventured to suggest that we'd had sufficient experience of power-hungry rulers in recent history to not think much of the breed. Our prof, who'd actually lived through the war, thought that was piffle. Ah well. Some people have the power virus and some, luckily, don't.

My sister had her hip replacement scheduled to just before Christmas, then had it rescheduled to Sept 25 and now has had it sudenly rescheduled to this coming Friday. Which as she says is good to get it over with, and she has her church friends to rely on, but there's such a thing as kokoro no junbi/ being in the right mindset, which no doctor and especially no surgeon has ever heard of.

I should know, after threescore years and ten in this burg (plus minus for time in Japan) that 20C/ 68F in September is not, repeat not, cool weather. Tank tops, not t-shirts. But today I wore a t-shirt and therefore sweated grately unless I was walking outside where the northern breeze could dry me off. However, since I was doing laundry at the 'mat, and among the things I was laundering were the two shirts I wear over the tank tops,  one of which I had to wring out after Wednesday, there wasn't actually much of a choice. Hapi coats are even more perspiration-inducing, and I can't imagine how I put up with them during menopause. I do know, in fact: I was bicycling. I never walked in the things. But now my shirts are clean and my towels are clean and my face cloths are clean, even if the laundromat still has no hot water, so hurray. 

Mug, mug, mug. Went to the super two blocks away, came back, dropped groceries in blissfully cool by comparison house, went up to physio three blocks away and was *sopping* when I arrived. Yes, good thing I showered before leaving, but now must shower again before going to bed. And frankly I see no evidence that sweating actually cools you.

Temps should drop in tomorrow's storms but they're still calling for humid weather. A humid 26 isn't that much different from a humid 30 in my experience.

The linden is shedding its secondary leaves or whatever they are. Some day will get around to sweeping them up. Some day will attack the backyard vines that totally cover the walkway and are trying to seal the garage door shut. Gardener emailed me asking would I like some work done. Yes, but can't afford it. It's not that she charges $75 an hour, it's that she takes two hours to cut the backyard vines.

I have The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes from the library, John Dickson Carr and Adrian Doyle's missing cases. Have read Adrian's before, haven't read John, am actually not that impressed with him. But dissatisfaction may be due to the weather and the aches as much as anything else. Roll on mid-month when autumn is supposed to start.

 There seems no rhyme or reason to my owies, but I might hazard a guess that yesterday I hurt because it was so humid and today I didn't because it was so dry. And dry it was when I ventured out after four, solid summer heat like the French countryside from childhood,  and the smell of vegetation like that too. Pleasant to be inside in the cool and pleasant  to be out in the warm.

Also, after canvassing all drugstores within walking distance and not finding ankle braces in my size anywhere, I had recourse to the mighty river which sent me a velcro brace in very short order ie yesterday, poor delivery guys. Sitting on the porch when I went to close the door in the wet facecloth mug of yesterday afternoon. Tried it on when I went out today and not only does it stabilize my ankle, it seems to stabilize the whole right leg as well. Since the right leg is now the weak one with the panging knee, this is straight good news. So I am pleased.

One of my ebook holds was a Marcus Didio Falco, private Roman eye (reference to an ancient but locally famous comedy skit, Rinse the Blood Off My Toga. "My name is Flavius Maximus, private Roman eye." Contains the classic line, where Flavius goes into a bar and asks for a martinus. Bartender: You mean a martin*i*. Flavius: If I want two, I'll ask for them.)  I'm not a fan of the Romans by and large, but as historical fiction goes it's miles better than most of the medieval ones I've read, and as it's my first, if she has the same tropes in all her books (as Brother Cadfael does) I don't know what they are. Since tomorrow will be 32C again, I shall sit happily in the fan and finish it off.

Weather still mild so I decided to make it to the AGO. Alas, the jets were practising for the air show this weekend, meaning painful sonic booms, so to limit outside exposure I called for a cab. Beck has finally ironed out the kinks of its automated voice system ie the voice tells you what to do and if you follow the pattern (number, street name, street/ road/ blvd/ etc. disambiguation,  CITY) the robot repeats it back to you correctly. Alas again, they haven't got their drivers in working condition. My cell rings as I'm sitting outside, no cab in sight, 'I'm in front of your house now', the hell you are. You're sitting outside 534 and I'm at 543, the number I gave your robot. When I get in the car the driver's screen is large enough to read from the back and yes it says 543. If I do this again I swear I'm giving my address as 545. NND won't mind.

My heart sank when I got inside the gallery because the line went back to the entrance. Holidays, of course. But that was a tour group, and the real line was only a few people. Group reached the ticket taker a second before I did, but luckily she asked if she could let me in first. The Cassatt and Daughter show was interesting enough, though the patrons were as worth looking at as the pictures. There was a Kushner&Sherman lookalike couple that I knew couldn't be because the originals are in Europe now, and a woman in draped Raphaelite robes, and a tousle-headed little girl looking like the models in a number of the paintings. Also a tour group of maybe thirty kids in red tshirts for identification, 9 or 10 at a guess, who paraded through the exhibit rooms and straight out without looking at anything, much to the surprise of the security staff.

The exhibition had all ten of Cassatt's famous prints, as well as the oil paintings both she and her daughter did. Renoir reminiscent as to colours and subject matter. The prints have faded- IIRC because of the chemical composition of the pigments she used. But what most struck me, I'm afraid, is that she loved to do mother and child paintings and prints, and unless the kid is on a bus, the kid is naked. My expert's eye says these are 12 to 18 month olds, not babies as I define babies, and unless toileting was done differently in the early 20th century, you're risking disaster carting that child about without a diaper. Taking her into the garden to pick apples is probably the least dangerous place to do it, but you really are asking to have your own lovely dress ruined.

So now I was ready for a latte at the 2nd floor café in the Galleria Italia, except I couldn't find the galleria. You used to run into it without trying, but they've blocked something off so I kept going round and round, on the admittedly smooth floors.  I could smell the coffee but couldn't get to it, and the maps all lied. Finally found a security guard who said to go through the African exhibition and turn left. Which did, and at last found the long wooden gallery the runs along the front of the building. But there was no coffee shop there. Or tables or chairs or indeed anything at all. It's been four years since I was last here and the place *looked* the same but... no café. But I think this was where the tour group was trying to get to, because the map implied that the Galleria was the other side of the Cassatt.

Totally confused by now, not to mention footsore even with my walker, I went back to the ground floor where the pricey restaurant is. They found a table for me-- being crippled has its uses, since they were going to put me on a wait list-- and I had very pricey  bread and very pricey paté and very very pricey wine, and my server told me the café is now on the ground floor and no wonder I could smell coffee in all the wrong places. And I do think that guard might have mentioned that there was nothing in the Galleria Italia itself and if I wanted the café, it's moved. Since you have to leave the AGO proper to get to the restaurant,  it being  the other side of the gift shop, I couldn't even go back to get a latte there. Once out, you're out. However the gift shop already has next year's calendars and I got a satisfactory modern Japanese artist, which consoles me for much. 

Then took transit back home. Taking a wide walker, even one that folds, on the Spadina LRT among all the shopping Chinese grannies and grandpas is an interesting experience, because they have walkers too, as well as many many bags of groceries, and we're all squished together Tokyo-like. But people were very kind about giving me their seat and helping me get the beast onto the car: because you do have to step up, and even worse step down, over a not inconsiderable gap,  to get on and off. No way you can use a wheelchair, motorized or not, on those cars, which means no way are they disabled accessible I-don't-care-what-you-say.

And when we got to the subway they were cracking down on the fare jumpers.  Unlike in the past, they scanned everyone's ticket, including old folk with their walkers, and pulled miscreants out of the queue and kept them there. In the before times when it was just me and my staff, the checker pointedly ignored me as I went past with my card all ready for scanning. But this guy had clearly had enough. The two women who'd failed the test were trying to argue with him and he was having no part of it.

I didn't have to walk home from Bathurst- -there are up escalators at Christie, though one of them requires climbing three steps to get on and whose screw-up was that, I sometimes wonder-- but I had a hold at the library, and if I pushed it a bit I could also get a latte at Ninetails. Which did: and maybe sun and pleasant temperatures just put Torontonians in a sweet mood (except subway inspectors) because people continued to open doors for me very helpfully. So a good day with much exercise: but I still wonder if I'll ever walk unaided again.