Category: Blog

It might be psychological, but whenever I cross the border from Canada into the United States, I’m immediately aware that I’ve entered into a different culture. It might be the looming billboards for lawyers, but people, and even the space around them, seem vividly different. The Denny’s in Pennsylvania had both N’s burned out of…

An acquaintance of mine is kind of like Steve Zissou. He recently sent this text message to a friend of mine: “On expedition to interior Papua New Guinea: 10 mile death march paid off when we were first tourists ever to arrive in village not on the map. We were treated as VIP’s, asked to…

On Saturday Rachelle and I took our dog to the Bathurst-Dupont Animal Hospital to get her shots. Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, couldn’t have been happier to be on an outing. Tail wagging, she bulled up the street as if she was off to open all the Christmas presents in the world. But no, this was…

Dreams I’ve had since Rachelle and I have been trying to buy a home in Toronto. **************************************************** I am standing inside of a house that we really want to buy and then suddenly somebody comes up behind me and hits me in the head with a brick. There is blood everywhere and then money begins…

Our landlord, who once described renting to Rachelle and I as the biggest mistake in his life, is interested in keeping his maintenance expenses to a minimum. He fobs this off as loyalty, as the building we live in, a 125 year- old hotel converted into apartments, has been in his family for over 50…

Today, Toronto is mild, soft and quiet. Heavy snowflakes drift from the sky as directionless as soap bubbles. A thick coat of white blankets the ground and for a minute, more than a minute, really, you feel that all missteps and obligations have been erased. The snow deadening the sounds of the city, you feel…

On Friday, a small asteroid imaginatively named “The Bammer” passed about 7,500 miles from planet earth. This is roughly the distance between Toronto and some point in the southernmost reaches of Africa. Now this might seem pretty far away, but when you consider things in the vast reaches of eternity– in Space Terms– well, it…

It wasn’t just Snowmaggedon, I also prepared for Y2K. I bought 400 cans of chickpeas, some Gatorade and a shotgun. (A generator proved too expensive for my budget.) And so, with the worst winter storm in history threatening Toronto the other day, I made preparations to protect my Rachelle and Heidi pack from the winter…

Postcard from the Train On the train sits a young woman with an optimistic voice. It rises excitedly when the porter asks her if she’d like anything from the food and beverage cart. No, no, she doesn’t but she thanks the man for asking. She brought a big bag of carrots and a Coke Zero…