I'd Rather Talk About Something Else, Thanks

Let's just get this out of the way now: yes, the video showing Rob Ford smoking *something* has been brought to light by virtue of the hard work and expert investigative skills of Toronto's finest. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to turn to more pressing matters along the lines of my mother's change hoarding habits, or the privileged lives of feral cats, or what is the most popular topic on this blog: my dad.

Accupressure for Loiterers

During the Mike Harris years, a ten-story former government building on the south-east corner of the intersection of Yonge and Wellesley was converted into a condo. The street-level retail space is occupied by the bank that assures us that we're richer than we think. 

The condo conversion included cladding the building exterior with slabs of polished granite, even along the surface of the exterior ledge under the first floor windows. For many years this slick smooth ledge afforded the tired, homeless and incapacitated a place to hang out, sleep and do other things.

Recently, workmen installed bumpy metal strips on the ledge. 
  

The ledge, just after installation.

The ledge, the very next day.

More About Smelly Trees

A couple of years ago, cutting across the Allan Gardens on my way home, I smelled something truly godawful just north and west of the south-east corner of the park. I assumed that someone had taken a dump in a flower bed. The horrible stench subsided eventually and, for another year, I did not encounter it again. But, the next fall, the horrible stink came back.

Yes, I picked this ginkgo nut up to arrange this shot; yes, my hands smelled very bad.

Driven to the Internet to test a hunch about a tree growing close to the path at that end of the Gardens, I learned that the fruit of female ginkgo trees comes encased in pulpy flesh that, depending on an individual's olfactory, smells like vomit, farts, rancid butter or poo. Some people complain about this; some cities cut the trees down; in Toronto, people carefully search among the grass and fallen leaves below the trees and take the fruit - a delicacy and a medicine - home.

The Fate of the Allan Gardens Agave Spike

The stalk is gone; the glass pane repaired; the fate of the bulbils unknown. Come back in 70 years and we can talk again.

My last shot of the spike.

One week later.

Now, This Guy Probably Did Lose His Job

Around 6:00 p.m. on Thursday night, I was walking south along the highrise canyon on Bay Street just south of Wellesley. It was warm, but very windy. I could hear a loud, strange sound which I could not immediately place, but it reminded me of the noise a hoist rope makes when the wind drives it against a flag pole. It was dark, so I couldn't really place the noise, but I guessed it had something to do with the window-washing platform resting on the sidewalk at the foot of a highrise. It was an incredible racket and I wondered if anyone was going to do something about it.

Just behind the blue car: the window washing platform. You can also just barely see the rope.

The next morning I confirmed what I had supposed. Someone had lowered the window washing platform from the roof fifty stories above and left it there so that the ropes, in the high winds that blew all night, could lash against the side of the building. 

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

Karen