The Folly

So of course I took the upright walker over to Dufferin for my Vietnamese coffee. It really is an unwieldy beast. The good part is that I can, yes, walk upright with it if I remember not to hunch: hunching is now so habitual after four years that I must mindful my way out of it. The drawbacks however are multiple. Major one being that the seat is too low-- below knee height-- for me to sit down in with any assurance of being able to stand up again. Fortunately the kind city has provided  benches at intervals along Bloor, or rather, just off Bloor,  some of them in the shade.

The removable basket is insufficient and tends to remove itself from the poles it hooks on to. The rests for the arms or forearms are hard plastic and in this weather one sweats into them, and (possibly confined to me) they cut off circulation to the hands so my little fingers go numb. Intended for a feature but is actually a bug: if you collapse the walker sideways so as to allow passage into letussay narrow doorways, it also collapses forwards. This is for easy storage in the trunk of the car everyone owns, that takes you to wherever you're going. But it makes it extremely difficult to enter a store whose door is up a step and that opens outwards, like the banh mi place. So I will not be doing this again in a hurry. I know I've walked over to nearly Dufferin before and not died, and my phone would have me believe it's shorter to there than to nearly Spadina, but psychologically, as I've said before, west is much much farther than east.

However it's a much different crowd west than east. In addition to the many cafés that have sprung up west of Ossington it also has most of the city's Ethiopian restaurants. On the way I passed an Indian gentleman in saffron robes taking the sun and a very large Grand Pyrenees in its summer-unfriendly shaggy coat. Coming back I passed an Asian family (I think: two adults and a teen/ early 20s guy who may or may not have been together) notable in that the younger guy was reading a hardcover book as he walked and didn't stop reading, or even look up, when he had to stop for a red light. What was engrossing him so? The lettering on the spine was faded but I could still make out 'Middlemarch'. Sugoi.

As for the walker, well, I shall still use it as long as I'm not intending to do anything but walk.

Wind blew in dry air, which was much appreciated, and later cooler air, which is heavenly. May try sleeping with just a window fan tonight because this open windows policy won't last long. 

Popped a crown, which is what comes of eating French bread that's both chewy and has a crust. Dentist can see me Monday instead of Thursday, which is as well because Thursday is set, once again, to be steamy and stormy. Really must arrange to not have my 6 month checkups in July because July is now monsoon season in TO. Mind, the rain forecast for today kindly stayed away from my area, which was nice except I'd half-hoped it would wash the seedling scum from the bins.

So went to the library to return the McKay book and also to photocopy my statement of account, from my tax return, which for some reason I didn't do in April. Needed for the property tax deferral form, as also for next year's income tax. Then had sushi at Sushi on Bloor, where kind diners always open doors for me coming in and staff hold them open going out, because the staff, at least, know I pay in cash and tip 40%. Which I do because single diners in popular restaurants need to sweeten the servers.

Also in my attempts at shrinking myself, have lost  two pounds plus or minus since Monday. Was wondering when the too too solid flesh would melt because I've been melting for weeks with no effect. So it begins, I hope.

Ah well. I have a new toilet. Of course the old one was a proper disabled model and a 'right height' one is lower but still doable. But I hadn't registered that it was also elongated and this is a round front, hence shorter. Still doable but would be more so if I were 30 lb smaller. And this was the cheapest model in a ten inch setback but still, with Watermark's pricing and taxes, several hundred dollars more than I'd expected. I thought the booker was overly optimistic when she said it would only take 30 minutes so they wouldn't charge me the 'automatic 2 hours' service fee (they owe me an hour from last time because that literally was 30 minutes). Took the guy over an hour so I was dinged for 2 hours. Watermark is excellent in all ways but god do they cost.

However I did discover that the wobbliness of my upright walker is down to me not clicking something in place, so I might actually start to use it some time. It's maybe only an inch/ 2.5 cm wider than the other but that little makes it too wide for most places to handle easily, like my house. And of course there's still the lack of a proper basket.

However, found the solution to the too hot/ too cold dilemma at night is, oddly enough, to use the feather duvet, not the lightweight cotton one plus a blanket at the end of the bed to keep my feet warm. My feet are perfectly comfortable under the duvet and my shoulders don't feel the chill from the fan blowing on them, and last night I slept without the many wakings that the previous arrangement had involved.

I finished Stone and Sky, very happily, and JS&MN wishing there was more. Still delighted that Stephen, even when he becomes a king and puts his old life behind him, still chides his subjects as if they were unsatisfactory footmen. But still don't understand why the gentleman's darkness didn't end with all his other spells. Maybe so that the two magicians would go on inventing new magic, undisturbed by domestic cares?

Also read a Hilary McKay, The Time of Green Magic, on the recommendation of I forget who on the FFL. McKay is the only writer I know who does happy families. And I finished, finally, a reread of Broken Homes, and still couldn't put my finger on Lesley's turning point.

Nothing on the go but another Inspector Littlejohn for bike reading. It will be cooler by Friday and I may discover something to my taste.

Stressful day, also stressful preceding night. Bref: toilet started leaking nonstop yesterday, not gushing but chronic trickle as well as its wonted 5 second whoosh. Called plumber first thing this morning and emailed back and forth all day about replacement. Can't have the one I want because my toilet has a ten inch setback while twelve inches is more standard. But plumber comes tomorrow afternoon with new toilet and will take the old one away for an extra $125. Their practice is to leave it out front for the garbage guys to remove, but I see old toilets sitting on front lawns for weeks because the garbage guys are picky. And of course, if it's at all cracked they will not touch it because broken porcelain is sharp and the longer you leave it, the likelier it is to break or be broken.

Tell me anxiety is hereditary because boy is it. Am deliberately not thinking about what might go wrong still, but it's a battle.

Also common wisdom is that toilets only last ten years, which is excuse *me*, someone's got a sweet racket going.  Mine is 19 years old so I suppose I've had good innings.

Smoke from a not distant enough fire turned the morning sky apocalyptic. Might also have conduced to the knives in the throat sensation, though I've been having that off and on for a few weeks now. Not covid because it comes and goes,  certainly allergies because I also have the itchy ears of prime allergy season. So stayed in until late afternoon when the worst of the mug was over, and then filled a bag with seedlets and stuff from the front walk. In spite of massage, back had conniptions at my daring to wear shoes. Have no idea what to do about this.

But I did rebook a dentist appt from Thursday to a week Thursday and immediately felt better, because this Thursday will definitely rain and next may not. If the weather's dry I might chance transiting to and from my dentist, but in any case I will not be trying to get taxis in the rain. I hope.

Given the constant heat and humidity of this summer, the weather's been remarkably unthunderous so far, but today we had an actual storm. Not as bad as the ones in my childhood which were slow-moving and extremely loud: this was barely half an hour. The oddity was that I woke up to darkness and rain-- so much for that 5% chance of they were touting last night-- which had been going on for a while to judge by the puddles: and then the storm started. Luckily it was over long before I had to go out for my massage. Of course the sun also came out and the world steamed. And the sidewalks dried up except unter den linden so yes, the walker's wheels were coated with catkins and seedlings. But there were still puddles at the street corners where I could rinse them off.

I think the massage helped some, but I felt a little off-kilter afterwards. Which can happen, but usually doesn't. Had good intentions of sweeping up the tree gunk on my front path but umm no. We won't even mention the jungle out back.

Otherwise at a loose end, like everyone else on the RoL FB suffering post-Stone&Sky letdown, and in my case suffering post-JS&MN and Damned letdown as well. Yes, three winners in a row is nice (and rare) but what do you do for afters? Um well, I still have the new Points novel to go to.

(I wonder was I the only one who wondered if Abigail had been glamoured in S&S? Though I suppose that she, like Peter, has had some practice in resisting fae and genii locorum who try it on. But also, why is it called Stone and *Sky* when the biggest element around is the sea?)