Tuesday, April 7, 2015

BBQ season has begun!

Last weekend was kind of a big deal: we got our BBQ up and running at the new house thanks in no small part to Steve who visited us on Saturday. It took a couple trips to Canadian Tire, but she now burns beautifully. We know that for sure because we've been eating BBQ exclusively ever since.

The inaugural meal was, of course, melt in your mouth, perfectly done steaks with mashed potatoes, gravy, and asparagus done in butter. Mmmmm.

It's amazing how nice it is to have a BBQ a few steps away from your kitchen. Goodbye climbing two flights of stairs carrying food and utensils every time you want to cook. Goodbye and good riddance!

In more annoying news, someone dumped some construction waste on our front lawn consisting of a broken door and wood shards in a garbage bag. Not pleased at all. We really need to get our fence up sooner rather than later. On the plus side, I called 311 yesterday and by this afternoon the debris was gone. Hooray for good public service!

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Need some practice

Today I finally made it to a ServiceOntario location to update my name and address on my driver's license. It took this long not because of me (surprise!), but because this is how long it took to get our long form marriage certificate which is required for the name change. Since it arrived yesterday, I decided to go now while I still have some free time.

The closest ServiceOntario location isn't walkable so I had to take the bus. Since it was so nice today I decided to walk to Coxwell and Mortimer to enjoy the sun a bit and wouldn't you know it? About a minute after I arrived at the bus stop, my bus pulled up. Must be my lucky day!

So the bus is supposed to go up Coxwell before turning east on O'Connor and going all the way to Eglington which was to be my stop. Everything was going fine until we got to St. Clair and the bus made an unexpected and very unwelcome right turn. Turns out I took the 70C instead of the 70. Yeah. Didn't know there was a C. Now I do. Go me.

Luckily I was able to get off at Vik Park and grab a bus north which pretty much got me to my destination. Pro: this bus was just pulling into its stop as I arrived as well, so no wasted time there. Con: the bus was packed. Normally not an issue, but right now? It's a bit of an issue. I wedged myself in the best I could and grabbed the bar preparing myself for what would be a bumpy ride (note to bus drivers: you are not driving a formula 1 race car. There's no reason to have a lead foot, particularly when most of your passengers are standing). A few minutes in, a man in his mid-50s noticed me and offered me his seat. We were so crammed in there it would have taken some pretty advanced gymnastics to trade spots so I thanked him for the offer and politely declined. He said, "No problem, ma'am." A few minutes later people started moving back in the bus, and when I started to move with them he added, "You be careful there, ma'am." Guess I'm at that stage in my life now?

The rest of the trip was uneventful. I arrived at the door to ServiceOntario at the exact same time as someone else, and he was kind enough to let me go first. Yay for good people! The wait in the place itself was only about 10 minutes and the woman I spoke to made quick work of the changes. Then I caught the (right) bus home with under two minutes of wait time. Guess it was my lucky day after all.

And that concludes today's boring story which also happened to be the most exciting part of my day.

(I kept an eye out for new 'hoods, Julie. Nothing to speak of unfortunately, but I'm sure you already knew that.)