pop cycle-ology

Well, the rains have come, and the tropical heat has broken. The children loved the warm storm and went out to frolic in it (really, they frolicked, just like the Victorians thought they ought). I recounted for them my own mother's reminiscences of playing outdoors in a bathing suit in the summer rains of Brooklyn. It sounded so exotic and so improbable to me as I grew up in California where 'rainy' means 'cold'.

In spite of the gray weather, narrow rays of light are gleaming through. We found a bike shop down the street with a small espresso bar! How perfect. We also located Kensington Market, a wonderful higgledy-piggledy collection of shops and stalls and restaurants, which incidentally is home to another bike shop called 'Bikes on Wheels'. (Eh?, as they say here. On what else would bikes be?)

Earlier in the week some kind friends invited us to join them at a park where we swam al fresco (and for free) in a cheerful public swimming pool. Even better, we all hopped on our bikes to get there. Such freedom, such a sense of belonging, just from propelling oneself on two wheels! James Tanner (Fetus Into Man) wrote of the bicycle's benefit to human populations by reducing inbreeding; I've not yet found references to the machine's positive impact on human psychic well-being but I know it's real.

All in all, it's not so bad. I say this prior to our planned visit to Service Ontario this afternoon, where we must obtain Ontario driving licenses in order to buy a car. I popped in there the other day to have a look and was shocked at what I saw: a blend of the old US Consulate in London with an NHS casualty department. Molded plastic chairs, all occupied, the awkward silence borne of resignation and anxiety, people slumped in corners, and a hand-printed sign saying 'estimated wait time: 2 hours'. In a basement, moreover. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. My in-laws are visiting from London, so we have made plans to go out to dinner tonight after it's all over (they will watch the kids, thank heaven). When I booked a table for 7:30, the guy on the phone asked if I could make it earlier but I explained that we had to go first to Service Ontario. He tsked in commisseration, then laughed abd agreed that earlier was not an option. 'I'll have your drinks waiting for you!' he promised. So I don't expect anything good from this encounter (Service Ontario, I mean, not dinner).

Don't sweat the small stuff, I keep repeating to myself, and it's all small stuff. Okay, trite, bland and derivative. And you know, we are in Toronto, in Canada, in North America. It may be difficult at times but it's not, like, Kibera: check out the blog of the amazing Annalise Blum, who is my favorite candidate of this generation to save the world from itself, and is doing so at the moment in, like, Kibera.

http://annaliseblum.blogspot.com