June 3

“Ah, yes,” agreed our new friend. “Toronto is wonderful when the fags are in bloom.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it seemed appropriate. Toronto was wonderful over Memorial Day weekend, and the fags were in bloom.

Walking back from Yonge Street to our rooms at Banting House on Sunday afternoon, we encountered a swarm of men standing, taking in the sun and each other at the corner of Church and Alexander streets.

Ordinarily when you see so many people milling around on the sidewalk, it’s because they’re waiting for some function to begin or one has just ended. Curious, I asked a guy in black fleece lace-up short-shorts and Doc Martens, “Is there some function, or is it just because of it’s so nice today?”

He swung his arms around gesturing to the crowd, “It’s just because…”

That seemed agreeable, so we swung around the corner to Timothy’s World Coffee, got a cup of Columbian decaf, found a spot to sit on the building’s foundation ledge and bloomed ourselves.

It was a splendid way to spend an afternoon.

Splendid is an adequate summary of the entire weekend. We got off to a late start on Friday because [B****]’s car decided the night before that it was a good time to test his reaction to illuminating the Check Engine light. By noon on Friday the dealership had extinguished the lamp by applying the 40,000 mile service and we were off.

The later hour no doubt contributed to the 1¼ mile backup at Canadian customs. We waited well over an hour to be passed through with only 30 seconds of cursory questioning. Except for the usual slowdowns through Hamilton, traffic was light and moved along the QEW at the usual Canadian pace of 20 to 30km/h above the posted limit.

We arrived at Banting House shortly after 4:00. This stately Edwardian home was once the residence and medical research laboratory of Dr. Frederick Banting, from the University of Toronto. His research lead to the discovery of insulin, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1924 and knighted in 1936.

The house is every bit what you’d expect given such a provenance. An enormous stained-glass window illuminates a vast expanse of carved wood paneling in the staircase and main hall. The nine guest rooms are spacious and comfortably furnished with period pieces. It wouldn’t seem the least bit unusual to bump into Sir Frederick in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom.

After the traditional first-night-in-Toronto dinner at Trattoria al Forno, the best Italian restaurant I’ve ever found, we headed over to an AA meeting. I’d looked them all up and plotted them on a Yahoo! map! a month or more ago.

AA meetings vary a bit by the type of meeting and local customs. I was looking forward to my first meeting ever out-of-town. This was a closed, gay mens’ discussion meeting, same as my home group. It was a knockout.

What made it so was number of people there, that most of them were also middle-aged, many had quite a few years of sobriety, yet they weren’t preachy or condescending. We were welcomed like old friends and felt right at home before the meeting even began.

Having arrived a bit early, I wasn’t surprised when I was asked to read. I said sure and the group secretary handed me a reading I’d never seen before. I quickly skimmed it and thought, this is good stuff.

I went back and thoroughly preread it a few times because I wanted to do it justice. I decided it was best delivered as oratory with lots of inflection, dramatic pauses and the works. This is what I read:

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry. Two days which should be kept free of fear and apprehension.

One of these days is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.

The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow. With its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance, tomorrow is also beyond our control. Tomorrow, the sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is as yet unborn.

This leaves only one day—today. Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when we add the burdens of those two awful eternities—yesterday and tomorrow—that we break down.

It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday, and the dread of what tomorrow may bring.

Let us live, therefore, but one day at a time.

Knocked 'em dead. Even I was impressed with how it sounded read that way. I later found out it’s a traditional piece read at all meetings in Toronto. It apparently comes from a daily meditations book published by Hazelden.

I looked for it on their web site but couldn’t figure out which book it was in. A quick Google search found the piece all over the web in many different variations. I blended them together to get something close to what I remember reading.

Where did I go after the AA meeting? Out to the bars of course. Naturally all I partook of at the bar was bottled water. I didn’t stay long at either Remington’s or Sneakers. I’d arrived at Remington’s after the shift change and stage was populated with steroid abusing gym residents.

When they started an underwear fashion show, that clinched it. I haven’t owned, let alone worn underwear since high school. I didn’t want to listen to some old queen yammer on about something I have no interest in buying that was being modeled by steroid abusers.

I headed up to Sneakers to see what I could see there. Where I’d been late for what I wanted at Remington’s, I was early at Sneakers. 11:00 on a Friday night saw a roughly 40:1 ratio of tricks to rentboys. I left there after one, alone, and called it a night.

Saturday was cool, breezy and threatening rain all day. [E****] wanted to see the William Wegman exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario so that’s where we spent our morning. The show was nice and I enjoyed the permanent collection as well. I was disappointed in the gift shop because they didn’t have any hats. Who ever heard of such a thing?

It had rained while we were in the art gallery but the sun had come out when we left, so as long as we were in the neighborhood, we walked the afternoon away through Chinatown and Kensington Market.

I had two things on my shopping list and I found them both on the way back to Banting House. Walking along we found ourselves at the University of Toronto and I spied the bookstore.

Nearly $50 Canadian later, I left with my intended purchase, refills for my Cross pen, along with a business card case, a bunch of plastic project folders, a t-shirt and a hat. You can always find hats at a university bookstore.

My other intended purchase, a CD Walkman for my birthday in three weeks, I found on Yonge St. If electrons flow through it, you can find it in one of the little electronics shops on Yonge St.

I snagged a nice Sony unit that reads CD-RWs, decodes MP3s and has a built-in battery charger. A set of headphones (because I don’t like ear buds which came with the unit) and a pair of rechargeable batteries completed the ensemble.

A new discman naturally required a stop at Music Authority on Church St, conveniently located across from Woody’s. Among my purchases was the soundtrack from the second season of Queer as Folk.

It was a buck or two overpriced, but I figured there was probably no better place to buy it than on the street where they film the series. I was pleased to find it’s a mix CD of only the dance music from the show—infinitely more satisfying than last year’s soundtrack.

All that shopping was thirsty work. Fortunately Timothy’s World Coffee is right next door so I swung in for a cup. I was also in need of a smoke so I sat a table outside even though it had turned cold, clouded up and was threatening rain.

One guy on his way in asked me, “What are you doing out here?”

“Working on my pallor,” I replied. We both got a chuckle out of that.

After a half-hour of wandering about the neighborhood negotiating which restaurant we’d go to for dinner we made the right choice. I can’t remember what they’ve renamed the restaurant now, but it’s the one at the corner of Church and Dundonald streets, across from Cawthra Park.

The restaurant formerly known as Mango, has two working fireplaces in the dining room and both were spewing forth BTUs at a furious rate. It was a welcome blast of heat. [I looked it up. It’s now called Le Petit Liban.]

Our waiter was hot as the fireplaces and dinner was good too. I preceded the Mariner’s Special (a surf and turf platter) with grilled calamari. This was the first time I’d ever had my squid served with the tentacles. It was a wee bit disconcerting to look at all the little suckers. I moved them to the side of the plate, suckers down, and ate the rest.

After dinner we dashed over to the AA meeting, arriving with just enough time to grab a coffee before it started. It was another discussion meeting, this one mixed men and women, and I found it just as good as Friday night’s.

It was pouring rain when we left the church. I was beat from all the walking during the day and decided that since I had a new toy to play with, a bunch of new disks to play in it, and a Margaret Atwood novel, that I’d spend the evening home and turn in early.

I slept late on Sunday morning, nearly missing breakfast. I dawdled the rest of the morning away too. We went to the 12:30 meeting over at the community center. It’s the first time I’d been in there. It seemed to be a very active, vibrant place.

In our wanderings after the meeting we stopped at a little gallery on Maitland St. The proprietor was talking with a small group when we entered. I tuned in and out of the conversation as I browsed. I was looking at a watercolor print behind them when I heard, “There’s so many Americans here this weekend.”

Without missing a beat and in my unmistakable Rochester accent, I chimed in, “Uh! I know. They’re EVerywhere!”

After the laughter subsided the topic changed to brunch. Apparently they’d just had brunch at the bistro a couple of doors away and they raved about the calamari salad.

That put a bug in my ear and after blooming with the rest of the fags on Sunday afternoon, we dined at the Vagara Bistro on the corner of Church and Maitland streets. By the way, I’m not the only one who mentally sticks an i into the name. I took a photo of the front of the place in hopes I can Photoshop one in.

Anyway, it was still quite nice so we grabbed a table outside. I had a tortellini thing for my dinner, which was scrumptious in its own right, but it was overshadowed by the calamari salad I’d ordered for the appetizer. At $10.00 Canadian, $6.25 US, it was truly deserving of the designation, “The Vagara’s World Famous Calamari Salad.”

I was expecting a cold salad, like a shrimp salad or something. When the waiter, who was a dish himself (a stunning combination of shoulder-length dark-brown hair and hazel eyes with sandy flecks) brought it out, my heart sank. It looked like it was deep-fried and sitting in a bed of greens.

Well it was in a bed of greens, (spinach, I think,) with mushrooms, peppers and some other tasty things I couldn’t identify, but the calamari were prepared in a similar fashion as Buffalo-style chicken wings.

I instantly regretted ordering the appetizer size when for only $5.00C more I could have had a platter of it. Still, there was more of it than I expected. And thank heavens for that.

It was moderately zesty but not so much that the delicate flavor of the squid was lost. And it was cooked to tender perfection. It’s very easy for calamari to come out as chewy, rubbery chunks. These I could have gummed.

In summary, it was orgasmic. And I even ate the tentacles.

The Vagara Bistro joins Trattoria al Forno on my list of must-eat restaurants in Toronto.

And until I get the pictures developed, that’s it for the Toronto trip.

Thirteen months after I announced my intention, six months after I planned to finish the project, I finally got a good chunk of the site converted over to valid XHTML 1.1 (No more frames!) and valid CSS2. And oh, by the way, no more FrontPage style server-side includes either. It's all done the Apache way now.

All major pages and the journal entries for 2002 have been converted. In general, it looks about the same. You may not have noticed the difference right away. As tired and as 90’s as the layout looks, I still like it. It feels like home. So this is really only a behind-the-screens update. Other than this entry, there’s no new content yet, but there’s updates to some of the ancient pages in the works.

I began the project on Saturday May 18. By a week ago Thursday, (the 23^rd) I had all the glitches worked out of the CSS and the templates and had finished all but one of the non-journal pages. This past Saturday I got back to the project and converted all the 2002 journal entries.

I tested under the Windows (95, 98, Me, 2000 and XP) versions of Internet Explorer 4.01, 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0, Opera 4.02, 5.12 and 6.03, and Netscape 4.08, 6.2.1 and 7 PR1, on both CRT and LCD monitors at resolutions of 640x480, 800x600 and 1,024x768 and color depths ranging from eight to 32 bits. Chris of lobo-solo.com looked things over on his Mac (OS 9) under the current versions of IE, Netscape and Opera.

There are a couple of niggling issues under both versions of Opera and I’m working out a couple of margin issues in IE 5.0 (Win), due to its misinterpretation of the CSS2 standard. (Bugs in Microsoft software. Imagine that!) Still, it looks fine in all version 5.0 and newer browsers.

Version 4 and older browsers are another story. Since they predate CSS2 and only partially implemented CSS1, the look is not so great. Still, I kept my word to make the site as usable as possible under those antiques without violating current standards. What you see is my best effort. My offer still stands to mail a CD-ROM with the current versions of IE, Netscape and Opera to every reader who requests one.

View the source and the CSS—they’re both fairly well commented. I’m happy to share what I’ve learned and ready to learn from your suggestions.

Lemme know what you think!

       

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