Discovering Public Transit

I was really sick for about eight weeks, unheard of for me and completely eye-opening.  One day you're good, the next day...omg. 

I couldn't drive for those eight weeks and I had to take the subway.


 First, the subway station. When you're counting steps, it's a million miles away.

 

The price was new to me - $3.00 a token or $18.20 for seven tokens.

I couldn't walk very well, so the stairs...hell, no.  Escalators, absolutely.  Where are they?

My new best friend....who knew?



 Sometimes the platform would be empty.

Sometimes the platform would be crowded.  Crazy crowded.   It depended on the time of day.

But, it didn't matter crowded or empty, it was always good when the train arrived.

 The subway cars were surprisingly comfortable, especially when empty. 

But were still good, even when crowded.

Once I went downtown at 4:30.  Unbelievable.  Four fully-loaded trains passed us on the platform.  People were talking to each other.  I fell into a trio - a young man and woman.  We three chatted for 15 minutes as train after train after train passed us.  Then, I said goodbye to my new friends, repositioned myself elsewhere on the platform and got assertive.  Once on the train, people said all that was missing were the gentlemen to push us all in, and then close the door a la Tokyo.  The passenger-pusher-onners wear white gloves someone said.  We all nodded, hmmm, interesting.  They were right.

I found I was enjoying my new subway life.
There was entertainment.

There was reading.






Advertising, too.

  There was eating.

 There was a little nookie too, but I didn't see it.






                     

 I didn't even see "No Pants Day,"  which would have amused me, I'm sure.

 As it surely amused others.

I had no idea how social I could be.   On the subway, I was smiling at people, nodding when someone caught my eye, and chatting with people everywhere.  Quite a change for a person accustomed to driving everywhere, alone.



Even our mayor likes to talk to people on the train.

 There were some fairly foxed out subway stops.

This is the Royal Ontario Museum.  They've done a nice job. 




Made good time, too. Driving across the city is time-consuming and often frustrating, red light after red light.  

Taking the subway, I saved time like crazy.  A 45-minute drive translated into 20 minutes by subway, sans parking anxiety and cost. 

Even cyclists use the subway to save time.

 I wondered how fast the train went.


 I had the opportunity to watch a driver driving the train.

He pushed it up to 58 kph in the tunnel.  

No wonder we made good time.  You'd be lucky to get up to 40 kph a block up top. 

Down below, in the tunnel- no lights, no traffic, no pedestrians, the trains can really fly.

 They kept an eye out to make sure no one got squashed when the doors closed.

I fell in love with the subway.  I truly did.   It is so fast, fairly cheap, and really really interesting. 

So, now ... I take the subway downtown and across town,  and I use the car for the highway and multiple-stop trips in the East End.    I don't know if it's cheaper or not, but I love being able to jump on the subway and not worry about traffic or parking or parking change.   I get on, do a crossword, smile at people and save time and stress letting someone else do the driving.   



Middle-Aged! When did this happen?

Middle-aged.  I never thought of myself that way, until now.  My new driver's license picture.   My god, I don't even recognize that woman.  It isn't me.  Or is it?  My son, so polite, says, "It doesn't look like you mom."   My partner, more succinctly says, "Sucks, babe."

It does.  It sucks.  That can't be me. 

I've kept most of my driver's licenses, mostly for the pictures and their progressive 5-year shots of me through my ages.  20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50...and now 55.

That pack of driver's licenses once saved my butt.  I made an illegal left turn between 4 and 6, who knew - not me, at Queen and Greenwood.  The officer asked for my license, and I started digging them out - all six of them.   He said, "Hey, it's illegal to have all those driver's licenses!"  I didn't know that, and I told him that I kept them because they showed me how I was doing through the years.  He took all six, leafed through them, gave them back and said, "You're doing great."   He let me go. 

My 50th was the best.  It regularly won the round-table game of "Who has the best driver's license picture."  Everyone would concede defeat when faced with that beaming smile, chin down, hair-parted nicely, and tasteful scarf at the neck under the black leather coat.    Always won.    It was fun.   I took it for granted.

My new driver's license won't win anything.  In fact, it might surpass my all-time worst driver's license picture.  Fat and 40, I had a two-year-old , and I worked parttime.   My son and I walked everyday, but walking with a two-year-old isn't exercise.  It isn't even strolling.   I blossomed.  When I hit my pregnancy weight, my doctor had a heart attack.  She was all over me with "here come the pharmaceuticals for life if you don't do something about this weight and blood pressure now." I remember asking what I could do.  She said, "Exercise.  You've got 3 months, and if it's not down, you're going on meds."

Hied my hefty ass to a fitness class for the first time in my life, and fell in love.  I'm still in love.  I teach 10 classes a week now, on top of my day job. 

All the exercise in the world can't mask the real truth though.  I am middle-aged.  Strong and fit, no doubt, but middle-aged.   There's a hint of a jowl and there's a hint of a crease at the corner of my mouth.  I know they're just hints, but hints lead to truths, unless there's intervention.   Surgical intervention is definitely on the table, but I'm not keen on it, and botox doesn't work on these things. 

Worse, I know that my next driver's license isn't going to be any better.  It'll be 60.  Holeee.  Let's just say that again, roll it around the mouth, and see how it feels....60.

My next driver's license is 60.  

I am middle-aged.  

Time, it appears, is finite.  I wonder if this will change my attitude.  Will I race around doing everything I can  while I still can, or will I chill?  Will it change anything?  Am I content to be on cruise control, just doing what I always do.   Some people say that when you really understand the de-finite ending of time, as we know it, you want to do things differently.   I don't know.  I'm curious now.   I guess I'll find out because now I know, thanks to that little picture, that I am well and truly middle-aged.   




 

Toronto...the un-named.

Since manufacturing left Toronto, the air has gradually cleared and we can no longer be called "The Big Smoke"...because there is no smoke.

There are no factories here.   There are no plumes of fumes and gases spewing upwards and spilling sideways.   The yellow-orange haze has faded.  It's fairly clear, during all seasons, except if there's forest fires in the north.  But that doesn't happen often enough to qualify.  Really.

So, we need a new name.  What could it be?  The Big Clear?  On any day you can see Niagara Falls?

I don't know.   But, I do think we could capitalize on our newly-found air purity.  It is rare for a world-class city to have nice air.   We should rebrand ourselves and position our city as a gateway vacation spot.  People could fly into Pearson International, rent a car and a room, catch a show or concert, lounge lakeside at Hanlan's (don't) Point Clothing Optional Beach, and then drive off to explore.   Niagara Falls, the wineries of the escarpment, fishing villages along Lake Erie, Six Nations Indian Reserve,  The Grand River, Ipperwash, Wasaga, up to Haliburton for some rope-walking in the tree tops, Algonquin Park, Ottawa and then back again.     There's so much to see here.   Especially now that it's clear.   

The up-side of lost manufacturing.   Clean air.        

The Odds...are still out there

So, I'm driving to work Saturday morning.  I make a left at Woodbine and there's a lady in a minivan plastered with work logos in front of me.  At every light, I sidle up next to her,  as I'm not sure if she's turning left or not, and I'm interested in going straight for the highway.   And at every light, she burns rubber to beat me off the line. 

At no point am I burning rubber, just strategizing.   It never fails that if I'm in the left lane behind someone, they'll suddenly turn on their turning signal and I'll be trapped behind them and miss the light completely, so, of course, who wouldn't, at every light I slide into the right lane. 

Anyways...my point being I've been sensing a change in the current of life.  I've been wondering if the odds which have always favoured me have quietly shifted into the opposite quarter. I have mounting evidence all around me.   And then on this Saturday morning, another sign of the shift...but this one is slightly confusing.    

The woman I've been driving behind burns off the line at Queen and establishes a solid lead.  She's in the left lane and I'm in the right lane.  Acceleration finished, distance established, she reduces speed and cruises.  I'm wondering as I follow behind her if you speed up, establish distance, and then reduce speed to legal limit, if everyone is going the limit, does one maintain that established distance?   I'm curious and I'm leaning towards yes, that's probably so...when suddenly, as we drive around the curve leading to Lakeshore, a police officer is standing in the middle of the road  on the dotted line with his radar gun aimed at her.  He lifts his hand in the universal "Stop...and pull over...right here right now" motion and then motions to me to not hit him as he walks back across the lanes to the sidewalk. 

Unbelievable.   He got her.   Not me.    Her in the left lane.   Me in the right.   Wow.  Two things I have never seen before.   A police officer with a radar gun on the dotted line on a two-lane one way road.   And a police speed trap without a police car close by.  For him to have been there, he had to have parked his car either in the parking lot one block away, or in the residential area one block north.  

Aha...a new strategy by canny police officers.

So, maybe my luck is changing back.  She got the ticket, not me, and I have new information that will save me speeding tickets in the future.  Coppers don't always hide with their cars, behind bushes or on roadways or driveways close to the road.  Coppers now do speedtraps from sidewalks in the middle of a block, nowhere near any other roadway or driveway.  Good to know.  It means nowhere is safe.   Now I know. 

But it was close.   It could have been me.   So what does that say about my luck?

Ticking Clock

Have you ever felt like the universe has subtly shifted, and things are going to be different now?



I was walking home the other night and decided not to wait for the lights, but to walk up and cross when the traffic slowed, which it always does.  This time, as I stood between two cars waiting for the slow time, I felt uncommonly nervous.   There were a lot of cars, more than usual, and the wait was getting longer than I expected.   Something tickled at the back of my neck; maybe one of these cars was going to blow a tire, or change lanes into the parked cars...and that car would ricochet, bounce the parked car forward and pin my legs.  Just like that, my number would be up. I could see it.  It all unfolded in my mind's eye.  I stepped back onto the curb, and considered my response.

I've always taken risks and safe choices confidently, playing the odds.  If 200 out of 100,000 speeding drivers got ticketed, I always felt that I was happily included with the 99,800 who weren't ticketed.  I usually drive 10 to 15 kilometers above speed limit, and never a ticket.  Until recently.  Then suddenly, three tickets in three years.  Killed my insurance rate.  But, what I don't understand is that I wasn't driving any differently than I had before, so why all of a sudden was I getting ticketed like crazy ( one was for 6 kilometers over the limit).   

And then it dawned on me.   The odds.  The odds were shifting.   Out of my favour.  No longer was I in the 99,800.   Now I was in the 200 group.  

So, is this how it works?  Is this how you suddenly get cancer, after being cancer-free all of your life?   Is this how a car bounces up and hits you, crippling you?   Is this how it happens?  

The odds.  The odds definitely favour the young and inexperienced.  It's called beginner's luck.  Really,  it's fewer exposures to activities.

I drove the highway for years.  Every morning, I'd merge onto the QEW, travel along at 100 - 120 kmh, merge onto the 427 and drive to Dixon.   There and back.  Every day.   I remember thinking, oh, this can't be good.... I'm starting to play the odds here.... the more times I drive, the higher chance I have of having an accident.   And then it happened.

A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into my car.  His truck scraped my car from the back all the way to the front, tearing off my mirror as he pushed my car into the shoulder.   I laid on the horn.  That, and the sound of scraping metal, woke him up and he pulled away just as my car was being pushed into the guardrail.

I was nervous about driving after that. My husband said, "Well, now that you've had an accident, that'll lessen the odds for you for a couple of years.  You've had it...it's done for now. "  Keeping that in mind definitely helped as I headed back onto the highway. 

And now, after forty years of ticket-free driving, I've had three tickets in three years.  Bing.  Bang. Bong.

The odds.  Can I relax?   Have my three tickets pushed me back into the 99,800 group?   I don't know.  I do know that I can't afford another ticket.  No way.   So, now it's everything I can do to follow these ridiculously posted speed limits... for cripe's sake, how can anyone drive 30 kph on an empty road?  Better yet... 40 kph on a two-lane stretch alongside a graveyard without traffic lights, intersections, or even pedestrians.    

While the odds may have shifted back for tickets, I fear they're shifting for other things.   I've been cancer-free, illness-free, broken-bone free and Alzheimer-free all of my life.   Is that where the shift is going next?   How do you know?   Can you take your continuing good health for granted ever?  

A neighbour once said, "Any day above ground, and in your right mind is a good day."  I laughed when she said it.   But now.... 

How do you know when the odds shift?

Not knowing is a b****h. .

Best take all those vacations now.   Before my number is really up.  

Facebook Experience - Connected and challenged, we grow.

I signed up with Facebook for work purposes.  In addition to my day job as an English teacher, I teach fitness classes.  I love it.  I teach body pump - free weights with step, classic high/low, cardio kickbox, and Zumba.   Each of these classes require planning and choreography development.  Unless you're a fitness instructor, you don't know how hard some of us work at it.  We spend hours researching, developing and practising new moves and routines.  Zumba, especially, is challenging that way. 

I have to come up with at least two or three new choreographed pieces monthly.  This means choosing music, researching choreography, writing up the choreography, practising it, learning it,  and then teaching it...flawlessly, if you can.  While smiling!   (so much of it is entertainment....)  My brain can only come up with so much original material at a time, and this is where Facebook came in.  A Zumba instructor said, "Go on Facebook, make friends with other Zumba instructors, they usually post choreography and that is sooo helpful."  She was right.  I went on, made friends with other instructors, and used Facebook exclusively for that purpose for the past few years. 

Zumba, being a corporation and seeing another revenue stream, declared that people could no longer post free choreography online if they were using Zumba music, wearing Zumba clothes or had Zumba anywhere in the scene or signage.  So much for the professed Zumba love, and hello Zumba Police.  Yes, really.  People's videos are ratted out and pulled.  Yes, really.  Not getting much help with my work these days!

At this point, my interest in Facebook and Zumbacorp was waning.  Not much choreography to be had, better luck with that on YouTube.  And then a few people showed up. 

Real people.   Real ideas.  Real time.    Not just work anymore.  I slowed in my tracks and gradually looked at what people were talking about.  I saw the possibilities. 

Facebook became a conduit for engagement and exchange.  It allowed free discussion resulting in unlikely cross-pollinations and genetically stronger ideas.  It was drawing opinions out of bystanders.  They were taking stands.   Borders meant nothing. 

Facebook has real value.  I think it can have real power. 

Connected and challenged, we grow, divided, we are lone voices.  It is a community...with all the drama, tomfoolery, affection, and occasional blasts of brilliance that is humanity. 

Thank you Facebook friends.

Getting ready to go to Vietnam

We're getting ready to go to Vietnam.  Got the Dukoral and the shots.  Arms hurt.  Better safe than sorry.  Never thought I'd want to see Vietnam, and am surprised that I agreed to go.  I don't like the heat, but I'm sure it'll be fine.  If you've been to Vietnam, and have some recommendations, I'd love to hear them.   Going in March.