Sunday summary
Aug. 10th, 2025 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathleen_dailey Along with Diane Duane, Vonda McIntyre, and a few others, the Reeves-Stevenses were the authors whose Trek books I'd purchase sight unseen, unreviewed, and unexcerpted. I haven't read a pro novel in ages, and thus can't comment on the complexities and insights that contemporary authors might bring to the Trek universe. But the Reeves-Stevenses were (probably still are) reliably thoughtful, reflective writers who paid as much attention to character as to plot.
Last week the spouse and I went to Harbourfront for the first time since the pandemic began. Our thinking was that we should grab the opportunity of an appointment-free day to see the lake and have lunch at the Amsterdam Brewhouse (even though it's big and touristy). We had thought of going to Boxcar Social, which has better food and beer, but accessibility may have been a problem there.
The lunch itself was okay--fish tacos and Downtown Brown ale, the same things we always ordered in the past. We arrived early, so we were able to claim a lakeside table on the patio.
After lunch we had to wait a while for our pickup, so we went for a walk. We probably should have just gone to the pickup point, waited there, and indulged in people-watching, because the stroll around Harbourfront was very depressing.
Readers who remember what Harbourfront was like in the 1980s and succeeding decades will probably share my sorrow when I say that everything that made the place wonderful seems to be gone. The skating rink/canoe school is apparently a thing of the past. Although the spiffy new Portlands neighbourhood will get $9 million for a new bridge on Villiers Island, evidently no level of government is willing to repair Harbourfront's Amsterdam bridge (which was built to celebrate the twinning of Toronto and Amsterdam, and which once allowed pedestrians to cross over the Simcoe Street slip).
So much of the area now looks neglected and hollowed out. The saddest space is Queen's Quay Terminal. When that massive industrial building was converted for residential and commercial use in the early 1980s, it was an urban showplace, an example of how industrial waterfront property could be repurposed for centre-city living and recreation. The Wikipedia entry says that "Brookfield [Properties, the eventual owner] renovated the retail floors in 2017." That so-called renovation did away with all the interesting small shops and services (the kite store, the chocolatier, the music box maker, jewellery designers, the original Tilley's Endurables). The second floor mezzanine once offered space to many independent clothing designers, fabric artists, ceramicists, sculptors, the Japanese Paper Place, and so much more. One could spend hours talking to makers and admiring and purchasing their wares. Now there's almost nothing left but mega-restaurants, a Farm Boy store, and a Tim Horton's. And, unbelievably, the Fleck Dance Theatre is gone.
I have many happy memories of past Harbourfront excursions, concerts, art exhibitions, and performances. I'm glad to have seen the lake today, but I don't feel that I'll need to make the trip down to Harbourfront for quite a while.
I managed to make it through the superficial keratectomy, which if you're curious is described in the link; but don't look at it if eye-related discussion gives you the wimwams. (And if that's the case, I hope you didn't watch this week's Strange New Worlds unspoiled.) I first learned the meaning of "basement membrane dystrophy" 10 years ago, when I had the identical post-cataract-op procedure on my right eye. Fortunately, I'd forgotten the grisly details, so I didn't work myself into a tizzy before the procedure. Now it's just a matter of topical doses of antibiotics and steroids until I see the surgeon for the removal of the bandage contact lens, and then maybe I'll finally be able to get a new eyeglass prescription that lets the freeloading left eye resume its normal workload.
And to end on a shamelessly petty note, WHY can I not find buttermilk easily? I have to walk a long distance to one particular No Frills store, and the brand they carry is packaged in those old-fashioned pull-the-spout-apart cartons, which have to be assaulted with a paring knife in order to make the spout open (a technique that always ends with drips and spills, usually of buttermilk but sometimes of blood). Not a single one of the other stores in my neighbourhood carries it (McEwan's of semi-blessed memory did, but that was long ago). I've tried asking and pleading with managers, to no avail. I remember when it was easy to find buttermilk almost everywhere, but nowadays shelf space is taken up with umpteen kinds of nut milks, pre-made smoothies, and hideously expensive commercial kefir. Is plain, simple buttermilk no longer a drink of choice on a broiling hot summer day, I wonder?
Last week the spouse and I went to Harbourfront for the first time since the pandemic began. Our thinking was that we should grab the opportunity of an appointment-free day to see the lake and have lunch at the Amsterdam Brewhouse (even though it's big and touristy). We had thought of going to Boxcar Social, which has better food and beer, but accessibility may have been a problem there.
The lunch itself was okay--fish tacos and Downtown Brown ale, the same things we always ordered in the past. We arrived early, so we were able to claim a lakeside table on the patio.
After lunch we had to wait a while for our pickup, so we went for a walk. We probably should have just gone to the pickup point, waited there, and indulged in people-watching, because the stroll around Harbourfront was very depressing.
Readers who remember what Harbourfront was like in the 1980s and succeeding decades will probably share my sorrow when I say that everything that made the place wonderful seems to be gone. The skating rink/canoe school is apparently a thing of the past. Although the spiffy new Portlands neighbourhood will get $9 million for a new bridge on Villiers Island, evidently no level of government is willing to repair Harbourfront's Amsterdam bridge (which was built to celebrate the twinning of Toronto and Amsterdam, and which once allowed pedestrians to cross over the Simcoe Street slip).
So much of the area now looks neglected and hollowed out. The saddest space is Queen's Quay Terminal. When that massive industrial building was converted for residential and commercial use in the early 1980s, it was an urban showplace, an example of how industrial waterfront property could be repurposed for centre-city living and recreation. The Wikipedia entry says that "Brookfield [Properties, the eventual owner] renovated the retail floors in 2017." That so-called renovation did away with all the interesting small shops and services (the kite store, the chocolatier, the music box maker, jewellery designers, the original Tilley's Endurables). The second floor mezzanine once offered space to many independent clothing designers, fabric artists, ceramicists, sculptors, the Japanese Paper Place, and so much more. One could spend hours talking to makers and admiring and purchasing their wares. Now there's almost nothing left but mega-restaurants, a Farm Boy store, and a Tim Horton's. And, unbelievably, the Fleck Dance Theatre is gone.
I have many happy memories of past Harbourfront excursions, concerts, art exhibitions, and performances. I'm glad to have seen the lake today, but I don't feel that I'll need to make the trip down to Harbourfront for quite a while.
I managed to make it through the superficial keratectomy, which if you're curious is described in the link; but don't look at it if eye-related discussion gives you the wimwams. (And if that's the case, I hope you didn't watch this week's Strange New Worlds unspoiled.) I first learned the meaning of "basement membrane dystrophy" 10 years ago, when I had the identical post-cataract-op procedure on my right eye. Fortunately, I'd forgotten the grisly details, so I didn't work myself into a tizzy before the procedure. Now it's just a matter of topical doses of antibiotics and steroids until I see the surgeon for the removal of the bandage contact lens, and then maybe I'll finally be able to get a new eyeglass prescription that lets the freeloading left eye resume its normal workload.
And to end on a shamelessly petty note, WHY can I not find buttermilk easily? I have to walk a long distance to one particular No Frills store, and the brand they carry is packaged in those old-fashioned pull-the-spout-apart cartons, which have to be assaulted with a paring knife in order to make the spout open (a technique that always ends with drips and spills, usually of buttermilk but sometimes of blood). Not a single one of the other stores in my neighbourhood carries it (McEwan's of semi-blessed memory did, but that was long ago). I've tried asking and pleading with managers, to no avail. I remember when it was easy to find buttermilk almost everywhere, but nowadays shelf space is taken up with umpteen kinds of nut milks, pre-made smoothies, and hideously expensive commercial kefir. Is plain, simple buttermilk no longer a drink of choice on a broiling hot summer day, I wonder?
