Kayaking on Lake Ontario was pretty nice. No wind but some interesting waves from all the big boats. Lots of birds. Passing right under the landing path for the abomination of the island aeroport, which was neat. And of course it's such an incredibly beautiful view of Toronto coming back from the Islands. The CN Tower may be a big awful eyesore, but the Toronto skyline taken as a whole is better for it. More depth.
Got some lovely time with Gigi and Lady and Gigi's fiancé last night. Walked from his condo to Luke Duke's place this morning, going past my old place through Cabbagetown on the way. Cabbagetown is probably the first neighborhood I've ever really loved and it's changing; I'm not frightfully comfortable with it. It's next to Regent Park and has a lot of crackheads wandering around, and that used to keep out the wrong class of people - you know, young urban professionals who move into a cool neighborhood because it's cool and then spend the next ten years writing angry letters to drive all the coolness out - kept out the Starbucks, in short; Cabbagetown sort of maintained this sense of cool and community since time immemorial, balanced between sketch and class, resisting anodyne gentrification in a way no other Toronto neighborhood I'm aware of, besides maybe the Junction, ever managed.
Well. There's a Starbucks there now, because Regent Park is being overhauled into a mixed income development, the crackheads are being slowly pushed out and the yuppies are moving in in droves. But the Starbucks is standing completely empty. Instead the yuppies are cluttering up Jet Fuel, where the bike couriers still go and where I had to wait ten minutes for my coffee, and the Tamil bakery up the street that does the strange cheese pastries, which I had a horrible 30 seconds thinking has closed until I saw in my desperation it had expanded into much nicer premises three doors down.
I'm hoping against hope the spirit of Cabbagetown will prevail.
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