Little bit of a morning stretch

Each weekday morning my watch kindly wakes me without disturbing Susan.

I rise, meditate briefly, exercise, then go for a ride. While I exercise I think of what path to take on my ride.

One possible route is to take the Finch trail east to the Don river trail which is my favourite trail. 

I have only rarely taken that route because of the distance, and because, I am ashamed to say this... concerns about coyotes. I have come across coyotes twice on the Finch trail. There was no cause for concern because the Finch trail runs under a hydro electric transmission corridor, it's wide open, and in both cases the coyote was warily keeping a great distance and going about its business.

Until this morning, I felt that the Don river trail presented more risk of coyote issues because I imagined I would be the only person on the trail because it was early spring, and because the trail, while set in an urban area, actually feels quite remote. The narrow paved path wanders along the ravine, following the Don river branch (more of a stream than a river, truth be told). My concern is that I might startle a coyote and prompt an attack. 

Yes that's a little silly, and cowardly.

Today I decided to go that way.

No coyotes, or even foxes, the wildlife was only squirrels, a woodpecker, delightful sounds of rushing water... and ten or twelve pedestrians and walkers, often with their pooches. Far from threatening in any way, it was pure delight. The music streaming in my AirPods matched the scenery. 

On the return route, I took the Sheppard subway for a couple of stops because parts of the route have serious climbing, and I needed a break. Besides, as wonderful as the Don river trail is, Sheppard avenue from the top of the hill west of Leslie to Yonge is very urban, and not bike friendly.

Occasional rain drops fell on the two kilometre ride from Sheppard subway stop back home. All told, 11.74 (excluding the subway ride) kilometres bright and early this morning, for a total of 2,607.22 kilometres since I began tracking my cycling on November 20, 2021. 

Not too shabby.

Maps of this morning's two segments. The scale is different in each, and therefore misleading.

2 B's and a F

 I was rarely a really good student. I made sure to pass, and to get really good grades when I could see that getting those grades was vital to an eventual next step.

But this, is not about, that.

And no, it's not about B-words and F-words either. Well I guess it is, but... not those...

You see, we live in a very urban area, Our condo tower is among the shrimps in our neighbourhood at 24 stories. New skyscrapers are constantly popping up like spring tulips.

Fortunately Toronto is blessed with numerous ravines. Most have streams running through them intent on dumping more and more water into Lake Ontario. The ravines are generally sufficiently steep so that builders avoid them as too costly for building homes profitably. 

And thus, as I do my outdoor morning rides on well-maintained bike trails in the midst of wonderful green spaces, including some in the nearby ravines, my almost perfectly silent Brompton fails to alert the local fauna lurking in the flora, and this week I saw two bunnies, one of which crossed my path a little too close for comfort, and this morning on my way down into the Earl Bales Park ravine, a sly but shy fox was about to cross my path but made an abrupt U-turn and sprinted into the greenery, not to be seen again.

Shock!

The scene as I left my firm's town hall meeting yesterday evening

How do you know when the urban environment is threatening and bullying the green environment?

Well, one thing you can do is pay attention to the trees.

Shocked tree seen on our evening walk

Mother's Day

 You can't make this stuff up!

Our kids organized a very nice Mother's Day brunch at a local restaurant.

There were flowers, and treats, and laughs, and fun with the kids and grandkids.

I enjoyed a little creativity, colouring with crayons with my granddaughter, building and re-building a little pyramid from the usual trash.

I suppose I was inspired by the "trashion couture" art on the wall... I had already taken pictures of six of the works to add to my digital collection. Lora Moore-Kakaletris's work now lives in my collection with works by Andy Warhol, Monet, Lawren Harris, and many, many other artists whose work struck my fancy over the years, including work from museums from Montreal, Athens, Toronto, Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, New York, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Portland, Seattle, Bayeux, and Amboise.

We had a very enjoyable brunch. Then came the funny finale, and the silliness that inspired this post.

I had my credit card handy, waiting my turn to pay, when... a power failure took the restaurant out. There was a collective ooh and ahh from the crowd, questions from the kids, and the wireless card reader that the waiter was offering me became...

That instant irony made me laugh!

We hung around waiting for the power to come back on. Just as I thought of telling our waiter we would return later in the day to settle the score, the power returned, and a few minutes later, their payment software branded as "Toast" returned and I was able to pay.

Soon after, we came home (the restaurant is just down the street from where we live). The music I had left playing, wasn't. That's not good, I thought. You see all my music plays on our network thanks to Apple and the wonder of streaming.

The power failure had been brief at home, but knocked my Mac out. Oh the joy of recovering all my work-related spreadsheets.

Another inconvenience thanks to the law of averages. The one law that never fails to apply.