The Top Hat Café

Let it be known far and wide that the Top Hat Café at Trent Bingo Palace in Toronto serves fries and gravy that are a gateway to hedonistic bliss.  Did I win at Bingo?  No!  Do I care?  No!  The whole evening was worth it for those unbelievable fries.

You can see the Top Hat Café here in all its glamorous glory: sneeze-guard, stacks of styrofoam cups, and the Special of the Day whiteboard.  Don't tell me that's not classy.  Their logo is a top hat.  What could be classier than that?

The purple bingo ladies agree.  You can see them above, enjoying a sandwich.  They are wearing matching purple shirts and all-purple accessories.  Their dabbers are purple.  I don't know if you can make it out, but the lady facing the camera is wearing reading glasses with lavender-tinted lenses.  I thought that was pretty cool.

Contrast this with The Pickle Barrel, a restaurant with several locations in the Toronto area.  When I was a kid there was only one location. It was a homey diner that specialized in smoked meat deli sandwiches and chicken soup with matzoh balls.  Now, after some serious re-branding, they've gone all fancy schmancy.

Don't get me wrong - I like The Pickel Barrel.  I've had some very good meals there.  But tonight I ate at the Yonge and Eglinton location, and my meal was so lacklustre that it almost wasn't worth the effort of chewing and swallowing.

I ordered a burger with fries, gravy, and coleslaw.  The only thing on my plate that had any taste to it at all was the coleslaw.  The burger was completely bland until I spiced it up with a pickle and condiments.  The fries were limp and pulpy.  Even the gravy was lukewarm and lumpy.  Ken ordered chicken wings, and he too was completely unimpressed with his food.  Come on, Pickle Barrel.  Kick it up a notch!

I also have to mention that I saw a grown man behaving like a child today.  I'll let you be the judge of whether or not this was a good thing.  He was with his nine-year-old niece at the playground - I know this because his sister-in-law was sitting next to me on a park bench and we got to chatting.

The man sat himself down on a swing and pumped as hard as he could until he couldn't swing any higher.  Then he started yelling to get his niece's attention.  "JULIE!  JULIE LOOKOUT, I'M COMING TO GET YOU!"  Then (and here I should mention that he looked to be around 50 years old and not super-fit) at the peak of a swing he jumped off.  I missed the jump, but my attention was caught by the dust-cloud he raised when he fell hard on the sandy ground.  Ken and I winced together, but he rolled out of it and was off chasing his niece in a flash, with a huge grin on his face.

I had to laugh.  I mean, the enthusiasm of this guy.  He wasn't too cool for school, that's for darn sure.  He was having way more fun than any of the other adults in the playground.

When Ken I and got up to leave he was on the teeter totter with his niece, yelling "TEETER TOTTER TEETER TOTTER!"  He didn't show any signs of being developmentally delayed, if that's what you're thinking.  He was a fully functioning grown man enjoying himself in a way that pushed the boundaries of social acceptability, but was generally speaking harmless.  I just hope he's not too sore tomorrow.

The Eye of the Beholder

In case you hadn't noticed (or in case you don't live in North America - I'm looking at you LL Cool Joe) this summer has been one long heat wave.  I don't do well at temperatures over 30˚ C (that's 86˚ F).  Toronto, existing as it does at the edge of Lake Ontario, does not know of such a thing as "dry heat".  Instead, we have the Humidex, a handy measurement of how quickly you'll begin to feel that you're suffocating once you venture outside.

The heat has changed my morning routine.  I usually like to start my day slowly, but this summer I'm up and at'em as quickly as I can manage.  I interpret the phrase "beat the heat" as one would "beat the clock".  It's a race for me to get out, get stuff done, and get indoors before 11:30 am, when being outside becomes almost unbearable.

I have lowered my fashion standards. I had not bared my legs in public for many years, because I don't like to expose my collection of purple spider veins.  It didn't matter how hot it got.  I was always willing to put on a pair of opaque tights under my shorts.  However, this summer has broken through my vanity.  At this point, if someone wants to judge my veins, or the slight pruning at the tops of my knees, they can go for it.  Screw it.  My motto for this summer is "It's too hot for shame."

My step-dad appears to have adopted the same motto.  I went to my parents' house this morning, and my step-dad was wandering around the house clad only in his Y-fronts.  I will spare you the details, except to say that he has furry shoulders, and he's almost 74 years old. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

I was impressed by the fact that he has absolutely no self-consciousness about being almost naked.  His body language remained exactly the same as when he's fully dressed.  I know that my mom wishes he would be more discreet, but I think it's better to err on the side of self-satisfaction.  Some of the saddest people I know are crippled by shame.  It's refreshing to see someone who's free of it.

Busy Doing Nothing

I could say that I've been too busy to post, but that would be a lie.  I suppose you could call it laziness, this urge I have to do nothing, except that it's an active nothing.  I'm not ticking things off my to-do list, but my lack of accomplishment is not due to sitting around.

I've been taking long walks.  My favourite thing to do on a sunny day is to get up early, before the heat hits, and go on an hour-long ramble.  I stop to smell the flowers, and you can see on my Twitter feed that I'm critter-spotting.  I get enthusiastic about chipmunks, garter snakes, irridesent bugs, and lawn-nibbling bunnies.  I wonder what people think when I stand in front of their house for ten minutes staring at their garden.  If they can't see the pretty birdy I'm watching they might think I'm insane, or casing the joint for a robbery.  In any case, no one has chased me away yet.

I have learned some things.  If those things are useless, do they count as accomplishments?

I learned how to play a new game.  It's a kind of role-playing card game called Munchkin.  I've seen kids play games like this in the past, and had no idea what they were up to.  There were six of us playing, and only one person had played before.  At first it was complete chaos.  I had cards in my hand ranging from "Level 8 Ghoulfriends" through to "+2 Obnoxious Halitosis".  I did what the experienced gamer told me too and tried to follow the reasoning behind what was going on.

The neat part was that all this confusion gradually resolved into a fun and logical game.  By the end  it made sense to all of us.

Actually the neatest part was when I won! :-)  I vanquished a Level 2 Ugly Chicken to sweep to victory.   Therefore I maintain: although it might seem that I'm not accomplishing much, I am very busy.

Meanwhile, back at the bingo hall...

It had been ages since I played bingo with my friend Val, the Bingo Queen.  So, when she asked me if I'd like to go on Friday, I didn't hesitate.  I had bought my own dabbers since our last outing, and I was looking forward to cracking the seals on those puppies.

Val and I played one game starting from 4 pm.  Then our respective menfolk joined us for the second game starting at 7 pm.  All told I was at bingo for six hours.  That's quite a lot of bingo.

I'll spare you the tension: we didn't win one red cent.  We gambled every which way from Tuesday: the regular book games; the "specials"; the X,T, and L bonuses; the Toonie Pot; and lots and lots of Balls.  What did we have to show for it at the end of the day?  Bupkis.

(I just looked up the meaning of "bupkis" to make sure I was using it and spelling it correctly, and discovered that it is derived from a Yiddish word meaning "goat poop".  That sounds about right.)

I remembered from our last visit that the bingo hall contains a small cafeteria.  I was going to need to put some dinner in my belly at some point.  I figured I was covered.  When we arrived, around 3:30 pm, I took a spin through the food vending area to see what was on the menu.

Greasy, breaded fish filets and limp fries in steam trays.  Also, some kind of dark meat cutlets, identified as "Salisbury steak", sitting in a sauce of caramel-pudding-like consistency and colour.  If that was any kind of steak, I'm Justin Bieber's mom.

I hoped very hard that this was the dregs of the lunch menu, and that there would be something fresh come dinnertime.

6:30 rolled around and there was a break between games.  I moseyed on over to the cafeteria, and guess what was sitting in those steam trays?  The same food that was there when I last took a peek, 3 hours previously.

Fortunately I discovered that they would make a BLT to order, if I was willing to stand and wait for it.  I was.  Actually, it was a darn good sandwich.

I'm surprised by how much tolerance I had for bingo this time around.  Oddly, because I wouldn't have considered it a "skill", my ability to play bingo has improved.  It's not as confusing or as stressful as it used to be.  I can even carry on a simple conversation while keeping up with the caller.  I won't necessarily be paying attention to the pattern we're aiming for, but Val keeps an eye on my cards.  Even reading them upside-down across the table she can tell better than I how close I am to a win.

There's something meditative and comforting about marking off the numbers with nice round, bright circles of coloured ink.  It's aesthetically pleasing.  I always pick a dabber colour that will complement the colour of the cards.

Next time Val said we're going to go to a different hall that's less crowded.  Fewer players = a higher chance of winning.  We've been to the other hall before, around 2 years ago.  Their cafeteria was better.

Annoyingly Vague Post

There's some top-secret stuff going on at work.  I'm in on the secret, but I can't talk about it with anyone, even here under my pseudonym, just in case.

Sorry to be vague.  God knows I'd love to spill my guts, but all I can say is that there's a lot at stake, and it's stressing me out.  The one thing taking up most of the real estate in my head right now is something I can't share.

The Big Computer Project is still lurching forward from one delay to the next.  I'll hear from my project manager that the data guy says the data is all good now.  So I'll log in to the test site to check it out for myself, and sure enough, the data guy hasn't got a sweet clue.  Data guy likes to skim my e-mails, and more often than not he misses one essential detail that makes the difference between "all good" and "are you kidding me here?"

I'm doing a lot of deep sighing, sometimes with my eyes closed for extra serenity now.

Nothing else is really registering deeply with me at the moment.  I'm sleeping alright, putting healthy food in my belly three times a day, talking to people, and taking in various forms of entertainment, but I'm not all there.  I feel like part of me is in suspended animation, waiting to find out how all the top-secret rigamarole is going to turn out.  Fingers crossed.

The Wedding

My sweet cousin, who I still think of as an apple-cheeked toddler, got married on Sunday, to a nice, young Jewish lawyer.  I wore my fancy dress.

The whole event went smoothly.  In fact, I was shocked by how well it went, considering that my family can be a bunch of drama queens.

The bride was gorgeous, the decor was classy, and a live band raised the roof all night.  This was the first party I've ever been to where the dance floor was packed before the appetizers were even served.  The food was good, especially the mini-burger hors d'oeuvres.  What more could one ask for?

If I had one complaint, it would be the seating arrangements.  My uncle is involved in the family business that I work for, and I got stuck sitting at the Professional Contacts table.  I was across the table from a work friend of mine and her boyfriend.  The rest of the table was filled with people I see enough of at work.

I was seated next to a "wife of".  She's a very nice lady who always picks an excellent gift for her husband to pass along to me every Christmas.  Her taste in home decor is flawless.  Unfortunately her taste in dinner conversation leaves something to be desired.  She decided that the main course was the best time to tell me the story of her recent bout of c. difficile. 


As I attempted to swallow a mouthful of chicken, she leaned close to my ear and confided about how it had been "so embarrassing... you know...  it happened in the elevator, at the supermarket..."  I had no idea if she was telling me that she had tooted big smelly farts in public, or if she had actually pooped her pants, but I didn't care to ask.  I'm not terribly squeamish, but I really would have preferred just about any other topic while I was eating.

Later I told my mom, and she said that the last time she had dinner with this lady, she was treated to the same story.  What is up with that?  I'm all for people being honest and talking about the tough stuff, but there's a time and a place.

We all got a chance to do a lot of dancing.  When the first hora dance started up practically the entire room rushed onto the dance floor.  It was so packed that there almost wasn't enough room to form the circles.

Even my 92-year-old buby got in on the action.  When the song was all done, she was feeling a little warm.  The slightly sheer, colourful blouse she was wearing had come with a black shirt to wear underneath.  However, she had forgotten to put on that layer when she was getting dressed.  She didn't realize that she was only wearing one shirt.  She had every button on her top undone by the time my mom and my aunt caught her in the act.  They were both collapsing with laughter as they hastily buttoned her back up again.  My buby also had a chuckle at herself.  We kept warning her the rest of the night: Buby - no more stripping!

Before the night was over there was a sweet table, speeches, slow dancing, fast dancing, and a conga line.  You know it's a good party when there's a conga line.

I think my cousin picked a keeper.  I wish them all the best.

Shoe Museum Photos

I went to the shoe museum. It was kind of disappointing.  I understand that they have to control the environment to ensure that the shoes don't deteriorate, but I'd by lying if I said that being chilled and squinting in the dim lighting was enjoyable.

A lot of the shoes were quite worn out.  I guess I expected that the restoration experts would be able to work miracles.  If I saw some of those shoes sitting on an old tablecloth for $2 a pair at a lawn sale, I don't think I'd be interested; they were that beat up.

Some of them had been worn by famous people, like Elton John and Pierce Brosnan.  I wasn't impressed. I'm not the kind of person who gets excited by being in the same room as one of Marilyn Monroe's stinky old shoes.  I mean, they're just shoes after all.

The space boot that had actually been to the moon and back was neat.  I didn't take a snapshot of it because the lighting was extra-crappy in that area.

Photo highlights of my visit:
(Taken legally - photos were allowed so long as one did not use a flash.)
SQUEAMISH PERSON ALERT: The first description displays my gross sense of humour.


A replica of the oldest shoe ever discovered.  When the original was found, it was still on the foot of a guy who had been naturally mummified.  He didn't look so good in the photos they had posted of him.  He appeared to be made of beef jerky, with the bones still in.  His shoe was made of bearskin, deerskin, and linden twigs.  Apparently they field-tested a replica, and found it to be quite comfortable and serviceable.

Itty bitty shoes for ladies who had their feet bound in China back in the day.  Ouch.

Itty bitty snowboots for bound feet.  Mercy!  Imagine tottering around on ice in these.

I shall quote from the text provided by the museum:

"During the Tudor age, the broad physique of King Henry VIII (1491-1547) set the fashion. Throughout Europe, the style-conscious abandoned the attenuated toes of the earlier period and began to wear broad, blunt-toed footwear known as "duck bills" or "cow mouth" shoes. At their most extreme, these wide-toed shoes could be almost as wide as they were long."

I can see "cow mouth shoes" as the next big trend in retro footwear.  Moo.

These shoes are from the 1920's display.  They are super-pretty and I would totally wear them.

These are French, from the mid-1920's and caught my eye on account of their intricate floral embroidery.  So lady-like!

These are from the Roger Vivier (1907 - 1998) collection.  He was a French fashion designer who specialized in shoes, and is credited with the design of the first stiletto heel in 1954.  Some of his shoes were designed not to be worn, but to be appreciated instead as works of art.  He drove the point home by only making one shoe instead of a pair.

Bird shoe.  Awwwk!

So there you have it!  Shoe museum: done.  Once was enough.  I'm discovering that I'd like to hang out in the Art Gallery of Ontario for a few hours every week.  But shoes?  I'd rather just go shopping for them.