Total Pageviews

Friday, June 20, 2008

Ten Days that Moved the World (it seems like that sometimes)

Ten days after the furniture arrived, about sixty per cent of it is unpacked. It's a lot easier to take things OUT than put them IN.
I replaced my long lost Savannah sideboard with my first piece of Canadiana. It's a small, Mennonite-built sideboard of some dark stained pine that matches surprisingly well with my existing furniture and fits perfectly into the space near the kitchen. It doesn't overpower the room and provides a suitable storage space for the silverware (which is too large to fit in the minute silverware drawers in the kitchen and so resides in a box on top of the cabinet) and the very lovely place mats.
A local household store is going out of business so I got a lot of material for half price. Not bad timing at all.
And there is so much to do here I am seriously considering taking a day off from unpacking today and going into Toronto to see the Nautical Festival while it's not thunderstorming. Some Newfoundland and Labrador ships sailed into Queen's Quay yesterday and I may just go there today since I love tall ships so much.
Solstice Weekend also features the Aboriginal Day and the largest outdoor Powwow in Toronto and I do not intend to miss that. It's going to be held come rain or shine, probably rain, and I'll be there just after I finish my tour of the splendid Winter Garden and Elgin Theatres on Yonge Street. These are the last surviving 'double decker' theatres in Canada. The Winter Garden is upstairs from the Elgin and is so small that it is best for intimate standup. It was originally a 'high class' vaudeville house. The only other survivor in the world is (no surprise here) the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York, which was splendidly restored a few years after the Elgin. But the New Amsterdam's roof garden theatre was apparently portable and only operational at certain times of the year. Toronto's Winter Garden was solidly built indoors, literally upstairs from the Elgin (originally called Loew's Yonge Street Theatre). It was and is designed to look like an outdoor garden, complete with actual beech leaves hanging from the ceiling. It originally had fans in the back of the theatre to rustle the leaves as if you really were outdoors. Fairy lanterns hang among the leaves and tree branches are painted on the walls. The theatre was closed in 1930 due to its small size and the bankruptcy of its owners and miraculously all the leaves were still attached, though blackened with soot, 60 years later. It looks like a magical place and I cannot wait to see it.
What a change from dull, uninteresting Rochester.
Gizmo went to the vet yesterday and was given a good bill of health. She got her Revolution, which is necessary since there are a lot of mosquitoes here. Pesticide spraying was made illegal here six months ago, and there is a price to pay. I'll bear the bites, but won't take the risk with Gizmo.
She was very sick this morning, probably throwing a hairball, but she's taking it easy now and I will keep an eye out for her to see if the vet was right about her good health.

No comments: