28 April 2005
Still in Toronto
Jet lag + all-day meetings = yawn-a-rama! But now the meetings are over. I'm finally over my jetlag, too—just in time to fly home tomorrow! Some things I've done in the last few days:
- "Feathered Dinosaurs and The Origin of Flight" at the Royal Ontario Museum
I learned many fun facts about birds and dinosaurs, including two theories about how birds developed the ability to fly:
- from the ground up
Birds ran on two legs, using their lightly-feathered forelimbs to achieve a little lift in order to run faster with longer strides. Eventually they glided for short distances, then flew.
- from the trees down
Birds used their claws to climb trees, then glided from branch to branch, and finally began to fly.
- from the ground up
- The Tunguska Project
In this documentary, a Cree Indian travels to Siberia to visit the Evenki people and the site of the Tunguska event. I thought the fellow himself was a bit of a self-indulgent drama queen and thus not too interesting. But I enjoyed the film for the info about the Tunguska event and the Evenkis.
There's a fascinating scene showing how they slaughter a reindeer: they calm it, persuade it to lie down, and one kid sits on the reindeer's hips while another one gently turns its nose toward the ground and holds its antlers. Then another kid carefully positions a screwdriver at the base of its skull and smoothly inserts it. The reindeer dies within a few quiet seconds, and the whole camp goes to work disassembling it and putting all its parts to use.
I wonder if a reindeer burger would be tasty. I enjoy many burger species, you know.
- the CN Tower at night
The glass elevator rises 1,465 feet in 58 seconds. This is one of those landmarks that cities build for prickwaving value: Our tower is bigger and pointier than yours! I jumped up and down on the glass floor and gazed at the city lights.
- aquatic massage
Cindy practices this massage therapy technique and generously invited me to try it. After a shower, I donned a bathing suit and joined her in a warm pool. She attached flotation cuffs to my thighs and supported my head with her arms, shoulders, and later a pool noodle.
I was gently swirled, swished, massaged, and stretched while an underwater speaker played tranquil music. The womblike feeling soothed me nearly to sleep, and I wished the massage would never end. But eventually, Cindy expertly tipped me upright and deposited me on a submerged seat, where I opened my eyes feeling supremely serene. Thank you, Cindy!
Tomorrow I'll check out of Hotel Fancy Ass and knock one last thing off my to-do list: fabric shopping on Queen West. Not many fabrics are mass-produced for home sewing, so one always finds something different in another city. In particular, I'll be sure to hit Peach Berzerk, where they silk-screen their own fabrics on-site.
25 April 2005
In Toronto
Lucky me, I'm in Toronto on the company dime! This is my third time in Canada and my first time in this city.
Air Canada is a little shabby. Some of our plane's electronic systems weren't working, so we had no coffee, tea, or in-flight movie. And breakfast was worse than the typical airline fare: the egg, mushrooms, and potatoes all looked like poor imitations of actual food, with an impotent little sausage slouching in the corner beside a caulk-flavored biscuit. Even the blueberries in the muffin seemed reconstituted. Yucky. At least the orange juice was decent.
Happily, I was met by pals immediately upon arrival. Brendan, Cindy, and Molly took me out to Pacific Mall, a sort of indoor Chinatown on the edge of the sprawling city, where we enjoyed the tastiest vegetarian dinner I've had in a long while.
In the morning, Brendan escorted me to the office, pointing out landmarks and giving me a subway orientation. I'm always grateful for a handy subway! He also warned me not to get lost in the PATH, Toronto's underground warren of shops. Subterranean shopping is popular here due to the frigid winters.
After work, I checked into the fancy-ass Royal York Hotel and freshened up. Emerging from the elevator into the lobby, I found a posse of suited security men, two of whom herded me away from the elevator bank while a third said into his radio, "His elevator is in motion." Curious, I loitered nearby while an older gentlemen and his entourage appeared and were whisked outside to a waiting car. Other guests were snapping pictures, and the hotel staff was standing around, watching him go and grinning at each other.
I didn't recognize the man's face, but obviously others did. "Who is that?" I asked. "Paul Martin," replied a woman from the concierge desk. I had to think for a minute: Where have I read that name? The news.... But before I could make the connection, the woman recognized my searching expression and had a routine response ready: "Our prime minister—sort of like your President Bush!" But what I heard her say was, "Foolish Americans, you're all the same. If I had a good Canadian dollar for every time I've had to explain the concept of our 'prime minister' to you philistines...." Yes, shame on me. But I was pretty psyched once I realized I'd seen a head of state!
I rendezvoused with a couple of coworkers for the Hot Docs film festival. I saw three films tonight:
- Beethoven's Hair
All about the strange journey of a lock of the composer's hair and its eventual high-tech analysis to reveal, finally, the cause of his torments and eventual death. Fun facts from history and science.
- Ravel's Brain
Ravel had a taxi accident, the result of which was the slow decay of the language center of his brain. In his later years, Ravel could hear wonderful music in his mind, but was unable to express it. This one was less about science and more about the melancholy of an composer deprived of his ability to compose.
- Homemade Hillbilly Jam
This one was funny and warm, all about a band called Big Smith, the central members of which are cousins in the Ozarks. My new favorite song goes, "It's been there since this heat wave began / My 12-inch, three-speed, oscillatin' fan."
I'd say my trip is off to a great start. You can see my (unedited, uncaptioned) photos here.
15 April 2005
Peanut Milk
Non-dairy milk-like beverages are pretty popular now. There's soy milk, rice milk, and almond milk, all of which are designed to taste just like milk.
Then there's peanut milk, a frankly peanut-flavored beverage invented by the owners of the K K Cafe, a few blocks from my apartment. Another Lower Haight pal told me about this, and now I pick up a jug whenever I pass the cafe. Peanuts are tasty and nutritious! Which makes it a shame that peanut milk contains sugar. I'd drink more of it if it didn't.
Peanut milk comes in plain and strawberry varieties. Suspicious of strawberries and peanuts comingling, I stuck to the plain variety until yesterday. I asked for my usual jug of plain peanut milk, and the snaggle-toothed man behind the counter threw in a single serving of strawberry for free. "The flavor is like WHEW!," he raved. "You LOVE!" Okay, dude. I love.
Surprisingly, peanuts and strawberries do manage to overcome their differences in sweet, nutty harmony—but of course the strawberry flavor has even more sugar than the plain one does. Evaporated cane juice would be better. But does peanut milk need sweetening at all? It's hard to tell.
Apparently the Signs & Wonders company has a fancy new packaging design. It wouldn't surprise me if this means national distribution in the near future.
10 April 2005
Rain Skirt
I think the umbrella is a crude device, and I try to avoid carrying one. On a crowded sidewalk, one must constantly prevent one's umbrella from colliding into oncoming umbrellas, or from poking fellow pedestrians with their wicked spines. Then there's the necessity for pausing in every doorway, blocking it while you collapse the umbrella and shake off the raindrops, and making everyone else wait while you do so. And heaven forbid a wild wind catches your umbrella, wrestling it out of your hands or yanking it inside-out.
What a hassle! Give me a waterproof, hooded jacket any day. Gore-Tex is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Even wool will do nicely, with its naturally water-repellant sheep-oils and its mysterious ability to keep you warm even while saturated with cold water.
One of my ambitions is to create a line of weatherproof clothing that's actually cute, suitable for urban as well as wilderness environments. Weatherproof Garment makes beautiful jackets, but nothing else. If you want rainproof bottoms, you're stuck with puffy pants from REI. Their Gore-Tex clothing is wonderfully functional, but the prevailing style is masculine and sporty. That's fine, but sometimes one wants weatherproof clothing for non-sporting occasions. I don't always want to look like I'm going on a hike—even when I am! But I do want to be impervious to the weather, without a foolish umbrella.
Along those lines, I finally finished this rain skirt. It's waterproof, lined, and has snaps, a dual-separating zipper, and a waterproof pocket (not shown). I can unzip it from the bottom to make a slit, unzip it from the top to pull it on or off, or separate the zipper like a wrap skirt. It fits perfectly and looks cute!
There are two tricky things about sewing your own waterproof garments:
- Fabric is hard to find.
I got lucky: One day, Discount Fabrics happened to have a few yards of cast-off Ultrex, the generic form of Gore-Tex, and was unloading it for $.99/yard. I grabbed all of it. Normally, you have to specially order this type of fabric. Or, I can trek over to Berkeley and visit Narain's, but their selection of garment-appropriate fabrics is limited. It's also rare to find such fabric in colors that are reasonably attractive.
- Every stitch is a potential point of failure.
Wherever your needle pokes a hole, you've created a leak in your waterproof fabric. Every seam must be sealed three times: on the left, on the right, and down the center. This is easy to do with silicone seam sealer, usually sold for sealing tent seams and such. But it's also time-consuming. And if you later need to stitch over the sealant, it can stick to your sewing machine's presser foot and feed dog, causing ripples.
What's next? Perhaps a pair of bicycle pants....