Rhymes with Orange

Good morning! We've just spent our first night in our new apartment. When we took it, we took it a month early so that we'd have time to slowly move in, get things arranged. As such we spent yesterday sitting here waiting. The cable was to be installed between 11 and 1 and the new bed was to arrive between 2 and 5. I can't tell you how tiring a day of waiting can be.

Joe had moved some stuff down on Friday while I was finishing up the first of the two Summer School courses that I taught. So we had a few basics here, a television, a dvd, linens for the new bed, a few plates and some frozen food. I got myself set up right away to see if I could hop onto an unsecured wireless network, and sure enough there were four or five that made themselves available to me.

By 2:30 the cable was in and the bed set up. We immediately headed out of the apartment and into our new neighbourhood. We are as close to the center of the city as it is possible to get. Our first stop was a coffee shop that has tables and chairs set out on a patio right on Yonge Street. Joe went in to order and I stayed there parked at a table. After living in the country for 17 years, I had to close my eyes now and then because there were just so many people, doing so many things, going so many directions that I felt a bit dizzy.

I first saw her out of the corner of my eye. She was a very big woman, nearly my size, on a very quick scooter. In the basket in front of her were several gaily wrapped packages, she wore vibrant colours daringly mixing florescent orange with a pink that seemed to strobe. She had tied a bunch of balloons to the handlebar of her scooter. One of the balloons was silver with a message that said, "Golly you're 50!" and the rest brightly danced around the silver messenger.

She crossed the street and then, just as she was passing in front of me, a gust of wind caught the balloons and they bobbed down around her face blocking her view. She stopped and disentangled herself from them pushing them back up and into place. She started again, and again the wind blew them down on her. She threw back her head in a throaty laugh and smacked the balloons upwards. And away she went.

Just then Joe came out of the shop with our teas and sat down with me. He asked me what I was smiling about.

"I think we're going to be happy here," I said.