A Weekend In Late November + More

I suppose like most of my other secondary teacher colleagues out there in cyber-land I find mid to late November a very busy time of the school year. Mid term report cards are due. Then there's parent teacher interviews. With my AU-DDME [Autistic Developmentally Delayed Multiple Exceptionality] students it's somewhat different. They can't read write or talk, so the assessment is often heavily based on checklists, and a lot of teacher observation. After about 26 years in the classroom I can pretty much tell you intuitively how they are doing but of course administration always requires paperwork. I talk to the parents on a regular basis, so the report itself, let alone the parent teacher interviews isn't much of a big deal anyways, they all ready know what's going on. Our class had two big changes, first coming back to school from the holidays and then a room change. Routine is everything, but they seem to be settling down nicely now. I'm still working on all my other paperwork but basically with all that out of the way we've now just got to wrap things up for Christmas. Then get two weeks off to catch up with my own life. Whew.

By the way, for those of you who`d rather just get to the blog ban scuttlebutt, please scroll to the bottom of my blog. I`d rather ruminate a bit today, rather than just jump back into the melee. More time for that later. But please, be my guest, if you would like to cut to the quick. I understand.


It's been a mild autumn this year in Toronto. By mid day the temperature has often hit the low teens and we've had a lot of sunshine. Most of the leaves  have changed colour and fallen off the trees. I've got my long winter coat out, my woollen winter hat, and my winter boots. I am wearing them all ready. It's a pretty bleak and barren landscape outside our condo window. Gone are the birds and the bursting green foliage of summer. I'd sit then, out on the balcony with my morning coffee and paper. Maybe post a blog about how wonderful it all looks. Now? No. I'm always out and abouts during the weekdays coming and going from work at school and union. More evenings are spent cuddling up with Janet on the couch maybe watching movies or t.v., if we don't have errands to run. Or I'll just retreat to my man-cave, the back music room where I've got all my cd's, records, books and electronic equipment. Relaxing in my easy chair or just working on my music collection. Life is not without it's own late fall charms, when everything moves back indoors and we begin to hunker down for the long cold months ahead. Very Canadian I suppose.


December is perhaps my favourite winter month, even though the season doesn`t technically arrive until the solstice towards the end of the third week. One can expect the first snow, a gentle blanket of white covering the ground, the trees, the rooftops and landscape four floors below. There`s the steamy breath as one steps outside into cold. The slow drive into work. Everyone, especially the kids are usually quite happy and delighted. It all seems so fresh and new and of course Christmas is just around the corner. We`ll be off for holidays, returning in January. The winter blahs will settle in within a month or so after that with the short days, the snow piling up, the tedium of work, school and just getting by dragging on and on. Then and only after that will there be any hopeful sights of spring once again bring everyone and everything back to life. Maybe it isn`t the same for everyone, but I am a summer person with a lifetime of Canadian winters behind me and probably still more than a few to go. I suppose it shows.


So on Friday night Janet and I met downtown. I had a doctor`s appointment during the day. Then I got a haircut, checked out the music stores and met her at Winners by 5pm to clothes shop. Empty nesters, but not yet grandparents, we can just buy for ourselves now. After we walked down Yonge Street to Dundas Square, which can be mercilessly barren and windswept this time of year, stripped of it`s summer delights. The Christmas lights are going up everywhere along Yonge Street, thousands of tiny shining stars in the night, strung through the trees, up and over the street poles, the store front windows, well practically everywhere. Dundas Square is still just basically lit by the huge LED screens on all the high towers that surround it, flashing out their non- stop advertisements to buy buy buy. Rather ridiculous scantily clad models  models advertise the latest fashions on a cold late fall night. More ads for cars. Electronics. Trips down south.


We walked west to Chinatown and the Spadina Gardens, my favourite Chinese food restaurant. Big plates of chicken in peanut sauce, beef in black bean sauce. Bowls of steaming rice. We dig in with our chopsticks just talking about work and mostly the weekend ahead. Then amble over to the University Line to catch the subway north to Wilson Station where our cars are parked in the vast expanse of freezing cold parking lots. It`s easier than driving and trying to find parking downtown anymore, especially during rush hour.


 Saturday was more errands but that`s okay. It`s our routine. We drive about north Toronto going here and there and then returning home for the luxury of a late afternoon nap. We had tickets to go down to Harbourfront to see a Japanese Drum Troupe, the Nagata Shachu Taiko and Music Group perform their yearly Toronto showcase performance. They are locals who tour the world throughout the year. There`s a pretty small Japanese community in Toronto. Seemed everybody in the crowd was somehow related or knew each other and the band members. Janet is pure Japanese, 100%, but truth be told her family has been in Canada a few generations more than my side has. In talk, dress, and  mannerisms, she is 100% Torontonian. Asian women are so beautiful, and the Japanese Canadians are especially well cultured, polite and very friendly in a down to earth manner too. It was a very nice crowd and a great two hour show with one short 15 minute intermission. The drummers are very strident with an incredible sense of beat, playing solo and with and off each other. The arrangements and moods created were fantastic. There were the wind and stringed instruments, very light but vibrant. The backdrop was a flat screen of evening hues, changing slowly and delicately together with the atmosphere of the music. It was an incredibly moving performance.


Sunday finds me cleaning up at home. I went through all my clothes, putting away the last of the lighter stuff til next spring. Organizing my clothes closets for home and school. Getting together a few bags for Goodwill. I`ve put on a few pounds and don`t like anything snug. Come January I plan to shed some weight, but with Christmas just around the corner, it`s pretty pointless right now. Janet went out with her girlfriends shopping for gifts at the  big Christmas sales. We don`t have much we need to buy anymore, once we are all adults it seems rather pointless, but it is fun just the same, for her perhaps, not me. I had a nice nap, spaced out in my man cave and am waiting for her to get back so we can make supper, and cuddle on the couch watching t.v and wasting away the last of our weekend before we go to bed. And so goes a day, or weekend rather, in the life of this blogger, come late November. I suppose it`s not without it`s own charms and contentment. I hope everybody else is doing okay too.


And now it`s time for the news. I will be posting some more about the blog ban. Seems now it`s been downgraded to a Appropriate Protocol for Social Media or something like that, whatever that's supposed to mean. No matter, the devil is always in the details. I would think the Confidentiality Agreement with all its restrictions including sharing any TSU information on a need to know basis and through the main office is where that will be found.

2nd Vice President Frank Bruno was very adamant that he wanted it signed by everybody, executive and members alike at our last executive meeting, effective immediately. That or they'd be kicked off all our TSU committees, maybe even executive. Make any sense to you? Me neither!

Nothing is written about that in our by-laws. I would like to see the exact motion as it was approved made public to our members asap. At any rate, this was all said at our public November executive meeting, outside of the all too frequent private in camera sessions we have these days. Most of you would have been in class anyway. Seems to me that most everything is like a big secret this year. I can understand an info ban on grievances or collective bargaining talks, we have always acted accordingly anyway.

I've told President Jansen if he wont put a stop to the rest of this malarkey then I will give it a good try. Maybe its high time for a little whistle blowing so we can actually get more important work done, and leave the nonsense for those who would like to head out to the local watering hole later. This is not the TSU I know, love and where I have worked to serve you. Well, there will be time enough for this debacle later. I hope you had a good weekend and are getting braced for the school homestretch to Christmas. Cheers!


My fortune cookie. Not much new.

A Yonge Street Walk In Toronto + So On

Another fine morning out here on my balcony. I have my coffee, juice, cereal, and I am picking at some grapes thinking about what else I have to do to get ready for our Mexico trip. Yesterday I went downtown to Yorkville to get my hair cut real short for the summer, plus I figure it will be extra hot down there and I will be in the water a lot. I've gone to Wayne, the same hair stylist for years.

We got talking about Iphones. We're both recent converts. Next thing you know we've got them out, and are trying to show each other how to do this and that on them, the hair cut all but forgotten. I never noticed before but they have four tiny speakers on them, and one is louder than the others, which are very low. We  tried to figure out why as Wayne got back to cutting my hair. It creates a stereo effect, is that what Apple is after? It reminded Wayne of those pocket transistors we used to listen to in the sixties, with the fake stereo sound. Is one speaker louder than the others to create a slight sense of depth? Then why would Apple, being so high tech and all, not just put in four good speakers with right and left channels? It remains a mystery!

Hair cut finished I took a walk down Yonge Street, all the way from Bloor to Dundas Square. It was busy  but not so busy as last time, lots of tourists, predominantly Asian it would seem, clicking pictures of everything I see every time I've gone downtown Yonge Street all my life. I got a chuckle out of that, thinking I will be doing the same in Mexico. "Oh look at that! And That!" etc. Click. Click. Click. I suppose the interest is all relative to being from somewhere else so it's looks quite different and unique. Not that it isn't, but let's face it, if you see something all the time it becomes pretty routine, and after awhile you might not even notice anymore.

I've always enjoyed my walks shuffling down Yonge Street Toronto. The hustle and bustle, the cheesy looking shops and the big box brand name stores. All the way down to the Eaton Centre, where the pedestrian traffic is four way now, on the green light, kind of neat. Dundas Square was quite busy, and the fountains were on. All the seats were taken, folks were even stretched out relaxing in the sun on the concert stage and street barriers, which was okay, I was into walking.

Funny how huge crowds, like last Saturday are a complete turn off for me. If it's for a parade, at an amusement park, a shopping mall and so on, I get anxiety attacks for sure. But I can belly upfront stage at any huge rock concert and have become quite adept at doing so over the years. I've been in protests, demonstrations and riots and no problem. I've often spoken to large crowds at political rallies, both here in Canada and in Cuba, at TSU union meets, and in classrooms full of students over the course of my teaching career. It's never been a problem. I even enjoy it.

I was the radio program director during my student years at Erindale College, University of Toronto. I use to be a disc jockey at dances and so on. Never bothered me. I worked the Canadian National Exhibition every year as a student, thrived on the mobs, but wouldn't go there now as a visitor, no way. Doesn't even interest me; the carnival rides, the pavilions. I'll go if Janet drags me in, or there is a concert, but it's just straight in and out.

When my son was little, I even had to wait outside Santa Claus Village in Huntsville. All those frigging Santas, elves, kids, baby carriages. The stinky reindeer pooping everywhere. Wall to wall people. Nope. Not for me. Canada's Wonderland along Highway 400? The huge blue smurf guys, the screaming kids, the long line-ups for the rides. Nope. If there is a traffic jam I will drive way around it, even if it would be quicker just to bide my time and ride through, bumper to bumper. Highway 401? Rarely if ever! I've been stuck in traffic jams for hours, snaking along, then at a standstill, then moving a few feet again. Only to eventually arrive at the scene of the carnage to see smashed cars and glass. An ambulance, maybe a mangled body or two. Everybody slowing down again to rubber neck. Total horror show. Nope! It's not for me!

Give me something to do in a crowd and I'm in fine form, can even get really into it. Otherwise no.

Anyways, I walked about the Eaton Centre a bit killing time before I met Janet who went to get her nails done after work. There was a huge window display of a mannequin in a Canada shirt and tourist shorts, with matching Canada suitcases and all. White and bright red. I don't see the appeal. It looked so loud and gaudy! Might frighten little children or draw the attention of the Taliban or what not, I don't know. I do remember at one time when we travelled abroad I would wear a small Canada flag or pin attached to my jacket or backpack or whatever. Folks did seem nicer. Getting dressed up as Mr. Canada in a Canadian flag with matching Canadian flag accessories is all totally beyond me. Still, there it was in a window display, screaming out, "Come in! Buy this!"

I took a picture with my iPhone. Also a picture of the mannequins in the "Old Navy" store. All decked up in these cheapo cheapo clothes with these dumb, absent grins on their face, surrounding a happy little terrier dog statue with it's tail stuck up in the air. Maybe I should post the photos here? I do have foreign readers . Maybe I should do a Welcome to Toronto Canada's Kitsch slide show, eh? Ha.

I do love Toronto. Truly it is the city the rest of Canada loves to hate. Of course it probably helps that I was born here. If I explain places and things in our city in greater detail with full names and the like, that's because everybody who reads these posts isn't from here like most readers. They don't necessarily know what I am talking about. This week there's been readers from the US, Russia, Australia, Germany,the UK, Bulgaria, Argentina, India and so on. If you aren't from there, a special hello! But I digress...

I met Janet outside the "World's Biggest Bookstore". That's the name of the place anyway. We went to Chinatown, the outer edge, along Dundas between Bay and Yonge to the Spadina Garden restaurant. One of my favourites. Heaping sloppy plates of spicy chicken with peanut sauce, succulent beef with black bean sauce. They seem to specialize in their sauces. Maybe not gourmet fare, but you see a lot of Asian and movie people there, so I'd suspect they are onto something.

Afterwards we caught the subway to our cars and drove home. I listened to a live Robert Fripp concert disc I bought for a bit in my man cave, then went to bed at a decent hour with Janet. She finishes work today for a few weeks, and I think it ticks her off to no end that I get to just slop around pretty much doing as I please. That and a whole lot of nothing.

Sorry if these postings drag a bit, meander here and there, digress, as does my whole life and state of mind these days. I feel great, but the postings should be a lot more interesting when we head out on our trips. Soon enough. I've got our in-laws to house sit, they can just enjoy staying here and being in Toronto, a holiday for them, while we are away

The airplane can be packed tight, that's fine, but the crowded airport gives me a big anxiety attack, the whole time, until I feel the jet wheels lift up off the runway, then I am okay. Can hardly wait. But enough for now.....