Coffee Date

 Linking up with Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

Weekly Wonders

T Stands for Tuesday

1 May 2026

HANOI VIETNAM

Last week's post.

SATURDAY

I was updating my Toronto spreadsheet (you know, the one I started because my notes were getting out of hand), I was reviewing my garbled notes and couldn't figure out what I meant by "shoeshine signs"...this lead me down a massive rabbit hole figuring out that I meant looking for Rocky Dobey, notable for his metal plaques about town, so I created a document so that we can find them!

I worked a little on my Irish census project.

We ordered theatre tickets recently, 3 shows in fact. Mirvish no longer produces paper tickets. Mirvish now uses digital-only tickets accessible via the Mirvish App, or your mobile phone's wallet (Apple/Google). Tickets are sent via email for you to manage, scan at the door, or share. 

You can also transfer tickets to others via the app or have them scanned together at the door. Ensure your phone is charged and tickets are downloaded before arriving at the theater.

If you do not have a mobile device to access digital tickets, you can still obtain physical ones through these methods:

Box Office Pickup: You can visit any Mirvish Theatre box office in person to have your tickets printed for you. You will typically need to provide your order number, the email address used for the purchase, and a valid photo ID.

Request by Phone: You can call Mirvish Audience Services at 1-800-461-3333 to arrange for your tickets to be mailed to you or held for box office pickup.

Regular Mail: When purchasing, you may still have the option to select "Regular Mail" as your delivery method, though these will not appear in a digital wallet if you choose this route.

This is fine and dandy for us, as we are tech-savvy. But what about people who aren't and that is not always the elderly. This is marginalization.

Okay, there are options for printed tickets.

Direct Digital Wallet: You can access your tickets without an app by visiting mytickets.mirvish.com and entering your email to receive a secure access code.

Dynamic QR Codes: Note that the QR code for entry only appears 90 minutes before the show and refreshes every 30 seconds. Because of this, screenshots or printouts will not work for entry.

Venue Wi-Fi: If you have a smartphone but no data plan, all Mirvish theatres provide free lobby Wi-Fi so you can load your tickets upon arrival.

So all is good, unless there is a power outage!!!!

How to make crystallized ginger! I should try this. I made a couple of banana breads (frozen bananas) and added some ginger (turned out delicious) to one of them. The other I added some mixed peel (frozen). Just because I had both of them on hand. This is a very easy recipe, one bowl, no mixer!

SUNDAY

One Word Sunday

I spent the morning as usual, relaxing and blogging, reading, etc.

Odd fog rolled in and out.

I baked two pumpkin cranberry loaves, I had the pumpkin frozen since forever and frozen cranberries that needed using up.

Sunset from my view.

And John's view.

MONDAY

We went for mani-pedis. 

It's 10 C so it is patio weather! Walking home from mani-pedis.

After lunch John used the golf simulator and then went for a 13,000 step walk. 

I went to the bank for cash, checked out Winners, to the pharmacy for some sale items and picked up two Starbucks sample in Union. 

I also spent some time in the bookstore, so I added 6 books to my wishlist.

Our next vacuum arrived and it is so quiet!

TUESDAY

Tuesday Treasures

Gloomy dark morning. John suggested we go for a burger at Burger's Priest, we haven't been there in ages since we decided we like Cabano's downtown instead. So we got in the car, my first time since November!!, we're driving along The Queensway, and it is GONE, GUTTED, to the GROUND. 

I had to Google.

July 2025 - The Burger’s Priest in Etobicoke damaged in suspected arson for the fourth time: police. 

So we came back home and went to Union Station for Jersey Mike's subs. 

John spent the afternoon prepping his golf clubs, GPS, and golf cart for the season.

WEDNESDAY

Signs

Today should have been the first golf game of the season, but it was wet and damp, cancelled.😒

I went for a haircut, then to Metro for a small piece of fish for my chowder. I also went to find a new plaque the city had put up, it will be in a future Tuesday Treasures.

It was raining out so I cut through the Royal York and they had their Mother's Day display on show.

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY  New Zealand

I overheard a  disturbing  conversation when we boarded the bus. A woman, youngish, appeared out of nowhere, and began a conversation with the driver, through the door, I'm not sure if she was aware that there were passengers already on the bus.

As a preface, all residents must show their bus pass to the driver, if you forget it, you provide your information and the driver writes it down in a log. Visitors/guests can also use the bus. If alone, they must provide the name/unit number of the guest they are visiting along with their name.

She began to berate the bus driver, Mojo, 1:10 bus, first run of his day. I gather it involved a passenger who rode, perhaps yesterday. She went on to say, we pay for this bus service and shouldn't be allowing other people, with tattoos all over their faces on the bus. She didn't want to be near "someone like that".

Driver reiterated that the person had provided all the correct information and if she had a problem then speak to the office. He did what he was supposed to do.

She went on a tangent (again) that she (residents) pay for the service and we don't have people with tattoos on their faces living here and was probably a drug dealer. 

Driver should know people "like that" don't live here. Driver, again, says "speak to office".

What bothered me was that she would assume tattoos = drugs! Also that she assumes no one "like that" would live here.

Quite funny, actually, when you consider that we recently had notification from the office about police activity in the building, as they followed on out warrants in two separate units and made arrests (one in which, they had to break down the door). I'll bet they "looked like" they SHOULD live here.

 We took the free shuttle to Billy Bishop Airport, we just call it the island airport. I wanted to find their new murals.

To get to the airport (it is on an island) you can either take the ferry or use the tunnel.

The ferry ride to and from the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ) is one of the shortest in the world, taking approximately 90 seconds to travel the 121-metre (400-foot) distance across the Western Gap. The ferry runs every 15 minutes, offering a quick and scenic link from the foot of Bathurst Street to the airport.

The pedestrian tunnel at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is 853 feet (260 metres) long. It connects the mainland to the island terminal, running 100 feet beneath the Western Channel of Lake Ontario, with the crossing taking approximately six minutes.

Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop (February 8, 1894 – September 11, 1956) was a Canadian flying ace of the First World War who was officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian and British Empire ace of the war. He was a highly decorated war hero and a controversial figure who later became a key figure in training pilots during the Second World War.

When we got home John made coffee, and I opened the biscuits (GF) that I had ordered. I had shown you the shoddy packaging last week. This is what they looked like.

This was $52 worth, 10 boxes. I got onto Amazon Chat immediately and ended up with a full credit and told not to bother returning them.

Amazon’s customer service strategy is basically
“here’s your refund, please don’t talk to us”

FRIDAY

May 1 - my mother's birthday

I usually do a morning trivia, I try to answer the question and then look up the answer. This morning AI returned this answer.

I replied wrong!! It apologized. I was very tempted to ask if their answer was wishful thinking!

John went to Costco, we are doing more of our shopping there lately. While he was out I tidied u the kitchen and fridge in preparation.

I also added a little more to the charity bag. Before covid, we had a charity box downstairs. It disappeared during covid and I assumed it was long gone, until I was chatting to a concierge and she mentioned that we did have a box! Yes, no more having the stuff piling up here.

Once John returns from Costco, it is an hour job between us, dividing up and putting the stuff away. We are building up a good stock of pantry goods. There are still some canned goods I'd like to have in stock such as crushed/diced tomatoes. We don't eat many canned vegetables but I'd like some corn. Apple sauce is a great replacement for eggs!

We got steaks, salmon, hamburger, and chicken thighs so a big meat order. I updated the inventory list. We go through a lot of chicken thighs. John has decided he'd like to try salmon again, yay, a favourite of mine. We don't usually get hamburger there, I just pick it up but decided to save myself the bother and get a large package.

We never buy package cold cuts but was hankering a sandwich. We had lunch and then I froze it into individual lunches for both of us, getting 7 lunches.

I was out of almond flour (a bag lasts at least a year) it is perfect for many gluten free baking items and I make a chocolate cake that we love with it.

We also got a lot of fruit and vegetables. We were out of eggs as I had baked last week.

The ridiculous item was shaving blades $70!!! We checked Amazon and couldn't do any better.

Our Costco orders vary, meat, then vegetables, paper products, cleaning products. Cleaning products, especially, last us a year! Paper products 6 months. 

While John used the golf simulator I went to Winners and found some bargains for John, a black hoodie and two golf shirts.

John took the bag of clothes (his) to the charity box.

We decided to return the expensive window robot cleaner.

It might be May, but these were shivering, as was I.

AROUND TOWN

9 uniquely Toronto things the author thought were normal until she moved away.

The City of Toronto needs a proofreader. They recently posted this sign in the Trinity-BELLWOODS neighbourhood.

COOKING

John cooked another omelette for lunch so that finished off the ham and mushrooms.

We had potato cakes on Sunday using Saturday's leftover mashed.

To use/used

frozen coconut milk - curry

frozen Shanghai curry paste - curry

frozen clam juice - chowder

frozen bananas - bread

scallops - chowder

MENU

Saturday - corned beef, mashed potatoes and cabbage. There is great value in buying cabbages!!

Sunday - wings and sweet potato fries with dipping sauce

Monday - hard shell tacos - sample from Union Station last fall. We would never buy processed prepared food like this, but I have to admit it wasn't bad, aside from the salsa which I threw into the soup bag. The colour of the shells was eye-watering artificial but tasted decent and free.

Tuesday - curry chicken, using lots of this and that.

Wednesday - fish chowder scallops, shrimp, haddock

Thursday - pork schnitzel mashed potatoes beans

Friday - steak loaded baked potato with brocolini and cheese

WATCHING

I am so excited that MasterChef Australia season 18 is showing now. John even loves the Australian series, it is soooooo much better than the Canadian and a million times better than the American. I have a secret spot where the episodes are available for download almost immediately after airing. So far I have 7 episodes downloaded. 

We started Top Chef season 23, the only other cooking series John really likes. It's our in-between show that we watch as a filler.

We finished StartUp, the series (3), and I must say we loved it. I don't want to give any spoilers but that ending was perfect!

We started Undercover, a Belgian-Dutch Dutch-language crime drama television series. The plot revolves around a story inspired by real-life events, where undercover agents infiltrate a drug kingpin's operation in Limburg, a Flemish province bordering the Netherlands. The infiltration is executed by two agents, Bob Lemmens (Tom Waes) and Kim de Rooij (Anna Drijver), who are posing as a couple at the campground where the drug kingpin spends his weekends.

I had watched part of episode 1 of the British series Suspicion (CBC Gem) a while ago and got into it this week.

Five ordinary Brits are accused of kidnapping the son of a prominent U.S. media mogul. They embark on a desperate race against time to prove their innocence, but will anyone believe them - and are they telling the truth?

READING

I finished Judith Hearne and what a depressing read that was!

I also finished Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. 

A poignant, funny, and sharply insightful coming-of-age story, Stir-Fry is a lesbian novel that explores the conundrum of desire arising in the midst of friendship and probes feminist ideas of sisterhood and non-possessiveness.

Started Jemima J, and I must say I am a little bored but amused. I am enjoying reliving the hype of the internet in the early 90s, chat rooms, online dating, the beginning of emojis.