Breakfast at the Rex

 Linking up at Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

Sunday Post

Queen St. W Toronto

I forgot to mention that last Friday while I was waiting for the bus the lawn was full of robins! Yes, that is the construction in the background where they are working on the loading dock driveway. Normally the bus would pull in there to pick passengers up but we are using the main gateway instead.

 Saturday was our lazy day. I watched a couple episodes of Great British Bake Off, Grantchester and John watched golf. We both did some online window shopping.

Sunday laundry had to be done. 

John went downstairs to use the golf simulator. I cut a plant back and rooted some of it. I also had some plants rooting so I planted them. I took the bolting basil and rosemary off the balcony and potted for indoors.

This was too leggy so I cut it back and put the cuttings in water to root.

This was the top of the large floppy one I threw out, it is almost ready to plant.

We finally got rid of that bag on the balcony with an old plant in it.

Monday was a rainy day with no plans (because of the rain)!

We reviewed our Newfoundland Labrador itinerary and made the last reservations required until we leave Newfoundland.

Click here if you missed last Monday's mural at Dundas Square.

And click here to see two large gorgeous murals I also found last week!!

Last week's Tuesday Treasures was also from my Queen St. W walk.

This week's T for Tuesday featured some adult refreshments we had sampled.

John booked the simulator and I finally went down to see it (and mail a package).

I went to the drug store, $ store, Winners and Longo's for this and that.

Wednesday John golfed and he took this photo as he waited at a light in Mississauga. On a clear day we can see them from our condo looking west. This is affectionately known as the Marilyn Monroe building due to its curves. It is a residential condominium twin tower skyscraper complex in the five-tower Absolute City Centre development, The larger of the two towers twists 209 degrees from the base to the top, making it very similar to Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden, Currently you can buy a 2 bed 1 bath about 750 square foot for about $580,000. A good price outside the city of Toronto.

 I wandered up to College Park to get some photos for some other posts.

I'd never heard of the Polaris Music Prize - this from the 2020 competition.

The Polaris Music Prize awards $50,000 to the artist who creates the Canadian Album of the Year, judged solely on artistic merit, without consideration for genre or record sales. Additionally, the nine other nominated acts whose albums make the 2020 Short List will receive $3,000 each courtesy of Slaight Music.

Backxwash – God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It - was on the short list.

If you look closely at the red sandstone building (Oddfellows Hall) they are filming Orphan Black:Echoes. 

College and Church

Church St.

Gold sneakers on Dundas E.

Happened to hear the helicopter on the hospital roof and it suddenly lifted.

Waiting for the bus.

Thursday I spent a few hours at a friend's place setting up Zoom on her laptop and then teaching her how to use it. I also did some other computer tasks for her.

Friday John golfed. I took the streetcar to Queen St. West to find a mural I had spotted but was busy with my phone so I missed it. Instead I got off at Dufferin and strolled along, spotted a few new murals along with other stuff.

Gladstone Hotel 1889, is Toronto's oldest continuously running hotel, named after the British prime minister.

I cannot believe that Curry's Art is no longer there. It closed August 15.

Drake's Hotel.

I stopped here for lunch and should have had the chicken, instead, I chose poutine, which wasn't very good.

The green space on CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) property adjacent to Shaw Street provides a place for patients to access nature as part their recovery and a meeting ground where the West Queen West neighbourhood interacts daily with the CAMH community.

As part of Queen Street Redevelopment, they made some improvements to this green space, recently renamed TD Commons.

It is also home to the White Squirrel sculpture!
 

It had started out grey and cloudy but then this.

New flower shop across from Trinity Bellwoods.

On the same block is The Paper Place with TYPE,a bookstore as a neighbour.

Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church

I also spotted another mural being painted! She is the artist, I'm not sure who she is.

Terrible picture, but the story is, I was going to kill time in the Royal York Hotel lobby, when she appeared, reminding me that Fan Expo was on! So I headed over to check out the costumes. I skipped the 2 PM bus and caught the 2:45 instead.

Here she is again. 

Thousands of comic book fans, anime viewers, film enthusiasts and cosplayers are in Toronto for the annual Fan Expo Canada convention — the first in two years without COVID-19 restrictions.

There was a table at the Convention Centre entrance to "check your props".

Click here to see the celebrities that will be in attendance.

No, I have no idea who she is supposed to be...

Check out Mom and her boys.

They were busy gushing over each other's costumes.

Along with the Fan Expo attendees, there were Blue Jay fans heading to the stadium, lots of tourists going to/from the aquarium and CN Tower,and the Haribo bear was handing out samples. It is a busy place!

A family affair!

Taken from the bus as we turn the corner at Front and York.

 IN THE NEWS

Back to last week's news story about a Bell Media exec asking "who approved letting her hair go grey" regarding the hiring of news anchor Lisa LaFlamme, Dove Canada has released an ad campaign #KeepTheGrey!

Wendy's (burger chain) went grey as well. Her hair is normally red.

This cartoon was published.

AND THIS!!!

"Sports Illustrated Swimsuit" joins greying list of brands supporting Lisa LaFlamme“

We’re going grey with [Dove] in support of women aging confidently on their own terms,” tweeted the magazine on Thursday. “We were so proud to feature @mayemuskon our May ’22 swimsuit cover — living proof that beauty only gets better with age.”

Unfortunately she is Elon Musk's mother.

AND THE LATEST!

Michael Melling, has gone on leave from his role as the head of CTV News after anchor Lisa LaFlamme's sudden departure from the network's newscast caused an uproar. (Michael Melling/Linkedin, George Pimentel/The Canadian Press)

He was her boss and the one who said "who approved Lisa going grey?".

COOKING

I'm trying to use what we have in the house as we are going away for the month of September.

Saturday - Chinese curry chicken - John will never say no to this. We had focaccia with it.

Sunday - finished the last of the short ribs in a slow cooker stew. Leftovers were lunch on Wednesday.

Monday - made meat sauce for spaghetti and focaccia.

Tuesday - lamb doner kababs with pitas and red onions, tomatoes, hot sauce and tzatziki. I used pork instead as there was NO lamb in the store, so strange as they usually have a selection. The pork was not as tasty as lamb.

Wednesday haddock (last in freezer) fish cakes with Thai red curry paste, red onions, jalapeno with tzatziki and Caesar salad.

Thursday chicken tenders and salad.

Friday steak green peppers onions and beets.

WATCHING

Darkness Falls - Anderson Falls rated one star from RogerEbert.com.

Runaway Jury 2003 American legal thriller film based on the John Grisham book that we both read years ago.

We watched Industry, a television drama series.
Industry "follows a group of young graduates competing for a limited set of permanent positions at Pierpoint & Co, a prestigious investment bank in London".
The initial season explores graduates from all walks of life as they compete for Pierpoint's limited number of available full-time employment opportunities. The graduates include Harper Stern, a Black upstate New York native who uproots her life in pursuit of success at Pierpoint's London branch, despite having lied about the university from which she graduated; Hari Dhar, a state-school graduate and child of Hindi-speaking immigrants; Augustus "Gus" Sackey, a gay Black British graduate of Eton and Oxford; Robert Spearing, a white working-class Oxford graduate who is eager to please but taken by surprise by the change in social mores concomitant with high finance; and Yasmin Kara-Hanani, a privileged, well-connected child of Syrian parents with an underachieving, drug-addled boyfriend.

READING

Another week of little reading. I am slogging along with This Might Hurt. I struggled at the beginning with how many narrators there were, as did many reviewers. It is a typical cult story but I am curious about the outcome.