18 September 2026 - Toronto ON
QUEEN ST. W TORONTO
LAST WEEK'S RECAP
SATURDAY
I love the cat in the kimono above! I would hang it in my kitchen, if I could find room! BTW I forgot to post the print John surprised me with!
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
I don't know where the day went!! I spent it finalizing our travel plans and producing a document.
I used AI and it does try my patience at times!! I also booked a train trip, and updated/revised some of our plans.
Then I got fancy creating images for our itinerary, formatting, adding a table of contents, the usual nerdy stuff I love. Boy, AI can be so dumb at times!
I did a bunch of blog reading as well.
I cleaned out the fridge. I watered plants.
John subscribed to RedZone so now he can have multiple games on the screen at the same time!
With TIFF and this, there is going to be a lot of tourist dollars in Toronto this week.
I did some more travel arrangements first thing this morning. I also worked a little on my monthly recaps.
After lunch, we decided we needed to get some air and exercise as John has been icing his knee all weekend. We thought we'd walk King St. to check out TIFF.
Roy Thomson Hall was getting ready to open its doors as was The Elgin.
Princess of Wales had fans cordoned off in the Fan Viewing area. Red carpet arrivals at the venue were scheduled to kick off around 1:45 p.m., featuring scheduled appearances by actors like Léa Seydoux and Jella Haase, alongside other festival screenings.
Mexican restaurant across from the TIFF Centre and on restaurant row.
That seems to have gone up quickly, the MEC store used to be here.
We decided to walk to City Hall, just because...
Who knew when we were taking these shots that they would be part of a TV series later today?
I actually did want to find this mural today.
We had noticed the large number of filming trucks on Queen St. And right here at the Old City Hall was the filming!!
The codename "MOTHERLAND" in Toronto belongs to the television production The Testaments (Season 2), which is the sequel series to The Handmaid's Tale.
This reminds me I haven't watched the fist season!
Toronto's Old City Hall plays a fascinating role in the production. Specifically, the production team utilized the holding cells and basement dungeons beneath the historic building. In fact, author Margaret Atwood herself filmed a highly anticipated "scowly" cameo as a Gilead guard right inside these cells, noting that the gritty, real-life graffiti left on the old holding cell walls was kept completely intact for the scene.
While the underground cells of Old City Hall handle the dark, dystopian dungeon sequences, its modernist neighbour across the street—New City Hall / Nathan Phillips Square—has also been utilized by the franchise to portray major exterior public spaces in Gilead.
There was also a strong police presence along Bay St. due to the Investment Summit just up the street at the Four Seasons Hotel. There were reports that there would be protests.
75 minutes to get home because of an accident on the Gardiner, inches ( I exaggerate) beyond our exit!
We finally finished The Morning Show. We Started Slow Horses and it is slow. We did watch a movie The Amateur featuring Rami Malek.
TUESDAY
Other than going to Longo's for something for dinner, doing laundry and chatting to my cousin and T, reading some travel blogs, that was my day.
Longo's had ground beef, BOGO so that was a bonus. I should go back and get more.
WEDNESDAY
I finished
May recap, it is a pain working backwards!!
I decided to go back to Longo's for a couple more packages of the ground beef BOGO.
Mural in progress.
I found these new pieces in the building at our bus stop.
There was a 3PM Blue Jays game, so I people watched (and ran into someone I once worked with) while I drank this rather mediocre Starbucks, waiting on the bus.
THURSDAY
We went to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) after lunch.
On the way...
I was surprised by how busy it was.We were here for two exhibits.
Monet to Matisse was especially crowded.
Making its Canadian debut at the AGO, this sweeping overview of Impressionism illustrates the origins of the movement and its considerable impact on two successive generations of avant-garde painters. Drawn from the extensive holdings of the Dallas Museum of Art, the exhibition includes masterful works by Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Vincent van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch, and more.
Still Life: Bouquet and Compotier, painted in 1924 by the French master Henri Matisse.
I Raro te Oviri (Under the Pandanus), an 1891 oil on canvas painting by Paul Gauguin.
This framed artwork is Woman at Her Toilette (1889) by the French artist Louis Anquetin.
Still Life, Tea Service, an oil painting created by French Impressionist artist Claude Monet in 1872.
Claude Monet's famous oil painting Water Lilies (Nymphéas), painted in 1919.
Melissa Gaboriau Auf der Maur (born March 17, 1972) is a Canadian musician.
Auf der Maur began performing in 1993 after forming the indie rock band Tinker while she was a student at Concordia University. She was recruited as the bassist for the American alternative rock band Hole in the summer of 1994 and is included on several Hole releases, including the album Celebrity Skin (1998). Following her departure from Hole in 1999, Auf der Maur briefly joined The Smashing Pumpkins as a touring member for their 2000 tour and began her solo career; her debut studio album Auf der Maur was released in 2004 on Capitol Records and Out of Our Minds, her second studio album, was released in 2010 on her own independent record label, PHI–MAdM Music. She has also collaborated with Indochine, Rufus Wainwright, Ric Ocasek, and Neverending White Lights.
As a former Montrealer, I knew that she had been born in Montreal and that her father was the journalist and politician Nick Auf der Maur and journalist and literary translator Linda Gaboriau.
Other than that, I really didn't know anything about her.
.
We were going to see the Kusama exhibit, but there was a line-up, we'll go back on a morning instead.
A new mural spotted.
FRIDAY
I continued mapping out the AI itinerary for our trip as I want to make sure there are no mistakes and the timing is accurate.
Our cookie order came, and it wasn't all smashed like last time.
We decluttered a few things, the old shower head and the additional arm that came with the new one, some dead batteries and some old papers.
I went to meet by BFF for lunch.
I've posted my lobster roll before, it is our go-to. However, they had a promotion that I had only noticed after I ordered.
Unbelievable!!
COOKING
I made a pot of Franken-soup or fridge dump soup. I took the vegetable stock I froze last week, threw in the leftover spare rib sauce (there was a lot) and then the leftover pot roast, added rice and it was delicious.
We actually finished a Costco bag of broccolini!
Saturday - pot roast (Costco steak we didn't like)
Sunday - lemon chicken Alfredo from frozen rotisserie chicken and Caesar's salad.
Monday - leftover free for all (steak, pot roast, pasta and coleslaw)
Tuesday -
spicy Thai ground pork beef with basil, tzatziki, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce onions in wraps. There was no ground pork at Longo's. UPDATE there was but they had moved it from its usual spot.
Wednesday - chicken quarters, roast potatoes and broccolini.
Thursday - hamburgers, coleslaw, potato chips
Friday - bavette steak, frites, chimichurri
READING
I love when I search for a book at the library and up pops a bunch of books with a similar title. L
ooking for "The Way We Are Now" lead me to...and I did borrow this.
...which was a conversation we had had last week when we were watching Restaurant Impossible. Some of the chefs with failing restaurants were still cooking food from 30 years ago, and we remarked that we don't eat like that anymore. I still do make some of my mother's meals that I love but I consider those comfort meals.
And this, which I added to my wish list.
I'm almost finished The Expats...this seriously jumped all around the place.
I plan to flip through this.
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