I'm back on the TTC, more or less full time, until the weather warms up and the streets are clear enough to cycle. Now I did end up cycling a bit on Sat., though I hit a few chunks of ice on the "back roads" where traffic is much lighter (and they don't usually salt), so I did come reasonably close to wiping out. I returned home on the major streets. I may actually be able to bike on Wed. or Thurs. It's supposed to be above freezing on Tues. as well, but I have to go out to the Theatre Centre, and I feel that is just pushing my luck.
Anyway, I biked back and forth from the Distillery because I was seeing Narnia (the Musical) at noon, and it was clearly going to take 40 or so minutes to get there on transit (and the preferred route was to take a bus along River St., which I have never taken, which didn't exactly instill a lot of confidence) versus 15-20 minutes on a bike. In the end it took the upper limit, precisely because I had to slow down and watch for icy patches. Interestingly, it felt colder coming back from the show, and the ride back was fairly unpleasant.
I did a couple of quick things at home and then decided I should go check out a few galleries, since I wasn't able to watch Wake Up Dead Man at a time that worked around my schedule. However, had I known everything, I would definitely have planned things differently. It wasn't until Castle Frank or so that they made a big announcement that Line 2 was completely shut down between St. George and Ossington! Normally, I can live with Line 2 disruptions as long as the Broadview to Yonge stretch is open, but this time I was continuing on west. I wanted to get over to Dufferin to get to Bau-Xi. The shuttle bus was quite a nightmare. It clearly added 20 minutes or so to the trip, and it was so crowded and uncomfortable. I wasn't even able to get any reading done. I only spent about 10 minutes at Bau-Xi. I ended up leaving around 4:45, and I had no idea if I was going to make it over to 401 Richmond in time. I actually let one bus go by, in order to take the Dufferin Express southbound. The Dufferin Express wasn't really the problem, but then the Queen streetcar was pretty slow. I made it to 401 Richmond around 5:30, and I was a bit steamed. I would definitely have made it to both places by 5 pm had Line 2 not been compromised. Fortunately, two or three galleries, including Gagne Contemporary, actually were open, so it wasn't a completely wasted trip.
Getting back was a huge struggle. I decided I should try to take a streetcar across the city rather than deal with the replacement buses. I rode up to College, only to just miss a streetcar. Then I saw it turn down Spadina. For some unclear reason, Carlton streetcars were diverting to Dundas. The next streetcar (on College) was a Dundas car! I didn't want to take the Dundas streetcar, so I hopped off as it also made the turn, and then the next Carlton car didn't stop, even though there were a bunch of us at the stop. I was completely beside myself at this point and so angry with how badly and inconsistently the TTC and its drivers do things. I figured I would just take the Spadina streetcar north and then walk over to St. George. I sort of forgot that you can't be let out early (as on Bathurst) and you have to go all the way inside Spadina station. Once there, I decided I might as well walk to Line 1 (which did have service at Spadina), take this south to St. George and then transfer back to Line 2. As you might imagine, this took way, way more time than I had planned for, so I decided I would rather go straight on to Hirut, even though I would be early, rather than stopping off at home and be late. (To top it all off, it was an extremely long wait for Line 2 to come, so it was pretty crap service all the way around.)
When I did get over to Woodbine, I needed to stop by the bank (as Hirut's cover charge is cash-only) and pick up a notebook and pen from Dollarama. Fortunately, I had the time to do this. Then I went in to Hirut and had their Ethiopian food, which is quite good fare, for a jazz club. There was a septet playing. I managed to get a lot of notes down in the notebook and a few more pages of the Stratford piece, which is starting to shape up. At least getting home was generally easier, except the wait for the 72 bus was so long that I ended up walking the whole way down Pape. Thanks for nothing, TTC!
On Sunday I had to get across the city again, but I figured I would take the Queen streetcar to Dufferin (and avoid Line 2). However, there was a major problem with my plans. As I was leaving, I scrambled around in my bag to make sure I had my phone. I was totally sure I had my glasses in the bag as well (so didn't look for them when it would have been easy to fix), but this was not the case, however. As I was already most of the way to Jimmie Simpson, I decided to go ahead and get my laps in, but then I would have to come home. I cut it a bit short but still managed to get in 19 or 20 laps, which is a solid workout. I made it back to the house, grabbed my glasses off the dining room table and turned back around. I was reasonably fortunate that there was a 72 bus coming in only a few minutes. (The vast, vast majority of the time I end up waiting 8 or more minutes, which is simply infuriating...) I decided that the best course of action was to take Line 2 to Bay and hop off and catch a cab there, instead of at St. George where everyone would be looking for a cab. This actually worked out pretty well, and I didn't have to order a cab after all. I took the cab to Dovercourt. I made it a couple of minutes late, but they held the movie about 5 minutes because of the huge TTC disruptions. I was there to see My Night at Maud's, which is incredibly the first Eric Rohmer movie I've watched (even though I own most of his films on DVD!). I recall that there was another Rohmer movie I wanted to see, but I just couldn't make it work. I believe this was likely Pauline at the Beach, though it might have been Maud's. At any rate, I'll try to catch Pauline the next time it comes around. I thought Maud's was maybe a bit too intellectual in places, but it's probably as good a place as any to start with Rohmer.
I didn't have time to eat anything, and I had to hustle over to Dufferin because I had exactly 45 minutes to get to TIFF to see North by Northwest (in 70 mm!). I was lucky that the next bus was a Dufferin Express, and I got down to King fairly quickly, though once again Dufferin to John seemed to take forever. I made it with something like two minutes to spare, hit the john and then slipped into my seat just before the Rolex commercial. The movie was great. I actually saw a clean print in 2024 at Scotiabank.
I went to an Indian place for dinner, then dropped by work but only for about 30 minutes. Then I went back out to Scotiabank to see Wake Up Dead Man. It was an overly complex plot with a few moments that I would consider cheats (where they show the audience something that didn't happen). For a few moments I thought they were claiming that the Monsignor had faked his own death a la Juliet (from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) but that wasn't the path they went down fortunately. So it was a long day of movies. I took the streetcar back rather than deal with any further pain of breaks in the subway service. I probably did try to fit too much in, given the vagaries of transit (and not being able to bike (much) in the winter).
Did I learn my lesson? No, because on Monday I went straight from Huston's The Dead at Paradise to a play reading session down on College. Because I was at Dovercourt, which is almost exactly between Dufferin and Ossington, Google said the best transit route was just to walk it, so I did. Go figure.
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