Spoke too soon

The stabbing pain that I felt through my right shoulder blade a couple of weeks ago seems to have heralded a return of problems in that area -- bone mets or osteoporosis or pulled muscle? Steak or lobster? Can't decide. Don't want to know. But in any case, I am not walking as well as I was last week and again having trouble sitting at the table to eat.

Rosemary was with me all day yesterday and cooked up a storm with every wilted vegetable and leftover in my fridge. My stomach was not very good, so it was great to have a nurse. To celebrate the summer weather, just before the rainstorm began, we walked out to a new coffee shop that has just opened up in my neighbourhood, the Sideshow Café. I nearly didn't make it, but I managed. I live in Little India, which, you can see from a story I wrote called "Indian Summer" (found here), I adore, but the monocultural nature of the stores and restaurants does mean that occasionally one longs for a place to get a croissant or a coffee that isn't Coffee Time. Just up the street from me on Gerrard, east of Greenwood, there is an old theatre that for the past few years has housed the Centre of Gravity Circus School. Since the barbershop that took up the corner of the building picked up and moved, some friends of the circus school opened up the coffee shop in that space about three weeks ago. It's funky and cute and a welcome addition to the neighbourhood. Neo-hippie, as Rosemary calls it. With croissants brought in from Bonjour Brioche, no less.

Pollyanna moments:

• old friends, students and acquantainces popping up out of nowhere to congratulate me on my award, I think because Jian Ghomeshi announced it on CBC Radio One's Q.
• blue jays in the back yard, and pink tulips, and buds on the lilac bush. And my basil seedlings are coming up.