I had to pause a moment to ponder the question. That’s the problem with brains on ice, they’re just not that quick. Mine especially.

“Almost!”

Was my ultra-witty reply to the beady-eyed parka as it and its occupant passed me on a southern Cabbagetown street corner.

I know, I’m ashamed. It’s why I prefer to write. When the mouth isn’t engaged, it goes a whole lot better. But, in my defence, it was pretty darn cold out there. Those from Yellowknife would probably be out there in their trunks bouncing around beach balls and carrying frozen drinks with little umbrellas, but –14 Celsius (6 Fahr.) is chilly for Toronto. I was double-panted, double-socked, scarved good and proper, hatted – you bet, gloved – oh yeah, ass cheeks – frozen as all get-out. And of course once the ass goes, the fingers are next.

So please allow me to present…

Wanderings of a Frozen Finger

Reflections on a freakin’ cold Cabbagetown

by Patrick

—

CABBAGETOWN (haiku)

Cabbagetown is cold

Holy shit! It’s really cold!

Plus I hate haiku.

I … did not enjoy poetry at school much. Repress your words until you hurt, is poetry, to me. No thanks, I’m of the thousand words or more school. I prefer the lazy man’s thousand words, however.

Here are some people with their younguns seeking shelter from the awful cold, well-heeled natives striding past them confidently, callously, and a mischievous elf out on a smoke break. Also, some old lady standing at the corner about to risk her life. I’m pretty sure she’ll hardly be looking one way let alone both. Behind isn’t even on the radar, and the radar extends out to maybe half a meter anyway.

You’re thinking about her now, aren’t you? The old lady about to be potentially banged around by a car. But what can you do? I drove down here many times and when the old people jump out in front of you, you basically treat them like deer. Bust out the binoculars and start looking them over. If it freaks them out and they hustle off the road, great. It’s in everyone’s best interest. But unfortunately, you gotta wait for those old people to cross. I reserve that privilege for when I’m an old fart, so I feel I should live by the opposite side of that  understanding today. At about 65 or so, we earn the right step out into traffic at any point from anywhere. That’s just all there is to it.

Alright, let’s move on. Here we have a nice picture of the Amsterdam, being it’s usual picturesque self:

I don’t know much about the guest house, but it’s on a nice stretch of Carlton Street, and it looks old, and it’s surrounded by old houses. Like, if you knock them down they’ll send you to jail kinds of old houses. And the whole area reeks of quaint. The website itself is a quirky, hypnotic, Stephen King movie intro – I imagine the guest house is probably the main setting. In the middle of January, I bet it all gets even quainter. It would actually all come together pretty well because as you round the corner from the guest house you suddenly find that you’re in a slightly less quaint part of town.

It’s a little more Kafkaesque down here. No matter how much K-L FASHION ACCESSORIES gussies up their signage, the big old building it’s attached to has seen better days. And look at the state of the Wing Machine one, the white (used loosely) one. As the hero of the Stephen King movie descended down the street, disoriented and coatless (old Stephers gets paid big bucks to fluff up that part of the story, dear reader, not me), he would find himself getting closer and closer to the once-dreaded Regent Park. With ghosts!

Continued in part 2…

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