Notes on a gray, almost Parisian Saturday in Toronto

Just now, a lost laundry card turned out to be in the pocket of some laundry-day jeans all along. Crisis averted! Which is, I guess, the theme for the week. If everything that I'd feared had gone wrong, large and small, had done so, this would have been a different Saturday indeed. One not as devoted to the dual goals of living in non-squalor (as in, unpacked and with furniture) and trying to dress more like a glamorous (not gamine; these are different) Parisian.

Today began with a run, and by "run" I mean what was, according to Google Maps, a short jog to the St. Lawrence Market, but which took a long time because I'm still worn out from - yes - a Lululemon Run Club run earlier in the week. (Joining a gym seemed too expensive, so the fancier-sounding but free option it is.) This would have been better to do early in the morning, before the market itself got incredibly crowded. (I'd chosen sleeping in and reading a short story in the New Yorker, about graduate fellowships.) But we now have a lot of Ontario-grown cherries, which came in a pretty basket declaring their provincial origins.

I was still on a noble-and-efficient kick for a little longer, able to sustain interest in getting the apartment reasonable-looking for long enough to vacuum and put some more pictures up, but not quite long enough to find and sort out delivery for a dresser. Still, it's now sort of... civilized here. We can have people over now, with somewhere for them to sit and everything. Which is more than can be said for the last few places we'd lived.

Then came the poodle-centric diversion of taking Bisou to a dog run. There aren't any nearby, so this is a bit involved, and requires taking advantage of Toronto's dog-friendly (off-hours) public transportation system. The run we went to is in the same park as the Allan Gardens Conservatory, which turned out to be pretty spectacular. (And very Midsomer Murders. Orchids!) Right there in the middle of Toronto, all these tropical plants! Cacti! Also: koi! turtles! We took turns, because (very understandably) the conservatory does not allow dogs.

There was something else after. What was that? Oh yes... shoessss. With the help of my more-French-than-I-am spouse, I decided upon a pair from Gravity Pope, in the final sale aka absurdly gorgeous shoes at reasonable prices section. But... too small! And it was the last pair!

Turns out another branch had them in (what I think will be) my size, so in 7-10 days, I will be Inès de la Fressange, crossed with Charlotte Gainsbourg, with a bit of Isabelle Huppert thrown in. I have a whole vision for these shoes, involving black tights, which... look, it does not get hot out in summer in Toronto, at least not this summer, so I might as well wear this outfit before parka season arrives.