I was the model of productivity today. I loaded my bundle of marking for the day into my knapsack and headed for The Danforth. You see, when I can park myself somewhere, like in a restaurant or cafe, for a few hours – I get much more marking done. Toronto readers will think this post is about trying to parallel park on one of Toronto's liveliest streets but NO! A-ha … I fooled you!

"The Danforth" is actually, officially, Danforth Avenue but no one ever calls it that. Why? I have no idea. This is similar to calling the thing you cross to get to The Danforth from downtown – "The Bloor Viaduct". It is a bridge, ok? A bridge. Toronto English seems to lean towards pretension.

Anyway, I wandered along The Danforth, looking for just the right spot. It was lunch time, yet I needed to find a place that was not crowded with lunchers and that had excellent lighting and that would be willing to let me – a single occupant – take up a table for four. See, this is trickier than it sounds. What would you call a place that is open for lunch but that is not crowded and would be happy to see me take up four seats? You would call that "not a very good restaurant". Nonetheless, I spied The Willow, a Tex-Mex place with not a single person in there at 12:30 p.m. Normally, I'd go running away from such a place but, today, it suited my needs exactly. I got a window seat and the server was pleased just to have another human being sucking air in her general vicinity.

I was hovered over, in short. It was fine, though, and the food was surprisingly good. Homemade soup, salsa and excellent nacho chips.

I finished my target allottment for the day – which is why I'm posting now. I also looked out the window a lot at street life on The Danforth. Here is a selection of what I saw:

• A woman, I'd say about mid-late '50's, in a powder-blue ski jacket, wearing a knapsack that appeared to be chock full of stuff. She was hugging three stuffed animals to her chest, one was a teddy bear. She had a sort of lost, vacant look about her.

• A man, 30-40's, in a baseball cap and a black and yellow jacket. He walked by me several times and he kept bending down and picking something up off the sidewalk at various points. I realized, after watching closely, that he was picking up partially smoked cigarettes.

• Speaking of smoking – which I speak of as infrequently as possible – the percentage of people who walk down the street while smoking is well beyond what I would have expected. I would say about 80% of the people I saw today walking down The Danforth were smoking. This seemed to cross age segments, economic status, gender, race, sexual orientation and pretty well any other segment I can think of. The new anti-smoking laws have clearly driven people out of restaurants to get their nicotine fix along with a cardio work-out. I don't really get it.

After I finished my mini-marathon of marking, I walked along the north side towards Carrot Common. I was looking for places to put this, and I found a few.

God-irrelevant

In my quest to be more like Lex when I grow up, I have taken to  hauling my camera around with me.  As I have said before, I'm not a visual person.  Sounds/music – yes, I'm all over that. Words – yes, gimme more … words words words. So, I did have my camera today and what did I use it for? For taking a picture of words, that's what! These particular words were on the side of a funeral home. I think I got in a bit too close for the 60 Minutes extreme close-up, but the gist is clear.

I'll be back tomorrow, if I hit my daily marking target. Or, more accurately, I'll be somewhere tomorrow, trying to hit my daily marking target. Stay tuned …

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