We recently passed the one year mark of living in Toronto. We signed up for another year in our
apartment making this the first time we have stayed in one place more than
twelve months since leaving Lake Quivira in early 2009. It is kind of nice to take a break from that
pace.
I suppose this is a good time to assess the past year and
look to the year to come. For me the
biggest thing is finally coming to accept Toronto for what it is and to quit
holding it up to comparison with New York City.
That is simply not fair. There is
nothing like New York anywhere and for that matter every city has its own
unique personality. We do love Toronto
but we also joke about it being the “Steampunk” version of New York. Like what NY would be like if a couple of
things had gone off in a different direction.
It is a little like living in an alternate universe. Most of the things are the same, language,
monetary system, culture, but all with significant noticeable twists. Like if Great Britain won the Revolutionary War
would the Queen be on US currency or would we spell color as colour and center
as centre? Would TO be more familiar if
they had adopted a grid street system when NY did? Very few streets cut through Toronto from end
to end and none of them have numbered names.
It has taken most of the last year but Toni has finally
received her Permanent Residency card, like a Green Card in the States. Her status was changed officially in February
but she only got the physical card a couple of weeks ago. It was a very happy day for her. In the meantime she “unretired” after a year
and a half. She has been working in
sales for a Microsoft® Gold partner selling slots in software classes. It is located just a couple of blocks away
and so far she likes it and her employer is very pleased with her work. Even though she is in sales it is very low
stress. The bonus is that it gives us
some mad money, not just mad money but Canadian mad money. We finally had some cash coming in that doesn’t
have to be converted. Checking the
exchange has become something that we do every morning before we even check the
weather. A shift of a just a few cents
on the dollar can send us into action with the currency broker.
Most of you know that Toni and I first met in high school,
Shawnee Mission South, while we were each dating others. We continued bumping into each other through
our college years again while dating others.
Eventually we managed to get together when we both unattached. We often speculated that we might have
crossed paths many years earlier when her father opened his County Fair
supermarket near County Line Road and Mission Road in Kansas City, Kansas. My family lived about a block from there the
first couple of years of my life and later shopped there occasionally after
moving to Mission.
Now, I don’t really believe in destiny but I could speculate
even further. There are scenarios where Toni and I could have both wound up
living in Toronto since we both have family living here. My grandfather could have transferred back to
Canada to live and work near his brother, Great Uncle Roy. Toni had considered going to The University
of Toronto when her sister, Connie, moved here.
The fact is that Connie and Roy wound up living on the exact same street
with only four houses between them is an incredible coincidence. The possibility of yet another chance at
crossing paths here several years later is rather intriguing to think
about. As it turned out I stayed several
days at Roy’s house at 155 Silver Birch Avenue in 1963 and then I spent several
days at Connie’s house at 177 Silver Birch again in 1995. This is an obscure street in a tiny corner of the metro area. To fully comprehend this click on the link below the map (view larger map) and then zoom out to see the entire city.
Perhaps we were destined to be living together in Toronto
and the Universe just took a little longer to get us on that course. I don’t really think so but all the same it
is fun to think about. Alternate universe, right?
Oh, one more coincidence.
The photo above was from our first trip to Toronto together with Toni’s
parents, Rosa and Is, to visit Connie. The
photo was taken by me near Yonge and Bloor exactly 30 years ago today.
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