Don't Hold Your Breath (Actually, You Might Want To....)
There’s an old saying that states: home is where the heart is. Happily this is only a figure of speech, otherwise I’d be either dead or a delicious little brainteaser for physicians the world over. The last few days have seen me visit Toronto, which remains my favourite place be. If there ever was a city I loved being a part of, Toronto was and still is it.
Whenever I return to Kitchener on the Greyhound bus, I always look like a lost puppy as I whimper and paw at the window as the downtown buildings and towers pass me by. It’s garnered me some strange looks on my return trips, but hey, it’s their fault for sitting next to me when there was perfectly good and vacant seat in the row in front of me.
It was a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment trip, born of whimsical fancy and the fact that I really didn’t have anything else better to do for a weekend. Friends of mine were going, invited me along, I said sure, why not. Ideally I would have been a surprise at a gathering of friends in Toronto…but we had not counted on everyone else being busy.
So surprise! I was in Toronto this weekend!
(On a related note, I’m currently wearing a black, short-sleeved shirt with a pocket on the left sleeve, and a pair of blue jeans that desperately need to be washed tomorrow. In case any of my friends who didn’t even know I was in Toronto decide to inflict gratuitous bodily harm upon me for this, you can use that list of what I’m wearing when you need to ID me at the morgue.)
But much fun was had in Toronto. Food was eaten. Anime was watched. Soap was purchased. Hours were spent on the phone with Mel, and my friends & I took random turns at getting her to blush profusely. There was also the unexpected boon of Toronto hosting it’s “A Taste of the Danforth” celebration, which in essence is a very long street party (leisurely touring it may take 3 to 4+ hours from one end to the other) with live entertainment and a lot of food, mainly Greek.
Yet in the end I had a Shih-tzu to return to, and a room to reventilate since it was a rather muggy weekend and my room had both its door and window shut closed the entire time. It’s always nice to come back to 3 hyperactive puppies who are so excited to see you that they can’t decide if they want to lick your face or pee all over you.
What I didn’t like returning to, however, was a most horrifically repugnant aroma. It was supposed to be lasagna. I emphasise the words “supposed to be.” This was like the lasagna of the living dead. It didn’t taste too bad when I sample it, but the repulsive scent it’s left behind has the same sort of effects you see after feeding someone pureed Brussel Sprouts and then forcing them onto a roller coaster. (Or showing them the
Batman & Robin movie.)
It’s almost like having my own personal Bog Of Eternal Stench that I never wanted!
My stomach is making noises that weren’t meant for this earth. The scent itself is offensive to all the laws of nature. I half expect to see neighbours dropping dead where they stand if they stand downwind of the patio doors in their backyards. So as I write this little bit of nowhere, I’m holed up in my room with the fan blowing in my face, praying that the horrific burned-to-a-crisp stench does not manage to slip in beneath the crack of my door and further nauseate me.
My heart still is in Toronto. And after the putrid smell that greeted me when I returned to Kitchener, I think perhaps I should have my olfactory senses in Toronto instead.
Today’s Lesson: horribly burned & mangled lasagna smells quite different from a horribly burned & mangled kettle.
posted by Phillip at 5:56 PM
