Travel reading: Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh
Library booksale copy... so I don't have to worry about leaving it on the subway or packing it home with me.


Untroubled flight and arrival in TO yesterday. Unpacked and settled into my room, and twelve hours later have yet to discover what I forgot to bring along with me. But I will. .. okay, yes. A mug. Styrofoam cup in the hotel room with the mini coffee pot will necessitate a stop somewhere today to pick up a cheap mug as I refuse to use that other stuff.


So desperate for food when I got here - only packaged snacks are exorbitant prices on my AC flight, and I left Vancouver at lunchtime and arrived here long after TO suppertime - that I ate at the first place I could find in Dundas Square after settling into my hotel. A retro diner, lots of atmosphere - red vinyl banquettes, chrome tables, black and white checkerboard floor, tabletop jukeboxes, and fifties/sixties/music (my style) VERY loud. The chips were lousy, the hamburger was wonderful - fresh made actually tasted of meat, and ketchup was served squirted onto a white plate in the shape of a smiley face.


We don't have TV at home so I settled in to channel surf in my room. I knew there was a reason I don't have TV - nothing that I wanted to watch. So I did a couple more runthroughs of the story I plan to tell at my 'keynote' session at EW Foster school on Tuesday, and slept.

Woken at 2:30 by a helicopter circling downtown - then slept again until 5:30 to the usual city noises, a hum of traffic, sirens, the sound of construction equipement, revving engines, all at a comfortable remove from my 15th floor room.


After breakfast, for which I will try the downstairs restaurant - open mornings only right now during renovations - I'll head out to test the subway, which I will ride out to my library gig with time to check out the neighbourhood around Forest Hill library. Later, supper with the sister of an old friend.


An easy day before a full one tomorrow which has a very early start.

But first - another test of the accomodations - I'm headed for the shower.