I had a nice surprise the other day.  But let me back up first and tell you about how many people it takes to keep a condo apartment of 24 floors, maybe 12-14 suites per floor in tip top shape....

I might add that we have actually 3 buildings in our complex.  The first one built, the one I am in is called Battery Park.  It is positioned in the centre of the 3 buildings and it was the first one to be built.  It's address is 50 Lynn Williams, but the main entrance is on Battery Park Road- the street to the north.  So the building is called Battery Park

The next building to be built was given the name Zip - it is actually more correctly on Pirandello street,positioned to the east and slightly north of Battery Park.  The 3 buildings are surrounded by a square of 4 streets - I get a bird's eye view of their balconies.

The third building, which is under construction now - just a bit further along than my Liberty Towers Condo, is called Vibe and it is to the west and slightly north of Battery Park.

So back to the 2nd diversion to the main story of this blog. I was talking about the number of people it takes to run the complex of 3 buildings in order to explain my gift, which is pictured in this blog.

There is one main entrance and front desk for the complex.  There are 3 shifts of  guys - maybe you would call them security guards - I prefer to call them "concierges" (but they really are not in the hotel concierge sense) anyway there is two guys on guard for day and evening - and one during the overnight from midnight until about 7:30 a.m.  I walk the dog at least twice a day and these guys always open the door for me - saving me to have to fumble for keys.  They also always say hi and give me a smile and wish me a good day - morning and night.

The building also has cleaners.  Two guys who work my building.  Rene and Marianne work my building - a different guy works the weekend day shift.  Not sure who does the other buildings.  They work all day - each morning Rene is mopping the elevators as I take Bella out in the morning and usually Marianne is cleaning in the front foyer when I come back in.  In the evening there is another guy (sadly, many of these guys who work my building remain nameless), who cleans during the early part of the evening - these days that mostly means cleaning up all the salt tracked in through the entrance to the elevator lobby.

Of course, we also have the property manager - who works in his office each day and stays late on Wednesday in case any of the owners need to chat with him they don't have to take time off work.

You might be wondering why I am going into such a long winded explanation of all the guys it takes to run the building.

At Christmas I like to give something to every person I owe thanks to for helping me out during the year. That means all of these guys.  My idea is that it isnt the value of the gift, but the fact that there is one, and that it is nicely wrapped and accompanied by a card which thanks them for their kind service during the year. Usually it is a box of chocolates, although the "main guy" at the front desk - in previous years Rolland and this year Frank - would get a bottle of brandy.  Anyway, I feel strongly that we need to show appreciation to those guys who make our lives easier whilst they do what I would consider pretty thankless jobs.  So I make a point of seeking out each and every person during Christmas week and giving them their thank you gift.

This year I got a gift back!!!!  Frank - our new "main front desk guy" rang me on the weekend and said he had a gift for me.  He then brought me up the nicest box of beautiful hand made marzipan candies in a gorgeous box that his wife made!  I was really flattered to receive this giftp andarticularly since he repeated several times "because you deserve this!".

Pretty nice.

BenchMark: Wired Up and the Toronto Carpet Facory

BenchMark Blogs: the art benches of Liberty Village

If you have missed the previous posts explaining the Liberty Village Benchmark program and the art benches we have located in our village go here to fetch them all and read the earlier posts. This is the 7th post in the series to feature each of our 19 art benches.

The bench I am featuring today is on the west side of Mowatt Avenue near Liberty Street. It is bench number 1 on the Benchmark Map which can be accessed here.  Titled "Wired Up", it was created by Michael Brown.  The artist has very cleverly made the boards of the bench look like cabling and has painted the boards with the codes for various cabling standards.
Michael Brown is a Toronto-based visual artist working primarily in Painting, Installation and Performance art.  For Michael Brown's Web site go here.  There is a significance to the bench in that there were/are a number of .net startup ventures which were/are housed at the Toronto Carpet Factory.  When we think of internet we think of cabling.

This bench is sponsored by the Toronto Carpet Factory, which is not really a carpet factory!     If you go to the York Heritage Properties Website it is described as follows:

A centre of creativity, a full city block in size, originally built as a carpet manufacturing facility between 1899 and the 1920s. A historically listed, turn of the century office complex featuring several buildings clustered around internal courtyards and laneways. They feature high ceilings, exposed brick and beams with large, operable windows and extremely secure, economical internet connectivity. Companies in in the Toronto Carpet Factory maintain that the nature and quality of the office accomodation has enhanced their ability to recruit and retain employees.

 Note the words "centre of creativity" - that is because Liberty Village is the home to many creative types (as mentioned in my earliest blog on Liberty Village).  and this is the kind of clientele that York Heritage caters to as it specializes in alternative office spaces. 

It seems that the Toronto Carpet Factory and the York Liberty buildings in Liberty Village have acquired an international reputation for the adaptive reuse of historical complexes, thanks to York Heritage Properties. The York Heritage designers have attempted to create space that is youthful, exhilarating and attractive to a new corporate culture that requires its office accommodation to be a resource rather than merely four walls to house employees and equipment.  (according to the York Heritage Properties web site).

York Heritage Properties website also has a page detailing  building history and  pictures from 1899 and during WWI.

Our Liberty Village is full of Heritage Buildings and I intend on featuring each them, along side the benches which sit near them in the coming blogs.

The Changing Landscape in Liberty Village

I first started talking about the construction of my new condo building in last year's blog on Jan 16th - nearly a year ago. Go here if you'd like to read that blog. At that time it was merely a  hole in the ground - they were digging out space for the foundations and parking lot.  I had waited patiently for a couple of years after I bought it, then bought the one I am in now, moved in and prorogued the decision about what to do (it seems progrogue is a new commonly used word in Canada) until I was forced to decide.  The decision is nearly upon me and in the next year I must decide if I can keep the two condos (perhaps renting one out) or if I should sell one of them and if so, which one.  

Yesterday, I spoke about my lake view and the sunrise.  I noted that my view was now slightly obstructed to the south east with the construction of the building.  For comparison, the sunrise I saw yesterday looked like this on Jan 15th of last year.






I have been watching the buiding under construction all year rising in the sky slowly obsuring my view of the Toronto Harbour Islands.





My new condo will face directly west and therefore the view will be toward the Humber Bay area of the Lake Ontario shoreline - not quite as nice as the full southerly lake view I have now.

Over the year, the building has gone up, up and up - it will contain 24 floors of residences.  I have one on the 19th floor - I can view its windows from my condo here on the 21st floor of the building known as Battery Park.  My new building is known as Liberty Towers.

 A few months ago I had my appointment to select the interior finishings for my new Liberty Towers condo.  Somehow doing this makes my new condo much more real to me.  Suddenly I am confronted with the fact that the condo "to be built", bought more than 4 years ago will come to fruition sometime next winter.

I am very excited about all the neat interior finishings I have chosen.  It will be kitted out much nicer than the condo I have now, pocket doors, jaccuzi, wall mounted bathroom faucets, upgraded euro style kitchen counter and other up scale finishings.   It will be a great interior space, slightly larger than the one I am in now and also a bit better layout.  But the view?  Not even half as wonderful as I have now.


My new condo will face west and there will be no downtown skyline to see, something I value so much.  There is still a lake view from the balcony but certainly a materially lesser view and also the balcony is half the size of the one I have now.

Another factor I need to consider is the next area of development in Liberty Village - perhaps being built sometime over the next year or two.  The King West Plaza, as it is called, will be a might fine looking set of three condos (see below), but the 3 chunks of the upper sections will cut the wonderful view of the Battery Park condos and will likely entirely obscure the westerly view of the Liberty Towers condos. The first building to go up, the one on the east, next to the Liberty Towers will probably start rising in the next couple of years but maybe will be 4 or more years before it is built and ready to occupy, if past history is anything to judge by.  Will I be still here in 4 years?  Who knows!

So for now this is my view - Liberty Towers under construction and King West Plaza, an empty field which at some point in the coming years rise up from a whole in the ground.  My next thought is that I should buy a south facing condo in this new project and leap frog from building to building over the years to the one with the better view.

.

The First Work Week of 2010 Zoomed By

The Beauty of a Quiet Saturday Morning
I love to get up early on a Saturday morning, turn on some great music (usually commercial free CBC radio - Molly Johnson hosts the morning show each weekend morning), grab a big cup of coffee and a book or my laptop and lounge in bed for an hour or two.

This morning was one such treat morning.  I am listening to Bob Dylan's "Staying here with you"... Life is good. 

Essential to the morning is the time spent gazing out my windows while the sun comes up, watching the changing seascape in the  Lake to the south and the tower night lights slowly extinguishing as daylight arrives around the Toronto downtown skyline to the east.  Some mornings I can get the full view of a glowing ball rising over Lake Ontario, other times it greets me over the top of an office or condo* tower.  As the sun changes position during the seasons of the year it gradually moves from the southerly to a northerly position relative to my 21st floor bedroom in the sky.

The point is that I am always engaged by my morning view.  Winter views are as interesting as summer views. This morning the colour of the water, slate grey - and the pattern the morning light makes on the cold, winter wind whipped water holds my attention.  Across the lake the clouds are piled high looking like so much mashed potatoes.  Funny how the sky above the lake can be clear and blue but the land across the lake cloud covered. Incidentally, the pictures taken this morning make the water bluer than it was to my eye - it was slate grey with swirls of white, for sure and of course, the view is far nicer in person - the detail can never be captured adequately through the lens of a camera.
 
As the day dawns I am happy and (as often said in these pages) grateful for where I am and what I have.  In this I don't mean happy with my home and property (tho I have no complaints on that front) - rather,  I mean grateful for where I am in my life, the happiness I feel in my heart and the friends and family I have here in Toronto, up north in the Collingwood area and for friends absent from my life at the moment.  I am truly blessed.

As I sit here observing the changing scene in front of me - the expressway is starting to flow traffic like a river in spring and the trains and trollies hurrying people to their destinations, my attention turns toward my new condo, which is rising up in front of me and has in the last 6 months obscured a small piece of my view to the south east.  For today, it has also obscured my view of the sunrise over the Toronto Islands.  My condo stands there still just a shell of a building, but it has pretty much reached it's zenith, I now watch it fill out and close in it's interior to the elements rather than watch it grow in height.  More on that in tomorrows blog.


The views over the lake today at dawn have such texture that they remind me of an artist's canvas and scenes I have seen in galleries.  The fantastic view lasts only a few hours.  Today is a clear day and as soon as the sun is high in the sky an equally beautiful - but less magical view presents itself - deep blue sky and shimmering blue water.





Liberty Wednesdays

This week I spent a wonderful Wednesday evening at the Liberty Bistro. As I have blogged previously, there is an open night mic every Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Wednesday night is hosted by Noah Zacharin and over the last 6 months I have become a regular here. It is a friendly and comfortable evening, usually easy, mellow and low key - and full of great music.

Most often, the evening is fairly accoustic and individuals play alone, sometimes with Noah accompanying on his guitar, but as it is billed as open mic and not jam there is normally one musician on stage as they showcase 2 or 3 tunes that  been in progress since their last appearance.

Occasionally, we will get an out of town musician who has a free night and wants a bit of exposure - or even the company of a bunch of like minded folk .

Usually there are just as many musicians as audience and sometimes more! As we all sit around in comfortable ambiance,  professional musicians with a free night to kill and hobbyist musicians alike share songs, rub elbows and chit chat happily with  a few regular appreciative fans, other Liberty Bistro regulars and drop in  dinner guests.  It is truly a place where everyone is friendly, musicians gather and great music just happens.

This week the place was thick with people with music in their hearts as well as their lips and fingertips!  The evening turned into a jam session as each musician in turn was joined by percussion, bass sax, violin and even at one point bass guitar as well as the usual acoustic guitars -whether they wanted accompaniment or not.  LOL  It was a loud, rocking and energy filled night. I had fun.

To read more blogs about the Liberty Bistro go here.

* Note: for my foreign visitor - condo is the word we use for particular type of home ownership when the building contains individually owned suites, but no land.

Happy Birthday Elvis!

 Today is Elvis's 75th birthday.  As a consequence I have heard a fair number of Elvis songs today on the radio.  Makes me think about all the fun at the Elvis Festival in Collingwood every summer on the 3rd weekend in July. In case you don't know about Collingwood's annual Elvis Festival go here to read my blog about it.

I heard this version of Are You Lonesome Tonight on CBC Radio 2's Drive Show and it had me in stitches laughing. If you listen to the video you will hear him sing "Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair", instead of singing: "Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there". I have read that Elvis liked to switch words around in songs sometimes when he was in a silly mood. Apparently this time, he saw a bald man in the audience after making up the silly line and then burst into laughter which continues through most of the song. It is fun to watch.




Of course, I had to also include a proper version of the song as it is one of his nicest (imo). Well, along with Love Me Tender and a few dozen others. LOL.  The song itself was written in 1926 with music by Lou Handman and the very touching lyrics were written by Roy_Turk. Elvis first recorded it in 1960

Elvis Presley   - Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray
To a bright summer day
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep
And picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain,
Shall I come back again?
Tell me, dear, Are You Lonesome Tonight?

I wonder if you're lonesome tonight
You know someone said that the world's a stage
And we each must play a part.
Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweet heart.
Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance
You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue
Then came act 2, you seemed to change, you acted strange
And why Ive never known.
Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you.
But I'd rather go on hearing your lies
Than to go on living without you.
Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there
With emptiness all around
And if you won't come back to me
Then they can bring the curtain down.


Is your heart filled with pain?
Shall I come back again?
Tell me, dear, Are You Lonesome Tonight?

BenchMark: Liberty Village Facing East and Facing West

As promised, it is Thursday and I am presenting the next in my BenchMark Blogs: the art benches of Liberty Village.  If you have missed the previous posts explaining the Liberty Village Benchmark program and the art benches we have located in our village go here to catch up and read about the benches already covered.  This is the 6th post in the series to feature each of our 19 art benches.

The next  two benches are a pair of related benches each created by Miklos Legrady, who also designed -  the bench featured in my last Thursday post - Eternal Summer. 

These two brilliantly colourful benches are located in the middle of the 2 parts of the Canalf Presentation Centre Parking lot - which snuggles into the middle of a pretty nice parkette.  There is a wonderful dry stream of rocks and which meanders along Liberty Street.  The benches sit opposite one another in the walkway between the two sections of parking lot located in the penninsula of land between Lynn Williams Street and Liberty Street.  My favourite of the two is the one which is on the east side (#9) with the blue sky and birds in flight.  If you look up that is just what you might see.

The benches are titled according to the scene painted on the bench.  The first one I have shown in the blog is # 8 "Liberty Village Facing West".  This is the bench  on the west side so that the view is what you might see if you are standing facing the bench and viewing the sky in that direction.  You can make out the silhouette of a few buildings - I venture to say the Toy Factory (now lofts) and the building housing the Brazen Head Pub (note to self: I am sure that is a historic building; better find out which one!)     Bench #9 is "Liberty Village Facing East which is now somewhat dated, there was ony blue sky when the bench was created.  We now have Liberty Towers condo rising into the sky.

Liberty Village Facing West and Liberty Village Facing East were both Sponsored by CANALPHA LIBERTY TOWERS.

New Year's at GopherBroke Farm

I have written quite a few times about visits to the GopherBroke Farm and the great fun I always have when I visit.  As I prepare to return from this most recent visit, I am in great spirits as this visit was no different.  It has been a great 3 days up here in the winter wonderland.  Tomorrow, when I prepare to get back to reality and routine next week, I will do so with happy spirits and thoughts of gratitude for all the dear friends I have.

It has become a tradition that I celebrate the New Year with Barb and John and the circle of friends  known as "The Gang of Eight" who all live in the Grey Bruce area near my Collingwood Shangri-La.  This group, of which I am the honourary  9th member, has been having get togethers for some number of years and so are a cozy and comfortable lot.   Barb and John  have in recent years hosted a New Years party and I always take advantage of this opportunity for an extended visit.

This year, we had the addition of another Blue Mountain acquaintance of Barb and John's who also joined us at last year's party.  The evening started a bit later as folks arrived, but no one seemed to be watching the clock, satisfied with lots of nibblies and chat whilst we waited for the assembly.  As the evening marched on we sat around a comfortably large elegantly set table for 10 and ate a fabulous meal (to which all had contributed), quaffed our favourite beverages and enjoyed the intelligent, witty, kind and comfortable companionship of friends.  The conversations were both fun and interesting and the evening, accompanied by great deal of food (particularly desserts) made it a perfect way to start a year.   We were just finishing dessert, still sitting at the dinner table, when the New Year rolled around and the traditional bubbly poured for toasts and we sang out the old year and welcomed 2010.

A perfect way to bring in the New Year!

Yesterday Barb and I went to visit an elderly friend of hers, who lives on a farm about 8 or 9 kilometers from GopherBroke.  I have blogged about visits to Beba's farm previously and it seems that the long New Year's day walk and visit is also becoming a tradition.   We had done the New Years Day walk to Beba's farm last year also.  It has been snowing lightly for a few days and the 2 hour walk, while a bit cold with  a bitter wind, was a great opportunity to walk and talk with Barb and catch up on all sorts of stuff.  Barb and I plan to do the Pilgrim's Walk -  the Camino - in Spain next year and we chatted happily about what we needed to do throughout the year in preparation for the trek in 2011.

As mentioned in the earlier blog, Beba, at 81, is as spry and clear headed as either Barb or I.   I always enjoy visiting this sharp tongued and quick witted lady who is fiercely independent and quite obviously happy with where she is and what she has.  Visiting her reminds me that life in old age does not necessarily have to be one of infirmary and dependence.  She is a model for both Barb and I.  We had a great visit.  John joined us later by car and brought the dogs and dinner (there was enough left overs from our New Year's party to feed an army).  We had decided not to walk with the dogs - it really is a bit far for my little Bell'a short legs and the snow tends to turn into snow balls stuck onto the ends of her feet during a long walk in new snow.  Gibson, Barb and John's dog, is getting on in age and hard of hearing and we worried about keeping him out of the way of any cars which might zoom by.  So the dogs were left behind to join us later when John came along.   Beba has two dogs and the cutest kitten, and I believe enjoyed the animal visitors as much as the human visitors.  We ate, drank and were merry a 2nd night running - although at an earlier hour!  What a great time we had.

So sad that this blog has to be without the pictures.   I am internet challenged at the moment and have just waited 1 hour for photos to upload via 3G and have given up on it.    There is no internet at GopherBroke Farm and sadly, I am without at home at the moment also.  I have recently switched internet providers and due to a scheduling mix up am without both internet and cable until Jan 7th.  Tethering my iPhone to my laptop seems not good enough for uploading photos.  So come back next weekend and I will have added some nice photos to the blog.  I have some spectacular winter wonderland pictures to share!  Lots of white fluffy powdery snow at GopherBroke farm - and of course at Blue Mountain for all the Ontario skiers.

Such was my New Year's celebrations.  It is my sincere hope that you and yours had as  great an evening and New Year's day as I did!

Please note that due to my internet challenges I will not be posting again until Thurs Jan 7th.  I think blogs without pictures can be fairly boring - so I will save posts until after my new service gets connected.


Happy New Year friends!