It's a grey morning here in Toronto (or Tronna, in the lingo). We're supposed to have scattered showers all day today and a high temp of "11," which is 52 or so to you and me. Once upon a time, the US was supposedly going to go metric. Heh.

Anyway, had the typical short flight up here. Air Canada has this whole thing down. It occurred to me as I was having to give up my roll-on bag (that fits on larger jets just fine) that, ironically, I've only really been flying on small planes frequently since I moved to a larger city. Flying out of or back into Tulsa, only once was I on a plane smaller than a 727, and the amount of time spent on the ground at DFW insured that I'd never make that mistake again. At least the small jets that Air Canada uses still qualify for some sort of priority in the queue. Or I guess there's also the fact that Ronald Reagan [sic] Washington National Airport has a limit imposed on the number of flights that can take off and land (ahh, federal gubmint intrusion) so there's not much chance of there being a long queue behind which to be stuck. Unlike DFW. Curiously, DFW is also a place where there's federal gubmint intrusion into airport operations (Wright Amendment, anyone?) and that's a huge train wreck now. The gubmint seems incapable of extricating itself from regulating airports around Dallas, too, which would be about the only way to fix both DFW and Love Field. But I digress.

Got to Canadian Customs and had to talk my way past the (admittedly friendly) agent since I have somehow managed to misplace my passport, presumably at home even. I had it when I came back from the Netherlands, and I thought I had unpacked it along with my plane ticket and receipts, but it's gone now. Made it into Canada just fine, so now I have to figure out a way to make it past the US Customs agents when I go back tomorrow. I think I'm going to get mom to go scan my birth certificate and email me a .gif of it.

Em and Dave's condo is pretty cool. They've got wood floors everywhere but the entry and bathrooms (tile) and the stairs (carpet). The view is great and they'll be able to fill their balcony with plants, which is very cool. James and Percy are their typical cat selves, and Percy's had several spins at my hands.

I've been surprisingly not-horrified by their condo. I think the whole condo idea is done much better in non-American cities. There are all these new condos going in around Reston in spite of the fact that there are a bunch of old condos on the market and nobody buys a resale condo around DC. If it weren't so difficult to sell one later, I might even consider a condo around Reston since it should be cheaper than a townhouse (fat chance of that, though) and it would be easier to leave the country with just a condo to worry about than a townhouse or a house with a yard that would have to be mowed. It's apparent here that it is indeed possible to have a condo done nicely though, which I guess is part of the stigma against them around DC.

I need coffee. Daylight savings time went into effect, both losing me an hour of time in Canada (I guess I'll have to come back in October to regain it, eh?) and meaning that my coffee jones starts kicking in around 11am instead of the 10am I'm used to. Guess I'll go make a pot.

(2000-04-02)