I walk out the front door and in 1 1/2 blocks I’m across the street from Dundonald Park. A small memorial marks its quietly dramatic Cold War history and I consider stopping in The Beer Store. On a related note, I don’t know which came first in the park: the pleasant-enough drunks and junkies around me or the gated play area for children. In any case, it makes for a strange place to hang out. I turn to walk down Somerset and pass the Korean restaurant that makes such good bulgogi and chapche. Then I stop to watch the pita breads come out of the oven at the Lebanese bakery – they expand to look like weird sand creatures and quickly deflate in the cool air – and I go inside the grocery to buy pistachios, feta cheese, kalamata olives and sticky baklava. I keep walking past the Chinese acupuncturist and herbalist – I stare at the jars of mysterious-looking animal, vegetable and mineral. Past the dumpling store and my favourite variety store – a great source for plant pots, steamers, fine Japanese dinnerware and chopsticks, cheap fans and bamboo flip-flops from Taiwan. If it were hotter I would duck down the alley just for the pungent smells that seep from the open doors. But I head towards the Vietnamese restaurant that makes brilliant shrimp and pork salad rolls and used to make great pho. I stop in the Asian market to look at the fresh seafood and animal parts, buy basil, chili-garlic sauce and almond cookies. I buy a mango off the street. I stop at the Latin American and Indian groceries for spices and then on to the Caribbean joint for homemade ginger beer and the hottest roti I have ever eaten. Finally I turn around and head home on the side-streets. I admire the old houses, now mostly transformed into multiple apartments. Brick, leaded windows, stained glass, balconies, porches. Huge old trees line the wide streets and front gardens are beautiful, vines and flowers everywhere. I hear many languages and I pass people on bikes, on skateboards, on foot. Everyone smiles or says hello. The old people stop to chat. I don’t want to live anywhere else.
When I get home he tells me that a woman just shat in the alley behind our house.