The afternoon of August 3rd, I took my grant application to Admissions and Awards at U of T. On the way there, from Ossington on, Bloor Street was narrowed to one lane for eastbound and one for westbound traffic all crowded onto the north side. I only found out later that this was because they were installing bike lanes along Bloor Street from Shaw to Avenue Rd.
At Admissions and Awards they gave
me a fee deferral letter, which I took to my college. The woman at the desk at
the registrar’s office mistakenly informed me that they couldn’t process the
fee deferral letter until after I’d gotten approval for the Noah Meltz grant. I
calmly told her, “Yes I can”. At that point one of her superiors interjected
that if I’ve enrolled in courses and applied for the grant then I can defer the
fee. The woman at the desk thanked me for my patience. I let her know that I
hand in a deferral letter every year at that time. She explained that she’s new
and I assured her that it was okay. Then she told me that she couldn’t process
the letter because the site was down, but someone else said she could do it
manually.
I went out
to unlock my bike and to continue on with a bike ride out to Leaside. I decided
that I would record my ride from that point with the bike cam, so I took it out
of my backpack and slipped it onto the mount. The mount though felt loose on
the handlebar, so I started to unscrew it and to see if I could find a better
way to attach it. It was then I realized that it was loose because one of the
plastic brackets had snapped. The mount was useless, so I couldn’t use the
camera. I would have to come up with or find a mount that isn’t made of
plastic.
I rode into
Leaside and up Laird to Eglinton. Eglinton is like a little expressway in that
part of town, plus it was narrowed at points due to construction. Fast roads
make me nervous when I’m riding my bike. There was one turn-off between laird
and Don Mills Rd, so I turned, but it wanted to take me under and then north of
Eglinton and that wasn’t where I wanted to go this time around. I turned around
and came back; I went down Don Mills and back west on Overlea to Millwood and
then back over the Leaside Bridge. That completed my exploration of the Leaside
neighbourhood, which didn’t take long at all.
That night
while making dinner I was hearing more motorcycles than usual. I noticed that
all motorcycles seem to be alcoholics because they are always saying, “Rum!
Rum! Rum!” Sometimes they are looking for the “Rum room!” wherever that is.
I was
hearing more and more motorbikes and then I looked outside and there were
motorcycles of every brand and size parked along Queen and along O’Hara or else
driving around and looking for parking. I figured something must be going on,
so I went to my computer and searched, “motorcycles Parkdale August 3” and
immediately found out that what was going on was the “Moto Social”. Apparently
it happens once a month in various Toronto neighbourhoods and this time it took
place in Parkdale, with the main meeting place being the very un-Parkdalian
gentro-bar: the Tempered Room. There were a few hundred bikes “rumming” around.
The event consisted of about 99% guys, all white as far as I could tell. The 1%
of women that were either there with their own bikes or had arrived on the back
of some were interestingly all blondes, whether naturally or otherwise. I had
not known that blonde hair on women was so closely linked to motorcycles. This
was especially ironic, considering that I didn’t notice that a single one of
the male bikers had blonde hair.
I
watched the episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy gave birth to Little Ricky.
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