ReNe: 'private patio'

The current temperatures in Toronto are still nice, as cool as Singapore during the monsoon months at the end of the year, but without the cloying humidity. But that's outside; it gets pretty warm and stifling in our apartment. An advantage, I'm sure, during winter, but right now in summer, it's irritating. So when the weather outside is nice (it tends to rain these days), we'd dine al fresco.


Look -- our private patio. Well, actually, it's the fire escape. And that's chicken rice.

ReNe: it's summertime

Been really busy lately; there's always something to look forward to every weekend.

As the weather got warmer, people started to clear their houses and hold yard sales. I'm not a good bargain hunter and Mike wouldn't wait for me to really dig through the boxes, but I still managed to find a nice terra cotta plant pot for a loony (that's $1). That's me, in the floppy hat. I've gotten some strange looks when I wear that hat. I've noticed that many locals ang-mohs don't wear hats or sun-protection devices; many of them look like lobsters after a while. The guy I'm paying; he was pretty burnt.

This was taken quite a few weekends ago, when a section of Bloor street (near our place) was closed off for a street fair. Mostly it's people selling stuff, like a pasar malam, but there are also informational booths (new age-y stuff, etc.) and street performances, as shown in the photo above. I didn't get the performance, which consisted of two women miming on an empty stage, but I thought the retro pram was fun.






Two weeks ago, we went down to this food fest during Luminato, held at many places including the Distillery district. Despite the cheap outdoor seating, the food sold were classy restaurants samples. Everything cost $5 per serving... to be frank, most weren't worth $5, such as the tiny taco with lobster, and the pork cutlet bun with fancy salad filling. They barely lasted three chomps. But the pistachio ice-cream sandwich (below) was worth the $5.

After eating, we walked around the Distillery district, which was a former whiskey distillery. We haven't been there before, but I found it very nice. With old stone architecture and wide pavements, the district was full of character.


My new haircut. Looks a bit like a helmet... I'm not too pleased. Am still trying to decide if it's the hairdresser's fault (because it didn't look like the style I pointed to in the magazine) or if my hair's simply too dry or something.

ReNe: long weekend!

I'm pretty excited -- this weekend promises to be fun. Firstly, it's a long weekend because Tuesday is Canada Day (and many people in the office do not plan to be around on Monday). Also, it's the culmination of the Jazz Festival and Pride Week.

Since last Friday, we've been going down to Nathan Phillips Square after work for the free jazz concerts (apparently the only free concerts are held at NP Sq), and it was pretty nice. We'd buy some buns from a Chinatown bakery and listen to the jazz and talk. The music's very decent and the entire atmosphere is very relaxed and festive, and the fact that it's all free is a huge plus.



We haven't gone to any of the Pride Week events yet but we do plan to go watch the Pride Parade this Sunday. If we have time, maybe the Dkye March as well on Saturday. Me, I'm hugely, hugely impressed with the support such an event has, including official support from the city. I can't see such a parade happening in Singapore, much less ten days of activities -- just look at the ban on the 'non-pink picnic' at the Singapore Botanical Gardens last year. It was apparently an official ban by the park and all I can say is, WTF?! It's just a picnic, not an orgy. But people turned up anyway (for the non-pink picnic) and I say good for them.

When I asked during lunch at work, tongue-in-cheek, if there would be an military parade or fly-past on Canada Day, my colleagues were incredulous. Eyeballs rolled, as if it was such an archaic and militant notion. "Oh, pul-leaze." I find their reaction very interesting.

ReNe: checking the weather outside

Today, my colleague sitting beside me today suddenly said, "My (weather) pop-up just told me it's a thunderstorm outside now."

We're sitting in the middle of the office so we're not beside any windows. Thus, instead of being able to look out and know the weather, we have to get that knowledge through the internet. Or we could walk into one of the offices that do have windows (but that's rude), or we could take the elevator down to the first floor (but that's slow). In other words, the most polite and fastest way to know what the weather outside our building is via the internet.

I snickered. "This is like those sad office jokes about people who sit in the same office sending instant messages to each other."

Mike and I do that sometimes. We could be in the same room, both on different computers, and sending IMs. Why? At first, when IMs first became popular years ago, it was because we could. IMs were extraordinary. Nowadays, it's because sometimes when we get so engrossed in whatever we're doing on the laptop, the only way to catch the other's attention is through an IM. IMs are now ordinary.

ReNe: raccoon problems

I'm not sure if it's because of the change from a large apartment complex to a house, or because it's summer, but lately, we've been having a fair number of visitors that are not of the homo sapien persuasion. I'm talking about bugs, flies and raccoons. (All very common in Toronto, I've heard.) Mike is currently highly irritated at the first, luckily the second problem was solved by the recent cool weather, and I'm just discovering how destructive the third can be.

We're new to the raccoon problem. I've never even seen one until I heard a couple fighting outside on the fire escape a few nights back. I was washing dishes and wondering what the hell was that awful screeching noise -- I thought Mike was doing something involving tools and rubber outside. Then I popped my head out of the fire escape door to yell at him and saw a pair of furry creatures tussling on the metal stairs.

Well, the raccoons quickly ran away before I could get the camera, but it was interesting. Curious -- why would they come all the way up the fire escape to fight?

And... that could possibly explain the pee stench in the corridor carpet, which mysteriously appeared last Sunday afternoon. At first I thought our neighbor sneaked a pet in, but now I think it could be a raccoon. We've been leaving the outer doors open when we're at home because our apartment gets really warm in summer, so a raccoon could have sneaked into the corridor.

And this morning, I noticed that a couple of my potted plants, which I leave out on the fire escape to sun, were disturbed. Initially, I thought maybe someone was trying to steal a cutting, but only the soil was disturbed, as if someone was rooting around, but the plants were not pulled out. Probably an animal then.

ReNe: summer solstice

Today is the longest day of the year -- the summer solstice. In Toronto, today, the sun rose at 5:36am and will set tonight at 9:03 am, resulting in 15 hours and 26 mins (and 46seconds) of daylight.

(I'm not sure what counts exactly as 'sunset' because I've noticed that even as late as 9:30pm, there's still quite a fair bit of light in the sky. This far up north, as compared to the tropics, it takes the sun a long time to set.)

Toronto is very lively in the summer. Last week we went to the Luminato festival, and upcoming festivals we hope to catch include Pride Week and a Toronto Jazz Festival.

The nice thing with the long hours is that we get plenty of time to do stuff and enjoy all these festivals. Last Saturday, we lazed around until we finally hauled our ass out of the door at 2pm. We cycled down to Mill Street to catch a food fair, one of the many events held as part of the Luminato festival. The food was a bit pricey and disappointing, but the Distillery district had gorgeous architecture and some funky shops. We then cycled down to St Lawrence Market to pick up a sandwich before catching the ferry to the Toronto Islands, where the Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC) was taking place. It was fun to gawk at the cyclists zooming past with odd-sized FedEx boxes stuffed in their messenger bags, and the race-hub/meeting point felt more like a rock concert than a race administration area. Cyclists and friends lounged on the grass, lean and tanned, often tattooed and pierced, as a live band played on. The atmosphere was competitive but in a rough and fun way -- we cycled past a checkpoint for the racers, where a big sign hung, "Park here, stupid!" By then, it was past five and the sun and our mood was still high, so we hopped over to the Waterfront, where many of the Luminato events were held as well (the events were spread out over the Waterfront and Distillery districts). We caught a free film (Whale Rider) and it was great. When we emerged from the theater at 8:10pm, the sky was still bright. We wandered around, listened to yet more live music (everywhere we went, it seems there was a stage set up and some band playing) and though about hanging around to catch some fire performance, but we were rather tired by then so we headed back. Later that night, I found out that the World Naked Bike Ride also took place that day; we were quite disappointed to have missed it.

Rene: summer fools you into doing more

In winter, people moan about the 'winter blahs' that result from short daylight hours.

I'd like to add the concept of 'summer fatigue', due to the long daylight hours.

It's very deceiving, the longer daylight hours that is. For over 3 decades, we've been used to the sun setting at 7:20pm, give or take a few minutes, and we've structured our day to the level of light outside and not the clock. Now, we look out and think, it's about five-ish, plenty of time to run errands and plus, it's not yet time for dinner. In reality, it's already seven.

So we'd end up doing too much during the daytime, having a late dinner, and then because we're used to lounging around for a few hours before bed, we'd go to bed late. I think people here in Canada tend to do more during the day because daylight (and warmth) is a precious commodity, but we're used to taking it easy during the day in Singapore (because it's effing hot) and doing most things at night. Those hours between dinner and bed are quite important and necessary to us.

No wonder we're tired. Summer fools you into doing more.

ReNe: our place is a greenhouse

One of the things that we're astounded and confounded by is the weather (as compared to what we were used to in Singapore). More precisely, the temperatures and the rate at which it changes, as well as the delta's. A week ago, temperatures were in the low twenties, then a heat wave spike temperatures over the weekend to over 30C. As average winter tempeartures can drop to -20C and summers 25C, that's a annual delta of 45 degrees; if we consider the record low of -30C last Feb and 31C last weekend, that makes it a delta of 61C!

30C? That's standard fare in Singapore. When people tell us summers here in Toronto will be "unbearably hot and humid", we scoffed. It surely can't beat the weather in the tropics, we thought.

But we forgot a couple of important points. One, after many months, we've been too well-acclimatized to the cold that Canada is famous for. Two, the houses here are designed to maximize warmth -- they are well-insulated and have large windows with tiny openings. Our current place, for example, has a fairly big window and skylight, but the actual area that can be opened to ventilate constitutes about 30% of the large window, which is about 1m by 40cm or so.

In short, it's a effing greenhouse.

We ended up taking cold showers about three times a day. There's no air-conditioning here; poor rentals are too cheap-skate to include air-conditioning as part of the rent. I'm actually fine with that, as the outside temperature isn't too unbearable and it saves on electricity, but why don't they build in better windows and ventilation then?! Will it kill the building's insulation capacity to have windows that actually open wider?

Happily, it stormed last night, cooling the air significantly. But, like I said, ventilation in this place is poor and sleeping in the bed-loft in warm weather is murder, as warm air rises. We brought the fan up but all it does is blow hot air at us. After tossing for an hour last night, a headache and stuffy feeling steadily building, I gave up and insisted we sleep on the futon 'downstairs', which is beside the only opened window.

The new laminate floor is nice and cool... if summer continues like this, we would probably end up sleeping on the floor instead.

ReNe: making yogurt

Ahahaha!! I just tried my first batch of homemade yogurt and I haven't poisoned myself (yet). In fact, it tastes really nice and creamy. And it's really very easy and much cheaper so no more store-bought yogurt for me!

The How-To
First, inoculate the milk: bring 4 cups of milk to a boil, and then cool till about 35-40C.
Meanwhile, prepare the starter: leave about 2 tablespoons of yogurt (plain) to warm to room temperature.
Next, combine: add the milk to the yogurt and stir well.
Finally, incubate: this step is highly variable. I left mine to incubate for about 5 hours. The online recipe I got it from says at least 4 hours, more if you want a sharper taste. Since Toronto is undergoing a heat wave right now (temperatures > 30C), I just lidded the bowl with a saucepan lid and left it in the corner of the kitchen. Otherwise, other ideas include the oven or a vacuum flask.

Funnily enough, I only thought about making my own yogurt because food prices have been going up lately, especially dairy. So by making my own, very approximately, the savings is 200%. Meaning, the cost of home-made yogurt is a quarter of store-bought yogurt. I hope I got that right...

ReNe: pet pee is forever

Interestingly, it has only been 2 weeks since our last post. It felt much longer because we were so busy/tired. The last post was on 24th May, and that was when we started to move into our new place. Actually, by that weekend, we were already tired because we were painting the previous weekend -- recall the previous post where we showed the 'before' shots of the cave-like apartment. After a fresh lick of paint, it looks much better now.

We shampooed the carpet on 24th May; our initial plan was to clean the place up over the weekend, give the carpet a couple of days to dry completely and then move ourselves in on Tuesday (because that's when the internet connection would be up). Easy right?

Well, there's a reason why we've been 'net incognito' for the past 2 weeks, and it can be summed as as: dog pee + carpet. In other words, one of the previous tenants had a pet (the building maintenance guy told us it was a dog) and it peed everywhere. On the stairs and all over the stairs, corner of stairs and closet, by the window, under the ladder, middle of the room, by the loft post... what the fark?!

We started to suspect something was wrong when the carpet started to stink after getting shamopooed. At first we thought maybe it was because of the wet carpet or that because we didn't get the carpet completely clean (the water coming up was still brownish) but since the shampooer (Rug-Doctor) was rented by the day, we had to return it. However, even after the carpet dried, the sharp smell of animal pee still lingered, and having owned pets before, we know what animal pee smells like.

Later, while researching online, we realized that this is a common situation -- new tenant moves in, shampoos the carpet and in doing so, removes the dust and febreeze and what-not that had been sitting on top of the stain(s) and suppressing the odors, re-wets the stains and brings the stains back up from the carpet padding back up to the carpet fibers. No wonder we did not smell it when we first took a look at this place. And no wonder there was a bottle of pet febreeze and a huge bottle of clorox under the sink.


We tried baking soda (it turned yellow; see above!) and zeolite powder -- did not work. But then, these are simply odor-lifters. We also tried hydrogen peroxide. We also sprayed on an enzyme-based solution meant especially for pet urine, which is supposed to work as a pre-treatment before shampooing again. Then last weekend, we rented the Rug-Doctor and spent the entire day shampooing the carpet, again. This time we also rented the wand (upholstery attachment) and we could see through the clear plastic that the water coming up was yellow (see the photo below)!


By the time we returned the Rug-Doctor, we were still not convinced that the carpet was fully clean but we were hopeful that the smell would improve. We were fully prepared to walk around the carpet in slippers if it meant that the smell is gone, because the carpet is so old that even the parts that do not stink of pee don't feel nice; the fibers feel matted and worn.

The smell was worse after that.

We were pretty pissed by then. Waking up everyday to a noxious smell and basically living in a litter box does amazing things to your mood. I've always thought that carpeting is a hugely bad idea in a house because it's effing difficult to keep clean. Yeah, warm and all but I'd rather wear slippers in winter. But maybe I was biased because I grew up in a tropical climate where a carpet = mold trap, and a cool (temperature-wise) floor is desirable. I remember lying on a cold marble floor as a kid during hot days. Still, there must be a good reason why carpets are so popular here, right? I just haven't found it yet.

Now I'm utterly convinced that carpets, especially wall-to-wall carpeting, is a terrible idea, even if you do not own pets. More so if you do have pets or children.

We did yet more research online, and came to the conclusion that many others did -- dog/cat pee is forever. Sure, some say you can remove it if it's a small spot and if you get to it fast enough (before it has soaked through the carpet fibers down to the padding, or even the floorboards). But with old stains like these, there's no other solution that to rip out the carpet, sand down the floorboards and seal the floorboards with polyurethane varnish.

And that's what we did.

It was surprisingly easy.

Underneath the carpet, it was truly disgusting. Yellow, brown and even black spots everywhere. The smells released were just nauseating -- flies were actually coming in through the window and buzzing around the stained areas.

The parts near the steps (both left and right) stank very badly, and here's why. Notice the yellow stains on the carpet padding.

This is one of the worse spots. A different kind of smell, not as pungent, but it attracted more flies than the yellow spots.

We showed the landlord some of the above photos and we called him over to smell it for himself. He agreed that the carpet should be changed and agreed to pay for a new floor. However, since it would take weeks for any contractor to be able to come down and install a new floor, Mike's gonna do it himself, tomorrow. The new laminate planks have already been delivered and are now sitting beside me, acclimatizing to the room's temperature and humidity. The landlord should be happy -- the labor costs saved constitutes more than half of the costs of ripping out the old and installing a new floor.

So, I was joking that Mike has leveled up his DIY skills. In our first apartment, we painted the walls ourselves and he installed all furniture and shelves. In our second apartment, Mike further learnt how to drill into reinforced concrete. He also installed all the kitchen cabinets and hob and hood by himself. Now he has learnt how to rip out carpeting, and tomorrow he will learn how to install laminate flooring. Next, he should learn how to install a toilet flush system because our current one is held together with dental floss (and that's another story).

The take-home lessons? Carpeting is a bad idea. Pet pee is forever.

This is what the place looks like right now; somewhat warehouse-shabby-chic. The shiny parts are where he painted the polyurethane varnish in an attempt to entomb the stench. Disgustingly enough, if you lean in close, you can still make out the smell despite 3 coats of varnish.