Easy Like Sunday

After three days of being cooped up in my bedroom feeling sorry for myself, I decided I'd had enough. It was Sunday, for crying out loud. That meant tomorrow was Monday, in case you hadn't caught up with my reasoning, and that meant that the weekend would have been wasted. I needed to breathe some fresh air and spend quality time with Andrés. So I gave him the brilliant idea of inviting me out to brunch and away we went. I gotta say, it took a long hot shower and several layers of makeup to make me look decent enough to go out in public. The dark circles under my eyes are of epic proportions. But I digress.

We ended up brunching something delicious at Mildred Pierce. I can't tell you enough about how well they use fennel seeds and wild mushrooms. But even before we got there, the city was amazing me with its crisp air and bright fall colours! I guess when summer starts as early as this year's, fall is anxious to get a move on. Toronto was looking mighty fine today. I fell in love with it all over again. And this easy amazement I was experiencing with the air, the sights, the tastes of my early Sunday afternoon out and about made me think of another upside to being cooped up for three days. It's the same effect as when the black and white landscape of our long winter becomes peppered with dots of colour.

I've always been criticised for welcoming fall with fanfare. Summer lovers everywhere always tell me I'm a party pooper, but it's not so. I love the summer too, you see. And I don't love the fall more than the summer. It's just that I appreciate it so much more because of the summer. And I appreciate the summer so much more because of the winter too.

Not to say that the winters in Chile weren't cold and grey; hell, I remember sitting in a university classroom wearing my winter coat and gloves while sitting for a test. But the seasons in Santiago at least were never as marked as they are here. It was more like a "cold season" followed by a "hot season". Also, Christmas in the summer never made sense to me at all. Nobody has time for anything in the summertime. You just want to be all over the place having fun, so preparing for Christmas, writing cards, making lists, baking cookies, shopping... that's all one big chore that everyone hates doing. Especially when it's 35ºC and the shopping mall has no A/C (I'm sure they all do now). But Christmas is a topic that I can certainly wait a few months to write about.

After brunch we drove up and down the Don Valley marvelling at the shots of fiery red and burnt orange you can now see among the still lush deep green of the valley's foliage. It is beautiful out there. Let's not miss it... La vita è bella.