Arrived on Thursday on the train. I won because I saw the CN Tower first. There was great excitement in the air as fans were streaming to the stadium to the Blue Jays game. Fun but not cool enough to entice us to get tickets. Our place is in the pent house of this 20 story building, we have a beautiful view of the water and the CN Tower. The only indication that someone else lives here is that his shoes appear and disappear. Like York Street in Ottawa, there are so many windows.
We walked for miles on Friday to attend our first Hot Doc. Walking took almost an hour. There are so many Hot Docs to choose from. Seniors like us get to go for free to any that are showing before 17h00. We attended another one in the afternoon after we had a face time session with Brienne and Claire.
Both docs were about relationships--makes me think that relationships that work are to be treasured. The first on was about a famous photographer, Rose Hartman, who was totally grouchy with everyone but was very capable. She seemed like a the kind of friend no one would want. The second was more about family and couple relationships called LoveTrue.. In my opinion, the people there needed to just talk to each other and be honest with themselves. We attended two more Docs on Saturday. The first was so sad, called "Natural Disorder"--about a young man of 27 who had cerebral palsy which caused him to limp, his left arm didn't function well and his speech was odd, partly because he was speaking Danish. It was set in Copenhagen. There were subtitles. He was Asian and was adopted as an infant. His life felt so hopeless to me at times. He was studying to be a journalist and was writing a play to portray his life and to determine if it was worth living and what normal is. During the film shoot, he was hit by a bus and then had a concussion. Then he had to have part of his colon removed. I began to think that maybe his life was so awful that maybe it wasn't worth living like that. He didn't seem to have a support system or any friends. There was some discussion about deselecting and whether in a few years, children like him would be deselected. People are more likely to choose a perfect embryo but then that is no guarantee that child will not be hit by a bus or something.... Quite moving and thought provoking.
Our food intake yesterday was breakfast at home, Tim Horton's cold lemonade before ft, a hot dog, ice cream from a food truck and cheese and crackers. Doesn't sound like much but we were busy and didn't have any great hunger. There are many food trucks so we will visit them today. Oops, didn't have time for lunch so we had chips and chocolate from "Honest Ed's"--a huge, bargain basement store. We did have a lovely dinner with Frank and Brenda at the Spaghetti Factory on Saturday night. They came to TO from Burlington for dinner. What fun. Frank won a karate competition yesterday and Brenda will tell a story at church for Mother's Day, today. A fine couple.
Sunday's Hot Docs were excellent as well. The first was called "Future Baby" and was about reproductive technology. It discusses IVF, implantation of egg, surrogate mothers and the ethics around gender and traits like eye colour. It made my head swim with thoughts and ideas. It included people from all over the world. One German couple told the story of a doctor telling them that she was too old to become pregnant and they should get a pet because lots of people have them! Another couple got a baby boy with a surrogate mother in Mexico. The technology is available to do so much. I wonder if the world is ready and how much more is happening. The next Doc was depressing. It was called "Trapped" and showcased the terrible situation around Reproductive Rights in the USA--in the South and in Texas. It made me think that they haven't made any progress but are moving backwards with much of their legislation. Quite a contrast. I would recommend both. The third one was called "Peacemaker" about P. O'Malley who believes bringing groups with issues together with others who have had similar concerns is the first step to helping them work together.
One of the ads that were part of the lead up to the Docs was for BMO and they sang "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine". Then changed it to "All around this world, I'm gonna let it shine". It was lovely. We saw seven films in 3 days but there were over 200 Docs available over 11 days. Next time I want to be there for them all and maybe, even, volunteer. There are over 750 volunteers.
Here is an example of me not letting my light shine: on Saturday at Tim's while we were trying to ft with Claire and Brienne in the middle of all the noise. A scruffy, maybe inebriated man approached our table asking for money. For some reason, I was very angry. Well, wait, I know the reason. I have become tired and annoyed with people who ask for money, spare change, extra change and seem so hopeless. In my heart, I understand that they have hard lives and might have mental handicaps but in my head, I want to them to be different and get the help they need and leave me alone. So... back to this man, I gave him a mean look and said No. Now I feel quite guilty and mean. I guess I could have bought him a doughnut or something! Kindness doesn't take much time but them neither does unkindness. Oh my.
Here is a happy Sheryl story. She sent a text to her Dad asking us to find a particular movie that she wants to show in Pretoria at an event. It is in French. We looked for it at a couple of video stores with no luck. So then she was going to order it through Amazon and have it delivered to us overnight. Well, that didn't work because they couldn't deliver it until Tuesday. So she googled "Where to find Lawrence Anyways in Toronto". Turns out it was at a video store two blocks from where George and I were at that time. So we picked it up and will take it to Cape Town when we go tomorrow. They will send it to Pretoria for viewing next week at a Francophone event. A global village after all.
Today is Mother's Day and we chatted with all our children and Brienne, too. What a wonderful, technological world we live in because none of us are in the same city just now. Yay.
So on to Cape Town, and Sheryl and Neil. We will take a new express train to the airport soon but just now, we will relax and get organized. And so it goes.
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