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I'm not terribly fond of driving, or of cars in general. It made sense, however, for Amy and I to rent one for a trip to meet my grandparents for The Tempest in Stratford, ON. Train and bus schedules might have accommodated us, but the price of two tickets would probably have matched or exceeded the cost of renting and gassing the car, so we went with the rental. Aside from a semi trailer cutting us off on the freeway with about five feet of clearance, and standstill traffic on King St. this morning, it was an incident-free day of motoring. I cannot, however, see doing it every day. Not in Toronto. Not only would the cost be prohibitive, (having to pay not only for gas but insurance, parking, maintenance and, of course, the car itself) but the stress level would kill me. Not just while driving, either. Last night I lay awake - every noise off the street was someone breaking into the car or scraping it or urinating on it or whatever. And the driving...Toronto taxi drivers are, bar none, the rudest and worst drivers on earth. I've seen them fly through red lights, almost creaming a group of children in the crosswalk. They cut into traffic by swerving close, scaring other drivers out of the way. They make U-turns in the paths of oncoming dump trucks. I think they train on the streets of Cairo...or Boston. If I ever do wind up with a car, as I surely must for pastoral purposes, it'll be for special trips and outside TO only. Park it in the garage, and give me my TTC for the everyday. As soon as I returned the car I relaxed...and the up side of having to get up early was that I could have an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. Mmmmm... At any rate, the play was excellent and it was lovely to see Grandma and Russ. The Tempest is William Hutt's last performance at Stratford and the last of his long and distinguished career. At his final monologue, Hutt removed the character and addressed the audience directly. Instead of Prospero asking for our applause, it became Hutt asking his audience's permission to retire. As a bonus, Amy and I stopped in St. Jacob's (see previous entry) to pick up high-quality, low cost maple syrup...and spicy meat sticks! Mmmm...love those crazy Mennonites and their spicy meat sticks! And a note from the feast day of St. John the Baptist. In San Juan, which is a suburb of Manila in the Philippines, the populace comes out for a saint's procession. There are the typical statues and crosses, and there are also loads of squirt guns and water balloons and buckets of water. To celebrate St. John's baptismal ministry, to the world and to Our Lord, the people of San Juan hold a huge water fight. Everyone gets wet in a huge street party...it looks like a lot of fun. Perhaps you think that the sacrament of baptism ought not be turned into a street party. I disagree. Christianity is a joyful faith, one of abundance and freedom. Imagine if all Christians, all people of faith, took so much joy in their religion. If we lived the joy of our own faith, maybe we'd not be so cruel to one another. |
