Farmboy’s Belgian Bread is the best bread in town – it’s delicious with perfect texture and a wonderfully chewy crust, and it tastes just as good when it’s toast. It’s not cheap – $2.99 for a small loaf – but I love good bread.

However – the last two times I bought it, all the decent-sized slices were full of gaping holes. I hate that. I’m paying for a whole loaf, not a holy loaf!

It’s inconvenient too: I have to build my sandwich strategically so nothing falls out of the holes. I have to line the bread with lettuce or cheese slices to create a safety net for the smaller fillings like turkey chunks or peppers or pepper. Of course I end up with margarine and mustard only on the non-holy portions of the sandwich, unless I spread it on the lettuce instead of on the bread.

Even if I manage to construct a structually sound sandwich that doesn’t fall apart, it’s just not that satisfying to sink my teeth into a hole. You know what I mean?

I’ve invited Farmboy over here to read this entry. I’m sure they’ll have a Perfectly Good Explanation for why the best bread in town is not all there.

Sometimes I walk to work. There are lots of different routes I can walk, and they all take an hour and fifteen minutes. The other day I walked through my new neighbourhood (Carlington), zig-zagged through Hintonburg to Parkdale, and then walked downtown along Somerset, which took me through Chinatown along the edges of my old neighbourhood.

I miss my old neighbourhood. I miss living where I know the people and my dog knows the dogs. He and I lived there for 99 months. Maybe in 98 months we’ll know the people and the dogs here, but I have my doubts. The fact is, there don’t appear to be all that many people or dogs who venture outside of their homes here. Oh sure, I see the odd gaggle of children waiting for a school bus, or the odd adult scurrying to or from work, or the odd teenager slouching along the sidewalk with a scowl on his face. But I don’t see anybody stopping to chat with anybody else, or looking around, or making eye contact. This neighbourhood seems cold to me; people just want to stay anonymous and get where they’re going.

Maybe it’s the weather. The days are short and dark, there’s a damp chill in the air. Maybe all my old neighbours are hunkering down in Chinatown too, collars turned against the wind, eyes downcast, walking fast. But I don’t think so. Because one morning last week, when I was walking to work, I ran into an old neighbour: the big black woman with the little white dog, and she stopped to chat.

There’s a dog park here, much bigger than the Primrose Dog Park, but there are rarely any dogs in it. I think in the month and a half I’ve been here, Sam and I have met four other dogs – and each one only once. Sam seems to like the new park though.

By the way, whoever heard of a dog park with no garbage cans? Primrose Park has a garbage can at every exit, so you can throw your bag of poop away. Now I have to bring my dog poop home with me. Am I supposed to flush it down the toilet? Save it until garbage day? One day I actually took it downtown with me and put it in a garbage can at Gladstone and Bank. I felt a little eccentric sitting on the bus, knitting, with my bag of poop beside me. I hadn’t planned to take it on the bus, but I walked 10 blocks looking for a garbage can, and there wasn’t one, and then the bus was coming…

My new street isn’t that great. The neighbouring streets are better. The WWII veterans’ houses are all on the neighbouring streets. Tiny, tidy, well-kept little houses with nice big yards. The houses are all similar in size and construction and vintage, but each has its own unique character. I like them a lot. Then you get to my street, and it’s lined with low-rise apartment buildings and row houses. Most of the little veterans’ houses are situated on quiet little dead-end streets, which makes my street serve as the big, busy thoroughfare. It’s like the commercial district of the neighbourhood, but without stores or offices.

I like my house though, even if I’m not crazy about my street.

Yesterday, on the first day of December, we had our first snowstorm of the winter, complete with sleet, freezing rain, gusting winds and a power outage. I ventured outside only to take my dog for a cheap walk.

It seems power failures always happen after the sun goes down, which makes it hard to find your power-failure stuff. I’ve been meaning to put together an emergency kit, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. But I did buy a flashlight during the last power failure, and after stumbling around in the dark for awhile, I even found it. (A light would have been handy for figuring out how to turn it on though. It took awhile.)

Then I looked for my phone, the one that doesn’t need electricity. I saw it in a box somewhere not so long ago. I prowled around my house, searching likely boxes. I couldn’t find it. No matter: I don’t even like phones.

Next, I planted two candles in empty wine bottles, lit them, and basked in their glow.

All set. Now, what to do to pass the time? A dozen pleasant ideas came to mind in rapid succession, followed by equally rapid realizations that they all required electricity or half-decent lighting: things like drinking coffee, eating toast, reading, knitting, listening to music.

I was tuning my guitar when my friend Ken hammered on the back door.

“Your doorbell isn’t working,” he said.

“Neither is anything else,” I said, “The power’s out.”

“Oh, so it is,” he said, “I guess that would explain why your street is so dark.”

He thumped into the kitchen and started taking things out of a bag. I couldn’t see what they were because it was dark.

“I’m making you dinner because you’re sick,” he explained, “I hope you like frozen steak.”

Not easily stymied, Ken drove back to his place and returned with another bag, a shallow copper fondue-pot type thing and a hundred tealight candles.

He set up the fondue-pot thing on the coffee table, lit the burner and tossed the frozen carrots and green and yellow beans into the pot. When they were done, he removed them and tossed the steak into the pot. The steak said “Clang.”

I shook my head. Ken is an eternal optimist, but you can’t cook a frozen steak in a fondue pot.

While the steak sat stoically in the pot, we ate his mom’s homemade cookies and used his cell phone to call Hydro Ottawa. After three aborted attempts, we successfully navigated the automated system, waited on hold since all the customer service representatives were busy, and finally talked to Christine, who knew nothing except that the power was out and would be restored as soon as possible. (Really, why do I bother?)

As for the steak, I was wrong. It thawed and cooked in about an hour. Then the veggies were reheated and dinner was served. It was pretty good too. Kinda like cooking over a campfire where everything tastes better because you don’t expect it to and because you’re famished by the time it’s ready. Anyway it was good and it hit the spot.

“But wait, there’s more!” Ken announced after we’d eaten.

The piéce de resistance was the surprise dessert: Flaming Cherries Jubilee in the Candlelight! It was spectacular.

I’ve been friends with Ken since I was a teenager, and he still surprises me. He’s one of those “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” people. We should all be so lucky to have a friend who sees a power outage and immediately thinks of Cherries Jubilee.