Were the For Lease signs fresh, or had they been in storefront windows since the foundry closed? The corner down the street from my new home, had just seen the removal of residents from an apartment building and the owner being slapped with an “Order to Remedy Unsafe Building” from the city.
Downtown Brockville could be the Junction, the Toronto neighbourhood dubbed one of the coolest in the world by Time Out New York in 2019.
I had lived in the same apartment in High Park for 24 years, but my friend and landlord Ian couldn’t resist the astronomical price real estate was fetching, so he cashed in.
Where were the coffeehouses? Other than Tim Horton’s by the 401? The gathering places for artists, writers, poets, the intelligentsia? And me, a garden variety neurotic? I had a hankering for mochaccino, something I never drank in Toronto, but inexplicably was jonesing for now.
I didn’t see an espresso machine, a milk frother or any kind of coffee blender.
Being a member of a 12 step program also tipped me in the direction of coffee, coffee akin to sacramental wine at meetings.
The tea came in a pot fitted with a cosy, accompanied by a scalloped teacup and saucer.