camera obscura

today i decided to buy a digital camera.

up until now, young beatrix and i have shared her camera, which was purchased many years ago when digital cameras first hit the market. it’s a great little camera, but it only allows for 3.2 megapixels and, being trixie’s, resides at my parents’ house...making spontaneous picture-taking somewhat difficult on this end.

so, i checked out what was on sale, and found a wonderful little canon for $199. 7.1 megapixels, compact, movie mode. cool. that would be my project for the morning: get a camera.

sadly, my plan derailed upon arrival at the store when, as i was about to get the sale rolling, i asked the clerk what kind of memory card the camera takes. i have two compact-flash cards (that i used with YB’s camera), and wanted to make sure i could use those.

“not with this camera,” said the clerk.

“what? really?”

“yup. you must have an old camera, huh?”

“yeah.”

“all the new cameras are really sleek, so they use the SD disks ‘cause those are a lot smaller.”

“oh.” already, i could feel myself leaving the store empty-handed.

“there’s a bunch on the wall if you wanna buy one,” offered the clerk. but the disks at this store were not cheap – not as cheap as they are at, say, costco – so any savings on the camera would be nullified by the extra $$ for the memory card. i opted to wait. i love a good sale, but i need to get *everything* at a good price, not just part of the package. so, i’m going to try again tomorrow, when i head to the ‘burbs for the day and when a field trip to costco will no doubt take place.

and, really, a camera would have come in handy today because my friend valerie and i went for our quarterly, seasonal, epic walk. some of you have heard of these walks before. they last anywhere from four to seven hours and traverse the entire city, always ending in a good, hardy meal somewhere. by the time we finish the walk and the meal, we’re totally spent and, quite often, extremely sore. one such walk several winters ago took place during a snowstorm and lasted six hours....after which, i literally couldn’t walk for several days. when we walk, we WALK. and the walks are always profoundly cathartic and satisfying, as we recount morsels of our lives with every step we take so that five or so months of news is shared bit by bit as we go. we rant, we lament, we reflect, we gossip...it all comes out.

if you're going for an epic walk, you'll find no finer walking shoe than a keen.

so, valerie called val and off we went. we took tree-lined side streets through downtown and wound up at queen’s park, where we planted ourselves on a well-shaded bench and took a mid-walk break. cut to an hour later when we got up and continued. despite plans to dine at a pan-asian restaurant, we found ourselves sidetracked at a pub...where i had the WORST meal ever. first, i ordered the buffalo chicken fingers (because, when one is in a pub one should order pubby fare), but when i placed the order i specifically asked the waitress if these were chicken *fingers* or popcorn chicken. the latter is revolting, and the thought of deep-fried chicken skins in buffalo sauce was even more gross.

“no, they’re not nuggets, they’re, like, chicken STRIPS,” she assured me.

“okay, I’ll have those.”

when she finally brought our food, i looked at my plate and rolled my eyes: fries, some carrot sticks and celery, and a big pile of wet, cold popcorn chicken. WITH BONES!!!! i was like, “what is this? PIGEON?”

valerie and i agreed that the lumpy chunks of “chicken” on my plate were not at all strip-like, so i called the waitress back over.

“i’m really sorry, but i can’t eat these. this is popcorn chicken, not strips. and there are bones sticking out of some of the pieces.”

“oh,” she said, seeming surprised.

she asked what i wanted instead and i made the grave error of ordering their pasta special. first off, it took forever to arrive, so by the time it did valerie was finishing her meal. the “tomato sauce” seemed more like tomato soup, and the “primavera” aspect meant frozen beans, chunks of zucchini and onions...none of which tasted halfway decent. it also had a strange, farty cheese smell to it. it came with two pieces of “garlic bread” – one was untoasted and WET, the other was toasted but didn’t taste at all garlicy. as i forced one forkful after another down, i kept imagining pepto-bismol in my future.

once done, we continued walking. we wanted dessert, but were having a hard time finding any. we eventually wound up at a gelateria, where we had the most WONDERFUL gelato. heavenly.

despite having walked for five hours already, we continued walking towards home. we made it halfway but, when we realized it would take another 45 minutes to walk ALL the way home, we hopped on the subway. and as soon as we sat down we felt the walk.

i’m hoping all that exercise, and all that “fresh” downtown air, will mean i sleep soundly, deeply and well tonight.

(btw, this is post #99 on this blog!)