Gratitude – 01/22/2011

Today, I am going to focus on one thing for which I am grateful.

City living.

I really didn’t imagine that, at any point in my life, I would actually be grateful to live in the city. Having grown up in rural Ontario, I very much appreciate open skies and wide spaces and the freedom to run about bellowing at top volume without anyone around to see you and quietly judge.

I have, however, come to appreciate living in a place where the commute to work is short, and a goodly number of entertainment sources are within walking distance. The inspiration for today’s post comes from Friday evening, where Elizabeth and I wandered up the street and revisited a restaurant we haven’t been to in a while. The ambiance was just what we were looking for that evening, the food was quite tasty, and they had a Quebec beer on tap which I’d never tried before. I won’t get into pretentious language of hoppiness and fruitness and bounciness; I’ll just say that it tasted like the love child of Guiness and Blue Moon, and the world is a little bit better for it being here.

Being that I had not sufficiently achieved my gluttony goals for the evening, we toddled across to our favourite cafe, the Beechwood, for an après-supper latte and dessert. Here I incurred Elizabeth’s ire when I stole a tiny bit of icing from her cupcake.  Given the deliciousness of said cupcake, I would say a little ire was worth it.

We pretty much froze solid on the walk home, which is one more reason why I was glad that our place was relatively close by.  Settling onto the couch at our homestead, we got to discussing how much more walking we did now that we lived in the city, and the fact that we’re probably the better for it.  It’s not ideal for our pocketbook, and having cupcakes and lattes in such close proximity to the house will surely come back to haunt me in 20 or 30 pounds, but there is certainly something to be said for the experience of having a neighbourhood we call our own.

photo credit: joiseyshowaa