Adrenaline...On The Horizon

I think I should have been an eagle-eyed, pink-rumped hawk because last week I spotted something rustling in the trees and on the ground 4.5 kilometres from my condo. Seriously, I was looking out my condo window and I sensed an odd movement in the mid-ground. It was tiny and foreign, like a Norway rat.

The foreground view from The Verve is full of movement. There are two schools near my condo and there are often screaming children in the playground. It reminds me of my days of substitute teaching, without the upside of the paycheque. Actually, it's nice to hear the little bastards having fun: throwing snow, teasing the fat kids, torturing the hapless subbies (me), etc.

Of course there's always vehicular movement. I'm forever seeing firetrucks and ambulances on the move, and there's a steady stream of cars coursing along Wellesley Street. There's always someone beeping their bleeding horn, but I only give them the finger in my mind. I don't actually rush to my balcony and give them the double barrels, though it's tempting. People in this city use their horns like weapons, as though trained by disgruntled New York City cabbies. I make it my job to police them because a just a little this side of crazy.

So what did I see moving in the midground? A kiter! A snow-kiter!

As a windsurfer, the kiteboarder is my sworn enemy. It is my oceanic obligation to hate them. They are full of attitude and a danger to themselves, and me. They also tend to wear boardshorts over wetsuits. Why? We may never know, but it's not unlike wearing a dress over pants. Not good.

In Toronto these kiteboarders (there's more than one) are the closest thing I have to a cousin so I was excited to see them. Based on my distant observations, it looks as though they've found a frozen inlet of Lake Ontario upon which to play. Cherry Beach or Ashbridge's Bay, methinks. Lake Ontario itself is wide open. Given that they're snow kiting on ice, I see them as less of a threat to me. On the open ocean, they are vermin.

There's an abundance of wind here in Toronto so I see them zipping across the ice at least five days a week, likely Monday to Friday because kiteboarders are not good employees, and not intelligent enough to be entrepreneurs or mannequins. They are our adventure-seeking society's bottom feeders and, as much as I am in dire need of an adrenaline rush, I will never be one of them. Rats!

Actually I'd love to be one of them but the thought of buying a new long-line kite, then schlepping skis/boots/kite to a semi-safe venue 4.5 kilometres away, without a car, seems like too much for me. I'm looking for an adrenaline rush, not exercise for gawd's sake. I get exercise in a gym.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP.

What's that? A car horn?? Gotta go...I'm needed at street level (dut dutta da!)