Hey Abbott! Coffeeneuring #5

I wasn't planning on going coffeeneuring again today, but Hyedie of the Cupcake Ride needs to catch up (although we're still waiting for her to write up her adventures and show her fabulous pictures, hint hint) (since I waited so long to post this, she has written some of them up!) and we were meeting to plan out Women Who Bike brunches^* for Toronto, so we decided to head to The Abbott in Parkdale.


There was a brief break in the rain, but it was still chilly. I followed the sign's directive and had the hot cider and a pumpkin spice muffin.


And I discovered a new use for my macaron purse hanger:


It's a nice space. It's owned by the people who own The Lakeview and named after Anderson Abbott, the first black doctor in Ontario. He lived in Parkdale, and the decor reflects the layman's idea of science: microscopes, beakers, and erlenmeyer flasks, as well as a wall dedicated to pictures and documents from Abbott's life.


I managed to not talk about work this time, and we roughed out the first Toronto Women Who Bike brunch: November 25. Go to Hyedie's page if you are a Woman Who Bikes in Toronto and want to sign up.

Mileage: 6.4 km/4 miles

A few more pictures of this trip can be found as usual by clicking on the title below and scrolling way, way down to the thumbnail.

From Rambling Through Toronto

^*Which I can now tell you about, since I'm writing this up all timey-wimey.

A rainy day in Leslieville: Coffeneuring #4

So after shamelessly exposing my ignorance of local geography and sticking close to home in my coffeneuring outings, I decided to go to a completely different part of the city. Not only that, but I went all the way over to the east side. I mean, I crossed a river, people. It was raining. I trekked.

Destination: Leslieville.

Thanks to some hurricane or other looming over the horizon, we had a lot of rain this past weekend. We could have given the coffeuring a miss, but we are nothing if not intrepid. The DC and I geared up for the journey. Rather like Scott of the Antarctic. With somewhat better results.

Pancake of the month: Harvest corn pancakes

Although my first pancake love is for the breakfast flapjack, I do collect savoury recipes too. I thought this one would be appropriate, given the time of year.

It's from, surprise surprise, Chatelaine (September 2002). I used canned corn but a red pepper that I grew with my very own hands on my deck. Well, at least I left it to get on with its business on my deck. I even bought fancy cheese from the local cheese shop, which was not at all runny ^*.

Verdict?

East West Queen West: Coffeneuring #3

We had our warm snap this past week; I'm sure it will go back to our regularly scheduled chill-fest soon, but in the meantime it's been glorious. Not too warm, not too cold. Just right for coffeneuring!
The DC and I took advantage of the fine weather to fit in a coffeeneuring trip to West Queen St. West. It is one of many sections of Queen Street with a distinctive character. Look lively, and pay attention: geography lesson ahead. There may be a quiz.

Ada Lovelace Day: A belated post on Emilie du Châtelet, badass physicist

If I were king, I would redress an abuse which cuts back, as it were, one half of human kind. I would have women participate in all human rights, especially those of the mind.

Ada Lovelace Day was yesterday, celebrating women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics^*. I was sick, and so didn't get this out in time. Better late than never.

I first learned about Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet from David Bodanis's book E=mc², and she became one of my favourite historical figure ever. Massively intelligent, funny, polyglot, beautiful, fencer, passionate, voraciously curious, all-round badass scientist. Oh, and did I mention she did this during the so-called age of "Enlightenment," which wasn't exactly enlightened as regards to women? To illustrate: her most important lover Voltaire, with whom she established a research centre at Cirey, had to explain her thus: She was "a great man whose only fault was being a woman." Kind of on a par with binders full of women.

She might have discovered the Law of Conservation of Mass well before Lavoisier if she'd had better equipment. She wrote what is still the definitive French translation and commentary of Newton's Principia. And the story I love to share with my grade 11 physics students is how she determined how to calculate what we now know as kinetic energy.

You can read the details on the Nova site (you'll have to scroll down to the bottom to the section on ², although the rest is obviously worth reading as well). To sum up: Newton and Leibniz are at it again, this time with competing theories over what energy is. Newton's in the lead because, well, he's Newton. Du Châtelet works to understand Leibniz's mathematical arguments, and then looks around for experimental data to back up either theory. She finds experiments by a Dutch physicist, 'sGravesande, who has been dropping balls into clay with somewhat unexpected results. He doesn't know what they meant, but du Châtelet does. They confirm Leibniz's theory. Booyah.

I have been somewhat vague, but you can watch a re-enactment of her story, starting with the experiment, here, as part of Nova's adaptation of the book, and it will say pretty much what I would have said, only without the plagiarism. (You'll have to click on the previous part to see the first part of her story.)


(Incidentally, Newton's idea of energy is what we now call momentum, which is also a reasonably important concept, so at least he has that, poor thing.)

Sadly, du Châtelet died far too early. She became pregnant in her early forties, thanks to an affair with a poet, and died shortly after giving birth. She was working right up to the end.

I am convinced that many women are either unaware of their talents by reason of the fault in their education or that they bury them on account of prejudice for want of intellectual courage. My own experience confirms this. Chance made me acquainted with men of letters who extended the hand of friendship to me. ... I then began to believe that I was a being with a mind ...

Santée, Emilie!

^*aka STEM, and don't get me started on how Canada, or more specifically Ontario, doesn't really have any STEM education initiatives right now despite paying lip service to how important they are. Fairly makes my blood boil.

'Swing it' needs to become a coffee thing -- Coffeeneuring #2

Yesterday was supposed to be the last Sweet Ride of the season. Except it was really going to be a Savoury Ride. In fact, a Poutine Ride. But thanks to imminent very cold rain, it was a postponed ride.

The DC was very sad, because he loves poutine more than is reasonable. I was sad because Hyedie and I were going to work a Coffeeneuring trip in. However, H suggested we go somewhere rather closer so we could be java-ed and then get back before the heavens opened. I suggested Kensington Market as fitting our parameters, and off we went.


There are many coffee shops in Kensington, but not being coffee fiends, neither H nor I know any of them. We decided to park our bikes in the bike corral and wander up and down Augusta until we found the one recommended by Dandyhorse Magazine. As we couldn't remember the name, that might have proved to be... challenging.


What is not challenging is finding any coffee shop in Kensington. The Grind House is a few steps away from the corral and serves an excellent chai latte and s'more cookie. As well as something called a London Fog. H tried to explain that it was tea... with milk. I was skeptical, because even hipsters won't pay $1.50 more just have have milk added to their tea. The Aussie making my brew clarified for us: a London Fog is actually Earl Grey tea with vanilla syrup and steamed milk. Ah.

When he was done making my latte, the Aussie asked if I wanted him to sweeten it. Due to a combination of accent and a loud milk steamer, I heard "swing it" and was very disappointed that that wasn't what he said. I think we should start using "swing it" when we want sugar added. "I'll have a half-caf double mocha non-fat latte... and swing it!"^*

No, really. We need to make this a thing.



We found seats at the window and then H made the classic mistake of asking me about the state of education and politics; on a similar occasion it took me an hour or so to stop ranting. I'm a wee bit passionate about my job and have very decided opinions about what's going on, is what I'm saying. I think I managed to keep the ear-blisterage to a minimum^** this time, and otherwise we had an enjoyable outing.

The first drops of rain were beginning to fall as we left. H went off to run some errands and I went tamely home. I had been planning to use the coffeeneuring trips to explore various areas of the city, but first a statutory holiday and now the weather were conspiring against me. Next time I plan to spend a bit of time poking about before I leave the area.

Additional photos can be seen here:

From Rambling Through Toronto

Mileage: 5 km/3.2 miles (round-trip)

^*Timmies can keep the double-double, of course.

^**Although my minimum might be a bit higher than someone else's. Ahem.

Snakes and Lattes -- Coffeeneuring #1

One of the Best. Names. Ever.

Thanksgiving weekend has found me slightly... stressed. What with the sudden surprise new-course-planning plus staying on top of my other courses plus making far too many mashed potatoes and probably not enough cranberry sauce, I would not have had time to actually relax had I not forced myself to. I'm sure this will all settle down by the time the winter holiday rolls around. That should be right around the time division by zero becomes a good thing.

I had planned on going Coffeeneuring twice this weekend and made it out once only because I really want to finish this challenge. Today is Thanksgiving Monday, and it found me at Snakes & Lattes in the Annex with a bunch of friends. The café has a simple premise: you pay $5 and can play any of the hundred or so thousands* of board games for as long as you like. No cellphones, laptops, i-anything allowed. It's always packed.


I'm not usually a fan of board games, but I was game^** for half an hour or so -- just long enough to drink a latte. This latte:

The Nutella latte was very disappointing. I couldn't really taste anything. Not even coffee. Will not buy again.

Good thing there was a fun game to take my mind off the blah drink:

The Game of Things! A very worthy game; if you're with the right crowd, as I was, it engenders much mirth. So much so that my planned half-hour turned into several half-hours.

Sadly, it could not last. Those lessons wouldn't plan themselves, and I had to get back. I biked home through the crisp autumn air and enjoyed the scenery:


Not a bad way to start the challenge.

Mileage: 5.2 km/3.2 miles

You can see a few other pictures of the trip by clicking on the title below the thumbnail and scrolling to this pic:

From Rambling Through Toronto

^*I thought I was exaggerating when I originally said "a hundred or so games." But, um. Wow. That's a lot of games.

^**Ooh, see what I did there?

In which PhysicsGirl will go Coffeneuring

Despite all evidence to the contrary (to wit: lack of posting), I have not dropped off the face of the Earth. Work has been a trifle... crazy. Let's just say that I kind of wish they had figured out that having 40 students in many grade 12 classes was not really a great idea way back in June instead of last week. And that if they're going to switch my schedule, they tell me in advance which course I will now be teaching instead of having me prep for one course for a week, only to find out that I'm teaching a different course... the day I'm supposed to start teaching said course.

So that's been fun. Or not.

What will be fun is this: MG from chasing mailboxes (she of the Utilitaire-12) is having a Coffeneuring challenge! 7 coffee shops, 6 weekends. Happily, tea and hot chocolate are acceptable substitutes.

The rules: bike to seven different coffee shops (at least 2 miles/3.2 km round-trip) by November 11. Weekends only (or what passes as a weekend for you; Thanksgiving counts as part of this weekend^*). One shop per day, max two rides per weekend. Take photographic evidence and blog about the rides.

Excellent.

I'm going to use this challenge to motivate visits to and blogs about different parts of the city. And I can include the Sweet Ride: Poutine edition as one of the rides -- as long as I have a coffee-type beverage along with the poutine.

The DC and I decided that I should only include indie cafés if I can. Planned locations are, in no particular order:
Kensington Market
West Queen West
The Beaches
Yonge-Eglinton
The Danforth
Portugal Village^**
Leslieville

Bottoms up!

^*Silly Americans, though. They keep calling it Columbus Day.

^**Yeah, yeah. I live here and will have to ride around first to make it count. But I've been meaning to try The Common for a while, and this challenge is the impetus.