Toronto the Bad

I need to interrupt the Toronto the Good series with some venting on the negatives of city life. A few events in the past week are testing my idealistic view of Hogtown.

1) We were the lucky recipients of some gorgeous plants from my sister-in-law's wedding a few weeks ago. We proudly placed them on the front step. This morning, we woke to find two of them ripped up and scattered down the block. I was able to gather them up and re-pot them (most of them still had their roots)and I think they'll survive the trauma. But I am really upset by this. I hope this is a random act. There are some "characters" on the street but until now I was convinced they were benign. Now I'm not so sure.

2) On Saturday I sped Cakes by a drugged-out dude on Queen Street who was about to piss on the sidewalk.

3) I spotted a prostitute on the corner, at 4:00 in the afternoon, two blocks from our house.

4) We're pretty sure a guy across the street is dealing.

We really do love our neighborhood. We think our house was the deal of the century and we see changes happening so quickly. Yet these incidents have left me really upset and questioning if we have chosen the best environment for our babe.

I think we have. I can't think of a better alternative. We can't afford one of the frou frou neighbourhoods in T.O. Besides, we don't really want to live in one. We lived in High Park before this (renting, of course) and it was too homogenous (a post coming). I know we couldn't stomach the suburbs. A small town definitely isn't for us--I grew up in one and got in so much trouble when I was a teenager. Plus, Big Papa and I would hate it. The only viable alternative I can envision is a town like Peterborough--close to Toronto, yet big enough to have decent restaurants and a university. That's really not what we want either though.

So, I will have to continue building on my Toronto the Good series; sadly, not to convince my readers, but to remind myself.