the shop around the corner

Yesterday* I went to my favourite fabric store probably for the last time. It’s a relationship I’ve had since I moved back to Toronto in 1991. Yes it ebbed and flowed but it was always there and for a lot of years it really was the shop around the corner – and well down about 5 blocks.

I was emotional. In fact more emotional that I thought I’d be and I ended up hugging the clerk who had cut my 14 pieces of fabric when that emotion overcame me. I think I startled her too.

I started sewing as a teen. I am mostly self taught but one of the key factors to my success where a couple of women who ran a local fabric shop out of their husband’s sewing machine shop upstairs. In fact the entire family got me started. I bought my first new machine from them. The second hand one I got from a family friend wasn’t in any good shape so I saved to buy my first Janome at – no word of a lie – Sew and Save. But downstairs was where I flourished. With the Polka Dot as competition – think Fabricland size, they were just glad to have the customers. But they also took it upon themselves to nurture and encourage a 15 year old girl as she learned. I was brash at the beginning trying to copy designs from magazines without patterns. And doing an OK job, but dress straps would be mismatched, lopsided and sometimes things just didn’t work out. I graduated to patterns and learned as I went.

When I left the town of my youth for ‘the big city’ I found Designer Fabric Outlet as it was known then – it has since morphed into Designer Fabrics although I think they just cut the Outlet part off the famous orange sign.

Typical of a lot of Queen West West shops at the time the building was old, the sign was crooked and the inside crammed to the rafters. Perhaps left over from the 80s mantra that more was good. Downstairs was sample squares of upholstery fabric, every designer and wannabe in the city, along with their attitude and a most interesting trim shop. Upstairs though, upstairs was almost an afterthought of clothing fabric and soon my favourite place. At the time you couldn’t really see anything but if you asked for something specific they had it or something very close.

Through the times when I didn’t sew at all to the times when I needed to be inspired a jaunt down the way would feed my imagination and get the wheels going. When I was out of thread or needed a button there was a place to fill that need. Even when I moved all the way across the city I went back.

The last 'famous' list from DFO.

The internet let me know that DFO was closing. I decided to make the trek one last time. I had a rare weekday off and made plans. In the end I was called in to do a shift was a pushed my start time back so that I had time to make my trip. Walking in everything seemed as it always was except that everyone knew that wasn’t the case. The old man who owns the place with the beady eyes who watched everything and everyone was still in his chair, he’d migrated there a few years ago as I suspect age made it hard for him to stand all day. I went immediately upstairs as I always did casting an eye at the barrels at the bottom of the stairs. Upstairs I did what I always do. Headed to the knit area and started feeling fabric. Pulling out a bit here and there to see what the fabric weight was and what the texture and pattern looked like and then I started piling. It was quiet and I chatted with the staff a bit. Then when I was ready to start cutting a bird flew in. Just a typical city bird caught in a building after coming in through some old spot. It appeared to be a regular thing and the staff seemed to know how to deal with getting it out without hurting it but it meant killing the lights for a few minutes. And I think that’s when it started. Standing in the dark in this old building that I have frequented for years being forced to be still for a few minutes while they dealt with a bird that had just minutes ago flown so close to my face I felt the wind created by its wings on my face. An excited ‘we got it’ was heard, the lights came back on and the cutting resumed along with some chit chat with the clerk helping me. After all that I headed downstairs to pay and she helped me carry my piles of fabric. That’s when I hugged her, unexpectedly for both of us.

As I finished up my transaction and wished everyone there best of luck I realized that I was really leaving the last of my start in Toronto behind. I’d lived in Parkdale for 6 years and in nearby High Park for another 6 before heading east in the almost classic Toronto migration of life. I still go to High Park for a few things but this was the only reason I go to Parkdale. I waited for the 501 streetcar, outside the library and looked at the changed streetscape.

THAT orange bag.

‘End of an era’ seems to get tossed around a lot lately. We are in some sort of shift that from this vantage point does not seem good if you are at all artistically inclined. Part of that shift is an older generation ending their working lives and deciding not to sell or not finding anyone to sell to as the case may be. Part of it is an overreaching greed that fails to see how nurturing the arts does a city good and can only see the ‘value’ in commodity and real estate. Either way it makes it tough for those of us who find our creative outlet in doing something for ourselves. I wish I had a better way to end this except to say that my heart always does and will probably always do a little flutter when I see an orange shopping bag.



*I wrote this back in July. Since then I have also gone to the closing sale of the Fabricland at the Galleria Malls, where silliness also ensued. And there was a small design shop that closed and they cleared out fabric. I am absolutely swimming in it but access to decent fabric stores and other craft shops is a real issue.

dear every tech support company

I spent the better part of the last few days trying to buy a bus pass. More specifically trying to set up a bus pass account for a brand new system and at the end of about 36 hours I have not been successful. Jockeyed between two companies using a system that is clearly not user tested and being given some answers that are clearly incorrect I’m am quite literally so tense I don’t want to deal with this anymore but I need that damned bus pass. Edit – in the almost 6 weeks since I wrote this I am not completely done with this set up!

Some handy suggestions to create less actual fury for your users.

1.       Especially if a system is new write and post in a logical place clear instructions and include information for how to proceed if something is different from the way it has worked in the past. In this case the former company would take direct withdrawals from your bank account. New company only accepts Visa or MasterCard debit. Apparently there was a paper form to deal with those of us without the acceptable debit card. It took 3 phone calls, 1 missed, and several threads of twitter interaction before anyone mentioned this to me. And even then I had to ask for the link.

 

2.       Do not tell people their browser is incompatible. If you are dealing with consumers and not business people there are at least four browsers you should be set up for. They are Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer.  A quick Google search puts these browsers in top 5 lists consistently. Sure every list has them ranked in different order but they are always there.

3.       As much as I hate scripts sometimes the information from them is needed for your staff. I get it. Phone centre jobs suck and you usually do not get the best of the crop for those positions but please arm these people with information. By the time most of us get to contacting a company we’re angry and frustrated. We understand that the voice on the phone is not the reason we’re angry but right or wrong they’re who we are dealing with. We need accurate, clear information and explanations. What I’ve heard for the past few days is ‘incompatible’ and ‘you can do that on our website’. Turns out there’s an issue with your website so I can’t. Which is why I’m calling.

4.       Deal with people. I spent quite a bit of time on twitter yesterday. I find it incredibly useful for getting companies to listen to you. I got a response right away from the company no longer offering the service. Most of what they answered was platitudes but at least they were paying attention to me. It took the new company, the one I’m trying to pay about 15 interactions before they finally piped in. Ditto read your messages before responding. I had so many bots answer things I didn’t ask yesterday. I am a bit of a weirdo but I always include my browser and OS information. If your first response is asking me these questions it is completely clear that you did not give my message more than a cursory glance.

5.       Do user acceptance testing. By this I mean have people who do not know what your website is supposed to do test it. When you do your own testing you test with a bias.

If your website is designed to take money please make it so people can pay you. There are so many testing shopping cart apps out there. Do not, to use a very overused phrase, reinvent the wheel. The wheel, so simple in its form, works. 

Please, please, please stop telling users they are at fault. They are not. They may not have done things the way you set them up but users act on a series of learned reactions.They learn each time they users systems and apps and that knowledge is compounded over time. For those of us in Gen X we've been through several radical OS changes and had to adapt to all of them. I personally find all this intuitive 'helping' that software and apps do these days completely counter-intuitive because I learned systems when everything was done by me. Yes I've had to adapt but sometimes my instinct isn't your instinct. And for Millennials and Gen Xed they are even more tech savvy than anyone. They don't need things dumbed down. Whatever generation we are; we've contacted you for help. Help us.

the grinch who sold christmas

I recently wondered why the heck pimento was so popular in the 50’s and 60’s and a friend’s mother was kind enough to explain that really, it was so nice to have some colour to add to dishes. Remembering, of course, that it’s not that long ago that produce was bought when it was in season and then offered canned or frozen for the rest of the year - well you could buy something called a tomato out of season, but mostly it was a knotty, green, tasteless round thing that was called a ‘tomato’.

Fast forward to about a month ago. Back to school promotions started showing up at my local grocery and drugstore chains (incidentally owned by the same company now). Being neither a child or a parent I was still shocked. Sort of. I did a quick calculation. We were about 8 weeks out from the start of school. Back in my retail days you calculated about a 6 week start to the next big ‘holiday’ event so this sort of made sense. On the proverbial other hand, what kid wants to be reminded of school when vacation is only half way through!

While ranting about this on social media someone pointed out to me that Costco had Christmas out at that time too. Calculating again I pointed out that technically Costco is a wholesaler catering to retailers, so having Christmas gear out in July sort of made sense. Yes it seemed out of place, but for all those who remember the annoying reminder of the ‘Days until Christmas’ sign along the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto all those years; Christmas was always coming.

‘Life moves pretty fast’ and in a consumer driven market, the chase is always on to the next season. But start backing it up, to buyers, manufacturers, designers, colour specialists and really, they’re working in terms of 3 to 4 years ahead, so your 6 to 8 weeks is just the final piece of a very long chain that leads to you picking out that particular tomato red sweater for your bestie this Christmas.

At this point I’m pretty stoked that I managed to work a partial Ferris Bueller quote into a post. I also spent some time trying to track down an image of the old Days to Christmas sign on the DVP and fell into a vortex of old Eaton’s catalogue images and only just came back up for air.

Consumerism requires that we shop when the goods are available, but they’ve also taught us there’s a very slim yet attractive period of the end of season sale and the then not for the faint of heart end of season clearance. But if you leave it too long you’re just plain out of luck. Take it from me - the year my coat zipper busted in February was the year I learned to layer. Now like a good Canadian I didn’t have just one winter coat, but still. And I do know how to sew, so if I was really stuck. Okay, my point was, it’s tough finding a winter coat in February because we’re already into prime spring selling and we don’t wear winter coats in spring. Except maybe in most parts of Canada. Because, after all, all this is based on some sort of completely idealized image of season’s and needs. Now back to the catalogues. Which if they are to be believed - that Christmas of 1908 was one dark holiday.

This is not yer traditional red jolly Santa now is it?

I can't find a single image of the old Countdown to Christmas Sign on the DVP, but the bra page of old catalogues, no problem.

the oh boys of summer

I’m not the biggest fan of children. They require constant supervision, they stink, often they’re unable to deal with their own excrement but occasionally they’re fun. For 20 minutes or so. OK, I might be exaggerating. I’d say I’m more indifferent to children. But when I read articles like this, I’m suddenly an advocate.

Living in a city means noise. Cars, businesses, large vehicles, sirens, parades, the occasional party the spills into the streets because major event has happened, like winning a World Series game. But urban living means convenience, selection and people. It also means compromise. The more densely populated a city the greater the need for politeness, and the big problem with a city like Toronto is that we’re just not dense enough to not act stupidly from time to time.

I grew up on a street in transition. Of the 40 odd houses on our little stretch of street, there were 5 kids. Four of us hung out together for several years. We played ‘Star Wars’ (a sort of intergalactic yelling and hitting each other with sticks), we rode bikes, roller skates (back in the metal wheels days), skateboards and other noisy things with wheels, we yelled for no good reason and no one ever complained we made noise. Looking back it really seemed like we were the ipso facto grandchildren of the street.

Also, we always had access to freezies! Beat that.

Going back to Mr. Noisy Complaints Neighbour; why can’t kids be kids? I get it. Noise travels differently over water, But. If you’re that noise sensitive there is a place where you can exist almost silently. It’s called the country.

I live near a hospital, which does mean sirens. But it also means an emergency ward within walking distance. A couple times a week a refrigerator truck sits outside my window to deliver goods to the local convenience stores. Yes they’re loud but having not 1 but 2 convenience stores steps outside my house are worth so much more than complaining. But who do you think delivers this stuff? It’s not delivered by fairies.

I’m with the kids on this one. Summer is short. Yelling is fun. And if we’d had access to a backyard pool as kids, we would have been in there until we were pruney and mostly made of chlorine. Screaming and hitting each other with sticks all the live long day.

cord cutting, cash saving and technology

It sounds like a 3-guys-walk-into-a bar-intro; seemingly disparate things that shouldn’t work but somehow do.

After years of being in a ridiculous and dysfunctional relationship with Rogers I finally got fed up and cut the cable last fall.  It’s been a steep acceptance curve.  I will admit I would look at what movie I might get to watch on a Saturday night for quite some time, although if I’m really honest, the choice wasn’t that amazing.  I haven’t gone completely cold turkey but I’m planning to switch ISP’s and because my phone is with another larger telecom that is named after a bell, I may conceivably be Rogers free.

Fortunately ‘cord cutting’ is a pretty geeky endeavour and there’s nothing the geek community likes better than to explain how they did what they did, and since the internet is their mother-ship, well finding info wasn’t all that hard.  Granted long winded technical discussions of UHF, megahertz and how to assemble your own antenna were largely lost on me.  But the basics were simple; you need an antenna, a sweet spot, some height, patience and presto, free TV.  What it boils down to is realizing that this isn’t the be-all-end-all of entertainment but it’ll get you the goods. Mostly.  

Toronto is geographically ideal for over the air antennas due to its concave bowl shape and because of the proximity to the US chances are you’ll get a Buffalo station or two, but not necessarily all the time and probably not during a storm, mostly.  Height is to your advantage, so if you live in a tower, you’ll do better, but my ground floor apartment, due to the lack of nearby tall buildings does OK too.  And lastly remember the old ‘Fox viewing positions’ (yes I watched Married with Children), my experience is that these so-called flat omni-directional antenna’s have a very different definition of ‘omni’ than I understand it to be.  Needless to say moving your antenna is necessary.  Fortunately it’s the size of piece of printer paper so as long as it’s not mounted this is pretty easy.

What did this all get me?  Well for $45 and a lot of time - don’t get me started on many trips to Future Shop due to their policy to always sell the customer the most expensive thing they have to offer – I save about $65 a month in cable fees of which I paid for about 300 channels I never watched.  In my opinion, if you’re not watching sports, paid cable isn’t for you.  And yes if you really want to watch what you want to watch you need some sort of streaming set up.  But I need baby steps.  Plus I have a really prohibitive Internet allowance for the moment so we make do with what is on and binge watching titles borrowed from the library.

I started this post because I really hate Rogers and I’m so close to ending our relationship, ideally forever, that I wanted to brag it up.  But let me be clear, I like watching TV and cord cutting isn’t for everyone.  There’s not a lot of selection, there’s no PVR (well you can purchase an OTA PVR but I haven’t) and you’re back to watching things when they are on, or not at all, or later, via streaming.  In the midst of waiting for my new computer to arrive so I can connect everything up to the TV, CRTC announces that they’re about to make some changes to cable TV in Canada, so we’ll see what they’ve come up with, soon.

Bottom line, cable companies are scrambling.  Millennial’s, and younger Gen Y aren’t even starting with cable.  In fact a recent article (I can’t remember where I saw it) stated that TV’s aren’t really a mainstay of dorm rooms anymore.  These generations stream on their computers or use Netflix.  I don’t know the stats on Gen X and the Boomers, but I’d guess they skew slightly higher on cable usage with some cord cutting as time goes on, or their kids set them up as the case may be.

If you’re paying attention, cable’s trying hard to keep you tuned in.  More American shows, more ‘features’ that were never available in cable, attempts at exclusive programming to keep people lured in, but is it a losing battle?  I assume so.  I also believe there’s opportunity to change the business model.  On demand models like Crave and Shome, if it was not required to also have a $40 a month cable package could be enticing.  But they’re not offered.

So what was my point?  Well first off, get stuffed Rogers.  The cord cutting revolution is fully underway, as in; I’m way late to the game.  Internet is on its way to being considered a utility and it is changing our ways.  Smart is the new sexy, although we do have to watch out for those eavesdropping TV’s.  

The news came this afternoon and it was rather anti-climactic.  A so-called ‘skinny’ option that will offer less and cost less; and a pick-and-pay plan which will end up costing you more, available for you in just 18 short months.