Steve Kupferman

The Star swiped a story from here! Kind of.

A few weeks ago I wrote a brief post on this blog about a tree in Trinity Bellwoods Park that had been laced up with yarn by street artists. You may remember it.

Later, at David Topping's urging, I did a little additional reporting and turned the yarn tree into a Torontoist post: The Story of the Trinity Bellwoods Yarn Tree, So Far.

Then, the Star did a little more reporting and published something about the tree in their Sunday Living section: Ailing tree victim of art attack?

And that is how a post on my personal blog, which very few people read, became a story in one of Canada's biggest and most respected daily newspapers.

This type of thing happens every day. Ah, sweet mysteries of the news cycle.

There's an entire chapter of the City of Toronto Municipal Code devoted to garage sales.

Really!

It's short, but it contains several regulations I've seen many, many people acting in flagrant violation of! The highlights:

No more than two garage sales may be held in any year from a premises located in any residential zone.

So all the people who try to unload sketchy kitchen utensils and other crap from their lawns or sidewalks every weekend (and there are a few) are guilty. And don't even think about trying to flout the rule by holding a garage sale that never ends. That's what the formula is for:

If a garage sale is conducted over a period of more than two consecutive days, then the number of garage sales shall be the quotient obtained by dividing the total number of consecutive days, or parts of them, on which the garage sale is conducted by two, rounded up to the nearest whole number.

And apparently the shady antiques dealers who try to sell their extras from tables on their front lawns under the guise of yard salery are also... criminals!

No person shall sell personal property at a garage sale other than personal property that has actually been used on, about, or in connection with the residential premises or, in the case of a joint garage sale held with a neighbour, the residential premises of the neighbour.

It would take a special kind of asshole to call on Municipal Licensing and Standards to enforce any of this—that or a very enraged neighbor, tired of being awoken every Saturday morning by the sounds of people haggling over Led Zeppelin LPs and spoons and spatulas of unknown provenance and cleanliness.

The fine maxes out at $5000. So remember, internet: illegal garage sales are no bargain.

Tomorrow I'll be twenty-six.

And I still haven't written a novel.

Just kidding, internet. I never intended to write a novel. I'm quite happy as a short-order word guy.

I guess this is what adulthood looks like, nowadays? When my grandfather was this age, he had kids. Three. And also a house. And I believe a job programming huge mainframe computers with FORTRAN.

My dad was married at 26—had been for a couple of years. He was working the same job he has now—a good one, as an attorney for New York State. But he didn't have me until he was thirty. And I was the first. Of three.

I asked my grandfather about marriage, once. His first wife (my grandmother) died thirteen years ago, and now he has another, this one common law, but still very much a member of the family and great in all respects.

So I asked him, essentially: "Is it weird that my life is so different from yours or dad's?"

And his answer, essentially, was: "No. The only reason to get married nowadays is for kids. When I was your age, we had to get married just to move out of our parents' houses."

And then he took me upstairs and showed me a photo of my great-grandfather, the original Galician Jew, who lit out from Europe because fighting in World War I was for gentiles (or at least not for him), only to have his whole country disappear in the interregnum. It turned into Ukraine. And Poland. I believe he made his living selling fabric.

I'm not quite sure how this patrilineal succession ended up in Toronto, or why it is that, instead of worrying about war or family, I spent Saturday afternoon picking out t-shirts. Three.