Category Archives: The Boy

Stuff; Or, What I Did Today

The boy’s 49-months-old post is up and backdated. Thanks to Debra, I have a better idea how to use iPhoto and Preview, and so I could actually provide photos for the post. (I’ll get there, Mac.)

I’m currently editing a PhD thesis proposal for a biochemical engineering student whose native language is not English. It’s required me to look into the world of scientific style manuals, as opposed to the humanities style manuals I’ve absorbed over the years. Very interesting, though, and quite enjoyable. This is only one brief section of others that will come, too.

The boy left Blackie the bunny at home this morning, so I seized the opportunity that he has denied us for months and said, “INTO THE WASH, you innocent, horribly bedraggled thing!” Even soaking wet, I could see how clean Blackie was as I transferred him from washer to dryer. Four months of preschool grime really adds up on a best-buddy stuffed pal. When I took him out of the dryer, Blackie looked practically new. Aside from the four months of aggressive love that have marked him eternally, that is. I hope the boy is happy to see Blackie all shiny and clean and recognizes that he has survived the experience with cheer and aplomb, although part of me expects tears because I threw the rabbit in the wash without the boy’s permission.

Ceri and I were supposed to go antiquing and then to Ariadne this afternoon, but she was felled by a visit from the evil Migraine Fairy. I ended up messing with Garageband on my lunch break instead, and discovered that the Mac Mini doesn’t have a microphone jack. You need something like the iMic USB connector through which to run your microphone. So no sound clips of the 7/8 cello for you, Gentle Readers. I re-ripped a couple more albums and practiced the cello this afternoon instead. And I discovered that the Bibliotheque nationale downtown has tonnes of books on spinning, books that I’d otherwise have to buy. I’ll head down there either this week or next and get a library card, then take a pile of them home.

I really hope HRH is in the mood for Rock Band tonight.

Fuzzy

Oh, fibro-fog, I have not missed you.

Actually, I think this is a combination of poor sleep and being up and moving too early in the morning, plus forgetting my glasses on the bedside table.

HRH and I went out for our annual blood test this morning at stupid o’clock. It occurs to me that now that we have health insurance, we could to this via private clinic and be reimbursed instead of sitting in the hospital for an hour and a half. Next time. Anyway, we took the boy with us because we figured it would be good for him to see it before he needs it done at some point, and also to kind of save time, as we could take him directly to Grandma’s house afterward. He was pretty good, too. We sat in the hallway of the blood lab along with fifty other people and read a book, played some games, and I let him play with the Touch, too. He came into the lab itself when we were called, and he sat with HRH while I had my prise de sang done, and then I took him to the bathroom while HRH had his done. I’d warned him ahead of time that when we were in the actual lab that he’d have to sit very quietly and not wiggle around, because there were lots of breakable things and people having sensitive tests done, and if anything went wrong they’d have to start all over again and there would be much crankiness. After we were done we left and he said, “That was fun!” (Okay, kid, whatever.) Then he threw his arms out to the sides and said with great excitement, “And I didn’t break anything!” A couple of the people waiting giggled a bit behind their hands, as did a few when we’d been waiting earlier and he’d asked me what a prise de sang entailed, then put an anxious hand on my arm and said, on the verge of tears, “But I don’t want them to take your blood out of your body.”

Then we all trooped over to the nearest Tim Hortons so there could be food and coffee, because we’d been fasting for the tests, and he was allowed to choose a whole doughnut for himself. He chose a chocolate glazed, and told me that I wasn’t allowed to cut it in half (which is what I usually do, half for each of us). He pretty much had three bites and then licked all the icing off, then washed it down with some chocolate milk.

I’ve had a couple of queries about how the spinning wheel recon went. Basically, I sat down and spun my fibre for two hours on a single-treadle Louet S-17, and as I suspected, I am completely and totally hooked. Never even tried the Victoria. A single treadle slow machine will be fine for me for a while, which is good to know because there are lots and lots of secondhand ones on eBay (although I’d love to buy one new, and support the LYS that’s been helping me with the research). Molly Ann wound the single I’d spun into a centre-pull ball with the ball winder (so easy!) so I could ply at home with my spindle (again, so much easier!) and I made honest to goodness real yarn last night after the boy was in bed. I have photos, but I can’t figure out how to get them out of iPhoto. Thank goodness for my library reference books, which I will make use of later. (Note to self: You need an FTP program before you start working the freelance gig again, oh hell. Although I can upload things for the blog from a web interface, thank goodness.) My biggest problem with the wheel is over-spinning the wool and putting too much twist into it, just like I do with the spindle. I need to treadle slower; I tend to speed up. But it’s so much easier, and so much smoother, and I can make a lovely fine single instead of something chunky because drafting is easier.

We’re off to see the new Harry Potter film this afternoon! And leaving, er, now.

ETA @ 8:25 PM: Peektures!

Here’s the first bit of plied yarn on the spindle, halfway through the process. I admit that I paused here to photograph it because of how perfect the yarn about to be wound onto the spindle shaft is. So even! So… worsted weight-ish!

And here is my first-ever baby skein of yarn plied from a single spun on a wheel. The length of the finished skein is about eight inches.

It is somewhat lumpy and not even (well, more even than my spindle stuff ever was), but I love it with much, much love.

Also, the Harry Potter film was very good indeed. Better than the last, which was probably my least favourite of the lot so far. Well-paced, nicely balanced, very nice camera work.

Forty-Nine Months Old!

Big things this past month have been taking the GO train into Toronto and the TTC subway for the first time, and taking pictures. He wanders off with the camera any chance he gets. And about a third of his pictures are actually usable, to. I may put together a Boy Photographer post at some point. He took pictures of me playing my cello one day, and if he hadn’t fiddled with the settings and turned the dial to Movie he’d have had some excellent shots. Even with the Movie setting on, if he’d kept the camera on me instead of winging it crazily around the room it might have worked. We may keep our eyes out for a decent low-end camera for him — not one of the kids’ ones, those are terrible, but one that won’t die if dropped. That’s my biggest fear right now, because he’s come close to smashing it against something a couple of times, and I really don’t feel like replacing my digital camera for the second time in three years, thanks.

To everyone’s surprise, he had a very negative reaction to his first pool experience this summer. He loved it last year, and splashed around while holding on to whatever adult was with him. But this year, his teacher went into the pool with him at preschool when the weather finally warmed up enough to do so, and he shrieked and cried. He explained later that it was cold, but we think this was shorthand for “I’m a year older and I know bad things can happen and while I trust my teacher that’s a lot of water, there. Oh, and it’s also a bit chilly.”

He is thoroughly in love with the Animaniacs. My work here is done.

After months of on-again-off-again suggesting it, we finally got around to reading Ursula LeGuin’s Catwings series, and he is in love. He also really enjoyed the Brambly Hedge stories, but the Catwings are his favourites among the new books.

The very last guppy finally went to the big aquarium in the sky, so we took a trip to the local pet shop and bought three sturdy polka-dot mollies. We tried to convince him that a small school of neons would be awesome, but he wanted the spotty mollies, so the spotty mollies he got. “What will you call them?” the salesman said as he decanted them into a bag. “Um, I don’t know,” said the boy. “Well, my name’s JF, if you wanted to call one after me,” the salesman said, which amused us. The boy amused us even more when he eagerly said, “Yeah, yeah — I’ll call them all JF!”

Gryffindor has taken to racing into the boy’s room when it’s bedtime, throwing himself on top of the bed and flopping over with great force, looking up at us with an expression that says, “I am so heavy you cannot possibly pick me up to toss me out.” After the story has been read and the light has been turned out for the snuggle part of the bedtime ritual Gryff often stomps up the bed, purring loudly, and thumps into the boy or I lovingly. Sometimes the boy wants him to cuddle some more, but usually he says as I leave, “I don’t want Gryff to stay.” Especially since the night he had to shoo the cat away from the tank and those shiny plump new fish. Very traumatizing. When I go in to check on him last thing before I go to bed, adjusting covers and turning off the music and opening or closing windows, Gryff often pushes his way in with me and leaps up on to the bed, finding a cosy nook to do some intense snuggling and purring before I shoo him out again. It makes us feel good to know that Gryff chooses to play and be with the boy. Even Nixie is allowing him to pet her gently when he finds her, an unforeseen turn that the boy recognizes as being extremely special.

“Are these bad guy socks?” he asked when he put on a pair of Transformer socks the other day. Very important to know when you’re four. It sets the tone for the entire day, you see.

Other boy-themed posts:

Rocking out with the new Rock Band set
The trip to Nana and Grandad’s house
The grand finale to the Week of Birthday

In Which She Successfully Subverts A New Generation

I bought the first season of the Animaniacs yesterday.

This is something I’d intended to do for a while, but never got around to it. Then Tamu passed her Dot t-shirt on to me at the Canada Day BBQ (there’s a long story here about how there was one of these shirts left for sale at Nebula, just before I started working there, and the day I went in to buy it Tamu had purchased it; fifteen years later she has been weeding out her wardrobe and remembered I loved this shirt, so passed it along to me in pretty much perfect condition to use as a sleep shirt, yay!) and the boy saw me wearing it and asked who the cute creature in the graphic was. So I tried to explain the Animaniacs to him. Anyone who has seen the Animaniacs knows that such an explanation is doomed. So I resolved to pick up a season of the show, because it was rather wrong that I didn’t own any.

The boy was initially disappointed — I told him I’d picked up a surprise and he must have thought it was something he’d asked for. “But I don’t want this, I didn’t ask for it,” he said, on the verge of tears. HRH had a little talk with him about how nice it was of me to buy him a present, and how I wanted to share something fun that I liked with him. So he said we could put the first disc in. Initially he sat as far away from the television as he could and was a bit bemused, but gradually I saw him move closer to the TV, and then he really got into it. “I love the Animanaics, they’re my favourite movie!” he exclaimed somewhere around the end of the first episode. “Is there more?” Oh, oh yes, my son. There is lots more.

In fact, we finished the first disc last night, staying up an hour later than his usual bedtime to do so (“Just one more, Mama, please, please?”). He curled up on my lap and rested his head on my shoulder, determined to see it through to the end. “Hey, I have him!” he said at one point, pointing to Yakko, and he’s right. Once upon a time when Tal, t! and I were throughly immersed on the Animanaics, finding a delightful parallel between the three characters and our own personalities (oh, the song sessions in various cars on various trips!) Tal found stuffed toys of each character and presented the appropriate one to each of us. When Liam was born he passed his Yakko along to him. Until now, Liam’s never really been interested in it, but that should change around nap time today. (I think my Dot is still in a box. I shall remedy that.)

I am charmed by the fact that the boy crawled into bed with me this morning and asked to watch the Animaniacs instead of his regular Friday-at-home-with-Mum cartoons. Why, yes, yes you can, my son. Muah-hah-hah.

This is also slightly bittersweet for me because the only video I had of the show was a best-of complied for me by Emru. I lost the video in the last move (although I’m sure it’s somewhere in a box that hasn’t been opened in a while) and our VCR died anyhow, so we wouldn’t have been able to watch it. But I’ll always associate the Animaniacs with him as well as Tamu, Tal, and t! — a noble host indeed. When the series was first released on DVD Emru tried to get a review copy for me through fps, but it didn’t materialize. I did get to review the first season of Pinky & the Brain, though, which was an acceptable consolation prize. It has still never been quite right that I own a season of that, but not the Animaniacs.)

Today we’re bound for the EcoMuseum, and I’m going to sneak my three Animaniacs CDs into the car as another surprise. Whee!

Weekend Roundup

I’ve been low on fibro spoons the past few days. Here’s a brief recap of the weekend.

Friday: I moved my office around. HRH stopped by on his way to get more paint, and helped. The window is now at my back. I like the new layout; curiously, there is more room in the office now. We’ll see if the fresh perspective helps the writing process. At least now people can’t come in the door and watch what I’m doing over my shoulder. I managed to get twenty pages of Orchestrated edited, a minor miracle considering I spent three hours on the first page. I could see that it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t fix it properly, either. Cello lesson Friday night, the last before fall. The Suzuki book 2 review is officially over (yaaaaay!) although my teacher wants me to further polish the last two pieces on our time off. My summer homework: working through Position Pieces vol 1, working the page of exercises she wrote out, reviewing book 1 in thumb position, and looking at the first piece in book 3. Cool links of the day: Ottawa’s NAC Orchestra puts music archive online; and I discovered Kevin Fox, whom I can only describe as a cellist with the voice of Elvis Costello.

Saturday: HRH headed out to do a half-day of painting to finish up Mousme‘s kitchen, so the boy and I made cookies, painted with watercolours, and watched video of Neil Peart. Friday afternoon I had timed a Craiglist query perfectly and snagged a used Rock Band set for the Wii, and Saturday after the boy’s nap we collected it and set it up. The included USB hub, which is supposed to pull power from the Wii when plugged in, doesn’t, so we can only use two peripherals at once till we find a powered hub. As no one is particularly moved to do vocals, this is fine for now.



We need another guitar peripheral so I can play bass while the boy rocks out on guitar (perhaps we won’t plug his in). I’m not enamoured of the fret keys on the guitar; the red one seems to be stubborn on the lower frets, while the green is stubborn on the higher ones. I suppose I’ll get used to it. (I am amused that I refer to them as ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ when they have nothing to do with the frequency of sound produced. Well, they’d be lower or higher if it was a real guitar.)

Saturday night HRH and I were supposed to break the Rock Band set in properly, but I was too tired and he couldn’t really drum while the boy was asleep because the kit sounds exactly like my cousin Iain’s practise pads used to sound when he practised for pipe and drum band (in other words, loud and sharp).

Sunday: We ran errands. Looked for a powered USB hub but couldn’t find one for less than $50 so left it for now; picked up the silencer pads for the drum kit; bought Tal and Kristie’s housewarming present (breadmaker!); bought an ice cream maker for us (something I’ve been on the fence about for two years). Picked up a couple of 4 litre jugs of water because despite promising there would be news on Friday, LaSalle still has us all under a boil-water advisory. Early lunch and nap, then off to beautiful, bucolic Hudson for a Very Important Orchestra Meeting, at which we did a recap of the year and the conductors we’ve evaluated. We chose our new conductor (thereby also approving the substantial fee increase) by unanimous vote. We’d intended the vote to be by secret ballot, but people were just so enthusiastic that it wasn’t necessary. While the orchestra met, the boy ran around and around the gorgeous property, played with the dog and counted frogs in the waterfall/pond. Back home, made dinner, put boy to bed, set Blade up as the Responsible Adult On Site (Now With Rock Band) and headed out to an RPG, which hadn’t met to play in, um, very long. Hurrah for fully-assembled parties, and action finally beginning. Feels like things are underway at last.

I’m so very excited about this new conductor. I think he can do a lot for us, and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can be better integrated into the local music scene.

The only bad thing about the weekend (other than being short on spoons) was buying rechargeable batteries that would only work in a proprietary charger not once, but twice. Two different brands; two different sets of tiny tiny fine print. Not amused.

Right; on to editing.

Canada Day Concert Review

Every year around this time I say something along the lines of “best concert ever.” I feel rather like the boy who cried wolf, because I’ve said it so many times now that you’re not going to believe me when I say that no, this was the best Canada Day concert I’ve ever had the joy and honour of playing in. No, really. No hyperbole here. I can produce witnesses. A couple of hundred of them, even.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out, including (but not limited to!) HRH and the boy, my in-laws, Marc, MLG, Daphne, Lu, Tamu and Patrick, Jeff and Paze and Devon, and I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody. A couple of fellow cello students were in attendance, too, and it was fun to see them. Thanks must also go out to Ceri and Scott, who hosted a pre-concert barbeque with the intention of leaving with everyone else, but who were detained by a sulky house with plumbing issues. (Scott, you grilled our steak to perfection; thank you.)

I’ve been talking about recording a concert for aeons, and I finally brought the MiniDisc to this one. I’m heartbroken to hear that the levels were too high, and because an awful lot of last night was Loud with a capital L, there’s static and popping and muffling throughout it all. Still, I can hear how good it was under the poor sound quality. I wish I’d thought to check levels during warmup, but I completely forgot I had the thing in my bag. This is better than nothing for me, though, because it showcases the precision and interpretation. The recording is also somewhat weighted toward the celli, bass, and tympani, because, well, that’s the side I sit on (although the mic was just a foot left of centre) and all those instruments have deadly low frequency levels that together can really distort a recording. I can’t do much about it with Audacity; I’m hoping that I can transfer the files to a Mac-friendly format and work on them in GarageBand once the Mac Mini has been acquired at the end of the month.

(I’m transferring the recording to the computer now, and hello, I nailed the exposed cello solo line in the Pavane, which was the one I was worried about. Ha! A wee bit off on the first cello-led phrase in the Grieg dances, but I’m attributing that to the somewhat, er, accelerated speed at which we played them. Also? Best rendition of the Pavane out of the three times we’ve played it since I joined. I think the proper speed is key; go too slowly and it dies a dead death. It’s solemn, not funereal.)

We got to use risers for the first time, bringing us all onto the same level and lifting us above the audience. I think it made a lot of difference sound-wise. This conductor set his music stand between the second chairs of the violins and the celli; he likes being right in the middle of things. I kind of like it too; I don’t have to crane my neck so much.

This conductor is dynamic, focused, has wonderful musical expression, has already dragged us beyond the level at which we were functioning, and comes with a host of fringe benefits like established connections within the musical and cultural communities. I think the vote on Sunday is a no-brainer, but I am only one of forty people, and there’s a money issue which I think is an obstacle of principal for some. I want to keep working with him, actively want to, as opposed to being happy with my performance under one of the previous guest conductors. Even with the poor recording quality, I can compare them to the performance caught on video in the fall, and I think there’s no comparison. This performance was much more crisp and vibrant.

It was really good to feel capable during this entire concert. And I don’t think I’d have felt this comfortable if we hadn’t struggled with the Bizet and Mendelssohn for the last concert. I’ve made tremendous strides forward this past season, what with the new cello, a new teacher, and this varied selection of music chosen by three very different conductors. Just working with a teacher has made a world of difference, enabling me to shift and nuance what I’m doing in a way I couldn’t do before. I am extremely pleased with my performance last night.

Afterward, while we were waiting for the fireworks to begin, Patrick asked me what a conductor actually does other than stand up there and wave his arms at a performance, and I realised that if you’re not a musician familiar with the rehearsal process you probably have no idea that the conductor is literally the director of the whole show from beginning to end. He chooses the music, guides the interpretation, asks for more or less from various performers, tweaks phrasing and delivery, and is basically responsible for what makes it different from other versions one hears. He’s the observing ear who reflects what you’ve just played back to you and tells you how to make it better, something that’s hard to do when you’re sitting in the middle of it.

And my new 7/8 baby performed very well. I played it in the spring concert, but it’s really opening up and sounded even better this concert. After my week away I picked it up and it sounded very rich, heavy on the ringing tones and with remarkably full resonance. Impressive. I am very happy with it. It was a good lateral move, indeed. I even like the fibreglass bow that came with it. It’s wouldn’t be my choice of bow, but it’s got good balance and resistance. My favourite bow is warping, and that cracked frog has to give out sometime. This fall I’ll start the bow search.

We were even fortunate weather-wise. The day was mostly bright, although a glorious thunderstorm boomed and cracked during our hour-long warmup. There was a particularly amusing moment where we were counted in and the thunder rolled on the beat we were to start on; apparently the storm wanted to play too. The rain ended forty-five minutes before we began, though, so everything was fresh and clean and cool for the concert itself. And the fireworks were spectacular; there were some I’d never seen before. It was the boy’s first firework experience, and he loved them. “They’re loud!” he exclaimed from his father’s lap, where he was sitting all wrapped up in a blanket provided by his godparents. “And they’re all my favourite colours!” At various points during the day yesterday he randomly yelled out, “Happy birthday Canada!” and waved the tiny flag someone handed him early in the day while we were out. We almost got caught by the parade downtown; if we’d known about it we might have planned to attend. Next year, I think.

One more lesson, and then I’m off till mid-August. Marc’s piano has been tuned, so I think we’ll mess about together in the interim. I transposed “Itsudo Nando Demo” the other day using Forte, and it was very worth the time. I can read treble and transpose down as I play for a couple of measures at a time, but not three pages’ worth.

Holiday Roundup, With Bonus Today Stuff

All right; my work for the day is done. I have read and written a two-paragraph endorsement of a book coming out this fall, and it’s just as well I didn’t bring it with me; it was mostly correspondences and such, so I needed to do it all in one go to get a feel for the overall book. (And I’ve just been informed that as a thank you, I’m getting a copy of the bound book when it comes out this fall; how nice of them!) Things got off to an early start, what with me getting up at 3:45 AM (hello, insomnia, I have not missed you, and just because I slept an average of four hours each of the past four nights does not mean it’s a pattern that ought to be perpetuated), so I didn’t have to drag myself awake for a couple of hours when the boys left. Also, I ate lunch at 10:30, so I kept being surprised that it was only noon or whatever when I checked later.

Today I got a secondhand book in the post, then a postal truck arrived and gave me my order of Vienna Teng CDs, and just now a second postal truck came by with a different driver, to give me yet another secondhand book. I suspect this is what inefficiency looks like.

Right, so, here it is, the highlight reel of our week away:

SUNDAY we drove to Toronto. The six-hour stretch between these cities is without doubt the most boring stretch of highway in the country. It is flat. It is straight. It is dull. But the drive went relatively well, except for getting off the 401 at Whitby to get to the 407 instead of Ajax. Yeah, we won’t be doing that again. See, despite the little 407 toll route! signs at the exit we took, the 407 doesn’t actually start in Whitby. Lying little signs. You have to take the tiny you-call-this-a-highway 7 to get to it, after driving north on Brock for about half an hour. Which kind of undercuts the whole idea of saving time idea. Anyway, the 407 is a beautiful highway, and traffic-free. Traffic free = stress free. Sure, we pay about $20 to drive almost its entire length, but as we do it only two or three times a year, it’s totally worth it. It saves about 45 minutes, and avoids lots of sitting in traffic, construction, and crankiness.

MONDAY we puttered around. Can’t remember doing anything spectacular, really. We went to the used kids’ clothing store in the morning and found new shorts for the boy, which he sorely needed, and a couple of new books, one of which was a Transformers reader. Wandered aimlessly at the bookstore; there’s nothing out that I want, really, or perhaps more correctly nothing I will spend $10 on when I know I’ll read it in ninety minutes. The boy splashed around in his wading pool for about two hours. And by ‘splashed’ I really mean ‘ran at it and took flying dives into it.’ Those are HRH’s genes, thank you very much.

TUESDAY was the family gathering. There were eleven of us: HRH and myself, my parents, the boy, my cousin and his wife, their three-year-old daughter, their ten-day old new baby girl, my aunt (aka my cousin’s mom and my mother’s sister) and my cousin’s mother-in-law over from Japan. I think that was everyone. Oh, we ate. We always eat when family get together. There was cheese and fruit before dinner, and grilled flank with potatoes and cold orzo-grilled veggie salad, and green beans. Dessert was two huge crystal bowls of torn up angel food cake, piled with fresh local strawberries, and further piled with freshly whipped cream. I had both kids on the floor of the kitchen helping me make these, spooning berries over the piles of cake, then trying to spoon the cream on top, but it kept sticking to the spoons so they got it all over their hands. Everyone had two servings, so it’s a good thing we made tonnes of it. It was so light, though; it felt like you were eating air.

WEDNESDAY morning Mum and I went out to Spun Fibre Arts in Burlington to check it out. They have a lovely selection. I went to see what spinning wheels they had in stock, but the owner wasn’t there to demonstrate them. They had the Schacht Ladybug and a Louet Victoria there, and while I’ve heard the Ladybug is more versatile, I was really impressed by the Victoria’s smoothness. After the boy’s nap we went to visit Granddad at the Canadian Warcraft Heritage Museum so the boy could run around among the priceless and irreplaceable airplanes. It was nice and quiet, so my father offered to let HRH crawl around inside one of the only two operational Lancasters in the world. Yeah. HRH was totally blown away. The boy got his kicks sitting in the Fleet and the CF-100, showing me how the sticks still moved the flaps. On the way out we hit the gift shop and the boy chose a really well-done metal toy of the Lanc, and HRH bought a CAF shirt for himself and one for the boy.

THURSDAY we went downtown to the ROM, to see the dinosaurs. I adore the ROM, and this was my first opportunity to see the new pavilion. The natural history exhibits have been installed in this new section, and it all suits very well. You can’t do the entire ROM in one day (well, maybe some can) and I really missed not being able to go through the textiles and the many cultural galleries. We promised the boy he could pick something out at the gift shop of this museum too, and he chose a dinosaur egg, one of those things you put in water and it dissolves/cracks while the dinosaur inside ‘grows.’ It was put in a jar of water pretty much as soon as we got home. We had planned to split up at lunchtime, the boys to have sausages from the cart on the corner, and Mum and I to Remenyi to check for an orchestral tuner. And we did, except the major deviation from the plan was the spectacular thunder and lightning storm we walked out into, totally unexpected after the bright, clear, hot day we’d started with. Mum and I got drenched going across the street, and the boys dashed to the cart and back to shelter to eat their lunches. In the end, Remenyi didn’t have an orchestral tuner, I wasn’t going to buy the very excellently designed and priced cello case I saw without testing it for fit, and we missed the GO train heading back to Oakville. Because yes, we took the GO train to town, and then the subway to the museum, which thrilled the boy to no end because it meant four train rides. We ended up sitting at Union Station for forty-five minutes waiting for the next train, but it wasn’t so bad; Mum and I shared a ham/cheese/tomato bagel sandwich, then we wandered over to the Second Cup where she got tea and I had a delicious caramel steamed milk, which I shared with the boy when it cooled enough. Mum and I entertained ourselves by rating the shoes and clothes we saw go by. People wear the oddest things. That night after the boy was in bed HRH took me out for a caramel latte at William’s Coffee Pub in Burlington, one of our favourite places for a date. (Yeah, we don’t get out much.) To my delight they do decaf lattes. Next time I may go wild and have a mocha, although I love the flavour of the caramel lattes and the balance between the milk, the coffee, and the syrup drizzled on top. I also nipped into The Shoe Company ten minutes before they closed and scored the perfect pair of black leather mules by Liz Claiborne for $60. I have been looking for these ideal shoes for about ten years. I win.

FRIDAY morning HRH and Dad went over to install a fan in a friend’s house, while Mum, the boy and I went out to look at netbooks and do some grocery shopping. We hit HMV because Mum was looking for a Great Big Sea album (which wasn’t in stock, of course, because it isn’t new but not old enough to qualify for the 2 for whatever price promotion), but I picked up the first season of the original Transformers TV show for the boy, who is thoroughly delighted with it. That afternoon his grandparents took him out to visit the local trainyard, where he happily watched engines shunting things all over. An engineer came down out of a diesel locomotive and gave him a CN ballcap, which sent to boy right over the moon. Then they went out for gelato, as did HRH and I, although we went to two different places. Forget ice cream; gelato is where it’s at. (Two dates in two days!) There was perfectly grilled salmon for dinner, brushed with maple syrup and a touch of soya sauce.

SATURDAY we came home. The boy woke me up by gently waving something wet and squishy in my face and saying tenderly, “Look, Mama, I helped it be borned!” The little dinosaur egg had finally crumbled enough and the dinosaur’s foam tail and feet were far enough out that he just couldn’t wait any more. Under HRH’s supervision the jar was opened, the water decanted, and the remaining bits of ‘eggshell’ pulled off. It took him a while going through his dinosaur books in the car on the way home, but we identified it as a chubby little dimetrodon. It was a good trip home, too. I like this travelling on non-holiday weekends thing.

While away, I read In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan, A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd, Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi, and then I finished Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro and The City & The City by China Mieville the night we got home.

There. Caught up. As usual, it’s nowhere what I wanted it to be, because I’ve already forgotten the little things that made each day special.

I’m going to go read now. I can’t decide if I want to drink a beer or a latte from a packet. To heck with it: red wine it is.