Backtracking update
Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! I'll try to go through and thank you individually as well :) And to my friends who sent presents, extra-special thank-yous! *hugs all around*
Now I'll back up a little, since I've been too busy to update for the past few days. On Wednesday, I went into Detroit on my own for the first time, and mostly managed to not get lost. I was going in for a parents' meeting at Arthur's preschool. There have been various changes in the administration this year and I think they wanted to go over those with the parents. The meeting itself wasn't very informative, on the whole, except that now I have a better idea of their lesson plans for the year and what they do during any given day. But neither of Arthur's teachers were there, and I would have liked to meet them. I did get to see his classroom, though, so that was good. Afterwards we went out for McDonald's, as it was pretty late by the time we were back in Windsor, and we didn't have much to eat in the house since I hadn't managed to do grocery shopping that day like I'd meant to, though I did do some other errands at least.
On Thursday I was still running about doing errands. Fortunately, most of them were fun errands. I went to the east end of the city in order to visit a little art gallery, but since I wound up parking near a really good second-hand furniture shop, I stopped in there first just to see if they had anything promising, and came away with a dresser for the spare room. It's not the most beautiful piece of furniture ever, but once the mirror (rather badly spotted) was off, it's presentable and, more importantly, solidly built. Oh, and $70, which is practically what one would pay at IKEA for a particle-board thing we'd have to assemble ourselves, so I was pleased with the price. It fit well into the back of the Matrix once I'd folded down the seats, conveniently enough.
Then it was on to the art gallery, to check out this show. It was fairly sparse, just one not-very-full room, and several of the pieces I liked best had already been bought, but I did pick up a few things. I won't say what as I haven't quite decided yet whether they will become Christmas gifts for friends or treats for myself ;) I'd also worn my 'saving throw vs. sexy' shirt in the hopes of meeting some other geeks while I was out. Three promising specimens came in with their adorable dog while I was there - promising except that I'm pretty sure they couldn't have been older than 16-17 :/ If they'd looked like they were even in university, I would probably have asked their names, but as it was we just chatted about some of the pieces before I left.
I saw that there's a comics shop near to the art gallery, but didn't have time to stop in as I was already running late due to unexpected dresser purchasing. Then I went by the gaming store to get a present for xypharan, but also just to check it out. It's small, with a fairly large selection of board games, so-so assortment of gaming books, and tiny number of comics/graphic novels, plus a smattering of the standard gaming store accoutrements like action figures and Cthulhu plushies. The guy at the counter was nice, though, and there were no offputting odours or creepy patrons, so that's a big plus.
Then I went to do grocery shopping, but also, more importantly, to pick up Arthur's present for learning to use the toilet all the time - the Scene-It Disney edition. I also want to note that even with a dresser in the back, I still managed to fit over $100 worth of groceries into the car. Yay car! Arthur was ecstatic with his surprise, btw, and we have been watching Scene-It pretty much constantly ever since.
Friday, I bundled Arthur into the car for a trip to Toronto to visit urban_homestead and her kids and to snag cuttings of a bunch of her plants. The drive there was fine once I got some coffee into me and didn't feel like I was going to doze off at the wheel. The visit was, of course, lovely - homemade matzo ball soup for lunch! Arthur actually eating cucumbers and asking for more! Messing about in the garden while the boys played! Meeting the new addition to their family :) Homemade pecan cookies for afternoon snack! I only wish we lived closer together so we could see each other more often. I came away with a trunk full of plants for my garden (a partial list, I'm sure I'm forgetting some - raspberries, strawberries, grapes, lavender, comfrey, oregano, purple sage, chives, tansy, lemon...something...) plus about a dozen apples I'd picked from her tree, plus an assortment of seeds. So wonderful!
The drive back was less awesome, unfortunately. There was a lot of traffic on the way out of Toronto - here's a hint, it should not take an hour and fifteen minutes to get from Dufferin to Milton. Even after that, things were slow going. What should have been a 3.5 hour trip wound up taking five, once a rest stop was included. In any case, we made it home safely and I pretty much went straight to bed. xypharan and his girlfriend arrived a bit after midnight, I think, but I only vaguely heard them come in.
Next morning (my birthday!) we all went out to breakfast at Cora's. I had crepes and raspberries with honey and various dairy-related products, which was delish. When we got home, I planted all the stuff I'd received the day before, with some help from Rob. I will never remember where it all is come spring, it'll just be a surprise I suppose. We then lazed about in the middle of the day, I opened my gifts, and then we went out for dinner - I had originally suggested the Keg, but it was very busy, so we went to Outback instead, which was quite good - tasty mashed potatoes, mmm. I wound up taking Arthur to walk around the Toys R Us next door while everyone else finished their meals, and though he was entranced by so many buttons to push and sounds and blinking lights, he eventually came away with just a small plastic horse, hooray. Everyone was tired by the time we got Arthur to bed afterwards, and so we just watched an episode of Rome and then went to bed ourselves.
Sunday was, again, fairly quiet - breakfast in, playing with Arthur, etc. Our guests departed around noon, and I didn't do much the rest of the day. I think I'm coming down with Arthur's cold - I hope we haven't passed it to anyone else we've seen over the past few days. I'm trying to take it easy today, in hopes that it doesn't get much worse.
Now I'll back up a little, since I've been too busy to update for the past few days. On Wednesday, I went into Detroit on my own for the first time, and mostly managed to not get lost. I was going in for a parents' meeting at Arthur's preschool. There have been various changes in the administration this year and I think they wanted to go over those with the parents. The meeting itself wasn't very informative, on the whole, except that now I have a better idea of their lesson plans for the year and what they do during any given day. But neither of Arthur's teachers were there, and I would have liked to meet them. I did get to see his classroom, though, so that was good. Afterwards we went out for McDonald's, as it was pretty late by the time we were back in Windsor, and we didn't have much to eat in the house since I hadn't managed to do grocery shopping that day like I'd meant to, though I did do some other errands at least.
On Thursday I was still running about doing errands. Fortunately, most of them were fun errands. I went to the east end of the city in order to visit a little art gallery, but since I wound up parking near a really good second-hand furniture shop, I stopped in there first just to see if they had anything promising, and came away with a dresser for the spare room. It's not the most beautiful piece of furniture ever, but once the mirror (rather badly spotted) was off, it's presentable and, more importantly, solidly built. Oh, and $70, which is practically what one would pay at IKEA for a particle-board thing we'd have to assemble ourselves, so I was pleased with the price. It fit well into the back of the Matrix once I'd folded down the seats, conveniently enough.
Then it was on to the art gallery, to check out this show. It was fairly sparse, just one not-very-full room, and several of the pieces I liked best had already been bought, but I did pick up a few things. I won't say what as I haven't quite decided yet whether they will become Christmas gifts for friends or treats for myself ;) I'd also worn my 'saving throw vs. sexy' shirt in the hopes of meeting some other geeks while I was out. Three promising specimens came in with their adorable dog while I was there - promising except that I'm pretty sure they couldn't have been older than 16-17 :/ If they'd looked like they were even in university, I would probably have asked their names, but as it was we just chatted about some of the pieces before I left.
I saw that there's a comics shop near to the art gallery, but didn't have time to stop in as I was already running late due to unexpected dresser purchasing. Then I went by the gaming store to get a present for xypharan, but also just to check it out. It's small, with a fairly large selection of board games, so-so assortment of gaming books, and tiny number of comics/graphic novels, plus a smattering of the standard gaming store accoutrements like action figures and Cthulhu plushies. The guy at the counter was nice, though, and there were no offputting odours or creepy patrons, so that's a big plus.
Then I went to do grocery shopping, but also, more importantly, to pick up Arthur's present for learning to use the toilet all the time - the Scene-It Disney edition. I also want to note that even with a dresser in the back, I still managed to fit over $100 worth of groceries into the car. Yay car! Arthur was ecstatic with his surprise, btw, and we have been watching Scene-It pretty much constantly ever since.
Friday, I bundled Arthur into the car for a trip to Toronto to visit urban_homestead and her kids and to snag cuttings of a bunch of her plants. The drive there was fine once I got some coffee into me and didn't feel like I was going to doze off at the wheel. The visit was, of course, lovely - homemade matzo ball soup for lunch! Arthur actually eating cucumbers and asking for more! Messing about in the garden while the boys played! Meeting the new addition to their family :) Homemade pecan cookies for afternoon snack! I only wish we lived closer together so we could see each other more often. I came away with a trunk full of plants for my garden (a partial list, I'm sure I'm forgetting some - raspberries, strawberries, grapes, lavender, comfrey, oregano, purple sage, chives, tansy, lemon...something...) plus about a dozen apples I'd picked from her tree, plus an assortment of seeds. So wonderful!
The drive back was less awesome, unfortunately. There was a lot of traffic on the way out of Toronto - here's a hint, it should not take an hour and fifteen minutes to get from Dufferin to Milton. Even after that, things were slow going. What should have been a 3.5 hour trip wound up taking five, once a rest stop was included. In any case, we made it home safely and I pretty much went straight to bed. xypharan and his girlfriend arrived a bit after midnight, I think, but I only vaguely heard them come in.
Next morning (my birthday!) we all went out to breakfast at Cora's. I had crepes and raspberries with honey and various dairy-related products, which was delish. When we got home, I planted all the stuff I'd received the day before, with some help from Rob. I will never remember where it all is come spring, it'll just be a surprise I suppose. We then lazed about in the middle of the day, I opened my gifts, and then we went out for dinner - I had originally suggested the Keg, but it was very busy, so we went to Outback instead, which was quite good - tasty mashed potatoes, mmm. I wound up taking Arthur to walk around the Toys R Us next door while everyone else finished their meals, and though he was entranced by so many buttons to push and sounds and blinking lights, he eventually came away with just a small plastic horse, hooray. Everyone was tired by the time we got Arthur to bed afterwards, and so we just watched an episode of Rome and then went to bed ourselves.
Sunday was, again, fairly quiet - breakfast in, playing with Arthur, etc. Our guests departed around noon, and I didn't do much the rest of the day. I think I'm coming down with Arthur's cold - I hope we haven't passed it to anyone else we've seen over the past few days. I'm trying to take it easy today, in hopes that it doesn't get much worse.