Posted 6:52 PM by Ted
I have posted some photos of our trip to the CN Tower on my home page.

Posted 3:22 PM by Ted
A lunch date with Amy at Wendy's...

Amy: Daddy, you eat your tongue?
Ted: No, I'm eating salad.

*pause*

Amy: Daddy, YOU EAT YOUR TONGUE!!!
Ted: Oh no! What do I do?
Amy: Umm...buy one and put it in.
Ted: Really? How do I do that?
Amy: You buy a tongue. You put it in your mouth. Dat a good idea!
Ted: Oh.
Amy: It cost thirty dollars. Go to dollar store and buy one, Daddy.
Ted: Okay.

*pause*

Amy: Take sticker off.
Ted: What?
Amy: Take sticker off!
Ted: You mean the price tag?
Amy: Yeah. Take sticker off and put it in your mouth.

*pause*

Ted: Hey, what's that you got there?
Amy (referring to the Halloween toy with her meal): It's a mummy. It not gonna eat me.
Ted: That's good.
Amy (smiling mischievously): It gonna eat you!
Ted: AAAAH! Don't let it eat me! Help!
Amy: Don't worry. It not gonna eat you.
Ted: You mean it's a nice mummy?
Amy: No. It got no tongue. It not a ghost.
Ted: Ghosts have tongues?
Amy: Yeah.
Ted: Better watch out for them, I guess.
Amy: Yeah!
Ted: But what if the mummy buys a new tongue?

*pause*

Amy (laughing): Naaah...it can't. Mummy got no money! Silly Daddy!

Posted 1:23 AM by Ted
We spent the Thanksgiving long weekend in Toronto, supposedly to stay with my snowbird parents one last time before their annual migration to warmer climes; yet no sooner had we arrived did we start making plans to go off and see friends. Ally and I fought over who gets the car, but in the end, Ally's friends came by in their own car and whisked her and Amy away. I eagerly called my buddy and said I'd be right by after a couple of shopping errands.

Taitai (my mother) needed her weekly groceries, so I drove her and Ian over to the St. Lawrence Market, where we met up with John, Kristen, and Justin. (Justin is an old high school friend of my brother's visiting from Montreal, although in the past couple of years, I have gotten to know him better myself...we have this strange habit of running into each other at conventions.) Taitai, as it turns out, needed quite a few groceries for the Thanksgiving feast she had planned, and I was in charge of weaving in and out of tight crowds with her tottery two-wheeled shopping cart. The cart became progressively ungainly as bags were hung off it from every which angle, and I was ready for a quick trip to the car to dump stuff off, but Taitai knew of a place at the market where you can temporarily leave your groceries; she was, in fact, friends with the two ladies who work there.

Taitai and Ian with her friends at the St. Lawrence Market baggage drop-off.

And still the shopping went on. We had moved on to Queens Quay and were just coming out of a Loblaws superstore when I received an urgent distress call. Ally and Amy had been dropped off near a subway station by her friends, but they had decided to stop at a restaurant before returning home. While Amy had had a great time and loved the miniature umbrella they stuck in her drink, her mood soured as they left the restaurant, and she refused to budge, preferring to collapse on the sidewalk and scream at passersby. We drove over quickly and after wrestling her into the car seat, we sped home as she continued to empty her lungs.

Finally, we were home, but wait! There was one item left on the grocery list. Could we skip it? Not likely...so it was back to the store for a turkey. In the end, I left to see my friend in Richmond Hill around 4 pm.

My friend -- whose name is also Ted -- and I go back to Junior High. He was the adopted son of a funeral home owner and a tad eccentric in a way I have always found intriguing. I arrived at his bachelor pad, much of which was taken up by a WWII military strategy game sprawled out over a large table. Something about his appearance had changed since I last saw him. He had shaved his head, true enough, but there was something else. Ah yes...the mottled discoloration and scar tissue on his skin running up the entire length of one arm.

Apparently, he had been involved in an industrial accident involving large quantities of paint stripper about a month ago. We had been chatting for awhile of such pleasantries when I had to excuse myself for a moment to use the bathroom. Taking a wrong turn down a dark corridor, I nearly ran into a female mannequin (or so I thought) at least as tall as myself. Ted heard my shriek and came running forth. "Oh that," he muttered in his usual deadpan voice. "It's my roommate. He runs a home business outfitting transvestites. The bathroom's over there."

So the evening wore on. We went out to see a movie (The Transporter) at the theatre, and came home to watch Fight Club (one of Ted's all-time favorites) on video. When I finally got home late that night, my Dad asked how Ted was doing. I wearily answered: "Not bad...except he had a little run-in with a stripper." He nodded, not looking the slightest bit surprised.