I briefly described Saturday at Casa Loma. Sunday was grocery shopping and then going back to the mall to get a welcome mat and a lawn mower (the landlord disappeared overseas without leaving his), then mowing the lawn a few times (it still looks pretty shabby), and then spending a lot of time sorting out stuff in the living room (it is getting quite close). Finally, around 7, I went out to paint the shed. This took a bit longer than it should have because it was placed so close to the fence that I was very cramped on two sides. It also didn't help that the ground is very sharp gravel for when I had to get low to paint the bottom sections. This is definitely part of the reason I have so many aches today. I finally wrapped up close to 9. (There was only a tiny bit of paint left in the can, which I used for some touch-ups today.)
Monday did go more or less according to plan, though we left a bit after 10, instead of at 9:30, as I had hoped. The bus didn't show up on time (holiday schedule) and the kids were quite hungry as we got close to the office. I decided to get out at Queen Street rather than King Street, which is slightly closer. I had only done so to get to a Subway, which I was fairly sure would be open. As it so happens, we emerged from the subway station just as a labor day parade was going by. There were even a few live acts playing on floats, which was kind of neat. Anyway, we got lunch to go, and made it to the office.
I had mostly planned on doing some scanning, which proved to be extremely frustrating. The black and white tiffs are no problem, which is good, since it is primarily what I scan. But scanning the colour images as jpegs or pdfs was a huge problem. In fact, one of the machines shut down -- I guess because I overloaded the internal memory. It took at least 30 minutes longer than I had expected it to take, so I was getting a bit frantic.
The kids behaved themselves well and mostly made paper airplanes and flew them around the office. Anyway, I finally figured we had to leave or it would be impossible to get to the CN Tower and the ROM before the day was over. Fortunately, the office is walking distance to the CN Tower, so we headed over.
One good thing about the delay is that is was marginally clearer out (it had been completely overcast in the morning). We couldn't see much further than North York or Scarborough (and certainly not to Niagara Falls), but it was a pretty good view. (And the wind from the outside observation deck felt great.) The kids even walked out on the glass floor and looked down and said they were only a bit scared. I was getting a bit antsy about getting out -- the elevators really did take extra long (they had a run of people in wheelchairs trying to leave all at the same time). Mostly I was afraid my daughter would get sick -- she tends to do that when she is frustrated and pent up in a place she doesn't like, so I could totally see her throwing up in the elevator. Fortunately, we got out without incident, and I bent a little and got some tourist junk, though I skipped the photo they try to push on you.
I decided it would be considerably less stress to go on the subway at St. Andrews rather than Union Station, and I think that was the right call. We got to the ROM at 3. It was technically open until 5:30, though I told the kids we would do a fairly limited visit and try to be out in about an hour. We started over in the gems and minerals room, and they just loved it. My legs just gave out and I sat down and let them wander about for close to 30 minutes.
Then we went and saw the dinosaurs. My daughter had been warning me that they were too much like skulls (she is currently terrified of skulls and skeletons), but she decided they weren't that scary after all. By the end, she was kind of digging them. I will admit, that we basically just looked at them in a very superficial way and I didn't read any of the exhibit labels and just relied on my memory of previous visits. Anyway, for some reason my daughter really wanted to see the bat cave. She thought it was so awesome that we went through twice. She herself recognizes the disconnect between that and her being so unwilling to go to bed -- because it is so dark. We are at a bit of a stand-off and I have started having to stop interacting with her at a certain point in the evening because it is just her (fairly successful) delaying tactic. I am now trying some tough love, since nothing else is really working on her.
I was pretty wiped out by this point (and I was not pleased that they seem to have removed all the drinking fountains from the ROM -- in general I hate the redesign of the ROM and probably will never be fully reconciled to it). But we did make a quick tour through the Egyptian section (and we had been forced through the Chinese section because of the work they were doing on the floor of the main entrance area). I think in the end we were there pretty close to an hour and 40 minutes. They really liked it, so we'll have to go back (perhaps on the day where it is free for AGO members). I will admit they behaved pretty well today, even a bit better than I expected.
And thus we have seen 3 of the 5 exhibits on the City Pass. We're already at the break-even point, and I am sure we'll see the Science Centre next weekend. Ideally, we all would go to the zoo on Sat. and I would take the kids on my own to the Science Centre (allowing my wife to watch football on Sunday). Currently, the weather suggests that we will want to flip the days. I am willing to take kids to the zoo on my own, but it would be a bit easier if my wife came along. Well, no point in worrying too much about it until a few days closer. It does appear that Wed. evening will be sufficiently dry that I can go back to Casa Loma for this concert they are doing (Dvorak's 8th Symphony).
In two weeks, if the weather holds, it is free to go to Fort York, so I have tentatively pencilled that in for the 20th. I believe this is also a big book fair event at Queens Park Circle, so I'll have to look into that (naturally).
Anyway, this was all a bit exhausting for me, so I took a nap after bringing the kids home (and I totally let me wife deal with feeding them dinner). I sorted out more stuff and put away clothes after I woke up. The last major thing was that I hung a few posters and paintings and got a few more boxes out of the way. I think we are pretty close on the living room (basically down to two more paintings that I need to find someplace to hang) and some random boxes in the kitchen that need to either be tied into bundles or thrown out the next time I have the car. I will see if I can schedule a visit from a potential baby-sitter fairly soon. Obviously, we will have to forbid them from coming into the basement! All in all, it's not bad progress for two months after such a major move.
It is quite exciting that school starts for them tomorrow (but not in Vancouver! -- I think we really dodged a bullet there). Aside from having some math anxiety, my daughter is looking forward to the new school year. And my son is so outgoing that he will probably have three new friends tomorrow. All we can do is hope for the best, but I have a pretty good feeling about the school. And with that, this long and meandering post has to end and I need to get some rest for the full day of work ahead of me tomorrow.
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