The Great Grey Humidity

Just returned from a nice week in Toronto, wherein Bean stayed mostly with my parents and Gene and I mostly slept in. Oh, and went out to dinner a number of times...it was marvellous, and I just want to tip my hat right now to Mum and Dad and say THANK YOU. It was a very rejeuvenating trip.

Also was able to see some of my dear friends from university and before, so if you're reading this, Mary, thank you for tea and muffins and gossip, Jen, thank you for being a tourist with us, and Michael, thank you for Swatow, even if you did eat all the duck with special sauce. Bean even behaved herself for the vast majority of the week, and was apparently utterly adorable (and adoring) with my parents. She saved the wretched behavior for the trips to and from. I am currently reassessing the likelihood of flying with a toddler in the near future. On the other hand, someone once told me that travelling with a kid between the ages of 13 and 20 months is torture like nothing else on earth (or words to that effect). If that is true, we are dead in the throes of that time period right now, so perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if Bean is not physically yet a toddler, she is certainly becoming one psychologically, and it's somewhat...challenging.

I had grossly underestimated the effect of Toronto's lovely summer humidity, and all three of us Californians, native and transplanted alike, wilted our way through much of the week. I'm not sure if it was a particularly bad patch or not, but it just left us gobsmacked. It's awesome that one can get Chinese food at 2:30 in the morning to soak up the red wine and Crispy Crunch martinis (ask a Canadian to explain Crispy Crunch; all I will say here is that the drink tasted magically and unfortunately like one), but it was bizarre to be slithering in the door of the restaurant from the 85% humidity outside. At 2:30 in the morning! I used to wax poetic about the wonderfulness of summer in the city, especially at night when it was still warm and everything was open, yadda yadda yadda, but I can assure you, it was most pleasant to walk out of the San Francisco airport into a breezy, dry 65.

Love Toronto madly, but fully accept my weather wimpitude. Don't even get me started on being slushed by a streetcar in the middle of January.

A pleasure to have you visit my little house - thanks so much for making the time to come by.
Ella is just a living doll, and I am a very proud great-godmother!

Now don't let your weather wimpitude keep you away forever: we have delightful autumns and springs
(and no earthquakes/volcanoes/hurricanes/tidal waves/etc. etc. to worry about.) Come back soon, eh?

Love,
Mary

I, too, am a thorough weather wimp and am now suffering though days on end of loathsome humidity. Please send some dry weather my way!