A few months ago, my sister sent me an e-mail asking me if I’d like to run with my niece. Alabama schools have joined up with Blue Cross and Blue Shield, as well as Mercedes (who has a plant in Alabama), to create a kids’ marathon. The program is for grades K-5, and the children run 25.2 miles on their own, in stages of 1/4 mile to 1 mile. If the complete their 25.2 miles, they then run the last mile of their run on the actual Birmingham Mercedes Marathon course on the Saturday before the full adult marathon. I love to run, and I adore my niece, so it was a no-thought process to say that I’d love to come down and run with WCN (World’s Cutest Niece).

Last weekend was race weekend, so Meredith and I flew from Akron/Canton to Atlanta, which was a pretty cheap (and direct) flight. It still left a three-hour drive, which was not helped by a thirty-minute wait in line to get our car, but we were underway in time to get to Kelly and Paul’s place around midnight Alabama time (1:00 am EST). Since Mer and I had worked a full day, it was a long drive to end the day, coming in at around three hours. Happily, the drive was uneventful, if also not terribly interesting in the dark.

On Saturday, Mer and Kelly and WCN and I all piled into Kelly’s van to take the hour-long drive to Birmingham. I was grateful that the race was late morning, so Mer and I still got around seven hours of sleep. I was in the way-back of the van with WCN, while Kelly and Mer were in the front seats. WCN and I played a game where we took turns hiding coins in one of our fists, and then the other had to guess the correct hand. We hammed it up by opening the “wrong” hand or by clenching our fists, and we had a good time.

Kelly and Mer dropped us about a block from the main square where the race was to start, and they went on a quest to find parking. WCN and I walked to the park and planted ourselves by a pretty fountain, which is where Kelly said WCN’s classmates were going to meet for a class picture. The place was mobbed, and since WCN is short and I do not know her classmates, we did not find them. Happily, Kelly found us and then located the class for me, so that worked out fine.

I was impressed at how well-run the race was. The race officials had the kids line up behind signs that had their grade levels printed on them. When the time came, they called the grade level out, and the runners walked through a chute to a staging area. A set of volunteers would raise a rope stretched across the street, the runners would advance to the next rope, and so on until they got to the starting line. It worked well. Since the runners were timed by chips on their running bibs, there was no mad crush to get to the front.

While the kids are still in kindergarten or in first grade, an adult (usually a parent) can run with the child. After that, adults are not allowed. WCN is in first grade, so this would be my only time to run with her, unless and until she gets into road races later on. WCN and I got called to the first grade maker, so we said goodbye to Kelly and Mer, and we lined up. We then were allowed into the chutes, and up to the corral system, and finally to the starting line.

WCN is adorable, and she held my hand for over three quarters of the mile race. We kept up a good pace, especially for her little legs, and she had a great attitude. She smiled a lot, and she finally asked politely if we could walk some after we hit the half-mile turnaround point. She did not walk long, however, and we started running again. I learned a happily injury-free lesson – I took my eyes off the road to say something to another adult, and promptly ran into the back of a little girl, whom I was able to catch so she did not fall over. Never take your eyes off the road when there are short runners around! The rest of the race was without incident.

There were a ton of spectators along the course, and the whole thing was supervised by enthusiastic National Guard members, who were giving out a ton of high-fives to the kids, including to WCN. It was a good experience. We crossed the finish line, where we were greeted by Batman and the Green Arrow, since the race weekend also has a “Superhero 5k” on the Saturday before the marathon. Later, in the marathon expo, where I was picking up my race things for Sunday, we also saw Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and The Phantom. It was much fun.

After the race and the marathon expo, we walked the several blocks to the car. Kelly offered to take us out to lunch, and we agreed that this would be welcome. She said she had an idea for dessert, and along the was she decided some real food might be good, so we swung into a mom-and-pop BBQ place. The place was busy, but we found a seat, and we ordered. The food was quite good. After lunch, Kelly took us to her treat place she had in mind – Steel City Pops, a gourmet popsicle store. I have to be honest – I was not too thrilled. I’m not a huge popsicle fan; they are cold and hurt my teeth, and they taste like fruit, which I would rather eat or drink. I held my peace, though, and it was a good thing. Steel City Pops had a line out the door, and I found out why. The did have fruit-variety popsicles, but they also had cream-based ones. I was suddenly quite interested, especially when I saw that they could dip the popsicle in chocolate. I happily ordered a creamy peanut butter popsicle dipped in chocolate (Mer got the same), and happily munched on that. It still hurt my teeth a little, but it was worth it. Steel City Pops really seems to be onto something – they have a super-fast-turnover, quality product for which people line up, even in the out-of-the-way spot where the store is located.

We got home in the late afternoon to discover that Paul and World’s Cutest Nephew (WCNep) were home. WCNep had been to a Star-Wars-themed birthday party, and was touting a newly bought light sabre that made motion-sensitive noises. It was very cool. Paul announced that he was going to show WCNep Star Wars for the first time, so I joined them both in the master bedroom, where we watched the movie. WCN joined us partway through the movie, snuggled up next to me, and pretty quickly fell asleep. It was a grand way to spend time with the extended family. After the movie, Kelly made the adults a lasagna (the kids had hot dogs), and we chatted around the table until it was time to put the kids to bed. I went to sleep soon after that myself, since I had to be up early the next day for the marathon.

Last Tuesday (the 5th) Mer and I had dinner over at Cardinal Village with Dale and Carlene. We have the goal of eating with them once a week or more, and Tuesday seems to be the day that works well. We had a very pleasant dinner. We could not linger long after supper, though, because we had another outing.

We headed over to a local coffee shop called The Nervous Dog, where we were attending Jonny Capps’s “Celebration of Life” party. Jonny had invited us and some of his friends over, and he bought pizza and wanted people to hang out and visit. Many years ago, Jonny had walked in front of a moving car, and he was fortunate to survive. So he threw a drop-in celebration on the anniversary of that event.

It was a small but fun gathering. Jonny really seems to know 1.5 million people, and the people he knows are interesting and fun. While we were there, one of our “daughters,” Katie, was there too, and there were three other people we did not know, along with Jonny. I got a hot chocolate (which was quite good), and we all sat and talked for about an hour. It was a grand time, and I am very happy Jonny had the opportunity to celebrate.

Last Saturday, we slept in, and then got ready. Sadly, Vicki, one of Mer’s good high school friends, had lost her father a couple of weeks ago when he had a heart attack while living in Florida. There was a local, Akron-area memorial service at 11:00, and we had the flexibility to go.

I had never met Vicki’s father, but he sounded like a warm and generous man. Mer says I would have really liked him. The service was quite moving, and there was a dinner held afterward, for which we stayed. We got to sit and visit with another of Mer’s old classmates, who was really funny and personable. We also got to chat with Vicki and then her older sister for a few minutes. It was a sad reason to get together, but it was good to see these old friends of Meredith’s.

In the evening, we had yet another play to see. Since it was a play about golf, I had invited my co-worker Phil and his wife to come see it with us. Phil loves golf, and I thought it would be much fun to get together outside of work. Happily for Phil and Laurie, their first grandchild was being born this weekend in Chicago, so they took off Saturday morning, which was quite understandable. Mer and I thought about whom we could bring instead, and it worked out we could get together with another English teacher, Lesa, and her husband Jay.

Lesa and Jay met us at our house, and Jay drove. We headed up to Chagrin Falls, to the Chagrin Valley Little Theater. I was very excited for the evening. The Fox and the Fairway was written by a playwright who had written a fantastically funny play called Lend Me a Tenor. Tenor is one of the funniest plays I have ever seen, and I thought that golf would lend itself to good-natured mocking.

It turned out to be simply entertaining with a few laughs along the way. The acting was fine, and the staging was fine; the play was just not in the same league as Tenor. It was still a fun reason to get together, and it was a solid enough play, but it still left me slightly disappointed, since I’d had such high hopes of it being hysterically funny. My best take on the play, after my thinking about it, was that it did not have enough high-energy moments (the classic “door slamming” elements of farce).

We did have a great chance on the drive back to hear about Jay and Lesa’s mission trip to India back in November. They were helping to train teachers who teach the members of India’s lowest caste, and it sounds as if the conference and teaching went really well for everyone.

On Friday, Mer and I invited two colleagues to join us for the evening. Maggie, CVCA’s French teacher, and Liz, an English teacher, met us at our house, and the four of us drove down to Akron together. We were having an evening out, with dinner and a show.

Maggie had suggested we eat at Lockview, a tavern known for having gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and other comfort food. We were all pretty enthusiastic about that. We got there and got the last free booth before there started being a wait, and we had an excellent dinner. The only slight hitch in the evening was that for some reason I had difficulty hearing Maggie – I do not know if it is her tone of voice or her volume, but in the crowded restaurant, I could not always hear her. We did not have time for dessert, but I promised everyone we would make it up after the play.

We then made the very short trek to Actors’ Summit Theater, where we were to see the evening’s production of Fiction. None of us had ever heard of Fiction before, and I only knew what I had read from the online blurb on Actors’ Summit’s website. I was delighted to find out that Sally Groth, one of the company’s finest actors, was playing the female lead in the three-person play.

Fiction turned out to be excellent. It is the story of two authors who end up reading each other’s journals, and although we see more and more of their lives laid out through the flashbacks, it is not always clear what is fictionalized and what is real. The playwright kept the tension of the play going all the way to the end, and it was a pretty amazing evening of theater. What a great show, and it was really well acted and staged.

After the play, we headed toward home, but swung by Friday’s to get dessert, as promised. We got to chat about the play and other things, as well as munching on some pretty fine food. It was a very happy evening with good company.

Yesterday (Thursday), after school, Mer held her second annual Shakespeare Showdown at CVCA. The Showdown involves students acting out short speeches from any of Shakespeare’s plays. They are not allowed to use any costumes or props. This year, Mer had twelve students participating, and had a crowd of about twenty-five people on hand to watch. The winner of the competition goes on to the regional competition in Cleveland in a few weeks.

The sponsors of the program send a judge, and then the school provides two judges, which, in this case, turned out to be me and our friend and colleague Dubbs. The judge from Great Lakes Theater was a very friendly young man who was very enthusiastic about the evening.

The competition was quite good this year. No one “tanked,” although several students needed to be prompted for a line here and there, and several were visibly nervous. They all had reasonable interpretations of the text. In the end, all three of us judges independently came to the conclusion that four of the twelve were the best. We could only have one winner and one runner-up, and we hashed that out quite quickly because once we stated what we thought, we more or less agreed on the placement. The winner of the competition was a young lady who played Lady Macbeth, and the runner-up was a young man who played Shylock. I was pleased for Meredith, though, in that the second annual Shakespeare Showdown was a tremendous success, at least from my perspective, and I’m looking forward to seeing the regional competition.

My birthday was on the 24th, but we normally put off any celebrations until the following weekend. Mer was in charge, naturally, since we like to surprise each other on our individual birthdays. Mer added to the fun by having plans for both Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, we headed off through a moderately snowy night to Twinsburg High School, where the Twinsburg Community Theater was putting on a production of the musical The Music Man. The Music Man is a play about how a huckster named Harold Hill dupes an entire town into buying band instruments, and how Harold falls for the town librarian along the way. It is a fun musical that I am quite fond of, and, increasing our interest, there were two CVCA students in the production; one was in the chorus of townspeople and the other was playing the daughter of the mayor. Additionally, the play was directed by a former CVCA mom.

The play turned out to be enormous. When they advertise as a community theater, they were not kidding. They had a cast of over 120 people. Most of those actors played townspeople and sang chorus parts, and many of them were children from about five to about twelve, but it was very impressive to see that many people on stage.

On the whole, the play was solid. Marian, the town librarian, had a beautiful voice and a radiant smile. This was opening night, and it showed in some nerves on the parts of some of the actors – there were some dropped or flubbed lines, and some of the actors had “nervous feet” when they were standing. The backing music for the production was simply played from a computer, which was a little disappointing, but understandable given the size of the on-stage cast. The CVCA girl who played the mayor’s daughter did a fun job with it (the character is pretty ditzy), and Mer and I both had an enjoyable evening.

On Saturday, Mer took me up to the Cleveland area, to a middle school. It turned out that the middle school had a professional-looking auditorium, and we were there to see another musical, by Heights Youth Theater, called A Little Princess. Needless to say, there were a ton of little princesses in the audience. The lead character in the production was being played by a senior at CVCA, and she did a fantastic job. I knew she could act, but I did not know she could sing.

Speaking of singing, the cast was stacked with talent. Most of the actors were in 7th-12th grade, and the vocal and dancing and acting talent were all top-notch. Mer and I both kept looking at our programs to see the ages of the individual actors, and we were almost always imagining them to be several years older than they were. The director also called in a friend of his to play the father of the lead girl, and I about fell out of my chair the first time he sang – he filled the place with his voice. According to his bio in the program, he has acted at Playhouse Square in Cleveland and sung in the Cleveland Opera. What a voice.

So, while I found the plot a bit saccharine, the spectacle on stage was engaging. I was delighted at the songs and the dancing, and that made up for any shortcomings in the story.

After the show, Mer took me to a burger joint called B Spot. I had wanted to try the place for some time, based on some pictures I saw of their shakes, which looked pretty amazing. They were, and the burgers and fries were pretty tasty too. After supper, we wandered over to Barnes and Noble. Mer had a gift card for the store, and we happily found out that you could use the gift card in the cafe. So, we loaded up on several pastries, and headed home with our baked goods.

Lest you think that my birthday was simply about seeing CVCA students perform in musicals, Mer also gave me tickets for us to go see Guys and Dolls at Playhouse Square in the spring. I love that musical, but have only seen it once at a community theater; I am looking forward to seeing what the Playhouse can do with it.

On Thursday, we finally managed to get together with our friends Matt and Clarice. I see Clarice every week when she helps me with my Royal Fools improv group at school, but I had not seen Matt in months. We headed over to their place, where we then made a quick trip to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for takeout. Sadly, I mistook what a “regular” burger was; it turns out to be two patties, so I ended up eating four hamburger patties as well as french fries. I was very full pretty early in the viewing of the movie that was the main event of the evening. With the help of one of Matt and Clarice’s cats, who flopped down on one movie when presented with two options, we spent a very happy time watching the old 1930s film The Thin Man.

Mer and I had heard the name before, but we had never seen The Thin Man. What a treat. It is a light-hearted mystery thriller, and the main couple in the film who solves the crime is one of the most wonderful screen couples I have ever seen. They are witty and sarcastic with each other, and they clearly are crazy about each other. The chemistry between the actors was perfect. A tremendous film that is worth seeing, and we are looking forward to seeing the sequel (there were several made).

Sunday morning was all planed in Toronto – I was going to take Mer to a local mansion called Casa Loma that is based on a castle. I ran over to a nearby Tim Horton’s coffee shop to get breakfast and to use their wi-fi connection, and upon trying to look up the hours for Casa Loma, I discovered it had closed that day for renovations. Ah. Plan B, except I did not have a Plan B.

What I did have was a city map that the hotel had given me. On one side, it was very detailed in the downtown area, and then on the other side, it was more general, showing the farther reaches of the city. When I was back in the hotel room waiting for Mer to finish getting ready, I looked around the map for potential things to do. I initially settled on the Toronto science museum, which also happened to be near Greek Town, but then I saw that way out in the east of the city was an area that looked like bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario. I like vistas and lakes, and it looked to only be a few blocks from the nearest subway stop, so that became the new plan.

We headed out via the subway, and got to our stop after about thirty minutes or so. We then started walking in what turned out to be pretty darn cold weather. We walked south, and I kept looking for the first major cross-street on my map. We walked. I looked. We walked some more. I kept looking. I started to worry. We finally came to the street, and I was confused. It was the first of three major cross streets we needed to find, but we had been walking for some time. We continued on. And on. And on. And it was cold. I finally caught a glimpse of the lake, which seemed to be discouragingly far away. We kept on. Finally we stopped a friendly woman who told us we were a long ways from the bluffs, and was amazed when we told her we had walked from Kennedy Station. She recommended walking the fairly short distance to the Rosetta McClain Park, which overlooks the lake from fairly high up.

We took her advice, and we were still a good fifteen minutes from that park. It was worth finding, though. It was very pretty, with paths and tons of trees and a formal garden area, and the south end did look out directly over the lake. We wandered around for about twenty minutes or so, and then we needed to head back. I decided we should catch a bus if we could find the right one, to take us back to the subway stop. Mer was aghast to find out our transit passes covered buses, and wanted to know why we had not taken one earlier. The simple answer was that I simply had not realized how far the bluffs were from the station. Ooops. Anyway, we caught a bus, and got back to the hotel via the subway.

We grabbed a quick snack of cookies from Mer’s dessert stash, and then headed back out on another very cold walk. This was all in the downtown area, and every piercing wind brought with it the question from Mer as to why we were not taking the streetcars. Again, the simple answer was that I did not know where the streetcars went, and we could end up way off track, and we had a deadline.

I walked with Mer down near the Rogers Center, to an apartment complex. Mer thought I was crazy and/or lost again, but I found the building I was looking for after asking one person for directions. It was an apartment building, where we were greeted at the front door by Ben. Mer then understood.

Ben and Heather are musicians who have given concerts in our house and in our area. Mer and I are huge fans of their music, and Heather and Ben had agreed to share in the birthday festivities. We wandered up to Heather’s apartment, where we got to meet Heather’s significant other and Ben’s significant other. Mer was delighted. We talked together as a group for an hour or more, and it was delightful company. Ben then played various instruments while Heather sang for an hour or so, with the rest of us joining in on the choruses. Mer and Heather sang a couple of duets together, and it was wonderful. By this time, we were quite hungry, so as a group we headed over to Chinatown, to a place that serves various dumplings. Mer went with Ben and the others via car, while Heather and I walked. We got to go past the Rogers Center, where a monster truck rally was just letting out, which felt festive. Heather and I chatted as we walked, and got to the restaurant after the others were seated. We ordered various kinds of pan-fried dumplings, and ate very, very well.

After supper, Ben and his girlfriend had to go, and Heather’s boyfriend had an engagement as well, so Heather walked us back to King’s Street, where we hugged and said goodbye. It was a pretty perfect afternoon and evening, and had been the cornerstone of my birthday plans for Meredith. What gracious people.

Mer and I stopped by Tim Horton’s just as they were closing up, and we bought some doughnuts as dessert. We went back to the hotel, where we ate them, and then read while I took occasional reading breaks to watch the Patriots-Ravens playoff football game, but with only halfhearted interest; mostly I read.

Monday morning, we slept in, as the hotel had a generous noon check-out time. We packed the car, but before we left the city, we both wanted to go see the bluffs we had been trying so hard to see the day before. So, we headed east in the car. We got most of the way there when I spied a huge sign advertising hot chocolate. It turned out to be a Belgian chocolate store, so we stopped in the area. We both agreed we needed some real food first, so we went into a pub called The Fox and the Fiddle. It was not busy yet, as it was not yet noon. Oddly, it took about forty minutes to get our food. The food was excellent, but we never got any explanation or apology from anyone as to why it took so long. Odd. After lunch, we went over to the chocolate store and bought about twenty dollars’ worth of chocolates under the excuse that we needed to get rid of our Canadian money. Thus supplied, we proceeded to the bluffs.

We took a couple of minor wrong turns in the area of the bluffs, but we eventually found our way down to the lake. It was beautiful, and we had almost the entire huge park to ourselves. The bluffs are clay-and-sand cliffs, not made of rock, which is unique in the area. The park itself gave wonderful views of the lake and the cliffs, and it was well laid out, with paths throughout. The day was quite cold with the wind, but not unbearably so. We wandered in the park for about thirty or forty minutes before we had to leave.

We stopped at a doughnut shop on the way back into the city to use their bathroom, as the restrooms in the park were closed for the season. We always buy something at stores when we use their restrooms, so we left with a cookie and a pastry, which were consumed on the way back out of the other side of the city.

We had smooth driving all the way to the border with Buffalo. There was some snow along the way, but nothing too bad. We had to wait at the border for about twenty minutes, and then we proceeded through Buffalo. Just south of the city is when the snow started to pick up. Then it really came on. Then the police closed Route 90 (the road we were on) because of weather conditions. Thus began hours of white-knuckle driving and lots of prayer. It normally takes three hours to get from Buffalo to our house. On this Monday, it took seven and a half (including dinner). We pulled into our snow-free driveway about 12:30 at night. Once we had unpacked the car, I called work and left a message that I would be late on Tuesday. There was no way I was going into work on four hours’ sleep after that drive. Don’t get me wrong – both Mer and I were very grateful that we were safe. It was some of the worst weather I have ever had to drive in. I just needed some sleep before facing work.

So, that was our Toronto adventure, in honor of Mer’s fortieth birthday. We had a wonderful time, and think highly of Toronto and of Canadians in general. Everyone we met was very nice and polite, and Toronto seems quite easy to get around in. We are looking forward to going back.

January 18th was Mer’s fortieth birthday, but we always push our birthday celebrations off to the following Saturday. Since this was a big birthday for Mer, I decided to go a bit splashy. I told Mer to be ready and packed to go on a weekend trip right after school on Friday. We managed to be on the road by around 4:00, and we had good traveling weather. We headed northeast out of Ohio, and through Pennsylvania, and stopped for supper at the Angola rest stop, near Buffalo. After a pretty decent supper from a chain offering made-to-order burritos, we headed through Buffalo, and crossed with ease into Canada. I had to declare our intentions at the border, so Mer knew our weekend plans – to go to Toronto. We arrived in downtown Toronto, and were directed by a very affable doorman on where to park cheaply. We were situated in the middle of downtown, at the King Edward Hotel, a four-star hotel on which Priceline had worked magic for us. The room was on the eighth floor and had a view of the top of the CN Tower antenna, and was a quite lovely room. The only drawback was that the hotel was older, so soundproofing was not total, and we could often hear the man in the next room when he was on his cell phone. That was fine, though, as he seemed to keep our hours, more or less.

We were both up relatively early on Saturday, and were heading out the door around 10:00 or so to explore the waterfront. We bought a day-pass for the mass-transit system, and rode one stop toward the southern terminus of the subway. From there, we walked to the waterfront, and along it for quite a ways.

Toronto’s waterfront is lovely. It is publicly accessible, and looks out over Toronto Island, where there is a large park and a good-sized metropolitan airport at one end. We strolled along the lake, and enjoyed the ever-changing views of Toronto’s skyline, including the famous CN Tower. The amount of high-rise buildings going up in downtown Toronto is astonishing – there were cranes everywhere.

We made several little happy discoveries along the waterfront. I loved the up-close view of small jets landing at the airfield. We then came across a sculpture and fountain where you could walk inside the sculpture, which was shaped roughly like a globe. We stumbled upon a community ice rink that was very active on a Saturday morning. We found a spiffy walkway with lights laid out like sails, and ran across a sidewalk that was designed to be rolling like waves. We wandered around inside Pawsway, a building dedicated to cats and dogs and stories about them. We then headed back to the hotel by going past the Rogers Center (where the Blue Jays play baseball) and past the CN Tower. It was quite a marvelous little walk.

We stopped by the hotel briefly before heading across the street to a burger joint that was quite good and served an enormous helping of fries. After lunch and a brief hotel stop, we walked north through the shopping district, heading to the first event of the day. We arrived at a cross street while I looked for our destination, and found it – a theater across the street that happened to be flying a rainbow flag. Mer blinked a couple of times and asked, “Are you taking me to a gay theater for my birthday?” Since I had only looked up the show based on the summary, my honest answer was “Apparently so.” Gay theaters can occasionally do work that is extremely risque, and we were both a little anxious over that.

We did not need to be. The production we saw was being put on by an all-women company of actors, and it while it was certainly suggestive several times, it was about a PG-13 rating. Yay! We were there to see The Penelopiad, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view. (Penelope was the wife whom Odysseus left behind for twenty years while he was off at the Trojan War.) The show was tremendous and thought-provoking. It was very well acted, especially by the woman playing Penelope; and the woman who played the male Odysseus was so good at what she did, I often forgot she was female. The show explored the relationship Penelope had with her family and her household, especially her slave girls who (in this interpretation) sacrificed much to protect Penelope. It also shows how difficult the situation was in the house while Odysseus was away. It was a great show, and we were both pleased to have seen it.

After a brief return to the hotel, we jumped on the subway and took it out pretty far east. Toronto’s subway really is amazing – clean and efficient and not overly crowded. We found the next theater to which I was taking Meredith, and so then decided we could find a restaurant for supper. We walked a couple of blocks and ran across Queen’s Pasta Cafe, an Italian restaurant. It turned out to be a charming two-story restaurant. The experience was odd, though – it took awhile to be waited on, and then the food came very quickly. It was excellent. Then, the service disappeared again for over twenty minutes, so we did not have time for dessert, but headed back to the theater.

We were at a little community theater to see another play of which neither of us had ever heard – Queen Milli of Galt. The play explored the claim of a woman, Milli, that she had had some kind of a relationship with Edward, the Duke of Wales, and the later king who would abdicate the throne to marry an American woman. When Edward died, Milli had a tombstone erected that claimed she was “Queen Milli of Galt.” It turns out to be wonderful material for a witty and sometimes poignant play, and one that only required five actors. The actors in the work all did a wonderful job with their roles, and we both loved the play.

We headed back to the hotel via the subway, getting there around 11:00 or so. Mer had insisted on bringing much of her birthday food students and friends had given her, so we had a very pleasant dessert in the hotel. The day had gone more or less as I had planned, and we still had all of Sunday for more exploration of Toronto.

One of our semi-formal New Year’s resolutions for this year was to try to get together with CVCA colleagues for dinner, with the aim of offering an invitation once a week. Granted, people may be busy or we may get busy, but we figured if we aimed for once a week, then we had a good chance of being social with fun people at least twice a month.

Last Thursday we managed to catch up with Craig Rupe, who teaches science at CVCA. Craig is also heavily involved in cross country and track, and he is one of the more amazing runners I have ever known. Craig had an inclination to go to the Cheesecake Factory, and Mer and I do not ever have to be persuaded to do that.

We had an excellent supper, and got to chat for about an hour. Dessert is the main reason to go to the Cheescake Factory, so we all had a slab of cheesecake. It was a promising start to a new year.