Bon Voyage

That's got to be just about it for the mad gaddingabouting that we have been caught up in of late.

This past weekend we were off to Toronto to visit D2 and friend. When I say Toronto, I really mean it — not the burbs but downtown. I used to drive there without care, but that was a long time ago. Since then, I have been living in small places, and Toronto had begun to seem foreign and a little bit overwhelmingg to me. Since we were heading downtown (not the CBD but pretty darn close to it), we decided that it would be prudent to drive in on Friday evening. We reasoned that the traffic should be somewhat more tolerable by then. And I guess it was. We found the girls' apartment without too much angst or traffic congestion.

That night, they took us for a walk along Bloor St, a major east-west street, lined with shops and eateries for block after block after ... well, I'm not sure if the commerce ever stops, both geographically and temporally. We walked the street very late at night, and it seemed that everyone was out —— everyone and their dogs — literally. Toronto has become a very dog-friendly place. They and their people walked in and out of shops at will. I've never seen that anywhere else.

We did a lot of walking the next day too, many kilometres as a matter of fact. The girls bought footwear and other necessities for their upcoming sojourn to Thailand and other countries of Southeast Asia. We walked along King St, up Yonge St, and over to The [Gay] Village on Church St. We snacked at a restaurant there, and for the first time in my life, I noticed guys checking me out. I guess women get used to it, but it was a new experience for me. Now I'm not saying that they looked at length ... or twice ... or longingly, but I guess it's just a guy thing — to do that quick visual scan. In fact, sometimes I catch myself caught up in a long admiring stare. I try not to do that, particularly in my aged and enfeebled state, but there you have it —— boys will be boys —— whether hetero or homo or young or old, I guess.

But it was fun: seeing the sights and being reintroduced to life in the big city after the passage of so many years. And it was good to see D2 and Puff. As I said, they're leaving for distant lands in just a few short weeks. They'll be gone until almost Christmas, so today's parting was not easy or dry-eyed for Mom and Dad. They'll always be our little ones. They won't really understand what that's all about until they have their own little ones. None of us do.

Bon Voyage Ladies. Be safe.