Parking in the City

Anyone who has ever driven into Toronto knows it is a very expensive place to park. And with the constant development of Condos, there are fewer and fewer parking spots available. Any first year economics student can tell you that as the available spaces decrease the price of the remaining spots will increase.

These facts have prompted me to do something I quite dislike. As of today, I am helping someone get something for nothing. I work near a subdivision and a lot of the residents rent out their driveways during the day. For the longest time I said I didn't want pay for the use of someone's driveway because I know they are getting the money 'under the table'; they are surely not reporting it as income and are therefore getting tax-free money. It is quite possible that my dislike of this practice stems from the belief that I cannot profit from it.

I have come to realize that although I dislike giving someone tax-free money, I can profit from doing so. Today I have started parking in a driveway about 3 blocks from the office and instead of paying $220.00 a month for the pay-by-day parking outside the office, I am now paying $95 a month for the driveway.

The one downfall about it just might be that it is right next to a Tim Horton's. I have already bought my first coffee there and it is just the first day!

The Art of Brainwashing

Last night I discovered that brainwashing, if started very early in one's life, can be very effective.

Anyone who knows me knows of my addiction to baseball. I make at least one road trip a year and go to as many Jays games as my schedule allow (which was a lot more before Peter came along).

The year I became pregnant with Peter I had season tickets. I am not sure if the brainwashing started while he was still awaiting his arrival into the world or if it was the numerous games he has been to since then or even the countless pieces of paraphenalia in his room, but somehow Peter has been conditioned to like baseball.

You may ask how I know this. Well, the answer is quite simple. Last night the Red Sox and Twins were playing their first spring training game and we were lucky enough to catch our first glimpse of summer. The minute I turned the TV to the game, he started pointing at the TV and walking over to it.

Needless to say, I was quite proud of my little guy last night.

Death of a Pack Rat

I usually don't bother with making New Year's Resolutions as no one ever keeps them anyway, however, this year I made an exception. I know it seems a bit late in the year to be talking about resolutions, but at the time when even the most dilligent person has broken their resolution, I have begun mine. My resolution was to clean out all the crap I have collected over the years before I end up like those people on Clean Sweep. Those of you who know me know that this will not be an easy task.

Last night I began my quest for cleaner living by attacking my kitchen. I have only cleaned out two cupboards and I already have over two full boxes of things to sell at my mother-in-law's garage sale this spring! With half the kitchen, a basement, an office and two bedrooms left to go, I have a feeling this will be a profitable garage sale.

And the real challenge will be to not let myself get this bad again.

Panama Cruise - Day 4: Aruba

December 11, 2008

Yay! The first day we are in port! As much as I like just being on the ship, it is fun getting off it too. Our first stop was Aruba.

We started the day with room service for breakfast. We had scrambled eggs, sausage and hashbrown as well as apple juice and assorted pastries. It was quite yummy, but that is pretty much the extent of the breakfast they offer for room service. And I always found it quite entertaining to see the eggs dished out by ice cream scoop!

As soon as we were dressed and fed, we left the ship for Aruba. We were there too early for most of the stores to be open, but we walked around the downtown/pier area to see what it was like. On our walk we found a museum that was open so we went in. That was a HUGE disappointment. It would have been okay if it were a free museum, but we paid to get in and were expecting military history and received general history.

When the stores opened we shopped for souvenirs, or more precisely, a t-shirt for Peter. We also found a nice gift to bring for a friend of mine who was watching our cats while we were away. In Miami I realised that my sandals were broken, but thought I could just walk around in my nicer sandals. By the time we had walked around Aruba for a couple hours I decided that I needed to find some sporty sandals for walking. If you can believe it, I actually saw running shoes with both the Yankees and Red Sox logo on them...Geesh, I can't even escape it when I am in the Caribbean!!

On our way back to the ship we stopped at Senor Frogs for a drink. We have always heard people talk about the bar while we have been away, but have never stopped for a drink until now. It is a pretty fun atmosphere, but you can tell it is strictly for the tourists that visit. They have signs that they move around and quietly put above the customers' heads. Michael had a 'horny' sign put above his head and didn't even know anyone did anything until I told him he had a sign!

Back on the ship we had our usual lunch at the Windjammer and then for a swim. One night at dinner one of the Atlanta people was talking about a drink she absolutely loves called a BBC - Banana Bailey's Colada - so we decided to try one while sunning ourselves on the pool deck. After the first sip I was hooked! They are fantastic, especially if made with a lot of baileys!

As you might expect by now, the mid-afternoon means nap time for Michael followed by the Schooner bar. However, this time we put a little detour in our usual plans. On the way to the Schooner bar we lost more money at the casino. Also, one of the waitresses at the bar, Claudia, had started to realize we were coming every day and spent some time with us. From our discussions over the trip we learned about lot about how the lifestyle of the staff while on board.

The show was another pre-dinner one. It started out quite promising. There was a single guy on stage just saying some funny things, but then he dragged out his duck puppet. The puppet was slightly entertaining, but he got old quickly. I imagine the children on the ship would have enjoyed the entire show though. We ended up leaving early because there was a Welcome Back party for the Crown and Anchor members (to be a member you just need to have cruised with RC before and sign up). The party is their way of saying 'thank you' and they give you some champagne, canapes and advertise future cruises (the Oasis being the 'hot item' this time). But like I said before, anytime there is free alcohol I am happy!

Dinner was once again another day of musical chairs. We had four new people! They were at the table for ten behind us and it was just the four of them so our tables merged. It was quite exciting as one of the couples was from Halifax! We also discovered that the ship must have gotten a discount on gelatin since all the desserts had some of that in them. I ordered a baileys cheesecake for dessert and it actually jiggled! I do have to give credit to Nihat here - he tried to steer us away from the cheesecake telling us that it wasn't very thick, but I saw cheesecake and didn't listen. It wasn't bad tasting, just very jello-like. Before the dessert was served, all the waiters, assistant waiters and head waiters had a little parade for us where they carried food on their heads. When they were back at the tables, we were all suppose to do the Macarena together, but most of our table, including us, didn't do it.

After dinner there was 70s music in the Vortex so we went up there for a bit, but they weren't playing the music that Michael likes and they mixed in some 80s with it so we didn't stay long.

Panama Cruise Day 3: Sailing

December 10, 2008

Another lazy day at sea. We woke up around 8:00 and went for breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe again and allowed our cabin steward enough time to clean our room.

We went to the pool in the late morning for a dip and some sunshine. Again we found it fairly easy to find a deck chair at the main pool in the sun! We stayed at the pool until our bellies told us it was time for lunch. After changing out of our swimsuits, we went back to the Windjammer for lunch where I had a mix of pasta and sandwiches and Michael found the table of Indian food.

After lunch we made a stop at the casino before heading back to our cabin. The slots were not so friendly this time and we lost our casino money for the day. Back in our room Michael had his daily nap and I read my book on the balcony.

Around 4:30-5:00 we started to get ready for dinner and made our stop at the Schooner bar for our pre-dinner drinks. The show was a Temptations cover band and it was a pre-dinner show. It was pretty good, but then I enjoy that type of music. Michael didn't really enjoy himself at all.

Dinner was a little more organized than the first couple nights. I don't think I have gone into much detail about our dinner table. The first night some people showed up late so our dinner lasted a long time. It was a very rowdy table, but four of our table mates were there with another couple and they were suppose to all be seated together and weren't. The next night those four people were not with us because they ended up getting a different table where all six of them could all sit together. However, we had two different people. Once again they were older and they were from the Atlanta area (one even likes baseball so we had something in common). They were quite nice and were avid cruisers who had many stories of cruises both on RC and on other cruise lines. So, by day 3, our table was only half full, but pretty set and things were running a lot smoother.

After dinner we were tired and full so we just went back to our room and watched some TV until we nodded off.

Panama Cruise - Day 2: Sailing

December 9 , 2008

Michael woke up around 1 in the morning because our cabin was bright that he thought dawn was breaking and couldn't believe it when he looked at the clock and realized that the moon really was that bright. Living in a City with all the light pollution you never really realize how bright a full moon could be when it is reflecting off the ocean. He managed to get back to sleep and woke for the day at 7.

I woke up at around 8, had a shower and then we headed off for breakfast and to explore the ship some more. We needed to ensure we gave our cabin steward enough time to clean our cabin so we had a tour of the spa and then booked ourselves a pampering session before having breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe. After eating we wandered around the ship some more and when we figured we had left enough time to clean the room we went back and got ready for swimming.

One advantage to being on a ship with an older crowd is that we had no problem getting deck chairs in the sun so, despite the fact this was our third cruise, we swam in the main pool for the first time. I spent a few hours in the sun (as my skin will prove), but Michael went in to have lunch and visit the casino where he did okay. When I finally decided to come in, I went up for lunch myself – and Michael had just come back from his adventures so he joined me for his second lunch of the day.

After lunch we lounged around our room (well, Michael napped and I read my book) until early afternoon when we went for our pampering appointments. I just got a haircut, but Michael had a foot pampering session and impressed someone who commented that it was nice seeing a man in there pampering himself.

In the early evening we went for a drink at the Schooner bar and stopped at the casino on the way back because Michael wanted to show me the machine he won on. He couldn't find it, but we found the machine I won on last time, but it was a $1 machine instead of $0.25, and I had to play it...we came out with $400!! The machine even ran out of coins and had to be restocked before finishing paying us out!

It was the first formal night so we had to get ourselves all fancied up and then we went to the captain's reception. That was boring, but any time I get free alcohol I am happy! Dinner was yummy. Michael had shrimp cocktail and beef while I had the beef as well, but I had some escargot. Dessert was souffle for Michael and cherries jubilee for me - yummy enough, but I was stupid enough to try Michael's and wished I had ordered that instead.

After dinner we went to see the first of the Broadway style shows and it was pretty good, but not great - it was really just a compilation of Broadway songs, most of which were before my time. After the show we went to the disco, but it was virtually empty so we just went back to our room and ordered room service then nodded off for the night.

Panama Cruise - Day 1: Embarkation

December 8, 2008

We woke up at 5:30 to see our ship out our hotel window. We watched some more ships come in and then got ready for the day and organized our luggage (we wanted to make sure we had our swim wear in our carry-on so so we didn't have to wait to hit the pool deck). We had too much time to kill since we are not suppose to get to the Cruise Terminal until 1:00 so we went to Starbucks for breakfast and then lounged around our hotel room until we had to check out time at 11:00. We tried to spend more time at the market, but nothing caught our interest there and so we ended up sitting in the hotel lobby until about 12:30.

We had no problems and short lines getting on to the ship. We had been given a complementary upgrade from our balcony stateroom to a junior suite! When we got to our stateroom we had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us (these were the first of many indulgences we enjoyed as part of a romance package). After toasting and unpacking what we had, we went for lunch at the Windjammer Cafe. It was pretty busy, but because of the island layout of the buffet, it was easy to get our food and start eating. Because Miami was actually cold and windy we spent the early afternoon just enjoying our room, which is so much bigger than just a balcony cabin and really worth the extra money, and being on a cruise ship.

About half an hour before we were scheduled to leave port we had our mandatory muster drill. We all had to wear the life jackets that are in our rooms and go to our emergency meeting spot. As it was finishing we started moving so we went back to our room and our balcony to watch us leaving Miami. When we couldn't see land anymore we decided to get ready for dinner and get out and explore the ship, although it was in the same class as our first cruise so we were pretty familiar with the layout of the ship.

Before heading off for dinner, we decided to stop at the casino and play a few slots. We didn't stay too long since tomorrow was non-smoking night in the casino and I prefer to play then. We went to the welcome aboard show, which was the usual introduction of the staff and some sales pitches, then it was off for dinner. Our table mates were mostly from the US and a couple from Panama, who are now living in Florida. The table doesn't look to be a fun one – the rest of the table is significantly older than us and more than half of them will be gone every other night, leaving 4 people at a table for 10. Dinner did not disappoint. As an appetizer they had Michael's favorite watermelon gazpacho soup which he really enjoyed. I had the chef's suggestion, a vidalia onion tart which was phenomenal. For dinner Michael picked the salmon from the health menu and he said it was fantastic (really the salmon was good, but the sauce and onion straws they put with it made it fantastic). I had shrimp ravioli in a lobster cream sauce which I really enjoyed. After dinner, we were kind of tired so we just headed back to our cabin to sit out on the balcony and enjoy some sea air before bed. With our bathrobes (a privilege of suites) on, it was a nice warm temperature outside.

Panama Cruise - Pre-Cruising Days

There is two parts to the pre-cruise adventures; the day before our flight and the day of our flight.

December 6, 2008

The night before our flight I dropped Peter off at Grandma Shultz's around 4:00, picked Michael up at home and then drove to the Sheridan at the airport. Unfortunately, winter decided to visit before our trip and we had to drive through a snowfall described as 'light'. As you might expect, despite the snowfall being 'light', traffic was very slow moving (because we have so much time between snow falls that it is easy to forget how to drive in them) and we didn't get to the hotel until nearly 7:00. We wanted to make sure we got a good night sleep so we were ready for the trip down to Miami. We ordered room service for dinner and then watched Get Smart and went to bed.


December 7, 2008

We woke up at 6:15 and got ready to head over to the airport. We kept the car parked at Terminal 3 near the hotel so we had to take the train over to Terminal 1. Normally the check in line for business class passengers is short or non-existant, but we actually had to wait in line to check in. The customs line was even longer since all passengers have to filter through the same line, but we had a very chatty and friendly customs official. Because of the long lines, we only had a half hour to enjoy the lounge (where I, not wanting to wait any longer for my vacation to start, changed into my summer attire). After having to wait 20 minutes to de-ice the plane, we had a perfect flight with decent food and even arrived 2 minutes early.

Once in Miami, we gathered our luggage and took a taxi to our downtown hotel (Holiday Inn), settled in and then headed across the street to the Bayside market in search of much needed sandals and Bath and Body Works (which has gone downhill). For dinner we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co and had some very yummy food – mine was called “After the storm Bucket of Trash” filled with lobster, shrimp and fish served in a bucket along with some fries. Michael had coconut shrimp. The next day was destined to be a long one so we just watched TV and went to bed early.

Trick or Treat

Halloween is one of my favourite days. That being the case, I wanted to make sure I had an adorable costume for Peter. My original plan was to make him a clown costume, but laziness set in and I just bought a costume. I made a rash decision and bought an Elmo costume since it was the best the store had (of course, I only went to one store). After I bought the costume I found much more adorable ones, but what was done was done.

Then came the actual night and the question whether or not to take a 10 month old door to door trick or treating. I thought it was pretty silly since he can't eat much of the 'treats' anyway, but eventually we decided to take him to a few houses.

After about 2 houses my hubby thought it was pretty ridiculous and I had to agree with him so we ended the door-to- door part of the night early. We all sat outside and handed candy out to the other kids and enjoyed the night, especially given the beautiful weather.

Hats off to Professional Photographers

The Christmas season is fast approaching and since this is Peter's first Christmas we (meaning I) decided that we should get professional pictures done.

In order to ensure my Christmas cards get out by December 1, we had our appointment this past Saturday, making sure we waited until Halloween was over. We dressed all in red and white and took off for the mall and the Sears Portrait Studio.

I have to say that Peter is a happy, well behaved baby, but it does take him a while to warm up to new people so the smiles were not that free flowing. Eventually he warmed up to the photographer, however, when he would give us the big, teeth-baring smiles, he would be all excited with arms flailing all around.

As I was sitting there watching the entire ordeal, I couldn't help admiring (and wondering about the sanity of) these family photographers. I could see how much work it was to get nice pictures of a friendly, happy, well-behaved baby and could only imagine how difficult it would be for a baby who was not so happy to be sitting still for pictures.

I doubt I would have the patience it takes to be a family photographer nor would I have the patience to deal with those in the waiting room who didn't get into the studio at the exact time their appointment was for.

So, to all you professional family photographers out there, my hat's off to you!

New York City

Nearly a week ago from this moment I was driving my car into the parking lot near a hotel in Flushing where I was staying with my dad and brother for the weekend as we took in a Yankees game and a Mets game.

The drive down started so early Friday morning that one might have mistaken it for Thursday night. Other than a brain cramp, which has been referred to as a 'Tommy Boy' moment (see Big D's blog for details), and a constant debate over which was better old school maps or a GPS the drive was fairly uneventful. There wasn't even too much traffic when we reached the George Washington Bridge - in fact, we never ran into as much traffic as I exepected for New York City.

The hotel was decent, however there was one small problem with the room. The internet showed that there was a couch in the rooms, but we only had a lazy boy chair. Being able to sleep anywhere I wasn't too bothered by having to sleep on the chair though as long as I was givien a pillow and blanket.

It rained all evening Friday so we didn't venture too far from the hotel. We had a fantastic dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to head into Manhattan before heading to Yankee Stadium. We managed to conquer the subway system with only a little trouble and took it down to Times Square and then up to the game. We thought we were there early enough to get into Monument Park, but by the time we found where to go we could not get in. After reaching our seats way up in the top level we discovered that it was best we didn't get into it - people were crammed in like sardines and I have no clue how they were able to manouver to what they wanted to see. After the game we decided to go back to the Times Square area for some dinner and found a fantastic pizza place. I made the mistake of having pasta which was only a mistake when I saw the pizza and confirmed when I was given a piece to try.

Sunday we took our time checking out and then headed to Shea Stadium. The game turned out to be a good game after the first inning took an entire hour. The food at the stadiums was nothing spectacular except for the hotdogs at Shea. You could put any or all of chili, cheese or kraut on the dogs. I had one with cheese and kraut and it was the yummiest baseball food I have ever eaten!

After the game we drove home. The drive was going well until we reached Syracuse and couldn't find a hotel close to the highway. After driving around and around at one exit we managed to find a hotel for the night. We stopped driving at the right time because a bad thunderstorm went through as we slept. Then we had some more trouble shortly after we crossed the border. We were driving along and I noticed an indicator light on in the car. After researching what it meant, we realized a tire was getting flat. We had to keep stopping for air and I eventually had to get CAA to put on the donut to get home.

It was a very good, but exhausting weekend. I must have recovered enough from it though since I have started thinking about next year's trip!