It was a three day weekend for us since S and I took Friday off. Both of us have a lot of vacation days left that we should use before the end of the year; this weekend was the first in a few long weekends we’ve created for ourselves.

We didn’t have much planned for the day off, or for the weekend for that matter. We were having two of S’s friends over for lunch on Sunday. Estelle and Sandra are two older Jewish ladies that S met at one of her first (professional) jobs. Over the years, they’ve kept in touch by getting together for dinner every so often. The ladies hadn’t yet seen the house so it was decided that the next get together would be at our place. That was on the agenda for Sunday.

Since we hadn’t gotten in to see the Ten Commandments exhibit at the museum a few weeks ago, we decided we’d buy tickets online ahead of time to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. We got the tickets for Friday afternoon since we figured it’d be a quiet day at the museum. The only question mark was whether there would be groups of children there on a school trip. S doesn’t particularly enjoy children, especially when they are in large groups. Before we left the house, I gave her full permission to have the rage if she became annoyed by children. If nothing else, it would make for an interesting blog post.

Upon getting out of the subway station, we noticed a row of school buses parked outside of the museum. “Oh no, this is not good,” S said as we walked past the line of buses.

“They’re probably here to take the kids back,” I said. “Look, that bus is running.”

“She’s just trying to keep herself warm,” S said, motioning to the woman in the driver’s seat.

Unlike our previous visit, there was no line-up winding its way around the sidewalk. With our advanced tickets, we were able to go right to the express check-in. Neither S or I had any lunch so we were starting to get hungry. To fend off the hunger rage, S brought a fruit snack with her. I hadn’t had the foresight to bring anything with me. With our stomachs growling, we made our way to the scrolls exhibit.

It was pretty interesting; it wasn’t just the scrolls on display. There was this entire story told through text written on the walls, clay jars and other artefacts on display and short videos being played. We took in each of the items and wound our way through the exhibit. At the end, we found about ten different set of scrolls in display cases. The entire area was dark and the actual display cases were dimly lit. This of course, was to preserve the scrolls.

It’s interesting; they spent thousands of years preserved in clay jars in caves. In the close to seventy years since their discovery, the rate of deterioration has been such that the government of Israel has set up a high-tech institute with the sole purpose of preserving the scrolls.

We left that exhibit and S let me know she wanted to see more of the museum. I was pretty hungry by then, but I figured a few more exhibits wouldn’t be so bad.

We checked out the floor directory to see what was where. S mentioned an interest in checking out the exhibit on world cultures. We walked in and saw a variety of displays containing trinkets, statues and dishware. “This is boring,” S said in a huff.

“What were you looking to see?” I asked.

“I don’t know, bones, I guess,” she said as we made our way towards the exit. Out of the corner of her eye, S spotted something across the floor that piqued her interest. “Let’s check this out.”

I followed along as we checked out the rest of the displays, which S found to be more interesting than the first. Unlike the area where the scrolls were, the rest of the museum was crawling with children. The good news was that there didn’t appear to be a large group of them altogether, so we were spared that rowdiness.

After checking out a European and 18th century exhibit, we made our way to the Vanity Fair gallery. I had no idea that the magazine had been around since 1913 so it was interesting to see some of the pictures and the stories attached to them.

By the time we left the Vanity Fair exhibit, my legs were shaking from weakness. I let S know and she scrounged out a small chocolate bar from the bottom of her purse. I had it as we walked downstairs to check out the reptile displays. I had a feeling that’s where the dinosaurs (and thus, bones) would be found.

We approached the display on the designated floor and I experienced S’s ability to merge two sentences very closely together.

“How was the chocolate? Oh look, bones!”

I didn’t even get to answer about the chocolate; she was off to check out the dinosaurs. We wandered around for a few minutes, all the while I was convinced my stomach was ingesting itself.

S had expressed an interest in getting a hot dog when we first arrived at the museum, but by the time we left she had decided on getting something a little nicer. We went walking in search of somewhere to grab a (decent) bite.

While walking through an intersection, we noticed an incident that almost became an accident. A driver decided to start driving her car forward even though there was a large crowd of people walking around it as they crossed the street. “Holy shit,” I said as I saw the car lurch forward.

It almost hit one girl who reacted quickly enough and got out of the way. One guy pounded on the passenger side window and yelled at the driver, “Get off your fucking phone!!!” I couldn’t believe how the driver missed the fact that she was at a red light and there was a throng of people walking around her car.

We eventually found a restaurant on Yonge Street but not before I pointed out to S that the intersection at Bloor and Yonge now allows crossing diagonally. “What the what?” S asked surprised. I explained it had just come into effect a few weeks ago. “I want to go to there,” S said. After grabbing some dinner, we did indeed get to experience the joy of a scramble crossing.

We had taken transit on our outing to the museum and on the way home S got to experience the joy of a crowded streetcar in rush hour traffic. As is common, we were packed in like canned sardines and were often lurched forward when the driver braked a little too hard. “This is uncivilized,” S muttered as we made our way home. So innocen, my S.

Saturday was a pretty low-key day. Other than putting tarps over the air conditioning unit and patio furniture in the backyard, the only thing on the radar was getting some groceries. It was at the grocery store that we had an interesting experience.

I was pushing the cart, I usually do since I worry that S will ram it into someone in a fit of rage and I had ‘parked’ it next to the vegetable stand. A man came toward me and stood at the front of the cart. Just then, S came up along my left side. “Oh sorry,” I said to the man thinking that I was in his way. (We Canadians are a polite bunch.)

He then pointed at a section of vegetables. He didn’t say a word, just extended his arm and finger and pointed at the vegetables. S got the most disgusted look on her face and spit out, “You could say ‘excuse me.’” I quickly pushed the cart up the aisle in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation. A few minutes later, we were walking past the guy and S said loudly, “that guy was a real jerk off, don’t you think?!” I quickly agreed and pushed the cart along as we left the fruit and vegetables section.

The rest of the shopping trip wasn’t anywhere near as exciting. Our evening was just as quiet as we had a terrible stir-fry (we were trying out a new sauce which ended up sucking) and watching episodes of the long-defunct show Conviction.

Estelle and Sandra were due to arrive at 12:30 so S and I spent this morning tidying up the house and getting lunch prepared. We decided on a grilled veggie sandwich on focaccia bread. Sandra is quite regimented about not eating things that aren’t Kosher so we figured vegetarian was the way to go. It was our first time making the grilled veggies and it turned out really well.

The visit went really well; the ladies liked the house and the food we served. Estelle buttered me up by complimenting on my weight loss. I let her know I probably looked different because my hair is longer now then the last time she saw me.

After the ladies left, we cleaned up the dishes and then continued our Conviction marathon. While the show is interesting, neither S or I could figure out why no mention of Stephanie March’s character’s background was discussed or why she was rarely on the shows. Why give her a spin-off if you’re not going to utilize her? It’s no surprise the show didn’t make it past one season.

And so another weekend wraps up. I almost checked my work e-mail earlier as I wondered what would be awaiting me tomorrow. Then I realized that whatever it is, can wait.

Related posts:

  1. Art Bust
  2. Low Key Weekend
  3. Low-Rent Bitch
  4. The Costco Rage
  5. Me Want Brownies
  6. The Future Shop Rage
  7. “Total Devastation”
  8. Movin’ on down
  9. The Trek Home
  10. Wouldn’t it be funny?