babysitting

Sorry about not including a valid email address when I asked for HTML resource advice a few days ago! The address should have been editorink@inkspot.com.

Spent all day working today.

Babysat Sara and Annie yesterday afternoon with Jeff. They were VERY excited to see us. :-) First we all made necklaces with string and sparkly beads I had picked up at a bead store a couple weeks ago. Then we went for popsicles on Queen Street. It took nearly an hour to get there (at adult pace, the walk would take 10-15 minutes :)). So many interesting things to see on the way, after all. At one point Annie got scared of an ant she spotted crawling across the sidewalk. I knelt beside the ant and let it crawl over my hand; Annie and Sara were both fascinated. Soon Annie was pretending to hold her hand out to ants, too.

We played hat frisbee on the front lawn of a church, "chase", and so on. We finally got to the popsicle store, and Annie and Sara peered into the popsicle/icecream display case with intense concentration before making their choices. Annie chose a gigantically long Mr. Freezie. I chose a chocolate icecream bar on a stick. Outside, Annie was suddenly much more interested in my choice than hers. I let her have mine; I'm such a pushover. Sara hoovered down her icecream sandwich and then spent several minutes staring hungrily at Uncle Jeff eating his icecream sandwich. He let her have the rest. I guess he's a pushover, too. :-)

Jeff taught me how to play cribbage! We're going to play tonight.

Officemusic: Kicking The Stone Home (Sam Baardman)

star wars trailer

Busy. :-) I'm revamping my website, and also working on my book (blatant plug...WRITER'S ONLINE MARKETPLACE (tentative title), Writer's Digest Books, next year). Ruth called yesterday and asked if I'd help out with Sara's birthday party in late July (do all parents plan this far ahead?). This will be Sara's first "school" birthday party.

Saw the new Star Wars trailer (#3) via the Internet. So cool! Can't wait to see this move, though I'm not as much of a keener as some of those who are ALREADY in line. :-)

Have caught a cold, possibly from Annie (I shared popsicles with her on the weekend). Nothing serious, just one of those "not-sick-enough-to-stay-in-bed-but-feeling-draggy-all-the-same" sort of colds.

I can play four penny whistle songs off by heart now, though I'm sure if I actually had to play in FRONT of anyone, I'd forget everything. :-)

bus driver nostalgia

Just noticed that my past two headers were about work. Yuk, sorry about that; you must have all been really excited about those entries. :-)

No work talk today. Going to the ballet with Cathy tonight.

Went to visit my Dad last night out in Bramalea. We had dinner at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant; good conversation. I took the GO bus there and back, and it brought back memories of when I used to commute every day to university. The bus drivers on that route all got to know me, and we'd joke back and forth; I liked one of them especially. Anyway, on the way home from my Dad's, I realized that the bus driver was THE VERY SAME BUS DRIVER.

Before I left, I shook his hand and told him that I used to ride the route every day fifteen years ago, that he was my favourite driver, and it was great to see his face again. He looked taken aback, but was very pleased and thanked me (I don't know if he actually remembered me, though :)).

netscape cool site

Netscape has chosen Inkspot as a Cool Site in their Open Directory.

Did some babysitting yesterday. Arriving is almost always a huge egoboo; no matter
how crummy a day I've been having, it's impossible to stay depressed. This time,
Sara was waiting outside for me. Clad in her snowsuit, she was sitting in the little
snowhouse she had carved out for herself by the side of the main walkway
(Ruth later told me she had been waiting out there for half an hour). She brightened
up when I arrived and we chatted a bit. I admired her snowhouse.

ME: Can I sit in your snowhouse, Sara?



SARA (perfectly seriously): Well, Auntie Debbie, you should go inside and turn around and look
at yourself in the mirror and you'll see how big your bum is. (AT THIS POINT SARA TURNS
AROUND) See how small my bum is? My bum will fit, but yours won't.

And she was right, of course. :-)

I finally convinced Sara to go inside so I could dump stuff and say hi to Annie,
whom I could see (out of the corner of my eye) hurling herself at the inside of the front
window the entire time I was talking with Sara, excited I had finally arrived but
frustrated that she couldn't get to me. When I got inside, Annie immediately ran
up to me and babbled "Beebee! Beebee! Beebee! Beebee!" and hugged my legs over and over again.

Later on, I took Sara tobogganning and then for a hot chocolate at Starbuck's. I told
Sara she could have a treat if we split it in two halves (Ruth had said Sara could have
a hot chocolate; I wasn't so sure how pleased she would be about the treat). Sara
enthusiastically agreed, and picked out a coffeecake muffin with chocolate and vanilla
icing on top. When we got a table and sat down, Sara asked if she could have the TOP
half of the muffin. :D :D I said yes, of course...I wasn't about to renege on our deal.

Had dinner with Jeff at Fune last night. This time we opted to try something different...SUSHI
PIZZA! A specialty at Fune's. I had never tried it before because the thought of sushi on
pizza seemed revolting to me. But you know what? It was good!! I'm going to have it again.
We had the salmon sushi pizza, which was basically salmon sashimi, a scattering of
chopped onions, and spicy sauce, on top of a fried rice cake. Yummm. Sadly, Chris is no longer
at Fune (he's working at a bento box place down near First Canadian Place). One of our favourite
waitstaff, Annie, was promoted to take his place.

Officemusic: MIX99 radio.

p.s. No, my comic strip isn't daily. :-) I plan to publish it on a weekly basis from now on.

sympatico netlife

Hey, I'm in the May/June issue of Sympatico Netlife magazine (Canada's Home Internet Magazine), p41. Sidebar on Inkspot.

Had lunch with my friend Luisa at the Food Court in First Canadian Place. This area is packed with Food Courts...is this a Toronto-specific term? I'm curious. To me, a "food court" is generally the food area in a shopping mall, a serve-yourself-deal and lots of choice of inexpensive food booths (inexpensive compared to eating in a regular restaurant). There's generally a central area with small tables and chairs where you can take your tray of food. They are usually almost empty except for lunch hours, during which time people have been known to be attacked in fights over table space.

Going to see the movie "Elizabeth" with Jodi tonight (Allison has school Open House duties, so we're nixing regular practice tonight).

re: "how I started filking" stories. Pretty amusing thread going on in Blatherchat. Hm...I still haven't posted my story...

I was only kidding about the fights over table space, by the way (you didn't really believe me, did you? Sheesh, this is CANADA, eh?)