Leaving on a GO Train

This past weekend, D took me to Toronto, which is a dangerous thing to attempt as many of you know, since I do not travel well. But she braved my irrational fears and booked us a two night stay at the Suites on King West, and then proceeded to tell me we were going.
That's usually the best way to do it.
Anyway, we left again from Milton, and okay, we didn't leave on a train PER SE but we did take a GO bus... but bus doesn't really work with the song lyrics and makes for a crappy post title. Allow me my artistic license, damnit!
It was Friday morning, and this time, there were no creepy criminals at the terminal, although there was a possession bag from the police laying empty on the ground. The GO station must be a popular departure point for malefactors.
I'm going to reiterate that Milton is a suburban wasteland. It's a scary place. Imagine Mordor, and fill it with young urban professionals and acres of semi-detached homes. *shudder*
The bus trip was relatively uneventful, which suited me fine. Except for the guy who hopped on the bus without enough money to buy a ticket and argued with the driver until finally being kicked off, little happened of note.
I should mention here that D was sick. Practically all I heard from the seat beside me was the snort and slurp of nasal congestion, and its subsequent expulsion into a growing tumour of kleenexes stored up her sleeve. By the time we got off the bus I was travelling with Popeye. At one point I contemplated trying to find her forearms but immediately recoiled from the idea, not knowing what sort of mucus-spawned monster I would find hybernating within.
We got off the bus and immediately went in search of the hotel so that we could drop off our luggage with their valet service as we were about 2 hours early for our check in time. We did not know before booking the hotel that the valet service would hold our luggage like this, but apparently it's commonplace. We were ecstatic about that.
The hotel was literally a hop, skip, and a jump away from the train station (for Superman) and we got there a lot more quickly than I originally anticipated.
We were immediately impressed by the hotel. A very cleanly dressed valet opened the door for us, welcomed us cheerfully, and we walked into a small yet sophisticated main lobby area. It was clean, well appointed, with friendly looking staff and a professional air. The valets were only too happy to take our bags and wish us on our way.
Now the reason D wanted to travel to Toronto was to take advantage of Toronto's Wintercity festival, specifically the Winterlicious Price Fixe (that's how they spelled it) that many of the high end restaurants were offering. Essentially, at a participating restaurant for lunch you can obtain a 3 course meal for $15-$20 or for dinner you can get a 3 course for $25-$35. That's an appetizer, main course, and dessert for what most of these restaurants would charge just for an appetizer.
Our first stop was to a restaurant called Romagna Mia on Front Street. We experienced a small hiccup in trying to find the restaurant when we walked into 106 Front Street and found it was in fact an office complex. Luckily there were two girls smoking outside who apparently dealt with tourists like ourselves every day, just as I deal with people trying to find the passport office every day, and they directed us to walk ten feet further and turn the corner. Lo and behold we found the restaurant.
I'm going to give this restaurant the highest praise I will ever give a restaurant. The service was exemplary. The host, the server, all the staff were professional, well trained and polite. Our server in particular was attentive almost to a fault without actually ever hovering over the table. If he even thought that we needed him to come he would attempt to engage my eyes from across the room to confirm his suspicion, and if I wavered or became distracted he still kept and eye on me to make sure I didn't need anything. The moment I made a definite movement that I required his presence he was there, ready to serve. I was truly, thoroughly impressed.
At that restaurant I had an appetizer that I can only describe as an extremely tasty scrambled egg patty on a bed of roasted asparagus and sauteed mushrooms. It was divinely flavoured but a little too hot, temperaturewise. D, because she was sick, had chick pea soup, which she described as "Mushy". It was probably quite tasty but no match for the creature living in her nose. For a main course I had a beef brisquet on polenta (I immediately thought of a penny arcade cartoon where Gabe wishes for a placenta sandwich, but that's not my story to tell: go to the website www.penny-arcade.com and look in their archives for the comic titled "I don't think he knows what that is.") and D had a cheesy gnocci dish which was extremely tasty and delicately textured. For dessert we had a delightful panna cotta. I was thoroughly sated.
From the restaurant we proceeded back to the hotel to check in. As soon as we got to the room we dropped out luggage to the floor and had a nap. Ah, what a nap. 3 hours of blissful sleep. D needed it, and I wanted it.
Once we woke we were thoroughly energized for the evening.
We walked up to Nathan Phillips square, just a quick jog up the street. The first thing we did was head into the art exhibit they had going on called Paintings Below Zero by Gordon Halloran (I think that's his name: I'll check the website later and update if necessary). Basically what he did was dye some water and freeze it using the same cooling elements they use in skating rinks. He shattered the dyed ice and arranged it in some very beautiful patterns. Part of the exhibit appeared to me to be a cityscape, but D thought he just ran out of ice at that end. Ah, D, always the cynic. Overall the exhibit was quite lovely.
We wandered over to the stage that had been set up to see a performance by the Italian theatre group Kitonb. I may be a victim of modern consumer culture here, and maybe that's why I require instant gratification, but the performance really failed to catch my attention. I was not engaged, not engrossed, and in an open public space where I can just walk away at any time that is not a good thing. I should have been hooked within the first fifteen seconds and I can honestly say that I wasn't even hooked after ten minutes of watching. A theatre group may be able to get away with that in a closed stage because the audience has already paid their dollar and anticipated investing their time in a performance, but it's not something that works at a free show. Not to mention that the bass from the soundtrack they were playing was so pervasive that the vibrations actually caused D, perhaps because of her congestion, to feel queasy and nauseated. We were literally driven away from the performance.
We wandered around and did other things while Kitonb finished up, and came back to catch a free concert from the Philosopher Kings (or as they're known in the U.S., the Sorcerer Kings*). We caught three songs before D started to freeze to death (it was -15 out) and so we went back to the hotel.
We had a nice dinner at the hotel but I would not eat there again. They charged $7.50 for a bottle of evian water. My pint of beer cost less, and was approximately the same size. Other than that the prices were good. I had a smoked salmon and caper pizza, and D had more soup. Roasted Vegetable this time. She described its flavour as "eh."
Because we were frozen, tired, and full of food we went up to the room and fell almost immediately asleep.
I'll leave you with that for now. But there is more to come!
* The Philosopher Kings are not actually known as the Sorcerer Kings in the United States. This is a lie. They are actually known as "Johnny Righteous and the Flying Radioactive Plantains." `
`This is also a lie.

Counting the ways

Perhaps it's because it is winter, with the cold days reminding me of all the warmth and joy and happiness in my life that make those days bearable, but I've been thinking a lot about my relationship, the wherefore and the why.
That I love D is not in question. How could I not? But I have a habit of trying to qualify and quantify my feelings towards things, either as an intellectual exercise or because I'm a stubborn bastard who NEEDS to know the core reasons behind everything. So I've been trying to figure out why I love her. It's a futile exercise, as anyone knows, and D herself would probably claim that it's primarily pheremones and body chemistry (she's a cynic through and through).
While I could not come up with an answer to the question, I did remember a number of instances, anecdotes, and moments that really drove home for me just how endearing she is.
The other day D and I were walking to the arena to go skating. She was carrying both pairs of skates, so I called her a pack mule. Her response: "No, I'm a Sherpa. Neigh!" So I paused, grinned, and looked at her. "Let me get this straight." I said, "Are you under the misapprehension that a sherpa is a goat?" And she looked at me with chagrin and replied, "Yes?"
Another instance that occurred when I was still living with my brother makes me chuckle every time I remember it. It was either a day I was finished work or we'd just come through the door, but we were sitting on the couch and D decided to tell a story about her day. She explained that she'd been driving along the road and she saw the cutest animal. "It was brown and furry, and it had this tiny little tail and it looked a bit like a pig! It ran away and dropped into a hole in the ground!" Now my brother and I looked at each other, each knowing EXACTLY what animal she was describing, and we said in unison "Are you perhaps referring to a ground hog, by chance?" (yes, my brother and I both speak like this.) How D managed to live twenty five years without seeing a ground hog baffles the heck out of me.
My brother and I want to publish a book of D's made up words, too. Here's a couple of my favourites:

Debattical: To take a long break from an argument
Influtry: The fourth branch of the military
Broccolie: A false statement about being a vegetarian OR a fraudulent green vegetable

For some reason I can't remember the rest of the list right now (brain fart) but if I remember them I'll put them down.
I love that she's such a capable and together person, more mature and responsible than I will ever be, but who can drop her guard and be unabashedly silly and blissfully ignorant about the most random things. She's obviously brilliant or I wouldn't find her interesting, but one of the things that makes me adore her is those brief yet endearing lapses in understanding or knowledge, or the very infrequent wrong assumptions she makes about things that are understandably unimportant.
It really makes me accept the idea that it is our flaws that keep us together, and because of that they are no longer flaws, but qualities, and I wouldn't take her without them.
Hell, if she can laugh at my jokes, I guess she feels the same about my flaws. I mean, who in their right mind would laugh at one of my jokes? Besides me, I mean.