I remember that restaurants can actually be pleasant

It's been a busy couple of days here.  Yesterday we finally left the house and went to the Byward Market for some good old-fashioned cheese shopping.  There are two amazing cheese shops in the Market.  Both specialize in Quebec cheeses.  I made some good, stinky purchases.  We also got some amazing lamb that Beth turned into lamb stew later that night.  After the Market, we headed to dim sum at my favourite dim sum place in Ottawa: Mandarin Ogilvie.  We haven't been there in about 8 months I'd guess.  It was so great.  And what made it even better was that the stars aligned so that all three kids were great during the meal.  Emily ate her weight in dim sum, Hope ate her weight in barbecue pork bun and the grown-ups were able to gorge themselves, talk and essentially ignore the kids.  You may recall that around the time I was in Texas in early September, Hope lost all ability to be in a restaurant without me wanting to stab myself in the eye with a utensil.  It's been almost that long since we've tried a full meal in a restaurant.  It just wasn't worth it.  But the meal yesterday was bliss.

Today we went to the Nature Museum and explored the dinosaurs and other galleries there.  Then we continued our culinary tour of Asia with bowls of Vietnamese soup for lunch.  I figured we were pushing our luck with the kids but they stepped up again and rewarded us with a great time.  Hope covered herself in rice, Emily spent her time with a jackfruit shake.

We deserved a couple of good days.  On Friday, we went into the Glebe, one of Ottawa's busiest shopping neighbourhoods, at 4:30 pm.  This was, in a word, stupid.  What was more stupid, on my part, was that I lost Beth and Graeme.  They were in another car and we got separated.  I then drove around the side streets like I had completely lost my grip.  Which I had.  I couldn't find parking, I couldn't find them, I couldn't find my sanity if it bit me in the ass.  I finally parked after 15 minutes.  Then, I got Hope loaded in the backpack, Emily out of the car and we started trudging down an unplowed street looking for Beth and Graeme.  Emily fell in the snow a dozen times at least.  She was great about it luckily.  We made it to the store where we were supposed to be going and I was told that no one had seen them.  We started walking down Bank St.  I hoped I would spot there car.  Nothing.  I looked for a pay phone.  The only one was back down the unplowed street.  Emily started falling again.  "This is where I had problems last time!"  She was melting my heart, if not the snow.  I called John who was pretty much no help.  He wanted to be but what could he do?  We headed back to the store.  If I didn't find them we were going to head home and hope Beth and Graeme could get back.  I walked around the store again with Emily saying "I thought this was supposed to be fun, Mummy" and "Mummy, you happy yet?".  I was about to walk through the door and back down the street when Beth walked in the door.  Thank God.  I hugged her and almost cried.  She'd seen me as they drove by on their way back to our house.  Beth had been in the store.  The staff just were idiots.  I won't tell you the store.  My advice is don't rely on the people who work there for eye-witness accounts.  Lesson:  choose a meeting place before driving into the Glebe in separate cars at the end of the afternoon on the Friday before Christmas.  You know, I'm not a stupid person generally but I play one convincingly.

The last two days have been really fun but Beth and I are looking forward to staying home tomorrow, maybe going for a walk and getting ready for the Big Day.