Really, really long day...

[msss]

Let's see, when did it start? Oh yeah, I woke up and went to the Nashmans to babysit. Firstly, I didn't get the message Alon left me last night, so I was there at 9 am instead of 8.30 and so he missed his meeting. :( He was pretty nice about it though, and he did ring at 10.30 the night before. But when I got there, the doorbell was lying in pieces on the floor. Pieces frozen to the floor, to be precise. I picked it up and put it together best I could but missed the battery that had rolled under the boot tray, so funnily enough, it didn't work. So I went down to ring them and realised I hadn't brought my notebook. Crap. So I rang my flatmate from the phone on the corner and woke her up and asked her to get the number from my desk. No answer from the Nashmans. Left panicky message. (It was 9.15 by this stage.) Walked back to house and looked at doorbell again, recognising slot for battery. (It was a strange size battery, okay?) Looked around for battery, plugged it in and presto, person answering door. I felt so bad for being late. Anyway, it was only Neshama, the 3 year old. How bad could one toddler be? Well, not that bad. It was the combination with her friend Hannah that made it um, challenging. Two strong-willed three year olds. One insane sitter. They certainly understand the value concept of market theory - I want it, therefore it has value... grrr. Anyway, eventually I got them mostly fed and let them negotiate a compromise for the use of Neshama's toys. Then Elizabeth asked me to take them to nursery school in the stroller. All good, I was late actually starting to do any work, so I felt guilty about getting paid for four hours anyway, the school is on the nearest main intersection from my residence, it'd be an interesting new experience.... ha! Navigating a double stroller through sidewalks here is INSANE!!! The fact that the weather was so nice that the snow was melting only made it worse. Not only was there no grip on snow, the melting made it form chunks of floating pack ice that jammed the wheels. And no one clears sidewalks wide enough for double strollers. If I ever get a stroller and live where there's snow, it will have snow tires.

I also met one of the people that I went away to Parry Sound with on the way home, one of the cool Israeli chicks. The tall one. Damn, can't remember her name.

Soon as I got back, it was time to leave to go visit Samantha in hospital. Long walk down to Bathurst and Dundas. She looks good though. The doctors said it was an almost perfect operation and there doesn't seem to be much/any nerve damage to her face. She'll be discharged tomorrow and probably come back to the residence sometime next week.

Went to Kensington market and picked up some mushrooms and croissants, then walked (a long way) to meet Sam at Yonge and King and then to her place. But oh, the food was worth it. She made flame grilled chicken and mango salsa, followed by blueberry pie and lots and lots of popcorn. My life's ambition for this year is to learn how to make blueberry pie. Oh, for the record, apparently mango salsa is made from: mangoes (duh), spinach, onion, mint and sweet chilli sauce. It tastes fantastic.

After dinner we were going to see a movie but ended up spending more than an hour trying to get Melvyn's very large (2 Mb) Powerpoint presentation for his friend's 21st sent off. The deadline was 8 pm Australian time, so 4 am on Saturday morning, and it was Friday night. Um, 2 Mb over dialup? Insane. They ended up chopping the file into bits and sending it to Sam's office and then walking to her work to send it over the dedicated connection there. Oh well, I got company for my walk to the subway.

But I'm exhausted. I think I walked about 13 km today.