Today's Adventure: Toronto
Zach and I leave for Toronto tomorrow because it's there and we have tickets and it's Passover and why not? ("Why not?" is one of the Four Questions.) There's a Niagara Falls trip on our itinerary, and some godawfully tall tower with a glass floor that will no doubt make me woozy and anxious. Other than that, I don't know what we'll do in Toronto; we've never been before. Hopefully it'll be better than our trip to Montreal.
Montreal was my fault. In fact, for the most part, you can be assured that anytime I mention a bad travel experience, it's my fault. It's not that Zach's blameless, it's just that I'm so much better at deconstructing a good time into a bad time.
Here's the thing: I don't travel well. It's all a delightful mélange of anxiety and nerves and irrational fears that I brew into a delightful cup of "Why the hell do you wait until now to get in some cuddle time with the cat?!?" I'm not good with renegotiating an itinerary; as soon as I have a plan in mind, by God, that's the plan that we're going to follow. Once on our way to the Metro -- the Metro, mind you; not even on the actual vacation itself -- I got entirely too worked up over a side-trip Zach wanted to make to a convenience store before we left to go to Amsterdam. I think through barely controlled tears of rage I shrieked something about Amsterdam not being a "goddamned Third World Country, you know, for your information, and if you needed to stop at 7-11 maybe you could have done that at any other point in the history of the entire world and not so much 5 minutes before the plane leaves."
What's helpful about these altercations is how I don't resort to hyperbole and sarcasm to get my point across. That's the sign of a healthy relationship.
The thing is, Zach has this sort of laissez-faire relationship with punctuality. I'm truly not trying to set up a I'm-better-than-he-is equation (though if you think I am, you've always been my favorite; just don't tell the others); I'm equally culpable in the opposite direction: to me, being on time means at least an hour early. So even before we leave to go on vacation, we're already at odds with each other. I want to be at the airport with enough time for bacteria to evolve limbs while Zach thinks that the airline somehow knows when we'll arrive and has adjusted its flight time accordingly. "No, Linda, we're not ready yet. Zach's only just now finished brushing Thor. We'll hold the plane another hour or two for them to get here."
Once we're at the airport, it's a new set of irritations. I feel that my presence at the correct gate is integral to our successful departure, flight, and landing. If I step away, even for a second, who knows what will happen? Like, what if they decide to change the gates on us and we're not there because now we're all Zach all of a sudden and we're going for a "walk" around the airport like it's a goddamned nature trail or something and we've got some bread crumbs to feed the squirrels. What happens then? Because there we are, waiting at the wrong gate like dumbasses, because we didn't hear the announcement that they've moved our gate to G11. And by "we" I mean an entirely fictional "me" and an entirely Zach "Zach" since I never leave the gate because of just such a scenario. I once rescued us from flying to Peoria, is all I'm saying.
I also have an oddly shaped suitcase that I really shouldn't use any more because I know it's oddly shaped and I'm always breaking FAA rules by storing it in the overhead compartment the wrong way because of on account of how oddly shaped it is. But that's not my fault. I like to be at the gate early and in line early so I can be sure that there's room for me to stow my oddly shaped luggage without drawing too much attention to myself and the bag, as well as leave enough time to sit down and pretend like I'm not the one thwarting other passengers. I can't do this if I'm trying to hunt down Zach, who's decided to go on walkabout.
And don't even get me started on the last-minute pee. Look: you don't drink anything at all before a flight. Like, 24-hours in advance you cut off all liquid so you're not a slave to your bladder and we're not there, last minute, waiting for you to remember that oh yeah: I have to pee. And I think you know who I mean by "you."
So anyway: hooray! Vacation! Which means that I'll be back online on Tuesday, April 18. Any thoughts on cool things to do in Toronto will be definitely appreciated.
Montreal was my fault. In fact, for the most part, you can be assured that anytime I mention a bad travel experience, it's my fault. It's not that Zach's blameless, it's just that I'm so much better at deconstructing a good time into a bad time.
Here's the thing: I don't travel well. It's all a delightful mélange of anxiety and nerves and irrational fears that I brew into a delightful cup of "Why the hell do you wait until now to get in some cuddle time with the cat?!?" I'm not good with renegotiating an itinerary; as soon as I have a plan in mind, by God, that's the plan that we're going to follow. Once on our way to the Metro -- the Metro, mind you; not even on the actual vacation itself -- I got entirely too worked up over a side-trip Zach wanted to make to a convenience store before we left to go to Amsterdam. I think through barely controlled tears of rage I shrieked something about Amsterdam not being a "goddamned Third World Country, you know, for your information, and if you needed to stop at 7-11 maybe you could have done that at any other point in the history of the entire world and not so much 5 minutes before the plane leaves."
What's helpful about these altercations is how I don't resort to hyperbole and sarcasm to get my point across. That's the sign of a healthy relationship.
The thing is, Zach has this sort of laissez-faire relationship with punctuality. I'm truly not trying to set up a I'm-better-than-he-is equation (though if you think I am, you've always been my favorite; just don't tell the others); I'm equally culpable in the opposite direction: to me, being on time means at least an hour early. So even before we leave to go on vacation, we're already at odds with each other. I want to be at the airport with enough time for bacteria to evolve limbs while Zach thinks that the airline somehow knows when we'll arrive and has adjusted its flight time accordingly. "No, Linda, we're not ready yet. Zach's only just now finished brushing Thor. We'll hold the plane another hour or two for them to get here."
Once we're at the airport, it's a new set of irritations. I feel that my presence at the correct gate is integral to our successful departure, flight, and landing. If I step away, even for a second, who knows what will happen? Like, what if they decide to change the gates on us and we're not there because now we're all Zach all of a sudden and we're going for a "walk" around the airport like it's a goddamned nature trail or something and we've got some bread crumbs to feed the squirrels. What happens then? Because there we are, waiting at the wrong gate like dumbasses, because we didn't hear the announcement that they've moved our gate to G11. And by "we" I mean an entirely fictional "me" and an entirely Zach "Zach" since I never leave the gate because of just such a scenario. I once rescued us from flying to Peoria, is all I'm saying.
I also have an oddly shaped suitcase that I really shouldn't use any more because I know it's oddly shaped and I'm always breaking FAA rules by storing it in the overhead compartment the wrong way because of on account of how oddly shaped it is. But that's not my fault. I like to be at the gate early and in line early so I can be sure that there's room for me to stow my oddly shaped luggage without drawing too much attention to myself and the bag, as well as leave enough time to sit down and pretend like I'm not the one thwarting other passengers. I can't do this if I'm trying to hunt down Zach, who's decided to go on walkabout.
And don't even get me started on the last-minute pee. Look: you don't drink anything at all before a flight. Like, 24-hours in advance you cut off all liquid so you're not a slave to your bladder and we're not there, last minute, waiting for you to remember that oh yeah: I have to pee. And I think you know who I mean by "you."
So anyway: hooray! Vacation! Which means that I'll be back online on Tuesday, April 18. Any thoughts on cool things to do in Toronto will be definitely appreciated.
posted by Mike at 12:37 PM
2 Comments:
You might stop by the University of Toronto where Stephen Leacock, the Canadian humorist and economist (not mutually exclusive), was a student. Read about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Leacock.
Leacock said something to the effect that he'd rather have written "Alice in Wonderland" than the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, which shows that he had an exceptional mind.
If this suggestion sounds boring, what do you expect? You're visiting Canada, for gosh sakes.
I can't disagree with that Leacock cat. Alice in Wonderland is about as brilliant as they come. I think it's the reason why I've never cottoned to the Harry Potter books. They're just not as intelligently or carefully written.
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