Rice Bar - Brown Rice, Bok Choy, Wild/Sustainable Fish, Soy, Sesame, Ginger, Scallions

Tracy: Yesterday was much better timing-wise. We got to meet up with Toronto friends, see Chinatown, drink good coffee and shop a little. It's hard to get good food for dinner, because where we are staying is super touristy and there is no good places to eat and by the end of the day the kid is not up for a big subway/streetcar trek. I think this is what led to Phine's tummyache in the middle of the night.

Mia:

• Brunch at Cora's Breakfast & Lunch
• Playground with a couple other kids
• Excellent lattes and kid's hot chocolate at Moon Beam
• Shopping in Kensington Market
• Wings at Duff's (for Tracy)
• Ice Cream (for Phine)
• Hotel

Then at around 12:30am, Phine woke up. She told me she her stomach hurt. I stayed with her until she fell asleep around 1am. Around 1:30am she woke up puking. It was pretty bad but I managed to contain it to her travel bed. I think by 2:30am we were done cleaning up. Good thing for those free samples of Ivory Ultra from Pride. We got new sheets and I stayed in her bed with her until around 6am. Our trip to the zoo got canceled so it's off to the laundromat.

Everything pretty much goes wrong. That was yesterday. First it rained all morning, until about 2pm. We started the day walking up to the subway so we could go to B Cafe, which is supposed to have good espresso. Of course we didn't check if they were open on Sundays. They're not. For some reason, we didn't bring the Lonely Planet Toronto with us and we can only get sporadic Wifi on our iPhones. (iPhone tip when traveling: if you keep the phone on "airplane mode" and just turn on Wifi.) It's hard being addicted to constant internet access. In the past, I always brought our guide book everywhere as well as a travel journal with notes. So we had no Plan B, no idea of where another cafe might be. We walked back to the subway, deciding to go to Royal Ontario Museum, all the while trying to find Wifi. It's still raining after the 2 subways to the museum. This may be a good museum for kids but not almost little kids not even 3. And it was expensive. We decide to bag it and head to the Whole Foods for some provisions since it's in the same neighborhood. Phine started to loose her patience. She had done really well. We eat at Whole Foods which bums me out. I eat at there all the time and didn't travel all the way to Canada to eat at another one. We head back to the hotel, which Phine is constantly asking to do ("Can we go back to the hotel." That kid's going to end up in the hospitality industry. She barely wanted to leave the hotel ever. At the hotel we were pleasantly surprised to find the pool had a kid's play area with ride-on cars and a pretend diner. Tracy and I took turns relaxing in the hottub while Phine played and played. I found out there was a free cello concert at Music Garden at the Harbourfront Centre. We took the streetcar but Tracy had a headache. After stopping for pain meds, we arrived to an empty stage and saw the last cello being carried away. Fortunately the sun finally came out and we played for a long time in the garden. We went to look for dinner on the walk back but found nothing. We decided on tapas and martinis at the Westin bar. What a day!

Had a nice day yesterday. The flight was short and Phine kept saying, "This is a fun ride." She liked watching things get smaller as we went higher. This is her fourth trip but she seemed much more interested and engaged in the actually flying part. I am keeping my fear of flying to myself.

After checking into the hotel, we went to the huge Pride festival which was blocks and blocks long. There was a family area with sprinklers, music, a train, toys. We hung out there a lot before walking the Dyke March. It was hot, in the 80s and the walk seemed very long. Phine kept wanting to go back to the hotel throughout the day. She tends to be more of an indoor kid, at least for now.

This morning I took a walk to get cash and a latte while the 2 poky puppies got themselves together. I saw the first real signs of the garbage strike while walking back along Habour square. There were a lot of homeless people on this Sunday morning. I was still enjoying the walk near the lake, watching ducks and black squirrels, until a bird flew down and hit me in the head. Weird hostile Canadian bird!

My brother made it to Live Journal: teampasta

He always posts good MP3 downloads (not to rival Logical Logic, of course) so check him out.

My kid is 2 and a half and doesn't yet have a sign name. I have been waiting patiently for the deaf community to come up with one for her and FINALLY they have come through. :-)

Actually there are three to choose from! I've already picked the one I like, but take a look and vote for the one you think we should use.

This is the fabulous Jess bravely standing in front of the camera in her morning hair.
I'm going to make a lame attempt at a translation below the video.

Hi. Josephine, nick name "Phine." What sign name? Here are 3. First one: (Letter "J" by the eyebrow) why? She has cute eyebrows. Second one: J, her first name begins with "J" last name "L." Put them together (Letter "J" then "L" keeping the J pinky up) like the sign for "I Love You." Third: "Phine" (sign for Philippines) same as the name of the country "Philippines." There's 3, pick your favorite. Bye!

So which one do you think we should pick?

Hey we made the new Countdown/Countup ticker live last Tuesday!!



Go make some!

dogpound is so gay her birthday requires a Pride Parade.

We are working on our next type of ticker for the AlternaTickers site: The All-Purpose Countdown to/Countup from an Event Ticker.

I am psyched about this ticker because it can be used for anything which will open the site up to a much wider audience.

Here are some samples showing things I am looking forward to:







Hopefully we'll be making this ticker live soon!