Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Swimming at Owen's
Waking up this morning was not an easy thing. Vanessa was saying: "Mommy... Daddy..." at the top of the stairs, while Erika and I were down in bed, flattened by a late night spent with baby. It wasn't a bad night, just one of punctuated rather than continous sleep. So I crept painfully upstairs and helped to get Vanessa dressed, came downstairs and made myself a strong cup of tea.

I remembered that I had suggested that I head to the St. Lawrence Market this morning with Vanessa, primarily to get some much needed real bagels from the St. Urbain bagelry there. So after my much-needed second (or was it third?) cup of tea, I made my way out the door with Vanessa. After getting some spending money from the bank machine at the end of the road, we walked down to Queen and Kingston Rd. We saw that a local church was having a bake and rumage sale, so we dropped by. Not much of interest to either of us, though Vanessa played with a doll's house with a young girl her age or younger from Guatamala who had been a recent adoptee, as her new mother told me. I came away with an interesting-looking book for 50 cents, and Vanessa came away with a cookie.

We got to the market around 10:30am or so, which is a late time to get to the market on a Saturday. Crowds of people, thronging through the stalls and aisles of the place. Usually I wander much of the market, showing things to Vanessa. This was more of a "surgical srike": got 4 dozen bagels, sirloin stake and some turkey burgers, and a chocolate cake Vanessa picked out from Future Bakery, and headed out -- though not after a slight diversion to visit the lobsters in the lobster tank at Mike's Fish, which Vanessa likes to see.

Got back just before noon, and with cake in hand, we visited Owen L., a sound-recorder that Erika has worked with for years. He fed us a veritable feast of ribs, drumsticks, Corona beer and sausage. We then spent a good part of the rest of the day swimming in his swimming pool. Or at least, Vanessa and I did, as Erika spent much of her time instead chatting with Owen about "the biz" and feeding a hungry Annie when necessary. Owen has a sizable pool, and thankfully there was a shallow end where Vanessa could play -- though she was often very tentative, especially after slipping into the deep end a couple of times, ad I had to pull her up and out into the deep end. I came away with sunburn on my back, though not too bad for once. Had a great time at the pool, and we're invited back to use it anytime we want, even if Owen is away at work during the day. Think we might just have to take him up on that sometime... ;-) Owen, a father of two sons, seemed to really relish his time with little Annie, and spent a good part of the afternoon with her cradled in his arms. An enjoyable afternoon.