Was this:







Yep, there I am, swimming in Lake Huron. It was a perfect beach day: 88 degrees and humid. (I had been hot and sticky all day and grumbling about global warming, but I must confess, when I got in the water I thought, "You know, there could be an upside to this . . . ")

But I'm getting ahead of myself. On Saturday morning we went motoring off to Stratford, getting lost on the way (took the 401 when we should have been on the 402 . . . same old story. I've never driven in or near Toronto without getting lost). But we discovered that the way we ended up going was much easier than the way MapQuest was going to send us . . . and the countryside was a lot prettier, too; not nearly so flat as it is farther west:















And of course, I worried that we were going to be late (also the same old story - we've gone to matinees several times and I always worry because we always get lost . . . ), but we arrived with about fifteen minutes to spare, so I took some pix of Emil and the buggy.















The play was wonderful. I had never seen or read The Comedy of Errors but it's now definitely my favorite of the mistaken identity/twins plots. This one focuses on two sets of twin brothers. Since the main focus is not a romantic interest, there's nothing to cut the slapstick, and I love slapstick. Dromeo of Syracuse was over-the-top funny. And the dramaturgy was outstanding. One example: The wife (Adriana) mistakes her brother-in-law for her husband, therefore thinks he's behaving very oddly, and at one point summons a priest to exorcise the demons from him. The priest was a voodoo priest, accompanied by two black male dancers and a black woman dancer dancing to 30s jazz. I can't find words for their costumes, alas . . . the scene was all lit in red and looked lush, exotic and primitive. It was wonderful.

We had dinner at an unremarkable but cheap restaurant, then drove to our hotel in London. (There was nothing with a sauna in Stratford. The sauna was prerequisite.) We watched "Knocked Up" on cable, which was pretty funny (and slyly Canadian, which was very appropriate).

Today we got up, had breakfast in the hotel, and went across the road to Canadian Tire. Emil had never been to Canadian Tire, so he got a real treat. Canadian Tire is sort of like . . . well, like Meijers without the food, more or less. But, you know, it's Canadian, eh? - so there's a huge honking section of hockey gear. I mean, we're talking probably 20 different kinds of hockey sticks. Water bottle caddies that held seven bottles. And the piece de resistance: The Pail o' Pucks. (Emil cracked up when he saw that. I had to hustle him out of the aisle, lest we be seen as Culturally Insensitve [because of course there were people in that aisle]. I can dress him up but I can't take him anywhere . . . :)

I was happy to see a Red Wings jersey right next to the Leafs jersey.

Then it was back on the road, with a stop in Port Huron for lunch and a swim. There were a lot of people with the same idea, actually.







We went up and sat in the grass so I could dry off without getting too much sand in the car . . .











Can you see how the tree in the background is starting to turn? Weird colors this year . . . they're not very far along, and the weather has been so warm that the summer flowers haven't died. In Stratford we saw brilliant bunches of impatiens set against a backdrop of yellow leaves and bright green grass. It reminded me of the Pacific Northwest, actually.

And then we came home.

It's been an absolutely perfect weekend. Maybe fifty isn't going to be so bad after all . . .