Excursions

An interesting, at times awkward day today.
This morning we went to the K-W bookstore in downtown Kitchener. This bookstore, billed as the largest in Southwestern Ontario, used to be an oft-visited treasure chest for me. It has a positively enormous selection of magazines: you can be reasonably certain that if it's not on the rack, it's not published.
We were in search of magazines for fat women. There used to be one called B.B.W...it doesn't seem to exist any more. Nor is there anything else for this growing (ahem) market. Disappointing, but not overly suprising.
What did surprise me was their book collection, equally disappointing. We have a number of authors we cruise for every time we are in a bookstore (which works out to at least once a month); few of them were even represented. We did snag a Bathroom Reader (we're huge fans) and I found a book by Dan Simmons called SUMMER OF NIGHT that I foolishly sold off about ten years ago, never to see again until today. So that trip wasn't a total disappointment.
Then off to see Eva' s grandfather in Woodstock General. He's been there two now, following a heart attack. His heart seems to be recovering, but his blood pressure is very low and so is his red blood cell count. We last saw him about two months ago, and he looked very unhealthy then. It's strange to say this of someone lying, exhausted, in a hospital bed, but he looked considerably better today.
Hospitals are so depressing. They really should put murals or something on the walls...have a selection of music at the patient's disposal...anything to brighten the place up. And he was telling us today that he can't get a moment's peace, what with all the tests being run, visitors (both his and his wardmate's) tromping in and out, and so on. You wonder how the man's supposed to recover if they won't let him SLEEP!
At any rate, he's not out of the woods yet but he does seem to be moving in the right direction.
After that sobering experience, we drove on to London, a city I spent nine years living in and remember very fondly.
Of course we had to go through the scuzzy parts of town...what must be all of them!...parts I don't remember being near so decrepit twenty years ago. And of course the mall we went through, at one time a real showplace, is practically deserted today. It seems like downtown malls never succeed. Before too long, they're full of GoodLife Fitness Centres, college branches, offices...and vacant, gaping storefronts.
Eva got her nursing degree in London, so she's reasonably familiar with parts of it; I spent most of my near-decade there west of Richmond Street, so I'm familiar with other parts. She and I crossed paths at least once, at an outdoor Glass Tiger concert in (I think) 1986. Anyway, I kept wanting to apologize to my wife for bringing her through these terrible areas. She, who lived in Vancouver's downtown Eastside for five years. Hah.
We had dinner at the Harmony Grand Buffet, a place we'd been to once before with my mother and John. The food was much better that last time. Or at least we think it was. There were bright spots: their pizza was suprisingly delicious and some of their Chinese food, particularly the chow mein, was terrific. But the roast beef was tougher than a big old bull dyke, and the prime rib we'd been promised was nowhere in evidence. Still, the place has such a huge selection that you're sure to find at least a few things you like.
Back home, with a quick stop in at Blockbuster to ascertain that nope, there's nothing worth renting right now. And wow, it's after nine on a Saturday night. I can think of nothing better for us old marrieds to do than to go to bed, read for a time, and then drift off to sleep, knowing we can actually sleep in tomorrow morning. Heck, maybe even until seven a.m!