I had a great weekend. My wife arrived on Friday evening, and we had a lovely dinner together at one of our favourite restaurants. There were a couple of minor snafu's by the kitchen staff. Nothing that we would have complained about, but on this day, the manager of the restaurant was doing the rounds, and he caught every shortcoming. As a result, we were treated to a free appetizer and one free entree. This made the meal that much more enjoyable. To be fair, however, the service was excellent, and we left a tip commensurate with the full value of the meal, not the amount we were charged.

Saturday, the plan was to meet my sister for lunch and seeing the movie Chicago with her. Prior to lunch, my wife and I went shopping. She had a couple of things she needed to buy, and we were hoping to find what she wanted. We did better than that. Not only did we find it, but we found it in the first place we looked. And the price was quite reasonable. That put my wife into an excellent frame of mind. We met up with my sister right on time, and had a pleasant meal together. My wife really gets along well with my sister, which makes our visits quite enjoyable. We had hoped to convince her to join us for "Chicago", but she declined. Since my wife and I had already seen this movie, we decided to watch the new Bruce Willis movie (Tears of the Sun). Had we known this was going to be like "The Killing Fields", we would have passed. It was a movie that really tugged at the heartstrings, but it was so gory, we could have done without it. Don't get me wrong... the movie was enjoyable, just not the type of fare we had bargained for on this romantic weekend.

After the movie, we headed down the road for the one-hour drive to Hamilton. Our daughter is living there while she attends college. She had just moved to a new apartment at the beginning of March, and we wanted to see the place. I wish I could describe how proud we are of her. She's done a remarkable job with the apartment, getting a good leg up on the furnishing and decorating of the place. She had to work that evening, and we arrived around dinner time, so we all went to dinner together. Since we had been forced to wait for a table at the restaurant, it was quite late when we got out. So, we decided to give her a ride to work. And, we decided to go inside and meet some of her coworkers.

And so started an adventure. The manager of the restaurant, it turns out, is also from Windsor. He's about the same age as our daughter, but already married. Anyway, he grew up in the west end of the city, within a half block of where my wife was raised! So my wife asked what his last name was. And it turned out she knew his mother! Better than that, his mother and my wife had grown up as childhood friends, having played "Barbies" together as 9-year olds! With this knowledge, it was as if the manager was a member of the family. He spent considerable time visiting our table, and talking about his mother, father, stepfather, aunts, uncles, and family friends. Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly at this point), my wife knew many of the people he mentioned. I sat there in amusement as they rehashed the early days of his mom's life. I don't think he wanted the conversation to end, but he finally bid us a fond farewell; and promised he'd tell his mother about the chance encounter. What do you think the odds are of something like this happening? Well, let's see... Windsor has over 200,000 people. Hamilton has over 660,000. And these cities are over 200 miles apart. Talk about coincidences!

After a quiet drive back to Toronto, and a good night's sleep, we woke up refreshed on Sunday morning and decided to do a bit of driving around the neighborhood before it was time for me to drive her to the train station. I'm glad she decided to spend the morning with me, instead of going to church as is her normal Sunday morning ritual. It's not that I begrudge her the time to pray, it's just that I was selfishly enjoying the weekend, and just didn't want it to end.

Despite spending our time together on Sunday, time still flew by too quickly, and at 2:00PM, it was time to say goodbye. Parting is always the most difficult time of our visits, and I'll be so happy when I'm back in Windsor for good. Until then, I miss her already!