The past week has been a good one for reflection about my stage in life. My youngest daughter arrived on Tuesday from out of town to prepare for a reading from her newly published first book of short stories. We spent the day catching up on news and seeing a movie. The next day, her sister and my youngest grandson arrived in town for the big event, to be held at Harbourfront Centre that evening. I was delegated to meet the new arrivals, get lunch with them, and somewhat entertain them until the appointed time to meet at the hotel where they would all stay that night. We had lunch at a very small Turkish restaurant near the bus depot. The food was freshly prepared and delicious. I chose the lamb kebabs with a side salad. It was delicious and – even - beneficial. My grandson (9 years old), a picky eater at best, lunched mainly on home-made bread dipped sparsely into a plate of rather delicious hummus. My daughter had a very nice looking salad and ultimately finished off the hummus that was left by my grandson, which was most of it.

Later, we wandered through the main Chinatown area of Toronto - there are at least 3 of them, I understand - to the enchantment of my grandson, who lives in small town Ontario, where there isn’t a great deal of any one thing except fresh air and friendly people. Hey, you can’t knock THAT! We ended up taking a brief tour of Kensington Market before getting onto a streetcar to go to the hotel located at Harbourfront.

While my grandson swam in the hotel's spacious pool, I attended the pre-reading dinner with my daughter and the other authors who were participating in the evening. The special was striped bass with veggies, and I opted for that over most of the pizza/pasta items on the menu. It was delicious, light and boneless, and though I’d packed a couple of remedies in case I had a gastric attack, I didn’t need to use them. When I got home and checked my book, I was shocked to find that all bass are avoid for B nonnies. Beginner’s luck, I think.

The next two days, I was scheduled to participate in high school retreats organized by the separate school board, which I won’t go into at this point in time. Perhaps later. They were long days – I left home shortly after 7 and got home at 3:30, carrying a heavy back pack both ways. By the end of the week, I was really tired. I still am, actually. So tired that I went out on Saturday and bought some of my favourite very dark (60%) German chocolate on Saturday and ate too much of it. I know I ate too much of it, because I was somewhat headachey on Sunday morning, with both of my hips aching for a couple of hours after I got up. They ache after I consume sugar to any extent, but won’t if I am careful about avoiding the sweet traps of the world. Most of the time I can, but every now and then I slip, like most other people.

Upon awakening yesterday morning, the words from the Streets of Laredo (an old cowboy song) were singing themselves in my mind – “so beat the drum slowly and play the fyfe lowly” – perhaps an inner warning to slow down slightly!

Since then I have been pondering the indisputable fact that as we age we are not able to snap back into shape as quickly as we could when we were younger (or is that another misremembered myth?). I might actually be feeling less tired right now if I had known that bass is avoid (I only know a few of the beneficial fish on my list) and I had resisted the overwhelming desire to eat chocolate beyond reasonable limits. One thing I do know, and that is that I wouldn’t have missed last week for anything! It was priceless to see my daughter’s moment of glory, something she has worked toward for years and years, and to be included in her moment by accompanying her to the dinner where I met some wonderful and gifted writers was something that can never be measured.

If anyone wants to check out her book, it’s called So Beautiful, published by Porcupine’s Quill. My daughter’s name is Ramona Dearing. The reviews have been excellent.