Big Birthday Weekend

Today was both Alex and Z's birthday. We started the celebrations on Saturday with a Dim Sum lunch at Cha Lui near Yonge and Eglinton. The food was very good, although it was not typical Dim Sum in that you had to order from a menu (rather than choose dishes from roaming carts.) My boys have become very adventurous eaters so we tried lots of different dishes.

I got a massive headache that afternoon and it's still hanging on, two days later. So I rested most of Saturday afternoon and through the day Sunday, skipping mass and choir. Finally, early this morning, I succumbed to taking my prescription headache meds. The problem with these beautiful blue capsules is that I get a big ugly red lesion below my lip every time I take them. So I am always balancing vanity with the severity of my headache. The balance tipped at 3:00 am this morning and I popped two. By dawn, I felt well enough slap on some coverstick and head downtown with my sweetie for a birthday outing to the ROM (as he took the day off from work today.)

We decided to leave the car at a station close to home and take the subway downtown. We purchased a family membership to the ROM and then headed upstairs to C5, the chic little dining establishment on the fifth floor of the new Lee Chin Crystal addition to the museum.

The meal was fabulous. I can't even begin to describe what we had...the only way it could have been better would have been if I was feeling up to drinking wine (with my meds) and if for some reason they hadn't seated most of the guests very close together, even though the room wasn't very full.

After lunch, we wandered through a few of the exhibits in the museum, in particular the ones on Cyprus and Egypt. I found these items to be particularly interesting.

This is an Egyption sculpture of a calf being born:

And here are a selection of mummified animals, including cats, a hawk, a duck, and a crocodile:

And this grimacing head:

We left the museum and popped into Remenyi House of Music so that I could pick up a copy of the vocal score for Handel's Messiah. There are a couple of "Sing-Along Messiahs" coming up in the next month and I hope to get to one.

While we were on Bloor Street, I got this shot of the Royal Conservatory of Music. I lived at Bloor and Spadina for a year when I attended University of Toronto 20-some years ago and never noticed what a beautiful building it is. There is a lot of construction going on there and it will be even more lovely when complete.

By 3:00, we hopped back on the subway, grabbed the car, and made a quick stop at Costco before heading home. Sadly, my headache returned so I'm back on the meds. But it was a peaceful, enjoyable day out with my sweetheart,