Toronto

This week, my brothers and sister and I surprised Dad, appearing in Toronto where he had sort of been lured to, to celebrate his 80th birthday. We rented a summer camp and had a big house to ourselves. We made all our own food, and this is Don, my brother, one of the chefs! We had a great time as a family, not having been together since 2000. Mom and Dad are both healthier than I - definitely still part of the "young old". We even had some time to tour old haunts, since they lived in Kitchener when they were first married, and I was born there. (The camp was near Kitchener.)

It was also so good to see Jayne, as she had just finished up her first year of university and was about to move off to Manitoba. I helped her box up about 400 pounds of books, and then we mailed them to Manitoba. I wonder when we will see Jayne next? It was hard to see her pull out of Toronto on the Greyhound, for the long ride to Winnipeg, just hours before I boarded a plane back to Basel. It is always hard to part, when you don't have a ticket, or at least a plan, in hand for the next visit. Hope we get to live nearer each other again sometime!

Bee Pops

Years ago, Raisin Bran was on sale for $1 a box, and the kids and I loaded up on 25 boxes. We always liked Raisin Bran, which you can't get here. In fact, Germany has awful cereals - this is Jackie's fav, called Bee Pops. Then there are about 5 different kind of cornflakes, all of which are pretty well exactly the same. There is even a chocolatey product called Choc Blops, and that's exactly what it looks like.

Germany also has an iced tea called Comet, and their main toilet paper is called Happy End - they've used a lot of English in the last decade, not all of it really that good a choice of words.

Anyway, here Jackie had asked for a "Bigger than Usual" bowl of Cereal, and this was her immediate response. Now if only the teenagers in our family were that easy to please!