Chris, No. 1 Son

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Our No. 1 son Christopher dropped in for a visit on his way home to Dresden, Germany from a conference he had been to in Orlando, Florida. Chris is a wonderful young fellow whom we have known for many years (since Nierstein in 1994). He's the son of my one of my best friends — Martin who was in graduate school with me back in the late 1970's. Chris thinks of us as his No. 2 Mom & Dad, we affectionately call him our No. 1 son. For years now (since 1979) we have called Chris' gran, Martin's mom, our No. 2 mom. It's all a bit of a joke given that we don't have any children of our own. Martin says we're trying to steal his family!

We are really grateful to Amy, Chris' wife, who probably would have liked him to dash home immediately after the conference. They have three kids that need tending and one of their cats had a nasty episode that required veterinary attention — hard to do on a weekend with three kids in tow! Someday, when the kids are bigger, perhaps the whole gang can come for a visit. Chris says they might do that now if we were to pay for business class seats for all of them. I suppose it would be cheaper for us to visit them in Germany. We're of an age where business class is the only way to fly.

Chris first visited with us here in Canada back in 2005 for our 25th anniversary and we visit one another on either side of the big pond whenever we can. Last year he stopped in around the same time on a similar conference trip to Florida. This time we picked him up at YYZ (the Toronto airport) on Friday afternoon and returned him to the same on Tuesday afternoon. I greeted him at the airport arrivals area with a sign in German: "Willkommen aus dem Gefängnis zu Hause" (Welcome home from prison). He was the only one who read the sign but he didn't get the joke! Is Florida a prison?

During our visit we had some adventures including the 20th Anniversary of the Rizdales at the Richmond Tavern in London. One night Chris and I stayed up late playing "Pick a tune" and rolling up some Widder Wowie that I had grown in our garden. Chris tries to turn me onto Jeff Beck (yes, he's a great guitarist, but no, it's not my style) while I try to turn him onto Country & Americana (yes, that's a nice song but it's not Jeff Beck). There's no winning there.

We had several interesting meals including a Sunday lunch at the Bluebird Cafe in Stratford (I might have told Chris about the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville but that would be a futile attempt to bring up Country & Americana music again). On the way home from the Bluebird (it's a really nice restaurant, highly recommended) we stopped at the garden center in Sebringville to load up on plants and things for the garden.

On Monday we put Chris to work bringing plants out of the house onto the deck and outside for the summer. I got the seedlings planted in our garden — tomatoes, jalapenos and habaneros. Chris likes hot peppers and grows them as well. He got to sample some of my pickled habaneros which I find blindingly hot ... and they are. Chris tells me the trick to them is to take out the seeds and only pickle the flesh which, while hot, is tasty and bearable. I'll have to try that. There's also that advice about wearing gloves while seeding the peppers, to not rub your eyes, and to be especially careful washing your hands before going for a pee!

That evening, after our hard work in the garden, we went for dinner in Stratford at the Braai Bar. We thought we were going to the Braai House, which is upstairs with a nice outdoor patio, but ended up in the down stairs bar/patio (ie. the Braai Bar). We ate in the patio area rather than inside which has been redecorated but has more of a dark bar feel than a restaurant. The downstairs used to be called the Keystone Alley, this is a recent change over. Chris and I shared a huge grilled "Tomahawk Steak". The Braai House is one of our favorite restaurants. It specializes in South African food — a "braai" is a wood fired grill.

On our last day we put Chris to work again. We're getting our basement re-carpetted and had to move all the furniture out of the way. With Chris' help we got it done. I couldn't have done it otherwise.

Many thanks to Amy, Charlotte, Sebastian and baby Emily for letting us share some time with Chris.