My weekend: From oatmeal to a gruesome mothers day story

I had a great weekend. On Saturday we had breakfast at Tutti Frutti’s. It’s a Cora’s knock-off – all kinds of breakfast meals with fancy fruit sculptures. GC and I have sampled many of their offerings, and we’re finally ready to endorse the best meal and best deal on the menu.

(Insert drum roll here)

Porridge.

Seriously. They make real oatmeal – none of that instant packaged stuff – and they serve it in a big silver bowl along with a small pitcher of milk, brown sugar, a bowl of sliced strawberries and bananas to mix in, two pieces of toast, and a couple of fruit garnishes like a slice of orange and a slice of pineapple. And a piece of lettuce. (GC brings along a container of mixed spices – cinnamon, ginger and cardamom – to sprinkle on top.) All that for the crazy low price of $4.95. It’s delicious, nutritious, filling and inexpensive. You should try it.

After our porridge, we went to the Quilt Show at the RA Centre. We looked at hundreds of quilts and voted on our favourites in each category. There were art quilts and traditional quilts and hand-quilted quilts that must have taken years to finish. People quilt the oddest things. One person quilted the periodic table.

In addition to all the quilts, there were many dealers of quilting-related wares, such as fabric, sewing machines, cutting machines, tools and patterns. There was even a thread dealer – just thread! It reminded me of The House of Staples. At any rate, we managed to look at everything and buy nothing. (I attribute this accomplishment to my iron willpower and my recent vet bills.)

Here’s an observation: When you attend a quilting show with a man, everybody assumes he’s not a quilter. They crack jokes about how he’s just there “to carry the credit card.” And total strangers come up to him and suggest that he might like to look at the Harley Davidson quilt, which was made entirely of Harley-Davidson T-shirts from someone’s motorcycle travels around the country. Because, you know, it’s a manly quilt. And he’s a man.

After the Quilt Show, we went to a wedding party for some friends and fellow bloggers who had tied the knot earlier in the day. It was a lovely party and even the most jaded and cynical among us (XUP!) got all misty-eyed during the newlywed couple’s first dance.

We could only stay for a couple of hours because we had to go home and medicate both the dog and the cat. (These guys practically need their own Monday-Sunday pill containers now. Duncan, for example, has one antibiotic twice a day, one-eighth of an appetite stimulant every other day, and one-quarter of a Pepcid every day. Logan has one injection twice a day, plus liquid anti-inflammatories squirted on his supper.)

On Sunday GC went to Montreal to celebrate Mothers Day with his mom. Meanwhile, I went to The Table with my son and we ate delicious vegetarian food. He really liked it too, which made me happy since he’s not the world’s healthiest eater (he frequently frequents the poutine wagon), and mothers never stop hoping their children will acquire healthier habits, no matter how old they get.

After The Table we went to The Oak and drank cocktails. We had fun exchanging gruesome stories. I told him about a poor macaw locked in a tiny cage for 17 years. He told me about some creepy twins whose mother fell down the stairs.

I hope you all had as much fun this weekend as I did.