We had a successful trip to Ikea last week so we've been able to almost finish unpacking. The apartment is in much better shape although I'm not quite ready to take pictures of it yet. We got a rental van from U-Haul to cart all the stuff back home. They claimed it would cost $20 + kilometers which would be a better deal than the $60 delivery charge from Ikea. I know there are often extra charges but I thought I'd at least be able to avoid getting insurance. Unfortunately that is mandatory now so by the time everything was added up the cost was about $60. Which is equivalent to the cost of delivery. Fortunately we added value by using the van to get a ton of groceries from No Frills and Costco.

Also from Costco I picked up a spice rack. Matt had one at our old place and I liked having it because adding new spices to food makes it more interesting. So I got the big 25-jar spice rack hoping to store the five different spices I currently own and slowly accumulate new ones as I learn what to do with them. But when we got home and opened it, all the jars were already full of spices!! This may seem like a deal but I feel robbed of the opportunity to choose my own spices and learn about them. Plus I have no where to put the spices I already own, which was the main purpose of the purchase. I guess I can try to learn about the spices that came with it, but that feels too much like someone else making my spicing decisions for me. And I think empty jars would have been more motivating than jars filled with strange, even frightening looking substances.

Today I was in Ilderton helping Kim finish clean out her old apartment and we had supper with my Mom which was pretty good too. My cousins Shannon and David showed up just before supper because they were skiing at Boler Mountain all day (which is right next to my mom's place). They were able to stay for supper which was great since I normally only see them on holidays and other family events.

I had to come back to Toronto tonight because I'm off to Montreal on a business trip tomorrow. Plus I have to go to John's house in the morning to help test out some new holds for his climbing wall. Should be fun!

The trip back today was...interesting. I had two large suitcases containing the rest of Kim's stuff so I had to take a taxi from the bus station home. I maybe could have walked and dragged them here, but that would have been a massive schlep and I figured it would be better to take the $7 ($10 tops) cab ride. Boy was I wrong. "Something," is happening in Toronto tonight (no idea what) but when "something" happens the roads around our buildings kinda explode/implode on themselves with the result that driving times increase exponentially as you approach Front Street. Well all seemed well when I came in on the bus, but between the time I got off the bus and the taxi got to about Adelaide and Simcoe the traffic explosion hit. It took another half an hour from that point to get to my building. The fare was over $25 by the time we got here but I only had $20 in cash. Rather than spend time mucking about with my credit card the driver just took the twenty and drove off muttering all the way. If I had come into the city five minutes earlier I would have missed the traffic completely. And looking out my window now I can see that it is entirely cleared up only fifteen minutes after I got home. Crazy.