What a wonderful weekend!

We had a very busy weekend. M and I managed to go to the 2nd of our season's plays - a one-woman show by Anita Majumdar, called The Misfit. Fantastic actress - she tackles 6 characters - who was also trained in formal Indian dance. Blurb says: "The Misfit introduces us to Naznin, a respected, Canadian born Kathak dancer, with a dark past. After running off with an Indian hotel steward/aspiring pop singer boyfriend (Lucky Punjabi), Naznin is disowned by her parents all in the name of “honour”. In India she finds asylum as a choreographer for a dance troupe that performs classical Indian dance to English MTV pop music at wedding receptions. As we travel through the play, we soon discover that Naznin isn’t the only dancer to fall victim to her community’s hunger for misogyny." Really worth seeing if she comes to your town. Then we ate a tasty veggie meal at a local Ethiopian restaurant (we have many within 15 minutes walk).

Saturday was cooking and preparing for our Night of Dread gathering. Seb made kleenex ghosts - one for each guest so they could identify their main fears and chase them away. I made roast tomato and blue cheese soup - yum, plus we had 2 dips and a large batch of pumpkin muffins. At 4, people started to arrive lugging pumpkins. We soon transformed them into a range of jack o'lanterns. Our French babysitter Alice showed up for her first carving session. No blood was spilled, though the adults did most of the work. We had so many people carving that we spilled out into the backyard (check out our late harvest grapes. I'm thinking of making ice wine!). I love how our "flame" Le Creuset pots look like stove-top pumpkins!

Then at 5.30, we headed out the door with a muffin in hand and everyone (who wanted) had a thermos of plain or spicy (Mexican) hot chocolate. We walked over to Dufferin Grove to watch and walk with the Night of Dread parade. We ended up back at the park an hour later and watched the first bit of the ghouls being chased away by the fire dancers (blazing hoola hoops!). It wasn't cold, but it was getting late so some of us headed back home for the hot food.

Very early on Sunday, M left for Montreal to be a helpful son-in-law. The kids were up at the normal time, so we made more muffins (Dewson St pumpkin muffins are to be recommended). Then at 9.30, Seb's friend Xin was dropped off and we headed to the first of 3 plays that we had given him as a birthday present. Sophie was dropped with the babysitter for a few hours and the boys and I got to ride the front seat of the TTC subway. The production was fine (bit young but they chose it) and Seb got right into the sing-along ,wave your hands bit.

We then spent the afternoon at the ROM with Sophie and 500 other kids and parents. That's where I snapped the archeologists hard at work and the one of Seb befriending a living statue. In that, you can see the ladybird costume he wore all day.

We got home in one piece, had supper and a bath, read books and I still managed to walk out their door at 8 pm.

What a great weekend!