The Mother of All Days

Well, it was like the Perfect Storm yesterday--several little happy-storms all converging at once. On any given day, it would have been exciting to have breakfast with Mam and Grandad, who live in Halifax and see Spilly only once or twice a year. It would have been exciting to go to Flapjacks. It would have been thrilling to attend a Beatles concert. And it would have been very nifty indeed to go to a Quebecois restaurant for dinner to eat crepes and chat in French with the waiter.

But to do it ALL in one DAY....?

We met with Mam and Grandad in the morning at their hotel, and whisked them away for breakfast, before returning them to the hotel to get ready for their flight to Portugal (we are joining them there in 5 weeks, for March Break). Of course we took them to Flapjacks, where the owner gave Spilly her usual royal treatment.

When we had dropped them off again, we headed into Toronto, arriving at the Sony Centre an hour early to PICK UP REPLACEMENT TICKETS FOR THE SHOW. Having got the tickets, we hung out downstairs and ate multigrain cheerios until it was time to go to our seats. And I started feeling all sentimental because I first went to this theatre (it was called the O'Keefe Centre in those days) when I was about Spilly's age.

We got to our seats and admired the movie screens and purple curtain for quite awhile. We talked through how these were not the REAL Beatles (Spilly is quite a Beatles fan, with Beatles posters on her wall in her room and most of their appropriate lyrics memorized, so we needed to clarify).

Then the show started with a recreation of Ed Sullivan on the movie screens, introducing the Beatles from 1964 (we have this performance on tape at home). And of course when the moment came for the Beatles to start performing, up came the curtain, and the lights, and there they were onstage.

Spilly turned to me and shrieked above the music, "Mommy, it IS THEM! It's REALLY THEM!"

And she was so enchanted by this, that I found myself getting even more sentimental. I am taking Spilly to a real, live Beatles concert, I was thinking. And with the screaming crowd and the fab four sounding just like the FAB FOUR, I could almost believe it.

But at intermission, it all came crashing down. "I know it's actually not the real Beatles," Spilly said.

"Oh," I said, partly disappointed. "Yes, that's true."

"Do you know how I know?"

"How?"

"Because John and George are dead. REMEMBER?"

At some point in the past, this fact had come to light. The moral of the story is, be very careful about what you say to Spilly, because it will come back to haunt you.

"Yes," I said, "I do remember that now, I think."

"So John and George are actors in the show. But Paul and Ringo are real. It's the real Paul and Ringo."

"Okay, yes." And I was half-guilty and half-relieved.

We twisted and shouted. We sang along to Hey Jude. We danced to Sergeant Pepper. And at the end Spilly personally clapped hard enough to bring the boys back onstage.

After the show, exhausted from all that dancing and singing and standing on the chair, we made our way through the slushy streets, hoods up against the snow that had started falling again. And we headed to the restaurant Mommy had first gone to when she was Spilly's age, after attending a show at the same concert hall Spilly had just been to. It's a lovely French restaurant, called Le Papillon. It's been in Toronto for a million years. It has trees inside it, with lights in them.

The child ate escargot, and only balked momentarily when we told her they were snails. Then: "can I have some more?" She had smoked salmon and capers. She enjoyed her Crepe Philippe very much. And then came dessert. We coached her, and when the Quebecois waiter came to take her order, she said, "Creme glace, s'il vous plait."

"Oh, mademoiselle!" he said. "You speak French!" And with the creme glace came complimentary chocolate sauce. And with the chocolate sauce came the Maitre d'e. She said, "I hear there is a princess in the restaurant, Mademoiselle. Or maybe you are a duchess?"

And Spilly yet again surrounded herself with slavish admirers.

Sigh. Today is going to be a letdown.