Tipping Point: Part 1

There comes a time during every vacation when a tipping point is reached.  From that moment things can either go horribly wrong or turn around and head back to the good.

Our first day and a half in Toronto were perfect.  We go most summers to a live theater festival called The Fringe and we love it so much.  JD and I stumbled upon it about 10 years ago during one of oor “drop the kids at the grandparents and get 48 hours of freedom” trips that used to comprise at least part of our visits home to his folks’ place.  Since then, we gone back more times than we’ve not.  This festival also falls during the city’s “Summerlious” weeks and we’ve eaten some amazing food over the years on the cheap.

Last year we decided to see if the girls were old enough to enjoy the festival and the food.  They were and they did.  When we tossed about the idea of not going this year there were loud protests.  So off we went.

And like I said, the first day and a half were perfect.  We saw a play that we are still talking about and we ate an incredible meal at one of our favorite TV chef’s resturant.  We got into see every play we wanted and although one of them was terrible (some of the fun is not knowing what you are going to get), we were having a great time.  Even the heat wave that brought soaring temperatures couldn’t bring down our spirits.

The next day was a different story.  First of all, know what happens when the children go to bed past midnight several nights in a row?  Even if you let them sleep until 10 am?  You get cranky tired children.  Then we just missed getting tickets to a play that we really wanted to see and had to watch people that had just seen it go on and on about how good it was knowing that we had missed our last chance.

Boo.

Then the fun really began.  I’ll just say that we then went into one of those marital things were you both think you are doing something that the other wants when actually neither of you want the thing you are trying to make happen and it just ends badly.  This resulted in a mad dash to a cab, another missed show, a return subway ride back to the original box office where we missed buying advance tickets to the next show we wanted by 7 minutes and finally another subway ride to an Indian restaurant where we collapsed on the bench outside to wait for it to open while Elena declared that she didn’t like ANY INDIAN FOOD AT ALL.

This was right after I looked back at one point during one of our mad dashes to either the subway or the cab (it’s all a big blur now) and saw the girls walking a good 5 yards behind us.  Katie said that she had advised Elena to stay at least that far behind us so that neither of them would get a collateral grounding just because we were so mad at each other.

This was our tipping point.

Tomorrow:  Part 2