Another Year Round The Sun

On Sunday, my mom and I headed to the other side of Ottawa. We wanted to save some money so took public transit to downtown first before hailing a cab for the rest of the trip. But the extra $20 in our pocket wasn't worth that hour-long commute because the distance to downtown would have taken 10 minutes by car.

My grandma was celebrating her 95th birthday. We don't usually host family gatherings at my youngest uncle's place since it was a smaller home. But ever since her fall earlier in the year, she hasn't left the house, not even for a get-together last Easter. There was just enough room because, even though there was still a lot of folks from the extended family, 8 people were on vacation. The food was home-cooked fare such as spring rolls, lo mein noodles with shrimp and beef, egg fried rice, glass noodles with fresh veggies from the garden, and green papaya salad with maple syrup beef jerky. The one exception was a Tiramisu birthday cake from Costco.

I caught up on the latest family going-ons. My cousin brought her second newborn (there's a big age gap between me and most of my cousins). Her partner was a bus driver and confirmed my suspicion that there was no active monitoring with the OC Transpo. So it was up to each driver to keep to their schedule or not, depending on their work ethic. No wonder transit was so bad in Ottawa. Another cousin had upgraded from their starter home because of a rambunctious first-born. It was a nicer house but these sort of decisions (in my opinion) continue to sustain the housing bubble. A few aunts were planning a trip back to the old country for next year. Speaking of which, my uncle who sponsored us all to Canada all those decades ago made an appearance. Other than my grandma, we haven't seen him since the start of the pandemic.

At the end of the evening, as we were packing up, my eldest cousin dropped by for a quick hello. They had just landed after a 3-week trip to Europe. An avid traveller of the "squeeze as much in as possible" kind, this time it was London, Brussels, Budapest, Prague and Vienna (and places close to those cities). I reflected on the contrast between us. In the last 25 years, I've lived in Toronto with its big-city amenities but rarely travelled. Meanwhile, they resided in suburbia but have visited 100+ places all over the world as vacation time permitted. On the whole though, I prefer my sedate lifestyle but filled with the daily pleasures of local shops, modest eats, park hangs, enjoyable routine, music, art, and culture.