When the guy in front of you orders a Triple Triple you know you’re not at Starbucks. This is Tim Horton’s country, my friends.

If this is Horton’s country, it must be Ontario and three milks and three sugars in your coffee is perfectly fine. A bit unusual, but fine.

Mom and I drove today from Ottawa — where we spent 3 days around Christmas — to Toronto. We took the scenic route out Highway 417 and then down 15 through Smith Falls passing numerous beautiful stone house and churches in between.

The architecture is one of the things I miss most about Ontario, particularly the old churches. On Christmas Eve I headed just down the road from my brother’s house to a large and stunningly beautiful French Canadian Catholic church to look for a midnight mass, but found it closed. It seems that since it was a Sunday they simply performed their normal early evening mass. I took photos of the church nonetheless.

I also saw my Grandmother today, for the second time on this trip. On Saturday she was not well and today she didn’t remember that previous visit. Her mind was sharp today, but her body was not — she lay there, with her eyes closed the entire time. When I asked her why she just said that she liked to keep them closed. We talked about other things.

These visits are hard, as spread out as they are. I’m never quite sure how aware she’s going to be or how much she’ll want to talk (sometimes not at all, sometimes quite a bit.) Still…they’re important. I may get a chance to visit her again on Sunday, but we will have to see if time allows. It does seem likely to be my last chance.

I ended the day watching Snowcake which is an excellent movie filmed in Wawa, Ontario and staring Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss. Well worth seeing, although I don’t feel like giving away anything of the plot which starts with a shock to the system. The movie unfolds from there as a slice of life, and a reasonably satisfying one at that.

Posted by skooter at 8:01 PM This entry is filed under Family, Travel.
This entry is tagged: Coffee, Grandma, Tim Hortons