You give me $50 and I spend $57

I am one of the people on our newspaper's United Way committee. The United Way raises money for numerous different non-profits in our region such as Interval House, which is our shelter for abused women.
To raise money, we've held several different events at The Whig such as a potluck lunch, a putting challenge and a Chilifest. I also did a quiz about people in our building. (I.E. Which person in the newsroom starred in a production at Queen's University that received one out of five stars from the campus paper?) Ah, that would be me. Anyways. I needed a prize to give the winner. Who doesn't love prizes? So, out of the blue, I called Fanatics, a fairly new restaurant in Kingston at the corner of Princess and Barrie streets. It's a sports bar, but nice inside. The booths have their own TVs, there are big screen TVs around the bar and the food is by the legendary Kingston cuisine family, the Days. Clark Days runs Aqua Terra in the Radisson in downtown and makes the best steaks in the city. Also, the restaurant's brunch is a bargoon: Waffles, creme brulee, fish, pasta, roast beef, dessert trays, chicken, bacon, fresh bread, it goes on and on. But that's another story. Anyway. Back to Fanatics. I called Matt Day, who is Clark's son and asked if his restaurant would donate a $10 or $15 gift certificate to be my prize for our United Way quiz.
He said no - no $10 or $15 gift certificate.
Instead, he said he'd give me $50.
This is an important offer. First of all, Fanatics is a fairly new restaurant in a large space in a downtown already inundated with restaurants. To me, it would have been understandable to give me $10. His restaurant is just starting out. Second, he doesn't know me. He really had no reason to help me other than that I said it was in support of the United Way.
So, thank you Matt and Fanatics. Your generosity already paid off.
Tonight, my family and I went to the restaurant and had a chili pizza, two glasses of red wine, bread and spinach and artichoke dip and the kid's pizza - you get unlimited drinks, pizza, pasta, chicken fingers or mini burgers, and an ice cream sundae for $6.99. The thing I love most about this "sports bar" is that they had seven red wines by the glass and we had a delicious shiraz. There are many bars in the city you can get a good red in. And we'll be back. My son loved the TVs. (And the drink menus are attached to hockey pucks, which any hockey-loving toddler will enjoy).
Pay it forward.



And here is the rest of it.

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Wanted: A jock strap to fit a two-year-old!

I swear we were looking for a rake.
We have a large red maple in our backyard that coats our lawn and another maple on our front lawn that blankets that grass, too.
My son was asking for a rake and so, I thought, it could only be a good thing to teach him some manual labour at the tender age of two.
When I was a kid (and a teen), I hated doing yard work with my parents. I always had this silly thought that the cool kids were going to be driving by my house at the same time I was raking and they'd think I was a loser. But here's the thing: from the yard, with a rake in your hand, it may seem like the cool kids are driving by in slooooomo mocking you, but when you're in a car, driving by someone's house, you don't have time to assess everything going on in the street, have time to mock the raker, and then look cool driving away. Plus, there's no shame in helping your parents.
Except, we couldn't find a toy rake anywhere, so we headed to the used kids' stores, where we've found some incredible deals.
The second we walked in the door of one of the stores, my son saw "them." They were on the floor, a little dusty, basically hidden under a rack of kids' winter coats and snow pants.
"Skates!" my son screamed.
For the past month, my son has been asking for skates. But he's two. Whose two-year-old has ice skates?
Ah, mine does.
If he wasn't my son, I'd think he had wacko parents who were forcing him to pick up a stick and wear skates in the hopes of being the next Sidney Crosbie, er, Crosby.
My son is an interesting study in nature versus nurture. I can't skate. His father, however, is a goalie and his 15-year-old brother plays rep hockey.
As soon as our toddler son turned one, he became obsessed with all things hockey and never left the house without a hockey stick. This isn't something we forced on him; it was something he wanted to do. In fact, I promptly put him in music lessons to counteract his obsession with the (outrageously expensive) game. But he persevered.
In the summer and fall, we played hockey in the driveway. In the winter, we were forced into the garage. Sure, he's had a wandering eye (he is male, after all). He had a thing for diggers and, for awhile, he couldn't get enough of screwdrivers, but lately, it has been all hockey all the time.
I don't know how he spotted these skates, but there they were: size eight skates and just $10.
We bought them and brought them home. He walked across our lawn in his skates to show the neighbours, ate his dinner sitting on the couch wearing them and went to bed with his skates on his night table so he could see them as he fell asleep.
When his father got home later that night, and went into our son's room to give him a good-night kiss, he woke up, pointed at his skates, and in his sleep whispered: "I bought skates!"
The next morning, my son woke up, got his skates and carried them to the breakfast table.
"Mommy. I need a homot." A what? "A homot."
So, there we were, first thing on a Sunday morning at Canadian Tire, with all the other hockey parents.
We grabbed a helmet, made for two-to-five-year-olds, (seriously, what two-year-old needs to skate?) and headed home. But when we got home, my son had one final request: "I need goves," he announced.
We told him no-no, there would be no gloves. A few minutes later, he appeared with an old pair of volleyball knee pads on his hands. "Goves!" he shouted with glee. I don't even want to know what he's going to do with his Winnie The Pooh sippy cup.
And here is the rest of it.

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