Last week in review: Toronto, Erie, Pittsburgh

I finally did it. I left the country. It may surprise some of you that I had never before left the US. Actually, I can almost guarantee that it surprises none of you. That I am a homebody is the least well-kept secret I have. That I hate flying in airplanes is the second least well-kept secret I have. Thus, a drive into Canada seemed both very do-able and very non-threatening. I was there on business, so it's not as if I did any looking around, although, to be fair, I noticed no differences to America--aside from the maple leaf flags everywhere. I guess I was expecting some definite 'you are on foreign soil' indicators. The only way I knew I was crossing the border at all was the intense grilling by the guy checking my passport. "Why are you coming to Canada?" Visiting a customer. "Who is the customer?" Joe Schmoe Labels. "Where are they located?" Toronto. "What kind of business are you in?" The label business. "What do you do with labels? We make them. "What is the nature of the relationship to this customer?" They purchase from us. "What do they purchase?" Labels, genius boy. "How long are you staying?" Two days. "Besides clothes, are you traveling with anything else?" No. As it turned out, I had forgotten my pajamas, so I really didn't even have the clothes.

I also took a day trip this week to Erie, PA with two of my closest girlfriends in Cleveland. They are both about to finish law school, and one of them will be moving back to Zion in a matter of weeks. Do I hate her for it? Yes. I hate Uncle Jamie! Erie, PA has been on my short list of places to visit, as it's close to Cleveland, and it is, as I'm sure you will recall, where the band is supposedly from in the movie That Thing You Do. There was just something about being there that made me think about Lenny, laugh, and text my little brother to tell him where I was. Which in turn made him think about Lenny, laugh, and text me back. Long live the Oneders. An interesting feature of Erie is the presence of several huge frog statues. We saw the first one as we made a wrong turn into a parking lot, and it definitely seemed picture worthy. We were delighted to find a second one by the lake, and still a third on our way to the peninsula. Of course, by the time we saw a fourth and fifth frog, the act of stopping to take pictures of them had significantly lost its appeal.

And then I spent the weekend in Pittsburgh meeting some of my boyfriend's family. Said boyfriend deserves a post of his own soon, as he is pretty much wonderful. It's always somewhat stressful meeting the family, as you never know what you're going to get (to be fair, I suppose they don't either). Some parents and siblings make it clear that they are not impressed, that you need to prove you are worthy of their son/brother. And while I've realized that every parent/sibling may feel this way inside, for one is never NOT worried about the well-being of a family member, not all parents/siblings have the ability and make the effort to make people feel comfortable in their home. I believe making people feel comfortable is a gift, and this family's got it. And I was such a fan of having him around to say goodnight and to wake me up in the morning. I could get used to that. Not in an I'm-going-to-start-living-in-sin way (get your mind out of the gutter, people), but in a wouldn't-it-be-nice-to-be-married way. And that, my friends, is a new and delightful-yet-terrifying feeling.