O Canada

Mark and I are on a mini-break to Toronto - we're going to see R.E.M in about half an hour, and generally tourist around the city. I should be enjoying myself, but I have been beset with worries about all the things that could go wrong. I'm a chicken shit flyer, despite all the comforting statistics, and I have this superstition that bad things will happen to my kids, especially John, whenever I go out of town. I 've even worried that my cell phone would not work in Canada, because the last time I was here, 2003, eons ago in in cell phone technology, my phone did not work.

The flight from Madison was uneventful, Al is safely at camp, and the cell phone is working just fine (albeit that I suspect it is costing me a small fortune ... 91 cents a minute, plus $3 per day, plus all applicable fees). In fact, John called me, right after we had checked into the hotel room, and I was trying to make the wireless Internet work. At that point all was OK, for the most part - they were packing to leave Las Vegas, heading for the Hoover Dam & Grand Canyon. They have hit that point in the trip that I predicted where they're getting sick of each other and are ready to just motor home.

We found a place to eat here in Toronto, casual Italian, thin crust pizzas and salads, and almost as soon as we were seated my phone rang and they had got rear-ended at Hoover Dam, probably someone rubbernecking to see the Dam, who hit the back of our car. John was getting harassed by a trooper who wanted to see his insurance card, and registration; he couldn't find the registration, I might have to get another from WiDOT, and the only insurance card he had was expired. But he put the trooper on and I verified the number and that settled that, except for me being indignant for John, who after all was the victim in this case.

And except for now having a whole new raft of worries, the rear ended car breaking down in some remote part of AZ, or even worse Texas, where the locals will look unkindly on this car load of art students; one of them falling asleep at the wheel as they push to get home ....

I hope that the charm I related to John - maybe silly stuff like getting rear ended will use up all your bad luck - works.

And maybe we'll get lucky and R.E.M will open with Pretty Persuasion, like they did May 29 in L.A.