Well, how was your weekend? If it was like ours in Ottawa, you probably had more than your share of clouds and rain and welcomed yesterday’s blue skies, as we did. But we were fortunate enough to have our sweet four-year-old grandson Colin to light our way.
 
Morning cuddles and stories, long meals and plenty of play time made the weekend seem to fly by at the softest, most wonderful pace. We counted ourselves fortunate to have had this extra visit with the joy of our lives, having not planned to come to Ontario before this week until, of course, we lost our friend. 
 
Today, we’re back in the GTA with two visits scheduled (along with apologies to anyone else we had hoped to see this time around) and preparation for an all-day gig tomorrow at College Park’s famed event venue, The Carlu. Once again this year, I have the honour of emceeing the 2018 Performance Excellence Summit and the Canada Awards for Excellence.
 
Among those being honoured: Peter Mansbridge and Rick Mercer, and dozens of companies from across Canada which have met and far exceeded CAE’s stringent criteria. And once again my path will cross with that of friend, author and broadcaster Terry O’Reilly. So I’ll feel right at home. That always helps: when you’re doing a day-long event, having done it for years and being surrounded by people who feel like your friends really does help with the nerves. 
 
After tomorrow, we’re back at the airport, but this time heading east instead west towards home. I’ll fill you in on that later. 
 
Right now, a question: what kind of oven thermometer can’t survive high temperatures? 
 
On Saturday, we decided to treat Phil, Brooke and Colin to a homemade turkey dinner, since we aren’t hitting any of the usual festive meal occasions. We pulled together a pretty amazing meal, and about an hour before the bird was due to be finished (at 350 F for 4-5 hours) Rob inserted a thermometer that is clearly meant for meat. Here’s the proof. So yeah, no, it’s not our fault!
 

 
An hour later, sure that the turkey was ready to come out, Rob opened the oven to see this melting monstrosity.
 

 
Luckily, the malfunction didn’t in any way adversely affect our dinner and we still had a wonderful feast. But we do owe them a thermometer and will be finding one to replace the old melted one when we visit again this week.
 
Strange, though, right? I thought that other than Rob’s barbecued chicken incineration last year, I had the market cornered on high temp hi-jinx! 
 
Take care and we’ll be back here with you tomorrow.