A date night in terrible haiku

Do you remember when I shared that I wrote Matty a dirty haiku for our fifth wedding anniversary? Classy, I know. Today I thought I would share our most recent date night, the first night in almost five years where Matt and I were able to sleep in a separate house from our children (they were in a whole other town!), with some very badly written haiku poetry. Note to readers: I have at least one graduate degree in religion where I focused on the traditions of Asia, including Japan. This in no way, shape, or form has given me the slightest idea how to compose a haiku. Obviously.

Ready? Consider yourself warned.

The kids were not there

Too busy eating sugar

They love their Nana

My gracious, wonderful, looney mother offered to host Alyce and Shira for a sleepover on Saturday night. Between extended breastfeeding (yes, we're still doing that) and spending so much time living in Delaware away from free childcare family, this is the first opportunity for Matt and I to have real alone time together in almost five years. Five. Years. I happily packed up the girls and drove the hour to my mum's to deliver them. After a quick visit with mum and a few errands I was back on my way to Toronto. I was running a bit late and was excited to head out for dinner with Matt, eager as we were to have the best pizza in Toronto. A little too eager, it seems, because I was pulled over for making an illegal right-hand turn about two blocks from our house.

I turned the corner

Turned out that I shouldn't have

I got a ticket

No big deal. The kind police officer, who accidentally mistook me for a man (thanks, new hair cut!), was so embarrassed that he reduced my ticket by one hundred dollars. Whatever, it was date night. Soon Matt and I were headed downtown to enjoy what we hoped would be the best pizza in Toronto. Pizza is hands-down my favourite food and something I haven't mastered at home (my hand always pokes through the middle of the dough as I'm trying to stretch and shape my pizza crust). After some excellent advice from friends, and taking into consideration that we didn't want to spend our entire date waiting in line for a table at the busiest of restaurants, we chose Terroni, a decidedly popular place where a table seemed promising if we got there before seven. We ended up with a great seat at the bar and were grinning like fools.

Long story short, the pizza stopped me in my tracks. Yes, it was that good. It was almost a perfect dinner, with the exception of a ridiculous restaurant policy that prevented my dear husband from enjoying a white pizza, his favourite, without ham. After I ordered my pizza covered with roasted eggplant, zucchini, olives, and mushrooms, Matt asked for the white pizza, no ham. Oh no, our friendly bartender informed us, the kitchen does not allow anything to be removed from the pizzas. No matter our cries, pleas, or rational arguments, our bartender would simply not budge. What's a Jewish boy to do? Order the tomato and mozzarella, it turns out. Again, annoying, but whatever, it was date night.
 

The waiter said no

The ham must stay on the pie

We were so confused

There is nothing more ridiculous than a couple of parents enjoying the high brought on by someone else watching the kids for a night. We love our children, love them to pieces. But Saturday night could have thrown man-eating pandas at us and we wouldn't have cared too much about anything. I could share the rest of the details with you (well, not all of them), but mostly they would read like this: we ate frozen yogurt and grinned, strolled along Queen St at night and grinned, waited for the subway and grinned, watched three episodes of Sons of Anarchy, season four, and grinned (mostly). I hope we do this again before the next five years are up.

The house was quiet

But the cats were still annoying

It was a good date

The End.

P.S. Update: It seems that I'm not the only thinking in haiku tonight. Clearly, it is the season.