Once we left the gallery, we headed down Murray Street toward Khao Thai for some lunch.

It’s not entirely often that we know exactly what we want, often standing there sort of buffering with indecision or an maybe even an unwillingness to make the first move on a meal out, but on Saturday we knew exactly what would make sure that the day continued on a good track: noodles.

It had been a number of years since I have visited the longstanding Market restaurant (well, longstanding as far as restaurants tend to be), and their pretty good selection of vegetarian and vegan options made it a lovely choice for a snowy afternoon.

Tummies full, we bundled back up in time for the Market to become a bit of a snow globe and headed to Paper Papier to look for a day planner/calendar for Kathleen (she’s a paper girlie) and – if they had it – a shimmery lavender ink that she has had her eye on. The latter was not there, but we did leave with calendar! It’s always a delight to spend time in there. Between the lovely papers, cards, and pens, it is also host to a flower shop that fills the store with a really wonderful scent.

Our final stop was at the Rideau Centre. While neither of us are really too fond of visiting the mall (least of all during Christmas), we had a particular mission: to choose our Lego set for Christmas morning.

Last year’s set was an appropriately queer-coded downtown sort of scene, so we knew we wanted something that could relate. Kathleen spotted our choice on a shelf at Imaginaire¹ and (after a little indecision, of course) we knew it had to be: a street car! Afterall, the cute lil’ minifigure versions of ourselves would not be able to afford to live in that area, and we don’t have (or want) a car, so public transit it is!

---

1. There is a Lego Store in the mall and, while the staff has always been unfailingly lovely, their stock is far too focused on the licensed properties and not enough on the non-IP sets. Fortunately, Imaginaire, a Quebec-based hobby chain, is upstairs and has a wider variety of Lego sets. ↩︎