Emma About Town

Big day over here... Emma Abray ventured into the city - on the SUBWAY!!!! Even bigger and more exciting than that... she stayed AWAKE!!!!! We had a total girls day - went to the hair salon where I got my regular wax. Emma hung out with the manicure lady, thought about getting her nails painted, but decided against it. Maybe next time. Pink or red? After that we hit the shops. Walked to Yonge & Eglinton from Lawrence where we set out to find a bday gift for little Zoe Anastasia. Was hopeful to find something from Love Child, but alas... disappointment. Found an oh-so-cute black outfit, but seeing as I don't know her parents (or her), I thought it best to stick to pink. That said, little Zoe got nothing. And, for the first time ever, neither did Emma!
On a side note, I must mention that I thought the TTC would be far more wheelchair accessible than it was. Getting on at Finch station was easy... Elevator took us straight down to the subway platform. No problem at all. Even had a special wheel chair line that allowed us to skip right past the painfully long regular line providing we had our tokens (which we did). Then we arrived at Lawrence. Casually looked up & down the platform for the symbol of the little blue man in a wheelchair to guide me to the elevator. Didn't see one, but didn't think much of it. Walked down one way... just a super long escalator, and an even longer flight of stairs. Turned around and walked the other way. Ditto. Hmph. No elevator. What to do?? Looks like I only had two options - get my ass back on the subway and head home to an elevator-friendly land (and remain forever hairy), or attempt to take the stroller up the escalator. So up the escalator we went. Easy enough. Then we arrived at the top. I didn't realize there was a slight step off the thing. My front wheel got stuck, the stairs still moving, and I was pushed into the stuck stroller. Horrific as this was, it was made worse, much worse, when all the people behind me started slamming into me. At the end, we made it out alive. Scarred from the laughter of the others, but hair-free.

Anyhow, that led to the problem of getting home. Wasn't going to attempt going DOWN the escalator with the stroller, so decided to walk to Eglinton where there would have to be elevators. After some shopping (well, hey.. we were in the neighbourhood!) we made our way to the subway. Hit all four corners of Yonge/Eg... NO F*CKING ELEVATORS. I called Jeff in a panic to tell him to come down & pick up Emma. Of course, no answer. I wasn't quite prepared to take the bus all the way home just yet. Yonge & Eg has soo many stairs, none of which looked stroller friendly. Particarly not for a white girl as completely uncoordinated as myself. And then I saw him. Finally... a man in a WHEELCHAIR!! He'd know... and sure enough he did. Turns out it wasn't just me. It's not so easy. In case you ever need to know, you must continue walking south on Yonge, past TVO & The Mandarin to see a little hidden TTC elevator. Who knew?? Thank God for the wheelchair man. Point of my story... I was very disappointed in the TTC, and am left to wonder what do the disabled people who live at Lawrence do?