July 31, 1993: Was she right like a broken clock or did she see my daughter's gender 19 years ahead?

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday morning my daughter woke ahead of me and got me up. After breakfast and a little indoor play, we got ready and headed for Parkdale. We played on Sunnyside Beach and some little girl kicked sand in her face. Then a woman with a cigarette came to comfort her. Then she asked me, "Where's her sun hat?" As it would be another nineteen years before my daughter Astrid would tell me she was a girl, I responded to the woman, "He doesn't have one". She asked, "Why do you say he? It's a she". I told her, "I know what sex my own child is!" But she argued, "I'll set you straight right now! This is a girl!" I quietly went over and took my daughter away from her because I thought that I realized the woman was insane. We went to the playground where she waded in the pool but especially played in the sand. Then while she was wading in the lake throwing stones some other busybody woman with a cigarette came up and reminded me that the lake is polluted. She ran out of diapers and so I just kept washing her plastic pants. We saw the ass end of the Caribana parade but she seemed sleepy and so we left. We couldn't walk on the footbridge to Queen Street and so we walked west along the beach all the way to Keele and then along the Queensway to Roncesvalles. We bought a tub of Haagen Dazs and caught the streetcar home. I think the ice cream woke her up because she didn't go to sleep until around 22:00 or so. I went to bed at around 1:30 on Sunday.