Neighbour

I was visiting Guelph recently when I received a phone call from one of my roommates telling me that one of our neighbours had passed away. I had seen him be taken out of his home and placed in an ambulance. I knew that he hadn't been doing well, but I hadn't thought he was in such bad condition.

I was going to write a big memorial post for him when I got back, speaking to his involvement in my life, the people he had known and who cared for him, how life had robbed him, and the cruel irony of his fate.

But as soon as I stepped into my neighbourhood, I hear someone scream at me.

"He's not dead!"

It was his best friend. As I looked him straight in the eyes and his serious demeanor, I thought maybe he was having a bit of denial. I was contemplating a speech urging him back to reality, like "He is alive in our hearts and our minds, he lives in our memories, and he may still be with us spiritually, but his physical influence has left this earth."

But instead I kind of stood dumbly, long enough that he could say "No, seriously, I just got off the phone with him."

I got into my home, and before I could see anyone, I heard my roommate shout from upstairs "He's not dead!"

It was just a rumor that ran around the neighborhood. I saw the guy who was supposedly dead yesterday, first time since he came back from the hospital. First thing he say when he see me, he shouts "I am the walking dead!" He's had to deal with a lot of people reacting strongly to his survival, it seems.

I planted my Venus Flytraps. They're funny. I had to put this disk in the base of a container and add two cups of water, which was much more than the disk, and so it melted into this murky, mud-like mixture. Then I added some pebbles, then I placed the seeds (tiny, tiny things, size of grains of sand) onto the mixture, but I'm not to bury them, then I placed a top piece over the base of the container, to bottle in the moisture. Now I'm supposed to leave  it in indirect sunlight for weeks without caring for them.

It's not a gardeners instinct to leave seeds on the surface of the earth, to place something to block out air, to make sure they do not get much sunlight, and to neglect watering them. Growing them in the mud and not feeding them further is such an odd combination of over- and under-hydration. I feel wrong all the way through the process.

PATH and MAP Training

A... few weeks ago, I went to PATH and MAP training in Toronto. It was pretty neat. Similar to the New Story training where we got to develop a plan for another facilitator and have one done for us, then follow up/follow through with it and take notes on the result, we got to have first hand experience practicing the PATH and MAP process as well.

I got to play each role. I had an illustrated plan done for me on my first day, I got to be graphic facilitator for a PLAN on the second, and I got to be a process facilitator for a PATH on the third. Roles were voluntary, so I was glad I got to do all three.

I stayed with my grandfather while I was in Toronto. I was kind of able to do a little tour of the family while I was out there, visiting with two other branches as well.

The place we had our training was the Society of Friends, which is the place of worship for a type of Christian, known as the Quakers. Turns out, that's my religious background a few generations back on one side of my family.

Tetris Machine

I got my Tetris machine working. That means I've got my DVD and VHS player, my Gamecube and Tetris machine all up and going, and my little retro entertainment system is complete.

My Tetris high scores from elementary school are still on this thing. I used to be a beast at it. I just did a round, felt pretty proud of myself, looked at the high score, and saw that my score was only about a sixth of my previous best.

I enjoy opening my laptop next to the little CRT tube TV I'm using for these things and showcasing that my (cheap) laptop has not only a better quality, but larger screen. People don't know why I put myself through using the old TV. They don't get that it's a part of the experience.

We... uh... just got a cold snap. I thought that because the winter wouldn't stick around, alternating between winter and spring weather, that once spring kicked in, winter would be done. But it looks like spring is going to be just as inconsistent as our winter. We've got as much snow as we ever did during winter.

I'm looking at the growing instructions for my Venus flytraps, and it turns out, they are very gradual to develop. They only show signs of growth after three months of care, and only reach full maturation after three years!

I feel better about my purchase. Seeing that it had a sunflower counterpart, I felt like, since sunflowers are super easy to grow, that you just need seeds, not a full kit, that maybe it would be the same for the flytraps. But no, there's a special disk that you dissolve to grow it, it comes with a "terrarium", etc.

I'm going to be doing MAP and PATHS training in Toronto, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, leaving tomorrow. It's an expansion on that Graphic Facilitation training I did in Guelph, but this is the more serious business training. Looking forward to it.