Halloween 2021

This was my first Halloween spent at the new place. It's also the last landmark date to experience for a first time here, since tomorrow marks a full year since we moved in. There was an overlap month and we moved in slowly, but November 1st was the day we got our keys.

So since we missed Halloween last year by a day, we had no idea how many trick-or-treaters to expect. We live in a basement apartment, so it wasn't likely that people would come in and knock n our door, but I went outside with a bowl full of tootsie rolls, tootsie pops, and airheads that I bought last minute from a local drug store, and waited.

Our upstairs neighbours have young children, so they went trick-or-treating. They left me with their candy dish, so I got to give out candy for both our units. We ended up getting 19 kids, which I'm going to call a success. The last place I lived had a lot of children that lived in the neighbourhood, but they would typically go elsewhere to trick-or-treat. I'd have to catch them as they were leaving or coming back, and I would actually visit families I knew to try and dump candy on them. Pretty much reverse trick-or-treating.

Lee-Anne's not in love with Halloween, largely because her birthday is only a few days before it. We celebrated that by going out for sushi. We went to a place near where I sublet for five months after just having graduated, and my personal favourite spot for sushi in the KW area. I got to use my vaccine passport for the first time. You still have the option of showing your receipt and a piece of ID, but now you can pretty easily get a QR code version, which is what I did. They just looked at it, though. I don't know where they would have the equipment to scan it.

I was happy to feel well enough at that time to go out for sushi. A couple weeks ago, Lee-Anne got sick. Fever, chills, aches. She had to get a COVID test and take several days off work. We had to quarantine, and we realized that we've grown lax in terms of supply shopping. She tested negative, which was a relief. Then I got sick and was down for about three days. First time I've been sick since COVID started. But it had been several days without symptoms before going for sushi.

Finn has been getting along well here:

New Cat: Finnegan

 We got a new cat!

We named him Finnegan! Finn for short.

Lee-Anne has a sister in law who breeds cats. A few months ago, they had a litter and yesterday, on Canadian Thanksgiving, we took one. We chose this guy because he was the favourite of one of Lee-Anne's nephews, who named him Lucky Charm. For this reason, we were going to name him Lucky until I pointed out that it sounded Irish, which fit with Kieran's name. So we looked up Irish names, and found out that Kieran means black, and Finnegan means white.

So by naming him Finnegan, we now have the Irish black-and-white duo, retroactively validating Kieran's name. Neither of them are fully black or white, but I think Kieran is more dark overall, and Finn is more light, so it kind of works. 

The name "Kieran" is really human. The person at the cat sanctuary who named him originally told me that I could rename him, but because I'm so bad at naming cats I took my time to think about it, and in the meantime kept calling him Kieran until it stuck. I don't regret it, because it's his name now, but I admit I do feel the need to preface his name with "my cat" to make sure there's no confusion if I'm mentioning him to a stranger.

Since I got Kieran on my terms, I'm happy that we got Finn through Lee-Anne's direction. I got Kieran at a cat sanctuary and Lee-Anne, as I mentioned, got Finn through a family connection. I've had Kieran only a few weeks before me and Lee-Anne started dating. In truth, while I was planning on getting a cat for a long time, part of the reason that I got one when I did was to impress Lee-Anne before I asked her out. So she did have an influence in Kieran's adoption.

Since Lee-Anne's been working in-person five days a week, and me for three, Kieran's been really whiny. Most of the time I've had him has been in the pandemic and he's gotten used to having someone around. We thought that getting a new cat would be good to keep him company. Throughout my life, it's been the general policy to have two cats at a time for this reason. Usually we try to have them at different age categories, because we've found that it brings out the youth in the older cat. Some people say that this makes the older cat irritable, and I don't know what to tell you, except that this hasn't been our experience.

Anyway, I'd always intended to get a second cat, but I wanted to hold out until Kieran was older. Now he's about three, so still a young cat, and we've got a kitten only a few months old. Meant to hold out longer, but I wasn't able to.

Introducing them went well. In my life I've only seen a few cat introductions. I was too young to remember Penny and Booshy being introduced, who were my childhood cats. After Booshy passed and we got Blackavar, I remember Penny attacking Blackavar and needing to separate them. They sniffed at each other under the door for awhile and after a slow introduction they actually became quite close. When we got Luna and Thor and introduced them to Blackavar, all three seemed apprehensive but not fully aggressive, just kept space, gave each other the stink eye, and slowly got used to each other. Introducing Cassidy to Blackavar and Thor, and Cassidy just found a small place to hide in, slowly warmed up and eventually integrated with the others.

So I was ready for anything between general apprehension and direct aggression. We brought Finn in the cat carrier. Kieran seemed surprised, and the two sniffed at each other and petted the bars of the carrier. We decided to try holding them outside of the carrier so they could smell each other and neither tried to tear their way out of our hands. We decided to put them down and see how they'd react and they were soon chasing each other around the house. Neither seemed scared, both were engaging the other. We felt Kieran might be playing a little too rough, so we're not letting them stay together without supervision quite yet. But still, I've never seen two cats be so amiable right off the bat.

They both have very similar personalities. Affectionate, goofy, high energy, and playful. I think it might be a good match.

Orange Shirt Day

September 30th was the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, or Orange Shirt Day. This is a new federal holiday that is still not provincially recognized in Ontario, which is dedicated to reflecting on and acknowledging our history with our Indigenous population. Everyone is encouraged to wear an orange shirt, in honour of a story about a young Indigenous girl who was given an orange shirt from her grandmother to wear on her first day at a residential school. The shirt was taken away and she was forced to wear the clothes the residential school gave her. The rest of the story follows her experiences within the system. It's not the most brutal story, but it's used to teach children as kind of a way of showing how it might feel to have something your family gave you taken away from you.

I just so happened to be running a group at the park where a ceremony was held in honour of the day, and my group decided to attend. One of the main speakers was the person who ran what was at the time known as the Aboriginal Services Office at Conestoga College. I used to go there every Wednesday when they'd have a community meal.

Awhile back, my work team did a conflict style training. I'd already done this training four times because it's part of the Summer Program training. Basically, there are five conflict styles: competing, collaborating, compromising, accomodating, and avoiding. Every time I've done it, I've gotten compromising, but Lee-Anne thinks I'm accomodating or avoiding. The problem with these tests are, once you know the definitions, it's hard to answer without knowing what you're going to get. But I tried to answer as best I could without thinking about the results, and I still got compromising!

Since we finished the big sack of rice that I bought while supply shopping during the first wave, we got to buy a new one.

Our last bag was called something like, Y&Y Mili, Ultra Premium Jasmine. All the other brands had been panic bought so it was my only option. This time we had the luxury of choice, and we decided to go with this, 12 Star Basmati Ponia Rice. It just so happens that basmati is both of our preference. We got a 10 pound bad. Looking at Google images of my old brand of rice, looks like I got 8 kg last time, which is like 17 and a half pounds. Well, we're not in lockdown anymore.

Last Christmas I got a cast iron wok, which helped with rice consumption. I had to season it and everything. If you don't know, that's a protective process for cast iron kitchenware where you rub it down with oil and bake at a very high temperature. Never heard of this before I got my wok. You're supposed to do it twice a year, so it's been seasoned twice now.

We live near a trail that bridges Waterloo and Kitchener. If you walk from Kitchener into Waterloo, there's a sign that says "Welcome to Waterloo". If you walk from Waterloo to Kitchener, there's a sign as well, and it would make sense for it to say "Welcome to Kitchener" right? But instead it says "Thank you for visiting Waterloo".

We live on the Kitchener side. The reputation of the two cities is that Waterloo is white collar and Kitchener is blue collar, so it makes sense that Waterloo would be the one to highlight. But even if we don't have signs welcoming people in and out of our city, it's funny because the entirety of the trail is lit with lamp posts right until you hit the "Welcome to Waterloo" sign, and then it's total darkness. Also, there's a much clearer dividing line painted on the Kitchener side. I guess funding is handled differently by the two cities.

Near where we live, there's an apartment building with a very prominent sign displaying its name as "Cripple Creek". Every time I've past it, I've found it startling. That seems like a word that you're not supposed to use. But when I've looked it up online, I can't find much information on it other than rent information. I would have thought that there would be some sign of controversy over the name, some evidence of some kind of motion to get the sign taken down or the building renamed, but nope. Lee-Anne also thought it was really weird, but nobody else that I've talked to has seemed particularly phased about it.

I wonder why apartment buildings and townhouse complexes so often put up signs with names that have nothing to do with their address or any legal relevancy. Brookside Park, Mayfield Meadows, Asgard Green, The Pinedales are examples that come to mind.

Family Gathering

Before the pandemic, Lee-Anne was doing her rounds, meeting different members of my family. We'd gotten pretty far with it. She'd met my mother, brother, a cousin, and two aunts. Then COVID hit and this project got shut down. Things briefly opened in the summer of 2020 and she got to meet a set of grandparents in Toronto. This past weekend, she finally got to meet my grandparents from Northern Ontario.

The convening point was my mother and brother's place in Guelph. Since one of my aunts would be staying overnight there, me and Lee-Anne rented a hotel room. The place we chose was recommended by my brother, who'd stayed there despite living just up the hill from it (long story). It was a hotel/restaurant, and to get in, you had to ask the bartender for a fob and passcode.

Oddly, the restaurant didn't serve breakfast. You'd think that a restaurant attached to a hotel would serve breakfast food, since that's the meal you're most likely to eat after staying overnight, but it was more of a steak place. It seemed like both places were marketed for completely different purposes, despite being connected.

We were lucky to get the place we did though. We booked our room a week in advance, but my grandparents, who have never had difficulty finding a room in Guelph, found that both their usual spots were fully occupied. They wound up finding a smaller place. Weird they had to do that, though, since I would have assumed that the pandemic had cut down on travel requirements. Plus, why are people crowding a place like Guelph?

Turns out, this past weekend was homecoming for the University of Guelph's team, the Gryphons (yes, they have the same name as me). The University had officially canceled it, but it was still carried on informally. This is why everywhere in Guelph was booked.

Here's a little metal plane I found under the VCR box or whatever it's called nowadays.

It's propeller and wheels moved if you spun them. I wondered if each room had this feature. I wondered if it wasn't on the inventory, if I would be actually charged for damages if it went missing.

This was a painting in the room. I thought it was just an abstract piece at first, but on closer look it's an airplane. So I asked me brother if when he stayed, it was airplane-themed. He said no, and I figured I must be in the airplane room, and I dare not remove a piece of symbolism.

We didn't get a couch, unlike my brother, and we didn't get a phone. Both me and Lee-Anne have cell phones, but I still usually assume that hotel rooms will have landlines. Slightly weird not to have it.

We took advantage of being downtown when we woke up, and we made time to visit the Guelph farmer's market. We got zucchinis, ham, turkey, pears, and sausage rolls.

My grandmother gave me a paint kit that belonged to her grandmother. So my great, great, great grandmother.

My Birthday and the Federal Election

 It was my birthday a couple days ago. Lee-Anne made a dinner at my request

Pork tenderloin with a sour cream/mustard sauce, potatoes, and Brussels sprouts

And she made dessert

That's a peanut butter pie. I first asked for a peanut butter cake, because at WALES we traditionally make a cake for people on their birthdays, and that's the type I request. A traditional WALES recipe. But she thought maybe the peanut butter would ruin the texture of the cake, so she asked if she could do a pie instead. I like pies better than cakes anyway, so that was cool.

But speaking of WALES and my birthday, I predicted a long time ago that COVID would be over on September 21st, 2021. I said it would be a birthday present for me. So that didn't wind up being true.

Voting day was the day before my birthday. We wound up with a Liberal minority, just like we had before. I'm not exactly complaining, but it made the whole forced early election seem pointless.

The one kind of cool thing that happened was that my riding went Green! Smaller party, focused on climate, having a bit of an identity crisis this year since everyone else is focused on climate this year too, but still really cool to have them.

Today's the second day that vaccine passports are required for entry into non-essential places, like restaurants and movie theatres. I haven't been anywhere like that, but I know a few people who have. You can just pull up your vaccine receipt on your phone and show a piece of photo ID. Apparently next month we'll be getting something with a QR code that can be scanned for entry.

In other news, we finished that giant sack of rice I bought during the initial panic buying stage of the pandemic. Now we get to get a new sack, and this time, we're not limited to the one remaining brand that wasn't picked over by hoarders.

Early this year we tried to grow a patch of sunflowers in the front yard. It's the only thing we tried because the green space more belongs to the upper unit, and we didn't want to ask too much while we were still new. We used seeds from Lee-Anne's grandmother's giant flowers, and things started off really promising, with seedlings that looked just like little sunflowers. As they grew, they started to develop branches, which was weird but maybe just the nature of this type. Eventually, we found out that somehow, we grew something totally unrelated. Probably a patch of weeds. Oh well, maybe next year.

Also, here are those team photos from EAFy Day last Friday, with our homemade uniforms:

EAFy Day 2021

Last Friday was EAFy Day. If you don't remember what that is, it's a team-building event across the Extend-a-Family organization. This is the fourth one I've been to, and the second one I've helped plan. Each year has a theme and is set at a different location. Last year's was "QuarantEAFy Day" and this year's was "Reconnecting" and we held it at Bingeman's which is like a catch-all entertainment spot. I was the MC for the event, greeting everyone, going over the schedule, and introducing everyone new to the organization.

The first event was a volleyball tournament, with teams decided by organization branch. I didn't really think we at WALES had much of a chance since we were one of the less confident branches facing off in the first round against one of the most competitive. And I was right to feel the way that I did, since we wound up losing, but it was way closer than I thought it would be, with us winning by a strong margin for a while. Some branches chose team names, and it was only when we seemed to have a shot at winning that I realized we should have named ourselves the Killer WALES.

Some teams had uniforms, and one of our teammates made us all shirts and hats with the WALES logo. I thought we looked the most professional of all the branches. There's a team photo floating around but I don't have it at the moment. If I find it, I'll post it here.

Somehow, I wound up being the judge for the volleyball tournament (except the round I played in), which is weird because I only kind of understand volleyball. I feel like I might have not enamored myself with the team that beat us, because under my judgement they made it all the way to the final round, took a heavy advantage and were only one point from winning the finals, and then the other team got like seven points in a row and won. Also, in the final round I approved a not-by-the-books method of serving (it's complicated) and they wound up losing because of it.

Bingeman's is attached to a Boston Pizza and that's what we wound up having for lunch. I got the 7 cheese ravioli. It was just ok. Back in college, I had a friend who would host get-togethers at Boston Pizza fairly regularly and I went a handful of times. To be honest, it's never been my favourite place.

In the afternoon, people had the choice to do bowling, an escape room, or kayaking. I did an escape room. There were through groups that did this, and we wound up taking the highest difficulty one. I won't share the secrets of the escape room, as I believe that is the etiquette, but the theme was that we were stuck in an abandoned mine shaft and had to find our way out.

We got through 95% of it and ran out of time. There was only one trick left to figure out. I would almost rather have gotten like, 85%. The guy even let us know the solution to the final trick, and it's upsetting because we actually said out loud the solution, but we didn't know how to implement it. Also, we wasted a lot of time working a piece of equipment even though we figured out the answer. Very, very close.

I made another painting:

Gryphon's Gallery: Radiating Moonlight (gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com)

9/11 20th Anniversary and My First Week of Uni

I feel like I should mention that yesterday was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It seems like I'm talking more and more about world events on this blog, which I didn't used to do. To be fair, a lot of relevant world event stuff has been happening lately.

Anyway, other than being the 20 year mark, this is a significant anniversary because the US finally pulled out of Afghanistan. It was messy and the Taliban took control of the nation very quickly, undoing most of the work that had been done over the past two decades.

Major mixed feelings about all this. The US presence in Afghanistan was initially understandable, because such a significant attack on their nation couldn't be ignored. But then 20 years of war with no real takeaway. Doesn't seem like continued war was going to suddenly yield a positive result. Two Presidential administrations with a popular consensus that the war had outlived any utility, but I guess neither wanted to deal with the inevitably ugly fallout that would come with withdrawal. Then, the troops finally get pulled, the government collapses, people are getting punished by the Taliban for their involvement with the US-instilled society.

I see a lot of people criticizing how evacuations weren't prioritized before the military withdrew. I had similar thoughts, but I'm not a military strategist. It would have been ugly no matter what, though.

The thing that has made me feel oldest has to do with 9/11. For what feels like the longest time, you could ask anyone "Where were you" and the rest of the sentence could be assumed "when you heard about 9/11"

For the record, I was in middle school, it was lunch break, and a kid who goes home for lunch came riding in on his bike and told me and a friend of mine what had happened. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was. But for some reason, everyone seemed to have the memory of when they learned ironed in.

Anyway, I was working in the Summer Program, in 2018, at 28 years old. My coworkers were talking about when they learned about 9/11 and the times they were referring to weren't when it happened, but when a teacher or parent taught them the event as a part of history. My adult coworkers!

Anyway, this is all I'm going to talk on this subject.

I'm a week into my online course. It's an English class that I should have been exempt from through transfer credits, but U of W requires all students to take it even if they have the credit from another program. I hear that this is because so many of the students have English as an additional language, and they can't make exceptions for native English speakers because that could be seen as discriminatory. Don't know how true this is, it's not an official position by the school, but it's what everybody says.

I had taken the course in my first semester last time I did Uni, but I didn't understand how to use their online class system. When I got on, I saw that I had missed the mandatory assignment "Introduce yourself" due on the first day. I panicked and dropped it.

Next semester, I got a fiery email through my student address saying that I needed to sign up for an English course within three days or I would be expelled. At that time, there were only courses designed specifically for people with English as an additional language. I sent them an email explaining the situation and offering to take one of the remaining courses even if it wasn't targeted to me, and they were like "Nah, just take an English course whenever you feel like". Real mood whiplash.

One time I got officially expelled from my social work program because they tried to notify me of a clerical error through snail mail and by the time their letter arrived, the response period they gave me within the letter had expired. When I contacted them, they were similarly chill and just reinstated me in the program. Post-secondary schools really need to relax with expulsion.

Anyway, so this time around, I'm starting with the English course. I took the same exact one in college, but that's fine. It's a good way to brush up on my academic writing after a lengthy break. This time around I know how to use the online system. I managed the "Introduce yourself" assignment. This time they gave a week instead of a day, and it wasn't mandatory. I did a test that was more like a contract. It was a description of expectations with the questions being between "I agree" and "I disagree". I won't be providing the answers here, but you can probably imagine that it wasn't very difficult.

Oh, and there's a federal election coming up. On the 20th, a day before my birthday. It's an unusual time for one, since the current Prime Minister had about another two years in office, but he called for one. In Canada, we have four year terms, but it doesn't cap at 8 years like the States. If you can keep pulling votes, you can remain in power indefinitely. Elections can get called early however, like this one.

It's a curious move on behalf of Trudeau, though. Like, he's already got power, so why would he risk losing it two years early? The only reasons I can think of are, he either a) thinks he's more likely to win now than he will be later, or b) he wants to transition from a minority government to a majority.

In Canada we can either have minority of majority governments, with majority being the one all candidates would prefer. Trudeau's got a minority right now, and apparently the Liberal government is especially popular right now, so he's striking while the iron is hot.

I don't see why the Liberals would be more popular now than other times. I've heard that it's because Canada is in crisis, and in times of crisis popularity spikes for the governing leader. People want to believe that whoever is in charge will be able to save them, right? But Canada isn't in crisis, not really. We still have COVID and we're probably moving into another wave, but we've been through this three times before. We have to worry about our economic recovery, but that's not a fresh anxiety at this point. So I don't get it. 

We had a debate specifically surrounding disabilities, which was cool. All five major parties had representatives. The exchange of ideas was not very inspiring, but it was still cool that they had it since it's an often-overlooked topic.