Late October Stuff

Last year I made a post about a local event called the Central Art Walk. For a weekend, local artists display their work from their homes, and the public is invited in to browse and make purchases. Art can be on the more traditional side in the form of paintings, but can be anything including sculptures, woodworking, jewellery, homemade soap, etc. Last year we got some wooden spoons, a canvas with colourful buttons attached to it, and Lee-Anne got some mittens.

It was inspired by another event called the Frederick Art Walk, which has been going on for longer and is larger in scale. I went to that one once, but I was alone and too shy to look at things closely.

This year we made it to both. On the Central Art Walk we didn't see our spoon guy, which is too bad because we have a few more wooden bowls and would have made a purchase to accompany them. We did see the person we got our button canvas from. 

There was an Artists's Co-Op, which I think is pretty established but was new to the walk. A piece that caught our eye was a painting of a sliding scale of citrus fruits, with a lime at one end and a grapefruit at the other. The artist wasn't present that day, but Lee-Anne took her contact information and contacted her later to make a purchase. It's paid for now and we just have to pick it up.

One of the addresses was located on Waterloo Street. We went there but it didn't have a display. Before we could decide whether or not we should knock, the home owner took the initiative to poke her head out and say that if we were looking for art, the address number was the same, but it was in the city of Waterloo. We were at Waterloo St, Kitchener, but we needed Waterloo St, Waterloo. I got the impression that she'd needed to give this explanation a lot over the weekend.

Our neighbourhood borders the two cities. The place we were looking for was on the same physical street, just in the opposite direction. I've always thought having Waterloo Street so close to Waterloo was a problem. Having a Waterloo Street in Waterloo shouldn't be allowed.

Lee-Anne's mom expressed disappointment that she wasn't able to come to the Central Art Walk. Lucky for her we still had Frederick. She came with us to that one and got a couple of new Christmas stockings, as a new child had recently been born in the family, and another one is on the way. She also got some soap. Lee-Anne got a handbag and some wool balls that are supposed to replace dryer sheets while doing laundry. I've tried them since and I guess they work. To be fair, I haven't used dryer sheets since college.

I was bolder at this walk and got a 2025 calendar, a sketchbook, and some bookmarks. We also got a cat toy. Part of me felt bad for making more purchases at the Frederick Art Walk than the one in our own neighbourhood, although Lee-Anne did later get that citrus painting.

I ran into the guy that made my wooden bowls. Because I'd bought some for my family as gifts and we rescued them, we currently have two households worth and weren't in need of any more. Since I hadn't seen him at the Central Art Walk, I was worried I'd bought too much of his supply and he couldn't justify doing a stand, but I was glad to see he still had a good quantity.

I ran into some old colleagues from when I was an Independent Facilitator. The Frederick neighbourhood is basically social work central.

It was Lee-Anne's 31st birthday recently. We got Detroit style pizza from a nearby place, and on her request I made a fattoush salad to go with it and brownies for dessert. Normally I'd make a chocolate coconut cream pie, but that wasn't the birthday wish this year. Maybe I'll make one this Tuesday for the US election, since Kamala has that coconut symbolism.

We gave out candy on Halloween. Mom is still staying with us, and she hasn't lived on a street with active trick-or-treaters for at least as long as I've been alive. Last year I tried to keep track of how many kids came, but a bunch showed up in a huge wave near the end and I lost count. I estimated that we had about 40.

I was told standard trick-or-treating hours were 6-9. Things were slow at first, picked up around 7, and died around 8. Because we live in the basement apartment, we have to set up a stand in the front yard or nobody will approach us. At 8:30 it started to rain in a serious way so we went in. At this time we had 40 trick-or-treaters. Even one of the kids from upstairs said she was sorry I "didn't break the record".

But later, after 9, Mom was sitting outside and two trick-or-treaters came by, raising us to a final count of 42.

Best costume of the night goes to the kid that dressed up as a recycling bin. Apparently his dad was wearing a matching costume. I didn't see the father, but I like to imagine that one was paper and the other containers. I'm pretty sure I remember the kid was paper.

35th Birthday

In my "Traveling North" post I forgot to mention that when we purchased our bus tickets, they misspelled my name as "Grython Fibbald". Seems like an error of judgement, not a slip of the fingers. The "t" key is more than half the length of the board away from "p", and "f" is buffered from "s" by "d". It just sounds like a fake name too, with the word "fib" integrated into it.

People have really been struggling with my name lately. When me and Lee-Anne were out buying a few items to accomodate my family after the fire, we dropped by a Starbucks and this happened:

Brethon!

I just uploaded some images to my Gallery blog of my time up North. You can find it here: https://gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com/2024/10/kenabeek-pics-fall-2024.html

Before I posted it, I glossed over my previous entries to see if I'd ever made one before. I had, in 2012. You can look and compare here: https://gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com/2012/07/kenabeek-pics.html

I guess I didn't used to make commentary on my images back then.

I mentioned it in a previous post, but this was my first trip up North where I had a smart phone. In 2012, I was using a point-and-click digital camera that was noticeably primitive even by the standards back then. It's what I used in Canada World Youth and got a lot of commentary on it. But I did take some good pics with that thing.

 Something interesting I noticed was that during my visit in 2024, I took this photo:

And in 2012 I had this one:

I think this is the same birch tree! I didn't have that in mind when I took the more recent pic. It's not so weird, as its proximity to the house lends itself very well as a photo opportunity. I think the 2012 shot was more appealing, as it features a more drastic bark peel. The most iconic feature of the birch.

You might notice that the title of my older post specifies that I was in "Kenabeek" while in my two recent entries I only ever state that I went "up North". I also made an effort to only show images of nature, not the house and not much man-made (I did show autumn leaves on a small staircase and my aunt's stone circle, if you caount those). The reason is because at this point of time I am a little hesitant to share identifying information. But I've been documenting my experiences on the Internet long enough that there is enough content from a time when I did not feel this way. I can't completely scrub it.

On another note, I hadn't planned it this way but I wound up having my 35th birthday while I was up there. It just made the most sense scheduling-wise. I wasn't going to remind anyone but my grandparents remembered and we had a wild blueberry pie to celebrate.

I'm sure I've mentioned it several times before, but blueberries naturally grow in the area. When I was a kid, I used to pick them and my grandmother used to bake them into pies. It was a fun way to feel like I was part of the process. I alluded to this in a recent post when I said we mostly came up during Christmas and blueberry season, which is why we'd never visited in Fall.

It's funny because there was a recent study where people with ADHD and neurotypical people were observed picking blueberries. The people with ADHD consistently picked more than their neurotypical peers, implying a potential benefit to the disorder. This is kind of in line with the "hunter gatherer theory", which is a controversial idea that ADHD is not really a disorder, but rather an evolutionary trait that was beneficial for millenia but does not serve well in modern urban settings.

As a former kid with ADHD that prided himself in his blueberry picking skills, it was hilarious to read about this, as it seemed so targeted to me. Also, whenever this theory is brought up it seems like people hone in on the hunter side of things. Good to see the gatherers getting some love too.

Another thing I got to do while I was out there was practice driving. I avoided saying the date until now, but since I mentioned having the 2012 Gallery post, I'm pretty sure that was the last time I'd visited. We'd seen them annually since then, but they would come to Guelph. It makes sense, because it would have been after I did Canada World Youth and before I went to college. I expressly went there to learn how to drive from my grandfather.

I tested up there but didn't quite make it. The instructor said that I "didn't make any disqualifying errors, but made an accumulation of minor ones". Since then, I've either not had the time or the money to do lessons.

Until now. I've currently had 5 lessons with a driving instructor and a test date booked for November 20th. So while I was up North, me and my grandfather got to pick up where we left off.

We also met a neighbour of there's who they've known for years but was new to me. He gave us some buckwheat in the form of "groats". He also gave us a recipe to make chocolate groat squares. When I make them I'll post a pic here.

His wife has a falconry license and has tamed a red tailed hawk. I showed a picture of my grandma with the hawk and it's one of the reasons that I have a coworker who is a big fan of my grandma. She was excited to meet her at mine and Lee-Anne's wedding.

Return to the Ridge

Being back at my grandparents house was an experience. It was as if I had been there yesterday. Their property sits on the Canadian Shield, which consists of cascading mossy rocks and sparse forests of birch, poplar, and conifers overlooking flatter lands of more traditional woods.

Because of a fire that ocurred about 100 years ago, the area is full of pioneering tree species, slowly being replaced by more long-lived variants. So it's not technically "old growth" but I would argue it counts as "undisturbed". Wildfires are a part of Ontario's climate, pioneering tree species are the natural recovery response, and the soils that had been worked over by old-growth conifers remained primed for their successors. The natural link to old growth remains intact.

It's almost impossible to capture the depth of the rolling ridge using a phone camera.

I could still remember the grooves in the rock that I used to walk. I found the old ceremonial site where my aunt practiced Wiccan rituals. Even after all these years it was fairly undisturbed. I think one of the stones in one of the piles was nudged over, but that was about the extent of it.

I found my old clubhouse

As kids, me and my brother wanted a tree house. None of the trees in the area were able to support one, so my grandpa created a little space in the back of the garage. I opened th door and found this old toy truck. I was too nervous to go in, partly because I didn't trust something that was built to support my weight as a child, and also because I thought it probable that something else had taken up residence in my absence.

This was my first time visiting in the Fall. As children, we would often come for Christmas and in the summer during blueberry season.

The Autumnal colours were somewhat muted, with more yellow than red appearing among the green. On the trip up, we went through really vibrant pockets, making me think that the climate getting colder as we travelled further North was causing an earlier change in season. But then it started getting greener again.

In the four days we were up, it did feel like Fall swept in properly

The house was pretty much the same as I remembered too. It was so close to how I remembered it that I could identify the small things that had changed.

I easily found my way to my favourite childhood books.

These had pictures of different North American species. Each colour was a different category, e.g. mammals, trees, birds. Part of the book was a list of names with pictures next to them and a code which you could use to find their specifics in the other part of the book. My favourite at the time was mammals, I guess because they were relateable. Nowadays I'm more of a tree guy. I would also watch out the living room window at the bird feeders and try to identify the species using these books.

There were also these,

This is a bad photo. For some reason, my phone camera wouldn't let me flip the image. I was trying for a horizontal shot but had to settle for this one with my shadow in the way.

Anyway, this is not an exhaustive list, but these were some of my favourite childhood books. The one at the top, No Fighting, No Biting is about an older cousin babysitting her two younger. When they won't stop quibbling, she opts to read them a story illustrating the trouble they might get into for their behaviour.

It teaches a lesson that at the time I found quite bleak, which I reflect on even as an adult. The story that the older cousin tells is about two young alligators that find themselves unable to reach their fishing spot due to a large log being in the way. An older, hungry alligator offers to carry them over it in his mouth. After some deliberation, the two children get wise to the predator's intentions and escape unharmed.

This alone was not too disturbing. I'd heard stories with villains before, and I knew about Stranger Danger. What really bothered me was later in the story, when the siblings encounter another obstacle and the same alligator shows up. The children take the initiative in saying they won't get in his mouth, but he isn't interested in that this time, and simply moves the obstacle from their way.

The children report to their mother this change in behaviour, who is quite unsurprised. Apparently the behaviour of this stranger, which oscillated between homicidal to helpful citizen, was not based on his virtue or lack thereof, but on his level of need. The alligator wasn't good or bad, he was hungry or not hungry.

If I were to be an obnoxious critic as an adult, I think the story didn't really require the book-within-a-book framing. I only remembered the story about the alligators, not the one about the human cousins.

On the bottom left of that book pile, you have Moomintroll. This one is a comic version, but they're also a series of novels that I read up North as well. They're about a group of not-humans and their various antics and interactions. My favourite character was Snuffkin, who was a nomadic fellow that believed all the Earth was his home. He played a harmonica, which is part of the reason why I tried to learn it in middle school. He's a quiet, reserved type that is still anti-establishment and has trouble following rules.

This series is actually pretty mainstream, and shows up in various incarnations over time. There is at least one television series based on it. I think Snuffkin is a fan favourite too. I wasn't special to hold that opinion.

It's hard to see, but on the top there is a fuzzy book called the Little Fur Family. It's basically about a boy roaming around, exploring the world around him and being fascinated by it. I think the tactile element of the book itself being furry really enamoured me as a child.

Finally, on the right is Eloise. It's about a girl that lives in a hotel, who's taken care of by a nanny, who doesn't go to school or have any peers. Instead, she's left to her own devices and crafts a routine using her vivid imagination. This mostly involves being a brat.

I don't know why I liked this book so much as a kid. Obviously it wasn't relateable at all. I think I was just fascinated by looking into the life of someone who was so different from me. I'd ask where her parents were, and  why staff would scold her one moment then be fond of her the next. Returning to it as an adult, it's obvious that Eloise is pretty emotionally neglected despite simultaneously being pampered.

I was reading this book later in the evening, thinking about the gulf of time that had passed, pondering a life unlived. This brought me to tears. Lee-Anne found me like this, and I offered to read her the book. She accepted, and through gentle sobs I read Eloise to her. 

She was polite enough not to remark on her distaste for the character, mistaking my emotional state to imply I had some resonance with the spoiled little rich girl. The most absurd book to cry while reading.

Traveling North

Me and Lee Anne took September 18th to the 24th off from work to visit my grandparents who live in Northern Ontario. Slightly awkward timing, because it ran from a Wednesday to a Tuesday. Not a clean week, but we had to do it that way because I was teaching Safe Managment on the Monday and Tuesday, and Lee-Anne couldn't get time past the 24th.

When I was a kid, we spent most of our Christmases and summers during blueberry season at my grandparents'. In adult life, visits became much more irregular. The last time I'd been up was so I could practice for my G2 driver's license with my grandfather. Well, I never got around to that, so I got to practice some more this time as well.

There used to be a train that went up there, but it was put on suspension, leaving a bus as the only option. For some reason, this proved to be a psychological deterrant and it was only after my mother and aunt visited a few months prior that it felt like a viable method.

I don't know why I let the bus scare me so much. I take public transit regularly, frequently using it to travel between cities. In one instance, I bused through Guelph, Toronto, Buffalo, Syracuse, New York and Washington DC. I got to watch the sun set and rise and move through countries. The Northland Bus should not have been so intimidating.

It did cross my mind that when my mom visited, her house burned down while she was away. So I hoped there wasn't some kind of curse that would make it happen again. The silver lining was that because she's living with us now due to the fallout of that event, we had someone to watch the cats. Even directly after learning about the fire, I grimly mentioned that.

I associate these smaller, Northern communities as being less modern, like a step back in time. Due in part to size, as well as the fact it had been long enough that my memories were an actual step back in time. So it was kind of eerie to see that the go-to way of presenting bus fare was by showing tickets presented on smartphones. Last time I was up, I didn't even have a cell phone. They existed back then, but it wasn't as weird not to have one. It doesn't feel that long ago that I was taking the Greyhound bus between Kitchener and Guelph, and I always used a paper ticket bought in-person. I had the option of buying and printing at home, but I was never that organized.

Also, it's a weird sensation seeing that all these little settlements have been pretty thoroughly mapped out by Pokemon Go. I got my platinum badge for unique Pokestops it was so extensive. I couldn't even win a Pokemon Showcase it was so active. I like that an effort has been made to make sure people in these more remote locations can play, but the game feels at odds with my experience of this region. The North Bay bus terminal was a Pokemon gym, and the community is still so enduringly disappointed with the suspension of their train service that its description complains about it.

We had a layover there and stopped in the mall next door. I was wondering if it would be a cultural experience, but pretty well every store was something I could find at home. Food court had A&W, Orange Julious, Dairy Queen, and Tim Horton's. There was a Roots clothing outlet. The jewellery was Michael Hill. There was a Carter's Babies and Kids. They had a Best Buy and a Wal Mart. I may as well have been in Kitchener.

Overall the trip was about 9 hours over 2 buses. Not too much worse than going by car as I remembered it. We cut time off though, by staying at Lee-Anne's parents place the night before.

First Anniversary

September 16th was mine and Lee-Anne’s first anniversary. We rented a hotel room in St Jacob’s for a weekend, which is a small settlement basically attached to Waterloo. Not very far from home, but still kind of nice to have a change of scenery.

Our room had two framed pictures of birches.

It seems to me that artists love these trees specifically. I can think of a handful of pieces hanging in the homes of various people I know. We even have one in our house.

It's the sole survivor of my "buy nice looking things from the thrift store and throw them on the wall" era. Lee-Anne did away with everything else from that time. You might notice it's not hung up right now. Almost all our decorations at this point have some form of sentimental value, but the birches keep hanging in. Even though we don't have a use for them, they're just a little too nice to get rid of.

We recently came back from my grandparents and they definitely had at least one example of birch art. I'll be writing more about that experience in consecutive updates.

These trees also seem to pop up frequently in events hosting local artists. Maybe it’s because the black and white scarring on the bark is high contrast and can pair with a variety of background colours. 

Looking it up, their prevalence in art appears to not be a common observation. I think it might be a region-specific thing, with birch trees making more frequent appearances in Canadian works because they’re more common in Northern climates. Apparently Russians like them too, which tracks with this theory.

Saturday morning we went to the St Jacob’s farmer’s market. Being closer to the country makes it convenient for local agriculturalists. We got  sweet potatoes and zucchinis from someone yelling that the latter was “good for your weenie”. That’s not why we got them. I’ve since wondered what she meant by that. I have a few guesses.

We got Brussels sprouts, green beans, and some oddly coloured bell peppers. I’m used to seeing green, red, yellow, and orange. This was the first time I’d seen purple. We later learned that they may have been that colour because they were so close to turning bad. Even the very next day they seemed over-ripe.

We later cut them up to bring as snacks for our trip up North but wound up leaving them at Lee-Anne's parents' place, which we used as an intermediary step. I will never know what a purple bell pepper tastes like.

At the market, we also found oddly coloured carrots. These would hold their integrity better and were exciting for Lee-Anne because she’d been wanting to find red ones ever since they were served at my cousin’s birthday party. She believes they have a different taste, but I can’t tell the difference.

We stopped by an African artist and bought a couple of spoons with handles fashioned after giraffes.

It just seemed like a good idea to get something non-consumable to commemorate our first anniversary, and Lee-Anne likes giraffes.

The Shea Butter Man was there. He used to own a shop in Guelph but mostly does markets now. We were already stocked up and couldn’t justify a top-up, though.

For lunch, we had empanadas, churros, and strawberry lemonade.

I always forget how good fresh lemonade is.

I knew one of the buskers and we got to catch up. It was someone that has used our services before, who inspired one of our key phrases, who’s been in the newspaper multiple times for his music, and has toured cross-country with his band. After we left, Lee-Anne said that I always get star-struck when I meet people that I used to work with. I countered that this person is a legitimate star.

Apparently there's a tradition of celebrating with a different material each year of marriage, and for the first its paper. We didn't plan anything for it, but Lee-Anne got a paper bill in change which we're counting as fulfilling the ritual. For those that don't know, Canada stopped producing paper bills in favour of plastic some years ago. The paper ones are still in circulation but are increasingly rare, making it exciting whenever you come acrosss one.

We followed the tradition of preserving part of our wedding's key dessert to eat on the first anniversary. For most people it's a cake, but for us it was a tart tray. When we got back home, we pulled them out.

I took this pic after Lee-Anne had already eaten one of the blueberries. They were freezer burnt something mean. There was no fruit flavour coming through at all, and somehow the crust tasted raw. There may have been a better way to preserve them. We both managed to eat one of each, purely for ceremonial purposes.

Neurology Update

 In my last update, I forgot to mention why I felt inspired to try and make the purple tie-dye shirt. 

Lee-Anne had an appointment with her neurologist. It was going to be the one where we talked about treatment options for her epilepsy. However, before it happened my family in Guelph's house burned down.

So we were at Wal Mart buying an air mattress for my brother when we came across a single purple shirt in my size. Being the colour for Epilepsy Awareness Day, this felt notable. I'd searched high and low for one, eventually being reduced to dying my own.

Even though the meeting wouldn't be on the day, I took it as a sign to wear the shirt for the appointment. This sense of fate was reinforced when three of my coworkers and a bunch of members were wearing purple. It was unusual enough that people were remarking on it even though they didn't have context. When I told them, everyone was very enthusiastic and we took a picture.

It was my second time wearing my shirt, and for one of my coworkers, it the first time she'd worn hers. Despite this eery coincidence, the appointment would not be as eventful as hoped. 

Originally it was supposed to happen four to six weeks after her examination. They did meet with us on that timeline and I'd gone as far as to take the day off work to go to Toronto with her. But the neurosugeon had nothing to say because they hadn't received the report of her brain activity yet.

When they got the data, they still needed a panel of specialists to have a discussion on treatment options. We received a copy of the report and I've blogged about it. The main takeaway was that her seizures were coming from a spot a little deeper in the brain than we thought.

So they had their panel, and then we needed to have a meeting with her neurologist to discuss the report. This brings us to the appointment relevent to this post, the one I'd bought the purple shirt for.

He mostly told us what we already knew, that the data showed her seizures were in the insula, not the left temporal lobe like they originally thought. As we suspected, this invalidated her from traditional surgery. However, he did offer a more modern option, in which the procedure is done by laser. Instead of opening the skull, the part of the brain where the seizures are formed is targeted and burned off. It's between that and installing a magnet in the back of the neck, which was the only alternate solution we'd known about beforehand.

But the neurologist wasn't able to move things forward, and said the next step would be to talk to a neurosurgeon. This is frustrating because we already talked to one four weeks after her observation. We're at 19 weeks as of the neurologist's appointment. We'd thought this would be the one where we'd learn definitively what our choices are. It will likely take another three to four months before we can see the neurosurgeon again. If all goes well, I think we'd need time to consider options after having them proposed, and then there would be a wait to have whatever treatment option we chose implemented. I can't see this going faster than another nine months.

So despite the timely discovery of a purple shirt in my size and the positive omen of people at work coincidentally wearing the same colour, the meeting didn't amount to much.

All this to say, it reminded me that I got a ti-dye kit for Epilepsy Awareness Day. I never used it because I wound up making a solid purple shirt instead. Which lead to the theme of my last post.

Sorry for the shaggy dog story. I didn't know how to include all this in a way that flowed with my previous topic, so I just shared tie-dye pics.

As an aside, tomorrow is mine and Lee-Anne's first year anniversary.

Tie Dye

I've been talking so much about fire lately. This time, let's talk about water.

Back when I was trying and failing to find a purple shirt for Epilepsy Awareness Day, I remembered that tie dye was an option. It was the other side of summer though, and not quite in season. I found it difficult to find a kit sold anywhere, but finally found what I needed at an arts and crafts store. I didn't remember how tie dye works and thought the kit was suspiciously light, so I grabbed a bottle of standard dye as a backup plan.

I needn't have worried, the product was fine. I still wound up going for a solid purple shirt. This left me with the tie dye to use at my leisure, and I just got around to trying it recently.

This was my first attempt. I made a swirl in the centre of the shirt and then separated the colours into quadrants. I used blue, orange, purple, and yellow-green. The idea was to have contrasting colours touching and swirling out. It kind of worked, but the yellow-green is almost solely on the back. I wanted the purple to have some prominence to allude to my original intentions, but from the front it only really shows on my shoulder. It wouldn't work as an Epilepsy Awareness Day shirt.

I went for horizontal bands with a colour gradient on this one. Purple in the centre with two shades of blue, starting dark and turning light. Last one was supposed to contrast while this was all cool colours.

This was just a scattershot mish-mash of the remaining colours, since I didn't want to waste the unused dye.  I hadn't bothered to dampen the cloth unlike the other two, so the dye slid around instead of simply absorbing. Frustratingly, I think this one looks better than the other two.

Since I didn't think any of the shirts I made showcased purple enough to wear on Epilepsy Awareness Day, I came back and dedicated a whole shirt to it. I made two swirls on opposite sides, and used two shades moving from darker at the centre and turning lighter. I fell into the trap of not wanting to waste the leftover dye and dumped a bunch of it into the empty spaces, making one of the shoulder maybe a little too dark. Otherwise pretty happy with it, and I think I've got something to wear next year.