Garden 2026

Last week Lee-Anne and I put in our garden.  In the past, we've gone to Wal Mart for our plants, but since then we've become aware of a local nursery. It feels nicer to support a small business, doesn't require an awkward trip over the light rail, the plants are healthy and they have a nice selection. Their seedlings are a little further along than they have been when we've gone to Wal Mart.

It's been an uncommonly cool May. The actual day that we planted was hot to the point that I wore shorts. and we had our first barbecue. But now it's cold and rainy again.

We didn't shake things up too much. As far as vegetables, we're doing tomatoes, bell peppers, zuchinis, peas, sunflowers, lettuce, and parsley. Since we did so well with the sunflowers last year when Lee-Anne took the lead, I'm stepping away from it this year as well. I don't know if I'll bother counting the blossoms at the end of the season. Since last year was so good, I think we can take it as a complete success, so we'll just try to replicate it. 

Lee-Anne's also taking on most of the responsibility for the herbs and decorative flowers. We didn't have much luck with lettuce last year but we started from seed. This time we got them partially grown so maybe that will make a difference.

 

Last year we tried a bell pepper for the first time and it was successful, so we're more evenly distributing room between them and tomatoes. 

As for the tomatoes, we just got Early Girls this year as usual. They produce quickly, which has been my answer to an issue that I've had where the crop comes late and stays green by the end of the season. However, I've since learned to remove the suckers, which has helped a lot and I would have been okay to try a larger, slower tomato. But Lee-Anne likes the Early Girls and didn't feel the desire to try something different, so we're sticking with what has been reliable.

 

We're trying the zuchinis directly in the ground this year. In the past we've grown them in trays, but Lee-Anne wanted to plant the sunflowers in a place where they face into the yard, so the Zuchinis can take the spot that they used to have. And the tray that they used to occupy can be allotted to peas.

 

 

Tulips have come and mostly gone this year. Lot of activity from our bulbs in the front yard but it's not clear that the hostas our neighbour gave us have had any activity. Apparently they still have a good chance.

We have two large terracotta pots from my mother and brother's old place. They grew Morning Glories in them to a high level of success, so I'm doing the same. I got blue for one, red for the other.

Last year Lee-Anne tried a flower assortment but one type really dominated. This time we've dedicated a pot to the one that did best. I don't remember the name, but here it is.

Last year for Christmas, my mother in law got me a bird bath. We've installed it this season, and the rain has filled it for us. 

 

I haven't noticed any birds using it, but it has developed a collection of  what I presume to be deshelled snail bodies. Slug like things with spiral shapes but no hard outer layer. 

Indoors, I'm propogating a bunch of succulents. Recently, there has been some staff changes where I work. Someone went to a different team, and someone that used to be with us came back. Confusing funding reasons for why this happened. So I decided that I wanted to give them both succulents as a going away present. I also wanted to give one to my brother as a housewarming gift.

I have two of these plants. One of them came from Lee-Anne's grandmother's farmhouse. The other I got about seven years back, near to when my career started. They were propagated by someone that worked at the main office, and it just so happened that when she gave them out it was my birthday. Since then, mine is the only one that has survived. 

Although that might not continue to be true. This year I noticed that it wasn't drinking as much, and little bits were beginning to go bad. Thinking that it might be root rot, I cut away the unhealthy looking parts and from those sections, harvested from them what appeared to still be good. Those are the pieces I've been trying to propogate. I also switched the soil in the plant pot, thinking it might have become non-nutritive over the years.

It's been a few months and the main plant looks healthy but is still drinking slowly. The cuttings seem thirstier and have put out roots. Of course, it's slow going and I haven't felt confident to give them out as gifts. Another one of my coworkers is switching roles in a couple of weeks, so I'll give them out then, even if they're still small. 

They Got the Couches

I mentioned recently that the cleaners for my mother and brother's old apartment made good on delivering their "recoverable" items to their new location.  This saved a lot of effort on our part in organizing a move, and they did a more professional job of it than we could have hoped to achieve. For the most part, this completed their living space. They got cookwear, bookshelves, hard-surface furniture, art, and books. But they were missing soft furniture.

The cleaners had said they could "do their best" with what they deemed "non-recoverable", and deliver it. My brother had put in a request for a couch and armchair. It might have been strategic to just get reimbursed for these and purchase new versions of them, but they were from Lee-Anne's grandmother's farmhouse. They were older than my mom and so it's unlikely that they could find a suitable replacement.

Despite the cleaners initially saying they would put in the effort to deliver them, there had been a few complications since. Asbestos had been discovered, and the people brought in for that were not the same as everyone else. Tenants lost access to their units and in the meanwhile, items were bagged and categorized.

Here are some pics of the old building and apartment stripped for asbestos. 

 

It was easy to imagine that offering to move the furniture was a generosity offered before all this happened. Plus, after delivering the initially considered "recoverable" items, they might feel soured on doing a second trip. 

And yet, the offer had been made through recorded channels, so they couldn't quite say no either. One day, my brother got a message from them, saying that they were ready to move the items. And they did. Maybe they wanted to work on the rest of the unit and complying with the request was just the easiest thing that they could do.

I know that I keep saying this or that item will "complete" their unit, but they still need a TV. My brother has ordered one, arriving Monday. As well as soft furniture, lots of electronics were not considered recoverable.

Also, when I inventoried our art in a previous post, I failed to note that one of my aunts did lose a piece in the fire. A framed painting of a flower vase.

 I'm still discovering things that they recovered. For example, they now have a stuffed Eeyore that none of us remember. Maybe it got mixed in from a different unit somehow.

Also, we got this back:

 

The Zwibble Dibble! 

Talk about something that was once very important to me, that sparks a ton of memories but of which I was unlikely to ever think about again had it not shown up. This might be the oldest stuffed animal I have. I thought it might come from our place in Toronto, where I lived only until I was three, but Mom thinks it came from the place after. Still, old enough that it comes from an era when my ability to form memories was still in development.

This is the Star Touched Dinosaur Zwibble Dibble. When I told Lee-Anne its name she asked "Is that a Pokemon?" I don't blame her, because on my first attempt at Googling (I accidentally called it "Dwibble Zibble", silly of me) I only got results for the Pokemon Dwebble.

But its from an old series of children's books from the 80s about environmentalism. You can listen to a person read them to you on YouTube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDqoobE4goo

Otherwise, both Mother's Day and my mom's birthday have passed. Those two things are very conveniently set close to each other. I gave her a physical copy of my Gryphood blog, and a curated version of the WALES cookbook.

Found a Ring

One time, before the more recent fire, I was walking over to my mother and brother's place when something caught my eye. I was on my own, it had begun to rain and wind whipped around me. It was dark out and I was walking alongside the bottom of a hill, next to the closed swimming pool. Something shiny glittered from the shadows.

I stepped off my path to inspect this interruption of the night. Pawing through the mud, I extracted what looked like a wedding band.

I wasn't sure what to do. Perhaps someone would realize they had lost it and return. But it wouldn't make sense to wait, exposed to the inhospitable elements under such uncertain terms. There was nowhere to leave it that would be visible yet near to where it was lost.

Looking closer, it appeared to have some kind of inscription. Very difficult to discern under the low light, I nevertheless felt it was somehow familiar. I walked further and beneath a streetlamp confirmed my suspicions. Elvish.

It was the One Ring to Rule Them All.

Of course it wasn't actually. After the success of the movies, it had been an obvious merchandising opportunity to make replicas of the One Ring. You could tell it wasn't real because if it was it would only show Elvish script after being exposed to fire.

But the way I found it felt very cinematic. The One Ring is supposed to find its way back to its master, the Dark Lord Sauron by attracting the attention of people who would wish to possess it. By inducing feelings of greed and power lust, its bearers inevitably fall to ill fortune and so it cannot be truly possessed. In this way it moves from hand to hand until reaching its intended destination.

So here I was, fighting through a bitter storm, and somehow, half-submerged in mud it shot a small glimmer of light at me. Despite the subtlety of the gesture and the discomfort caused by pursuing it, somehow I felt compelled to find the small object.

I like to imagine that someone bought a lot of One Ring replicas and left them in various places where they would feel epic to find.

Or maybe it's the actual article and the person that would commit the arson was attempting to reclaim it.

Maybe he had somehow carried the flames of Mount Doom, the only substance capable of melting its material, and he was actually some manner of hero attempting to prevent the Dark Lord from rising once again.

Anyway, I keep it on my keychain now. I did have someone growl "My preciousssss" at me since then. Someone who shouldn't have known what I had in my pocket, quite oddly. 

The Move is Done

The cleaners made good on their offer to move my family's stuff to the new location. Seeing the pile of non-recoverable items at the old unit made it feel like they weren't going to get much back, but seeing the huge display of boxes at the new place made me wonder what they left behind.

The packing was done in a much neater, more consistent and thorough way than how we did it after the first fire. Much of the bulk of  the moved items turned out to be boxes and packing paper. Once we cleared that out, it looked much less daunting.

Most of the boxes were labeled. One of them had a drawing of a book instead of the word "books". I guess one of the movers had an artistic streak, or it might have been a way to break up the tedium of the day. 

We did indeed retrieve mine and my aunts' paintings unharmed. The only exception was a still life that I'd done of four bell peppers, but that one had less sentimental value than most. I even have a second one in the same theme.

We also lost a print of some birch trees from all the way back at the place I lived five years ago. No one was attached to it though. I got it from a thrift store along with some other random images I thought were vaguely nice. Lee-Anne didn't feel the same and got me to leave behind most of my thrift store art when we moved to where we're at now. The birch trees were just nice enough to get a pass.

But when we got some nicer and more personalized decorations, the print got tucked away. When my family moved to the old apartment, we gave it to them as a house warming gift. After some time, my mother complained that it looked too much like hotel art, and so it got put in their walk-in closet.

When I visited the apartment for the first time after the fire, I thought that the taken items were considered non-recoverable, or at least under consideration, while the stuff still in the unit was intended to be cleaned. I found the birch tree print, but none of the other paintings, which made me think it was the sole survivor. It became a bit of a joke that this piece was immortal, despite no one really wanting it. However, I misunderstood how they were handling things, and it turns out that it's the only wall hanging (other than my bell peppers) that isn't going to make it. That's fine.

They got back most of their cookwear, books, clothing, and hard-surface furniture like bookshelves, tables, and dining room chairs.  For some reason, the cleaners packed an empty pickle jar. I guess they don't know what might have sentimental value.

I found a bunch of old college textbooks and a notebook from Katimavik that I'd never seen at their previous place. They had some stuff that never got unpacked after the first fire, and I guess they were included in that. 

Their place is looking mostly complete. All they're missing is some soft furniture. We requested the couch and arm chair from Lee-Anne's grandmother's. It would just be a shame to lose them since they're older than my mom and they would have survived such a short amount of time after leaving the farmhouse. At one point it was said that they would do their best to clean them and then send them our way, but they've been quiet on the follow up and since they've already done one move, they might not want to make another.

Since they had renters' insurance, they received a cheque to cover the inconvenience of relocating. They'll get another to refund the items that can't be recovered.

Back to Normal

My mother and brother have moved out. I'm not going to give any indication as to where, juuust in case an arsonist is reading this. I doubt it, but after two fires in under a year and a half, despite the causes being quite different and the culprit in the second case being caught, you just can't be too sure. I've never shared an address on here while the person referenced is residing there, but I did give some descriptions of their circumstance relative to us.

They were motivated to move when it was announced that the estimated timeframe for people returning to their units was increased from 3-4 weeks to three months. Just two days ago, because I'm still on their mailing list until the end of April, this was updated to six months from the time of their message. So, including the two that had already passed, this would mean returning a total of eight months after the fire.

Apparently they had people requiring emergency accomodations living in seven different hotels. Now, for those willing to wait to return, they have partnered with another rental agency to take in people for the estimated half-year until their homes are habitable again. Those that are okay with moving will be given priority for properties owned by the company. For people staying with friends and family, they have frozen rent, and people still bound to a lease have been given permission to terminate it early.

So they're being mostly responsible about it all. It's interesting though, I feel like some of the new condo buildings have sprung up in a shorter time period than the estimate for restoration. Lee-Anne said that sometimes, it's cheaper and less labour intensive to destroy a place and build from the ground up. Of course, that's less of an option considering we're talking about people's homes, and Park Place cares at least about its reputation.

I'm happy to update that the paintings I was worried about were declared recoverable, so we should be getting those back. The couch and chair from Lee-Anne's grandmother's were not so lucky, which was the case for most of the furniture. However, the cleaning company said that they can still do their best and then return them. The declaration of "non-recoverable" is mostly to give the owner an option of getting refunded under tenant's insurance.

Although I feel like getting the furniture back might be a little bit more difficult than originally anticipated. We had pretty free access to the unit for awhile, until their hallway got blocked off for removal of asbestos. The people doing that were different than the cleaners, and during that time they bagged up all the non-recoverables in a giant pile. This means we lost our ability to survey the items in the apartment and since then, we've received some emails asking for permission to throw everything out.

I get the impression that someone felt freer to offer us our stuff before it was all bagged, but the asbestos thing has since made it inconvenient to retrieve items. I think they may be legally required to do so though, as they are still asking permission. But without access to the unit, and without being offered a list of what they want to throw out, it's hard to make decisions. My brother has still requested a few items.

To give the cleaners credit, they have offered to do us the great convenience of delivering their items to the new location. This would relieve us of the need to make moving plans. 

My brother moved out first. Mom stuck around with us a little while longer until they could get a bedframe at the new place. This is because her leg is still a little messed up due to breaking it last year. Even having one less person was a relief, as it freed up a room.

Probably my greatest feelings of depression about the situation would spark  in the mornings, while drinking my cup of coffee. It being a time of year when the sun was slow to rise, our apartment would be cast in darkness when I got up for work in the mornings. With someone sleeping in every room, I would have no choice but to return to bed, drinking my coffee in the dark with Lee-Anne sleeping next to me. After my brother left, I was able to go to the room he was staying in and have my beverage with the lights on.

 The cats moved on the same day that my mother did. It's hard to tell how they feel about everything.

Friday the 13th Again

Because February is the only month that is exactly four weeks (except on leap years), this means that all the dates in March are the same except the last three. So the only way to have two Friday the 13s in a row is for the first one to be in February. Which it was this year, same day as the fire.

Yesterday was our second, marking one month since it happened. The weather suited the occasion. After three days of warmth, we were hit by a blizzard. I didn't bring boots or a coat to work because it looked innocent enough when I left.

This was also the last day to fit within the building's original estimate of three to four weeks before residents could move back in. 

The bad luck came, although not as dramatically as last time. We received an update to their estimate saying that it would actually be about three months. Whether that is counting from the event, or from now, was unclear.

My brother's birthday was on the 12th, and that day some people came to clean and deodorize the items still in the apartment. Unfortunately, a few things were considered unrecoverable. Among these were a computer chair and some bar stools. The latter is a little disappointing, as Lee-Anne and I got them new as a housewarming gift for them. They'll be compensated for it by their tenant's insurance, but still.

There were also a list of things considered under review. Among these were some of my paintings. Specifically these ones:

 

It's too bad, as these are sentimental and difficult to replace. They also survived the first fire, which hurts to see them lost in a second one. If they are, we don't know yet.

Lee-Anne and I visited the apartment today. Her family had given my mother and brother a couch and arm chair from the home of Lee-Anne's then recently-deceased grandmother. Those pieces of furniture were sturdy and likely older than my mom. There was no indication whether or not they were considered recoverable.

One funny thing I noticed was that the worker's actually used their whiteboard. To write some series of numbers that I don't know the meaning of. Lee-Anne drew the face of a cat next to it.

Behind a mattress that was set against a wall, I found a piece of paper with a note that just said "NO!". 

A collage of family photos had its frame cracked.

We rescued my brother's cactus and brought it back to our place. It's only just due to be watered and looks no worse for wear. 

They Found the Arsonist

The person that caused the fire at my mother and brother's building has been caught. Here's an article.  

https://kitchener.citynews.ca/2026/02/26/arson-charges-laid-for-fire-at-kitchener-apartment-building/

They didn't release a name, but we know it was a 32 year old man. They did include a potentially non-exhaustive list of charges put against him. Most of them seem what you would expect of an arsonist, ie, use of a disguise and tools, disregard for human life etc. The only somewhat interesting detail in there is that he broke probation, meaning that he's likely a repeat offender.

When something like this happens, you always want to know why the person did it. Was it simply for the sensation of creating a huge fire? Was it to impact a large number of people? Was it targeted toward someone in the building, or the company that runs it? We'll likely never find out.

Here's another article, from before he was caught. This one includes a photo of him on the night of the event. I wanted to post the pic directly on here, but I think they protected the image somehow.

 https://www.ctvnews.ca/kitchener/article/police-release-photo-of-person-tied-to-fire-at-kitchener-apartment-building/

 In my initial post on the topic, I mentioned the coincidence of it happening on Friday the 13th. At the time, the fire was considered non-suspicious. Now that we know it was arson, I can't help but think there may have been a bit of human intentionality on choosing that specific date.

The building has been sending us regular updates. Their present estimate is that it will take one or two more weeks before people can move back in. However, that might not be the case for my family, as they said that part of their restoration process is going to include removing pieces of the bathroom and kitchen, including the shower and cabinetry. This is only the case for people living on the first floor, which is where their apartment is.

We have been able to go into the apartment. In the emails, they said we would be able to go in for "supervised visits" which made me think that we would be monitored by staff. But you can just go, sign in and say what unit you're visiting and you can take your time. You just can't hang out or sleep there.

We've been able to get some stuff, like a folding mattress for my brother that he has from the last time he needed to stay with us due to a fire. He was just over, clearing out the bathroom and kitchen as per reccomendation from the building, so that they can do what they need next week. 

Fortunately, one of the requirements for tenancy was renter's insurance. Despite the fact that they didn't need to be provided housing, they're still getting $50 for every day that they're not in the unit. They're also getting reimbursed for the food that needed to be thrown out due to the refrigerators power being cut.

Every tenant is required to have all of their possessions cleaned. They will let us know when they go to our unit, and they encourage one of the resident's to be present while it happens. They're going about this in a relatively respectful way, but it still feels invasive. 

They have a rule against smoking in the building. This fire was like the ultimate chain smoker.