Living Under the Eye of Mordor

This past Wednesday I left to go to work and found that everything was bathed in yellow light and smelled of smoke. There were fewer people outside than I was used to. I checked my work chat to see if there were any accommodations to the schedule, but I had no new messages. I shrugged my shoulders, thought "Well, this feels like the end of the world" and walked to WALES as usual.

I had failed to pay attention to the news. Apparently this was smoke that had drifted down from the Thunder Bay area. These past four years or so in North America, we have had particularly ferocious wildfires. I have family scattered across the continent and it feels like every year we need to check on one of the branches to see if they're alright.

For people in Southern Ontario, it's easy to feel like there has been a linear progression in severity. However, if we only compare with the last half-decade, it hasn't been a particularly bad year for them.

Here was a picture of the sky around noon:

 

That strange little dot in the centre is the sun. I noticed it, realised it wasn't hurting my eyes, then remembered the warnings we got during the Solar Eclipse. We had been cautioned not to look directly into it because, while it wouldn't cause pain, it would be damaging. The reason being that an eclipse causes sort of optical illusion, where the eye doesn't know to use its usual defence mechanism of dilating, even though it's just as dangerous. I wondered if this smoggy sun had a similar nature and averted my gaze as quick as I thought of it.

One of my coworkers referred to the eerie red dot in the sky as The Eye of Mordor.

The conditions of our climate have been noticed by the WALES members. One asked me, "Is fire just part of the weather now?

I got kind of fatalistic during a discussion at lunch, and, trying to be reassuring said "The Earth has had four mass extinctions in the past and life has always sprung back more sophisticated than before. If humans disappear, it's likely that whatever replaces us will be better suited to handle situations like this"

This failed to have the reassuring impact that I hoped for. It turns out, I was the only one with mass extinction on my mind. 

We had to cancel all outdoor activities due to poor air quality and postpone a community barbecue. People are spending as much time as they can inside and often wearing masks when they venture out. COVID vibes.

Most of my pea plants are dead. We had two types of sunflowers and the smoke killed one but not the other. We did get our first bell pepper of the season, though.

I'm also a little contrary, in that when things are bad I start to notice what is still good. I got these pics during the smog storm

 

It's mulberry season and I was trying to find time to harvest some. Thought I might try making pie and maybe jam, but don't feel comfortable going out when the air quality's so bad. It's supposed to be better by Monday.

In other news, Lee-Anne finally had her surgery booked for this coming Wednesday. About seven months past my prediction. She had a couple of pre-op appointments that she needed to flex her schedule around, them only giving us a day in advance to plan for. After completing these, she was immediately informed that they had broken the equipment needed for the surgery and had to postpone the procedure until further notice. 

Canada Day and Cherry Festival

Last Wednesday was Canada Day. I really think they need to shorten the name to Canaday, since as-is it sounds like it has a built-in stutter.

We went to the fireworks display in downtown Kitchener. It was our first time going. The previous few years we went to the drone show in Waterloo, which is their equivalent. I had been avoiding going to the Kitchener show, as the past few years I'd seen articles about young people shooting fireworks at bystanders.

Reactions always seemed toned down. I would see comments talking about how "irresponsible" it was for them to do this. I'm not usually one to avoid areas that are viewed as dangerous, or to assume trouble from any particular group, but this seemed like a predictable, reoccurring instance of fairly significant violence that could easily be avoided.

It's also not usually difficult to get Kitchenerites angry and exaggerative about a local issue. But for some reason, in this particular case, it was just mumbles about irresponsibility. Isn't getting shot with an explosive pretty dangerous?

Lee-Anne and my brother wanted to go, and just like everyone else, they didn't seem worried about it. So I reconciled myself with my fate and we went.

There was actually a local fireworks ban in place because of this issue. Although, based on how many we saw being set off on our walk over, this effort hadn't proven totally effective.

The show was supposed to start at 10:30, but it didn't wind up happening until like, 11:45. It was preceded by live music from The Last Tiger, which had proven to be a pretty good draw for the crowd.

Despite the place being crammed by the time we got there, somehow we found a pretty central viewing spot. I don't think it's good practice to do too much recording while at events like this, as it leads to living through a screen, but I did snag this pic just to kind of show how optimally we were positioned.

 

At one point, fire erupted from each of the side buildings. First in bursts, and shortly as a sustained stream. This is what really got a reaction from people, and it was intense enough that one could feel the temperature rise. I think it's a little funny that with all our advanced pyrotechnics that can make the sky glitter in every colour and send streams of light curling over a crowd, what really makes people pay attention is just a big old bunch of fire.

The turnout was impressive. Much more significant than Waterloo's. Part of me was proud that my city is more ready to come out, have fun and be together. But it was also a little overwhelming and I probably wouldn't come back.

But the reason is the crowd, not because anyone got hit by a firework. I realised once we got there that I'd always heard about shenanigans happening at Victoria Park. I assumed that's where the display was, but it's actually always been at Kitchener City Hall. So I had imagined people shooting into the crowd, when in reality it was mostly at each other and I guess sometimes at random park goers. Still bad, but we weren't in as much danger as I'd thought.

Somebody did pass out near us, though. Also there was a clown.

Then on the weekend we had the Cherry Festival. It's an annual event held in a smaller local park in our neighbourhood. Not quite as grand as Canada Day, but still pretty significant. It included the sale of cherry products, as well as some food trucks, stands with local artists, live music, carnival rides, professional wrestling matches, and an antique car show.

I probably mentioned this joke last year. But sometimes I like to say that, since Cherry Park is on Park Street, they missed out by not naming it Park Park. Then at the Cherry Festival they have antique cars parked in it. This could have been the Park Park Park. 

Lee-Anne's parents came down for the event. It was raining slightly but the turnout was still pretty good. My brother came later, but we'd left at that point. We all bought some cherry stuff, and Lee-Anne and I got a little rock goose to put in the window with our succulents.

(dis)Ability Art Gallery

Throughout June, the central Kitchener Public Library hosted the (dis)Ability Art Gallery. As the name suggests, the contributors all had experience with disability and/or chronic illness.

Lee-Anne and I checked it out. I've also made a dedicated post to my Gallery Blog. Here's a link:

 https://gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com/2026/06/disability-art-gallery.html

A few of the names were familiar to me. I know the artist that did these:

 

 At the Central Art Walk last year, I bought a piece from the person that did these:

 

 

The one I own is of a cat walking forward with a rainbow at its back. I keep it in my office at work. Here's proof:

 We went to this right after I did my colour contrast experiments using bird images. So I was amused to see these

 

 

Obviously there's a lot more going on in these works, but still, there's a bluejay, a cardinal, and a humming bird! Which were my three favourites when I was trying them out.

 By the way, since I was adding equal parts of each colour in my previous demonstration, I decided to go back and do these:

One on the left is a hand-mixed purple, one in the centre is pre-mixed, and one on the right is blue. I did this because according to the primary colours of pigment, yellow is contrasted by purple, whereas for the primaries of light, it's blue. I showed Lee-Anne my sketchbook and asked her to choose which hummingbird she liked best. She chose the one on the left. I showed them to her on my phone, and she chose the one on the right. So it may be that preference is chosen based on the medium something is delivered.

Although I know I've made purples that translate better to a screen. For example:

 

I also wanted to mention that in my Colour Theory post, the guy in the second video screws up in a fairly sizeable way. The colour wheel he gives has white in the centre, meaning its for light, but he's talking about, and later demonstrates for pigment. You can tell that the gamut he shows on the chart for red-yellow-blue would be incapable of making green, which is obviously false. So pthalo green is not some miracle hue capable of unlocking a quarter of all possible colours. It's still nice.

Anyway, the disAbility Art Gallery was cool. A lot of the art had something to do with personal experience. One of them made their piece out of doctor's notes. One of them included an abandoned project that they were unable to complete due to a medical emergency. There's one that was made by a person when they were recovering from stroke. There were depictions of being misaligned or standing out in public settings due to feeling like they can't fit in.

That weekend we also went to a neighbourhood bread bake. There is an outdoor wood-burning oven in one of the community gardens, and once a month people gather to use it. I kept it simple with standard white bread loaves. I haven't been baking much lately, and was disappointed by how little they rose. Maybe the yeast was just old. It did turn into edible, serviceable bread.

Colour Theory

 I recently watched a video that blew my mind. It asserted that red is not a primary colour

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYW9GoDbPE0

The reasoning she gives is that you can't actually make a vibrant purple by mixing blue and red. To achieve this colour you need to use the actual primaries, which she says are cyan and magenta.

And of course they're cyan and magenta! Think of a printer!

But how can this be? I grew up with the Red, Blue, Yellow (RBY) system. It's what I've been using all my life. Yet, I know for a fact that I've made purple before. Case in point:

 

In our public schools, RBY is what we're taught. Even in university, I took a beginner art class and they used this system. However, I went through my paints and found a tube that I got back then, and the "red" I was given was actually magenta. So they likely were practicing Cyan, Magenta, Yellow (CMY) but using outdated terms.

 I made a colour gamut comparing the two systems:

 

 

Some interesting takes here. It feels absolutely bonkers to mix magenta, which my eye perceives as red, with yellow and to get another shade of red instead of orange. I assume that if you wanted orange using CMY, you'd just add more yellow.

Cyan, despite looking similar to blue, immediately evoked in me the image of a pocket where a pen has exploded. This made me realize that "blue" pens use the same colour ink that printers do. Makes sense but I never thought about it. Red pens likely use magenta.

Indeed, red and blue make grey, while magenta and cyan, after lightening, make a kind of pale purple. So CMY wins that particular competition.

HOWEVER! You'll notice that beneath the colour wheel, I did the unholy thing and mixed the two systems. And the combination of magenta and blue made a more vibrant purple than staying pure to either.

So blue, you're still on the team. Red, you are out! It also makes sense that when these discussions come up, people always choose to beef with red but not blue. The CMY folks secretly know that blue still has utility.

But then I watched another video on the topic.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcr9K0BcN2s

This guy pulls up a colour wheel and draws a triangle between each set of three, showing the capacity of each system. Indeed, CMY creates a wider variety than RBY, however, there are still combinations that the latter can do but the former cannot. He mentions that CMY is particularly bad at making darker skin tones. Printers are racist, I guess. 

He suggests burnt umber if you want to paint people, which is why the very bottom of my colour gamut is dedicated to it.

 He also says that it's impossible to recreate the exact shade of red using CMY. You can make a decent approximation, but you can't replicate it. It makes sense now that the CMY folks often say that mixing magenta and yellow creates a "better" red than the one on the traditional colour wheel. If it's "better", then you have failed to recreate it,

So if you're definition of a primary colour is that it can't be made with a combination of others, then both red and magenta are primary. Indeed, if this is the logic we're using, then there are simply more primaries than some of us are willing to admit.

But all of this was not the most fascinating part of the discussion for me. The colour wheel he pulls up is round, and three points make a triangle. This leaves almost and entire quarter of the wheel untouched! How do I access those mysterious colours?

He answers that question. If you want to reach over to that side of things, your best bet is something called pthalo green.

I made a colour gamut for this secret king of its quadrant:

 

 

Mixing it with magenta gets a sort of purple, while red makes grey again. Even if it's primary, red has far less application than I thought.

The takeaway he gives is that, if you can only choose three colours, CMY gives the widest variety. But there's lots it can't do and you don't have that limit. He goes over the pallets of great artists and I think the number he says is that they all have between 9-13 colours, most with over ten. 

I still wanted to see how the two systems compared when using contrasting colours. So I doodled some birds.

 

 

These aren't necessarily supposed to be good, they're just colour experiments. I used roughly even amounts of each colour when mixing for contrast. Exception is the green parakeet, where I used three tones of the same colour. The wings and head are the even blend.

I could have shown the same dignity to the canaray. Obviously could have given it more love.

I had to look up "most purple bird", which turned out to be something called Costa's Hummingbird:

 

Obviously my versions didn't come out nearly that vibrant, but I needed to stay true to the experiment. If I was really aiming to do it justice, I would have used magenta, blue, and white. Or just a premix.

And all this to say, these rules only apply to the primary colours of pigment. I believe this is called additive colour theory, in which combining everything results in black. This contrasts with the primary colours of light, or subtractive colour theory, in which combining everything creates white.

I'm pretty sure that a computer screen uses the primary colours of light, so everything I've shown in this post is still only an approximation!

The primary colours of light are red, blue, and green. So if the primaries of pigment are cyan, magenta, and yellow, that means there are no overlapping colours between them! Bonkers. 

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.