Clay Art, Bestival, Multicultural Festival, Baptism

This summer me and Lee-Anne went to a clay art lesson at a local event downtown. Before this, I'd tried it in Katimavik during the Summerside rotation where I made a mug with an anchor on it. I've also attended similar sessions when I worked at the Summer Program every year during Wacky Water Week. Sometimes facilitators got to take part in activities but I might have just supported people. If I did make something, I can't remember what it was.

This was a little different because we didn't get to keep what we made, but we got to use the wheel. In the past, all I did was form the shapes I wanted with my hands, then cut grooves in the clay (called scoring), wet it, and stuck the pieces together. This time, the clay was placed in the centre of a round platform which span when you pushed on a pedal.

You shaped it by running your hands up and down the sides and pushing down on the top, then pinching the walls as they form. Objective was to make a cup. I was pretty good at it, but because the session ended after a time limit instead of when you completed your cup, I wound up getting it where I wanted, but then just playing with it until time ran out. Because of this the walls of my cup got too thin and eventually tore.

There was also a local event called the "Bestival" in Belmont Village. This is an annual event, but the first year we were here it was just a smattering of stands with a handful of people walking around. I guess people were still COVID conscious, or maybe it was required to be scaled down, because this year it was at a totally different level. Huge crowds, live music on stages set up on opposite sides of the Belmont area, lots of local artists and restaurants with stands. An Indian restaurant that's usually sit-in that me and Lee-Anne haven't got around to trying had a stand out and we tried it. It was okay.

We stuck around for one of the bands. I don't know what it was called but it was like big band/rap fusion. Main instrument was trumpet. Kind of cool.

I just looked through my posts for this year, and I guess I never mentioned going to the multicultural festival. I didn't go on purpose, I was just in the area and saw a bunch of people going somewhere so I followed them. I go to the multicultural festival most years, but it's always by accident. I ran into a handful of people I know and listened to a few songs from an Indigenous group called The Sarcastic Onions. I didn't try any food, all the lines were way too long.

I also went to a baptism recently. I'm not Christian so I'd never been to one before. I always imagined them as either fully submerging the baby in a body of water or pouring water over the baby's head. What happened was the person in charge, I think wetted her hands and touched the baby's cheeks and forehead, but I couldn't be quite sure there was any water involved. Much quicker and less dramatic than I was anticipating.

At one point she told us all to reach out in the direction of the baby and offer our protection. Part of me worried that my non-Christian energies would inadvertently cast a hex on the child

Johnny Barnes

 Since I'm diabetic, I have to do bloodwork and have a check-up with my doctor every three months. In my "old neighbourhoods" post, I mention having walked from the medical clinic to the train station, guided by memories from my teenage years. I talked about seeing a few new developments at my old high school, as well as passing "Blossom Junction", a train made of flowers.

Since then I had to do another check-up and had the opportunity to redo the walk. Unfortunately, this time around Blossom Junction had been removed for the season, but I did manage to snap some pics of the developments by my old high school. Classes were in session, so I felt a little creepy as a 33 year old man with my camera out.

Anyway, here they are

I don't know if the arch has more significance than it appears to have, but at first blush it seems pretty self-explanatory. It says "Here lies open the field for the quest of knowledge" which makes sense for a school, and it also says "Since GCVI 1854". The school prides itself on its age, as it is the oldest secondary school in Guelph, and third oldest in Ontario. Back when I was attending, we did a thing where all the students stood in the formation of the number "150" and had a photo taken of us from above, to celebrate its birthday at the time. I myself was 15.

The school has a "new building" and an "old building", and in the old one, you can see dips in the stone staircases made by the footsteps of of students over generations. We have portraits of every principle over the course of the school's history hung up, and the older ones are paintings. It's said that in the painting of the first principle, if you look closely enough you can see the blood flowing through his veins. I remember inspecting it and believing this to be true. There was once a fire that ripped through the school but all the paintings were spookily undamaged. There's a book with the names of every student to ever graduate set in the entranceway of the old building.

As far as the statue goes, there was a bench with a plaque beside it that gave a bit of context

Apparently the person's name was "Johnny Barnes" and it says "Famous resident of Bermuda, exemplifies GCVI's welcoming, inclusive culture" It doesn't say how he managed this, so I Googled him

So first of all, here's a picture of him in the pose of the statue

There was a Guelph Mercury post on the topic as well, here's the link

https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/6126507-johnny-barnes-welcomes-guelph-cvi-students-with-open-arms/

I'd like to note that that article opens with a quote from Mr. Tersigni, who was the guidance counselor back when I attended the school. 

Anyway, according to the article, Johnny Barnes was "a 90-something Bermuda man, known for waving, smiling, and greeting commuters daily".

Apparently the statue didn't originate with GCVI, and was actually on a property in Caledon. When the land was being sold, GCVI asked to purchase the statue. Despite the fact that Johnny wasn't a graduate of GCVI, a citizen of Guelph or even Ontario, the staff of GCVI believed that he still represented the "welcoming spirit", the "international-mindedness, global awareness and respect for diversity" that GCVI prides itself in. According to the article, GCVI had North America's first black high school principle, which is a neat bit of trivia I didn't know.

I don't know. I do like the idea of celebrating a regular person with a strong personality. It seems like that might preserve us from the phenomenon of honouring powerful people, leading to disappointment when information surfaces that contradicts their public persona. Choosing someone without too many information walls feels like a wise choice.

However, the fact that Johnny wasn't a student of GCVI, and the school wasn't involved in the creation of the statue kind of invalidates him as a symbol of the place, in my opinion. Johnny sounded like a cool guy, though.

Lee-Anne's Birthday

Friday was Lee-Anne's birthday. We don't have a ritual of exchanging gifts on these days, but this time I made an effort. She hadn't asked for anything, and was surprised when I let her know I'd gotten something. While she didn't ask what it was, she put forward a lot of questions to narrow down what it could be.

"Would my mother like it?"

"She's never given the impression that she would, but it would be of her generation, so she might"

"Would my grandmother know how to operate it?"

"Since she knows how to use a TV, I assume so"

"Would my youngest brother like it?" (I'm omitting names for the sake of the post"

"He seems sentimental, so if he ever had one of these in the past, he might like it"

"Would my second-oldest brother like it?"

"No, he'd think it was outdated"

It was a clock radio. I've been transparent since the "I'm Diabetic" post, so I guess I'll admit to the fact that we had a cockroach infestation last year. We had exterminators come over, and it's been many months since we've seen a roach, but while they were around they occupied and destroyed Lee-Anne's radio. Now that that danger has passed, it seemed right to bring it back.

She loves to fall asleep while listening to the radio. She had programmed a setting that let it run for half an hour and then turn off, which was helpful to me because I absolutely cannot fall asleep while it's on.

After the roaches destroyed her radio, she found an app for her phone that gave access to all the same options, including one that gave a delayed shut-off time. But since she's a sentimental person, I had the feeling that she would appreciate having an actual radio. It also serves as an alarm clock, and since she's legally blind, I got one with a large display of the time.

She seemed to like it! She mentioned that she should have asked if her father would like the gift, since he's the only other person in her family with a specific fondness for radio.

I was surprised that there were as many options for radios as there were, since I thought it was a mostly outdated technology. Before choosing the one that I did for her, I ordered another one. It had a smaller display and didn't have an alarm clock setting, but could play CDs.

I was recently surprised to learn that CDs are still being developed. I was in Wal Mart at one time, and I noticed their CD section. There was one for "Encanto Songs", which is a modern Disney flick, and there was one with a visual of someone wearing a facemask, symbolizing production during the pandemic.

I cheated my diet for Lee-Anne's birthday as well. We went to a local place that specializes in deep dish pizza. I justify this because I have to see my doctor every three months, and I just saw her last week, so if I cheat my diet I have three months to recover and correct before having to report on my health

Old Neighbourhoods

A little while ago I was in Guelph for a doctors appointment. Afterwards, I was going to call an uber to bring me to the train station to travel back to Kitchener, but I thought I'd walk down to the apartment building that I lived in when I used to walk to the clinic. From there I remembered that I used to walk to high school, and from the high school I would sometimes walk downtown, and from downtown I could get to the train station. It felt pretty strange, doing a walk that I'd never done before, but patched together from different familiar routes, mostly from over ten years ago. I never made a wrong turn.

I walked by my old high school. Now they've got an arch and a statue of a guy with his arms outstretched. One of my coworkers who is ten years younger than me that went to the same school said they put both of those up while she was attending.

This wasn't my only opportunity to revisit old neighbourhoods. At work, we were exploring community centres because our main building was getting painted. I wound up getting assigned to facilitate a group that was near the old shopping centre that I would go to while I was in college. It looks a lot different now. It used to be a strip mall, and now it's like a square made of mall strips.

There's an LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario). I used to find it strange that the one nearest was a half-hour bus trip, and then 15 minute walk away. I heard it theorized that this was by design, and that there was some agreement to not let students have such easy access to alcohol. That is apparently not the case anymore.

The Rabid Fox, which was the local pub, relocated slightly to one of the new mall strips. There is now Shoppers Drug Mart, which is a chain pharmacy that also sells everything else. This at least offers some competition to the Zehrs, which was previously the only option for groceries. Before, if you wanted a cheaper option, you'd have to take a half hour bus ride and walk for 15 minutes to the Food Basics next to the LCBO I previously mentioned.

Zehrs is a slightly more upscale Canadian grocery store. If I were a student nowadays, worrying about my budget and without the time to leave the neighbourhood, I would probably buy the bulk of my groceries at Shoppers.

For some reason, the area around Conestoga College has never seemed marketed to students. Across the street we had Pino's Pizza, which was advertised as gourmet, and we had Mango King, which was a sit-down Thai-Vietnamese place.

Last weekend I went to the Frederick Art Walk, which is an annual art exhibition held in the Central Frederick area. After graduating college, I lived for about five months in a connected neighbourhood. I was an independent facilitator at the time, and it seemed like all my colleagues lived here.

These people are really proud of their neighbourhood, and say that the century homes and urban forest are as impressive as the local artists. I always found this attitude to be slightly pretentious, but it is a nice area. I've got a friend who had a booth there selling wood-turned items and I bought a bowl.

I was going to bus back but I checked my Pokemon Go to see if there were any new locations and I noticed the cat hospital, which I recognized. From there, I pieced my way back to downtown and then walked home.

This weekend, Lee-Anne took me on a walk up by where she used to to live when she was going to university, and she showed me where her brothers lived too. It was good because I'd only walked 15 km this week, and I have a goal of 30 km weekly The walk she took me on wound up being around 12 km, putting me in a good spot to complete my goal by tomorrow.

I'm Diabetic

Almost three months ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I haven't talked about it except for with close family members, but I did mention in a post awhile back that I'd seen my family doctor for the first time in 10 years. The meeting wasn't about concerns over potential diabetes but we decided to do some bloodwork as part of the health check up. My blood sugar was crazy. Since I was asymptomatic we had to do a second test to confirm and I was consistently above the diabetic threshold.

I'm on several medications now and I'm wearing a glucose monitor called a freestyle libre. The monitor is like a little computer the size of a button, which fastens to the back of your arm. You can download an app and use your phone to scan the sensor to get information on your blood sugar at any given time. You can see your average levels throughout the day separated in three hour timeslots, you can see a chart of your levels each day that you use it, or see one based on an average over seven days, 14, 30, or 90. It has alarms to notify you if your glucose is high or low, and today I just started using a notes system that you can use to record your behaviour when your sugars are acting strange. I thought I would hate being monitored all the time but it's actually pretty cool. Each sensor is supposed to last 14 days, although that isn't always the reality.

You have to apply the sensor yourself, and it's very intimidating at first. I didn't have a person to guide me, just an instruction manual that came in the box and some steps presented by the app. It uses really clinical language, like "place applicator over injection site and push down to apply sensor", which is a fancy way of saying STAB YOURSELF IN THE ARM WITH A GIANT NEEDLE.

The needle does really look absurdly large at first, like the stinger on a murder hornet. There is a spring mechanism in the applicator, so it's not quite like just pushing it into your arm. The weird thing is that it doesn't hurt. The first two times I tried to apply a libre failed. The first one started to itch and it fell out inside an hour, and the second one stayed and I was able to set it up, scan it and get some data but it fell off while I was sleeping that night.

The relevant change I needed to make to keep them on, was I needed to shave a patch of hair. I also got some additional adhesive to put on my arm. The instructions just told me to clean the area with plain soap, swab with an alcohol wipe and let air dry, which is what I did the first two times. Now shave the injection site, then shower, washing with soap and exfoliating, then clean with an alcohol swab, let air dry, then use skin tac, then apply the sensor. Four different liquids hit my arm before injection.

My first successful sensor was fastened to the side of my arm, because for some reason I had trouble figuring out where the back of my arm is. It lasted the full 14 days. I had it on my left arm because I figure you move your less dominant arm around less, so you're not as likely to knock it against something, same reason you wear a watch on your left hand. I realized though that I usually sleep on my left side, so the second sensor I put on my right arm, but it only lasted six days. It didn't come loose, it just stopped working, I'm not sure why. Third sensor I put back on my left arm and it lasted 12 days but it stopped working the same way that my second sensor did. I'm on my fourth right now, and it's on my right arm again because when I see my doctor they're going to want to take my blood pressure on my left side.

I've had to cut out almost all carbs and added sugars. So I'm not supposed to have juice, pop, bread, pasta, rice, or potatoes. Pasta isn't too bad and I never made a regular habit of drinking juice or pop, but I've got some of my identity wrapped up in my status as a baker. In Katimavik when we divvied up house manager duties during the last rotation, I was selected to be the group's bread maker. I kept my family in homemade bread after finishing the program, and I made a habit of giving people surprise loaves of bread. I even gave Lee-Anne a loaf of bread before we started dating and I was trying to impress her. Katimabread is my first post on my recipe blog.

Rice also sucks. I've often said that fried rice is my most basic conception of food, that if I were sent into a kitchen and simply told to "make food" I would produce fried rice. I've often said that it is the perfect cross-section of sustainability, nutrition, affordability, flavour, and ease of creation. Many times, when not knowing what to make for dinner I would start to prepare a protein, start throwing vegetables in, make a cup of rice, throw an egg on it and only then see what I'd done, add some sauces and call it fried rice. It was the first thing I learned to cook after leaving for college, which I did by reverse-engineering the stirfry sold in our campus cafeteria. Among other impoverished students that didn't know how to cook, I was a king when I whipped up a giant pot of fried rice.

I can kind of get back into using rice, but it's got to be long grain brown. Not too bad since my favourite was basmati, which is already long grain. I like to buy the giant sacks of rice that you can get in the international aisle, and luckily I found one with long grain brown basmati. The sack is plastic, not burlap like my previous brand, but it's still cool.

Lentils share many of the virtues of rice, with their sustainability and affordability and they are diabetic friendly. Canada produces three times as much lentils as India, the next highest lentil-producing nation, 95% of our crop produced in Saskatchewan. I'm trying to make lentil soup the new fried rice.

My sugar levels have been really good. Like, non-diabetic good and consistently low. That doesn't mean that I'm cured, though. It means I'm able to prevent active damage to my organs with the help of medication.

I've had to get my kidneys, eyes, and feet checked. These are the three areas they use to determine if you're symptomatic. I'm still okay in all three of these categories, and I've never had a dizzy spell or anything like that either. We only know about my condition through the blood tests, which is a good thing.

It's hard not to speculate about when I developed it. Since I didn't see my doctor for ten years it could have been any time within that span. It could have been when I was working in the group home, doing obscene hours. At one point I was doing sleep shifts full time, while maintaining four direct support contracts and taking five university courses. I kept clothes in my backpack and did my laundry at the group home, kept a bar of soap on me and showered at local pools, and ate leftovers at the grouphome or fast food all the time. I was so busy I was functionally homeless. My body could have crapped out then.

Or it could have been near the beginning of the pandemic when I went full survivor-mode. I thought society was going to collapse, and my fear drove me to exhaustion. I didn't leave my unit except for groceries for months at first after having been accustomed to walking over 50 km per week. Combination of stress and sudden drop in physical activity could have done it.

But I guess we will never know. All there is to do is keep trying to lose weight and keep my sugar at a healthy level.

Birthday, Engagement, Sunflowers, A Powwow, The Queen, and Orange Shirt Day

I just passed my thirty third birthday. It wasn't very exciting, it's not a very pivotal year. It was on a Wednesday and I was working. I celebrated by eating a shawarma and Lee-Anne made chocolate peanut butter tarts.

When I was going over my birthday well-wishes on Facebook I noticed that I never updated my relationship status when we got engaged. When you update your status to "In a relationship", it sends a notice to the other person and waits for their approval before announcing it. So I thought that when I updated my status to being engaged, it would send a request to Lee-Anne.

But no, it not only updated my status, it also published on both my page and hers as an announcement. I was going to take it down since it was late at night and Lee-Anne was asleep, but I didn't know if it would make an additional announcement saying we broke off the engagement if I tried to edit it back. I was getting lots of support quickly, too, and I thought I was past the point of no return.

So Lee-Anne had a fun surprise in the morning with tons of congratulations pouring in. She was cool with it though.

We had EAFy Day recently. The past few years I've dedicated full posts to it, but this year I wasn't on the committee planning it. It was still pretty fun. We were in Cambridge and the theme was Extend-a-Family Feud. We rotated through different gameshow inspired activities throughout the morning. We had these fancy boxed lunches from a place called EVO, which I've mentioned before. I had the antipasto platter, which seemed exactly like the charcuterie board I ordered the last time. Oh well, it was still good.

We got two more tiny end-of-year sunflowers.

The top one grew out of one of the flowers that had their first blossom torn off. I made an attempt to save both of them, but only one survived. Despite having lost its flower, it grew another one! In the bottom image, we have a blossom that grew out of the tiny and slow-growing flower that survived getting its stem snapped in a storm earlier on. It seemed unlikely that it would bloom at all but it wound up making two flowers! So we wound up with five blossoms total, even though we lost two early.

We went to a Powwow held in Waterloo Park last weekend. It was cool because the different dance categories, which were Jingle, Grass, and Fancy were the same as the ones featured in a powwow that I went to in Chisasibi during the Katimavik program. The person hosting the event spoke a little on the background of each dance before they were performed, so I finally got a little clarity on the specifics between the genres. They also sold frybread tacos there, and Lee-Anne got to compare the real thing to the imitation I make at home. 

I should mention that Queen Elizabeth II passed. She was 96, having reigned for 70 years, which is longer than any other British monarch in history. This is significant to Canada, as we are technically part of the commonwealth and we use her image on all our money. Our Prime Minister called for a federal holiday for mourning. However, Ontario's Premier decided against this, so only government workers in my province got the day off.

I have to admit I wanted the day off, but if I'd got it I probably wouldn't spend the whole day mourning. I don't have anything against the queen, but I've always been a little confused about the purpose of the Royal Family in modern England, and Canada seems a step further removed.

Speaking of days that our Premier decided shouldn't be holidays, today is Orange Shirt Day, or the Day of Truth and Reconciliation. It is dedicated to reflection on the damaging influence of colonization on our Indigenous population, with a focus on the residential school system.

Lots of things have happened in September!

Second Encampment

Back in June I made a post about a homeless encampment that had been developed on an empty field near the train station. They were issued an eviction notice for the end of the month, but the city has extended their notice on a monthly basis since then. They have port-o-potties now, I don't know if the city provided them. There are sunflower blossoms at the there right now, it looks really nice.

My position was in favour of the residents of the tent city. I said that in my view they are less dangerous not more when they are working collaboratively inside a community and have a reputation to preserve, and that the move to evict them wouldn't decrease the number of homeless, just divide them into small enough factions that the people complaining would be able to ignore the issue. My only reservation was that if we considered these living accommodation satisfactory, it might lead to complacency when I believe that all human beings deserve access to running water, heat and electricity.

Since then, a second encampment has developed in Kitchener's Victoria Park. Initially it was stated that it was in protest to the move to evict the train station tent city, however over time it became clear that the protest was at least doubling in purpose as another place of residency for our homeless.

The camp is set on Roos Island, a piece of land that branches into a wide river that flows through the park. It connects on one side by a bridge and on the other by a strip of land. There is a gazebo in the centre on which they have mounted a list of demands. They are as follows:

1. Stop evicting campers on city region land
2. No more police at overdose emergency calls
3. Stop ALL drug related arrests
4. Decriminalize ALL drugs and expand Safe Supply by 50%
5. Stop increasing the police budget
6. Use vacant properties in the downtown core for low-income housing
7. Provide low-income housing at 10% of income
8. Create space for housing alternatives in DTK
9. Create 1000 new low-income housing units in the downtown core
10. Stop CAS child abductions from Indigenous, Black, and low-income families
11. Sign over ownership of the bus terminal to the Indigenous Community
12. Formerly rename Willow River Park
13. Remove all colonial statues from the region; starting with Willow River Park 

I don't know what the process was like to come up with this list or if there's full consensus. They seem to be presenting themselves as strongly associated with the Indigenous population, but I've no idea what percentage of them have ancestry. Apparently a group called Fightback KW initiated this movement on Canada Day and has been supplying residents with many basic necessities. A local activist named Julian Ichim has been an outspoken representative on behalf of the tent city.

To clarify some of the demands, the call to rename the park is because the current name, Victoria Park, is based on Queen Victoria, whose rule oversaw expansion of the British Empire into what we now know as Canada. The idea is that having a park named after this woman celebrates the suppression of the Indigenous People. Similarly, the call to remove colonial statues is inspired at least in part by the big statue of Queen Victoria across the river from the tent city. After the discovery of the bodies of Indigenous children under former residential schools, red paint was splashed onto this statue representing the blood of these children. It was left up for awhile, and when the city eventually cleaned it up they put a plaque in front of the statue explaining its controversial nature.

The bus terminal they're talking about is Charles Street Terminal, the former centre for Kitchener transit. It got closed when they introduced the ION lightrail, and now we don't have anything like it, just a small transit office connected to a hotel. Since the terminal's been closed, it's been used as a homeless outreach centre during the initial lockdowns, and later a COVID testing site. Otherwise I think it's just a break area for ION security workers. I don't know why the Indigenous community would want this building, it's nothing special.

Reception to the train station encampment was divisive, and the Roos Island encampment has been received more negatively. That being said, it hasn't stopped people from going to the park and enjoying it, so far as I can tell. The playground still always looks full, there's always a lineup by the sausage vendor and ice cream truck, and I think every time I've gone, I see wedding photos being taken. 

People walk through the tent city. I've walked through the tent city, no big deal. So I still think people talking about safety concerns are playing it up. I will admit that I feel a slightly higher level of tension in the Roos Island tent city than the train station encampment, and that may be because the people of Roos Island are intentionally challenging the city by occupying land they understand is considered valuable.

I must admit, I think their demands seem a little lofty. Protesting encampment evictions and demanding an increase in affordable housing make sense, as these are driving our current housing crisis. Demanding a name change to the park and the removal of colonial imagery makes sense, because it concerns the space they are currently occupying. 

I understand that laws regarding drugs are a concern for some of their residents, I don't think the city has the power to decriminalize all drugs anyway. Affordable housing at 10% of income sounds like a challenge, I don't think I've ever had housing at that price even before the current market. I don't know why they want a bus terminal.

And while I believe that people with addictions should be valued and treated with dignity and that harm-reduction methods are more effective than prohibition, there is a lot of stigma around homeless people and the Indigenous community, and this strong emphasis on drug use in relation to these populations could bolster stereotypes.

The original encampment was developed by the homeless community, whereas this second one was developed by homed activists who brought in residents with the offer of resources. I worry a little about their being a coercive element. People will allow themselves to be represented by your message if you're willing to offer them something. Also, I hope that they do have Indigenous representation, and they're not just using a popular movement to give themselves credibility. 

If I were an activist working alongside the homeless population, I think I would want to provide them with resources and make sure that any relevant demographic within them was represented, so I'm not accusing the organizers of wrongdoing, but with this current setup it looks to me like there's room for exploitation due to an imbalance of power between the organizers and residents. So I hope everyone is collaborating.

The city says that it doesn't plan on making moves to evict based on their belief that people will move out once it gets colder. I suppose they believe the same for the train station encampment. I don't really see where they think people will move to, though.