Art Walks, 2025

Me and Lee-Anne went on the two local Art Walks this year, as we usually do. The one in our neighbourhood was smaller than the one branching from downtown, which is usual. However, it seemed like the disparity was increased this year. The Central Art Walk was only eight locations, and they could be divided into two separate "clusters" with a lot of unused space between them, whereas the Frederick Art Walk was so busy that we weren't even able to complete the whole thing.

It wasn't too long ago that I would go to these things, skirt along the perimeter, snatch glances of artwork and avoid talking to anyone. This year, we were not only involved in every stop we came across, but we spent perhaps an irresponsible amount of money.

The place I got this from generously hosted several contributors, one of whom noted that I was from his neighbourhood. He was enthusiastic to explain the background of the painting to me. While it looked good in the place that I purchased it from, it doesn't quite have the same effect here. I'll find a place to display it where it's appreciated.

The top two images of the sunset and the flower vase are from someone at WALES. The bottom depiction of a cat walking by a rainbow was from someone else. They were both stationed at our office, which was hosting several artists.

We got a bunch of magnets. For some reason, these were a trend this year.

We bought a crochet cactus named Carl Tractor. Each of his line got a story associated with them, which you might see as a thought bubble floating behind him. It says: 

"He once beat an advanced computer at chess, but could never do it again. He takes his sister to the movies every Sunday."

Last year, Lee-Anne ran into someone with Girlguide cookies. She'd run out by the time we got there, but we exchanged phone numbers for when the next batch arrived. That didn't come, but when we were shopping for clay ghosts this year, the seller reminded us that she was the one that had promised cookies. Luckily, she had them in stock this time.

Stickers were also popular. Lee-Anne has been riding her bike more frequently, and she's heard that the best deterrent for theft is stickers, because they're inconvenient to remove and visually distinct. So she got a bunch on the art walks

The same guy that I buy bowls from had charcuterie boards. I wound up getting two, one for us and one for my mother and brother.

Last year I got a homemade calendar, which I was hoping to see again. The house was open, but there were no calendars this year.

Garden Update, October 2025

Weather's shifted to requiring jackets and long pants, so the garden season is mostly over and we've had our most successful year yet! 

We had 27 tomatoes over 4 plants. I usually view getting anything edible as a win. I'm resigned to the fact that this hobby will not yield enough to make a financial gain. However, 27 tomatoes is non-negligible! We've also harvested an additional 6 green ones that might ripen, and the plants are still alive and producing. Even if they don't turn red, we'll get more material for fried green tomatoes.

One of my coworkers has said that each plant should produce 100 tomatoes. Obviously we're shy of that, but I'm not going to be cynical because this is still our best year yet.

No luck with the zucchinis. They made a lot of flowers and a few began to develop but were lost before we could harvest them.

We had three bell peppers on one plant. Not great, but it was our first year trying one, so I'll consider any harvest a win.

The way that snow peas grow, it's almost impossible to count them. We had a reliable crop though. Similarly, it's hard to quantify herbs, but we managed enough mint, parsley and arugula to make several salads. We also grew chamomile and it was healthy, but we really didn't know what to do with it.

Unfortunately, none of the sunflowers that I'd highlighted as interesting survived. The one with the loop in it's stem and the one that survived getting snapped were eaten by critters. Despite that, we've had 27 blossoms, far surpassing our old record of eight.

Of these, seven were Kongs. Not bad, considering we planted ten. It wasn't a flower per plant though. I got to see the first one beheaded by a squirrel from our kitchen window. After the initial assault, some managed to produce more flowers post-beheading.

Despite blossoming, the Kongs never got to a height that distinguished them from regular sunflowers. Of them, the tallest was 4'5", just one inch larger than the biggest of the traditional batch.

And of those two that were competing for tallest, both lost their flowers, and both produced multiple additional ones in retaliation. It appears that when they lose their initial blossom, it triggers an instinct to grow multiples at once. Most of the ones that didn't get attacked were content with a single flower.

That's seven blossoms on one plant! The replacement flowers are more crinkly than the originals, and grew from darker buds. I've only managed to harvest one seed so far, and some should be well ready for harvest. I don't know why they didn't really mature properly. Still, there are more that can still produce, and they're attracting pollinators, so they are functioning to an extent.

Lee-Anne also grew some decorative flowers.

At one time, there was a variety in this pot. It really got dominated by the one plant, though I don't remember it's name.

A neighbour gave us some hostas for the front yard. We just got to know her this year from an interaction regarding her community sidewalk chalk set. She kept it in a plant pot, and one day me and Lee-Anne noticed that it was broken. We replaced it, and I guess she has a camera or something, because she saw the random act of kindness and went out of her way to thank us and introduce herself. This led to a discussion about plants and we wound up with some hostas.

They aren't really impressive at the moment but they appear to have survived. Apparently they'll come into their own next year.

Old Guelph Neighbourhood

 Last weekend, me and Lee-Anne visited Guelph and toured some of the old places that I knew growing up.

First thing I noticed was that Riverside Park appears to have been rebranded as Royal City Park. For some reason, Guelph is known as The Royal City. It doesn't make much intuitive sense as I think our original function was as a farming community meant to feed Toronto. There's a reason for the nickname, and I've looked it up, but I always forget.

I don't mind the rebranding. Cambridge has a Riverside Park, and it was slightly awkward that the two cities had the same name for their main parks.

We checked out the house that burned a year ago.

 It appears to be occupied now, and there's a second door at the front of the house. The top portion was always sectioned into two, but one part was only accessible via the side door.

We went all the way back to the apartment that I lived in between ages 3-16.

We lived in the one second to the top. Unfortunately, a tree that I felt a connection with as a child, that I named Spikey is no longer there. He was a young tree that I saw planted, so he must not have reached his natural lifespan.

We went to the plaza across the street.

Not much changed to be honest. Then we visited my old elementary school.

In this pic, we're standing at the top of a hill. This was the spot for sledding during winters. My old school is the small, low structure at the bottom.

Then I showed Lee-Anne an area off the side of the hill. It connected to the child author Robert Munsch's old neighbourhood. He would visit our classes on Pyjama Days and read us stories and he used to give out miniature versions of his books to Trick or Treaters on Halloween. Recently it's been made public that he has requested Medical Assistance in Dying. I think he's been unwell for awhile.

There's a patch of forest around this area that my classes would sometimes take trips to. I remember being told that one of the trees was the oldest in Guelph. I don't know how closely they're keeping track of that, but I did find the one that this claim was put to.

Then we walked to my old middle school. Everything was so familiar, like I'd been there yesterday. It almost seemed like I was in the wrong body.

We visited the old forest that I used to walk in with my friends after school. This was the main draw of the trip. Most of it had been cut down. This wasn't news to me, it happened shortly before I graduated. But when I left, the land hadn't yet been developed. Now, the area where I used to walk in the woods was covered in houses.

I knew that some of my old forest was protected wetlands, and indeed, I found a significantly sized patch.

Apparently it's known as Ellis Creek Wetland. I never knew it to have a name before. It now has a maintained path through it. The sign says that it's a "sensitive", "Provincially Significant" silver maple swamp and has guidelines for how homeowners can protect the land. It feels funny that some respect has been put on it after most of it was cut.

Sometimes I reflect on my childhood and think how there used to be lots of ladybugs, but I don't see them anymore. Since extinction of flying insects is considered one of this planets most impending threats, I thought that maybe this was due to climate change. But there were ladybugs in the forest. Also, lots of burs, which caused me some grief when I got them tangled in my then-long hair. I guess these were just staples of the wetland microclimate.

We did get off the maintained path and scrambled through the wilder area, more familiar to my memory. We saw the knobbly roots of trees accustomed to flooding. I took a rock home with me as a souvenir.

September Whirlwind

This September has been a real rough month. Not bad, just busy. That's why this is the first, and likely only, post for September this year.

Me and my coworkers hosted a wedding shower for someone on our team. They did something similar for me and Lee-Anne two years ago. We even still had one of the decorations from then still on display, although it came down after.

It was also mine and Lee-Anne's second anniversary. I made falafels and she made fattoush. Apparently September is the most popular month for weddings, and the 16th, which was when we did it, statistically has the highest rate of the entire year. 

We got two new students at work, which I'm acting as a supervisor for.

We had the annual EAFy Day event at work. It was time-themed with a bunch of optional activities. I wound up going to a museum and doing a walking tour of historical sites in Waterloo Region.

We also had the March of 1000 Umbrellas hosted by United Way. Two years ago I wound up on the front page of the newspaper. I didn't actually go this year, since we needed a couple of staff to take care of the building, but it still required some planning.

I had my three month check in with my doctor, requiring a day trip to Guelph. Because Mom now has similar issues as me, we organized it so that we could go at the same time and sat in on each other's meetings. This is likely how we'll plan it going forward.

We had the Walk or Wheel event. This is an annual fundraiser that Extend-a-Family holds. People collect pledges, and then branches of the organization are designated stations where they offer an activity for the attendants. Because of its proximity to my birthday, I've never actually attended. But this year, pretty well all the other staff were busy, so I stepped in.

Our activity was a "rock snake". This was something that became popular during the pandemic. People would paint rocks and line them up when they were socially isolated for a feeling of connection and contribution.

Because we are WALES, we made a "rock whale" instead. Doesn't make a ton of sense because it's still shaped like a snake but I thought it was fun. I made a head and tail and used the community contributions to build the body.

The event was four hours. Somehow, I decided we needed 150 rocks. Despite consistent engagement, we only needed 32. If you're the type to count how many are in the pictures you might notice we don't quite have that number. That's because two people wanted to take their rocks home.

The rocks came from our backyard. At some point, one of our neighbours had a surplus of them and offered them to Lee-Anne for free. We tried placing them in an area with a lot of weeds to try and prevent growth, but they came through even stronger. They've just been sitting there since and finally found their use. We still have more.

The WALES members are continuing to paint the leftover rocks and adding to our whalesnake.

I got both of the stuffies from a local thrift shop. I set them out with a whale painting that I did during the pandemic. Between that and the rock snake, it weirdly felt like a reflection of five years ago. 

The painting got a little marked up, but I wasn't too mad about it because it felt like it was made to show up for the event.

When it was over, I put the disrupted whale on display in my office.

It was my 36th birthday the day after. Lee-Anne bought me a couple of books: Is a River Alive, and Finding the Mother Tree. Both are kind of in the genre of "The Hidden Life of Trees". I heard a radio interview of Is a River Alive which piqued my interest, and I found Finding The Mother Tree in a local coffee shop. The latter sounds pretty similar in content to The Hidden Life of Trees, but from an Indigenous perspective. 

My mother and brother bought us an air fryer. This is helpful because it has an oven setting. The one we have now runs a little hot, so if we want to bake anything, we often go to my mother and brother's. Now we can do it at home again. I also have a stated value of not deep frying at home. To me, it's too wasteful, messy, unhealthy and dangerous to justify at a single household level. The air fryer bypasses those barriers. I'll probably learn how to make samosas and spring rolls.

And just this past week I needed to do my trainer recertification for Safe Management. This meant that I did a day trip into Oakville. Everything went smoothly but it was a long day. 

The only somewhat stressful thing left in the month is that I'm hosting a training for students tomorrow and the day after. This is pretty routine, except that we have two new facilitators for which this will be their first session. As the senior trainer, expectations will just be a bit higher for me to keep things running smoothly.

Fourth Date Redo

Mine and Lee-Anne's fourth date was doing something called Canoeing The Grand. We rented a boat and paddled down an established route through the Grand River. Despite it being entry-level, we managed to capsize. Lee-Anne has referred to this as a make-it or break-it stage in our early relationship.

We pulled our canoe to the side and were lucky enough that some more experienced people checked in on us and offered one of their paddles, since we had lost both of ours. After this, we managed to make it the rest of our way to the landing point.

This story was popular enough that, when my coworkers threw our wedding shower some four years later, we received gifts themed after it. These included chocolate boats, "Broken Canoe" branded peach drinks, and a gift certificate for "Canoeing the Grand".

It's been two years since our wedding shower. Luckily, the gift certificate didn't expire and we finally got around to it.

When we arrived, the person that met us gave some pointers on how to stear through it. She said that ripples on the water mean rocks. Makes sense. I don't remember getting this advice last time though.

When we were signing the wavers and processing the gift certificate, she gave us our emergency kit and said that on the route we were doing she "promised we wouldn't need it". It wasn't worth telling her that last time we not only managed to get ourselves in a situation where we would need it, but we also managed to lose our emergency kit in the process.

But this time we managed not to capsize! I was much more alert to potential hazards so I didn't take many photos, but here are a few.

We saw ducks, geese, and cormorants. I counted maybe 11 herons and a couple flew right by us. I think I may have seen a couple red-breasted merganser, but I don't know if I was wishful thinking. A hawk or turkey vulture followed us for a bit. There were a lot of people fishing but I only saw minnows.

We did grind to a halt in shallow waters and needed to get out and pull the canoe a bit. There were two other people that started at the same time as us and had the same issue. All in all I think today was an example of redemption.

Trip North, 2025

Me and Lee-Anne recently got back from a trip up North to see my grandparents. We did this last year too, and I made three posts about it. Since there was such a significant gulf of time between then and the last time I'd been up, there was a lot to talk about. This time I'm pretty sure I can condense it to one post.

I took two weeks off work. I often run into an issue where, because I don't like scheduling, I put it off and wind up with excess vacation time at the end of the year. I once heard someone say that taking two weeks off at a time is preferable, because if you take only one, then people postpone things until you get back. If you take two, people need to figure out how to handle it themselves.

It also just makes scheduling easier. We figured we'd be up North for about a week, and taking two off allows for some flexibility and a bit of unwinding time after getting back.

We took the bus up. Last year, we had the same driver there and back. He recommended that me and Lee-Anne get the pizza buns at the rest stop in Bracebridge, and told us to ask for them microwaved. We took his advice, and he checked in with us to see how we liked them. He said that this was his dinner every day.

The affection he had for that little rest stop and his friendliness was very sweet, and his reflection that it's his dinner every day was slightly sad. Overall, he left quite an endearing impression. He didn't drive us either way this time, but we did see him at the layover in North Bay.

Last year, we came in the Fall. This time, we aimed more at the Summer, the express reason for this being that it's more seasonal for blueberries. Unfortunately, late frosts combined with harsh heat spells made for a poor turnout. I still found some wild blueberries, enough for me and Lee-Anne to get some satisfying samples, but not enough to make into jam or pie.

If you want to see the pictures I took, I made a Gallery post here:

http://gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com/2025/08/kenabeek-pics-summer-2025.html

I did some driving lessons with my grandfather. I don't remember if I posted about it or not, but last year I almost tested for my G2, but I'd needed to get an extension on my G1. I did this successfully, but I mistook the receipt for the license itself and showed up to test with the wrong documentation. So I never got to try, and just renewed my G1.

I'd planned on taking lessons through the Summer and testing again, but somehow the last couple of months feel like they've just melted away. Driving up North was my first time at it this year, but I refamiliarized pretty quick. I'm still holding out hope to get some lessons and testing for my G2 this year, but I just feel fated never to get it.

Me and Lee-Anne made dinner one of the nights, partly to showcase my growing culinary prowess. The item available was shrimp, so we did our yellow coconut curry. Based on this old recipe:

https://gryphood.blogspot.com/2022/01/yellow-coconut-curry.html

We used up their curry powder, so we made a custom spice blend to mimic it. The result was passable, but a bit sweeter than usual. I think because the honey we used was local stuff produced by one of their neighbours.

I'd finished reading The Children of Hurin on the bus ride up, which is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings based on the notes of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited and published by his son. I wrote a review of it while I was up there. Since there isn't a reliable Internet connection, I typed it into my computers Notes app and copy/pasted it into my Reviews blog when I got back. You can access it here:

http://gryphonsreviews.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-children-of-hurin-book-review.html

This led to some discussion about Middle Earth, and then me finally watching The Hobbit movies, which my grandparents have the DVDs for. I hadn't bothered to watch them previously because while The Lord of the Rings movies being a trilogy made sense because they were based on three books, doing this for The Hobbit, a singular book, just felt like a cash grab to mirror previous success. Fortunately, the films did retain the whimsy and adventure of the book instead of attempting to impose the stakes and grandeur of their previous work. Maybe I'll make a review at some point.

On coming back, we stayed overnight at a different grandmother of mine. The next day we all went to the Art Gallery of Ontario and looked at an exhibit of Joyce Weiland, a feminist Canadian artist. It included a rendition of a moving map of her brain once she'd developed dementia, showing first the impacts of the condition, and then the healing factor that took place as she did her art.

Since it isn't in the Gallery, here's a picture of me and Lee-Anne in front of an elephant made of old couches.

Lee-Anne observed that, between the discussions on music and literature with my Northern grandparents, and the art museum in Toronto, every side of my family is "artsy". 

A Year in Kitchener

Tomorrow, me and Lee-Anne will be going up to Kenabeek. It's a little earlier this time than last, but it still marks roughly a year since my mother and brother's house burned down.

After, they stayed with us for a bit before finding a new place in the same neighbourhood. Though the circumstances were grim, it has given opportunity for them to experience the city where me and Lee-Anne live. I'll be going over some of the local highlights today.

In previous visits, they'd already been exposed to Belmont Village and the Iron Horse Trail. We live in Kitchener, but we're only about a five minute walk from the border of Waterloo. In fact, we're fairly equidistant between Downtown Kitchener and what is known as Uptown Waterloo. It makes sense then, that the locals refer to our area as Midtown. The heart of Midtown is known as Belmont Village, a strip of independent businesses. I've mentioned it on this blog a bunch of times

They had both already tried a restaraunt called Thai Bistro. Now, we introduced them to Graffiti Market, a place that does deep dish pizza in a way I've only experienced there, and Relish Shawarma, which I've talked about a lot on here. Mom has grown a deep fondness for Relish.

They had both been on the Iron Horse Trail previously as well. It's the longest paved route in the tricity and previously was a rail line for workers to get to factories. This was a prominent enough feature that the buildings that my family currently resides in were initially developed explicitly for users of the Iron Horse Rail. My mom still plays Pokemon Go (as do I) and on seeing the consistent distribution of gyms (game feature) she said "It's like being on Victory Road!" (common end location, leading up to the game's final challenge).

The first new place I showed them was Uptown Waterloo. I did this because they had some specific wants that were best served in that area. I came to regret this though, because first impressions are important and for awhile it became a comfort zone. It's a nice place, but while we have easy access to both cities, me and Lee-Anne both strongly identify as culturally Kitchener, so it just irked me a bit to see Waterloo become the baseline for my family.

My brother, needing a mattress, went to Fairview Park Mall and so got to try our Ion Light Rail. More consistant and with more frequent arrivals, it's definitely a step up from Guelph's city buses, and he has grown to enjoy its utility. Soon after this, my brother left and stayed elsewhere for a few months, so Mom got to experience a few things ahead of him. 

They became aquainted with our closest grocery, which is an independently owned place called Central Fresh Market about a 15 minute walk from where we both live.

Waterloo may have become the touchstone, but Kitchener claimed a win with it's signature park. Me and Mom went to Victoria Park and she got to try a Polish sausage cart that has some measure of fame around here. We also got to see the two swans that inhabit the area. Later, a friend of her's from Guelph would visit and this is where we would go. She said that it's better than Guelph's Riverside Park.

Here's a blurry picture of a weird, duck-like diving bird we saw. I would eventually learn that it's a cormorant, and I've seen many more since.

Mom came with me and Leee-Anne to the Bestival. I think that name is an amalgamation of Belmont Village and Festival, with the happy coincidence that it also has the word "best" in it. She got to try the Fo Cheesy food truck which frequents local events. She bought a bag from a local artist and we listened to some music.

After my brother came back, he joined me and Lee-Anne in participating in a community cleanup event and has signed up to volunteer for future things.

We all went to the Multicultural Festival together. I ran into a coworker who was coincidentally doing a show and we got to watch that. My brother got to try some spiral potato thing. 

Went to a drone show for Canada Day. Neither of them had seen one before. Me and Lee-Anne have been to a few. The first time was for a show held by our local hospital, and it was really trippy. Crazy to see all those tiny glowing robots fly around and create moving pictures in the sky. 

The second time was for Canada Day the year previous. It was pretty subdued, and I wondered if it was one of those things that is only good once. Despite the occasion, there wasn't any Canadian imagery. I think that the recent discovery of mass graves of Indigenous children beneath residential schools had soured the national image at that time, and so the celebration came across as confused and noncomittal.

However, this year patriotism has resurfaced in a big way as threats of colonization and trade wars have been issued from our neighbours to the South. So there was plenty of Canadian imagery when my mother and brother went.

First image was a Canadian flag but it was followed by Turtle Island and an Inukshuk as a gesture to Indigenous communities. Hopefully showing we haven't forgotten them after emerging worries from the South.

Waterloo is the goose-hating capital of the world, but it's become such an integral part of their identity that it's warped around to a sort of love.

Me and Lee-Anne waited an absurd amount of time at a German food truck. I'd been wanting to go to it specifically for currywurst, since me and her had tried it during Christkindl Market and we didn't know it was the featured food. But they didn't even have it this time around so we got a schnitzel sandwich and schnitzel poutine.

My brother, who came after us, was stuck in the line for the entirety of the show. Luckily, it was big enough that he could still watch it in full view.

We all went to the Cherry Park festival, which is a more targeted event to our neighbourhood. We got cherry icecream, served by our former MP, Mike Morrice. We  also got cherry tarts, strudels, and jam. We got a little clay pot, and they got some magnets by local artists. 

Recently my brother discovered an authentic East Asian grocery called New City Supermarket. I'd already been in a handful of times. He also found a health food place called Full Circle Foods, which I've been to once. He was very enthusiatic about both.

He also found a local garden store that I didn't know about. He also got his hair cut at The Green Room barbershop, where Lee-Anne has been trying to get me to go, and now he's pressuring me too.

That's what I can think of so far. They both still need to go to Christkindle Market, at least one of the Art Walks, the Kitchener Farmer's Market, and the Clay and Glass Art Gallery. I don't think they've been to the Kitchener Public Library. Mom was close, because my cousin hosted an event in the courtyard, but it was outside of library hours. Maybe The Museum should be on there, but I don't think it's anything special.

I'm the only one of the four of us to have gone to the Butterfly Sanctuary, so that's on the list too. Buskerfest, Bluesfest, and Ribfest are all big around here, and I've not been to any of them. I've no interest in the latter though.