Life

Well, what to say this week? I didn’t go out much and there certainly wasn’t a lot happening for most of the week after the madness that’s been the past two weeks. I enjoyed just kicking back and getting reacquainted with my apartment and bed again.

I didn’t suffer jet lag from my trip but I certainly did take an extra day off after coming back anyway, since that was 6pm on a Sunday evening, and Monday was a nice and relaxing day that I used to get everything sorted away and catch up on my blog and some things that I liked or wanted to do, like unpacking everything and watching anime and arranging the CDs and plushies and other things I brought home. Plus work is being a drag at the moment due to an overbearing executive, so I was in no hurry to return.

Since I’ve been going out more often, I’ve decided that I don’t always want to do all the optional sections of my blog every week, as those can really add time to my blog writing, especially during high-activity weeks. I’ll still do them sometimes, but I only have so many plushies to talk about anyway, and the other two sections that I currently do, Song of the Week and Memory Snippet of the Week, are starting to feel a little bit forced for a weekly schedule. They’ll still occur when I have things to write about and have time though. But I enjoyed the two weeks before I left for vacation too much, when I skipped them entirely while doing those weekly blogs, and I’m always looking to try to make my blog entries faster, so they’ll all be intermittent from now on. For now.

One of the things on my need-to-buy list is a book sleeve — basically a cloth or leather pouch that you can slide a book into. I want it not for that, but to keep the pictures and caricatures of Tigey that I’m going to start collecting now, and that I picked up my first two of on the trip that I just concluded. It was disappointing that it was raining on the day that I was in Stanley Park in Vancouver, as that means that there were no artists around. I hope the next time I go to Vancouver, they will be there. I might go again later this year. In the meantime, I wrote down a couple other artist gatherings that I will attempt to visit in Edmonton this year, including a couple later on this week.

I have earmarked a few of these from Canadian Etsy sellers that I need to decide between and purchase, but I haven’t actually bought this because of the Canada Post strike that’s currently going on. Good for them, and I hope they get a fair pay raise, but it does definitely disrupt my ability to make purchases. It’s an inconvenience well worth the cost though.

The new condo filter that my realtor set up on the site has been an abject disaster, and I get so much spam on it now because the filter is far too wide. I haven’t had the energy to tackle this and get it fixed yet though, but maybe this next upcoming week.

I really, really like the teacup with filter that I brought back from Jolene’s Tea House in Banff. I’ve just either had disposable tea filters or awkward tea strainers so far for my loose leaf teas, but this one will be a bonafide teapot(?) for me over the next few years, I hope.

It’s tradition for there to be bugs in my house when I come back to vacation — one time it was bedbugs, another time it was little dead flies all over my floor and a big hole in my wall, but this time it was just one single beetle on my kitchen counter, near where these cups were.placed. I think it’s the first bug I’ve seen in the apartment this year. It got flicked into the sink and down the hole and that was it.

I noticed that the noisy Ukrainian neighbour above my old apartment, Edmonton 205, moved out at some point within the last couple of months. I know that because I wander past the courtyard below my old apartment block now and then depending on which way I walk, and usually take the opportunity to peek up at the balconies out of curiosity. The table and chair that was on his balcony, and that was there all season round, is now gone. The bicycle on the balcony of my old unit is also gone though. So maybe the person that moved in to my unit after me is now gone too. Ah, imagined drama.

After the success I had with the Greek food truck in Vancouver, I tried the Greek food stall in Southgate Mall, called Opa!, for the first time. I ordered the same thing as I did at the food truck, the gyro platter, and well, it wasn’t as great but still pretty good. I imagine part of what made it taste good was the ambience though. Well, it’ll be a good addition to my rotation once in a while.

Talking about Southgate, this was the Hudson’s Bay mall entrance on Monday June 02, the day after they shut down.

And then by Friday, June 06, they had done this to the entrance:

Nothing to see here, no whale carcass behind the drapes. They had some serious tall black curtains going, as though to afford the deceased some privacy. I wonder how long they’ll leave the big letters on the outside of the mall up, as per all my balcony scenery pictures, like this picture from Wednesday, June 04 at 9:33 pm.

I also noticed that the clothing donation bins were gone from the Southgate Mall carpark, so while there used to be a recycling center as well as donation bins here in the picture below, every last one is gone now.

Saturday, Jun 07

On Saturday, I went traipsing around town for an event called Paths for People’s 10th Anniversary Street Fest (local).

This was an event that encompassed little festival areas at seven different stations in the southeast Valley Line in Edmonton, which is the other train line that I do not live alongside. I actually had no idea that it was taking place at more than one station until I arrived, at which point I learnt that, and also learnt that there was a stamp book that I could get stamped at each station. The event only ran from 11 am to 3 pm though, and there was a 10 minute gap between each train going in a direction, and by the time I reached there it was already 1 pm, and several of the festival areas weren’t exactly at the station itself but just nearby, so I wasn’t sure if I could make all 7 stations, but hey. This was a STAMP RALLY! In EDMONTON! I had to try!

My results:

Sure, I didn’t actually end up completing it in the end, plus one of them (the first one) didn’t have a stamp anyway and just put an X on it, plus every single stamp ended up smudging, to which one of the stampers I chatted to said that that was happening to everyone’s stamp booklet. I also tried to write down timestamps for each stop but the material of the “Leagues on the Line” passport was not conducive to pen marks too and I gave up after a bit, using my phone instead to write down timestamps of which stations I visited. And I have a good reason for not completing the stamp rally! (Besides the fact that there was no prize for it anyway.)

I started at the north side of the seven stations, at Quarters LRT Station. The guy holding up the sign above was at Quarters LRT Station, as were these following pictures.

All these little festival areas across the seven areas did not have anyone actually selling anything for the most part, they were informational booths, things like Edmonton Public Library booths and pet adoption booths and local community booths and such. A couple of the stops, mostly this one, the Mill Woods one, and the Strathearn one, had a couple of food trucks or food tables or ice cream carts, and a couple of the other ones were also giving away free cookies, but otherwise this was not a “commercial” fair per se. See how the Passport brochure talks about “markets”? Lies.

But I think the event organizers just bit off a lot more than they could chew. The Quarters one, for example, was supposed to extend one more street south than it actually did, with the train tracks cutting the event venue in half. But that southern street was completely barren. So they just consolidated on the north side of the tracks instead.

There was a list of what was supposed to be at each location here (local) as well, and well.. let’s go station by station.

“The Quarters – Paths for People is teaming up with the Boyle Street Community League and other partners like Wild Heart Collective and the Edmonton Downtown Business Association to activate the Quarters LRT stop with a special Open Streets event along 96 Street from 101A to 103 Avenue. Join us for a celebration filled with market vendors, food trucks, mahjong tables, games, music and more! We’ll also be revealing our Missing Links 2024 Crowd-Sourced Campaign results through an interactive display.”

Yeah, this thing only went from 102 Avenue to 103 Avenue. The 101A part would have been south of the tracks, but it was completely bereft. There was I think one, but possibly two, food trucks on the northern end. There was one single random mahjong table at the side between two of the stalls, with all the pieces flipped down on the table, and with a couple of dice on the table as well. There weren’t any chairs. It looked like it was there for some sort of odd “Yay, we’re near Chinatown” display but nothing in the Quarters LRT stop catered to or represented the Chinese community in the least. Either way, I got my Quarters stamp at 1:01 pm.

From here, I decided to go all the way to the south end of the line first and then work my way back up north, so that it would be easier to get home, or so I told myself. This was a good move in the end, but I knew from reading the pamphlet that Strathearn was the one open the longest, so I should have hit Muttart (the 2nd station from the north) on the way south so that I could come back north and end at Strathearn (the 3rd station from the north), but I wasn’t experienced enough in the Ways of the Stamp Rally to realize that until the event was over. Oh well. This will give me experience for future stamp rallies.

Anyway, I went all the way south to the Mill Woods LRT Station. This was my first actual trip down the Valley Line, so that was neat. The Mill Woods one was a comparable size to the Quarters one too, and I got this stamp at 1:40 pm. The writeup for this said:

Mill Woods – Celebrate Pride in the Parking Lot at the Mill Woods Valley Line LRT stop with an afternoon of music, drag performances, Story Time, community booths, and celebration! This gathering is proudly hosted by Millhurst and Southwood Community Leagues and sponsored by the Mill Woods Presidents’ Council. See full event details HERE. The Pride walkway between the transit centre and LRT stop will also be repainted through a collaboration between Edmonton Transit Riders and The Mill Woods Presidents’ Council. This event will take place from 9:30am – 11:00am, with full details HERE

It was way too late for most of the events, so there was no drag performance or story time or anything, but yes, this one was accurate, and a lot of the booths here were pride-focused. I picked up a nice little pride flag too. It was right by the train station too, so it was nice — I did a circuit and was right back on the same train that I came here on before it left back in the other direction (since Mill Woods was at the end of the line).

The next stop was Millbourne/Woodvale, and the description read:

Woodvale – ​At the Woodvale stop, enjoy a cookie prepared by the Woodvale facility’s food services and be entertained by the talented Jordan Sabo from Pinwheel Circus!

Ok yes, but that was literally all they had:

That was a very literal description. The magician was very nice and performed a couple of magic tricks for the four or five of us there while we waited for the next train, and the lady stamped my book (at 1:50 pm) and gave us a cookie, but this could easily have been moved to one of the other stations indeed. The reason that this grinded my gear a bit was that hopping on and off the train is not free, and especially with the trains being so infrequent here on weekends, going on and off chews through the 90 minute transfer timer very quickly. This was simply not a necessary stop. Rescue them and put them at another station!

The next stop was Avonmore, and this was kind of a neat station — it’s located in the island in the middle of a road but I guess it’s not actually large enough for two platforms so the platforms are instead split into two, with the northbound and the southbound platform separated by a road intersection in between. Well, it’s neat as long as I don’t really have to stay here and use it. Here are pictures of the left and right halves of the same station taken from the same spot!

This stop’s festival and stamp area was a little bit further back from the train station though, and I don’t blame them cause this station was so cramped as is. It was at Avonmore Park, about two streets away.

Avonmore – Join Avonmore Community League for tacos in a bag and refreshments while taking part in cultural experiences such as Métis jigging and beading crafts. Learn about Avonmore Yarn Club, participate in a donation-based book exchange, and bring the kids for fun glitter tattoos. The City-operated spray park will be open, offering a great space for families to cool off, and Zoe’s Animal Rescue will be on-site. Visit the membership table to purchase or renew your community league membership.

I didn’t see tacos in a bag, nor those cultural experiences, nor a spray park, however they were giving away free bottles of water, little Dorito bags, and they indeed did have a little indoor area where you could take donated books if you wanted! I didn’t take any though. I honestly really liked this neighbourhood, and would in theory love to happily live there, but the houses there seem to be too pricey and there’s no grocery store within walking distance of anywhere, so oh well. I got my book stamped at 2:13 pm and went on my way.

The next stop was Bonnie Doon LRT Station, and like Mill Woods, this one was next to a major shopping mall. This is why this was probably the most disappointing stop besides the one table one at Millbourne/Woodvale, as this one was just a tiny gathering of tables that really wasn’t worth the stop.

Bonnie Doon – Activities at Bonnie Doon’s LRT stop (by the overhead shade) include face painting, crafts for kids (courtesy Idylwylde Library), live music by Beth Portman, carpet bowling and cookies from Hazeldean Bakery.

There was a library table with a few stickers that I picked up, a signing table with cookies, and a face painting table, and that was it. That live music had just ended when I came, I think, since you can still see Beth’s instrument case in the bottom left of the first picture — she picked it up and left into the mall soon after that though. But come on, three (or four) tables for a street fest just outside a shopping mall? Embarrassing. And again, a waste of people’s LRT transfer time. I got this stamp at 2:27 pm.

My sixth stop was Strathearn, and this stamp I acquired at 2:42 pm. It was located in Silver Heights Park, next to the Strathearn LRT Station, and was spread out over a nice, large area.

Strathearn – Holyrood and Strathearn Community Leagues are teaming up to host a “Strathyrood” event near the Strathearn LRT stop from 11am – 5pm! There will be bouncy castles, Kalina’s Cotton Candy, ice cream, ETS bike rack on bus demo, 
Tundee Treats , face painting, caricature drawings, henna and naloxone/harm reduction training. Music by Curt Young and the Healers. Dancing Cree (Indigenous dancing and drummers) will perform at the after party at 3pm. Secondhand Dreamcar will perform at the after-party at 4pm. Edmonton Heritage Council, Edmonton Transit Riders Society and SEESA
will also be on hand.

Holyrood was actually another LRT Station along the Valley Line, but instead of holding their own 1-3 table “festival”, they instead combined with Strathearn to have one here instead, and this shows a nice level of respect for their visitors’ time. I appreciated that. I didn’t see some of those things there, but I did see the bouncy castles, cotton candy, ice cream, face painting, caricature drawings, henna art, and a whole music stage, so this was pretty neat even though it was so spread out that it seemed a little sparse. I think they did this to make room for the live music stage though.

But that last picture above gave me pause. An artist, Laurel Hawkswell, along with one of her friends/colleagues, was doing free caricatures of people here, and there was a moderately long queue, mostly full of children and parents, lined up awaiting their turn. I realized that this was another opportunity to pick up a drawing of Tigey from a local artist. But on the other hand, it was already near the end of the 3pm end time for the Paths for People festival and stamp rally, and I only had one more stop to go.

I had to make a choice here, and because there was no prize for the stamp rally or anything, I decided that it was more important to try to get a picture of Tigey instead. I had no idea if they would honour such a request, but I joined the line anyway, and chilled out here from 2:45 pm all the way to 4:00 pm as the queue slowly crawled along.

The drawings were really slow. But they were also quite neat to watch. When my turn rolled around, Laurel’s spot was open (as opposed to her friend), and I went to sit down in front of her easel and I made my request to have a picture of Tigey drawn instead of me. She was surprised and delighted by the request and gave me a great picture of him!

Credit Laurel Hawkswell (@hilaurel).

I really like this one. She drew it smaller on purpose so that I can eventually trim the paper down so that it would fit into a book cover bag or some smaller piece of plastic. It’s a great caricature though and I was very happy that I picked this option over going to complete the stamp rally.

By the time I was leaving the area, the post-event concert had started. I didn’t stay to watch it but I did snap a picture on my way out.

On my way out, some people at an Edmonton Transit Riders (local) community advocacy group stopped me to chat and I gave them a minute or so. They asked what improvement I thought the Edmonton Transit System needed, and I complained about the lack of a Southgate to Mill Woods bus, which used to exist several years ago. One of the two people manning the booth perked up and agreed with me, saying that he lived in Mill Woods and faced exactly the same issue trying to get back and forth around the southern part of Edmonton. So I ended up writing that down on a little sticky note and adding it to the board that they were compiling. It’s in the bottom left quadrant here.

There’s a picture on their Instagram of what it looked like at the end of the day as well:

But some of those entries are blurred or unreadable at that resolution (and at least one somehow got folded) so my photo helps with that too.

Even though the event was now ended, I wanted to take a ride over to Muttart LRT Station anyway as it was just the neighbouring stop and I thought that maybe the stamp table might somehow still be open. One never knows, right? But no such luck. So I missed this stop entirely:

Muttart – Cloverdale will have Kompany Kids theatre have interactive plays, popcorn and lemonade as well as live musician Liz performing in the gazebo in the park just beyond the stop. Balloon artist Dan will make all kinds of creations. River Valley Adventure is coming to show how to ride a Segway. Edmonton Ski club will showcase their bike programs and of course winter activities including tubing. Sidewalk chalk at the concrete plaza by the stop and bocce balls for all to learn how to play.

But I actually did find the sidewalk chalk area, so at least that’s something.

It was quite late at this point and taking transit home would have taken well over another hour for me to get to Southgate since I was on the other transit line and Edmonton’s transit system is a right mess. So I took an Uber home instead. This turned out to be an interesting experience too, as my driver, Ravinder, got stuck behind a confused lady in a car who was going to turn in one direction and then did not turn and then eventually turned anyway, right at the end of a traffic light timer.

As I understand it, somehow or other this meant that my driver, who was stuck behind her, ended up having to turn as well due to the lane he was in, even though he did not intend to, and he was not happy with that, honking at her a couple of times as we went down the side road. That or he was overcome by road rage and chased her into the turn. I don’t think this was the case though, but I don’t know for sure! She gave him a middle finger and he followed her through a couple of narrow streets before turning away back toward the main road again, parting with one last honk for good measure. And then we reminisced with each other about bad Edmonton drivers all the way home, which was nice since we had been completely silent up until that incident.

He showed me his Uber driver stats, and apparently he had been an Uber driver for 9 years and 11 months, and was about to hit his 10 year anniversary with the service. Neat. And that he had been living and driving in Edmonton for 32 years and had pretty much driven along every single road in the city. Also, the nice thing about the detour is that we also passed by what seemed like a noisy festival market, and he said that that was a farmers’ market. We’d never have seen that if not for the detour. I should go check some of the local farmers’ markets out soon!

Oh, and I’ll sneak this into the bottom of the Life section so I don’t have to create a new text block for it, but my video from the Three Sisters Pathway hike on May 27 finally uploaded. It took over two full days to upload to YouTube, that’s how big it was. Or how bad my internet connection is?