Month: June 2025

It took a while to finish because the gym my child uses came home with the second highest number of medals for all gyms involved. With a whopping 105 medals in total, between 74 individual athletes. That shakes out to be 25 Gold medals, 25 Silver medals, and a humongous 55 Bronze medals in all. I’m sure all of the parents and athletes are proud as punch with themselves. Some are reinvigorated with a desire to move up from a Bronze to Silver, or Silver to Gold, or to keep their Golf as standard, and for some it set a fire to work towards a move onto the podium itself. Great job all around.

Today is area track day so my daughter now needs to compete in running long jump, and the 200 m sprint. A busy couple of days for her!

The kids and my wife spent some considerable time out of the house yesterday evening so I sat down to watch Robert Pattinson’s Mickey 17. And you know what? It wasn’t half bad. Now I do need to add a caveat here that states for the first 2/3rds of the film I did NOT have CC activated, and I likely missed a whole lot of nuance, and exposition because I was trying to listen to it, rather than read it. Maybe that might be cause for concern among you other Gen X’ers or elder Millenials out there. I don’t know. I liked what I saw, and for the most part felt I could hear the dialogue just fine. Mind you I am partially deaf in one ear. But!, but – I did not have my phone on me, nor my laptop so I actually sat down on the couch and watched the film, and just the film, attention undivided. Do with that information what you will.

First off it looked great, sometimes that’s a terrible give away when you discuss sci-fi or fictional works, but in this case there was more to the film than just looking good visually. But I can dig the aesthetic. I thought the space suits, uniforms, and general wearables looked good. Not always brand new from off the rack, but lived in, worn, and scuffed up a bit. The CGI was decent, the live streamed view of the creepers circling the ship was outstanding. BUT CGI isn’t the big draw it once was, it now goes without saying sadly. Every single movie is going to have it whether you think it does or not.

Robert was very convincing as two very different versions of himself as numbers 1 to 17, and the number 18 (a murderous nutcase). It was well done. Bravo. I have seen a couple of sci-fi space man movies of his now, along with The Batman and I no longer think of him as Edward the shiny, sparkly vampire. Good for him.

There was a lot of social commentary with Mark Ruffalo, and Toni Collette chewing up the scenery with their villain portrayals and what not. Fun stuff. A mix n’ match of Elon, Trump, Bezos and a many number of other billionaire fools out and about in popular media right now. The main stream culture is rife with the deluded bunch. The propagandist, and the doctors were fun characters too.

It wasn’t really something I see myself sitting down to watch again any time soon, but it was enjoyable enough. I had originally intended to go see it in theaters, but we went to Florida for sixteen days back in February, and I couldn’t find the film still available anywhere local upon our return. My next step was to buy it on BluRay, but other things we needed took that off the list of immediate purchases. Then I forgot all about it. Until, that is — yesterday. I looked through Disney+, and Netflix, and Amazon Prime, as well as Apple tv, before I remembered we also have Crave. And then BAM! There it was, Mickey 17 on the title screen, landing page or whatever. Two plus hours later it was in the bag, watched in its entirety. What a Sunday evening to behold.

Do you know why I used to buy the BluRay for movies? For the behind the scenes stuff. The making of featurettes about the writing, the filming, the pre production art and design, music, costumes, fight choreography, weapons training etc… you used to get information that was as long as the main feature or longer. Now there are far fewer physical releases of anything, and all we get are YouTube shorts spliced together from that type of stuff. I loved nothing more than to inure myself in the minutia of a favoured film by watching, and rewatching the BTS stuff and then finally capping it off with a rewatch of the theatrical release, unless a directors cut was the better option (not always the case, but when it hits, oh! It hits so good!). I have spent many an evening in the thrall of a great long list of featurettes about LOTR, or Blade Runner, or Avatar, or The Abyss, or even Apollo 13. Love it.

I did not have the chance to see any of those kinds of details about Mickey 17 because I streamed it instead of buying the BluRay with those extras added in. C’est la vie. Ciao Bella!

This is the third time this week that I have seen the same sizable coyote wandering around the farm. I usually come across it by the far side of the barn. Not sure I want to walk the dog here in case there is a pack nearby. They’d likely lure him away and then tear him apart. One coyote isn’t much of an issue (apparently) but you put multiple together and you have yourself a problem. So for the moment we are going to sit in the car and wait a moment to see if it peeks around a corner, or if the coast is clear.

The first taekwondo sparring & pattern competition that we’ve ever gone to happens today. I’m going for the first time, yes – but it is my daughter whom is competing in it! I am very excited for her. I watch her practice three times a week and I believe she will do well. The pattern portion is a lock, for sure (I jest, there are some 1,100 participants, I don’t really know where she ranks among that many kids). I think she can hold her own in the sparring. We unfortunately missed the sparring special class when we went to BC a few weekends ago to see my parents, and all three of my brothers. No matter. I realize that now they are expected to go full force which might startle my daughter, as when they spar at the gym they typically go 50%, and aren’t trying to hurt themselves with devastating kicks to the midriff. I have faith that she will acquit herself admirably.

We need to be there about an hour before she fights, and does her pattern sequence so I think we should leave around 11:45 am. I think that by the time we find parking, walk to the venue, sign in, and locate the staging area we should be nearing that hour mark,and can then watch a few bouts, and patterns being performed on one of the eight mats. Should be a blast!

What a weird week it has been. Busier than usual, outside of regular working hours, I mean. The kids extracurriculars are all coming to a head with their recitals, performances, tournaments, testing, and event night get togethers. It’s a lot to deal with. Not a fan that everything ends on the same week, and on the same day, and all at the same time. I was hoping to go from the tournament in Markham to Vaughan to see both my kids do their thing on Saturday, but nope! All samesies! So I can’t see the dance number my youngest has spent the last ten months working on. Which sucks. But on the other hand I can be there to cheer on my oldest daughter for her sparring & pattern bouts in taekwondo. They really couldn’t have put one of them on Sunday. Or had one in the morning, and the other in the mid afternoon. Nope! No chance. Both go on within an hour of each other in two separate cities. Nice.

Hopefully this means the rest of June can mellow out a bit. Just chill out man. Everything’s cool. Float for a second before the oppressive heat, and added humidity moves into the fray. Air quality is dog shit, thanks wild fires for that. These are the few days each year we can enjoy having the windows open to enjoy the breezes, and the scent of the flowers around us. But not now. Too smokey. Air quality is listed as poor. Not just poor but properly unhealthy at that. 153 on the ppm counter according to the weather network. Bah humbug.

So the AC will need to run if it warms up, and the Honeywell air purifier is going all day long too. House interior certainly smells better with one going than without. I was not a believer in them until COVID hit, and we had to stay at home so much, and the house just smelled stale, neigh on stinky all the time. Now that is not an issue. Bonus! I’ll take it.

Knowing the AC was going to need to run now that we are firmly into the month of June I took the liberty of changing the furnace filter. So let the cool air flow unobstructed! Keep me chill my good dude!

Now to plan for Monday’s PA Day. Had to sneak one last one in before the end of term. Report cards and all that fun stuff. Whatever will I do with these two hooligans?

To get the small bag of dog food we like (which is just 2.2 Kg) you have to pay half the price of the large bag (which is 9.9 Kg). That’s nuts, for half the price you get less than 1/4 of the amount of food? Insanity. Doesn’t help I spent nearly $150.00 on dog food, and the various types of treats we use throughout the week. My bill today was nearly $500.00 bucks. Insanity. Mind you I did also pick up my wife’s birthday present which consists of six different cheeses, and some freshly baked French baguettes. It’s not very romantic but it’s something I know she likes, and can enjoy for several weeks (the cheeses more so than the bread). My kids won’t dig into it, and beyond the gruyere, neither will I. So not a self serving gift, but something thoughtful at least.

I also picked up a few other things I know that she likes for lunches over the next few days. If we can get through today, tomorrow and Saturday then the rest of the month will ease up quite considerably. Clear sailing from here until summer break from the look of things. Or, perhaps not clear sailing, but not the total cluster this week has the potential to be with so much going on, how about that? Sounds more reasonable. Have to set our expectations appropriately!

Toilet paper has gotten really expensive eh? I saw some packages going for thirty dollars or more. Yikes. Looks like running a hose from the tap might be in some of our futures if this keeps up. We’ll be stripping trees of leaves and then bark. We will be a haggard, and ornery bunch by then, believe you me.

If my count is correct then today is Thursday June 5th, 2025. I heard an interesting fact that as of June 2nd we were officially closer to the year 2050, than the year 2000. Holy-moly! That’s wild. I still think of fifteen years ago as being some point in the mid 90’s. I don’t know why, I just do. Ha.

Years ago we were gifted some poppies by my MIL which we planted in the front garden, right in the centre because they were big, red, and beautiful. And then a few years ago I noticed this strange black sludge appear on some of the leaves. It spread to the flowers, and the stems, and across to all of the leaves, and then it withered and died in a puddle, and never returned. It was too late into the season to be from a late frost. It wasn’t from lack of water, or nutrients in the soil. I have no idea what did it. Last year our Peonies turned black and died shortly after developing flower buds which never opened. But, it has returned this year, better than several years previous. How odd.

I’m still sad about the poppies though. They added not only additional height, but a pop of colour, and a different textured leaf too. We are very green and purple here. Not much red, orange, yellow, blue to speak of. I also liked that they opened fairly quickly but lasted a while when in bloom too. We do have roses in the fall, and Day Lillie’s, and actual Lillie’s but those are late summer blooms. The Dahlias will present colour well into October, early November if I don’t chop them down when cleaning up the yard in preparation for winter, and the falling leaves.

So I guess we do have some variations in colours, but not right this second is what I am griping about. I also need to do a few hours of weeding, but lack the motivation to do so. Perhaps on Sunday once this week is done I will venture outside in the morning and pull up weeds for an hour or two.

Hard to believe we have made it to June. Half way through the year! My oh my. School comes to a close soon and the kids will move up a grade each. They’re not so little anymore. I can still recall events from when I was in grade six. I think I remember stuff from before that, but I can no longer tell if those memories are real, misremembered, or manufactured due to repetitive dreams. Funny feeling that. Not knowing for sure if memories you think you know are even real. Ha. So odd.

Lots going on around here this week. Stay in touch. Ciao Bella!

Windows are all shut today in order to lower our exposure to the northern Ontario, and Manitoba wild fires that are currently ablaze. The sunset was something else with all of those extraneous gases in the air. Lots of pinks, reds, and oranges last night. A slight stink of acetone in the air from the VOC’s breaking down after prolonged exposure to UV rays and/or atmosphere. I forget what combination causes it. We learned all about it last year when Ontario, and New York state we’re just covered in a thick layer of dense smoke. Those haunting orange glowing vistas are going to become common place now I fear. Good luck to our lungs I guess!

In other news it is Tuesday. We walked to school today. The dog was more subdued on the school grounds because of it. Not that he gets hyper when doing drop off, but he certainly sat more chilled out by my feet than usual.bthe walk home with just the two of us was more pleasant. Not trying to race the clock. Didn’t have the kids racing ahead to wind him up. Could stroll slowly and let him sniff & pee to his heart’s content. A big bonus was the fact that it isn’t too hot in the mornings yet. Late afternoon is one thing, but we still have single digit early morning temperatures. For how much longer is anybody’s guess.

We have a transformer put on our power line pile yesterday morning. With the power left on at that. Incredible. I was heading out to cut my grass and saw two Hydro One vehicles. A big boom truck and a support vehicle. In all it was only about an hour for them to disconnect the street light, remove it, uncover some wires, make several disconnections, Mark and drill holes, add in the lag bolts, light up the new transformer, run the grounding wire, and reassemble it all, and add the switches and then pack up and go.

I stood and watched one guy do 95% of the work from the Cherry picker at the top of the boom arm, while five other dudes chirped him, and called out reminders about placements of bolt holes, and taping up lines once finished. I got my lawn done without too much of a delay. Not only that but they cleaned up after themselves fairly well, so I didn’t get any debris shit at my legs when passing over the work area with my mower. Thanks!

I didn’t take any photos because I was trying to be in the moment while fascinated by what they were doing, and how it was done.

The temperature is cooler than they were calling for due to the volume of smoke hanging over a large portion of Ontario. It was supposed to reach into the thirties, and now it looks like we might hover around 23°C for the next couple weeks. One day up and over that, and a few down below. But mild for June. Soon enough the grass stops being green and we get drought conditions, and a low water table.

Although not everybody was able to be in attendance (a few are pre-deceased,) we gathered in a mass to say good bye to great Grandma Pike. At 97 years of age she made a terrific run at making it to 100! So close. She did have a great turn out for her visitation, service, and the food in the lounge. It was kept mostly just family for the internment though. Uncle Fred’s ashes went in with GP to rest in peace. It was a somber event, but with brief fits of laughter. We played her out with the Jeopardy theme song, since she loved that, and Wheel of Fortune so much. A good giggle.

I was a pall bearer, which is a first for me. I have known death, but never had to carry a casket before. It was a closed casket so no need to look inside this go around. Thankfully.

This weekend held two funeral/end of life services for my wife whom went to a friend’s celebration of life event yesterday morning, and we have 97 year old great Grandma Suzie Pike’s service today. Visitation, service, wake, and burial are all chained together today. Dressed in our best to show our respect.

Hope you have a peaceful Sunday, with a lie in, and a quick hot breakfast you didn’t have to make yourselves. Ciao Bella!