Wake Up Day 2024

Well it’s that time of year again! Late spring for me is a significant time of year. It was over 20 years ago (April 14, 2001) that I was living in Little Rock, Arkansas… and I was in a serious car accident, after which I was in a coma for six weeks. (If you haven’t heard the story, this is a post I wrote in 2012 to describe what happened.) The first few years afterwards were mostly recovery and rebuilding myself; now I’m living in Toronto and I’ve expanded my communities, and I’m now contemplating retirement. The first Wake Up Day was motivated by a desire to thank those who had helped me and my family during the coma and that subsequent recovery. It has continued ever since, and continues to be an opportunity to give back to my community.

This year Wake Up Day will be on Saturday May 25th.
We will be starting to welcome people around 6:00pm, and will eat at 7:00pm. Come when you wish. The fare this year will be the traditional grilled pizza and beer, so we can be flexible on timing!

Note: we do have a cat. Pursy is wonderful and twenty and the last of our Arkansas kitties. She is very shy and will not grace us with her presence at the event. However, her presence will be felt by anyone who has alergies.

Please let us know if you’re coming, and how many will be coming with you. Significant others and family members are completely welcome. (Actually, bring anyone you wish. We enjoy meeting new people.) We want to make sure we have plenty of food.

Our address is 21 Potsdam Road #51. Don’t forget the unit number, because there are multiple buildings in our townhouse complex. The map below illustrates that we are close to Highway 400, right near the Jane/Finch intersection in Toronto. We are easily accessible by the TTC. If you drive, there is lots of parking on the surrounding streets. The link above is to Google Maps.

Pictures from previous Wake Up Days are available… from the days before Covid.
Wake Up Day 2017
Wake Up Day 2016

Wake Up Day 2023

For those who don’t know, “Wake Up Day” is a celebration and a remembrance of the day I woke out of a six-week coma in 2001. Yes, over twenty years ago now and many adventures since then. The first Wake Up Day was motivated by a desire to thank those who had helped me and my family during the coma and my subsequent recovery. It has continued ever since.

Due to Covid we had to minimize our celebration of Wake Up Day, and we are trying to ramp up again. I’m a wee bit late this year (though isn’t that usual?), but we’re trying to get things organized…!

This year Wake Up Day will be on Saturday May 27th.
We will be starting to welcome people around 6:00pm, and will eat around 7:00pm. The fare this year will be grilled pizza again, so we will be flexible on timing!

Our address is 21 Potsdam Road #51. Don’t forget the unit number. We live in a townhouse. The map below illustrates that we are close to Highway 400, right near the Jane/Finch intersection in Toronto.

Pictures from previous Wake Up Days are available… from the days before Covid.
Wake Up Day 2017
Wake Up Day 2016

0904 Rudy’s Garden

If you’ve followed my pictures much at all, you’ll know that I’m fascinated by a tiered garden that has been built along the path that skirts along Black Creek, north of Finch and in the hydro corridor. It’s a beautiful, rustic, cultured area that provides a wonderful setting that is both a contrast to the wildness of the area, and part of it. I took some pictures earlier in the year, mostly of the range of flowers that grew, changing by season: the posts are not tagged, but this link should bring you to a few of them. It’s obviously not maintained by the city, but it is maintained by someone. Today in my walk I found out who.

Apparently this is known as “Rudy’s Garden”, and is kept (at least primrily?) but the gentleman in my picture for today. He is going to be celebrating his 95th birthday on September 11th, and apparently a number of people in the community are going to help. He’s been working on the garden for ten years… which is quite an effort, but it means he started this project when he was 85. Quite the legacy. I’m actually off that day, so I plan to attend. Such a gift to the community should be recognized.

A larger version of the poster an be found online. If you would like to attend the event email RudyGarden911@gmail.com.

Distance Walked: 2.91 km
Total: 784.49 km

0825 Canadian Racist Past

I often try to build in social issues to my posts; I rarely have the opportunity to speak about something like this directly. The pictures in these posts are supposed to be at least tangentially related to my walks and my travels through natural areas and parks. But much of the time that I’m walking I think about the kinds of issues that engulf our world today.

The park I chose to visit today is Baby Point Club Park: unlike most parks in the city that I include in my blog, this one I couldn’t walk through because it’s a private park in an expensive neighbourhood. But it has been in the news the last few days because of the name behind the club, the park and the adjoining streets.

There have been “plaques” put up around the city that give rise to a part of our collective past that we try to ignore: that which revolves around slave ownership. I put plaques in quotes because they do not have the authority of the city or the province behind them; they are wonderful reminders of something we would like to forget, but they do not have the kind of permanence that we might hope for. I chose to visit the one below. Five of them around the city, I wasn’t able to find all the locations. This one describes Jacques “James” Baby (pronounced “Bawbee”, I believe) as part of a family that enslaved at least 17 black and indigenous people people (for full details, visit Toronto.com, 2020). Baby also “opposed… efforts to prohibit slavery in Upper Canada”. His family’s business efforts benefited from their slave ownership and when confronted with the morality of what his finances were based on, he refused to accept responsibility: and, in fact, he refused to accept that his profit was immoral. He did not see that his exploitation of other people was wrong. He could hide behind the racial barrier to protect his bottom line.

We may not have slavery today, but we have other concerns that help the rich get richer and exploit the poor. Sure, I know a lot of those rich choose to give back to their communities after they’ve made their fortunes and become philanthropists. But that does not expunge their exploitation to make their riches in the first place. Slavery is easy to point to because it’s “safe” and in the past; we can talk about how it’s part of our history that embarrasses us. But can we learn enough from it that we can see what we do today that might “embarrass” future generations?

This is a past that we are struggling to reconcile in the West today. There are protests around the world, but especially in the States. It is a painful legacy that drags down not only America, but Canada and other other nations with European roots. It is one thing to ignore our collective racist past that is partially the foundation of where a lot of our wealth has been built. But by ignoring it we are also ignoring the institutional racism and xenophobia that is a barrier to real equality. Look at the president of the United States. He is not the cause of this kind of inequality and exploitation: he is the result. He is the ultimate beneficiary: and he will do anything to ensure that he continues to wield power in the face of these struggles.

Distance Walked: 3.75 km
Total: 753.28 km

0824 Salsa

I did not walk at all today. I was off, and I had the whole day to myself… and I spent the whole day making salsa. The whole day. I remember about 5:00 pm telling Tim as he walked in from work that I had spent the full day at it. Actually, I think I growled it at him. And that I never wanted to do it again.

Deep breath.

With a little bit of time since the afternoon, I can look at this with a bit more clarity. Yes, it took a full day’s work. And it was worth it financially. I probably made over $100 worth of salsa, definitely more than 40 jars, at an investment of less than $20 in vegetables… though I did have to buy half of the jars today, and they were all small jars. All that was available. They were about 250 ml… which makes a good size for one if we’re hungry, two if we’re feeling generous. The rest are all more party sized… or to open and keep in the fridge.

It was also worth it personally. This is one of the healthiest salsas one can find. No preservatives, no chemicals. Just tomatoes, peppers, onions and spices. I didn’t even skin the tomatoes, which is easier (a lot easier) and leaves fiber and nutrients in the mix.

And it tastes better. We had some extra salsa that we had bought tonight after dinner (I don’t remember the brand), and some of the last home salsa that I had not canned. Tim and I wanted to compare, just to see. I took two chips… and honestly it wasn’t even comparable. We both were a bit surprised. We liked the store-bought stuff… but homemade is simpler, and fresher even though canned. And even though I’m sure the added chemicals don’t taste bad… being able to identify the tastes that I’d added made it seem more personal.

So it was a long day. I bought the tomatoes over the weekend (yesterday’s picture) but most of the other materials were bought today. And I couldn’t find all our jars, so I had to get more. (Fortunately I realized this in the morning, not at the end of the day.) So it meant a bit of running around, a lot of chopping, hours of cooking, and then the canning/bottling. And a lot of cleaning up. (But Tim did that once that cooking was done.)

Ultimately it was worth it. And I will do it again. I’ll just be a bit more organized next year.

Distance Walked: 0.00 km
Total: 753.28 km

0823 Tomatoes

This is the conquest of the week. 25 pounds of tomatoes.

These were purchased over the weekend while grocery shopping; I live in a neighbourhood that used to dominantly Italian, and although demographics have shifted, there is still a strong European contingent. Every year at this time of year, two things go on sale for significant savings. Tomatoes and grapes. Both are generally snatched up very quickly. Indeed, many families have their own tomato patches and grape vines, but those are mostly to round out the annual purchase. They are not intended to supersede it. In my youth many families would make a day of the process of canning tomatoes, and it would happen in the driveway of the family home.

This year was like that. Apparently the boxes were gone in under two hours. And families would nab multiple boxes if they could. The only reason we were able to get a box was that we generally do our grocery shopping first thing on a Saturday.

Tomorrow, the salsa will commence!

Distance Walked: 3.75 km
Total: 753.28 km

0821 Libraries are Open

I know this probably doesn’t mean as much to most people as it does to me, but today libraries are open for walk-in visits, exploring books and relaxing. They have been closed during the pandemic because even though people are not necessarily close in a library… the 2 meter rule is not too difficult to maintain among patrons… those who visit are often there for a long time. Libraries also attract a wide range of users, from people who are interested in any subject imaginable to those who simply want to escape the weather outside. Libraries are not necessarily “super-spreaders”, but they do give opportunity for the virus

I continued to use the Toronto Public Library during the pandemic, at least as much as I could. For several weeks book loans were shut down completely, mostly because we were unsure of how the virus was transmitted, and people who borrow books are often in vulnerable populations. I had several books out at the time things closed down; I had extra time to read those. Since then we’ve been returning to a regular schedule, and I’ve been able to catch up on my book holds and borrow books, even if I’ve not been able to visit a library. Until today

My favourite branch is under renovation, and has been since before things closed down. I’ve been a patron at that library since I was in elementary school. The library in this photo is newer, and is actually closer to where I grew up. If I remember correctly, when I was young this was the site of a police station. Although libraries are well distributed across the city, they tend to be in areas with populations that need their services.

Ten years ago, our current premier was in favour of closing libraries in Toronto in order to save revenue for the city (Globe and Mail, 2011). It was one of my difficulties with his initial election: cutting costs at the expense of the needs of vulnerable people might be popular among the rich and powerful, but it is not right. It does not build a healthy population. It’s the reason we have a wealth gap like we do currently, where the rich get richer and the poor are forgotten. I’m glad he’s learned over the years.

Distance Walked: 8.45 km
Total: 745.21 km

0819 Tomato Plant

This is our tomato plant. They are popular in our area; a lot of people grow their own tomatoes for use in canning and preserving this time of year. One of our problems is that we have a big oak tree growing at the back of the yard… it’s actually just to the right of the fence post you can see, just out of sight of this picture. I had been afraid that it was too shady to get much of a crop. There was also the question of it being in pot rather than directly in the ground. But such are the limits we need to explore in modern, urban gardening. As you can see, the crop is decent. Those will ripen soon.

There are actually tomatoes on sale this week; I plan to get 25 pounds to use to make salsa. I will include whichever from this plant that are ripe, though it only looks like a few will be ready. There are years that I’ve made lots of salsa from solely home-grown tomatoes. But I am happy to supplement when I need to.

Distance Walked: 3.67 km
Total: 731.82 km

0816 Rouge National Urban Park

I had never been to the Rouge National Urban Park before. I took a few pictures because I was pleasantly surprised. I did not know a lot about it, though I had heard of it a number of times. The park is located right in the Toronto city limits, stretching most of the way from the north to the south on the east side. There are still areas that are left to go wild, which is rare in the city at that kind of scale. I hear that this year bears have been spotted in the park. It’s still not necessarily close to where I live, being on the other side of the city, but at least it’s accessible inside an hour. And it’s not a small park. It will take some exploration.

This photo is one that I enjoyed. It’s a fairly long walk along a ridge that follows the Rouge River on one side. On both sides of the path, the drop is fairly steep, though both sides are well populated by trees so it’s not dangerous. As I was walking along I wondered at what had caused this kind of landscape. I would love to walk this in the winter, when the leaves are off, to see the view. Many sites in the city are built on the old remnants of something built by people long ago; but I realized this was far to big for that. You can see some of the rocks poking up through the pathway? That’s either bedrock or glacial rubble left from the last ice age. (I’d have to do more research to be sure.) But this is a fully natural outcropping that has never been developed, and was eroded to its current state by the river. I’m glad it’s been left for the public and for nature.

I did not have high expectations for an “urban park”. I live near Downsview Park, which is converted land from the old Downsview Air Force Base. I remember that I was excited when the old “Base” was changed to a park, meaning more green space near my parent’s home. But only half of it was converted; some was sold off to research companies (high tech and private so hard to follow); much of it became essentially a large grandstand area; the buildings were converted to for a flea market… and slowly chunks are being sold off for housing. Some of those uses are fine; at least they’re for public use. But they’re not really natural.

Rouge Urban Park seems to be different. At least the parts that I explored were much more natural. Any development was minimal, so the park retains much of its natural flavour. And in a city like Toronto, that is essential.

Distance Walked: 2.00 km
Total: 724.19km

0815 Camping Coffee

This is my last of my series of pictures associated with walks at Grundy Lake for July 2020. I took a lot more pictures. They have been uploaded and are on my Flickr account. But this was my last picture, before I started to tear down my camp. It was still only about 9:00 am, so I was able to take my time packing up. I know what it’s like to pack a tent in the rain, so I appreciated being able to pack things slowly and have them ready for the next time.

I like to have a solid home base when I’m camping, even when I’m traveling around and hiking nearby trails. It’s important to have a home to come back to. I didn’t spend a lot of time at my camp this year (and even less if you consider that most ot that time I was sleeping) but it was important to have my home away from home.

And this is still a key part of my morning, no matter where I am. Boiling water for a hot beverage, whether at home or on the road. It might not always be coffee, but I like to have something ho to start my day… and to end my time away. If I remember correctly, I had coffee first as I packed up, and then a mug of blueberry tea to enjoy my last moments camping.

Distance Walked: 2.64 km
Total: 722.19 km