All posts by Peter

Special Guest Star

Family Life, Jon

Jon’s teacher Tami has been out of class since before March Break with a severely hurt ankle and nerve damage. Poor Tami.

Jon has been keeping in touch with her a little by email and by phone:


Jon’s first initiated and dialed (with coaching) full-length phone call

But we have been seeing a slowdown in his learnin’. This can’t be helped: although the EA’s are doing a fabulous job of keeping the routine going, the qualities that make a star teacher great are, by definition, gone when she isn’t there.

So it came to pass that she was, well, if not in the neighbourhood; close to being in the neighbourhood on Sunday afternoon and dropped by. Jon was delighted; gobsmacked, but delighted. Tami visited for a while, then jumped in and had Jon read for her, show her his computer and do some creative writing. Three hours went by quickly. It was also educational for Tami to see how physical Jon is here: climbing the stairs, crawling, stepping with me holding his hands, standing at his computer (pushing with his belly when he wants to clap or wave his hands), sitting cross-legged. He portrays himself a little more porcelain-like at school.

Jon was in a sort of stunned delight for the rest of the evening; it was so social and motivating.

What a great opportunity seized!

Alas, poor Sid and Nancy

Family Life

In a twist of fate likely predetermined by their names, our huge goldfish Sid died sometime overnight, a few weeks after we lost Nancy. They are survived by The Loach, their tankmate until recently.

Sid was tough and mean for a goldfish, having gone through three Nancys as he would bully them to death. The last one was resistant to the bullying, but was sensitive to disease. Sid and The Loach were transferred to a hospital tank, but Sid began to unceasingly bully The Loach, who is gentle in his catfish-like ways. Sid was tranferred to his old tank, which despite many cleanings, must have harboured traces of the disease. He looked fine yesterday, dead today.

The Loach was unavailable for comment.

I’ve got a nice cuttlefish for you…

Cool Stuff

a cuttlefish attempting to camoflauge on various coloured checkered grids
Not a bad job considering it’s gotta be most unnatural thing to camouflage against.

Alayne sends this site, The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, which begs the question, which is more endangered, the Tree Octopus or the Mountain Walrus?

But in wandering the page, the most interesting thing I found was real: a link to a study about cuttlefish and their abilities to camouflage themselves on the sea bottom (especially since they are colour-blind). The best bit? An absolutely stunning little Quicktime movie of a cuttlefish doing what they do best.

Family treasures

Cool Stuff, Family Life

consular stamps and British consular stamped form

Laura’s grandma, Jon’s beloved O-Bachan, is thinking about moving. The house she’s lived in for the past 46 years is getting a little big for her now that she’s 94. She’s an incredibly tough lady who has lived a life of amazing challenges.

back of old envelope with Japanese characters reading Naturalization Papers

So Uncle Dave, Aunt Ann, Uncle Reg and Auntie Mich were in Toronto just before Easter to start the job of looking for a senior’s home. As things were being organized in the old house, there were some papers slated to be thrown out that were rescued by Auntie Mich. It was a 1960’s insurance envelope that had a couple of Japanese characters written in pencil on the back. Those characters turned out to be “Naturalization Papers”. Of the documents inside, only one is fully in English: Laura’s Grandpa’s Canadian citizenship certificate, from the 50’s. The rest of the documents were in Japanese, and all turned out to be from the 1960’s. All save one. That one is her Grandpa’s passport from 1920’s Japan.

passport photo of Tamotsu Sunahara
Click on picture for enlargement

front of Japanese Imperial passport
Click on picture for enlargement

Since no one in the family can actually read Japanese, I sent scans of the documents to Erik (who teaches Japanese at Ryerson and U of T while he works on his PhD). He said that seeing the passport gave him chills, because everything on the document is plainly from the Empire of Japan. Apparently, most of these pre-war passports were destroyed in shame by their holders with the fall of the Empire. While not being something that you’d run to the Antiques Roadshow with, it is a fairly uncommon document, something that would have been kept only by those who still secretly supported the concept of empire, or by those who emigrated pre-war and thus couldn’t have cared less.

back of Japanese Imperial passport, in English and French
Click on picture for enlargement

Weekend Poll: Llama vs. Lion (& Tiger)

Cool Stuff

Pal Bev emailed me the URL of an annoying internet jingle just to drive us nuts.

The Llama Song

Oh, it is annoying. I do not impune its…well, lack of honour there. But I’m putting up a challenger.

Kenya

And I’m putting it to a vote. This weekend’s poll is to choose between the two. Or worse, supply a contender that you feel is worse than either.

Incidentally, you’re probably going to need some sort of sharp implement to get these songs out of your brain. “Enjoy.”

Oh, one last thing. They’re both looped, so if you’ve been watching one for 25 minutes waiting for the finale, well, it’s probably too late now.

Subway

Family Life, Jon

Well, it turns out that in terms of creative writing, March Break means BREAK, dad, so instead of Jon adding his thoughts to these photos, it will be me. Sorry folks.

Recently, our local subway station completed its elevator installation, and Jon can now accompany us anywhere on the TTC subway line. That has an elevator. That is working. Still, it is not only a great step forward, but made for one excited 9-year-old boy. Jon was stoked for the day.

On the platform, waiting for his first train in living memory.


In some of the cars, if you are able to find select seats empty, you can access wheelchair locks.


Destination reached: St. Lawrence Market in just over an hour, door to door. In the downtown core, elevator connections to street level are in the office towers, so some searching is required.


Tired but happy, Jon finds a little cocooning time at Shopsy’s.

This first trip was quite exhausting, and we were all grumpy for the rest for the day. But two days later we followed up with another subway excursion, and it was a piece of cake. Needless to say, Jon is absolutely subway-crazed these days.