Yahoo!
“I finally got designated as CPA!” said my hard-working wife and partner, Yumi Kosaka. “Thank you everyone for your support and encouragement. Paul got me flowers and a paper name plate to celebrate 
. It has been a long road, but I’m glad I finally got it!”
We picked up Binky, a fixed 10-month-old female from the Vancouver SPCA today. We fell in love with her on a visit yesterday.
She’s a lovely grey, and we’re still debating what to call her. One option was Goma-chan, goma being Japanese for sesame, since her fur has that grey-blue sheen of ground black sesame seeds.
Another possibility is Sora-chan, or Sky.
“Chan” in both cases is a diminutive used in Japanese for children and close family, usually by seniors to juniors.
We’re leaning toward Sora-chan as it sounds softer.
Anyway, poor Binky/Goma/Sora is still freaked out after about six hours at our place. We were warned she was very shy, and while she was friendly and accepting to us in the shelter yesterday, I guess the trip and new surroundings frightened her.
Sounds like she’s had a trying life, passing through several SPCA shelters across BC before we scooped her.
We’re letting her be, not trying to pursue her or pick her up, and just letting her get used to us, and our home.
To give her time and space to acclimatize, we initially left her in the downstairs bathroom where her litter is, and even in there she kept trying to hide whenever we’d gently check on her, even disappearing into the washing machine. Yikes!
Eventually she made it upstairs on her own, and poked her head into the living room, saw us, and slunk off into the kitchen where she squeezed in between a buffet and a corner wall for an hour or two.
Now she’s hiding under my computer desk in my office, and I’m quietly talking to her as I write this post.
We know she’ll come around, but are admittedly a bit taken aback at how frightened she got.
Take your time Sora-chan. We know you’ll warm up and become a welcome addition to the family.
NOTE: I’ve been careful to take these photos as non-threateningly as possible, and closeups are with a telephoto.
Can’t see me!
Where are you? Oh!
Look at this beauty. . .
Made it up the stairs and into the kitchen on her own steam, but slunk off behind a buffet as soon as she saw that we saw her.
Didn’t want to come out, but enjoyed chin scratches back there, with no meowing, or hissing. There was even a bit of purring.
This is a big step for us, we mourned the passing of our dear Choco nearly six months ago for a long time. But we’re elated to have a new kitty in the house, and look forward to years of burgeoning love and affection.
Have a family wedding coming up and the clan is gathering. So good to see everyone!
It was a superb evening for a Canada Day party in Victoria, BC.
The crowd welcomed the First Nations blessing, and the mayor clearly acknowledged the contentious nature of the celebration. There was an impromptu demonstration, and that also went over well.
Here are a few photos:
I was keeping a hand over my lens in the crowd to protect it, and at one point it fogged up, producing a nice effect.
Getting some Beavertails to munch on during the fireworks
An oddity found in Edinburgh last month — a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a small, old cemetery we chanced upon. It’s dedicated to Suffrage, Emancipation, and Scots who served in the US Civil War.
A few rusty treasures unearthed while cleaning and organizing our utility room today.
On the left, a massive old door stop, gleaned from the site of a former farm on Byrne Creek just a few minutes walk from our place. (All part of a municipal park for decades now. . .)
On the right, a spike from the late, lamented, electric Interurban tram line that ran near our place and all the way out to Chilliwack before it was sadly decommissioned with the rise of cars and highways.
What a loss!
I hear that the teeny Powerhouse Creek that runs a few dozen meters out our back gate and into Byrne Creek was thus named for having a steam-powered electrical generator for the Interurban back in the day. The wee creek taps an underground aquifer that runs to this day. . .
Here’s my Flickr photo album from the SEP 2019 BC-wide streamkeeper workshop in Nanaimo last weekend.
OK, it’s late, and I’m sick with the flu, tired, and cranky. But. . .
So all these places that are taking down statues of colonial oppressors (Victoria [Sir John A], New Westminster [Judge Begbie] . . . )
(BTW I am not opposed to removing them. . .)
Why aren’t they changing their names?
Could you be any more colonial than having a name like Victoria? New Westminster?
I live in a ‘hood in Burnaby (named after an alien “explorer”) with streets around me like Nelson, Victory, Royal Oak. . . Sheesh.
Just because Robert Burnaby happened to be one of the first white folks in this area (coming after thousands of years of indigenous settlement) he got tons of stuff named after him, not only the city.
Had a great day in and around the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre. I participated in a Simon Fraser University workshop on Ecopsychology — Experiential, Nature and Place-Based Learning.
Thanks to instructor Daniella Roze for her thoughtful, grounded training, and great techniques for reconnecting people, and particularly kids, to nature.
While she was not able to arrange for someone from local First Nations to welcome us, we acknowledged traditional lands and the impacts of colonialism.
We had a chance to try basket-weaving and braiding using local plants.
This is the magnificent tree I chose for my individual meditation period. I lay on my back with the tree’s roots cradling my head, and contemplated the crown gently swaying in the breeze.
My thoughts were that viewed horizontally at human level, the tree looked so deeply rooted, mature, strong and still, and yet looking up with my body stretched on the earth, I could see the trunk bending with the wind and the crown dancing youthfully in the breeze.
It was diminishing yet uplifting to think this tree had been here long before I was born, and with good fortune, will be here much longer after I am gone.