Carved in Stone

I'm glad Trev likes Edmonton better now, since one of his pieces looks like it'll be here for a while. It's etched in granite on a bench on Alberta Avenue.  His name is, too: 

It's at the SE corner of 118 Ave and 89 street if you'd like to see it in person. Everyone seems to have a good reason to go there about once a year. Well, two good reasons, now.

Locked out!

Trev and I went to check whether his art had been laser-etched into the sidewalk as part of 118 Ave's revitalization project. On the way, we found out that they take this Canada Post lockout pretty literally.

Nonplussed

Trev's in town! Here's how we reacted at the exact moment Game 7 finally ended.

Kingston day 1

Trev and Sarah's hospitality is legendary, and they didn't disappoint. Sarah took me on a tour of Kingston's range of mininum to maximum security Disney-princess-castle prisons.

Then we picked up Trev and headed to Picton to have cider in a vineyard on a hill overlooking the lake:

Then boat kites!

Canada's O.C.

Kingston!  Full of obvious lies:

Magical boats that travel only through whirlpool wormholes:
And generous old friends

MARS ATTACKS!!!!

It's hard to sum up how many ways I know Martha, shown here playing Settlers of Catan in the Australian outback, so let's just say she's probably the most regular reader of this blog never to appear on it. (Directly, at least). You can imagine how excited I was to hear that she would be in Edmonton for a few days before flying back down under. Edmonton was excited too: The weather was so warm that it was physically impossible for me to take myself out of it by putting on those headphones:
When Mars (nee Martha) got here we headed to Muddy Watters, where she demonstrated her new ability to knit FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT!!!1
After a thoroughly satisfying stitch 'n bitch session, Tatiana and I tried to show her around our used bookstores, with little success:
She got to see some pretty Edmonton Edmonton anyway, though, including the old-west ghost town stretch of 81st Ave, hitching post and all:
And Whyte Ave, of course, where we met up with Trev for dinner:
On the way back to my place, Trev pointed out a dubious sign of his fame: The class he was scheduled to teach made it on to this sign:
...but not into reality. It was cancelled for lack of students. You should have signed up! Anyone can learn! And he's good!

Anyway, we stopped off at home and grabbed Kitchener-Waterloo On Board! (an "Opoly style game" based on the town Trev, Mars and I grew up in) and took it out to an Edmonton gem for a little cultural exchange:
AMT and Steve joined us for the game, and it got so intense that I stopped taking pictures, even when a crowd of my friends arrived to meet the guest of honor.