Last Days at Park

It is coming onto the last days of enjoyable fall weather as we move briskly into unpleasantly sharp fall weather and then soon into the long, dark, endless months of winter, buoyed only by the glimmer of Christmas spirit, and the reason for the season, which is, of course, presents. And so we bear up. And also we go to the park.

Allan Gardens has taken on an unusual tenor these days, but the park remains one of my favourite places to break out all of my supplies. Technology doesn’t work outside without some real effort and data usage, so I get to enjoy my self-imposed island with my pens and snacks, sifting through things on to-do lists, trying to assign them to various dates, usually devolving at some point to doodling and crosshatches and admiring ink at different angles, wondering what it is, having completely lost track of which ink is in which pen. These are the last park days for 2022, a daunting thought that I can’t bear to stay on for too long. Perhaps a few more warm days, yet.

In any case, I was instructed to do a blog post on our Scriptus preparations, and here I am instead, trying to buy myself some more time by posting about unrelated things while we sort out our Scriptus preparations. Scriptus is the Toronto Pen Show that is happening on Sunday, October 30th. I think we’re going to need one car just for the kids and snacks. We have some stuff happening the Saturday before. Planning is still in the preliminary stages, clearly.

We have lots coming up. I made a bunch of mystery pen packs for the pen show. Jon has a big Traveler’s Notebook shipment coming in, not for Scriptus. There are a whole bunch of Hobonichi boxes stacked in the warehouse, also not for Scriptus. I casually consented to Caleb growing out his hair for his Goku costume for Halloween, dovetailing nicely with picture day at his school the week before. Can’t wait to spend good money on those photos. The baby is currently eating paper. The seasons cycle through, and yet each one has its own flavour and richness.