This Was 2023; Happy New Year 2024!

2023: Learning How To Be A Father

Flickr version

By Andrew J. Karagianis

December 31st, 2023

 

If there was a theme to 2023 for me, it was the year of watching Rae transform from a baby to a toddler. My life has become less about me, as I’ve had a lot less time to do the things I used to do. As a result, I am living my life less intentionally than before (if that was even possible). The last few months especially have been a cycle of “Work, wash dishes, try to get Rae to go back to sleep, and repeat”. But watching Rae develop has also been entertaining, rewarding, and full of surprises. I know it’s only a matter of time before she thinks I’m uncool and won’t want to spend time with me. And I’m sure I’ll still manage to write a dozen pages about what I did this year. So to quote Monty Python, “Get on with it!”

 

January:

We rang in the new year at home again, going to bed around 10:30pm. This year I wasn’t woken up by fireworks, which was nice! I love being old enough that I don’t have to pretend to enjoy staying up all night anymore.

 

The first song I listened to in 2023 was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Ella Fitzgerald.

 

On New Year’s Day I went up to Dad’s house for a family meal while Ally and Rae went to Susan’s house. I took my Canon EOS Elan IIe 35mm film camera and took some pics along the snowy and slushy Trans-Canada Trail down the hill first. I ate at a table with Dad in the kitchen while the rest of the people ate in the dining room. It was the first time I ate at a table with someone other than Ally and Rae since 2019. I felt like it was time to slowly take these risks and try to get back to normal (although that didn’t last long). We had bear meat, which was tasty.

 

On January 3rd, with Ally’s encouragement I set up my drums again after taking them down in May of last year. I gave Rae her first drum lesson, recorded a loop the next day, and took them down soon afterward. They’ve sat my shelves ever since. It’s hard to play drums in an apartment when you’ve made noise complaints about the person above you and when the person below you is a monster (more on that later; or should I say “moron that”).

 

On January 7th, Ally and I got our fifth doses of a COVID vaccine and Rae got her first dose. Hell yes, my daughter will be getting every vaccine for which she is eligible. It’s incredible how in 2020, everyone was like “Yes please, I’ll take the vaccine yesterday”, whereas in 2023, some people actually don’t want to get vaccinated. It’s mind-boggling how the mentality of some individuals can shift within such a short period of time. But then, these are probably the same people who draw a conclusion and then look for evidence that confirms it, so…

 

In January, our basement neighbor yelled at us through the floor on a few different mornings to “Shut up! Jesus Christ!” after first yelling at us just after Christmas. He also started yell-talking to his friends on the phone about us, referring to us as “the assholes upstairs” and assuming that we got up at 6:30 in the morning just to try to wake him up. That was the end of us being on speaking terms with him. We started referring to him (between ourselves) as Trollman. After responding, he left us alone for several months. But trolls don’t stay dormant forever.

 

You may recall that in January of 2023, the Sun hardly came out at all. Indeed, according to the CBC (keep funding the CBC, by the way), the winter of 2023 was the darkest winter in Ontario in more than 80 years.

 

Also in January, I got back the roll of 110 film that I had developed at West Camera. It was fucked. Some of them had “Newton marks” on them, which made rings appear on the photos; others were scanned at extremely low resolution, and they were all backwards. I asked West Camera to rescan them, but I don’t honestly remember the outcome. I haven’t gone back to West Camera since then, which is too bad, because I listed West Camera as my favorite store of 2022. I decided that Downtown Camera, although less convenient, is better-quality.

 

February:

On February 4th, I did a sleep study to investigate whether I have sleep apnea. I went to a clinic at College and Spadina, filled out a 6-page questionnaire, and they hooked up all manner of wires on my head, legs, and back; a pulse oximeter on my finger, and wires and tubes up my nose, which made it hard to breathe. I eventually got used to it and fell asleep, although I was awoken in the middle of the night by a staff person gabbing on her phone right outside my room. The idiocy!

 

In February, there was a COVID outbreak at the women’s treatment center. That spelled the end of my willingness to (to quote Darth Vader) lower my defenses.

 

Also in February, I took two old tapes to a place called Digital Treasures to have them converted. One was a video cassette of Campout 7, an all-nighter at my high school for Grade 12 students back in 2003. The other was a camcorder cassette that had a lot of footage from the ‘90s and early 2000s. I got it back in March, and watching that was a real treasure trove of memories. There was footage from our family trip to Traytown in 1997 (in which there’s evidence that I caught a cod in Newfoundland once); footage of Christmas in 1997 and 2000 (including my now-deceased grandfathers and great-grandparents); footage of my old band Cloud Machine jamming at home in 2003, among a few other clips.

 

March:

Other than getting those videos back, the only thing that happened in March is that I found out I do have mild sleep apnea, but thankfully they didn’t recommend any major interventions. I bought an expensive wedge pillow and have only had one noticeable episode while using it since then.

 

April:

On April 13th, I got a new camera – a Canon Elph Sport that I ordered a few days earlier for $35 on eBay. An APS film camera built around 1999. Why? Because it’s me. But also because we were planning a trip this summer and knew we’d have to bring a lot of Rae’s stuff on the plane, and so I decided to pull a nostalgia and take a small APS film point-and-shoot camera instead of my big honking DSLR, and also to force me to be more deliberate with what I took pictures of and not come home with 1000 pictures. Also, the Elph Sport was allegedly waterproof, and I bought it because I got the idea to take some underwater pics at the beach. I still came home with 842 pictures and 165 videos between my APS camera, iPhone, and drone, but taking lots of pictures on trips has been my “modus operandy bo-bandy” (Trailer Park Boys reference) for a long time, so I was a bit naïve to think taking a film camera would change that.

 

That same week (the week of Ally’s birthday) was really hot; like 30 degrees. Not good for April. #climatechange.

 

May:

On May 6th, we took Rae for her first ride on the GO train, going to the OCADU GradEx exhibit. On May 14th, we took Rae to her first Blue Jays game. Ally’s mom rented a box for the special Mother’s Day game. On May 21st, I took Rae planespotting for the first time. The best spot (the Wendy’s parking lot) had been barricaded off, as the Wendy’s had closed down, unbeknownst to me, but I found a new location elsewhence, although I don’t think Rae was interested. Maybe next time.

 

On May 15th, some of us had to start participating in a four-day workweek pilot. That sounds great on paper. It meant I had an extra day off each week – which is great, yes – but it meant I had insufficient time to reach my doctor-ordered exercise goals during the rest of the workweek, and by the time I got home from work due to the longer shifts, Rae was almost ready for bed and not always in the greatest mood. It also made it harder to attend to all the incoming referrals and phone calls, which coincidentally started increasing at the same time. As I type this in December, I’ve gotten used to the four-day workweek now, but it took me a few months. The theoretical benefit of the four-day workweek is that they’re supposed to pay you the same amount of money for four days’ worth of work; not make your shifts longer to compensate. #capitalism.

 

On our sixth wedding anniversary, Ally and I rented a canoe and paddled down the Humber River, which was a good time.

 

On May 30th, I got my first phone call from Rae. She was playing with Ally’s phone and called me at work. I answered the phone and heard a bit of babbling. It was cute.

 

On May 31st, I ate inside a restaurant for the first time since March of 2020. To quote David Puddy, “Yeah that’s right”. It was a staff lunch at the Symposium Café in Oakville. I was anxious as fuck being there. But the COVID cases were relatively low at that point, and nobody got COVID from the event, so I don’t regret it. In fact, the WHO declared that the global health emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic was over in May. So that was nice, even if the pandemic wasn’t over yet.

 

June:

On June 2nd, Ally and I took Rae on her first camping trip. We went to Bronte Creek Provincial Park for two nights. I took the view that camping in Oakville wasn’t really camping, but we wanted to be close to home in case it was a [Trump voice] “total disastah.” And it sort of was! I found a tick on my arm as we ate supper on the first night, and as we were discussing bailing to avoid Lyme disease, a thunder and hail storm opened up above us. I quickly secured the rain fly above the tent and dashed inside, but our food and firewood got soaked. We ended up finding seven dog ticks at our campsite, but otherwise the trip was decent and Rae certainly enjoyed it.

 

The first half of June was relatively cool, and we went a while without rain. As you may recall, forest fires raged across the country, and while there were no fires near Toronto, the smoke certainly showed up. On June 6th, I went for a walk on my lunch break at work in Oakville and noticed smoke at ground level. Not only could I see it, but I could smell it though the mask I took with me. I had never seen air pollution like this before. Fires from other provinces were making the Greater Toronto Area smell like a campground with all sites blazing. I began wearing a mask outside again for the first time since 2020. Climate change had arrived at our doorstep. And this wasn’t a situation where some people experienced it and others could look away, like local poverty or a flood on the other side of the world. Most of the continent – a rich continent full of white people – was yellow with smoke.

 

On June 13th, Rae started saying “Uh oh!” before and after dropping something on the floor. It was the first time I heard her say something other than “ma-ma-ma” or “da-da-da”. Also by mid-June, Rae was able to stand for a few seconds after letting go of a support object.

 

In mid-June, I got caught up in coverage of the missing sub Titan, presuming the people aboard would not be found before they died at the bottom of the ocean. Turns out they died before even reaching the bottom, and it was quick, which (although still tragic) is different than prolonged despair.

 

On June 19th, I got my annual bloodwork. I went about my business for the rest of the day. I went to work the next day and compulsively checked my e-mail probably 15 times to look for an e-mail from my doctor, but nothing came. I fretted over it while eating supper, and decided to log on to the website to face my fate. To my surprise and great relief, my fasting blood glucose was 5.4 – a 0.7 decrease since my previous reading, and below the level for prediabetes! Fuck! After more than two years of sacrifice by eating much healthier, getting a lot of exercise, and keeping my eye on the target in the face of other people trying to minimize it, I finally beat prediabetes. I took it seriously and my efforts made a difference.

 

Of course, I know I’m still vulnerable to my blood sugar going back up, so this doesn’t mean I can go back to my pre-2021 diet of cookies and sugary cereal every day. No. I have to maintain this healthier diet and my exercise routine. But at least I know a) my choices can have a significant impact on my health, and b) I can rest a little easy, knowing that this is what I have to do in order to stay healthy.

 

Later in June, there was the Toronto mayoral by-election, which Olivia Chow won. It’s nice when I don’t get angry about an election result. Occasionally the good guys win elections.

 

The next day, Rae said “Shit” for the first time. I wasn’t there, but I saw the video and was proud.

 

July:

July got off to a bad start. On July 1st, I went to see Terrance and found him sitting on the bottom of his cage, unable to walk without tipping over and barely able to perch on his water dish. He made no attempt to eat banana, his favorite food, and appeared to have a seizure while I put him in his travel cage. I drove him to the vet with tears in my eyes and symbolism running through my head, knowing full well that this was likely to be Terrance’s last day. The vet determined that Terrance must have had a big seizure overnight, as he had another one in the examining room. The vet said Terrance wouldn’t get back to normal even with treatment. I knew Terrance would just fall and hurt himself again, and I didn’t want him to wither away from not eating, so I decided to have Terrance put down. It was the most painful decision I’ve ever made, but it didn’t take long to decide. Mom and I accompanied Terrance through the process and said our goodbyes before he died. He was 18 years old. I had Terrance cremated, and picked his ashes up in an egg-shaped urn two weeks later.

 

But life goes on. Three days after Terrance died, it was Rae’s first birthday. We had a party for family at my aunt and uncle’s house as several of them were going to miss her “main” party, and then on July 8th, we had a party in High Park, attended by other family members and some of our friends. The second party had so much catered food that we had to send people home with trays full of stuff, although the picnic area was full of garbage that I had to clean up when we arrived.

 

On July 10th, I worked my last shift at the commercial park in Oakville. It had been my office for three years, and although it was very plain and in a car-centric area, I did like how relatively devoid of people (COVID carriers) it was, and that I could go for power-walks on my breaks, walking past long, single-storey brick plazas and luxury car dealerships. Far less interesting than the scenery on my walks when I worked at Good Shepherd, but a sidewalk is a sidewalk as far as prediabetes is concerned. And I did like being able to ride the GO train to work every now and then, although I didn’t actually do that in 2023.

 

On July 16th, we embarked on Rae’s first trip out of Ontario and first trip on a plane…and my first trip in both categories since 2020, and Ally’s since 2019. We flew to St. John’s and stayed with Mom for a week at her friend’s house, then flew to Nova Scotia and stayed with Granny at her cottage for a week. I was really happy to be back on the East Coast and show Rae my homeland and the places where I spent time as a kid. The weather was warm; I got lots of great drone pics; spent time with family; saw a few new places, and managed to get in some jogging in both locales, which was a nice change of scenery that I really appreciated. I felt rejuvenated. Rae enjoyed herself, too. It was a pain in the ass to carry Rae’s carseat around the airports, and now I see why so many parents just hope for no turbulence and carry their babies on their laps on planes. And in hindsight, I wish I had taken a film SLR rather than my new point-and-shoot, but it did work underwater, which I couldn’t have done with an SLR, and given that the film itself was 15 years expired, it turned out well.

 

August:

When I got back to work after my trip, my new office was in a trailer at the men’s treatment centre. I started calling it “Sunnyvale.” It had windows! I could actually see outside from my desk! So that was good for morale, even though I was not okay with having to share breathing space with my new coworkers (in Oakville I had my own office with a door). It's not that I thought they in particular were more likely than average to have COVID, but that I was used to working alone. But we could open the windows, and for the first few months, we did. My role at work was restructured such that I would be doing all the interviews for men and women, and we hired a new worker who would handle the less-intensive but more frequent tasks like calls, e-mails, and processing referrals.

 

By mid-August, Rae was starting to take a few steps on her own, and was soon comfortable walking unassisted.

 

In August, I bought a used jogging stroller on Facecrack marketplace for $50. The front wheel isn’t aligned properly so it pulls to the right, but I made good use of it into early November. It’s hard to steer because the front wheel doesn’t turn from side to side, but it’s faster and much smoother-rolling than our regular stroller; handles the bumps better due to the larger wheels and suspension, and is better for my active minutes as well. So for those of you with a baby and looking to get three birds stoned at once (there's another Trailer Park Boys reference for you) -- baby-parent time, exercise, and giving your partner a break -- I recommend a jogging stroller.

 

Also in August, we took Rae to Dad’s cottage for the first time. She enjoyed it.

 

Terrance’s cage sat in our apartment with all his toys still hanging there for almost two months. It was a reminder of the life we lived with him; of the sounds of him tapping the food dish from underneath, or grinding his beak in near-silence, or the sound of his nails and tail feathers clicking and dragging against the bars as he climbed around. But at the end of August, I took his cage apart and gave it the best cleaning it ever had; threw out the toys that couldn’t be salvaged, and donated the cage to the Toronto Humane Society. It made me sad to throw out the items that Terrance had since we got him, like his yellow perch and the wooden swing at the back. At the time, it felt like the last step in closing the “Life with Terrance” chapter in my life. I had said a few years ago that when Terrance dies, I won’t get another parrot, but by the time I got rid of his cage, I had changed my mind. I became open to getting another parrot in the future; perhaps one that needs rehoming, especially because I have almost 18 years of experience as a parrot owner. But 2023 is not the time to get a new parrot. Now I need to focus on raising Rae during her earliest years, and Ally had been casually asking me about getting a dog for several years, so it’s her turn next.

 

September:

On September 10th, I took a TTC bus for the first time since June of 2020, if not earlier. I then took the subway for the first time since the pandemic began, which is hard to believe, considering I was such a proponent of public transit before the worst respiratory pandemic in 100 years came to town and I became grateful to own a car. I went for a walk with my brother along the Kay Gardner Beltline Trail. On the subway home, it felt weird to be taking the subway westbound to go home for the first time. For so many years, Greenwood was my station. Ally and I would get off the subway at Greenwood and take the 31 bus home on many a chilly evening from 2013 to…well, 2020, when the pandemic began. Now the nearest station is Royal York, and I’ve only used it once since moving here.

 

On September 11th, Ally went back to school to start her Master’s degree in teaching, and the dynamic at home changed again. No longer was I making my breakfast as stealthily as a ninja to not wake up the caveman downstairs and eating my breakfast alone. Now Ally was getting up before me, and we had to get Rae ready for daycare while eating our own breakfasts. We found a small program run out of a home that was relatively close by and not too expensive as daycares go. Rae had gone for a few days in August to try it out, and soon after she started, we got word that she was pushing her little friends, stealing their snacks, and running away with their pacifiers. Oh Rae!

 

Also, since I had Mondays off, Mondays became Daddy Daycare days. It was hard for me at first, but it became easier as the weeks went on, in that I had a better idea of how to respond to her fussing and to better attend to her needs so she would be less likely to fuss in the first place.

 

Also in September, Ally and I finalized our wills. Yes. This is worth mentioning because I don’t know how many other people of my generation are thinking of wills yet. Maybe everyone. I don’t know.

 

On my 38th borntday (another Rickyism -- how many Trailer Park Boys references can you count in this summary?), we drove out to Hamilton airport and I participated in a plane pull for United Way with some of my coworkers. I thought it would be a neat thing to pull an Airbus A300 on my birthday. We had fewer people on our team (13 instead of the usual 15), but we managed to pull it pretty quickly, which I was surprised by. We actually pulled a widebody cargo jet! Then the family came over for my birthday.

 

Also in probably September, I jogged my farthest-distance-without-slowing-to-a-walking-pace-in-between-bursts-of-jogging – about 1.5km. All of this jogging in 2023 was starting to have a positive impact on my endurance!

 

On September 22nd, I went to the periodontist and had my root canal tooth extracted; a sinus lift, and a bone graft. He sewed it back up with a piece of Teflon sticking out to hold the bone bits in place. Over the next few weeks, I had to take it easy to prevent the bone bits from falling out. But the website was correct; the surgery didn’t hurt much because I guess he used high-quality anesthetic. I had to take huge horse pill antibiotics afterward. After a month, I went back and he removed the Teflon and stitches, and it was much more comfortable from that point.

 

October:

On October 1st, things came to a head with our Neanderthal neighbor, and really, calling him a Neanderthal is an insult to Neanderthals. He said something that bordered on taking illegal action against us, and I drew the line at that comment. Because I half-expect this issue to come up again, I’m not saying more about it here. He’s left us alone since then, and if nothing else, it cemented our plan to move the fuck out of here once the timing is right. It’s unfortunate that this has turned into a stain on an otherwise decent place to live, but in the span of my entire life, it will just be a chapter, not a part (as in “Part One, Part Two”, etc.).

 

On the night of October 6th, the temperature plummeted, and the next day it was fall. In October, Rae started eating solid food more enthusiastically; cramming it into her mouth rather than just picking at it.

 

Throughout the fall, I went back to Leslieville a few times for appointments, and wished we hadn’t moved away from there. It was a nicer neighborhood. I read a bit of my Summary of 2021 and got reacquainted with the reasons why we left – because the basement neighbors were smoking weed indoors and the landlord was talking about selling, and I knew I couldn’t continue to occupy a vacant unit for my work-from-home space if a new owner took over the house. Moving out of the old house in Leslieville was the right decision at that time, and we can’t move back to that area as the onramp to the Gardiner has been demolished and it would be a royal pain in the ass to get to work now. But I guess hindsight is 2023.

 

On October 28th, I got my 6th COVID vaccine (the XBB version) and a flu shot at the same time. I felt lethargic the next day, but after two days I was back to normal.

 

November:

In November, I was sitting in the rocking chair in Rae’s room and she walked to the bookshelf, picked up a book, handed it to me, and then motioned for me to pick her up. I clued in to what she was doing, and picked her up and read it to her. The next morning while we were getting ready, I sat down in the playpen with her and she handed me a book, then sat down on my lap so I would read it to her. It melted my heart that she was able to non-verbally communicate this to me, and that she wanted me to read to her. So I did. By December, she would also say “book” while pointing to the one she wanted.

 

On November 9th, I got sick for the first time since April of 2020. Rae had been coughing at night for a few weeks and Ally had developed symptoms a few days before me, and by the weekend of November 11th, we were all home sick. The first of probably many household respiratory viruses to come, I suppose. I took 16 COVID tests over the next seven weeks (partly as a requirement due to an outbreak at work) and they were all negative except one, from a different brand of test, which was verrry faintly positive (I found out later that the brand of tests I was using most of the time was apparently less reliable, even though they were the brand the government supplied to my workplace, and I did have some loss of smell and taste for a few days, which prompted my doctor to say there might have been “a bit of COVID” in there). So maybe I did get COVID, but perhaps it wasn’t able to really establish itself because my family was vaccinated so recently. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine having COVID and testing negative 15 out of 16 times, even if the tests were less-than-reliable. Until a retroactive test is developed that can distinguish between antibodies from past COVID infection vs. antibodies from vaccination, I guess I’ll never know for sure whether I had COVID in November of 2023. Even more ironic is the fact that I got sick before anyone else at my workplace, and then there was a COVID outbreak just over a week later…Could you imagine if I of all people was the person who was responsible for a COVID outbreak at my workplace in spite of all my proselytizing about insufficient precautions for the past few years?

 

Also in November, I created a board book for Rae about Terrance. I wanted to make a book about Terrance in general but I think making it as a board book allowed it to be more succinct and gave me a timeline to work on (i.e., “soon”), since Rae is still reading board books.

 

December:

By early December I was feeling mostly better, and by December 14th, I finally felt clear of it.

 

On December 15th, I was home with Rae doing Daddy Daycare when I noticed her counting out loud with her fingers. I had no idea she could do that, and I don’t think Ally knew either! She must have learned it in actual daycare.

 

On December 18th, we took Rae to see Santa Claus for the first time at the Cloverdale Mall. We did not force her to sit on Santa’s lap. We moved her there and she reached back for Ally, so Ally took her back on her lap and no crying was had. An ethical photo shoot!

 

On Christmas Eve, we went to Mom’s for a few hours. On Christmas Day, we opened most of our presents and went up to Susan’s for Christmas dinner. We opened the rest of our presents on Wrestling Day. And that brings us to the last day of 2023: We went for a walk; I went for a jog; we read books to Rae and I played guitar for her, and we had a nice supper together.

 

And now for some general observations about the year:

 

One of the best ideas I’ve ever had was to create an accountability chart at the beginning of 2023 as an alternative to New Year’s resolutions. I came up with some goals that were important to me, but I also narrowed down the timelines and/or frequencies in which I’d need to achieve them. Rather than saying “I need to get more exercise”, I created a box each week for me to mark whether I got at least 150 active minutes that week. I did the same for vacuuming, cleaning Terrance’s cage, and posting at least 3 pictures to Flickr each week. I created one monthly goal (limiting my film shooting to one roll per month to save money), and had a few other goals that I’d be satisfied to achieve once in the year (going camping, and going to St. John’s and my grandmother’s cottage).

 

The goal chart didn’t result in me actually achieving each goal 100% of the time, but it certainly helped, and if nothing else, I could see whether I was slacking or staying on target. It was also easy to see how patterns changed based on relevant circumstances. For example, in the summer, Ally bought a lightweight Swiffer vacuum, which was far less of a pain in the ass to use than the old, heavy plug-in vacuum, so it was easier for me to do a quick vacuum with the Swiffer and check that box for the week. On some weeks, I had a good reason for not getting my 150 active minutes (like taking it easy after the dental surgery and being sick for almost five weeks in the fall), but you can also see that the consistency went down after June, when I learned that my fasting blood sugar (the reason for my active minutes goal in the first place) went down below the problem zone. Obviously my response to the good news was foolish – my blood sugar went down partly because of the efforts I’d been making to exercise, not in spite of them.

 

Anyway, the lesson is that if you have New Year’s resolutions that you actually want to achieve, put your goals into an accountability chart, and post it somewhere where the people you live with can see it. The purpose is to hold yourself accountable by keeping track of whether you’re meeting the targets that you set for yourself. Here are a few of my stats:

 

• I got at least 150 active minutes on 38/52 weeks, or 73% of the year.

 

• My average weekly active minutes was 149. This is because there were more weeks where I fell far short of 150 vs. weeks where I far exceeded 150.

 

• However, my total active minutes this year was 7,755, which sounds much more impressive!

 

• I cleaned Terrance’s cage on 23 of the last 26 weeks of his life, which is 88%. If only I had set this goal earlier in his life :(

 

• I vacuumed on 30 out of 50 weeks – two of those weeks I was on vacation, so…even though I could have vacuumed in those places, I’m excluding them from the count. 30/50 is 60%. That’s not great, but it’s a lot better than it would have been if vacuuming wasn’t on my accountability chart. It's also a chore I share with Ally, so there's no need for me to do it every time.

 

• I posted 3+ pictures to Flickr on 21/52 weeks, or 40% of the year. This goal was the hardest to maintain, not because I didn’t want to do it, but because it was hard to find time to do it without feeling guilty or being asked to help with something. Once I moved my computer into another room where I could semi-watch Rae and eat breakfast at the same time, it became easier. I was less active on Flickr in 2023 (106 things posted) vs. 2022 (184 things posted).

 

• As for the film goal, I shot a roll in January, March, April, two in May, four in July (allowed because I was on vacation), and one in December. So I shot 10 rolls in 12 months, which is within the limit I set, from a certain point of view (to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi). It’s a lot less than I shot in 2022.

 

Another theme of 2023 for me is that it really seemed that a large chunk of the population is willfully trying to forget that COVID still exists. At times, that has really pissed me off, but I also found myself letting my armor down at some points during the year. In July I spent two weeks largely unmasked in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, although I did still wear surgical masks in stores. I largely went maskless in Sunnyvale (the trailer at work) from August until I got sick in November. But of course, as I type this in December, COVID cases are at their highest level in a year again, so…now is not the time to unmask.

 

When it comes to COVID precautions, to me it’s really about how much a person is willing to learn, and how much risk they’re willing to take. The pandemic has been going on for almost four years now, so we’re all tired of it, but we can’t claim ignorance anymore.

 

2023 was also the year of inflation, as you know. Once in April, my grocery bill at No Frills (not Sobeys or Loblaws) was $310. Once upon a time, I would have wondered if I could even fit $310 worth of groceries into my car. Now it’s like “Yep; still plenty of room for people, too.” Downtown Camera raised the price on processing APS film, and the landlords started charging us to use the laundry machines after one too many problems with the washer. I found out that the rent on my storage unit is going up by $35/month in February 2024.

 

It was also the year of shrinkflation. Frozen berries, cheese, chocolates, Q-Tips, granola bars, sandwich meat; you name it. It pisses me off. Just raise the price and give me the same old size instead! Now I have to go to the store more often because the quantity of food I’m getting is less. I’m glad the NDP has been taking the grocery CEOs to task on food prices, but I don’t expect anything will change until we stop worshipping capitalism and economic growth. And you know what’s fudged? The people who capitalism has screwed over the most – the poor – sometimes seem to be the people who are most hostile to finding another way.

 

AI took off in 2023, but I haven’t done anything with it. To be honest, I see AI as something to be afraid of and to restrict, even if it can also be used as a toy. I am certainly concerned about its ability to be used for malicious purposes, whether of limited immediate consequence like being able to use AI to write a passable essay in high school, or more heinous crimes like blackmail and identity theft. Not to mention selfish but legal tricks like replacing people’s jobs with AI. So it will be interesting to see how AI pans out in the future, and the extent to which the problems I predicted here will pan out. For all I know, there could also be enormous benefits for conscientious people, too; not just for cheaters and criminals.

 

* * * *

 

I began doing these annual summaries in 2010, but early in 2023, Ally suggested I type a summary of the 2000s (the first decade) after we talked about the upcoming 20th anniversary of my grandfather’s death. I ended up typing 32 pages over the course of a month, and it was a joy to go back and reminisce about those years, even though naturally there were some unhappy times during that decade, too. It gave me something to focus on while I ate my breakfast during those dark winter mornings; in other words, “husband hidey-hole time”. A few days after it was done, I started typing a summary of the 1990s. That took two and a half months, as the memories didn’t come as quickly and I had to consult my parents about some dates, but I was impressed with how much I did remember – remembering one thing triggered memories of other related things – and I ended up typing 30 pages. On the other hand, I decided not to type a summary of the 1980s, as it would have been almost entirely conjecture.

 

Some people might say “Andrew, why do you type this stuff? Nobody cares.” But I care. This is what I enjoy doing. If you read this far, you care, too. And (I mentioned this in my Summary of 2022) now that I have a child, there’s someone else who might take a genuine interest in this, especially many years in the future. If my parents wrote 62 pages about their childhoods and youths, I would read them, and I suspect you probably would if your parents did the same. You could do this, too. It’s not too late to make your life story more clear for your descendants.

 

I’ve thought several times in 2023 about how Rae’s experiences of family gatherings will be different from my own, not just in terms of individual people (that’s obvious), but in terms of structure. When I was a kid growing up in St. John’s, the majority of family meals were held at my house, or Nanny and Gramp’s house, or Granny and Grandad’s house. All three households lived just a few kilometers from one another. Both sets of grandparents would be present at most of these meals, at least until Granny and Granddad moved away around 1996. To me, that was normal, although I found out as an adult that some people’s maternal and paternal grandparents rarely interacted. Anyway, Rae will never have the same structure I had, but that doesn’t mean Rae’s experience of family meals (who knew this would be so important to me!) won’t be meaningful to her. Of course it will. What she grows up with will be normal to her. I’m sure things are similar for other households who grow up in apartments, with family spread fairly far apart. One thing that I’ve needed to remind myself of repeatedly in 2023 is a quote from the AA Big Book: “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.” Whether it’s Rae’s normal toddler behavior that I’m not used to yet, or the traditions that I grew up with that she won’t have, acceptance does wonders to change stress, on the occasions where I remember to accept it.

 

I made quite a few more sound recordings in 2023 compared to 2022 (38 vs. 19). I say “sound recordings” because a lot of them were things like birds chirping while I went for a walk, as opposed to songs I wrote. But that’s still something! I also recorded an interview with Granny, and a podcast theme for my friend Rick.

 

My photography was kind of diverse this year in terms of cameras used. I only took 99 photos with my DSLR in 2023. Compared to other years, that’s really low. Here’s the breakdown:

 

• Kodak Retinette: 0

• Kodak Star 110: 0

• Kodak Advantix T500: 0

• Canon EOS IX Lite: 50

• Canon EOS Elan IIe: 62

• Canon EOS 80D: 99

• Canon Elph Sport: 150

• DJI Mavic Mini: 301

• iPhone SE (2nd gen): 737

 

Books read in 2023:

1. Finished The Bullet: Stories from the Newfoundland Railway by Robert Hunt

2. Streetcars of St. John’s by Kenneth Pieroway (not a book per se, but still technically a book).

3. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (audiobook)

4. Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

5. It’s Okay to be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders

6. A Newfoundlander in Canada by Alan Doyle

7. Sway by Matthew Bocchi

8. Naturally Tan by Tan France

9. Ordinary Heroes by Joseph Pfeifer (the first book I checked out of a library since my university days).

10. Trains of Newfoundland by Kenneth Pieroway (see #2 above)

11. A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough

12. Started Spare by Prince Harry

 

Shows watched in 2023:

• The Mark Critch Show season 2

• The Baby Yoda Show season 3

• The Crown season 6

• Transatlantic

• Ahsoka

• Queer Eye

 

2023 was a year in which I didn’t get into much new music. I’m really grasping at straws to find newly-discovered songs that I liked a lot in 2023. Most of the songs that got stuck in my head were songs that came out of Rae’s toys. However, I did buy the newly-finished Beatles song “Now And Then” on November 2nd. Upon my first listen on my phone in my car while eating lunch that day, I thought the audio quality wasn’t very good and the song wasn’t great either. But I listened to it on my car speakers on the way home a few times, and again over the next few days, and I have to say, I like it more each time I listen to it. It has been stuck in my head, so that means something.

 

A sample of songs I got into in 2023:

• “One Thing” by Jon LaJoie

• “good morning” by Covet

• “Rant & Roar” by Great Big Sea

• “Goin’ Up” by Great Big Sea

• “White Buffalo” by Crown Lands

• “Peter Street” by the Irish Descendants

• “Now And Then” by The Beatles

• “The bird in the circle/The President on social media, tweets a thing that’s terrible, tweet tweet tweet, the President on social media!”

• “The dog in the star/The doge in the star, Karl Marx and runs far, woof woof woof woof, the doge in the star!”

• “Hello Pikachu, piranha’s here to stay…”

• “Brown beAR brown beAR what see’th ye?”

 

And that’s about it for 2023! Tune in next year to read the next chapter of my life!

 

 

References:

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023

• www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/darkest-winter-ontario...

• www.johnstownaa.com/pdfs/Acceptance.pdf

 

 

 

Done