Here are two reasons why my Prospect Heights neighbourhood has been such fun during the year I’ve been living here – the eponymous Cheryl of Cheryl’s Global Soul Cafe on Underhill Street (literally around the corner from my apartment, my home away from home) and Derek van Gieson, artist, illustrator, short-story writer, sometime photographer, and part-time barista…referred to elsewhere on this blog as DvG.

Another cafe regular took this photo of us last Friday just before the cafe closed for a couple of days (last weekend in August is the official end of summer and the long Labor Day weekend). Kindred spirits are found in the most unlikely places. Thank goodness.