Thursday Thoughts - 3 - Life as I Love to Live It

1 - The writers' retreat organized by my local chapter of Romance Writers of America is a huge highlight of my year.















2 - A visit to my friend Donna's in Toronto. What could be more lovely? I used to be her daughter's live-in nanny, and now her daughter is 23. Time flies, doesn't it? But it always feels good to sit and catch up, enjoy coffee together and eat her homemade cookies with edible gold.












3 - One of best things when we lived in Toronto was the availabilty of cult movies. On a recent trip to The Big City my husband made sure he stocked up on the essentials.


















4 - Hanging out on Queen Street West is also a must when we're in Toronto. Especially because my good friend Chris manages Bakka-Phoenix Books at Queen and Spadina. The city was tearing up the intersection during that visit.














5 - Is there any place I'd rather be than in the lobby of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, a glass of champagne in my hand, my dear friend Jacquie by my side and a performance of the Sleeping Beauty ballet just moments away...?

Not really, no.














6 - Well...there's always meeting friends at a funky coffee shop and whiling away an hour or two over cafe au laits and delectable yummies. That's good, too.













7 - It's always exciting to discover the creative things my friends get up to. Like these fun tea cozies my friend Pam knitted, as well as little hats that looked like pumpkins and strawberries.














8 - Since I haven't been invited to the Oscars yet, last year's evening on the town at Haliwood - a Halifax Oscar-themed fundraiser - felt like the next best thing.


















9 - My gram's funeral was held this summer in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. This was a beautiful angel candelabra behind the altar. It was a perfect service officiated by a handsome young priest of whom my gram would have heartily approved. A clear, blue-sky day, surrounded by family and uplifted by love - no one could ask for a better farewell.














10 - My dog Xena is a light in my life that can't really be explained. I just love her.















11 - Last year was a particularly sad year for saying final goodbyes - but it was also an odd dream-come-true year where so many things on my wish list came to me. I'm a life-long horse lover without a horse. But I had a serious Barbie horse with a horse trailer and realistic tack, and I had pretend horses I rode whenever we went for a family walk in a park or in the woods. I even groomed these pretend horses in their pretend stable in the backyard.

I've always wanted to go to Vienna to see the Lippizan stallions at the Spanish Riding School. And what do you know - the Lippizans came to me, here in Halifax!
















12 - Another thing I've always longed to do was see the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride. Once again, who showed up right here in my fair city? You guessed it!

I've always had a thing for war horses and cavalry, and both the Lippizans and the RCMP Musical Ride are basically cavalry maneuvers.



The RCMP unit even did a charge at the end. A total thrill! In this next clip (which has no audio) the Charge comes at the 1:15 mark.
















13 - I took this shot of a sunset at Lawrencetown Beach in very chilly November, a year ago. This is a beach on the Atlantic Ocean, 20 minutes' drive from my house. I played here as a child, and I head out there as an adult because it's one of my favorite places on earth. Ten minutes of walking this beach, and I promise you - all is right with the world.

The RCMP Always Gets Their Man

Tonight, as long as it doesn't get bumped by baseball or racing, Brad and I will be glued to our favorite Saturday night fun - 'America's Most Wanted'. We've been watching this show since it first aired over 20 years ago.




John Walsh is our hero. He never holds anything back. If he feels a guy should be called a slimeball, he calls it like he sees it. He is seriously on my personal list of heroic people. He took a personal tragedy - losing his son in a gruesome murder - then dropped the life path he'd been on to show the world what a difference ONE person can make.

During 9/11, he was among the few civilians given access to Ground Zero. The police and firefighters, emergency response teams, all walked up to him to shake his hand with deeply felt respect. He's not just the host of a crime-fighting show. He has changed the way law enforcement shares information with each other, has gotten child protection laws through Congress, and all through his own unrelenting force of will. If the foot soldiers at Ground Zero drop what they're doing to pay respects to John Walsh, that's good enough for me.

As diehard AMW watchers, Brad and I have seen several 'scumbags' profiled over and over again as the law continues to dog their trail. After awhile, viewers know these on-the-lam characters inside and out. So imagine our shock/glee/pride when our local newscast reported the takedown of an 'America's Most Wanted' suspect right here in the Maritimes by a rookie RCMP officer.

April 8, 2006 was the first airing of the Richard McNair case on AMW, who was "serving a life sentence at the federal prison in Pollock, La. for killing a man during a 1987 burglary attempt in North Dakota. According to Marshals, on April 5, 2006, McNair literally put himself into a package and mailed himself to freedom." (AWM.com)

Here's the capture story as it appeared in The Halifax Chronicle Herald by Kevin Bissett: Mounties nab escaped American killer in N.B.


This guy was playing a game of catch-me-if-you-can that he still probably intends to continue. But I'm looking forward to the footage tonight when I get to see him wearing that lovely shade of prisoner orange that's always so becoming.