Summer Stock Sunday - 32

My vintage look at summer for Summer Stock Sunday, hosted by Robin at Around the Island.













62 summers ago, my mom and her siblings gathered together for a photo in their front yard in Sydney, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. At this point there were four - a fifth sibling would arrive two years later.

The fifth sibling's daughter just got married a few weeks ago along the shore of Lake Michigan. The oldest boy in this shot - my Uncle Charlie - drove out to Michigan to attend the wedding of his brother's daughter, then turned around and drove back to Nova Scotia to give away his other niece at her wedding last weekend.

My sister's wedding was a mini family reunion - as are most weddings.

Above, from L to R:

Paulette, Charlie, Sheila, Warren















Last weekend, Paulette headed off to the wedding with her beaming daughter.




















Uncle Charlie accompanied his niece down the outdoor aisle.
















The happy couple with Aunt Louise and Uncle Warren, here from Michigan.

Thursday Thirteen - 66 - 13 Highlights of My Summer So Far

1 - I've recently discovered that if I Google A Piece of My Mind without any other description, my blog comes up first in the search engine. Yes, it gives me an incredible thrill.


















2 - At the end of June, I made the leap from a casual employee to a permanent fulltime employee of the Province of Nova Scotia. No public service employee was ever happier than me.

















3 - The Aunt Sheila rose in our front yard had a record 22 blooms on it this year. We planted it in my aunt's memory, as yellow roses were her favorite.

















4 - My monster rose bush took over the world this year!
































5 - I also had a record number of blossoms on the Japanese quince, which I started as a cutting from the quince in my Gram's yard in Yarmouth. After growing from a six-inch cutting, the quince finally bloomed for the first time last year, a six-year wait. When I walked around the corner this year to a spray of orange blooms, my heart totally sang with joy. Technically, the quince blooms in the spring, but we have such a late season here, it was still blooming by the end of June.






























6 - One of my New Year's resolutions was to write more new poetry. So far this year I've posted 10 new poems on the Poetry Train. Go, me!

















7 - Enjoyed a fifth writers' retreat, at a cottage near White Point Beach Lodge, Nova Scotia. That's my friend Kelly Boyce, who drove me there and back (I'm the navigator.) Beside us is Lilly Cain. The sun was really beating down on us, but normally the curtains are opened to reveal this lovely scene:















Our group of writers always strolls along the coastline over to the lodge on the Saturday night of our retreat, for dinner at the lodge restaurant. Here I'm sitting between Heidi at left, and Annette to the right.





























8 - Discovered a new character, Scorpius, during the retreat. Luckily, he looks exactly like Richard Armitage.
































9 - Totally flipped over Wanted. I've seen it in the theatre three times already.









James McAvoy is one of my favorite actors, and his character's journey really puts him through the wringer. By the time he gets to the scene above, he's gone from an office drone with an ergonomic keyboard to a deadly assassin.















10 - Sat in amazement as I watched The Dark Knight. I remember the very early buzz and the announcement that Heath Ledger would be playing the Joker. My little heart raced with excitement.









Now, months later and following the early departure of such an enormous talent, The Dark Knight had a crazy amount of hype to live up to. I'm one of those people that marketing types hate. I'm immune to hype. I get feelings about things, which are always right, by the way. The early production stills from The Dark Knight told me all I needed to know.

Heath Ledger's Joker absolutely flips each scene on its ear. And that's his performance. You can hear the dialogue beneath his performance and realize just where he took things. I couldn't help weeping at his name appearing in the end credits. As an admirer of a truly gifted actor, I still feel the loss of Heath like a stab.









The truly amazing thing about The Dark Knight is that it's far - very far - from being The Heath Ledger Swan Song. It's an incredible ensemble piece with every performance at the top of each actor's game. Christian Bale delivers a generous, introspective performance as Batman realizes what it really takes to be heroic.



















Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent/Two-Face manages to have us rooting for his truly heroic character without managing to steal the thunder from the title character's movie.



















And Gary Oldman gives a subtle, complex performance in his storyline centering on double-crossing and trust.

















11 - I celebrated my 16th wedding anniversary on the weekend that my family travelled down to Yarmouth for my Gram's funeral. Since Brad and I spent two years living in Yarmouth with Gram before we all relocated here to Cole Harbour (to be closer to everyone) it was lovely for us to revisit the town we'd called home. We had our own motel room, our dog was at a wonderful kennel - it was a great evening. We had dinner at the Lotus Garden, an awesome Chinese restaurant which was a favorite of ours.



















And then we saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Cause that's just the kind of couple we are.











I especially loved Prince Nuada, played by Luke Goss. Loved his voice, his moves - excellent fight scenes! He was an extremely charismatic, tragic villain. Just my kind of character.

















12 - Enjoyed seeing my Michigan uncles and aunt when they came for Gram's funeral mass. Though she passed away in December, we had her funeral on July 12th so that her elderly sisters and brother could attend.

The two uncles on the left are from Michigan - Uncle Louie and Uncle Warren. Next to them are my mom, Paulette and my second dad/Uncle Charlie.















Down at the Yarmouth waterfront before the funeral: Uncle Warren, my second mom/Auntie Noel, Warren's wife Aunt Louise and my husband Brad.

















Uncle Charlie talks to Gram's 'baby' sister, 82-year-old Tante Emeline. (Tante is French for Aunt - my Yarmouth family is Acadian all the way, baby.) To the right is Gram's sister, Tante Adelta, 92, now the oldest remaining sibling. She used to be the fifth of eleven children. Now there are three sisters and one brother left.

















13 - Went out to my sister's and her boyfriend's cottage out in Musquodoboit. That's my sister Michelle and my mom. Behind them you can see the dock that got yanked away from its moorings by Tropical Storm Cristobal, which hit here last week.















But do we care about a wee thing like that? Nah. Newt's brother was heading out in the sea-do to wrangle all the floating bits of dock from along the lakefront. Everyone's had separated.















It was the first time Michelle's been able to take us out there, because the cottage has been undergoing major renovations for the past few summers. And it's beautiful.















This is Newt with his sister's dog, Lily. Isn't Newt cute?

Well, that's my summer so far. And so far it's been fabulous.

Coming At Us From All Sides

My mom is finding it hard tonight to accept the idea that it's no longer an option to care for Gram at home. Mom has been caring for Gram for fifteen years.

The past few months have been really hard on Mom, as Gram was declining and Mom had to perform real nursing care for her mother. Though you'd imagine it might seem like such a relief to know that she's no longer tied to the house, to have to keep her ear listening for Gram getting up and shuffling off to the washroom with her walker - it's actually very distressing for Mom.


Luckily her two brothers flew here for the past few days, plus her brother that lives here has been sharing the visits at the hospital so that Mom feels a great deal of support from her siblings. I know it's meant a lot to Mom to be surrounded by her family for this dreaded transition in her mother's life.

I'll be getting up at 4:00am tomorrow to drive my uncles to the airport. It's been a short, emotional visit and I've so enjoyed seeing them. I'll share their trip here in my next Thursday Thirteen.

Meanwhile, after enjoying a family dinner quickly put together by Mom so my uncles could see all of us, Brad and I returned to our apartment downstairs to find this note on our Facebook pages:

'Say A Prayer For My Dad'

This was posted by Brad's brother Jeff this evening.


"I'm calling on all of my spiritual friends to say a prayer for my Dad. David Smith is 70 years old and has cancer of the pancreas. He's been fighting it for 8 months and recently he has been having a real tough go of it. He's taking chemo-therapy once a week and he's on pain medication the rest of the time, it either makes him so dopey he's zombie like or it doesn't properly control his pain and he just can't get comfortable. I know from my birthday that people will chime in and send best wishes. I'm hoping to harness a little bit of that good will and send it to my dad. If you're a part of a prayer group and can pass this along or if you've got a good connection with your higher power, please send out a prayer for him. We're doing all that is earthly possible for him. I'm hoping for some kind of holy intervention. Thank You."

November is Birthday Month

Not only is November my own birthday month, but it's the birthday month of almost everyone I know! Seriously.

Let's see - who do we have?

Nov. 1st


Gram












Nov. 2nd


My best friend's daughter, Kayleigh









Nov. 7th


My husband Brad
















Nov. 11th

My birthday


and my Uncle Warren's





Plus a friend of mine I sang with in choir in Toronto, plus blog friend Gabriella




Nov. 16th


My mom Paulette











Nov. 18th


My friend Donna





and my blog friend Akelamalu






Nov. 20th


My brother-in-law Jeff






and a friend from film school, Jason (here with his wife)










Nov. 22nd


My friend from high school, John












Nov. 23rd


My cousin's wife, Heather (with my mom)












Nov. 25th


My Uncle Charlie










That still leaves 20 days open. I wonder if they'll all be filled up by the time I'm Gram's age?