Welcome to Day 7 of this year's A to Z Blog Challenge. Many of us have a wish list, a hopes-and-dreams list which these days has become known as a Bucket List. As in --
Since Dale Chihuly is a West Coast artist based in the US, discovering that his pieces were on exhibit much closer to our East Coast home here in Canada made our weekend jaunt to Montreal last September a no-brainer.
We were so excited when our cab driver rounded the corner to reveal The Sun installed in front of the museum, he laughed because it was like seeing a rock star for us.
Here are a few highlights from that magical exhibit we were so thrilled to see with our own eyes.
This is my fifth post for the Virtual Advent Blog Tour. I came across it in 2007, my first year of blogging. In the five years since then, it has been a favorite tradition for me here. So it's with a special sense of excitement that I share with you the most incredible tale of wishes coming true. Many people, including me, like to usher in the new year with intention. I make a point of including symbolic hopes for the year to come in our celebration. For example, even if our fun is casual and includes just my mom, my husband and myself, we deck ourselves in bling and use the best china and crystal, toast in the new year, open the front door to let the new year in and the back door to let the old year out. That's my mom, below, welcoming 2010.
Last year the three of us had a Russian New Year's celebration. Why Russian, you may ask? I thought you were French Acadian.
Well, once upon a time - 28 years ago, actually, my sister and I made friends with a Russian cadet from a marine college who sailed into Halifax Harbour aboard the tall ship Kruzenshtern as part of the 1984 Tall Ships Festival.
The Iron Curtain was a pretty big
obstacle, back in the day. Although we made plans to visit him in his home town
of Yaroslavl, he wrote that he’d been drafted into the army and would be there
for two years. This was in the late 80s during Russia’s conflict with
Afghanistan.
After that, we lost contact with
Rashid Kamalov and could only wonder what had become of him.
My love of Russian culture (which
had brought us to see the Kruzenshtern in the first place) continued unabated
over the years. Of course my passion for all things ballet can never get enough
of Russian dancers. I love Russian films, Russian actors, Russian singers and
the Russian language.
This led to discovering the
completely magical set of New Year’s films, Ironiya sudby and the sequel. So
last year, we rang in 2012 with a duplication of the feast shown in those films
with a combination of my mom cooking up some dishes, and with us ordering
dishes from a Russian restaurant across the harbor in Halifax.
Then we watched
the movie.
We used all the best dishes, the
best crystal, the best prosecco from the imported wines store.
In my mind was
the intention that I would one day make my way to St. Petersburg in Russia to
see the Mariinsky Ballet perform at the Mariinsky theatre.
The unspoken longing to hear from
Rashid was just a part of me. It was part of everything Russian that I loved.
Fast forward to the late spring. I
stumbled upon a fantastic Russian historical series Bednaya Nastya on You Tube which I then
watched on viki.com with subtitles. My husband became utterly addicted to it and
watched it with me. It was awesome.
My comprehension of Russian really grew. I
bought a few learn-to-speak-Russian books, kept watching Russian films, made a
Russian-song playlist and listened to it constantly.
In August I appeared as an author at
Fan Expo in Toronto with my two releases, SAINT SANGUINUS and BOUND BYDRAGONSFYRE. I held a contest for local Toronto book store gift certificates
and contacted the winners by email.
I kept checking my spam folder in
case the whole contest thing was driving their replies into that folder.
Otherwise I never would have checked
my spam folder.
I never would have seen this staring
at me:
Рашид
Камалов Hi my dearest girles!!! I very happy get your m...
That’s right. The word that looks
sort of like ‘pawned’ is really ‘Rashid’ in the Cryllic alphabet.
All my blogging and all of my
longtime readers’ hopes that we would one day reunite, all of the searching
online and sending out hopeful ‘Is this you?’ messages
CAME TRUE
Rashid is now my Facebook friend.
For realz.
My holiday wish for all of you this year: meet 2013 with intention. The
universe is listening.
1 - Last Saturday I was back on set with Charlie Mac Productions, directing the shoot for the book covers and book trailers of my upcoming dark fantasy release.
L to R: Caroline Ruyle, the Director of Photography with talent Bobby Rossong.
2 - I've been writing my Scorpius tale with Richard Armitage as the model for the character.
As he is rather inconveniently shooting The Hobbit in New Zealand at present, I went in search of a local model who had that certain indefinable something that whispered Scorpius to me.
On The Cassidy Group website, I found a head shot for Bobby Rossong.
I stared at the picture and heard the whisper.
Then I emailed my producer and asked for Bobby.
3 - My mom asked for his measurements as the wardrobe mistress, which The Cassidy Group provided.
I then scoured the thrift stores for pieces that would start out as one thing and end up as late-medieval / early Renaissance-like costumes.
4 - These are the pieces that make up the costume for the Book 1 cover, when Scorpius is a youth apprenticed to the falconer.
The transformed clothing--now a tunic and rustic jerkin. I designed the costumes, disassembled the clothing and described to my mom in detail what I needed.
She then put the costumes together.
5 - Woo hoo!
Scorpius!
Falconer's apprentice, from Book 1, which is set to release at the end of the month.
6 - Since we had Bobby for the shoot, even though books 2 and 3 are works in progress at this point, we shot all three covers and all three book trailers while we had our Scorpius.
Shown above is the 'before' version of the Book 2 costume.
7 - This costume was the most difficult one, with much swearing and pricking of fingers by Mom.
But it's also the coolest one, if you ask me.
For Book 2, Scorpius enters adulthood and serves Lord Thibault as his personal bodyguard.
8 - Notice the completely awesome reproduction Norman sword he's wielding. From Darksword Armory out of Quebec, where the dagger for the Book 1 cover was also sourced.
9 - The original pieces for the third costume, taking place when Scorpius has matured and serves the Lady Elysande as her Chamberlain.
10 - This one was a bit complicated, but still wasn't as hard to deal with as the faux leather.
Scorpius...moving up in the world.
11 - The shoot began against white screen, for easier manipulation in post production.
As opposed to the green screen live action shoot we did last spring for my debut novel book trailer, we decided to go for a stills shoot this time out.
In a bit of super-fabulous timing, just after wrapping on this year's shoot, my producer Tara MacDonald got word that the book trailer for SAINT SANGUINUS won an Award of Merit in the Best Shorts Competition out of La Jolla, California.
Here's a look at that one:
Grateful thanks to producer Tara MacDonald, DOP Luke Hudgins, Editor Doug Woods, PA and Stills Photographer Caroline Ruyle, Actors Scott Baker, Stevie Cooper, Bernie Matthew, Brennan Handy and Brad Smith.
12 - Just because my mom wasn't busy enough during the week leading up to the shoot, she also decided to become craft services, and provided the homemade lunch for cast and crew.
...mmm...
13 - And because it's me, of course there was a need for manacles on this project. This is Tara with the manacle kit: extremely heavy manacles, duct tape to attach the chain to the grip stand, twine to close the manacles and pink scissors to keep it light.
Robin's Summer Stock Sunday meme continues - she invites all to post summery photos and visit other bloggers who share their feelings and memories about this magical season.
After a few weeks off of posting to this meme while I was away in New York City, I'm continuing with my vintage look at summer.
This shot was taken in the late 1960s on Centre Island in Toronto, Ontario.
My late father-in-law was a member of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, and every summer my husband and his brothers and sister would enjoy the union family day out at Center Island, an easily-accessible oasis of small-town vibe a ferry ride away from the downtown core of Toronto.
For the thirteen years I lived there, I always cherished every day trip out to Centre Island. It runs the gamut from an amusement park area to a serene wildness area, gorgeous beaches and a fairy-tale cottage village where residents have the best of both worlds - a lake view, a cityscape view, only foot traffic, century-ago peace-and-quiet, with all the amenities of a metropolis at one's fingertips.
Shown in the picture, L to R:
My sister-in-law Karen, brother-in-law Ken, peeking out behind is my husband Brad, brother-in-law Jeff, mother-in-law Joan and Brad's late Grandma Smith (otherwise known as Esther.)
Welcome to this year's edition of the Virtual Advent Tour. The tour has been running for five years now, and this is my third year participating.
As a lifelong Christmas devotee, I was in an odd place during the Christmas of 2007, when I first came across this blog event. My dad had passed away nine months earlier, my grandmother had just passed away at the beginning of that December, and my father-in-law was in the last month of his life.
I was a little numb. A part of me reached out for Christmas, while another part of me could only watch Christmas stumble past. When I found this blog tour of other Christmas enthusiasts, writing about all the things that made this season special for them - it was a lifeline to sanity. It helped me to celebrate even in the midst of my sorrow.
So now I'd like to invite you to the most special night of the year for my family - Christmas Eve.
My family and my cousin's family grew up together, more as one group of eight rather than two groups of four. We were constantly at one another's homes, so the evening of Christmas Eve needed to be super special.
That's me above, waiting for my second wind, with my cousin Julianne looking on, and our Gram. We're pictured in Auntie's living room, where the adults gathered for drinks and to chat while the kids played around the house and chatted our little-kid chats. We always knew we had progressed into a new era of our lives when we gravitated toward sitting with the adults rather than hanging out in the TV room with the kid hors d'oeuvres of cheesies and pop.
As we got older, we stopped eating the kids' meal of hotdogs and french fries, and we discovered the wonders of my aunt's seafood bisque, a dish I dream about all year long.
She's usually busy stirring it as we arrive, because it can't be left unattended even for a second.
Spouses were folded into the mix, and new little cousins as they appeared.
My musical family began having a musical Christmas Eve. It's an East Coast tradition to have impromptu musical parties erupting in homes all over this region. But we do rehearse just a tad. We try to keep our performance pieces as secret from each other as we can so there will be a bit of a surprise for everyone.
There's always the possibilty that we try to dress up on this special night as a way of keeping the silliness factor under control.
But as you can see, it only ever meets with mixed success.
This year we'll be in Toronto to celebrate with my husband's family.
*insert excited squeal*
But the East Coast Christmas Eve will carry on while we're enjoying the love and hugs from our Big City family and friends.
From our celebration to yours, may you have the Merriest of Christmases.
Champion of the Arts - I write historical and paranormal fiction, as well as poetry. I love to showcase creative works by artists of all stripes. Blogging from Nova Scotia, Canada
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