The Easter Dress

... at the top of the stairs ...

From Hebe to Grandma:

I'm silly today.

Acting like a monkey while wearing my new Easter dress.

Have fun at church.

Alright grandma you can blog this too.


And now a note back to Hebe.

There was a day when just about everyone had a new Easter dress for church.  And some people like Grandma Wyona had a hat to go with her outfit as well.  She made the hat herself ... and the dress that was to go with it.

In the really olden days, if you didn't have a new dress, then your family might be able to get you a new apron to go over your old dress.  At least that is what Mae Sabey told me.  If you lived in those days, you would be over 100 now.  And when Mae was in her nineties, everyone in the family was still making sure that she got a new dress at Easter each year.  It was a tradition.

The flowers that decorate the skirt of your dress.  The big bow at the waist.  How the dress makes you look so beautiful.  How, no matter how beautiful you are, you want to make us laugh.  I love all of that.

And yes, you did make me laugh by giving me funny poses.  Even in your beautiful new Easter dress.

... my funniest pose ...

I got out my Easter baskets today.  Kalina, Theresa, Michael and Alice were in the  back yard.  They were allowed to go into the house and fill their baskets with toys.

If those baskets are still around in a month, they will be filled with decorated eggs and Easter chocolate.  I am so glad that your mom let you begin to wear  your Easter dress long before Easter.  And I hope you get an Easter basket to carry stuff around in -- snacks, toys you want to play with, an extra colouring book.  Anything.

Now I feel like getting out something beautiful for Easter, myself.

Arta

Post San Cristobol Funicular

Happy Birthday from your friends  at Happy Hour in South America

Happy Birthday Glen!




I thought of you today as we were coming home from San Cristobol Funicular during Happy Hour.




The files may be too big to open but that is the best I can do for now.




 Wyona

Doesn't this almost rival the joy of the pub near the frit place in Brussels?

L-S-A-T

Photo: Monique Dull
Rebecca (S), Freya (A). Gillian (T)

From Rebecca

... a photo sent me from a former student at the alumni event ... where we sang (yes, to the tune of YMCA) the song “Its fun to write the LSAT”. 

You can see me (S), Freya (A) and Gillian (T)….

The person taking the photo missed John McLaren who was the L.

Rebecca

Flopsy and Mopsy are on the Lawn

... a chinook day, March 8th, 2015 ...

You are looking out of Michael Johnson's window. You can see the reflection of Alice in the pane and you can see Flopsy and Mopsy on the lawn.

Michael was just at my house. We were playing with a music box on the top of which is Peter Rabbit being held by his mother after his run home from Mr. MacGregor's garden. We talked about the garden, about how frightening it was for Peter to be captured and put in that watering can, and how hard it was for him to escape and run home.

And we talked about the worst part -- the part where Flopsy and Mopsy get to eat blueberries and cream, but Peter is in trouble for going garden raiding.

I love having the stars line up so that the bunnies in real life appear as soon as the fictional ones are explained.

Arta

The Last of Her Birthday Money

"You can see from my eyes that
there is an idea coming to me."

I sent Hebe some money for her birthday.


She used part of the money to buy a new backpack -- one that has a lunch box attached.


She used the other part of her money to buy a new helmet for her bike.


Then she sent a letter to me, via her mother's account.

"This is part of my idea."

This is what she said:

"I bought a new helmet to wear when I ride my bike."

"I hope the snow melts soon."

I had to write to Hebe and ask her if I could blog her words, and if I could put up her pictures.


She said, "Oh alright.".


I love sending birthday money.

"And now this is the best part of my idea."

I get maximum returns on my dollar: 3 pictures, 2 emails and a good laugh.


Arta

Words from the Past

Today is my mother's birthday.  She was born in 1914.  Wanting to celebrate her life in some way, I went to a copy of her life story that I own -- the pages now yellowing and the gestetner ink now fading.  I wanted to find some excerpt to share ... something in her words about her life.

Unable to choose one segment to type, I got trapped page after page, trying to read between the lines, trying to make the paragraphs into essays.

Ultimately having to choose something, here are her words about when Elsworth was born and about her life on the southern Alberta prairie.

In 1919 I remember Elsworth was born.   We must have been living out at Delbonita but Mama had come into Raymond to have the baby, because the baby was born at Grandma Scoville's house.  The Dr. delivered the baby but mother got blood poisoning and milk leg.  At one point she stopped breathing and Papa jumped up on the ged and pounded on her chest, and she started breathing again.  Elsworth was born April 21 and for weeks Mama lay in that room before she was well enough to come out.   

While Mama was laying there ill there were only a few times that they would let us in to see her....  I remember Mama got up and came out on the lawn on the first of July.  I remember her sitting out in a chair ....  At Grandma Scoville's there was a most beautiful silver maple tree.  The back of the leaves were all silver and the fronts were all green. Mama and Pap didn't want to have more children right away but they thought that the time they wouldn't get caught was the time when they would. 

We learned to play in the ditches when Mama was sick.  The ditch was a narrow one and the water only about up to our knees.  We made mud pies and got our dresses  muddy. We would be dirty and have our feet cut on the glass but it was fun because it was so hot and we would get cool.

It wasn't long before we piled in the wagon and started for Delbonita.  The night we went out ot the farm something broke down, so Papa walked with Lenore and me and the baby to the two-roomed house that we lived in.  The Wiley's lived over one mile away and they had seen the light.  Mrs. Wiley came that mile and said, "Where is your mother." Lenore told her that Mama was back in the wagon because she couldn't walk and that Papa had left us and gone back to get mother.  Lenore said to come in and see the baby. Sister Wiley just went on to see mother and Lenore was hurt to think that she didn't want to see the baby. 

When I as about four and a half we moved from Delbonita to Wrentham and it was here that I started to go to school.   

We used to look for birds' nests on the way to school and they could be found about every ten feet.  The country was wild then. It wasn't even ploughed.  We would look at them and run on.  We would find about ten every night and we wouldn't touch the eggs. Mother would say, "Look at them, but never touch them."  We used to sit down on our dinner buckets and rest.  When we got home we were so tired we had to lay down or sit down.  In that house, there was just one room and it had a folding bed.  Every night we pulled it down and slept on it. (p2-3)

Happpy Birthday, Wyora.

Thank you for leaving us some words that let me imagine your childhood.

Arta

Sonic Escape

Sonic Escape

Sonic Escape is a flute, cello and violin ensemble based in New York.  They claim to live there half the time.  Then they laugh for tomorrow they fly home for a night and then begin another journey which will take them to India.

During the question period someone asked them about their travel accommodations.  Apparently when they know they are coming to Calgary, for instance, they do apartment swapping.   They stayed in Canmore for a few days and someone from Canmore flies to New York.

They live in an apartment that is not even 500 square feet, but they say that they can swap for accommodations in castles, everyone wants to go to New York so badly.

Their programme was eclectic -- a bit of everything, including the Air on the G String and a piece that one of their members had written after being plagued by a mosquito in their room all night.

A lovely evening.

Catch them if you get a chance.

Arta