So, what a celebration the Grenfell Centennial turned out to be! It was lovely to see everyone in such high spirits and best and most surprising of all – THE SUN WAS SHINING! I think a lot of people were shocked about that one. The weather wasn’t perfect 100% of the time, but for the most part it was just beautiful.
The good thing about the sun abandoning Saskatchewan for so long is that we’re so easy to please now. Ask anyone, how is everything? Most people don’t even care if they just lost all of their money or their home, if their dog just died — “It’s a beautiful day,” they’ll say with a grin.
Although I think we’ve forgotten how to prepare for the sun, as most of us figured it was never coming back, so needless to say there were quite a few human lobsters walking around town after the Centennial.
I took part in the Canada Day parade for the very first time, and that was a blast. I was dressed as Wilma Flintstone, well, sort of. The costume called for a bright red wig pulled into a bun, but I already have reddish hair and the wig was so hot and itchy that I decided to go without it. So I guess I was more like Wilma Flintstone’s little sister...although she would be pretty upset if she found out what Fred and I have been up to! (My boyfriend was dressed as Fred).
The reason we were dressed that way was to follow the theme of ‘Past to Present,’ so from the Stone age to the modern age of computers. Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch, and I think it was only supposed to go back 100 years, in keeping with the Centennial, while in reality people haven’t lived in caves and ridden dinosaurs for at least 200 years.
It felt pretty strange to be a part of the festivities, instead of on the sidelines as the reporter — I kept thinking I should be taking pictures - but it was rather nice!
I think the best part of the parade is seeing the little kids’ eyes almost popping out of their heads at the site of all of these decorations and costumes, and best of all, oodles and oodles of candy falling from the heavens. One kid yelled at me, ‘I HAVE CANDY!’ like he just couldn’t handle the awesomeness of it all.
Now that summer is officially underway, I’m getting excited about doing all of those summery things that we’ve all been dying to do. One thing I’m always excited about is the Wolseley drive-in, which I did try to do, but our first crack at it didn’t go very well. It was double-feature night, ‘Kung-Fu Panda 2’ followed by ‘Thor.’ My boyfriend and I headed out to see it and roughly seven minutes out of town we blew a tire. By the time the tow truck arrived it was too late for the drive-in, but at least we had made our own popcorn, so instead of watching a movie, we sat in the car eating popcorn and listening to some stand-up comedy, and we took our dog for a walk down a dirt road and watched the sun set — not a bad way to spend an evening, really.
As happy as I am that the summer heat has finally arrived, I must admit that it makes this whole marathon training thing quite challenging. I confess that during the hottest days of the recent heat wave, I didn’t do a single thing. I was just too hot and lazy. But when I started running again, I didn’t seem to have fallen behind so no harm done I guess.
My final, final fundraising deadline is coming up, so I will soon be able to stop talking about that and move on to other things. The big race happens August 20 and I’m getting so excited...
If you would like to make a donation to the Canadian Diabetes Association in my name to help me get to Iceland and run in the Reykjavik marathon for Team Diabetes, please go to http://www.diabetes.ca/get-involved/supporting-us/team-diabetes/ and click on ‘Pledge’ then enter my name and you can make a donation with a credit card, and all funds will go to the Canadian Diabetes Association. Or you can swing by the Grenfell Sun office with cash or a cheque. Any pledge over $15.00 will get you a tax receipt. I’m still about $500 short of my $6,100 goal, so I need all the help I can get. Even if you can only spare $2.00 or $5.00 or even $1.00, that’s still a huge help! Okay, deep breaths...yes I’m getting a little antsy alright...and for the record, I was just kidding about the dinosaur thing. It was more like 300 years.
