Goddess of the Screen

Anybody can pretend to be someone else.

Few are those who are able to make you believe they are someone else.

I love Meryl Streep.

into the wild

the cool, clear water

loons calling across the stillness

tangy sweetness of wild blueberries on my tongue

the smell of pine each time I bend down to put on my shoes

trees rustling with the light breeze of the morning

making pancakes and coffee over the fire

the dip and sploosh of paddle slicing through water

turtles sunning on rocks by the shore

adrenaline pumping as you take the leap off the rocks into the water

the lapping of the water echoing inside the canoe

the sun warming my skin as I lie on lichen covered rock

delicate beauty floating in each water lily I pass

sitting in the silence around a crackling fire...

surrounded by softly lapping water...

beside the ones I love

Give me this and I have found my heaven on earth. 

An idea...

So it is that time of the year again.

The APCMA's.

That's the Aboriginal People's Choice Music Awards - for those of you who aren't surrounded 24/7 by the music industry. ;)

ANYways...

This will be Don's third year submitting his music to it. He's gotten 7 nominations in the past, but none have ever amounted to a win. This year he is really excited to submit his new CD ('Deepening') that he released earlier this year, but as with anything that repeats itself year after year, the glamour has kinda worn off for his supporters as he never quite gets enough votes. I think this new CD is SO much better than the one that got all the nominations...I really want it to do well this year.

So I've had an idea.

Now, I am no great presence on the internet, but I wanted to help.

The way the APCMA's work is that they have two rounds of voting. First round - vote for who you'd like to see nominated. Second round - vote for who you'd like to win.

So...if you'd like Don and you'd like to help him get some well deserved votes, I was thinking of doing a kinda of blog chain. Just copy the bit below in black and post it on your blog and invite your blog readers to do the same on their blogs! That way, hopefully Don's music will be spread all over the place to people who've never heard of him before, and it will give them a chance to enjoy his music, post it themselves and vote for it!

Join in and let's see how big of a blog chain we can make!

(The first round ends on August 16th, so if you want to join in try and post at least a few days before then...)

Hey Readers, here is a great musician who could your help!

Don Amero is from Winnipeg, Manitoba

You should check out his music and website at donameromusic.com

His latest CD called "Deepening" is up for some awards at the Aboriginal People's Choice Awards in Winnipeg this year and he needs some votes!

If you have a couple of minutes today, you should go there and vote for him. You can go to his website and follow the links or you can go straight to the awards website at aboriginalpeopleschoice.com and cast your vote there! Once you sign up and log in, you can vote for him in these categories:

Entertainer of the Year

Songwriter of the Year

Best Album Cover Design

Best Folk/Acoustic CD

Best Pop CD

Best Producer/Engineer

Best Single of the Year

And...

After you're done, maybe you'd like to post the entire post you just read on your blog so that your readers can vote too. Please feel free! But the deadline for voting is August 16th, 2009..so don't delay-vote today!

Sunday Sixteen...

Sixteen of my faaaaavourite moments from our trip to Vancouver Island. (Already a month ago...why do you have to pass so fast Summer?)

1. Wildflowers of BC.  Just beautiful. All the time. 

On the curb in Ucluelet.

In the forest in Tofino...

In a construction lot in Comox.

2. Accidentally finding a kilometre long hike completely on wooden boardwalks through massive old tree forest. Why wasn't this (totally free!) place advertised?? 

(It's called 'Schooner's Cove' if you're ever in Tofino.)

3. Whale watching. 

Almost everything I've been waiting for. 

Especially the big puffy orange suits.

Our Captain (who I think may have secretly been Mr. Highliner!)

Yes, we did see much more whale than this, but since I wasn't really focused on the camera, this is the best shot I got. We did get some great baby/momma synchronized feeding video though. That was pretty darn good.

Don on the high seas...

4. This tiny little seasonal aquarium. The volunteers who worked there were SO informative and always wanting to explain how things work in the ocean. They get everything from the ocean for the season, pump in sea water from right beside them and then return everything back in the fall. What a fun little treasure for a rainy day. Yes, fine, the starfish were my favourite.

5. Getting our rental car and finding out they gave us a hybrid without request or extra cost. It was lovely. We drove allllllllll week alllllllll over the island. Our final gas tab? $46.35 

6. Our first trip couch surfing. Just two of the awesome households we stayed in. Hmmm, they both even made us supper! What an incredible way to travel and meet the locals.

7. Beach combing. Don and I definitely found soul mates in each other in this specific way. We spent hours looking in the water, off docks, near harbours, spontaneously pulling off highways to walk the empty beaches and find treasures...

8. How to thrill Pam in four steps:

a. Take her for a walk along a harbour filled with huge starfish.

b. Give into her begging, and go in and get one for her. (Bonus points if you also sliced up your foot going barefoot on the barnacles...)

c. Give it to her to hold so she can watch in amazement as it slowly curls and 'stretches'.

d. Tell her you did it "just because you love her". 

(Cue communal 'awwww' along with step 'd.' .)

9. Visiting Hatley Castle (where they filmed a portion of  X-men, by the way...). Upon finding the castle was closed for a wedding (I know! Crazy huh?!), we meandered the grounds for a while and almost checked out the Japanese Gardens that the castle builder built for his wife in 1902. But then we found out it cost 10 bucks each and decided we don't love gardens that much. Well Don doesn't. I wistfully gazed through the gate for a moment when suddenly the security guard said, "Going In?" I inquired how much it was, even though I did already know...it must have been my Canadian Politeness coming out. He just shook his head and said, "Don't worry about it, have a walk around. Oh my. The deeper you went, the more beautiful and ornate it became. And we had it ALL to ourselves. What a good day.

The Castle...

The gardens...

10. Cathedral Grove. 

The oldest, biggest trees on the island. 

I love trees. 

This was like my tree mecca. 

ahhhh. 

11. The first few days we were on the island it was rainy and cold and while having a cute little hotel room was nice, we needed somewhere to go that would work with our budget. After a futile search we stumbled upon this lovely restaurant with: Great service, an incredible view, delicious food, completely decent prices and a very happy unsnobby atmosphere. It was so good we went back the next night when it started raining again.

12. Seeing the Pacific for the first time. I've been to BC quite a few times, but just never made it to the ocean. I have this thing about wanting to stick my feet in the water both east and west. It made me happy to finally meet that goal as we drove down a little backroad filled with huge hidden resorts and finally found a spot where we could jump out of the car, climb our way out to these rocks and stand and watch the huge ocean waves crash on the rocks, spraying us with cold, deliciously salty water.

13. Don joining an aboriginal drum circle...

Our whole reason to travel to the island was for Don to join the Port Alberni Frienship Centre for their Aboriginal Day Celebrations which included some live music (Don), a salmon bake, some traditional singing and some modern, local aborignal fashion in a very sweet small town fashion show.  After Don played, they invited the elders up to gather for their traditional drum circle and after a few song they invited Don up with his guitar to join the circle. He was very uncomfortable, because he didn't really know how to join in,  but I had a strange feeling of... pride watching him. And look mom and dad! I also tried the salmon even though I hate fish!

14. I don't know why all the goverment issued signs with wave and tsunami warnings intrigued me, but I always wanted to stop and read what they said! Could I be any more touristy?

15.Getting to one couch surfing host only to find they lived on a farm and were in the midst of raising some 4 week old border collies.

Oh, joy is happy cuddly little puppies!

16. Last, but probably the most exciting was Zip Lining outside of Nanaimo. Although you can't see it in the pictures very well, you'd strap into a harness and swing out at a reasonable speed out over a canyon hundreds of feet above the river with the old growth trees stretching not only way down below you to the canyon floor but also waaaaaaaay up over your head. What a thrill it was once I realized the break point between the two zip lines was on a platorm ON a gi-normus tree. Awe-some.

Above: The canyon-you can faintly see the two zip lines.

Below: A closer shot; if you look really closely, you can see a person zipping right about dead centre of the picture...

Below:The tree platform!

What an incredible trip! We'll stop there with the pictures...for now. But I'd say we'll definitely be headed back to 'the island' at some point in our lives.

Stay tuned for pictures from Yellowknife... probably in another month!