My Queen! My Queen!

Part of the reason I've been a blog posting fiend today and yesterday is because I have family coming to visit, so, after tonight, I am likely not going to be online much until Sunday or Monday.  Before I go and finish prepping the house for guests, I thought I would do a post related to the Queen's visit to Canada.  Her Majesty arrived in Halifax, NS, yesterday, and she will be making her way to Ottawa for the July 1st Canada Day festivities.  I believe she is headed to Toronto, which isn't far from where I live, on Sunday.  I would LOVE to go and see her in person, but duty of hosting calls.  Still, I had fun imagining what I would wear for a Canada Day/Queen meet and greet: why a 1930s ensemble in RED and WHITE to match the Canadian flag, of course!  After seeing a news segment on the proper etiquette to follow when meeting the Queen, I should have added a hat (apparently, a hat should be worn before 6 PM).

I leave you with the following TRUE, Queen related anecdote.  When I was about two or three years old, my mother was asked by her employer to meet an employee from out of town at a rather posh hotel in downtown Edmonton, Alberta.  So, with me in tow, she rushed to try to meet this woman whom she had only spoken with over the phone.  When she got to the hotel, she noticed that there was a long cordoned off path along a red carpet that ran from the front entrance of the lobby of the hotel to the elevator, but she was too distracted looking for the coworker to wonder what this set up was for or why there were people milling about the lobby and elevator.  Long story short, my mom stopped with me right off to one side of the elevator doors.  While she scanned the crowd, I, dressed in a little pink dress, stood with one hand holding my mother's, the other holding on to one of the velvet rope partitions, which I started swinging back and forth.  Suddenly, the elevator doors opened and Her Majesty, the Queen, stepped out.  Guess who was the first thing she saw? ME!  Being a lover of children, she apparently picked me up and began talking to me!  I must note that from a VERY young age, I was in love with the Royals, so I immediately knew who she was.  I also had started speaking quite early, so when I was face to face with the monarch, I started shrieking, "Momma! MY QUEEN! MY QUEEN!" (For of course she was only MY queen in those days). My poor oblivious mother did not hear me or see that it was the Queen who had just caused me to let go of her hand.  She turned to tell off and/or physically assault the person trying to take me and came face to face with HER MAJESTY.  Needless to say, the day me mum almost slugged the Queen has become a classic family story (how punk rock in a Sid Vicious sort of way).