At the end of November the gentleman and I trundled down to mrkt to celebrate our friend Dave's birthday. It just so happened that the birthday celebrations coincided with mrkt's first annual harvest dinner.



We were served a fixed 5 course menu paired with a selection of Italian wines. A sommelier on hand to describe all of the selections and answer any of our questions. The evening was a delight. I love multiple course fixed menu dinners. The whole experience is so relaxing and every dish is a surprise. I'm looking forward to another night out like this soon.

So as per tradition I spent these first few weeks of cold weather being sick. I followed up the Thanksgiving cold with a bout of bronchitis which then turned into pneumonia. As a result I've been a bit of a dullard for the past while (dullard in the sense of a person who evokes boredom rather than the stupid type) and have not felt the inclination to post about anything. That feeling of dullness has started to lift over the past few weeks, but not without some effort. I know I'm not the only person to feel like this. Lots of other blogs I read have featured posts about being bummed out by the weather or feeling depressed, and it's given me some comfort to know that other people out there have been struggling like I have.

For the most part I like the seasonal change. It's hard to dislike the beautiful colours of the falling leaves or the romance of the first snowfall.


Cooler temperatures mean that I can wear sweaters and boots (even if the zipper on my favourite pair keeps on breaking and all of my tights seem to have holes in them after only being worn once) and I have the perfect excuse to work on knitting projects in the evenings and on the weekends.




But the coziness of fall and winter attire doesn't really do all that much to keep my emotions warm. It's like the darkness of my moods correspond with the rate at which the sun sets each night. I know I'm not very pleasant when I get depressed like this. Usually I don't start to feel like this until winter has been around for a few months, but this year has been particularly bad and I seemed to have fallen to despair ahead of schedule. Perhaps being sick exacerbated things... at least now I'm feeling more my normal self.

They say that major depression occurs in 10 to 25 percent of women... and yet it's not something that most people feel comfortable admitting to suffering from. Admitting that you're depressed is tough, particularly when you feel like telling others how you feel is like admitting you're somehow weaker than everyone else. This is especially difficult when you feel like people will use this weakness against you... whether it be in your personal life or your work. And so you start to withdraw and construct imaginary barriers between you and others. I am particularly guilty of this. I'm a pretty introverted person to begin with, but add feeling depressed to the mix and I become a serious loner. I do this because I know I'm unpleasant to be around when I'm depressed. I become instinctively negative and it's just easier not to be around other people because talking about how I feel is exhausting for everyone. Trying to feign pleasantries is even more difficult and it's just so much easier to be sullen and silent alone.

Breaking out of this spiral of negativity isn't easy. Progress is slow and there can be lots of setbacks. It's sort of like recovering from dehydration. Chugging back water will just make you sick... but you'll recover quite nicely from a slow saline drip.

People have lots of methods for dealing with their depression. Some rely on antidepressants, others rely on therapy, others meditation or exercise. For me, feeling normal again has meant that I make time for creative pursuits (photography), I knit for stress relief (a sort of meditation in itself), I eat a more balanced diet and take vitamins, I exercise (some more social in nature and some more meditative), and I go for walks. It's a simple routine... but it's still one that I have to strive to maintain.

It's worth it though. Things are starting to fall back into place and I'm slowly returning to normalcy. This morning I went back to my Pilates class after having to miss a few while recovering from pneumonia. It was good to be back even though I had to wrench myself out of bed to go and then speed walk to there on time. I started taking more photographs of things that aren't just my knitting projects and even made a video for fun recently. I found myself relishing the bite of the wind today as I walked back home across the bridge. Winter may be coming, but at least any numbness will be due to the temperature and not the winter of my discontent.  

I was hoping to visit with my family over Thanksgiving, but I had to postpone my visit until later in Autumn. For a few weeks I was thinking that the gentleman and I would have a quiet weekend at home filled with long naps, and that maybe we'd roast a chicken and some vegetables and maybe watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. In reality, we were flooded with invites from friends new and old. It was a spectacular weekend with a feast every night.

Saturday evening began with a crab boil. Our gracious and generous hosts (Chris and Jill) had advised that we show up hungry. I tend to take that sort of advice quite seriously, particularly after receiving email reminders during the day reminding us a second time. Jill and Chris know how to put on a crab boil. They had transformed their dining room into a sort of crab-shack (an elegant one) and equipped each guest with all of the utensils and napkins necessary to address the pile of seafood and vegetables before us.

Jill starts bringing out the food.

Jill brings out even more...

more again... We are slightly daunted by what we have before us.

The gentleman readies his bib.

We ate and ate and ate, but there were still leftovers.

 
Part of the magic of the night came when it was time to cleanup. Once the glassware, utensils and butter warming dishes were cleared away, it was simple to just roll up the paper that covered the table for some really quick party cleanup.

Post dinner we retired to the deck with coffee and blankets for more conversation and a special accordion concert. We stayed outside for a few more hours, talking and laughing with our new friends.



 


We chatted while drinking wine and enjoying the set Thanksgiving menu. We arrived around 7:30 and most of the other diners were finishing their meals so we had the restaurant to ourselves. This ended in our favour since the kitchen brought us out extras of everything. I would definitely go back to try their regular menu (and check out the back patio in the summer) and maybe while I'm there go to the wool store next door.

 

I woke up Monday with a sinus cold, so the Thanksgiving feast from the gentleman's family came to me by way of leftovers. The one up side of being forced to stay at home (my sneezing was deemed to be unappetizing), was that I was able to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles, thus fulfilling my original Thanksgiving plans. I hope that I recover from this cold soon so I can get back in the pool to work off this weekend of feasting.

Two years ago Phil, Wade and I decided that we would give the 24 Hour Film Challenge a shot. Between the three of us we thought we'd make a pretty good team. And what a combination we were... Phil, a talented composer as well as skilled editor in FinalCut. Wade, also a bit of a video man as well as former thespian. And of course me, former preteen stage actress and child star of the indie-home movie circuit. I also possessed a certain love of cinematography. Naive but committed we set out to make our 5 minute masterpiece.

That first year it was just the three of us (with the exception of a brief appearance by the gentleman who served as our cook and narrator). We didn't really know what to expect so other than a few excited conversations we did almost no preparation for our 24 hours of film-making. In fact we did not even pick up the equipment we were going to use until after we had received the envelope that contained the instructions and the ever-important challenge including the genre of film (suspense) as well as the prop we needed to integrate into the film (golden coins).

Props are supposed to be shown onscreen at least four times. We could have taken the easy road out and just done a few gratuitous shots, but it's a bit more fun to make the prop a part of the film, which is how we ended up with our tragic tale of a mysterious woman (running in stilettos I might add), a suspicious death and poisoned chocolate. It was all very Hitchcock-inspired.



Our experience of 2009 was positive enough that we decided to try again last year. We had less equipment (which we had prepared the evening before) but increased the number of our cast, adding the talented Marsha and Kris as well as a few others who had a certain vegetable quality on camera (watch for Wade's brief appearance on screen. He's rather handy that one). Our genre was comedy and for a prop we had to spend an allocated sum on something from the Downtown Farmer's Market. We were at a bit of a loss at first but everything seemed to come together when we realized that one of our cast had a collection of googly eyes. Googly eyes always make vegetables more appealing. Once our leek and cauliflower had some personality it was an easy extension to film the story of the breakdown of a popular children's show.



I am selectively vague on the details of our film-making process since this is cut-throat business and we must protect our secrets. We were lucky before, as both years our films were selected in the top 10. You might even say we made some award-winners as Phil won for best score in 2009 and in 2010, Marsha, our lead won best actress. I have no idea if we can repeat the success this year, but we'll find out soon. We're preparing for another 24hour cinematic whirlwind this weekend. We're all looking forward to another fun and stressful 24 hours. I'm pretty excited to see what the other competitors come up with. There were some really great films last year. The top films are screened the following weekend on October 1st. Hopefully we finish our film on time.

Over the summer I had been collecting bits of footage here and there with the intention of making a video encompassing all the exciting things I had been up to. But just as I was saying goodbye to summer, Mother Nature piped in and said, "Too Soon!" I should have known better and waited for the autumnal equinox. I thought the Symphony would be the last event I'd include in this summer retrospective, but then there were a couple visits to the outdoor pool and then a rooftop dinner party that lasted well past sunset. Spending an evening with friends on a warm evening while the sun disappeared below the horizon seemed like a fitting finale for summer.

And with that I present a recap of my summer in less than two minutes. The longer recap is below.



While I managed to blog about most of my summer, there are a few notable events still missing from my blog. I'll get to them eventually, but I might as well finish writing about topics that I've already introduced like Symphony Under the Sky.

So here's what happened during the rest of the weekend...

After braving the chilly Friday evening performance we were rewarded with a beautiful weekend outside with the Symphony.  They were great company. On Saturday afternoon they entertained me with a matinee performance of Broadway favourites, followed by the Hollywood showcase in the evening. I was back again on Monday afternoon for the finale performance of Gershwin and the explosive 1812 Overture.

 

I always hope for a second summer in September, but it doesn't really seem like we ever get one. So when temperatures were close to 30 during the first part of the month I was eager to take advantage of it. I skipped what should have been time spent exercising at a lap pool with a few visits to the newly opened Queen Elizabeth Pool, swimming a few laps, but mostly I had a relaxing time in the water or reading an Agatha Christie murder mystery on the grassy deck.

We walked past the reflecting pool in front of the Alberta Legislature on our way to Queen E. Pool. It was so hot out that we were tempted to stop our journey here.

It's easy to work up an appetite even when you're just treading water in the deep-end. After my stops at the pool I would be ravenous. During my search for food I did my best to find dining al fresco spots. Somehow the gentleman and I wrangled a pretty good invite for a rooftop picnic from dachshund owning Dave and Kyla. Given my love affair with rooftops I was all over that.

Time for a golden hour rooftop picnic. An incredible vista.

It is officially night!

Spending an evening with friends on a warm evening while the sun disappeared below the horizon seemed like a fitting finale for summer. I'm definitely prepared for autumn now.