From Opry to Opera – Local Boy Makes Good

Awhile back Nat read an article in the Fort Erie News about a local lad that was returning to town to do a benefit concert. Tickets could be purchased from local merchants for $10.00 each and all proceeds would go towards building a new pool at the Kinsmen Park for the kids. “I’d like to see that”, he says. “Yeah, okay”, I replied, thinking how bad can it be. The article summarized his career, the numerous competitions he’d won as a youngster, along with a recording contract from Nashville and an audition for Bravo television.

Elton Lammie’s concert was Saturday mid-afternoon and much to our surprise it was great. The performance was being taped for television and aside from an electrical glitch at the beginning, the concert was most enjoyable. Mr. Lammie explains how he came into singing as a child, the contests he’d won in British Columbia (his birth province), his eventual recording contract in Nashville, right up to his Bravo audition and winning $20,000 for professional opera lessons. Sounds a bit off-beat, but trust me, this man can sing all genres!! Along with a great turnout from the good folks of Fort Erie and Ridgeway, his fans also travelled from as far away as London, Windsor, Kingston, Sudbury and beyond. Now that’s saying something about this man’s talent!

After his stint of a few country songs, he took a break and then came out with his Roy Orbison look and again, he was brilliant. If you closed your eyes you could swear Roy Orbison was in the room! He did a few Roy Orbison hits, had the audience loving it and singing right along, and then after a second intermission, he reappeared in his tuxedo along with a small orchestral trio. We were awe struck at this man’s talent. His opera arias were a treat!! Nothing over the top, just a few down tempo arias that left the audience wanting more. I love opera, Nat not so much, but even he was impressed and recognized this man’s capabilities. It was obvious why he had received a chance to do some arias with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and, in fact, one of the Orchestra’s violinists was in Mr. Lammie’s backup trio.

The whole afternoon performance was wonderful and Nat and I both felt uplifted the rest of the evening. After being in the doldrums for some time, we needed some inspiration, and Mr. Lammie provided it.

If you’re interested Elton Lammie’s web site it can be found at  - http://www.eltonlammie.com/.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised and may even become a fan yourself.

So after a nice evening, this morning Nat and I awoke to the usual chores. He wandered outside to take care of that year-old problem of clearing away the leaves from the eavestroughs, and I tackled the house cleaning. After a small lunch break, we continued on and once finished settled in for the rest of the afternoon. Now the rest of the week can be ours’ and ours’ alone. If only we had somewhere to go or something exciting to get up to!!!

We Always Pick The Slow Line!!

With our usual aplomb, Nat and I sat in our easy chairs, looking at each other with eyes glazed over. It’s Friday, it’s sunny and we have nothing to do!! Kind of a shame to waste a good day. So, taking a wee bit of a long sigh, Nat asks the usual question: “What are we gonna get up to today?” He wasn’t ready for my response, as I turned to him and replied: “I have an idea!!!” “Why don’t we wander around Walden Galleria Mall for an hour or so? We can check out the new Macs at the Apple Store, asks all the questions we can think of and then wander around one or two of the other stores, like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma.”

“Whooa, didn’t see that one comin”, he replies. “But not a bad idea.” So we decided to take our little jaunt right after lunch. Only a 20 minute drive and we can be back for supper in plenty of time.

Going across to the U.S. side is relatively easy, and we make it to the Mall within the half hour. We have our walk about, check out the new Mac Minis, iMacs and other doodads that razzle dazzle any techie. We asked our questions, test drove our two choices and pretty much knew where we were headed, but we still have plenty of time to decide. With that we headed out to the Mall and checked out a few other stores before heading home.

Somehow it never fails that whenever Nat and I cross the border into Canada, we tend to pick a slow-moving line. There weren’t too many choices, as most of the lines seemed to be the same length of cars, so, naturally, Nat drives into one of them and we wait. As usual, all of the other lines are moving fairly quickly and it seems like for every one car that leaves our line, two cars leave the others. There have also been times when we’ve picked the wrong line crossing into the United States, but with American paranoia, it’s understandable. It seems like the border guard on duty is taking his time and asking a gazillion questions of each car. We wait and we watch as other cars whiz by us. When we finally do arrive at the border guard’s station, we get asked the usual questions – Where were you born? How long have you been away? Are you bringing back any liquor or goods? We told this young man where we were and that we had no purchases; that we were only looking at computers. “So, are they any cheaper?”, he asks as he’s checking our passports. “No, not with the dollar the way it is”, we replied. And with that we were off. We didn’t want to know why he took so long with the other vehicles, we were only glad that it was a short stop for us.

While passing by the Fort Erie Leisureplexl on the drive home, we noticed a neon sign announcing that the H1N1 flu shots were being administered that afternoon for those on the priority list. So we headed home, grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back down the road for our shots. Being immune-suppressed I knew I would qualify, but Nat was wondering if he would. Luckily they advised that Nat was my primary caregiver and he could get his shot at the same time. Good enough for us. We were now good to go until the regular flu vaccine would be available.

With Saturday morning being another beautiful day, we drove into St. Catharines to pick up our light fixture that was now available. We then headed into Niagara Falls for our groceries, grabbed a bite to eat, gassed up the van and then headed home for a quiet afternoon.

We’re now ready for our contractor to let us know when he can start with the bathroom renovations. Everything he needs to get started is being stored hither and yon around the house, except for the shower surround which is due to arrive any day now. Again, we’re in another line that may be slow, as he has a previous commitment for a roofing job while the weather is nice. Let’s pray the weather stays nice, he can get his roofing job done, and we’ll be next on his list. Nat and I have both learned the hard way not to get our hopes up, as we’re usually disappointed. But we still do it, thinking one day we’ll get lucky!!

A Buck Here, A Buck There …

Despite the fact that Hubby and I have been really boring of late, we’ve still managed to get a few things done. With the onset of the colder weather, we’ve become a bit complacent and lazy. No ooommph!!! So, in order to get the juices flowing again, we’ve decided to shop a little early for bathroom fixtures and accessories in anticipation of the renovations.

I’m still baffled why the new Rona store in Welland isn’t up and running yet – can only suppose it’s economic problems – as this was one of the other stores we wanted to shop, having done all the other ‘big box’ stores. Yes, there are other Rona stores around, like the big one in Grimsby, but that’s a bit out of our way and unless we have another excuse to take that trip, we’re sticking closer to home. There’s also the probability that we’ll go all the way to Grimsby and not see anything we like. The chances you take, I guess. We did, however, have a great look around the Lowe’s store in Hamilton on the day we had to go to St. Joseph’s last week. It was just as well we didn’t have any high hopes, as there was nothing on display that grabbed our fancy. As an aside, have you been to the Lowe’s store (on Barton Street)? Nice store, but their displays are worse to look at than Home Depot. All of the bath and kitchen taps, shower heads, and other doodads were so high up I got dizzy cranking my neck that far back!! Even Hubby remarked it was kind of ridiculous. Yes, it was nice that you could just choose your fixture and then grab the corresponding box on the shelves below, but picking your fixture was the trick – couldn’t see most of them as they were darn near in the rafters of the store!! You’d have to borrow one of their loading ladders to even get eyeball to eyeball with most of the display.

So, having ruled our Lowe’s, Canadian Tire, Home Hardware and the like, we decided to hit some bath specialty shops. We gathered a small list of ones in Welland and Niagara Falls and headed out this morning ready to make a day of it. Our first destination was a little shop in Welland – Aqua-Blue – a nice bath, spa, shower, jacuzzi shop with great displays and lots of choices. And as luck would have it, we got lucky. Found everything we needed and different than what the big box stores had. The prices were right, the sales staff helpful and friendly and we walked away happy campers. So much for making a day of this whole thing, as we were finished by 11:00 am. So onward home, do the lunch thing, run a couple of other errands and then snuggle in for the rest of the afternoon. Being a rainy, drizzly day, it worked out just fine!

We now have most everything we need to get the bathroom done, and only have to shop for the light fixture, new towels, towel bars and paint, which shouldn’t be too much of a problem. So now I’m officially excited – we’ve got this stuff and it has to go somewhere, right!!!!