Sisters

The gift of this year?;
the gathering of the sisters,
Margie from London, Ontario
me from Blue Rocks, Nova
Scotia and Pati in California.
It was not a difficult decision for
Margie and I to leave snow laden Canada
and travel to Morro Bay, CA.

What do sisters do when they get
together, besides instantly talking
as if we are always together?
Movies....
We started our week attending
the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.

We saw several excellent documentaries:

Bidder 70

Bidder 70, directed by Beth and George Gage,
 highlighted Tim DeChristopher,
a  college student who
"monkey-wrenched the out-going Bush
administration’s contentious oil and gas auction.

He bid $1.8 million to save 22,000 acres of Utah’s 

red rock wilderness with no intention to pay or drill. 

Now he’s paying for it with his future."  http://slofilmfest.festivalgenius.com/2013/films

Freida Mock's documentary G-Dog 

introduces us to Father Greg Boyle, a white Jesuit priest whose
belief that "nothing stops a bullet like a job" has transformed the lives

of countless gang members in East Los Angeles.  His creation of

Homeboy Industries has a "70% success rate at redirecting kids away
 from gang life" and has become an international model .

 "It provides tattoo removal, job training, counseling, yoga,
 fatherhood and substance abuse classes – all free."

If you want to watch an uplifting, thought provoking 

documentary on how one person with compassion and humour

 can make a difference, watch this film.

And from, Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, a place of poverty  and chaos,

we learned how music transformed a community.

The Kinshasa Symphony documentary by

Claus Wishmann and Martin Baer is a " film is about the Congo,

 the people in Kinshasa and the power of music."

When the film ends with the Kinshasa Symphony

and Choir's performance of Beethoven's 9th,

the entire theater audience rose to their feet in a

standing ovation.

We ended the film festival by viewing the Independent

Canadian film Still,  by Canadian director Michael McGowan,

starring Geneviève Bujold and James Cromwell.

If you want to see a moving

portrayal of  love and aging performed

by two, seasoned and powerful actors,

go see this movie.  Samuel Goldwyn Films will distribute this

film under the title Still Mine in the U.S

Thank you Pati for our birthday gift passes

to this wonderful film festival.

Golf, the card version that is.

Margie, Mack and Pati

Mack, Pati's lovely son learned the card game Golf

from an ex-convict riding on a train.  

After a quick lesson from Mack, Margie, 

 known as the card shark

in the family, seemed to have great

difficulty learning the game, or so she said.

Margie wins again!

Mack quickly learned Canasta, the Prashaw go to card game
and immediately cleaned our clocks when he
teamed up with, you guessed it,  the pro Margie.
He also learned that, "when someone asks you to go out, do it!"

Mack, thank you for making my coffee every morning,
this is love!

Five dog Charades followed cards.

three of five dogs at Spa Pati's

Mack,  what exactly are you doing?

little word, a, the, eh?

Jewelry, always on a sister agenda...

Pati teaching us how to glue colourful
paper to the back of clear pendants

Frank and Pati
thank you Frank for the prolific and
 beautiful bouquets of flowers

Pati's 4 star spa will reach 5 stars when

Frank brings up his garage sale find

of a massage table, complete with the

inner masseuse!  

Daily walks on the doggie beach in Morro Bay

replenished our vitamin D.

It doesn't get any better!

Hot tub evenings.  No photos of the bathing beauties.

Thankfully the paparazzi weren't zooming into

Pati's backyard.

 Finally it was time
to say goodbye.  We
drove Margie down to
Santa Barbara where
she hooked up with Jerry,
her husband who probably
wondered if she was ever
going to leave the Sistahs.

And so, sisters,
I am grateful
to be in the middle of
two lovely, funny, kind, energetic
compassionate, interesting, creative
fabulous women.  

The Three Sisters!

grateful for this journey

Next year, March, California and my beautiful sisters.....

When life hands you lemons, learn to juggle.

I'm on my way to California to a sisters
reunion. The three of us haven't been
together since, gee, we all lived at home
in North Bay.

Now, crossing one of the largest
boarders between two friendly
countries shouldn't be that
difficult, right? People do it all the
time, even illegally, however
if you are me, the passage is
never easy.  In fact, it was so
stressful my sister Pati resorted
to talking to our dead mom who is
hopefully in heaven. She posted
on facebook;

Gertie , we need you to pull some strings !!
Your daughters are trying to have a sister
reunion and one of them has been detained at the border!!
Does Jude look like a terrorist these days?? 

Everytime she crosses she gets pulled in????
Return from Paris? Maam go stand in THAT LINE.
Joining us in LONDON??? passport expired !!!, 

JUDE IS THIS 3 strikes??
You better become American soon, 

maybe then they will let you in!! lol
Get on it on it Gertie. I need her!!!

When the US custom official flipped open
my passport at the the Toronto Pearson
airport and said, "you've been out
of the country a lot," my brain dropped into
my heart which then dropped into my stomach.

This isn't good.

The official dropped my passport into a plastic
bag attached to a big, yellow card. Oh no,
not the yellow card.

"Just walk through those double doors." Oh no,
not the double doors, I've been through the double
doors before, the land of despair is beyond these doors.


5:20 I walked through those doors.
6:30 my flight to LA left without me.
8:00, the last flight to LA left.

Breathe. Meditate. Breathe some more.

Finally, I heard Judith Prashaw?
I talked to the custom official for all of
five minutes. "It's quite obvious that you
are a permanent resident of the Unite States.
I wanted to tell him HELLO, I KNOW THIS
but I decided a good ole Canadian smile was in order.

I managed to find one of the few remaining
hotel rooms in the city, just after I re-booked
my flight.

The following morning, after waiting an hour
to see if I could get on an overbooked flight,
the attendant called my name, handed me
my boarding pass and said "have a nice flight,
I think you'll enjoy your seat."

First class to California was a nice surprise.

Definition of Sisters:
pick up your stressed middle sister
at the San Luis Obispo airport,
take her for a chai tea and then for a
Chinese foot massage.



When life hands you lemons, learn to juggle.