Stuff I've thought about or remembered since my last post ; )

• I've only seen the Royals once in person -- but four at once, not bad! -- the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles & Princess Anne. It was July 1970 & I was 9 years old. They were touring my home province of Manitoba for the province's centennial (as well as a few other places in Canada) & attended a Sunday morning church service at the grandstand at the fairgrounds in the town of Dauphin, which was about an hour's drive from where we were living at the time. My grandparents came from Minnesota for the occasion, & my sister & I wore the matching knit dresses my mother had had made for our aunt's wedding a few weeks earlier. Mine was lime green with a white scalloped yoke, & my sister's was the same, only in lilac. (It was the '70s.) They left the fairgrounds in open convertibles, & my dad got a wonderful picture -- with our old Kodak box camera, no less -- of the Queen waving, with a white-gloved hand. My grandfather said, "I was close enough to touch her," & we really almost were.
• Years later, we found a letter from one of my grandfather's aunts, reminiscing about when she & her sister went to Winnipeg to see King George VI & Queen Elizabeth (the present Queen's parents) in 1939. She said the King wasn't much to look at but the Queen was a very handsome woman, lol.
• As I posted on FB, I realized while watching the wedding that it's been 30 years since I watched Chuck & Di get married. If it takes another 30 years for Will & Kate's son or daughter to marry, I will be EIGHTY. Gulp. (But probably still getting up early to watch. Wherever I am...!)
• Oh yes, & even before the wedding last week, I saw one of the trashy magazines was already speculating about a royal baby -- specifically suggesting that Kate was a pregnant bride. And that if it was a girl, she would be named Diana, of course. Good grief. Leave the kids alone, will ya???
• I know the Royals aren't everyone's cup of tea. But I have to admit, I found it kind of funny that Americans -- who founded their country in order to dispose of things like the monarchy -- were probably the most gaga of anyone about the wedding. Much as I love all things royal, even I found all the pre-wedding coverage a little over the top. I switched back & forth between CBC & BBC Canada for coverage of the wedding itself.
• The Globe & Mail had a great editorial in today's paper about the wedding. I especially loved the last few lines: "It may not matter in the way that the exchange or prime interest rates matter, or the federal election outcome matters, or Japan's nuclear crisis matters. But the monarchy remains central. Moreover, love matters, and so too does the fact of the persistence of something great and noble of the past in our harried world."