Happy Canada Day! And a conversation with Maia

Hi, this is Felicity. :-)

Happy Canada Day, to all our fellow Canadian friends! (And to those who aren't, hope you had a good day anyway.) Today we celebrate when Canada became a country in 1867, although not all of the provinces joined till later. Ours didn't join till 1949, as the 10th province.

As we've mentioned before, because of this there's some tension about whether today is Memorial Day - as was traditionally celebrated July 1st before joining Canada - or Canada Day. Older people are still alive who remember not being part of Canada, and younger people don't. There's sometimes some awkwardness about whether this is a holiday of solemn remembrance or happy patriotic celebration. Many people do both.

That's what we did. We went to a Memorial Day service at the war memorial this morning, and just now we had a barbecue for supper. Once the sun sets - very late, this time of year this far north - we'll go to one of the city parks to watch fireworks over the lake. It's a fun holiday!

Today was sunny and warm, so Clare had to stay inside. She's still here, by the way, and we're glad. She seems to be getting more comfortable. I think she thought we were just going to ditch anyway if things got bad, but when we fought/helped her run from those other vampires, I think she figured out we aren't fickle like that. We felt bad that she couldn't join us for the barbecue, but our family and our neighbours were in and out of both houses all evening, so she had plenty of company. Since the fireworks are after dark, I think she's going to go.

Yesterday was not sunny. The sky was dark grey all day, and for most of it the fog was so thick that you couldn't even see the headlights of the cars. Until recently, we would have just thought mean thoughts about how we should get a real summer, but now we can't help but think... good day for vampires. And it was. Inna said she saw the ones from the park sniffing around their shed and ours. Like literally, sniffing. Weird. They didn't try to attack, though.

Since we've been having these discussions with Inna, we've started wondering more about their family, but it's hard to know how to ask them. So, do you have connections to creatures of the night and the walking dead? Not so much a good way to start a friendly chat.

We did find some things out from Maia - one of the two adult sisters next door, along with Inna - at the barbecue tonight, though. I noticed she was kind of by herself, so I sat down and asked her about their lives. She's pretty quiet, so I didn't know much about her before, just that her parents were from Rwanda but she was born in Canada (thus the North American name) and she's a math teacher at Fiona and Evelyn's school. Maia is still pretty shy, but she wasn't reluctant to talk; I think she just feels weird starting conversations about herself, but she'll respond if you ask.

It turns out their family started from foster care, too. Maia's parents were killed in a car crash when she was young, and they hadn't been in Canada very long so they didn't have any relatives or friends to take her in, so Maia grew up as a foster kid. (Some of my sisters can relate to that!) In the last foster home where she stayed before she aged out of the system, she met Summer and Kiwi, and the three of them got to be really close. So once Maia was an adult, she applied for and was granted custody of them. Because they had been sisters in the foster home, it made sense to keep that relationship - it would be weird if they suddenly had to start thinking of her as Mom. Inna came along later... I'm not sure how long, though, or how they decided to make her part of their family, because the food was ready and the conversation got interrupted. I have to admit I was kind of surprised; I had assumed Maia and Inna were there first because they're oldest, but I was wrong.

When we went to grab our plates, Maia said, "We'll talk more later, okay?" So hopefully before long, we'll know more of the story.

Love,
Felicity