dinah-screen-saver

At a mere 10 grams, Dinah is an eye-catching screen saver to attract attention to your closed patio screen before damage occurs.

Yes, Dinah has arrived in Oh Valley. She is bursting to see what all the fuss is about and couldn’t stay away a moment longer. Dinah enjoys being the centre of attention and by discovering the newest vacation destination, the place to be and be seen, her film and socialite friends will continue to add her name to their invitation lists. This type of exposure  keeps her acting career flying high.

Until now, Dinah felt out of the loop.  Her newest movie, ‘Amber Lights,’ is in the can, completed and awaiting its premier. She’s now between movies and on a well-deserved vacation. Relaxation is her top priority. What better way than with her gal pals, sorority sisters Dixie and Daphne. She’d like to get to know Delta better too. She was thankful Dixie had such a dear friend looking after her in this trying time.

The valley, Oh Valley, is lovely. It is lush with green forests and massive outcroppings of granite. On Dinah’s arrival she was met by Buttercup, a very wise butterfly that I will introduce in later stories. Buttercup took her on a little flight around Oh Valley. He explained that the beauty she can see, is over one billion years old and that the massive rock outcroppings are granite, remnants of an ancient Precambrian mountain range, scraped bare by numerous ice ages, the final receding tens of thousands of years ago. One billion years ago, these same mountains were as tall as today’s Himalayan Mountain Range, the tallest range on the planet.

dinah-silk-scarf

“All right Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” (Dinah poking fun at her film career with a line from Sunset Boulevard and Gloria Swanson in the role of Norma Desmond.)

Buttercup then shows Dinah the vast expanse of flat, Paleozoic-period land she can see at the base of the foothills. This is a very different landscape from the one beside it. It was created in the wake of the receding two-kilometre thick, Laurentide Ice Sheet during the Pleistocene epoch, first as a continental-sized mud puddle.  Then, as the ice melted and the water gradually receded, all rock fragments and other natural debris that had been trapped in the ice, settled to the bottom of the  puddles and became the fertile farmland of today.  This scraped plain is four times older than Dinah’s earliest ancestors. She knows her family tree dates back over two hundred and fifty million years! Imagine!

The air is clean here. It smells fresh and she can see for miles. The peace she feels compares to nothing she has ever experienced.

On their return to Oh Valley Dinah soon realizes that her tour was only the beginning of a fabulous experience. She has never before felt the warmth of welcome she received from the community’s wonderful array of characters! They are all so pleasant to chat with. How refreshing is that! There is an unmistakable camaraderie among everyone. She found she can let her guard down and be truly happy. The forthright and simplistic way everyone gets along here, now matter which species of insect, has put her at ease and she can set aside her cultivated imitation persona, and be herself – someone she’d almost forgotten. Here, she doesn’t need to continue acting after the camera stops rolling.

Dinah may even unpack and settle in for all longer stay than originally planned. All that from a four-hour tour?  Wow!  She might forget about her jet-setting life entirely. She must catch up to Daphne and Dixie and find out where the best place is to stay, one befitting her diva status.  Being a diva may not go over like it does in “The Hills.” This community likes her for her, not her status.   (I’m sure she’ll find a perfectly suitable room at the Magical Insect Inn.)

As the day is unfolding far more quickly than I’d like, I must keep this brief. Rest assured, Dinah is a character I am going to enjoy sharing with my readers. She’s full of life and likes to be the spectacle wherever she goes. She’s not a wallflower, our Dinah.

 

Dinah-on-plaid-hat

Dinah perched on my favourite souvenir from the Glengarry Highland Games 2019. Caledonia Plaid. Caledonia – Latin name given by the Roman Empire to the lands of Scotland, a land they could never master. Hurrah! Yes, I am mostly Scots by ancestry.

 

 

Before I leave, I want to let my readers know that Dinah’s pin (copper plated steel safety pin styling), will easily clasp together your chunkiest wool shawl, and be equally comfortable on your sweaters – jumpers for my Brit friends, scarves, shawls, backpacks, and coats. She also makes the ideal Screen Saver for your patio doors during the hectic BBQ season.

Dinah says, “Toodles” (She really is a character.)  🙂 She thinks she’ll keep Oh Valley a secret from her society friends. She is sure it will quickly become and remain her special place. 

Sue, Axie, and all the Fancifulls of Oh Valley