the laurentitudes: eastering in sainte-adèle,

After months of seemingly-unable, we finally managed a weekend into Sainte-Adèle, into the Laurentides, where we spent a few days with mother-in-law in her wee cottage across the Easter long weekend. I know we’ve been there since, but I seem not to have posted a report since we were there for Thanksgiving in 2022 for some reason. Oh, it was good to get out of the daily for a little bit. We considered heading up on Friday, but didn’t quite make it out (Aoife wasn't feeling well), landing Saturday mid-day, instead. We hadn't realized the temperature difference (there was still snow on the ground, and we could see an array of skiers up in all those hills as we drove in). Christine didn't even bring a coat!

The children played games, played outside, played on their tablets, did quiet things. I focused my attentions on the growing mounds of books over the past couple of months I hadn't even had a chance to open yet, for the sake of potential review. I think I managed to start more than two dozen reviews (and a couple of books I realized I didn't think I would have anything, or enough, constructive to say, so those were set aside). There is simply too much remarkable material being produced these days to be able to account for it all (I know I'm seriously behind on Graywolf Press titles, for example, as well as Copper Canyon and Flood Editions; at least Sylvia Legris' new title from New Directions landed, as I was writing this). I sat in the sunroom and I poured through books (and also made significant headway, I must say, through two short stories I've already been months working on, plus a few other odds and sods of note-taking). Christine, on her part, finished reading the book she'd been going through, and went through two different books on L.M. Montgomery (including the short Penguin biography by Jane Urquhart) for the sake of working a small write-up for an exhibition on and around her works.

There were three daily deer, also. The final morning, they even brought along two friends.

At one point on Saturday, Christine pointed out she couldn’t find the cat, but the screen was out of the open second storey window, and we all scoured the house repeatedly, around the house and even walked down the road with the two young ladies, knocking on doors. Have you seen a black and white cat? A full two hours of stress, completely unaware where he might be, although mother-in-law and I weren’t quite convinced he was outside. Half an hour later, I made another attempt to look upstairs, as he simply strolled out of the upstairs master bedroom, blissfully unaware of the stress and chaos prompted by wherever it is he was sleeping. Both children in tears.

We even managed a game of monopoly (the cottage housed the original, but it is incomplete, so we were forced to play the Star Wars Edition), which had some moments of conflict, but no crying, which is always a plus. With the game leaning too deep into bedtime, we even managed to complete the game the following morning, if you can believe it. Can you believe it?

On the drive home, we also made a quick stop to see my sister on the homestead, startled, still, at the new owners across the road from her stripping away trees, bush, fenceline, etcetera. One long continuous field, nearly to and across the next road south and beyond. I'm not used to seeing that far out that way. Our young ladies, on their part, played with their bunny, who then peed all over Rose's jacket. Ah well. Perhaps this was revenge for Aoife placing her bunny-ears upon said bunny's head?