what we did on our summer staycation, (part one,

Okay, not entirely. We had been aiming for a genealogical drive across New England for a few days, attending sites for either Christine or myself (as much as the young ladies might have tolerated), but my broken foot (my driving foot) threw a wrench into that, which was frustrating (although I'll admit I don't mind that we aren't in the United States right now, given all the stress). We’d actually been originally planning for summer 2020 to do this same drive, but then the onset of the Covid-era delayed that plan. We will get there, I’m sure.

Instead of a New England drive, we spent three days in Picton with father-in-law and his wife, as our young ladies spent their days in the pool. Our original plan had us another two nights at Great Wolf Lodge [just like last year], so that didn’t change. What were we to do? A couple of days not moving in Picton wasn't necessarily the worst of ideas, honestly. Christine sat and read her book, I sat with notebook and pen and a mound of my usual reading. The kids in the pool. I am sketching out notes towards further sections of "the green notebook," as well as editing the larger manuscript. I'm also travelling with my novel-in-progress manuscript and recent short story manuscript, to get some editing/scribbling done on that, but I haven't quite made it there yet. I've made notes on about a dozen books (poetry and memoir and essays and short stories) and gone through "the green notebook" twice.

Tuesday we made for Great Wolf, Christine having to do the driving, which knocked her out a bit. Her energy isn't what it once was, after all. Mother-in-law met us there with a nephew, so the young ladies had a cousin to play with, which everyone appreciated. They adore each other but also wear on each other, as you might imagine. I with broken foot spent much time in the lobby with notebook and reading etcetera as the wee children ran around on quests, so that worked out quite well. Thursday we head back to Picton, and hopefully get there in time to catch the evening reading at the local bookstore (Sneha Madhavan-Reese and Spencer Gordon and Matthew Tierney).

Oh, and at the Newcastle 401 en route rest stop, heading out this way, I ended up seeing my former mid-1990s roommate Rob Haller? I honestly hadn't seen him in fifteen years or so, so that was absolutely great. I've always been fond of that guy, and we just lost track of each other once he married and moved outside the city limits. The kids were indifferent, their father "talking to some random guy," as they told their mother. Well, then.

Before I knew him, Rob was apparently the tour manager for the band Fluid Waffle, his main job keeping four of the members of the band from killing the other guy in the band they thought was irritating. Once that other guy left the band, the remaining four changed their name to Furnaceface, and became 1980s/90s Ottawa indie darlings. Back when Rob and I were hanging out, his girlfriend at the time (who was my roommate) was irritated (and did not think it was appropriate) that we turned the 1995 Quebec Referendum into a drinking game. I mean, what else were we to do?