Memories of Pee Paw

~My Coffee, My Book and Me~

By Sandi J. Holland

A misty, rainy morning and

it's back to bed for me,

My coffee drips invitingly,

My current book lies dog-eared

at stopping place,

from last personal quality time.

What else can I do

but plump my pillows

and climb in?

You would too.

With hot libation,

and mental laxation,

peace is mine.

Today was Victoria Day. The long week-end that so many look forward to. It's a land mark holiday. We made it through the winter. Spring and summer are here....it's time to get away. Mother nature has played a cruel trick. Thursday was HOT. 26 degrees Celsius. Friday was COLD. It even snowed just north of here.

We were going to garden this weekend. We did visit a few greenhouses and purchase some plants. It was too miserable to be outside. It was dull. Overcast. Then lastnight....rain....all day today....rain. We stayed indoors.

I was surfing the interweb when I found the poem. Instantly, I was taken back to a few years ago. It was May, when Hubby, Puppy and I escaped the city for a week to Pee Paw Lake.

Pee Paw Lake is not a touristy place, in fact, it's just a little blurb on the map. Once upon a time there was camping and picnicking, but the fire places and picnic tables have now been removed. Back then, they thought cabins could be built there. Friends of Hubby's family, the Anaka's, moved in what was a church and converted it to a cabin. They have prime property overlooking the lake. Over the years, they've constructed sheds, a deck, fire pit and of course the necessary amenities. They said no other cabins could be built there. So there sits in the woods a little cabin on Pee Paw Lake and our home-away-from-home for one week in May two years ago.

When we arrived for the beginning of our holiday it was HOT. I remember wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts. We sat on the steps of the deck, taking it all in. The silence, the rustling of the leaves on the trees, and the chirp of a squirrel off in the distance. I don't know how long we sat there, drinking pop and eating Spitz. Listening and enjoying.

The next day we awoke to rain. "No matter," we said and we relaxed. Hubby made breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash browns on the cook stove. The cook stove like a pioneer would have used. It had to be stoked with wood. There were two cooking temperatures...blaring hot, and off. Hubby would be hot and sweaty in the kitchen area trying to cook and it would heat up the cabin.

We'd sip coffee and gaze out the picture window to the lake through the haze of rain. I'd do word searches in a book I bought special for the trip. When I got tired of that I'd read. There was only a radio for outside contact. We would listen to GX94 and the news. In the evenings, we would make a fire and I would read to Hubby.

Hubby has always poked fun at my books and I can see why with titles like the Fudge Cupcake Murder and Death of a Domestic Diva. Because there was nothing else to do Hubby was captivated by the stories and more so than I thought.

At lunch one day, Hubby says breaking the silence and totally out of the blue, "Lisa did it. I just know she did. She's the murderer."

I was totally taken by surprise.

Brandy~Puppy the Super Dog was in doggie heaven at the Pee Paw cabin. The dining room table, and I use dining room loosely, was right beside one of the 6 beds. She could stand on the bed with her back legs and have her front paws on the bench at the table. Who needed to beg when she was front row centre? 

There was one day during that week that we were asleep more than we were awake. We slept WAY in, got up to eat brunch, had an afternoon nap, got up to eat supper, had another nap, read a little and then turned in for the night! Now that is total relaxation.

We spent a whole week tucked away in the woods in the rain. We could have even stayed a couple more days, but then thought better of it when we realised the drive out might be muddy and slick. Everyone thought 'how terrible that you got rained out'. But really it was the best vacation we'd ever had.

Situated away in the forest on Pee Paw Lake was our slice of paradise. Something we hadn't planned on, yet something so perfect and wonderful. A unique memory brought back to me by this poem My Coffee, My Book and Me.