We are at Chateau Montebello for the weekend. It's been a regular rendezvous since 2001 for us with Mike and his daughter Kate who live in Montreal. This year there is extra excitement. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, is at the hotel for the weekend with his family and they are in the room RIGHT ACROSS THE HALL from us. Our first clue that something is not as it always is is the constant presence of people in suits hanging out in front of our room. Turns out they're RCMP officers. The ear pieces in their ears should have been a dead giveaway. We try and play it cool and act normal.
The Daughter and the Adolescent acting normal
The Daughter, me, and the Adolescent acting normal. The stag head is a little weird.
Mike almost falls through a hole into the water. The Hubby and the Adolescent are laughing in the background trying to act normal.
Acting normal is not one of the Hubby's preferred activities. He has to meet Harper. It should be pretty easy, right? After all, we're right across the hall. He starts by chatting up each and every RCMP officer. He ends the weekend on a first name basis with half of them. Then he finds out what table Harper will be sitting at for dinner and reserves one as close to it as he can get. Then he gets one of the RCMP officers, who by now is his best bud, to agree to pass along a message to Harper: please come by for a glass of wine. He's certain the next knock at the door will be Stephen and Laureen. As insurance, whenever the Hubby is in our room, his eye is peeled to the peephole in the door. The plan is: when Stephen's door opens, he will casually also step out into the hall and, coincidentally, be face to face with his object of desire. He thinks about what he will say to Stephen when he meets him. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about since none of us even voted for Stephen or his party. While the Hubby is doing the groupie thing, we try and have fun anyway.
Snowshoeing
Skiing
Dog Sledding
In spite of ourselves, members of our group are having their own prime ministerial encounters. Mike happens to be walking down the hall to his room and coming toward him is Stephen. Or at least he assumes it's Stephen who he actually can't see due to the phalanx of RCMP surrounding him. The Adolescent accidentally butts in front of Stephen at the dinner buffet, mumbles an apology, and stands right beside him for a few seconds. Where else but in Canada would the leader of the country be standing in the buffet line getting his own dinner?! Hubby, where are you?! Then, Mike and Kate, who is 12, are about to come down the stairs to join us for dinner and suddenly who should be coming up the stairs but Stephen and his entourage. Stephen stops and makes small talk with them. He shakes their hands. A photo is taken. Where is the Hubby?! He's in his room, his eye at the peephole.
Me and the Beamer with a rare sighting of the Hubby
Kate, the Daughter, Mike, the Adolescent
By the end of the weekend, the Hubby hasn't set eyes on Stephen and is totally bummed. Mike and I surmise that very soon after we arrived the Hubby's behaviour probably landed him on the RCMP's Keep a Watchful Eye on This Groupie list.
P.S. The Hubby wants all my faithful readers to know that he isn't a stalker (see Baking Worth Stalking For). So, Stephen, you can relax and take your man off peephole duty. Oh Canada!
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