Carman is just under an hour's drive from Winnipeg. I left early Saturday morning when it was bright and sunny and drove alongside fields still drying, just about ready to wake up. The Catholic Church in Carman is a pretty triangle-shaped green building.

The sacristy lantern is very ornate. It reminded me of a fancy hairstyle.

There are pretty stained-glass windows throughout the church.

I worked here, listening and taking notes. When I didn't need to take notes, I read Roz Chast's book Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? It's a memoir about her parents getting old and dying, and more than once it made me chuckle (quietly, to myself) while the meeting was going on. When her dad died, I felt like crying.

When there were group discussions, I was free to leave, and so I took a little walk around the area.

The sound of ice floating down the Boyne river and colliding with low hanging branches was a moment of contemplation until a woodchuck came scurrying through the dead leaves. It was a shy woodchuck, but more than anything my presence seemed to be an inconvenience to its busy work.

I stopped in at a thrift store to look around. It was nice and neat. A customer and a cashier were having a lighthearted exchange about the Jets and the street party in Winnipeg from the night before. Both agreed about just how much better it was to be living in the small town rather than the big city. It made me smile. I returned to my station for lunch.

People in these meetings seem to really like pastries. There was no end of donuts, muffins, danishes, pies, and cake.