MISQUAH — Well. It is going to be a week. There is a boat parade now, which I am assured differs from the regular parade chiefly by being wet, and I have decided to attend it by land, from a lawn chair, with a bar in one hand and a lemonade in the other, which is the correct and dignified way to attend most things, parades included.

Two babies arrived this week — a Sorensen girl and an Ouellette boy, two days apart, in the same hospital hallway, which is about as Misquah as a thing can get — and nobody at all was lost. I will tell you, I read the obituaries page twice to be sure, because I am not used to it being empty, and then I sat with the empty page for a minute, which I recommend you do too if you get the chance. You do not get many weeks like this one. Bank it. I told you to bank the solstice and I meant it, and I mean this one more, because light comes back every year on a schedule but a week with two arrivals and no departures comes when it pleases and leaves without warning.

I went to the taco truck by the landing prepared to be unimpressed, as is my way, and I came home a changed woman, which is not a thing I say lightly or often or, frankly, ever. The salsa is a revelation. I asked Sofia Martinez for the recipe and she said no — kindly, and completely, and looking me right in the eye, which I respected — and I want it on the record that she was right to. I would have said no myself, and I have, to several of you, about the bars. A woman is entitled to one secret she earned. Sofia earned hers. Go buy a taco and stop asking. Bring cash.

Now, for Saturday. Bring a bar. Bring a chair. Bring more than you think you need, and bring it in a dish you will not mourn, because you will set it down somewhere along the parade route and it will begin a long and happy life without you. My recipe this week is the seven-layer bars, again, because it is potluck season and it will be potluck season until the snow, and because a thing that works does not require improving — a lesson I commend, free of charge, to the Methodists, who are about to repave a lot that was, by every account I trust, fine. Mind the loon chicks. Slow your boat past the north end. Save a little of this light somewhere you can find it in February. And do not — Vern, I am looking at you across this very table — set off your own fireworks before the town’s. I will see you at the lake.