Drizzle

It's been raining pretty much all day.  I had an early meeting, so skipped the walk this morning, hoping I could do it over lunch, but it kept coming down.  Since I have some work I have to do this weekend, I was able to leave at 3:00 and once home, went for it.  There is something wonderful about just giving yourself to the elements -- I put on my hoodie, left all electronics at home and surrendered to the rain.  I kept thinking how lovely it would be to come home soaking wet, put on warm, dry clothes, crank up the heat and settle in.  So that's what I did.  And I brought Banks along, and decided that I'd misjudged him.  He did just fine with the rain.  It wasn't pouring, mind you -- if you were driving, you'd have your wipers on an intermittent setting, but the windshield would be full.  I'll say this about Stacy Park when it's raining -- you'll have the place to yourself.  Usually we do two laps around both Big and Little Stacy, and that, plus the mileage to and from the opening of the park, brings it to five.  But after one lap, repeating seemed boring, so we went through Travis Heights again, just to get in some hill action.

So last night was my second knitting lesson and it was much more enjoyable.  Everyone is working at different levels, and we all encourage each other and make a big fuss over each others' little triumphs. Our instructor, Latifa (the no-nonsense way she introduced herself made it clear that she had heard as many Queen Latifah jokes as one can tolerate in a lifetime, and no one has jumped at the bait yet) seems to know just when to teach, when to encourage us to focus on our work, or when to allow the camaraderie to build through mundane conversations about television or childrearing.  She's the one standing in the photo below; the bottom is a picture of my hat-to-be.  Who knew there was such a thing as round-needle knitting?