The first Saturday of summer

Yesterday, the first day of summer was warm and sunny. I spent a few hours in my sling chair in the backyard, reading a novel written by my friend Lisa Nowak. (Sideways - young adult novel about stock car racing. I couldn't put it down!) Occasionally I would spin the chair around and around, trailing a twig lazily through the leaves underneath me. Fly Cat, who was keeping me company, would, with equal laziness, bat at the twig once every time it came around. I remember the days when the fat old guy was a perky youngster, and would run around and around, beating at the twig with his front paws for minutes at a time till he got dizzy and fell over, panting.

Ah, Calla lillies. They looks so pure, and yet . . .






Looking up through the apple tree.

DH loves to ride his bike. He bought me a bike so I could ride with him. I am not an athlete. I asked for a girl's bike, with sit-up-and-beg handlebars and an extra-wide cushy seat. He also got me mylar streamers, a pink bag, and a bell that goes "Ching, ching!" quite musically. Today, it was warm, but overcast, so we got the bikes out and rode four and one half miles. At the end of it, grinning, I got off and told him, "My legs are weebles." He furrowed his fine brow in perplexity at me. I explained, "Weebles will wobble, but they won't fall down." My knees were having trouble remaining properly aligned. But by the time we had loaded the velocepedes back onto the car, and I had slugged back a bottle of water, all systems had returned to normal. It was a splendid little ride. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

And I figured out a new approach to the lace. (Yes, I'm laughing. It is, after all, only yarn.) I have a pattern that was designed to be knit in the round, and I was trying to translate it into knit and purl rows. (Which way does the decrease slant here? Which side of the yarn-over is this decrease supposed to go on? Where am I?) Teresa wants flat swatches to show how the yarn knits up in lace. I just realized that I can knit a swatch in the round with several extra stitches across the back, then drop all those stitches, cut them, tie them in fringes, and there's the sucker nice and flat! I'll show you as I go along.