An Afternoon of Lovely Connections

I drove up to Madison today for "Last Saturday" knitting. This was my first time to drop in on the group. I was looking forward to meeting Elizabeth and Laura in person, and they are just as interesting and nice as I had expected. (Plus I got to see Laura's striped hoodie almost completed and pet Elizabeth's lovely alpaca lace scarf, previously known to me only from their blogs). And I very much enjoyed making a new connection when I met Linda: who was, I thought, previously unknown to me. That's what I thought until she emailed me this evening, because she had put two and two together, and figured out that we both post to the about.com knitting forum. Yup, for any about.com buds who are reading, it was Linda/8grasshopper in person. And I got to see her Calico (as in cat) afghan in progress, which really and truly was new to me because she doesn't knitblog.

All I brought to work on were these really rather uninteresting socks (which had been sitting unfinished in a corner for months.)

Uninteresting, but 1) I needed something relatively mindless if I was going to talk 2) I didn't have anything else on the needles that was ready to pick up and go and 3) it was either finish these or start mending the three pairs that are now sitting in the corner with holes in their heels, and I would rather knit any day.

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Back at home I opened the back door to let Baxter out and "whoosh", a blue jay went swooping about six inches in front of me at just about knee level. It was dive bombing Baxter. And then it sat in the lilac and scolded as only a jay can do. So I'm wondering if there is a nest near by. Baxter looked a little confused and slightly abashed, and decided to come back into the house with me (but that wasn't because of a bird, that was because it was wet.)