Friday night's Mysterious Knitting party at knit-one-one was a blast. When I walked in the door I was greeted by Síle and immediately handed a glass of wine (my first in a week!). After everyone arrived, eight intrepid knitters started in with knitting i-cord. Long i-cord. With i-cord attached! I was using a dark gray yarn that was left over from something else I had knit; I had also brought a dusky pink but Kate said I'd have enough in the gray to do the project and it would go well with the secondary colors I had. Although we had pretty much determined that whatever we were making was going to be felted, we didn't really come up with exactly what the finished product would be. A belt? A leash? A cat-o'-3-tails? A very skinny scarf? A headband? Kate wasn't giving away any hints and Síle wasn't giving any either. We took a short break for dinner (pizza, hummus and carrots) and went back to knitting i-cord. It was getting later and we could tell that Kate and Síle were getting a little worried about our progress. Too much talk, too little knitting. They didn't want us to still be knitting at midnight!

When we all had made enough progress they whisked away our long skinny projects - to felt them. We were right about that! Then Síle showed us just what the project was: the Nagano Sakura scarf from the spring '06 issue of Knitty. Well, someone had guessed a skinny scarf - she won! Síle set about teaching us how to make the flowers to go on the scarf while Kate watched the felting items to make sure they didn't turn into shoe laces. We did the flowers in one color, just to speed things up. I tell ya, I'd never have gotten that cast-on right without a little additional instruction. I'm not sure any of us would have! The scarves felted pretty quickly and soon we each had one flower done. All in all, a great night. Oh, and we even got party favors! We each got a ball of yarn filled with chocolates. Thanks Síle and Kate! (And thank you to HiYo for modeling my finished project!)

Ok, I wasn't as thrilled that I had taken that class when my alarm went off at o'dark hundred to get ready for my run. I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and scurried over to Alameda Harbor Bay Ferry where we were meeting up. Although it was an official TnT coaches run, I had my buds Bree, Sandy and Anita meet me there. We were all going to run 12 miles except for poor Bree, who had to run about 18. I wasn't sure that my legs were recovered enough for 12 but it worked out ok. It was a beautiful morning for running; sunny, bright and not too warm. After the run they all left and I hung around to bond with the team.

A group of mentors/captains went out for breakfast afterwards. It took FOREVER for us to get our food. I managed to not inhale my food within 15 seconds of it arriving but it wasn't easy since I was starving after the long run. When I got home I took a shower and drooped onto the couch where I remained for the rest of the afternoon. Practically comatose.

Saturday night I knit six more flowers for the scarf, totally forgetting for the first few that it should be in two colors. (And yes, my Saturday night was exactly that exciting. Shut up.) By the time I remembered I decided that I'd just stick with the one color this time. After all, I probably won't be able to wear it anyway, the wool is too itchy. I think when (if) I make the next one I'll do it out of malabrigo so I can actually wear it. And I'll plan the colors differently, although I like the way it came out.

Sunday morning I decided that I couldn't just sit around on my butt all day so I dressed, grabbed my iPod and went for a long walk. There's a huge hill behind me so I walked up there. It was nice out except for the massive pollen in the air - but that's still better than wood smoke from people's fires. That little stroll around the block was just short of 3 miles.

When I got home I did some gardening, the type of thing my "gardeners" should be doing but aren't. I think it's time (again) to try to find a better gardener. In the past either the new ones won't do anything better than the old ones, or they cost twice as much. I think I'm getting to the point that I'll have to pay more just so that I get a gardener who isn't destructive. I have a few bulbs blooming, the ones that the mole/gopher didn't eat last year. It looks like I'm going to have a banner year for peonies if the ants don't get them first. Maybe I'll just end up with another banner year for ants!