Inlet

By the time it started raining today, Ann and I were so immersed in our conversation that we didn't notice. I picked her up this morning at Hammond Autowerks where we both take our cars for service, and It was almost sunny when we set off for a walk in Howarth Park around Lake Ralphine.

It wasn't the first time for either of us in this park, but one of our topics of conversation was the fact that neither of us has any sense of direction. She once left her children with her handbag in an airport restaurant while she went to the loo, turned the wrong way coming out and got lost. I got lost on the night before Dana's wedding on the way to her house to meet Jim's parents for the first time .By the time I had taken over an hour to find it, they had gone out to look for me. 

Ann and I took the short but prudent route back to the car and decided to have breakfast at her house. I dropped off Ozzie and walked to her house with my contribution of two impossibly flaky croissants from the fabulous bakery that opened next to Peet's in Berkeley just after we moved. 

Ann and I both moved to this street at about the same time, she from South Africa via London and Cleveland and I from Berkeley. Despite geographical differences we see eye to eye on a wide range of subjects…husbands,  social justice, growing old, children, grandchildren, and art (she is an artist. I wish I was one). She  taught me tried to teach me to paint  I bought the first painting she sold here. 

We realized it was raining when we stepped outside to go into her studio to look at her latest work. She wanted to give me one of her prints and by the time I had picked out several to try at home, we had covered several more topics...travel, neighborhood gossip and the stories behind her prints, it was long past lunchtime. Ann offered to take me home but then  remembered that she didn't have a car so OilMan gallantly drove the four houses down the street in the rain to pick me up along with my portfolio of prints.

We also agreed that spontaneous  mornings days like this should happen more often.