Weekend ... End?

As always, I'm sad to see the end of the weekend, which means it was another good one and I should be glad, right? Ah, life. Let's go to the photos. I'm feeling random-order, not coherent-narration, tonight.

A flower from my friend's garden today; she says it's a dahlia, I just know I like the colors.

A stack of (mostly) knitting books gifted me from another friend, who's moving. This doesn't count all the (mostly) knitting magazines and the yarn, which are still in the car. Whew!

Speaking of this friend, when I visited her (last weekend), we ran some errands. Guess what kind of store this was in?

Feed store! Though they also had this charming item, marked down, which I wanted to get for my cousin.

It's kind of big for a gag gift though. Sorry.

The store also had some funny shirts:

I had a delicious new-to-me soda:

I like the occasional orange soda, and pineapple is like it only different. Yum!

We went for a walk in the woods, too, and I was quite taken with the shapes in the wood.

One of her cats, looking concerned as she sorted through books.

Moving on, I caught Belmont playing with this cat toy the other day, and doesn't she look guilty?

I mean, not only is she allowed to, I'm glad she is!

Speaking of Miss B, we're making some progress. Friday night when I got home, I sat on the couch and Carlos took his usual position on my left, so that I could pat him. She came along, meowing, and jumped up on my right side. We stayed that way for maybe five minutes, both of them purring, before I learned that she hadn't realized he was there: he moved, she hissed and jumped down. Silly girl! Still, progress. Last night I was up late, reading*, and Carlos was again with me.

And she came along and again joined us.

 

This time, I think, she knew he was there, but who knows for sure. A little while later he jumped down and headed toward the kitchen, at which point she decided she was cut off from safety and hissed at him. I picked her up and carried her past him, and she moved away more calmly. Also progress! Given that, I decided that it had been long enough since the previous not-shutting-her-away-at-night experiment that it was worth trying again. And it worked! I feel as though Carlos wanted a little more snuggle-attention from me than he does on an average night, but when I cuddled him, he settled down again, which is great. We'll see if that continues to work.
*Code Name Verity, which is really good and so smartly written, but rather difficult in terms of topic (WWII/POW/torture), so I can't decide if I recommend it or not. It came highly recommended to me, so although it didn't grab me from the start it did catch me before page 50 (my frequent arbitrary number), and I'm not sorry I read it, but I did have to read a little Greenwillow before bed, to soothe my brain.

Other pictures. Like this one of long, lanky Carlos:

Amusing signs for parking:

And a sign of a different type:

Yesterday I went up to Wilmington with Mary Ellen and her husband to visit the Bruins' development camp, where future Bruins* are brought in to get a taste of the big leagues. Hockey hockey hockey! I love summer, but it is seriously hockey-deficient.
*This lot was born between 1991 and 96. None of them are likely to be in the NHL for a few years, at least.

Sometimes the pictures that don't come out are the best. What was he doing? Twerking?

In the first session, one of the players wore a rig with what looked like a camera.

When you've just had shoulder surgery, you wear a red no-contact jersey. Which can get lonely during contact drills for everyone else.

I didn't get a picture of it, but at one point he was firing pucks at the skates of some of the players waiting their turn. "Play with me!"

The other thing I didn't get pictures of was when I was watching Malcolm Subban skate by, and I was wondering why he seemed to be shimmying a bit. Then I saw that he was kicking a puck back and forth between his skates. Wild! These coordinated people.

Pastrnak is the one to watch: consensus is that he's a long shot to make the team this year, but not impossible.

He's been having the best time, by all reports. Brought only skates, no other equipment; lost his passport for a while; laughs and jokes about how often he's falling down (often enough that they're writing about it, anyway).

You can see here that there's a player named Sweezey.

We believe this may, just may, have been his car in the lot.

Just a guess.

Hockey hockey hockey. Happiness.