Last Thursday I went to Lake Harriet with my friend Barb. Apparently this place is famous for its concession stand popcorn...it's similar to kettle corn, but with a little less sugar. We bought some...well, okay, a HUGE bag. Very good, and I don't even like kettle corn. The sky was blue and the breeze was enough to make the temperature ignorable. We ate our popcorn (and fed some the birds) then took a walk around the lake. A short while down the path we ran into a couple of guys sitting on two benches playing softly on their guitars. Directly on the other side of the path, and closest to the lake, was an artist painting a portrait of the lake scene in acrylics: sailboats with their sails down, the round brown building where we'd purchased our popcorn, trees...all reflected upside down in the breeze-brushed water. Truly incredible. Many of the Twin Citizens were out getting exercise: running past us, rollerblading, taking brisk walks...it was literally everyone and their dog.

We walked a bit farther and found a spot a little more heavily wooded (I think because there was a city street nearby), with a small bank that led down to the water. We ambled down and sat while we chatted, absentmindedly tossing grass and sticks and weeds into the water, and then watching to see which ones the fish would try to eat. It was one of those evenings that is truly relaxing, the kind that someday will melt itself into The Good Old Days.