Without mittens

We walked around both lakes, but it took us twice as long as usual. That's because we had to stop to smell tree trunks and park benches, throw sticks into the melting ice, eat handfuls of goldfish crackers and candy, scour the woods for the perfect walking stick, pause to think of the words to silly childhood songs with surprisingly bleak lyrics, and chase every squirrel that we saw.

When Signing Woman picked me up for the weekend walk we'd planned, she brought her border collie and her granddaughter, as well as our friend Makes Bread. Kids and dogs turn a simple walk into an afternoon outing, and the unseasonably warm weather meant that we could linger along the trail. It wasn't until we were back in the parking lot that I began to feel a winter chill. Signing Woman's husband called her cell phone to say that he'd put the tea kettle on, and we stopped back at her house for cookies and steaming cups of tea, while he fussed over us and his oldest grandchild.