Regatta with wool and monkeys

I spent most of the past weekend at Green Lake, sitting by the water. Those of you in the Northern Hemisphere but not in Seattle might think that sounded lovely, pass the sunscreen and lemonade. However, Summer in Seattle begins July 9th, says Cliff Mass, atmospheric scientist and local weather guru. While we often have some nice weather in May, June invariably is cold and damp. This past weekend was no exception. I wasn't at Green Lake because the weather was so nice it forced me to go, I was there because my kid was in his first regatta.

Saturday we did have some sun, and Franz and I had the opportunity to walk around the lake (about three miles) so that was fine, but Sunday was cold and wet. I had volunteered to work with the finish line officials. I wore a T-shirt and a long sleeve shirt over it and brought my Knitting Olympics wool sweater, just in case. I brought my knitting bag, mostly to finish a Dulaan hat. Little did I realise that instead of sewing in all the ends, I would be wearing the hat instead. And was I ever glad to find my wonky fingerless mitts hiding in my bag. The ones where I never sewed in the ends because I wasn't happy with the bind off and intend to redo it one of these days.


Quite a fashionable outfit, eh? Believe me, everyone else in the officiating tent was envious.



Zach's first kayak race. This is sprint kayaking, Olympic style. If you've ever been in a nice stable sea kayak, you need to know that these boats are different. They are designed for speed, not for stability. It takes lots of effort to simply stay afloat. There were enough new kids to warrant a novice division. Therefore, several of these ribbons are in the novice division sans competition and demonstrate that he (and in some cases, three teammates) were able to stay upright and paddle 1000 meters. Two of the second place ribbons were hard fought; he finished right behind another novice team member, a bigger and stronger boy.