Lovely Monday at the Park

On Monday I neither had to nanny nor work at my (now not-so) new job. At first, I was at loose ends, since everyone I knew was busy.

But then I had a wonderful idea! Where else could I go to entertain myself but the dog park? So I stopped at the local organic grocery store and picked up a couple of salads for a picnic, took my plastic mat to sit on, the Sunday Times magazine (with the crossword, of course), and my colored pencils for sketching.

I sat down by the water and ate my lunch – in the part of the park where the dogs aren’t as welcome. After lunch, while I was reading the magazine, I started to feel like I really wanted some dessert. I had neither bought nor brought any dessert, so I was stuck. Then—like in a movie—I heard the jingle of the ice cream truck. This was just too perfect! It was one of those cute little old mail jeeps that had been converted into an ice cream truck. Amazing! And it even had ice cream sandwiches, possibly one of the best foods on earth.

After dessert, I hung out down by the water a little more. I tried to sketch a little, but my colored pencil set lacked dark green, dark blue, and gray. So, uh, not an ideal set for sketching in the Northwest.

After giving up on the art, I walked over to the leash-free part of the park. I love this dog park because the leash-free area actually goes right down to the water, so you can watch the dogs swimming in Lake Washington. And there were a lot of dogs there!On my way back to my car, I picked some of the amazing blackberries growing in the park. So delicious! I’m supposed to go berry picking this weekend with some friends, so hopefully there’ll be a pie picture here soon!