In which there is zero work, and I hurt my knee in a totally worthwhile fashion

Wow, what a marvelous weekend! I went in to work very early on Friday, so I still managed to work almost a full day before ditching out for a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. I took the bus up, but brought my bike. So after a twenty-minute appointment in which everyone was very nice, and totally agreed with me that I still didn't have cancer, I got to go for a little ride! I headed over to the Tops near the mall to pick up some canning supplies (lids and pectin) and a few other things (bread flour, yeast, clearance Manischevitz macaroons). Then I headed home, changed, and went over to the park near my house, where I proceeded to pick a bunch of serviceberries, and run into many friends and friendly strangers. Later I drank a beer on the porch and tinkered with my bike (the Motobecane, the problem-riddled love of my cycling life).

I got up the next morning, jumped on the ol' Motobecane, and headed... to the bus stop. I caught the bus up the slope, and then headed out towards Freeville! Said hi to the berry farm (and farmer), and picked about 9 pounds of berries. But on the way out there, did I have the carefree, pleasant ten-mile ride I had every time I rode out there last summer? HA! Apparently I'm not as good with a wrench as I like to think--I lost two bolts and nuts (out of four) that had been holding my rear rack onto my bike frame, PLUS the seat I had raised the night before was not at all tight enough, and lowered itself all the way within the first mile. Also, did I mention the Moto's been a little sketchy on the shifting? But I made it, and actually there was another guy at the farm who had biked there and was apparently a bike-trip veteran as well as an extremely kind fellow cyclist, and who pulled all sorts of magical things out of his handlebar bag. So I left with the right number of hardware pieces for the rack, AND borrowed some Allen wrenches to fix my seat, AND was mortified and received some helpful advice about carrying at least some tools and yeah probably I should get a patch kit if I'm going to go out of town. The guy was kind enough to not ride with me back to town, either, thereby saving me all sorts of walking-up-hills embarrassment.

And then I made two batches of..."jam," with varying success. There were some short-on-pectin issues, and some sugar-amount issues, and some jar-breakage, and generally I am just not as handy at the jam-making process when I'm all alone. Still, got 6 jars of strawberry-serviceberry syrup, and 6 jars of serviceable (if ugly) strawberry jam. I only had to run out once (for more sugar), and hey, I needed to pick up beers anyway.

Because then it was the WORLD CUP GAME! with Kevin and his neighbors. Sat on the porch, visited the cats, later had some burritos--it was a good day!

And then on this lovely rainy Sunday? I puttered, dear readers, and it was wonderful. I've been freaking out about the move, so started to go through my stuff to get rid of some of it. And I cleaned up the jammy kitchen, and baked some bread dough I had in the refrigerator, and cut the ribbed neckline out of a t-shirt so I'll actually wear it, and made some black beans to go in this week's lunches, and maybe later I will make some brownies with leftover jam in them. Or maybe not--that's the magic of actually taking the weekend off!