As it turns out, my pessimism yesterday about how short-lived I expected my sun break to last was completely unwarranted. The clouds decided to take a break for the evening, apparently, and I didn't see another drop of rain yesterday. I took Chloe for a nice long walk, taking about an hour to stroll down past 85th and enjoy the relative dryness of the air. We even saw stars! Well, I saw stars. I don't know if Chloe noticed them.

I love Chloe for her own sake, of course, but she's also providing a boost to my health by needing so much exercise in the mornings and evenings. She's a German Shepherd with a lot of energy to burn, so we try to walk with her as much as we can. We split the walking duties of course, but since Mr. Thel walks all day at work I tend to take Chloe farther than he does. I don't mind it; I've enjoyed exploring our neighborhood this winter. Most of the north-south blocks are split by these wonderful little alleyways that feel like country lanes--quiet gravel driveways split by the tufts of grass growing down the middle. We can amble along them without worrying about traffic, just casually walk around looking and sniffing at everything. (We make it a team effort: I look around and leave the sniffing to Chloe.)

One day as we paused at an empty cross street I noticed some shards of pottery scattered at the base of a stop sign. I bent down to check my first impression, and found that they were the broken bits of doll-sized jars. Four intact jars lay among the pieces. I was charmed and pocketed them. Who made the tiny containers? Why were they smashed? And why, when we wandered that way again a week later, were all the pieces of pottery gone, the muddy patch of grass empty again?