I was at Purlescence tonight and spread Hayes’s afghan on the floor in front of Rachel to show her what her yarn gift had grown up to be–and while I was halfway through the last color band, to ask her advice.

Stop here and go straight to ribbing or do the full 24-row repeat?

Make it longer, she said. I’d keep going.

So I am. So, so close. It will seem so odd not to be working on it anymore.

(Oh, and I almost forgot: lessons on how to be a better predator to the baby seal or whatever the heck that thing in the water was, as given to a National Geographic photographer with a far higher tolerance for risk than I have by a curious, huge leopard seal. The doofus kept letting the proffered penguins get away from him.)