There used to be a yarn store in San Carlos that had a sign: Unattended small children will be given a puppy and an espresso.

I thought of that as I asked a dad waiting in the airport if I could give his little boy a puppy? He looked at the finger puppet I was holding out and laughed, and there you go.

At the end of the delays (someone had checked in their luggage and then was a no-show even though the plane had given them all that extra time) and the flights, coming down an elevator just before leaving the airport there was a young family: Mom, Dad, a boy of maybe four at the most and a stroller that surely had a baby tucked under there somewhere.

The little boy had a travel pillow that somehow stayed put around his neck. It was very late and clearly his parents had hoped he would sleep some.

An orange and black tiger with whiskers is what came to hand this time as I dug down in my purse. (May I? Yes, YES!)

Suddenly every one of them went from exhausted to animated and happy.

If only I could tell those knitters in Peru how happy they make so many people.