Beach Knitting

This past Saturday, my knitting group had our 3rd Beach Knitting Picnic. Our previous events were held at Heisler Park in Laguna Beach, which is on a small cliff right over the beach. Due to some renovations at the park, we had to change the location to Aliso Beach. Aliso Beach doesn't have a grassy park, but there are some fire rings right on the beach and it's a rather quiet and lovely beach, as you can see from the photos.


It had poured the night before, and in some parts, it rained pretty heavily Saturday morning as well. Luckily, after a brief shower, the beach was the epitome of a quintessential sunny California Beach. What made the picnic even lovelier were the fantastic ocean waves that resulted from the storm system.


Due to the rain and the location change, we had a smaller turnout than the previous 2 picnics. We still had a lovely group of folks and I even brought my spinning wheel and spun with good company, great weather, and the sounds of crashing waves behind me. And in a classic "Oh, Aubrey!" moment, Aubrey, who is known for losing things, somehow dropped her wallet about 10 feet away from our pop-up tent. I don't know how much time had passed (at least 10 minutes) between her dropping it and me spotting it, but had the beach been more crowded, I have no doubt that someone would have swiped it within seconds. Tsk, tsk.

After the picnic, I went over to my friend Rachel's for a dinner party. Unfortunately, after a couple of hours, I felt an allergy-induced pre-asthma attack coming on. I was allergic to something in her apartment -- maybe her cats, maybe something else. My chest began to tighten as my throat itched and my sinuses swelled. I excused myself from the party and thankfully, by the time I got home, some of the itchiness subsided. I thought I was in the clear-- then,l my right eye started feeling weird and itchy. Uh oh!

When the allergy gets in my eye, the white part of my eye usually swells up, as if it's a giant hive. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst eye allergy I've had, and 1 being a mild short-term irritation, this one rated about a 5, because I although my vision blurred a little from the constant watering, it didn't hurt. I only get 10s when I'm in Houston without my drugs. The worst one lasted for more than 2-3 days, watered 24/7, blurred my vision and hurt so much due to the extreme swelling of the white part that I could not sleep or barely open it.

All in all, despite the allergy and having an eye that looked like I had been smoking pot all night, the Saturday turned out pretty fantastic and lovely, especially the beautiful crashing beach waves.