It was too warm to stay indoors tonight, so after dinner I went walking for over an hour in the breeze and the sunset. Somebody was flying a kite. Somebody else was flying a plane in lazy circles around the town. And in one diminutive ranch house with greying asbestos siding and scraggly lawn scattered inside a warped chain-link fence, a two-foot tall porcelain doll swathed in yards of white satin and lace, gazed serenely out of a dusty bay window.

My bum leg doesn’t quite agree that jumping from winter to summer in 48 hours is a good thing. It feels like I’ve gone running, pumped some iron, and been mildly beaten, all on only one leg. But this too shall pass, and I wouldn’t have given up the chance to be part of a steady parade of couples pushing strollers, children on bikes, college students, and residents of the retirement center. No, not for anything.

[Update: The six blisters on my feet say that my feet would have preferred either a) a shorter walk, or b) a walk in something other than the sandals I haven’t worn in 6 months.]