Today was the first time since the week before an off-duty police officer was shot and killed at City Park Jazz that we were going to go. We weren’t intentionally avoiding it. We mean to go all the time, but something always comes up. This evening, we were running late but at 6:00, we had the bikes loaded up with food (Greek salad [we roughly follow this recipe but with no olives because olives are gross, add approximately 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar, one heaping teaspoon sugar, and salt to taste to the dressing], a baguette with herb feta cheese dip and leftover homemade pesto) and drinks. I was on my bike ready to go when the rain started. It rained kind of hard and the clouds extended as far west as we could see. I tell you what — I’m not a total weather wuss, but the only time I hate wearing glasses is when I’m out in the rain (I don’t color my hair any more, but that was the other time I hated wearing glasses — sitting at the salon when you have to take off your glasses so highlights can be applied to the sides of your head). You get to a point where your glasses are wet and you can’t really see, and then if you’re in the rain, which you are, which is why this is even a problem, you can’t even wipe off your glasses so you can see. So that’s all a pain in the ass and we waited for a few minutes and then Soren wanted watermelon and I wanted a beer and we ended up staying home.

Of course, the rain stopped pretty soon after this.

Our patio table and chairs were sheltered from the rain, so we had our picnic there. As the self-appointed DJ of the evening, I put on the Miles Davis Pandora station, which lasted only a little while, because we really can’t stand commercials. Then I put on Re-Bop: The Savory Remixes, which was nice for a while. Then we were all jazzed out and I took the evening in a new direction, which went something like this.

We won’t be winning any awards for twee picturesque Instagram picnickery, but it was a nice evening.