Had a wonderful lunch with Rebecca Loudon at my house today. She made us an exquisite spinach salad with red onions and hard boiled eggs and vinaigrette, and we added some goat cheese and some pears from my garden. (Dean and I pick pears early, in August and September when they are still firm, and put them in the basement refrigerator, and bring them out one or two at a time, to finish ripening on the kitchen counter. If we're lucky, we are eating delicious perfect pears until spring, when blossom are beginning to form on the tree again). Rebecca and I had sparkling water with lime wedges and listened to Donovan and gossiped about you-know-who-you-are (~grin~). Then we put on our coats and went for a walk in the pea patch gardens across the street, and touched all the dewy winter flowers and hips and grasses, and looked at the giant butterfly and dragonfly mosaics. Back in my yard, Rebecca pinched the leaf of a scented geranium and said, Smell my finger! It's roses! And a cat followed us meowing.