Biking and dinner with Stina

_MAL0011.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night after work I joined Stina for a quick bike ride around Brunnsviken. The weather wasn't particularly nice. It was about 15° C out, and the the cloudy sky drizzled cool rain on us as we rode. Still, we warmed up enough by moving that we soon took off our waterproof outer layers and continued around the lake. When we arrived at Hagaparken, we veered off into the park and continued into the city, across the bridge to Kungsholmen, and up the hill to Stina's flat.

There, in her tiny but serviceable kitchen, Stina prepared a lovely three-course dinner. For an appetizer, we had smoked ham & cream cheese on crackers; the main course was broiled salmon with a spicy pimento sauce; and for desert, warm cheesecake with blackberries on top.

We shared a bottle of wine and stayed up chatting until after eleven. We talked about a lot of things, including some of the topics of my recent musings on the blog. I told her about some of the recent frustrating experiences I've had trying to make new friends. In a moment of unguarded honesty, I admitted to Stina that when we first met at Kittelfjäll seven months ago, I didn't expect that we'd become such good friends. I've seen that sometimes my style of enthusiastic friendliness scares people off; for a while I thought that might happen with her too. That didn't happen though; perhaps I saw even then that she's as outgoing and positive as I am.

There are lots of reasons she and I get along. For one thing, we have a lot in common: dancing, an interest in science and technology, and a love of the outdoors. But more importantly, we share an optimistic and pragmatic world-view. A hundred shared interests make little difference if two people just don't see the world in the same way.

I'm coming to realize, at nearly thirty-five years of age, that life is to precious to spend with negative people. There are so many lovely people in the world, and it's sometimes easy to forget that. It's really nice to have great people like Stina in my life!

Hej Stina! :)