Best Trade Ever...

Late last fall, a high school classmate mentioned she was going to teach English in Peru on Facebook. I made a passing comment about buying yarn.

Slightly later last fall, same classmate said she needed someone in Wisconsin to pick up a few bottles of a local wine, her new favorite white wine that's made at one of the local wineries here and apparently doesn't get shipped out of state.

I reminded her that I'm in Wisconsin and would be at my mom's for Christmas. She suggested wine for yarn.

A plot was immediately hatched.

I turned up at her house over Christmas with wine and we spent a few minutes chatting. First time we've spoken really since graduation and, while things have changed, a lot has stayed the same or followed a trajectory we sort of saw then. Kind of.  Okay, so we're not living in DC, working for a major newspaper, taking fabulous coffee breaks on the hour but hey...she's teaching college English and I'm a librarian. We're still on the right-brained side of things.

She was off to Peru and I stalked her travel blog, wondering if she'd mention the odd shopping that needed to be done. I got a Facebook message: what colors did I like? I sent back: blue, green, purple. 

And then, several weeks before she was due home from Peru, I arrived home to a box. A Fed Ex box. This confused me, I always have Fed Ex deliver to work. I didn't recognize the return label name either and then it struck me--it was her husband. Her husband who had just taken a trip down there to see her! ALPACA!!!

There are 12 balls of green and 12 balls of a blue/purple. I'm estimating a DK weight and I have no clue on the yardage. Certainly enough to make a long sleeved sweater in each color, probably a fairly heavily cabled sweater. It's soft and luscious and soooo off limits to the cat--who loves alpaca.