Ma'am and Wonderful Smelly Things

OK, so it seems like an odd subject line, here's the story:

I was on campus yesterday getting a tire on the bicycle fixed and a college student handed me a flyer and called me "Ma'am."  Well, that took the wind out of my sails, folks.  So sad.  So then it hit me, I am getting old.  I am more likely perceived as someone's Mom or a teacher on the campus than a fellow student.  Oh well, these are the breaks I guess I'll be picking up some skin firming moisturizer and scheduling some botox this afternoon. (OK - that is a total lie - I'll be doing neither)

Wonderful Smelly Things:  Two fold, also Pretty Things!!!

So, the weather has gotten a little drier and I have been riding the motorcycle and bicycle more often.  I took the motorcycle to knitting circle this week, which means I drove north on 280 heading towards San Francisco.  Remember, there are mountain ranges on nearly all sides of us, barring the side with all the water.  So, I am riding up the highway and off to my right is a mountain range with a ridiculously dense layer of fog rolling into it's upper portion.  The sun was setting so the sun was just above the clouds/fog; the view reminded me of being in an airplane above the clouds watching the sun set.  It was really quite beautiful.  Further up the road, as I approached my destination, not far from San Fran,  the sky went from blue and white to dark and grey and the temperature dropped probably by 5 or 10 degrees.  You can tell a lot when you ride in elements :-)  Anyway, it is surely and most definitely colder and foggier as one travels towards San Fran.  Riding home that evening I notices something totally different.  Even though I was on the highway, it smelled wonderful.  Each town that I passed had a different scent, it was AWESOME.  Some smelled like flowers, some like woods, of course there was eucalyptus, some had scents I can't even describe but they were lovely.  LOVELY.

The next day I rode the motorcycle to school.  I cross a bridge to get to the other side of the bay and on the other side of the bridge, you guessed it, are more mountains.  Well, there is a series of hills, hills big enough to be mountains to me, awfully close to the bridge.  Most days it is just a pretty green series of hills on this day, the entire hillside was full of sheep.  Actual sheep.  Sheep milling around, eating, hanging out, chatting it up.  Of course my first thought was -- imagine the cool yarn -- but my second thought was OMIGOD hundreds of sheep 10 miles from the house.  It wasn't quite as funny as seeing the cows standing on what seemed like a very high incline on the mountains by school, but it was pretty awesome.