Hi Neighbor!

On my way home from work last night I ducked out of the pouring rain into Treehouse, a new "boutique" on Graham Avenue. I had been meaning to ask if a lamp in the window was for sale.

As I was poking around a girl came in and asked, "Do you have any black yarn? I'm in the middle of this scarf and I totally ran out!"

The owner regretted that had no black yarn at the moment, but suggested that the girl check out the fabric store on Grand. "Naah, it is so rainy -- thanks anyway!" She left, and I left as well.

I noticed that she and I were both walking down Graham towards the BQE, and so I turned to her and said, "Excuse me, but I couldn't help but overhear that you were looking for some black yarn?"

Surprised, she answered, "Yeah, I am in the middle of this scarf and totally ran out!"

"Well, I hope this doesn't sound too weird, but I have a bunch of black yarn at my house and I know what a pain in the ass it is to not be able to finish something and I have five non-black-yarn projects to do before I get around to the black yarn ones, so if you want one you can have it."

"Wow, ummm sure! Okay!"

It turned out she lived two blocks away from me, so we went to my house, made small talk about the neighborhood on the way over, commiserated about all the ugly new buildings blighting the area, and I invited her in. Trey was cooking dinner.

"Hi honey! I met this nice girl who ran out of black yarn so I am giving her one of my black yarns!" I dug out the ball of yarn and handed it to her.

"Awesome, this is exactly what I needed! So, if you want I will bring you some yarn next week? If I just put a bag of yarn through your mail slot or something?"

"Oh yeah, sure, whenever! Good luck with your scarf!"

And we said our goodbyes/seeyouarounds and she went home with her yarn.

One ball of black alpaca is an infinitesimal forfeit in the face of the joyful and serendipitous neighborliness that is why I fell in love with New York.