Dashing (for Ben)

Ben is the janitor/groundskeeper for the Cathedral next door to my house. On the other side of our house is the Catholic charity house, and across the street is a Catholic school. Ben has a lot of work to do, and he is always outside doing some kind of maintenance work. And because our house was empty for several years before we bought it, Ben got in the habit of taking care of the front of our house, too. And even though we're here now, Ben has kept up that habit: shoveling our driveway in the summer (we share a driveway with the charity house, so he might as well), trimming our crabapple tree out front (he was doing all the others on the block, right?), mowing our front yard (he quickly realized that we don't have a lawnmower), etc. Man, Ben is a nice guy.

One snowy March day, I looked out my front window and saw Ben across the street, shoveling the school's walkways and NOT WEARING GLOVES. He needs access to his hands, of course, and can't be putting on and taking off mittens all the time. And I, toasty in my pajamas, working from home, drinking coffee with chocolate milk powder mixed in, watched Ben do his work. He was out there for hours. His poor hands must have been nearly frozen, and miserably chapped. And the lightbulb went on: he needs some Dashing fingerless mitts!

So summer has come and gone, it is now October, and although I wound the yarn for Ben's mitts a couple of months ago, I didn't get around to making them until this week. The air is starting to get chilly at night (perfect sleeping weather), and I want to finish the mitts before he need them -- wrap them nicely, write a little "thank you" note, and ... well, I haven't decided if I'm brave enough to walk down the street to his house and knock on his door and hand him the mitts in person, or if I'm going to just leave the package on his front porch one day. Either way, I've got to get these mitts done before winter gets here. I hope he uses them.