Scheduled
Monday March 18th 2024, 8:04 pm
Filed under: Life

Well that was fast. Mammogram Thursday morning first thing. All I had to do was ask–and then show up then, of course.

One of the women in the carpool last night said something and I did a double take and went, Wait–did YOU have breast cancer, too?!

Yes, last year.

She told me how her doctor had told her she was officially old enough not to have to have mammograms anymore and her response had been, Why don’t we have one last one for old time’s sake. Which made me kind of laugh, because that isn’t a test one associates with fondness nor nostalgia.

But that is why they caught it quite early.

I thought she’d just been watching church by Zoom. I thought she’d just gotten a shorter haircut than usual. I had had no idea.

I’m going, I’m going!



Get tested
Sunday March 17th 2024, 10:12 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

My cellphone rang. I was in my knitting group Zoom and ignored it, noticing though that it went on and on. I finally silenced it–noticing a tenth of a second too late whose name was showing. The landline immediately rang. I picked it up and said, Hi, Phyl!

She was heading out to watch a women’s broadcast at the church the next town over and suddenly had the thought that she should offer me a ride since I don’t drive at night. I did a quick goodbye to my fellow Zoomies, who were almost done anyway, and waited for her car.

I realized only after the meeting had started that the less-local people had not thought to enable the captions on the video part of the meeting because why would they ever need to, nor was there a Zoom link for it. But they did have the sound turned way high.

Booming, echoing, painfully loud radio static in that room. It made me wonder how anybody with normal ears could make any sense out of that.

The evening was rescued by the two friends who had carpooled with me. It was the generosity, the conversations in the car, the time spent in person that made me glad after all that I’d gone.

The one thing that if only, if only I could have changed, was the news they gave me that a mutual friend went to the doctor a few weeks ago about the increasingly bad back pain she was having for no reason that she knew of–but it turned to be widely metastasized breast cancer. She is now in palliative care. She’s younger than I am. I just cannot imagine the him without the her in that couple, but it’s coming.

I will schedule my overdue mammogram first thing in the morning.



Yarn Crawl
Saturday March 16th 2024, 9:40 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knit,LYS

With Stitches gone, the yarn stores set up a week-long Bay Area Yarn Crawl, and I understand a lot of other areas are holding them, too. You print out your Bingo card, you have each store stamp their name in their little box on your card (Nina printed out three out of curiosity and they were all different) and there are goodies. People get out of their ruts, run into old friends (we did) and discover new stores and help them out a little bit.

It’s the closest the shops can come to setting up a Stitches conference on their own.

It would not have been something I would have paid much attention to–it is safe to say I do not currently lack for yarn.

Nina didn’t need any either, but what she did see was an excuse for us to spend a day doing something we would both enjoy. And man did we ever!

She wanted to start off with Fengari’s in Half Moon Bay. I hesitated, remembering tourist-town yarn prices, but caved quickly as I reminisced about how, when Holz and Stein, makers of the best knitting needles I’ve ever found, made from the leftover wood from making musical instruments, announced that they were ceasing to export from Germany anymore–shops everywhere sold out of them quickly as people stocked up.

But a year or two later, it turned out, Fengari’s still had some.

In a back room, not as well lit, and you had to know and you had to ask. I don’t remember who tipped me off. It took me two trips to the coast to talk myself into spending what it was going to cost, but good tools last a lifetime and I treasure every pair. I bought about twenty.

My favorites were rosewoods, several varieties of which were now on the CITES endangered list, and that may well have been part of H&S’s calculus.

A knitting needle speakeasy. (I kid. It was remaining stock.)

So! We were at Fengari’s, a good twenty years later, and I asked if they had any, still, shaking my head and declaring it an obvious no because, hey.

And they said, We don’t–but actually, Royal Bee up the coast might well.

Royal Bee was next on our list anyway.

They actually had some: three pairs. In size 7 and 7.5 mm. Not US sizes, millimeters. In US sizes that would be like 10 3/4 and 10 7/8 and there isn’t quite a Harry Potter train station reference in there but there ought to be.

Nina likewise had declared them the best needles there are and took a pair home even in that size because you take what you can get.

We drove up the coast from there, reveling in the ocean to our left and the beautiful countryside to our right. The tunnel! That was on my bucket list! I told her. When Devil’s Slide collapsed into the ocean again and Caltrans got tired of making bridges and then watching them go poof, they finally after years of arguing bored under the mountain so that the wildlife corridor could continue above.

I had wanted to see that view (the Mavericks surfing spot!) and then that tunnel for years: not enough to make the drive over just for that, because it seemed silly, but I’d wanted to anyway. And now we had! Score! And she got to, too! It was silly and it was wonderful and we had a glorious time of it.

At the end of the day I’d bought: that pair of needles and a jar of fig ginger chutney at Royal Bee. Who goes to yarn stores to buy bespoke chutney, but for $12 I could be curious once.

So, needles. A jar of jam-ishness. And a single, vivid, colorful skein of Malabrigio Rios.

From Fengari.

And after the bridge alongside the long narrow Crystal Springs Reservoir (N-Are you looking for the Flintstone House? Me-I always do! N-My husband always does too!), then a few minutes later wending through Stanford’s greening hills of Spring rising above the roadway as we neared home, I looked up at the small wild oaks dotted here and there rising to the tops above and told Nina I suddenly realized for the first time where some of the inspiration for this afghan might also have come from.

And I would never have realized it had we not just spent the day we had.



Don’t leave me hanging like that
Friday March 15th 2024, 9:38 pm
Filed under: Knit

Terrible nighttime photo but it’s getting there, it’s getting there!

Still haven’t decided if I’m going to embroider green moss on the rocks.

The only trees that don’t have purple flowers between them are the ones I was doing while running a fever and just simply didn’t think of it while pushing myself to get something productive done. So they mark their own little placemaker in time, to the reality of the making, and I find I’m okay with that.

Y’know… When I put the ribbing on the other three sides, I could double the number of stitches on the first navy row at the top, put every other one on a lifeline, knit the ribbing in the usual number to twice the length and then fold it over and cast it off with the waiting stitches. A three-needle-bindoff or some such.

That way (insert rod) you could have a (pet proof) wallwarmer as well as a couch warmer.

Nah….



Breakfast
Thursday March 14th 2024, 9:51 pm
Filed under: Food,Garden

They are the thinnest- and easiest-peeling mandarins there are, with no seeds and very nearly no whites.

The critters had been leaving my Kishu tree alone–till last night. So with about a pound and a half left of those very small mandarins (this was its first real harvest), I picked every one.

I knew there was an orange almond cake recipe out there that was very good but I didn’t remember where I’d found it.

Given the size, I wanted a recipe that didn’t just say throw a seedless orange in a blender–I wanted a measurement. I wanted weight. I went looking till I found it, and the fact that the author specifically says don’t throw in extra just because you have it made it easy to figure out that she’d played with this enough to know what she was talking about.

After it went in the oven I did my usual bowl scrapings onto a small plate and into the microwave for twenty seconds to get an idea of the taste and texture this was going to turn into.

Definitely what my Kishus had wanted to be when they grew up.

Fruit, almond flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder. No butter.

I have about five ounces of leftover mandarin puree to experiment with later.

Even my timer wanted it to hurry up: I set it for fifty minutes and it heard fifteen. Not so fast!

Update: it was very good. But next time I’ll put a parchment round on the bottom of the pan.



Just right
Wednesday March 13th 2024, 8:19 pm
Filed under: Life

Last night was, at long last, the final dose of antibiotics.

It had been two months since this whole eyebrow/the tumor is benign/raging infection thing started; all this time I’ve been avoiding the potential exposure of–who knows what, since it’s not like they’re cutting eyebrows, but don’t ask about logic.

I ran for the haircut I’d been waiting for for so long.

I’m a child of the ’60s and ’70s, I like long hair. But I lost a chunk of mine to skin cancer years ago and it gets awfully thin on the right past a certain point, while what’s left tends to get caught in things when it gets too long. Like the car door when you shut it. I fear the KitchenAid mixer after a relative described her teacher’s long hair getting caught and ripped out by the beaters on hers, and when your hands are gooped in batter is a lousy time to go oh right and try to put it back in a braid.

An old friend who hadn’t seen me in awhile marveled last week, “Your hair is so long!”

And now (sorry/not sorry) it’s not. Just below the shoulders and we’re good. And it is.



I guess he did have a screw loose
Tuesday March 12th 2024, 9:23 pm
Filed under: Family,Garden,Life

Today:

1. Enjoy the sunflower sprouts.

2. Be glad the twice-a-month gardener day turned out to be the day after the neighbors’ guy pruned their stuff and saved labor by dumping it all on my baby peach tree on our side of the fence and leaving it. Debate telling the neighbor, who would surely never know otherwise. She’s about 90. I offered my guy a bonus for the extra time spent and he just waved me away with a chuckle: it happens. The peach tree only lost a branch or two, thankfully. (Not that it had very many in the first place.) It will have extra sunlight for a couple of months, so that’s good.

3. Get a visit from Richard’s sister who flew in this afternoon to see the California relatives, take her out to dinner, have a fine time, take pictures (not posting her picture). Wish for better lighting, resolve to finally fix that entryway one that blew in the power failure.

4. Find slightly more sympathy for the neighbor’s gardener. But not a whole lot. (Honey, you got the entryway, the edge of the living room and family room, the kitchen, and the top of the dining room table.)

5. Be glad it fell after he stepped far enough away from it that none of it hit him.



Got our March-ing orders
Monday March 11th 2024, 8:45 pm
Filed under: Garden

If you want instant gratification, fourteen out of the eighteen sunflower seeds I planted Thursday afternoon were growing and greening by the hour this morning.

This evening, there on the other side of the tray were the first two of the Park’s Junior Whopper tomatoes.

It’s like they’re trying to encourage me to plant a bigger garden this year or something.



Almost done
Sunday March 10th 2024, 8:25 pm
Filed under: Knitting a Gift

A couple of weeks ago I needed a new carry-around project and went digging through my stash for inspiration. A skein of bright yellow cashmere leaped out of the drawer and absolutely demanded to be next.

I was bemused and quite curious: the only reason I’d even bought a color like that was the strong feeling that someone someday was going to need that very one knit up just for them. Okay, so, when?

Okay, so, now, it seemed. I didn’t know if it would go into the finished pile ready to be sent on its way at any moment for the next couple of years, or what.

I finally made myself put the afghan down for a bit to put more serious effort into finishing this because one of the things that happened this past week is that I found out exactly who it’s been meant for all this time. I just had to meet her first. And now I have.



Here, let me put a Post-It note on that thought
Saturday March 09th 2024, 10:06 pm
Filed under: Life

When you try to transition to the new time by getting up the moment you start to wake up the five days beforehand and then tire yourself out enough that you accidentally oversleep by 45 minutes the Saturday morning before the Daylight Savings Time change so now you’re almost two hours behind…

Yeah. Maybe next year I won’t try so hard.



Cloudy
Friday March 08th 2024, 10:18 pm
Filed under: Knit

Working on the last tree, then will come the last of the water, and then–

–part of me would love to explore how to knit a sunset in the sky above.

Part of me is like, whoa, no, go for fluffy clouds. That’s intarsia enough.

Right on cue, the Washington Post put up a photo of some really unusual clouds that showed up at, where else? The Catoctin mountains. As I knit memories of Catoctin, Maryland, including a pick-your-own farm.

Circus tent top or cane handles? What would you call those curlicues? They’re amazing, but I’d do a sunset before I’d ever try to pull that off. You do want people to be able to know what it is.

Actually, they kind of look like Peeps chicks. They finally got to fly!



Our best youngest kid and our best oldest President
Thursday March 07th 2024, 10:58 pm
Filed under: Family,Politics

Best part of the day: calling our youngest for his birthday.

Next best part of the day: watching President Biden making the speech of my lifetime. Quick on his feet, ad-libbing perfect comebacks to hecklers, making Lindsey Graham laugh so hard his moussed hair shook like quills on an ambling porcupine.

Justice Alito had written in Dobbs that “women are not without electoral or political power.”

Biden told the Justices, and all of us, “With all due respect, Justices, women are not without electoral or political power. You’re about to realize just how much.”

I loved his recognition of the woman who had marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge 50 years ago today as he called out for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to be passed.

He was on fire!

He thanked Republican Senator Jim Lankford for his work on the bipartisan border bill that the Republicans had then tossed aside after Trump told them not to fix it before the election. Lankford’s un-microphoned mouth in response, as he nodded affirmation: “It’s true.”

The convicted fraudster rapist mobster criminal who stated that he’ll be a dictator on day one or the wise, loving, empathetic, grandfather figure who knows his way around the world stage and knows how to get people to do the right thing and to see the long game.

Hey, America: you’ve got this. You’ve totally got this.



We should include them next time
Wednesday March 06th 2024, 10:56 pm
Filed under: Food,Friends,Life

And to think I considered not going to that dinner.

I had biopsies–“just one more?” the doctor said apologetically this afternoon–to rule out uterine or endometrial cancer. Probably just autoimmune related but worth making sure.

I was bleeding, I was tired, all my body wanted to do was rest, or barf, and what on earth that had to do with anything from that procedure I do not know.

But there was to be a get-together of half a dozen women friends this evening that I’d baked a chocolate torte for. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks and I knew that it would be energizing to go. I had a ride.

Man. We had such a good time. I feel so great. Laughter really is the best medicine.

And everybody took a piece of leftover torte home to their husbands so they wouldn’t feel too left out.



Super Tuesday
Tuesday March 05th 2024, 9:01 pm
Filed under: Politics

I walked up to the tall drop box at the library as an older woman was coming up from the other direction. I got there first, read the instructions plastered on the thing, figured out where/how you open it–and then couldn’t quite tell for sure if my ballot and Richard’s had gone all the way down inside there and out of retrievable reach or not. That thing is designed not to let anything in that shouldn’t be in there but a few years ago I did encounter one so overstuffed (even though it was emptied every hour) that there were edges of a few envelopes poking out.

So I was hunching down to see below its protective overhang while tapping with my fingers in that very tight space to make sure they’d actually fallen. Go on, git!

At that point the other woman arrived. She chuckled as she watched me.

We had ourselves a small celebration as our eyes met that we were there together making our voices heard. It didn’t matter what each other’s ballots said, it was the fact that we got to say it and we got to witness our fellow American speaking up alongside us and the power of that shared humanity and the power of having our say was so joyful.

Smiles, a sentence or two, and then having made instant friends on the spot we nodded a happy good day to each other and headed back out to the rest of our unknowable lives.



Have it your way
Monday March 04th 2024, 9:35 pm
Filed under: Life

The power of suggestion while eating lunch and looking up.

Below was a line of dark, dark cloud with its upper edge gone wavy on the wind current, above it, another dark dark cloud with its lower edge likewise as wobbly as a Romaine leaf edge. And in between so much brightness bursting out of the bun!

A sun sandwich.

If you take a bite does it rain tomato seeds? (Looking at that waiting Burpee’s packet calling out to me.)