An exit interview I found interesting, even if I often don’t agree with my uncle’s politics. Gotta love that secret CIA/Senate committee briefing in the secret room because Patrick Moynihan wanted it scooped on the front page the next day.

Note that my uncle’s son is helping the Democrat candidate’s campaign now that his dad is out. It’s the candidate that matters far more than the party.  Go Jim!

—————–

Update: PG&E was awarded nearly $5 million by the state three years ago specifically to replace that high-risk pipe that later blew up. PG&E did not replace it. They did, however, give that much in bonuses to their executives. And now they’re asking for money to… Yeah…

Go lawmakers go! This is the kind of thing we vote you into office FOR!

And then they grow! (Our older son, the father, being 6’9″.)

Okay, so, just to distract you from the rant below: I made great headway on a new shawl today but at one point put it down, picked up the tiny hat on the tiny needles that make my hands tingle to work on, and simply did those last few rows. I needed the satisfaction of having it done. The bluegreens are deeper (and I think prettier) in person.

Just looking at that tinyness makes the idea of our coming grandson more real. Richard looked at it and was reminiscing over newborns, holding his arms as if to cradle the little one right then and there.

We can’t wait!

This is not a feel-good post. My apologies.

PG&E has gone to the California Public Utilities Commission, pleading that their liability insurance costs are 4x after the big wildfires last year: those fires that were sparked by unmaintained PG&E utility lines brushing trees in their right-of-way, which should have been trimmed by them and were not, causing arcing. They specifically want their ratepayers to reimburse them for fires caused by their lack of maintenance on their lines.

The San Bruno gas pipe that exploded had had a sewer line criss-crossing it that was replaced two years ago by explosives bursting it outward as a new sewer pipe went in.

This was a few feet from the high-pressure 30″ gas line.

Which PG&E said it inspected afterwards. According to the local newspapers, when pressed hard this week, they admitted no, not internally they didn’t, not that stretch of it, and no the type of pipe was not now up to code, no it shouldn’t have had that seam, that’s not standard, no, we didn’t know it was corroded. Because we didn’t look inside that particular section after the sewer work.

There was a homeowner whose walls cracked after the same sewer company used that same method near his home in Millbrae. (He sued, they settled.)

PG&E just spent nearly $50 million in ratepayers’ dollars trying to push a fraudulently-presented election measure that would have given them monopoly status and shut down many cities’ efforts to go green. When Prop 16 failed, they tried within days to get regulators to let them raise rates to cover the amount they’d spent on that campaign.

Think how far that money could have gone towards trimming trees that make the power lines arc. Towards replacing old and substandard pipes.

PG&E is trying to look magnanimous towards the homeowners whose friends and neighborhood they just blew up by offering them money they want their customers to then have to provide. Again, they want their shareholders to have a direct disincentive for holding them responsible for maintenance and public safety. As a friend put it, only the profits are privatized.

One of those who burned to death, Jacqueline Grieg, was a CPUC regulator of their lines.

Now they want her co-workers to make her heirs have to help pay for killing her.

Utter, bitter, classic chutzpah.

One might think the CEO who’s running the corporate culture of Pacific Gas And–the word that unfortunately leaps to mind is–Evil would have the sense to wear a little financial sackcloth of upgrading equipment and getting the actual work done that the public pays for while so many of San Bruno Mountain’s families, the ones still alive, stand among only ashes.

Fire the guy. And CPUC, please, do right by us all. In Grieg’s memory.

Bathroom: eh, floors could use a mopping next.

Towels: in washer with a goodly amount of bleach.

Plumbing (which otherwise hadn’t been used in awhile, thank goodness): FAIL.

Bathroom floors: all nice and bleachy-smelling and fresh now.

Plumbing, after careful tests with small amounts of water over several hours: seems to work peachy fine now, no need to call the plumber yet. The cotton must have had a hairboll.

Me: Um, gee, thanks, old house.  Sort of.

We had our twice-annual stake conference today in the town just north, wherein five wards (congregations) come together for one really big meeting. Lots of old friends there one rarely gets to see and lots of unfamiliar faces, too.

When it was over, of course, there were a whole lot of cars leaving all at once. One woman, younger than me, dressed in a rather tight skirt and medium heels, walked past us as we waited to exit the lot. I assume she was walking home to somewhere nearby rather than adding one more car to the mess.

As we got onto the road, there was a side street right next to the lot with people exiting from that, too, a traffic jam, a light ahead we were all trying to get to, and that woman was a goodly ways up ahead.  Walking never looked so sensible.

When, there in a brief patch of unpaved gravel where some work had been done, suddenly, she fell. Hard. Immediately two cars pulled to the side to rescue her, and we would have too but they beat us to it. I have no idea who she was or who they were, but a young woman was leaping out of the first car and, after a moment’s pause for taking a deep breath, was helping her carefully up. Clearly the older one was in pain, because they kept their arms around each other’s shoulders as the young one helped her to her (or possibly her parents’?) SUV. We will take care of you.  We will not leave you alone.

I felt for the one who fell (and that skirt made the fall more difficult to control–there’s a reason I like mine loose-flowing and long, but then I *know* I’m going to do some falling from time to time.) But whoever you are who pulled over, I wish I could tell you, thank you.  You helped all of us up.

(Ed. to add: I had a photo I was looking for for this post but stumbled across this one first.  When I shot it awhile back, it rather annoyed me that my straight needles in their holder had reflected in the window.  And yet.  Yesterday, it was striking to me that that reflection looked like the top of one of the Towers, with the needles as the cell-phone antennae that had been on the roof.  There/not there, with the peacemaking birds as the intended subject of the picture several months ago.)

Watching the various species that have been coming up to my porch and my birdfeeders the past 17 months, I’ve learned something:  each of the territorial types chases after newcomers of their own species.  There is plenty of food for all but when the level in the feeder gets low, I seem to get more, not fewer finches, as if suddenly they need to make sure there’s enough for them even if they have to fight to get to it.  They often do not all come back after I refill their supply; they just seem to need to know it’s there.

But do the towhees feel threatened by the doves? No. Do the doves feel threatened by the titmice or the adorable little Bewick’s wren that flips itself around by the tail?

No.  Even when they eat the same sunflowers or skitter around the same area: they only feel a need to establish dominance over the ones the most like themselves.

(Then there was that remarkable pair, the little junco feeding his ladyfriend finch that I got to watch over several weeks.)

We are all most like each other.  We need to get to know one another better for the fear of the different, of the unknown, to be replaced by our common human ground.  I loved this article (thank you Margo Lynn).

We are better than birds, and it is said that He knows even the sparrow in its fall. And I have to tell you that, outside their native European element, sparrows are absolutely terrible to those around them.  But He knows them too.

There are no strangers before God.  All He asks is that we live as best we can by love as He freely offers love to us, however we may understand the life He has given us.

Remember when I said I needed more rice bowls?  Mel and Kris answered and offered to drop by with some today so that I wouldn’t have to be out in the sun at Kings Mountain Art Fair.  They are *such* nice people; I couldn’t wait to see them.

RobinH emailed last night to say she was in town (she lives near where we used to in New Hampshire) and could she stop by?

Hey, let’s have a party!  And so it was that I got me some wonderful Mel and Kris time and then I got me some wonderful Mel and Kris and Robin time, and chocolate torte and much laughter was enjoyed by all–except, next time, Kris, I promise to bake something celiac-friendly. Does anyone have a good gluten-free cake recipe they would recommend? (Kris, if you want something other than chocolate, chime in for me, because I’m intending to put that same ganache glaze on it for you so you can finally have some.)

Robin was working on a sock and also a gorgeous green Aran that just grabbed me, and it took me a moment to figure out why my reaction to its heathery greenness was so intense: my mom had knitted just that coloration in an all-over diamond pattern for her father when I was a kid. He had wanted something formal looking, something he could wear in the halls of Congress without his suitcoat on and still be proper.

Mom couldn’t find yarn thin enough and ended up buying fingering weight in the form of–are you ready–needlepoint yarn.  Size 2 needles.  It took her a year. He wore it for decades, till he died at 95.

I watched that sweater coming to be and I adored it. I begged Mom to knit me a sweater next, and she let me pick out the yarn. And of course I wanted it in that pattern.

Worsted weight and much bigger needles and much faster, but yes, she did.  Now that I know what I asked of her…!

Mel and Kris headed out to Capitola for their next show.

I had to laugh, though, when Richard came up to the front door and a woman not his wife cheerfully pulled it open for him with a grin of Hi you live here don’t you.

My prayers go out to those on San Bruno Mountain. (I’m not sure what that link will look like by morning; it’s being updated constantly.)

My Monterey shawl? The first one was knit for my friend Michelle, who knows and loves the living things that are along the edges of the tides.

Her husband is a firefighter and he is probably up on that mountain.  I am saying prayers for him and for so many others.  I am holding my breath.

The current report is that a 24-inch gas main blew up in a residential neighborhood this evening and spread to ten acres so far.

So this guy  calls himself a pastor.  He’s broke and on the verge of losing his property.  So he comes up with a way to scare up major notoriety and grab attention from all over the world and to get his hands in the pockets of people who are creeps like himself.

He’s not quite Westboro yet, but he’s definitely working on it.

I have this deeply-felt wish: that the good people of Florida go to where Jones plans to hold his Koran burning on 9/11.  That they race to protect those Korans from the flames unharmed as we want to be able to practice our own religions–or lack thereof–unharmed.  That they manifest the honor of our country, our cherished belief in religious freedom, and our goodwill towards our fellow men. Everywhere.

(Ed. to add: Half an hour after I posted this, the Washington Post published a report that Jones has agreed to cancel his bookburning.  He is now painting himself as a good person urging others not to burn Korans.  I think we have a new definition of chutzpah.)

Update–Afton, ask and ye shall receive: the yarn photo. My hanks came with mill oils that had to be washed out in hot water and clear laundry detergent.

(Don’t miss the bird caption.)

Last week, I had this road trip coming up; fine yarn on small needles wasn’t going to do it for knitting in the car (bouncy bounce!), I needed something bigger than that.  I went looking for–I wasn’t quite sure what.

That 70/30 mink/cashmere that had been waiting for the perfect design leaped out at me. (Mine is in English Lavender, not listed at the moment.) Size 5mm needles in lace. Yes.

I wanted to at last just see what it felt like to work with; you don’t know a yarn till you’ve knit it, no matter what it feels like in the skein, and I wanted to know if it was something I’d want more of as the new company comes out with more colors. (Note: the mink are treated humanely and sheared, not slaughtered. The guy flew to China to see and verify that for himself.) I wanted to justify its purchase; I wanted to justify coveting more, because I certainly do.

I cast on. I got a few rows done.

I did a few more the next day–and wondered what on earth about it was defying me.

And so I by-then dragged it along with me to Ruth’s, where, with mistakes, grumbling, ripping and redoing while looking out the window, I got a grand total of one 198-stitch row done after an hour and put it down and didn’t pick it up again. I wanted to see the road. I wanted to see the scenery change.  I didn’t want to miss a thing. Knitting could wait.

I again pushed myself at it yesterday, finally got it far enough along to spread it out to see…  And saw.  The screamingly obvious goof my brain had been trying to tell me about all along.  Too many stitches done too plain at the edges=stockinette=curling. A total beginner’s mistake, even in a limp yarn.  How on earth could I have thought I could let that slide…?! With a yarn that expensive, you do it and you do it right.

I frogged it to zero.

It is now happily almost knitting itself, humming along, the yarn perfect and the design is too now and it was hard to put it down long enough to come over here and blog about it.  I now know that it adds just the slightest, just ever so slightest, most demure peachfuzz effect that totally heightens the joy of the project when you frog this yarn. It’s gorgeous.  You should knit a whole shawl, rip it out, and knit it up again. Really. You should. You’ll love it.  Honest.

(Seriously: this is nice stuff.)

They must have seen me coming: there’s a pull-out section in the road to the post office with room for a few cars to park and take pictures of the birds in the Baylands sanctuary there.   But they already had the cones set up to block that.

So no, there was no place to stop and take pictures of the herd of goats (so little! So cute!) chomping on the dry brush at the edges there, bringing down the fire hazard, and having been by there a few days earlier, my goodness can those things eat! A few were resting in the cattails, curling up with a good baaaa-k. It was certainly not my everyday sight.

On my way home again, just to top off the trip, there was a car in front of me that made me laugh in sheer delight.

It was a Cadillac El Dorado.  Not a new one by any means (said the woman with the ’99 minivan). But whoever owns it clearly loves that comfortable car. It was as new looking as its first tenth of a mile, polished with pride, with that Cadillac emblem done up in shiny gold and thin, orange pinstripes going down the sides just so, the car itself a lovely, vivid purple. Not a scratch in sight.

With one of those metal fish emblems on the back, one with “Jesus” written in the center just to make it very clear who meant a lot to that owner.

He’d dressed his car in purple and had it carrying the Name in the Bible.

Whoever that African-American man was driving that car, I so wished I could have told him about that good Samaritan he reminded me of.   He would have loved it.

Remember when I said I was researching treadmills? Ruth, whom I usually only get to see at Stitches every February, blew me away by offering hers.

Today, then, was the day.  Having gotten the master cylinder crisis already over with and the car okayed by my mechanic, my husband took the back seats out, mine being the car that was big enough, and we drove it to a place Far, Far Away.  (Shrek-and-see Deutsch?)

Where Ruth picked out a shawl and got a chocolate torte (frozen beforehand to be safe) and made us lunch and her son helped load the thing up for us. Hardly a fair trade.

“We have to take pictures for Chan.”

You’re right, we do.

She wanted me to model her shawl. Well, okay, blues with blue.

Never hand the husband the camera while teasing him.

Dear, wait–okay, could you take another one?  I think you got me at a bad moment. (As in, I *know* you did.)

“But the battery’s almost dead!”

I should have said, And we would need that battery for… what?…before we got home?

Oh. Right. Got to show those Central Valley tomato trucks, where you wonder about the ones at the bottom of that mound–now *there’s* a store-bought tomato for you! We tried to get closer, but there was a traffic jam and just no way to pass nor ketchup to it.

In Heinz-sight, it was probably for the jest, though.

(And yes, we did crank up that treadmill fast enough to flip me off the back, just to see if we could. But I’m ketchingup quickly.)

Thank you, Ruth!!!

He spoke in church today. He’s a young doctor who had just gotten back from a medical mission to Africa, and I know his wife was anxiously waiting his return. I asked if I could share his story here, and he told me warmly, Yes.

It was Sunday and he was in a city. He asked at his hotel whether there might perhaps be a Mormon church nearby?

The familiar in a strange place, the chance to worship with others where the Sacramental prayers are the same, no matter the language, all over the world.

Oh yes; just take a cab to the subway, get out at this stop, turn and go up the hill, you’ll see it, it’s right there.

He got off at that subway stop to find himself in a place where he, a white man dressed in a tie, felt suddenly very conspicuous. It was not a good end of town. And he clearly was not from there.  He was Other.  There was no sign of that church whatsoever, no safe haven.

In those moments, another man stepped off the subway. “He was wearing a purple shirt and carrying a Bible.”  That man was on his way to church too, and when asked for directions stopped and spent twenty minutes going out of his way to walk the stranger to where he was trying so hard to get to, befriending him and, by his actions, proclaiming the love of God in the world. By living that love.

And then he headed off to his own church.

The language is universal: when we choose not to be strangers, we are, I said to him and his wife, each other’s angels.

Funky computer glitch. Many thanks to the resident geek who saved the day-ta daah, and it is quarter to midnight.  So this is it for tonight.

I cast this on on Monday night. It is yet another open-at-the-front circular shawl, done on size 5.5mm needles, 23″ long lying flat and will lengthen out from its weight a bit the moment I pick it up–in other words, it is Friday night and it is now done and blocking.

Now, to get that much done that fast, I iced my hands at the first twinge, several times a day as needed. I wore the splints at night that I have for years, custom-fitted by a physical therapist to keep my hands from curling and tensing up in my sleep.  (Being allergic to aspirin, this is a necessity for me.)  I took frequent breaks, consciously putting the needles down at the end of every row or two whether I felt like I needed to or not.

Had I not, I would still be recovering just from Tuesday’s knitting for several weeks’ worth of inflammation. But I did just fine, and I can’t wait to dive into the next project with that intensity. (Why, yes, my nest did empty Monday. Funny you should mention. Overcompensating? Me?)

BlueIce ice packs are a great invention.

Last night at Purlescence, I did express some reservations about the yarn being very soft but a bit thicker than I’d have preferred. It’s Zegna Baruffa, which I think is the softest merino laceweight out there, multi-plied into a heavier yarn for Colourmart.

Yeah well. Just add water and there you go. I love it. It’s perfect.