I love this one. The picture of the little white flower on the plant looks so much like something you’d see growing around here; they did say it’s a very adaptable species.

Somewhere still in my brain is the formula for figuring out how old something is by the half life of the amount of carbon still left in it.

Thirty thousand years in carbon-dated rock sediment ago, a squirrel dug down and tucked away seeds and fruit in its burrow in Siberia. I love that they described the little den as the size of a soccer ball; when I was a kid, I had one of those hamster balls and the pet to match bumping into the furniture while I kept it away from the stairs.

I can just picture my own squirrels strutting around proudly, tails high, to say they always knew their work was important. See, there’s a reason they steal every apple from my two trees! Just helping future researchers do their work.

But I rather wondered if the original article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences actually mentioned soccer balls and put its measurements in the colloquial like that. The Washington Post doesn’t say the scientists sprouted a seed; it says they produced the fertile plant from the fruit, in ways the reporter didn’t try to describe.

I can just picture the reporter thumbing through their copy trying to figure out the jargon and how on earth to talk about it.

I’ve done likewise. The scientific articles presented in that top-rated journal are well beyond my expertise. They offer the culmination of many years’ studying and learning and hard work. Not to mention the joy of having discovered something new.

Which I know, because they also published our Sam.

A certain subject in the news seems to me to show that certain people need a wider perspective. Rep. Joe Walsh says, “This is about religious freedom.” But there is also freedom from someone else’s religion that pertains, especially re an employer that accepts government money.

And so I share this memory:

Thirty years ago, we were living in a married grad student apartment complex, a set of four buildings facing each other with playground equipment for small children in the middle. There were several of these.

And quite a few of the women in our courtyard started getting hang up phone calls that summer. So many that it began to become a subject mentioned and oh yeah me too and talked about around our little playground.

What we did not know is that he apparently wanted to know who was home when: the one single mom who lived there (just one; doesn’t that sound quaint?) was being stalked. Till the day he broke into her ground-floor apartment through her window and threatened to kill her young daughter sleeping in the other bedroom if she didn’t cooperate. She was raped by a man she had never seen before.

She called the police after he was gone and was transported to the local hospital, where they examined her–

–and then refused to do anything to make sure she hadn’t gotten pregnant in the last half hour or so. The ambulance had taken her to the local Catholic hospital.

She had to find her own transport from there in the middle of the night to the other one in town to clean off that man’s filth.

That could have been any one of us at any time and we women knew it.

There was no way she wanted a child of hers to have to accept how it had been conceived. Or to be from that man’s gene pool, and on into the generations to come. No way she wanted to have to tell her small daughter why she was going to be a big sister now–can you imagine trying to explain that one to a four-year-old?! And no way she was going to let a violent rapist dictate the rest of her life and her child’s and possible future children’s.

“A bad man hurt my mommy” –I have never forgotten that phrase–and in their own home is a heavy enough burden for a young girl to grow up with.

Now. I am not a Catholic, granted, and my own church calls abortion not murder but rather “like unto it,” to be avoided if at all possible. There are times when that is not possible–you cannot grow and produce a living baby from a mother who has died of the pregnancy.  But in a situation like this one, when there isn’t even a single cell dividing into two yet, to me there is no question she did what she had to do.

But whatever choice a woman may make or may have to make, that woman is to be loved and supported unconditionally, as are we all.

I understand where people like Rick Santorum are coming from, believing that all life is sacred. I feel that yes; yes, it is. But it is also messy, and I feel that must be taken into account.

I guess I am still incensed that a half hour later, when conception probably hadn’t even taken place yet… (And yes, the ambulance driver totally blew that one.)

I want to tell all those men who testified in Congress on the subject of contraception–this wasn’t even about abortion but contraception!–allowing no woman to give any opposing viewpoint, that I will do everything I can to vote them out of power and out of office.

The other part of my neighbor’s story? Her bike was stolen, too. Another neighbor reassured her that some men are good and kind by giving her his, a good one, even though we were all grad students living on nearly nothing and that was his main transportation. It was what he could do.

Earlier, someone had given us their window air conditioning unit when they’d moved away; our baby had had heat rash, it being 108 humid degrees in our upstairs apartment, and they wanted to make our lives easier, since theirs were immediately about to be so with their graduation and new job to go to. Here. Take this.

About a week after that event that devastated us all, and just before we ourselves moved away, we gave that AC unit to that single mom. Not only were she and her daughter going to be far more physically comfortable with it: nobody was going to be able to break through that window again without first making enough noise for her to be able to call for help.

It was what we could do.

Somehow a conversation this afternoon meandered to a random point that seems to have been exactly the right thing.

I had some friends over. I happened to mention that I’d learned, oh, decades ago, about a study done in California where the researchers wanted to find out who married whom and why. They tested many couples for all kinds of abilities and quizzed them on what kinds of things they liked, how they saw the world.

After sifting through thousands of results, there was one thing and only one thing that was true nearly across the board. Not religion, not race, not background.  The answer was so striking that I have never forgotten it.

Klutzes tended to marry klutzes. Coordinated people tended to marry coordinated people.

And in the couples where one was one way and the other the other, there tended to be accusations of Why can’t you be more careful! Responded to with Why are you being so judgmental? Can’t you tell I’m doing my best!

And somehow my saying that was exactly what one of the two women I was talking to needed to hear: Yes! Finally! It all made sense! She was the klutz in her marriage, and she was grateful to hear me say I very much was one too, though in my case I did marry a fellow klutz. It does make it easier.

Those researchers shared their results with at least some of their participants, as I remember, and were gratified at finding that quite a few mixed couples thereby came to a much better understanding of each other at last, where in some cases there had been great friction. Peace was created and in one case a marriage was actually saved.

Now if only I could go tell those people who spent the time to participate and those researchers back in I think the 1970’s that now, in 2012, their work continues to help others.

Understanding ourselves and one another clears the path for love.

“What is your name?” she asked me.

My friend Becca had put out the word to a few of us that her neighbors were halfway across the world from home and were having their first baby. We had all been first-time parents ourselves; we knew everybody needs their mom when they’re coping with a newborn for the first time. You love them more than life itself and it is so very sweet an experience–but it is all so totally new for you and for the baby itself, who is learning to adjust to this day/night thing, needing to be held, fed, changed, bathed, wrapped, sung to, held some more, the parents needing time simply to take in the wonder that is this brand new human being who sometimes manages to get both eyes to look in unison straight into your own and into your whole soul.

We weren’t the grandmother. But at least we could help. Being a bunch of Mormons, we did the Mormon cultural thing: we signed up on Becca’s list to take turns bringing dinner for the new mom and dad to help them not have to worry about spending time buying or preparing food (or at least, not so much) while needing to hold their baby. Let the parents just be parents for a little while.

It occurs to me that this is our version of sitting shiva, at the start of life rather than the end, although both are so needed in their own times.

For me this was also a chance to make food that Richard loves and I do too but that I can’t risk eating much of anymore since my colectomy. Split pea soup? A favorite, although I substituted out the ham for chicken (rotisseried by Costco, gotta have a little salt to it) for cultural if not religious dietary reasons for the couple.  It simmered away for two hours, filling the house with the peas and the carrots and the big onion.

Into a disposable/reusable snap container.

Blackberry cobbler. Got about a third of the 13×9’s worth onto a sturdy paper plate, covered with plastic wrap.

Now the question was how to walk from my car carrying this in one hand with a cane in the other and my funky balance and not dropping anything–and I had just seen a perfectly able-bodied man dropping his 18 ounces of blackberries across the floor earlier when I was buying mine. The only big box around was–well, here, I could slide the items in sideways since this two-milk-jug one seems to be all there is. And then close up the box in case I stumble. And then carefully open the box once I get there so that she doesn’t put it upright like it looks like it ought to be and scramble the cobbler all over.

I got there. I rang the bell. A beautiful new mom with her dark-haired newborn over her shoulder answered, apologizing for her dog’s barking, saying it had become protective of the new baby.

Protective is good! I affirmed, hooking my cane over my arm to get it out of the way and getting that box open to show her what was inside, along with my card tucked in there: if she needed to ask any questions about what was in the food I wanted her to be able to reach me.

The dog was not convinced I was friendly. It helped keep the visit short; I put the food down where the woman asked, just inside the door. The baby was SO cute. (And so tiny! You forget how small they start…)

Such a short moment in our lives. And so important. Welcome to the world, little one! Welcome to motherhood, to the mom: we’re all here for you. We understand.

I am so glad I didn’t let the chance run away from me undone.

Any mention of that group brings back the fierceness of great loss. They came, and I wrote here about how proud I was of the children in our community in their responses.

The last line in that post has proven to be true.

My sister Marian writes of what happened when they announced they were going to protest at a funeral in her town today.  The Powell boys.

I don’t know who that radio announcer is, but when I find out I’m going to thank him for his act of great compassion and humanity. And I thank the people who came to that church for theirs. Well done. So very well done. I’m so sorry for their losses. And so grateful for the great goodness in so many.

IdiditIdiditIdidit, it’s soft, it’s pretty, it’s blocking, it’s done, I really like how it turned out and now I’m free to go knit something else for someone else. Yay!

If I can’t fix everything, it’s nice to have just this one thing, this knitting thing, that always turns out the way I want if I spend enough time on it. I can make it behave to help let the rest that is life be what it will.

Thank you all for all your messages of love and support.  Each note, each quiet prayer within or Thinking Good Thoughts, each one of you has been greatly appreciated. Wishing you all blessings in return.

One of my husband’s co-workers saved a New York Times article a week ago and sent it home with him, wondering what we would think of it.  Front and center was all about what their food writer had declared to be Mormon cooking.  There was a big picture captioned “updated funeral potatoes,” a take on that classic dish for feeding a big crowd that was a novelty to the co-worker but not so much to us.

No I do not cook with canned cream of anything soup myself. Go for the classic au gratin here if anything, thanks. The writer would have you believe that means we’re a generation removed from living in Utah.

Actually, that part is true.

Meantime, a lot of life suddenly got squeezed into the last two days, too much. I hereby request a breather for a few, I thought earlier today.

And then I got exactly that. I got to meet DebbieR; she’s a peach. She was in the area briefly and we met up at Purlescence.

I opened that door, she was two steps away on the other side of it, she came towards me recognizing my face from the blog and told me she was Debbie and I instantly felt in the presence of a true friend. Everything there confirmed it totally. I feel so blessed.

She was traveling with some friends who were very good about waiting for us as we caught up as if we’d always known each other.

After they all left, I knitted quietly for awhile on a baby hat, getting my Sandi-Nathania-Kaye fix, and then excused myself: I needed to go home to babysit the phone I could hear on and my PC’s inbox.

I had gotten a message from Sam earlier: with ITP and lupus, there are episodes where you just hold your breath and pray real hard.  The last message we got sounded better; we’re hoping she gets a new med approved and that it will work because honey right now nothing else does.

Debbie had offered her to knit her fingerless gloves in her choice of color. Sam was thrilled. Debbie asked me if a lace pattern would allow too much UV exposure. Debbie is thoughtful and careful in addition to being generous with her time.

How do you thank someone who looks out for your child  and takes her into her heart as if she were her own? A shoutout to DebbieR: Thank you. It doesn’t begin to say it.

And yesterday.

My friend Andrea asked me a few weeks ago to make two chocolate tortes for her; sure. She brought me some of the ingredients, the most important to me being the manufacturing cream, because it is sold in an open-air store that has sun exposure issues for me.

So I had the rest of that half gallon of cream afterwards.  You can’t just leave it there. I baked. A spare torte ended up in the freezer.

Every time I asked Richard if he’d like it for xyz, for this group or that, for us to munch on or… ?, he would answer, not yet. No, let’s wait. No, let’s leave it in there for now. I thought I had good reasons to share it and free up the space; he just didn’t feel…

Okay, no problem. There was no rush.

Yesterday that co-worker’s wife got a call in the morning: her father had passed. She went off to work: where she was told she was being laid off after 27 years. She went to the doctor: she got told that yes, that was probably basal cell cancer.

She has a bandaid now for the part they could fix.

Richard asked his co-worker today to be sure. Then he asked me.

Oh honey absolutely yes.

And that is how the chocolate torte that Andrea made to come to be became a gift of friendship and community at the moment it was most needed.  Without my even having to go out in the sun to make it for them–I know how much that couple likes those tortes. It was something I could do. Did do, all ready.

They stood there in the dark in front of their house this evening, holding it gratefully, inhaling the thawing chocolate.

I thanked them for saving the article. We joked wryly over funeral potatoes. I told them chocolate torte was my real Mormon cooking.

An article in the New York Times about the construction of the new Bay Bridge prompts this post. It says that the old span was built in the 1930’s and was not designed to withstand a big quake, with a picture of the short fallen section from October 1989 to prove their point.

I am here to take issue with that for Brother Brossard’s sake. (I’m not sure I’m spelling his last name right.) He knew.

You may remember my occasional posts about the December Club, the once-a-year potluck brunch certain members of my ward (congregation) throw ourselves in celebration of having a birthday at the time that everybody else is worrying about Christmas.

When we first moved here twenty-five years ago, Louis Brossard was the elder of the group; I remember him as a sweet man, frail and old and kind. I remember him playing a bit on a harmonica year to year.

When the Loma Prieta quake happened, I found out at that year’s party that he had been one of the engineers working on the original Bay Bridge. He said it was designed not to fall into the Bay in hard shaking and that it did exactly what it was supposed to do–just one short segment took the brunt of it and went down while the rest stayed up, saving countless lives at rush hour. He also noted with definite pride that *his* section of the bridge had not fallen!

The last time he came to our group, he lifted that harmonica to his lips, looking almost too tired to from the effort of getting ready to come join us that morning, and he could not summon the breath to sound that first note. He was crushed. He tried again; there was just not enough wind in him to share the music only he could hear now.

I knew then, but so much didn’t want to know.

Very soon after, he was moved from the home he’d lived in forever to an assisted living place. We talked on the phone a few times; he so missed his garden, his passion in his widowed retirement.

I immediately resolved to bring him flowers to tend.

I went to the local nursery, trying to find something not too heavy, not needing too heavy a cup of water, and bought a small potted plant of bright, happy color, the first few flowers ready and blooming to cheer him as he watched the rest open up. A perennial, to make a statement that I wanted him to enjoy them the next year, too, and the next, and the next, and. I called and arranged a time to come over.

But an assistant had gotten him into the shower (I’m guessing on their schedule rather than his) at the time I arrived and then the person had left him for a moment. I knew he knew I was coming, but he didn’t answer the door. I was hearing impaired, he was more so; I knocked louder. I waited, wondering what to do; there was no one in sight to ask for help. At last I left the little pot in front of his door, praying it would be seen and not tripped over.

When I got home, I called again to make sure the little blossoms might cause no harm, knowing how frail he was. He told me he had called out to me, but there was nothing he could do on his own to get to that door just then; he’d gotten those flowers, though, loved them, loved the thought behind them, and wanted very much to thank me.

He was a gem.

And I never got to see him again.  Those flowers outlasted him.

Whenever I see the Bay Bridge, all these years later, always, I think of Louis Brossard.

The old eastern span will be totally gone when the new work is all done.

And I wish I knew how to play Taps on a harmonica.

You have to post that story, Holly told me.

I was sure I already had. But using every search phrase I could think of on the blog, I’m not finding it. So here goes.

They were about to move away, and I know how the impending sense of loss at such times brings friends closer together and the emotions high.

I was talking a moment to Curtis, the husband, at church on I think their last Sunday before they left California, and in that conversation, he started to say something about an afghan his grandma had knit him.

Only, with such a sudden halting sense to his voice that I immediately picked up on it and went, “Does it need to be repaired? I’d be glad to,” before he said another word, hoping I wasn’t getting myself into too much.

The relief and joy and sudden hope in his face!

When he’d been in high school, his grandma had offered to knit him an afghan. Anything he liked; his choice. Years later telling me this, he said, And I asked for black. I had no idea what I was asking of her.

I smiled and nodded that yes, black stitches are hard to see to work with and really hard as you get older. I sympathized with Grandma with him.

But she had knit it because she loved him and he had been thrilled. He held it all the more closely when she died, love meeting loss and finding warmth in the dark places.

And then his cat had gotten to it. It was torn in four spots. He was heartbroken and had no idea what to do with it except to put it in the closet and hope that at some point in the future something somehow could be done.

I would be honored to give it my best, I told him.

And so later he swung by the house with it, knocking on my door to hand it over. One look and I told him, Oh, good. This won’t take very long at all, if you don’t mind waiting.

His wife was in the car with their two little kids, who were sick, and they hadn’t wanted to expose me so they’d stayed in there and he didn’t want to leave them waiting alone and not knowing how long I’d be.

Well then. I picked up my yarn needle and, afghan in hand, walked out to the sidewalk next to their car and plunked myself down. Let the kids wave hi and watch if they want, and besides, I wanted to see them and his wife every moment I could.

The afghan had been fairly loosely knit out of a nice, soft wool. That looseness made it vulnerable to a good cat-claw snag and there were long pulls in it–all I had to do was work the yarn back into the sides to where it belonged, here, here, here, and a little bit over down here. Not a single break.

I told him he had done the right thing: he hadn’t lopped off the loops and that had saved it.

The whole thing took maybe five minutes. There was such an intense joy the whole time. Curtis, Jenna, the kids, getting a little extra time with them before they left–but it was also as if his grandma herself were standing chuckling over my shoulder, glad to see her work restored to go hug the great-grands with.

I was talking to a friend today and showed her a quick sequence of shots of Parker on his birthday: face coated in cupcake and grinning with his mom, then contemplating whether to eat more or smash more, then arms thrown high in delight: Taadaah!

She loved it; then she showed me her niece and nephews on her own Iphone.

Oh cool!

She flipped through a few and then stopped at one of her eight-year-old niece, the oldest, running happily in front of the incoming tide. She told me why she loved this photo so much.

Her brother and his family had been visiting recently and it was the first time his kids had seen the ocean. His little girl kept running after the receding water, then running back in to the beach just in front of its return, over and over and over and over, till finally my friend asked her what she was doing? (Clearly there was a perspective here that the adults weren’t quite in on, and she wanted to know.)

“I’m playing tag with the ocean!”

The anti-tumor-necrosis-factor drug that saved my life in ‘03 blocks one of the body’s ways of fighting off cancer cells.

I’ve had nearly nine years since then. I’ve spent the last three days considering how good a tradeoff that risk was and how glad I am that that drug gave me that time.  While expecting more: remembering the time we passed a flock of newly-sheared sheep along Highway 5 on our way to southern Cal, when our youngest whined unexpectedly into the quiet of the car, “We’re not STOPPING, M o o o o o mmmmm!”

Hang onto that thought.

Tuesday, in OB-GYN, I guess the doctor felt I was being a little too blithe about the whole thing and had to make sure I understood that this…was what was normal and this…was what the ultrasound had showed. She did a biopsy, and wanting to be sure she had enough cells, did it again. She remarked that I had a high pain threshold.

Breathe deep.

I went home and read up on endometrial cancer and the studies on the survival-rate effectiveness (not!) of lymphadenectomy with clinically-observed and the most-common stage 1. Etc.

They told me I would get the results in a week and I was thinking better to wait less than you thought you’d have to than longer, right? And so I hoped it would turn out to be sooner than that ohpleaseohplease.

I got an email this morning asking me to sign into the clinic’s online site. Already? Oh good. I think. Took a deep breath, knowing it would either say what I hoped or else it would ask me to come in to be told the news in person.

Signed in. Went to my inbox there. Slow, slow motion, as if the whole thing were echoing the endless, dragging last three days.

Not even the doctor, just a note from her nurse. No cancer cells. No precancerous cells. No sign.

NO CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s a good thing Richard was still home so I had someone to dance with.

Michelle flies home from school tonight for her friend’s wedding. There is serious celebration to be had.

(Ed. to add: that drug was Remicade, and I was put back on it 8 months later for awhile, then three years ago Humira, an improved variant.)

When our kids were little, a trip to Urgent Care or the ER meant a stop at Rick’s Rather Rich on the way home for some of my husband’s patented Emergency Room Medicine, daddy style: made-on-the-premises ice cream, a special treat. There’s a wooden placard inside the little shop declaring, “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”

A million miles from Rick’s, our child with ITP ended up in emergency a few days ago.

And a friend there, having no idea we used to do that…showed up later in the day with ice cream to try to make things a little better.

(Ed. to add: my forever thanks to all those who can donate blood and do. You’re a life saver.)

I emailed that pharmacy last night and we went over first thing. They did still have Richard’s med and the pharmacist told us I was supposed to have been asked to verify the birthdate.

And then she looked and went, “Oh–but even the birthdate is very similar!” I was watching the clerk’s face yesterday and I didn’t hear or see it and I don’t think they did ask, but if they did, Richard pointed out, my hearing was an issue.

She very carefully marked both patient files so that staff would know next time. She thanked us for coming back and was about to send us on our way when I stopped her with, “Wait a minute–when they rang me up yesterday, I asked them, ‘Are you sure?’ I was thinking, that’s not enough, is it?”

And then I looked at the new bottle in my hand and told her how much we still owed her.

She thanked me yet again and told us again, as that got rung up, how glad she was that we’d come in. I imagine so.

But she really wanted to ask questions the moment Richard mentioned my hearing, and that delay seemed to have broken the ice for her: did I have any experience with Meniere’s? Yes I did. With rotational vertigo?  Yes, years ago.  Any other cause…? Yes.  Clearly she wanted to talk to someone else who knew what it was like to go through those kinds of symptoms; Richard gave her a twirling-room description with arms flailing that had her laughing.

And clearly she wanted to meet someone else about her own age who already wore hearing aids to reassure herself it would be okay to start considering them.

You know that I feel that if you need help hearing, get tested and get the help; it’s easier to start younger than older to retrain the brain to pick out voices from a crowd and sounds out of noise again. And it’s so much better just to be able to understand why things sound the way they do–you lose your high frequencies first so you lose the consonants but not the vowels.  Making no sense of speech makes sense once you know. So fix it.

I wonder if the other person mixing those bottles up was all part of a Plan unseen to help get her where she needs to be. Curious.

Picked up the hubby’s new prescription at the drug store. He got home, looked at it, did a doubletake and went, wait–that’s not the… then he read the super-fine print I hadn’t even seen.

Written in the very tiniest letters used only for that, there it was: wrong home address. Right name, wrong person, wrong med. And of course the place was closed by now. Who knows if the other guy came in too? If he did, he didn’t notice in time for the pharmacy to call us; I really hope he reads his prescription bottle and doesn’t just take something that may be very wrong for him. Egads.

Puts a new twist on the old Sandra Boynton birthday card: HIIPA birdies, two you’s.

Meantime, I finally got that hat mailed today and took pictures of it with my new Iphone. I love that the phone offers instructions as you go when it’s new, and I wonder if it keeps doing that after you’ve gone through those steps a few times?

(Totally stole that title from a comment by Becca’s husband.)

I’ve been hoping I can get over my cold fast enough to get to Jasmin’s baby shower this Saturday; her baby, long nicknamed Sharkbean in utero, was expected Jan. 25th.

I saw a FB note from my friend Becca, (side note to some friends: she used to live in our ward, yes, that Becca), that her doctor had told her this morning she was in early labor and to get to the hospital. Becca made a side trip to make sure her kids would be picked up from school, was coming down the freeway in the fast lane, and…

…blew a tire. Called AAA. Yeah, we’ll have someone out there in about an hour. Wait: you’re what?! “They called everybody,” and so Becca posted a picture of a handsome young fireman peering in her car window, who, she said, was very happy not to be delivering her baby.

She posted updates all day, laughing over outrageous name ideas, and while she was…

…Jasmin posted. Totally scooped her. At 4:07, her baby girl had arrived, safe and sound and beautiful!

Wait, what? That one’s not due yet!

Becca posted how labor isn’t boring anymore, she and her husband were watching a movie, waiting for the kid to get on with it. And then finally, at 9:32, another beautiful baby girl arrived into the world.

Back when I was at that stage, I had an obstetrician with a poster of a newborn with the caption, “A baby is God’s opinion that the world shall go on.”

The whole world is reborn in the face of a child. But don’t be surprised if she likes to play with toy firetrucks next Christmas. Or thinks she can grow little toothy fishes from the proverbial bean sprouting out of a filled dixie cup.

Welcome to the world, little sisters.