When you really need a warm comforting blanket
Friday January 31st 2020, 9:57 pm
Filed under: History,Knit,Politics

To quote Dana Millbank, who was in the press galley. This was just before the Republicans in the Senate voted to hear no witnesses and see no documents:

‘“Please don’t give up,” manager Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) urged. “This is too important.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) stuck a finger in his left nostril.’

—-

I’m never going to be able to think of this as anything but the impeachment blanket. It’s been quite a week, hasn’t it, but at least I got nearly all of this out of all of that.

Remember 1/31 on 11/3.

(Oh and just for fun, today, with appointments on the calendar for next week, we found out we have our first coronavirus case here. Treated at our medical clinic–just like during SARS, when it was California’s epicenter. Don’t touch the elevator buttons with your fingers, yay for tips of canes, and SARS got them to install hand purifiers at every landing.)



Favorite new photo
Thursday January 30th 2020, 11:10 pm
Filed under: Family

Our big strong son-in-law, holding five-month-old Lillian over his head with a big smile.

Just below him, Mathias, two and three quarters, with his favorite soft Shaun the Sheep toy, holding it high over his head and looking upwards with love.



Questions and answers part of the impeachment hearing
Wednesday January 29th 2020, 11:16 pm
Filed under: Food,History,Politics

Hours and hours of afghan rows as I watched.

Alan Dershowitz does the finger jabbing and the emphatic hands splayed, arms wide circular motions that darn if it didn’t make him look like a Bernie Sanders body double.

What came out of his mouth was utter nonsense. The President can do nothing wrong if he’s running for reelection because he thinks it’s for the good of the country and l’etat c’est moi and all that. (Yeah, that worked out so well for Napoleon and Nixon.) Truly: the President’s lawyers all argued that because he was the President he could do no wrong nor could he be held accountable in any way, including impeachment, ever. They waved away that whole pesky Constitution thing.

Adam Schiff was professional, smart as a whip, knew his stuff, and calmly went straight to the point, again and again. The others on his team were good but man he really nailed it each time. I fully expect him to be President someday, and we will be much better off for it when that happens.

And this was yesterday, but Mitt Romney broke the rules in the most rebellious-teenage-Mormon way possible: by both tradition and current decree, only water or milk in glasses may be drunk on the Senate floor during the proceedings.

He got an order flown in in dry ice from BYU Creamery and got caught drinking chocolate milk. From their bottle. (Product placement for his alma mater and all that for the old businessman.) Not exactly the letter of the law but with that triumphant grin that mothers of high schoolers everywhere know well.

So busted.



Out of a suitcase
Tuesday January 28th 2020, 10:54 pm
Filed under: History

One of our church leaders, tasked with coordinating relief efforts, said a few years ago, Their being refugees doesn’t tell you who they are. But how we respond tells us who *we* are.

I was reminded of that while scrolling through these pictures. Former refugees, one an artist, interviewing current ones and then making their words visible.

If you click on the individual boxes (about halfway down) you get their stories–and their hope–as well.

Wow.



Another good guy
Monday January 27th 2020, 11:02 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knitting a Gift

The friend I gave the five hats to, who promptly distributed four of them to his friends, dropped by for just a moment this evening with another friend in tow.

So I briefly put him on the spot by asking the guy, Now are you one of the friends who got one of my hats?

A quizzical, Hats?

So he turned that to the subject of–and here the two of them interwove various sentences to tell it–how our friend had gone running, had managed to spear his on a tree branch overhead, didn’t realize it wasn’t still on his head till later and he’d gone back and looked and looked and just couldn’t find it. Meantime, the second guy had gone running later, in the same place, had seen and recognized that hat and had snagged it and returned it to him. They were laughing at all the improbabilities that had happened for that to have worked out, but it had. Good times.

I grabbed my purse and checked: they were still in there. Good. I didn’t have to interrupt to go looking in the other room. I asked friend two if he’d like one of these?

He in great delight picked the foggy blue one. Now he had one of his own. Watch out for those tree branches!

They went off with the guy touching the new softness on his head in the chill of the evening, marveling and thanking and man that felt great.



Euell come back now, y’hear?
Sunday January 26th 2020, 11:13 pm
Filed under: Friends

The nine-month-old was batting a tiny hand at the back of the pew I was sitting on; I turned and smiled at him and played let’s touch fingers.

To my surprise, his dad asked, You want him?

Sure!

He handed him over and that cheerful little baby boy was just fine with that. There were glasses to grab–a novelty to him. Hair, too. Thankfully, he didn’t see the hearing aids.

My kids were tall and thin even as babies but not this little guy. He was giving my arms a workout.

He was quick to smile a big grin with a randomness of teeth. We made friends. His mother passed over a favorite toy, and very soon we were playing pick up the toy. He hasn’t learned how to say Uh-oh yet but he is so looking forward to the day.

We were a few minutes in before I felt the inner ping ponging and realized that the teething toy was a rattle, too, which had not occurred to me. Oops. Sorry everybody. I don’t think it was a loud one because nobody turned to look, but then, what do I know?

Maybe I should start stashing a cloth Quiet Book in my purse on Sundays.



Warm and cozy
Saturday January 25th 2020, 7:52 pm
Filed under: Knitting a Gift

The warm brown is dominant in real life–this is the one I was working on at the mechanic’s on Tuesday. It had been kicking around in my purse not quite all there yet ever since.

Sometimes you just need to go finish something.

So I did.



Trial by foyer
Friday January 24th 2020, 11:53 pm
Filed under: History,Knit,Politics

All those Senators risking, as is stated at the beginning of each session, imprisonment for leaving the chambers during the proceedings–it’s been reported that quite a few of the Republican ones have been wandering out to the cloakroom. They say it’s hard to sit still. They say the chairs aren’t ergonomic.

Well, okay, so the proceedings do go on and on, sure.

But didn’t you guys bring your knitting? I mean, look at this–I had all of half a diamond done on this when the trial started. My grandmother-in-law knit a wool herringbone jacket during long Congressional hearings where her husband was being grilled years ago. (He was head of a government agency, it came with the job.)

You can’t make anything with fidget spinners, guys!



Old enough for kindergarten
Thursday January 23rd 2020, 11:22 pm
Filed under: Mango tree,Wildlife

This is its year. There are tightly closed new buds everywhere and the tree is dense and wide. There will be fruit, (hopefully) lots of fruit. 2020 here it comes!

Assuming the cottontail rabbit (how did it get here?) that’s taken up residence in the bushes next to it doesn’t start to develop a taste for mangoes.

Which you know it will. And it can dig under the Sunbubble to get in.

Richard bought me not one but two new supersoakers, just to make sure I got one that was good enough.



Recovered
Wednesday January 22nd 2020, 10:38 pm
Filed under: Family,Friends,Knit

Cousin John told me about twenty years ago that he was allergic to wool. After his mother’s funeral in May ’18 I gave him a piano hat made of super-soft old-stash Epiphany yarn: royal baby alpaca, cashmere, and silk and no sheep. I’d remembered.

His parents had met playing in the Symphony and he was a gifted musician himself and that keyboard around his head was the perfect design for him. He was in great pain at the loss of his mom, whom he’d been caretaker to, but took much comfort in the offer of that hat and it meant a lot to me to be able to help in any way.

I told John’s sister that if one of the siblings wanted it that was fine with me but if not, I’d love to have it back if at all possible. She hadn’t seen it. I was given the executor’s phone number.
The man sounded absolutely overwhelmed. The loss, the pain, and now the burden. He was horrified to realize that he thought he remembered it but that he was thinking it had probably gone out in the trash with so much else. He apologized. “There was just so. much. stuff.”

I told him he didn’t have to look for it. But if he did find it not to worry at all about what condition it might be in—I would wash it. He didn’t have to. That was on me. And if I didn’t see it again, that’s okay, just know he had my thanks for all he was doing for our John whom he loved, too.

Monday while I was still in town after the funeral his sister Amy stopped by my mom’s house a few hours before I had to leave for the airport. She didn’t know who had found it nor where but she had the hat, she wanted to make sure I got it, and I think she wanted to see how happy it made me to get it back. So much more personal than popping it in the mail later. (She got a Malabrigo Mecha one, picking a pinks-and-purples colorway and leaving the two blue ones for the mechanic I didn’t know I was going to see the next day.)

It takes a fair bit to make animal fibers pick up smells and there wasn’t much of a one (blame the silk?) but there was some and it’s clean and drying now.

All the things that I knit, all the knits that I give away–that one I won’t again. That’s my Blueberry now.

Thank you, Stan out there. And Amy, and I don’t even know who all else to say that to.



The mechanic
Tuesday January 21st 2020, 11:21 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knitting a Gift,Life

That light gray-blue Mecha wool hat a few weeks ago that I didn’t quite get to finish while the garage worked on my tire?

Guess which idiot light came back on in the car?

Sure, you can bring it over right now, he said on the phone.

When I told him the tire light had blinked for several blocks on the way there before going solid, his own light bulb went off and he was glad I’d mentioned it so he knew what to check.

It was a different tire this time but it was also the sensor that tells the car about it. The car’s an ’07; he said the other three would probably start failing, too, but at least hopefully not all at once.

He’s such a gentle, kind man.

Today though he looked like the world was heavy on his shoulders, and all I could think of was how much he reminded me of my cousin John.

I hadn’t unpacked my purse from the trip yet. That hat he’d seen me working on the last time was in there. I also had a brighter blue one (London Sky) I’d knitted on the plane, with a third (Piedras) on the needles I’d started at the airport on the way home.

Again, I almost finished it before he called me over.

After he’d rung the work up I presented my own and offered him his choice. He was blown away. He picked the London Sky, and as he went to put it on his head I told him, “Happy Birthday!”

He looked at me in surprise: “Did you know it was my birthday?!”

Me, surprised but delighted: “No!”

“It was the 17th,” he said, “but, yeah, it was my birthday.” It was cold. He told me his ears were warm already and that he’d needed that. He told me his girlfriend was going to love it, so I asked his girlfriend’s favorite color and unlike quite a few men I’ve met he knew it without hesitation.

Pink? Suddenly I have an excuse to buy a skein of yarn. Twist my arm.

Anything I can do, when I know I can do at least that one small thing. John would want me to. Can you just picture the man’s happy anticipation towards making her happy once he gets it?

The way my tires are going, I’ll get everybody in the shop by the end of next month.



Blueberry
Monday January 20th 2020, 11:43 pm
Filed under: Family,Food

It was lovely and heartbreaking and heartwarming and full of music and love and belonging. My sister found a video that’s a close rendition to the last piece offered up at the funeral by the Salt Lake Men’s Chorus, whom John used to play piano for.

One cousin told of her toddler granddaughter’s love for Uncle John, who came by often and taught her to love blueberries when nobody else could get her to touch them. She liked his so much that he brought them every time after that to share some with her.

She was given the little toy stuffed dog he’d cherished as a memory of his mother and promptly named it Blueberry.

She went to sleep still holding it, woke up in the morning still holding it, and with nobody having told her any such thing pronounced:

“Blueberry, Uncle John gave you to me..  It’s okay, I will take care of you. Uncle John is far away, Uncle John is up in the stars.”



Heading out
Saturday January 18th 2020, 11:35 am
Filed under: Family

My cousin John’s obituary.

Just me going this time, some one on one time with my mom as well as the funeral. Back Monday.



Where’s a piano when you need one
Friday January 17th 2020, 10:56 pm
Filed under: History

Impeachment Polka, written for Andrew Johnson’s in 1868.

Who knew the proceedings had sound tracks back then?



Checking out volumes from the yarn library
Thursday January 16th 2020, 11:40 pm
Filed under: Family,Knitting a Gift

Projects. I do them one at a time and keep at it till they’re done.

Except when I’m about to be traveling, in which case forget it. Mecha yarn for airplane knitting, don’t forget the second circular for the tops of the hats, try to match the colors to whom I’ll be seeing and try to leave room for, y’know, the actual clothes in there.

And then a ziplock of no particular glory caught my eye.

In no way was that Rios planned much less thought of: black? Who wants to knit black stitches on a very dark rainy day? But suddenly I was going through my needles looking for short-corded 5s for it.

It had to be that patten. Fair isle, with one color twisted around the other for every single stitch and then the balls needing to be untangled 84 times per row in the midsection of the hat. It challenged my “I can do anything for ten rows.” It always does. I always do it. But not very often.

I’m done with that part now and I really like it.

I started out with it wondering which of my late cousin John’s friends it would be for and how would I even know if it was but shouldn’t I be making this for his three siblings but there’s just the one of it…when halfway through that section there was this definitive lightning-strike moment.

I knew, and how had I ever not known, and of course, and man I’m so glad this is almost done now so that for sure it’ll be ready in time. I’m so glad I had those colors not only in my stash but put together like that, waiting for me to catch up.

Which is all I’m going to say about it quite yet.