But they’re so cute
Sunday February 13th 2022, 10:40 pm
Filed under: Wildlife

Since there’s really not a lot I can do about them anyway.

The weeds that took over our yard these drought years ago have not been blooming this winter while normally by now they would be.

Flowers are tasty when you’re a rabbit.

“You’re going to have a lot of those, you know,” warned my daughter, looking at the usual two of them out there nibbling away.

We have a lot of weeds. Go get’em.

It helps that they’re adorable. Not to mention, they’ve figured out that we’re the ones in a cage, so if you thoughtfully look away when they look up to see if you’re doing the predator stare thing, they’ll go, okay, we’re good, and go back to landscaping the yard. So far, in the way I want them to, too! (We’ll see how long that lasts.)

I think I’ll order those anti-rabbit metal guard rings for the fruit trees after all.



Tsunami of tstitches
Saturday February 12th 2022, 10:40 pm
Filed under: Knitting a Gift,Life

Finished the intarsia section on the do-over and would have finished the hat but for the hands needing a break. It’s more stitches and smaller needles than my usual but after all the plain beanies it is deeply satisfying to do something complicated that the recipient is so looking forward to.

On a different subject: my late father-in-law was a lawyer for the Justice Department in his day and there was a case that he flew out west for to argue against a woman who had declared herself the inheritor, by long-ago treaty, of the entire San Francisco Bay and a lot of the surrounding land, from what he told me.

There’s a problem with that: Federal law says you cannot own navigable waterways. Sorry.

For that matter, in California you cannot claim to own the beach. The public must have access. A tech billionaire who wanted privacy took that to court and lost again and again, but the answer stayed no, as well it should. Splashing in the ocean is not for the rich only.

With that, then, I know these were built in 1960, but having the tide come in under your living room? Yeah it’s really cool, I grant you that; $2,649,000 for that view is not a surprise.

The stonework in the kitchen that echoes the flow and colors of the waves is just glorious. So well done.

But. But. One little offshore earthquake and your huge investment will be completely under water.



A new start
Friday February 11th 2022, 9:11 pm
Filed under: Garden,Knitting a Gift,Wildlife

It’s February. It hit 80F.  This is not normal. The air conditioning kicked on. I realized I had done repeats of 13, not 14 on the hat project and it was totally not working and after wishing for about two seconds for it to be something other than what it was, I started the ripping back, unwinding the tangling intarsia work slowly, slowly. I knew better and yet I’d done it wrong anyway. All I’d needed was to be a little less sure of myself and doublecheck. Well, okay, now I have.

But then seeing the first three peach flowers of the year opening up by evening and all the buds ready to pop where there had been nothing but gray dormancy a few days ago was just so joyful that it made up for everything, and I can’t wait to see how that tree looks tomorrow.

And the next tree. And the next one.

I chased away a squirrel that wanted to snack on the little pinknesses. Some things never change.

 



Say that again?
Thursday February 10th 2022, 10:55 pm
Filed under: Life

I got sent to a new doctor today, someone who was evaluating whether I should be in a sleep study; the referring doctor wanted to cover all the bases.

Masks are still required here.

I warned the nurse about my hearing and the lipreading being blocked and even mentioned that I’d given some thought to cochlear implants; when I started to tell the doctor, his eyes smiled and he told me, Yes, I’ve heard.

His voice was helpfully low-pitched but he had to repeat himself a few times, and after a few minutes he finally asked me with both compassion and a giving-it-to-me-straight the line he’d clearly said many times before: “Have you considered getting hearing aids?”

It was all I could do not to fall on the floor laughing. Dude, you are 36 years late to that party. I have a veritable museum of the technological advances over the years, including the 1986 pair whose squealing feedback every time my hair crossed my ears actually cost me 15 dB permanently. Thankfully they don’t make them like that anymore. But what I said was, “I have them–or there would be *nothing*. We’re talking 100, 110 dB.”

Bless him, he knew what that meant. So many people don’t. He did a small “wow!” and okay, then. I didn’t say, well I’m still at 85 and 90 in the lower frequencies, having made my point that I am emphatically not one of those old people being vain and avoiding the things and deliberately making myself miss out on human interaction.

“What happened?”

I told him I’d overdosed on baby aspirin as a toddler when Mommy wasn’t looking and set up an allergic reaction to it and it was years before anybody connected the growing loss not to fevers but to NSAIDs.

Ah…

And I went out of there randomly chuckling all the way home. Have I thought about… Right. Yes, yes I think I have.

But at least I was able to reassure him that loud noises don’t keep me up at night.



I mean, they’re pretty, but
Wednesday February 09th 2022, 9:55 pm
Filed under: Family,Knitting a Gift,Life

(Found the second color I was looking for, found the needles, and most importantly, the brain cleared from those falls to remember how I did it, so Emily’s replacement hat can finally begin.)

Warning: the rest of this post is a Get Off My Lawn.

I was googling to make sure I was understanding a particular architectural term correctly: floating. Because it was being applied to something that I didn’t think was, in order for the realtor’s listing to sound fancy.

Personally, I would say the correct word for this type of staircase has more to do with a direction and an article of clothing men don’t wear save with bagpipes in hand and kilt hose, myself. Do these bother other people?

Taking it further, I don’t know if it’s still there since they did some remodeling a few years ago, but we were invited to the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco with my folks by my cousin when they were in town and it was new.

The floor of the top floor was glass–if I remember right, in alternating stripes of opaque and clear. But what about earthquakes?! All that potential falling glass not to mention people. Wearing a skirt and looking down at the crowds below looking up, I emphatically did not linger. I did not wish to be Exhibit A. I did not want to be reminded of fourth and fifth grade when all the girls learned to layer up with shorts under their skirts in defense against those boys whose behavior was not corrected by the teachers nor staff.

I most certainly had opinions on what the gender of that architect had to be. I’m sure it just never occurred to him.

Or worse, it did.

I’ve been to the post-earthquake DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park since then, but not that one.



Just fabulous
Tuesday February 08th 2022, 10:42 pm
Filed under: Family

While we’re talking about art, my dad, who wrote, “The Fabulous Frauds: Fascinating Tales of Great Art Forgeries” would have fallen over laughing if he’d read this guy’s sales pitch. Napolean’s Talisman? That suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and with a story like that? Yeah, right, dude.

(Dad got sued by one of the forgers and the man’s story and a few others got dropped from a later edition, so, should you be interested, only buy the earlier Weybright and Talley edition of the book, as linked to. Chapter 13 I believe. Him.)

You put those two paragraphs together and I am my father’s daughter, aren’t I. (As I hit ‘Publish.’) Hey, all publicity is good publicity, right?



Fine art
Monday February 07th 2022, 8:14 pm
Filed under: Family,Life

I have questions.

I got in the habit in my teens of walking several miles a day, and so there were a few times where I really stretched my legs and walked past whatever house used to be where this one is now. If memory serves, my older siblings’ friend Frances’s father was the original developer. (Or was that the next block up.)

So who…thought this was how they wanted it to be now?

Ten thousand-plus square feet, but only half of them finished. You can’t have a garage. The wallpaper in one bathroom is peeling away and the print on it is oak grain painted pink. I know, that was a thing when I was a kid, but it’s been years since I’ve seen the like.

A mansion built in 1985 and it had Formica? Are those cabinets Ikea? A lucite towel rack from the late ’60s when that was a hot new thing?

On the other hand, picture #15 has an excellent yarn storage system in place, bar none.

It says the flooring is carpet, hardwood, and marble, and a lot of it surely is, but honey I recognize that by-the-roll vinyl pattern in the kitchen because I saw it in the showroom in ’95 and didn’t want it in mine.

But what really threw me? Was picture #5. On the left.

I’ve seen that before.

I had to walk into the other room to look at mine to compare. Surely that’s an Anne painting. My sister. From the tour of Europe with our art dealer dad where she came home and painted so many of the cityscapes she’d seen. That’s how Dad liked to frame them, too, and her work was some of his most popular. There are several more shown less clearly that could be as well.

So that explains the mystery of the rest of the house: they’d spent their money where it mattered.



Emily’s turn
Sunday February 06th 2022, 10:44 pm
Filed under: Family,Knitting a Gift,Life

The sunlight only had a few minutes left and I excused myself from my knitting group Zoom a moment to step outside to cover the mango tree to hold in the warmth from the incandescent Christmas lights; it was 34F this morning, and since I had had it professionally pruned on Friday, I could only assume the cuts would make it a little more vulnerable right now. If it freezes it dies.

I always try to do that really carefully because those covers are big, it’s an awkward process, and it’s easy to trip on them. Not to mention I have no sense of balance.

I was not remembering that I must never be distracted nor in a hurry at this.

I found where my shoe had ended up as I took the measure of the outcome. Nothing seemed broken. Fingers unhappy. The rest will let me know (and it’s starting to.) I found myself unexpectedly a bit dizzy. Having fallen four days ago tripping over a box at the front door, one big toe was going, Are you kidding me. Again?

I came back inside and found myself suddenly short of breath as I was turning the camera back on to my friends. I didn’t say anything to them and in fact kept knitting the plain beanie I was working on thank you left hand but I did confess to my family after it was over.

I got me a loving but stern talking-to from both of them. I got lectured on the value of me vs the tree. I got told to be careful. (I know, I know.)

Tonight’s the coldest night in the forecast for the next ten days, and things should be warming up from there so hopefully we’re done dealing with this for the season.

And then.

I got a wonderful note back from my niece re the afghan I’d just finished for her daughter whom she’d given my name as her middle name: she is thrilled, it is gorgeous, and by airplane or mail, by whatever means they will all be very very happy when it comes.

She, hesitating and unsure in the asking, had one request, though: I had once knit her a hat and she had loved it very much. She didn’t quite want to say it but her mom/my sister had encouraged her and said she should, and–would it be possible I could knit her another one like that? Because it had been just so perfect and it had meant a lot to her. She had checked the Lost and Founds everywhere. It was distinctive, but no, they hadn’t seen it.

Her email yanked me right out of my self-pity and straight into happy anticipation at such an easy way to make her world right again. I’d needed that. The afghan needs the security of arrival by air by me after Omicron gets out of here, but seventy stitches’ and about fifty rows’ worth of a hat: that, I’d be willing to trust the post office with.

My left hand might want to wait a day or two to start.

But not if I have any say in it.



Mutari chapter
Saturday February 05th 2022, 9:49 pm
Filed under: Family,Food,Friends

I got a heads-up from a dairy-allergic friend two days ago: Mutari Chocolate‘s building is being torn down and they were being forced to move, without a place to land yet. Go, she said. Valentine’s is their last day.

NO! Oh, man…

And so the three of us headed over the hills to Santa Cruz to support Michelle’s favorite chocolate maker. Their stuff is pricey–but extremely good. And safe for her to just simply go and eat out like a normal person, which has been such a gift for her.

I feel like I’m out of practice after these past two years, but I wanted to thank them and support them and encourage them in whatever may come next. So I grabbed four Malabrigo Mecha hats knit of many a Sunday Zoom session and managed, from the back seat, to thread a yarn needle and run the ends in on the three that needed it, despite the steep twists and curves of Highway 17 through the mountains.

We knew it might well be our last chance. We knew we were going to splurge.

That turned out to be a definite understatement.

The chocolate machinery in that place, the music, and of course the masks are all not conducive to my hearing much at all in there and I’ve always just been the pleasant but deaf mom picking out what I want and letting the others have their conversations. But this time the familiar face of one woman lit up when she saw me–and not only did it mean the world to me, in that moment I felt how much having to let go of this place and our coming at this time meant to her.

And that answered my inner question right there. Yes.

And so the purse was opened and I asked her to pick a color. She exclaimed and chose the one in soft purples and browns that could be cacao pods by the colors. Perfect. I suddenly wished I had more of those to offer.

The woman behind her picked a bright blues and greens mix.

Did I see someone working in the back? I asked.

Yes. And so the first woman picked one out for that woman, too, and walked over to that room to share it.

It was my Don’t Go parting gift. My pleading of Please Make It Back Here. Even though Santa Cruz rent is crazy.

They are going to tour some of the farms around the world that grow their cacao beans and then come back here and start searching for a new spot.

They do, in fact, have a second location: in Watsonville, so their website will remain up and running during what is hopefully just an interim.

I was so glad I had a way to say thank you for all the chocolate and the welcoming and the allergen conscientiousness that’s been so freeing for our daughter.

Who, as she drove us back north, said with both wishing and hesitation, Watsonville. That’s…quite a drive.

Yes, but note that at least your cousin does live near there.



Done.
Friday February 04th 2022, 6:36 pm
Filed under: Knit,Knitting a Gift

Morning light somehow captures the color best so far.

For my own notes: two strands of dk Cashwool in Mulberry (sold out) from Colourmart, two 900 gram cones with 208 and 162g remaining but that includes 32 grams for the plastic cones they’re wound onto, size 8 needles, 239 stitches per row and could have been wider but with lots of sideways stretch it will definitely do.

Definitely.



Report card
Thursday February 03rd 2022, 11:40 pm
Filed under: Knit

The recycled cashmere sweater bought with LLBean Bucks came yesterday and I’ve been wearing it today.

So here goes.

The fit is quite generous, allowing for shrinkage I’m guessing; I would have bought a small rather than a medium had I tried them on in a store, except that the sleeves are inexplicably on the short side. Long enough to work out okay for me personally, though, since my arms are slightly short, too, but it made me not return it to exchange sizes.

I took a close look at the distribution of blue vs white in the heathered yarn: both front and back have slightly more white at upper left. Go figure. Not that anyone’s likely to notice it, though, it’s definitely not much of a difference. Overall, I would say the color distribution is surprisingly good considering the likely randomness the fibers took in getting to that point.

It’s garter stitch, and I’m trying to figure out if that’s why the fabric seems–I want to say more floppy than the usual. I’m not sure how strong the yarn would be if I were knitting it and I’m guessing less so than one straight from the goat.

But it will do. It will definitely do. I like it. I mean, it’s cashmere and the shade of blue turned out to be just what I wanted.

But if I were given a choice between recycled yarn and not (and they generally seem to be close in price on Colourmart) I’m definitely going with the not.



The gift of the Magis
Wednesday February 02nd 2022, 10:23 pm
Filed under: Non-Knitting

My folks had an original Eames chair when I was growing up, and out of curiosity I looked them up.

Turns out you can still buy them from Herman Miller, although at least right now not our rocker version.

And then I saw this.

Every kid on the planet would want one of these. Every parent on the planet would be keeping an eye out for what they would spin out into. Every autistic kid really needs one. Heck, I want one (as if we could afford that price!) and I don’t even have any sense of balance and you know I’d totally go flying.

But it still looks like a ton of fun the moment people figure out just what the heck they’re supposed to DO with that weird thing.

And also like a pottery project where the artist got interrupted halfway and called to dinner.



I did it my way
Tuesday February 01st 2022, 10:32 pm
Filed under: Knitting a Gift

Finally, finally, and with some reluctance, I finished the last pattern row tonight. All that’s left is the ribbing across the top.

On November 23, I opened my yellow Barbara Walker charted treasury copy wide enough to photocopy page 146 to start this afghan. I only made one copy. Given the stress on the paperback’s binding and how I didn’t want to do that again, that was dumb.

So in all that time I’ve been keeping pairs of post-it notes to underline which row I was working from to keep my eyes and brain from skittering all over the page and losing their place from stitch to individual stitch. The stickum wears off, you put on two more side by side to cover the width of the written row, repeat, repeat, later join Wordle (yesterday!) and use the used-up ones for sketching quick notes on.

As for the pattern, that piece of paper is looking pretty ratty at this point. But better it than my book.

The brightness of nighttime lighting reflecting off the whiteness of the page made it hard to see the stitches and I was forever pushing it up a bit out of the way and having it slide back down to my lap. I was so close to not needing it–but with the complexity of that piece and the parts that are counter-intuitive I didn’t dare risk it.

Ribbing. It really only needs that ribbing. It’s kind of hard to believe.

Finally, finally, the thing let me get a better picture of the color as a going-away present.

And in all that time I never realized till I went to look up the page number for this post just now (since it didn’t print out on the xerox) that it was supposed to be garter stitch separating the undulating waves. I’d done all of that purl-side out. All of it. All that time I’d stared at all those little dots and x’s and slanting lines and the like, easily a hundred hours, I’d had no idea I was being a rebel.

Well, good, then, because I like it better this way.