I had a kid in middle school who has a kid in middle school, it’s been that long.

But the guy recognized me, mask and all, while I was still stuck back at, no, that couldn’t possibly be. But then he made me recognize his face. That face.

He looked just like he did–except this time he was inside the grocery store in the daylight, not outside of one with nobody else around in the dark so he kept his fists to himself this time. Not that he actually touched me that other time–he just threatened to, as he pounded them on the window of my car after I’d jumped inside and locked the door.

Because he had hit my car and I had taken out a camera and snapped a picture of it and his license plate.

What are you, some kind of *** **** private eye?!! he’d screamed.

There in the dairy aisle his face suddenly hardened so severely that I was half-afraid he was going to pull out a gun. Thank heavens for California restrictions.

Was this guy tall? the years-ago cop asked me–while telling me the guy had done time for assault.

Nooo, I said doubtfully, not reeeally…

Well, the license of that car owner says he’s 6’6″.

Oh. Yeah, he probably was. Officer, let me introduce you to my husband so you can see why I didn’t think that was tall.

This evening.

He got behind me in my checkout line just as we were finishing up.

I got out of there and into my car and out of that parking spot hoping he wouldn’t see what I’m driving these days nor my plate, got an improbable green light out of there and held it together and didn’t start shaking till I was home and in my husband’s arms.

Richard said all the right things.

And he’s right.

“Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you…”

Lord, I’d ask you to bless him but I have no idea if he’d even let You nor how to make his life any better and if anyone along the way for him can help, please bless them. I can’t do anything. I’m leaving it up to You, because You do know and I don’t.

It’s amazing how that just lifted that whole weight clean off my shoulders.

It’s not my problem anymore.

They finished the awning today. It looks glorious.

And then, yeah, it’s June, and wool?, but still. FO stashes come in handy and I offered them their choice.

The first guy picked the bright blue. The second picked the stripey mostly purple/blue/pink one.

I sent them off with lemons and oranges from my trees, along with some early cherry sampling, and got back to the start of the next big project. And man, 225 stitches across sure goes faster than 271 did.

This is where my game of yarn chicken was just before the 271 stitch cast-off row yesterday. Won it.

The men came and worked on the awning today–which included replacing and painting some of the thin corrugated-looking wooden strips that the panels rest on and are held in place by. A few of my guaranteed panels made by the Palram greenhouse people were, oops, cracked and going straight back to the store.

They will be back tomorrow to finish.

It is innately silly and very very human to want to accomplish more when someone’s watching. Even if in fact I was doing this in the next room, but hey, motivation is motivation, I’ll take it.

That’s over two pounds of yarn. Plus four swatches! It’s a good start.  

This one hit close to home for me.

We have friends who are identical twins, I’m guessing late 40s, who own a house together. One of them was giving a talk in church today and started with the usual teasing about which one is the evil twin brother.

But then, as he went on, he told the story of something we’d known only the barest outline of.

Recently, he was supposed to meet up with a friend over dinner. He was dog tired that day, getting more so, and finally let himself realize he just didn’t think he could manage it; he was just going to call them and cancel with profuse apologies and go home and rest.

He sent up a little prayer to ask if that was the right thing to do, just to, y’know, be sure, because sometimes the small decisions matter more than we’d think.

What he didn’t expect was an intense feeling of, NO!! GO. TO. THAT. DINNER!!

How…but okay, so he turned the car that way.

He didn’t even get out of the car. He couldn’t. His friend saw him and took one look and called 911, and he ended up in emergency heart surgery.

He stopped the story there a moment, took a deep breath, looked around the room taking us all in, our physical, actual presence and his own, remembering, and continued.

If I had gone home instead, he said–my brother was out of town. He would have come home and… I don’t… My friend saved my life.

I picked several pounds’ worth of mandarins and juiced them up today, and as I was doing so I remembered a dessert I used to make that was a variation on baklava for which you had to use the zest of a fresh organic orange.

The recipe specified organic, claiming that there were residues that affected the taste if the oranges used were not.

I was skeptical, but a friend was happy to share a few from his tree (this was before we had our own) and I tried it both ways and the grocery store oranges had a bitter aftertaste I had not expected. Huh. Al’s from his garden did not. Well then.

So here I was, running the little electric 1980s juicer that just keeps going and going and going, and I went and zested a bunch of them as long as I was using them. Because why not.

Now, Michelle and I love rhubarb strawberry pie and Richard will take his as straight strawberries, thank you, so when I saw rhubarb at the store I knew I had someone to split the calories with me.

Meaning, two pies were made today: she, a strawberry one for her daddy and I made the two-to-one rhubarb-intense version for us.

What’s that? she asked me, looking at the small plate on the counter.

The zest from a bunch of those oranges.

Throw them in. You don’t want just sugar and fruit, you want flavors. Spices. Add that teaspoon of cinnamon. Throw in that zest. Make it great.

Alright then!

We all had her strawberry pie for dessert. I had a small piece–I was saving room, and went for seconds with the rhubarb.

Huh, I wondered out loud after the first bite. It tastes like honey. But there’s no honey in there.

It smells like honey, Richard affirmed.

You want to try it?

But it was still rhubarb; thanks, but he did not.

To Michelle: You want a slice?

She will, for breakfast.

My sliver became a second sliver. This was really good.

But I am mystified: how does it taste like honey? I mean yes, I like orange honey and have some in my cabinet but none of it went into that pie. The only thing I did differently from any other rhubarb pie I’ve ever made was that organic homegrown orange zest. Huh.

Got a text yesterday: could they come today?

And so at long last the damaged awning panels are all gone. The new ones will come next week.

For all these years, till that first one blew off in the storm, I thought they were just translucent, but they were actually smoky colored on top. Having all of them gone makes not just the patio but the family room stunningly bright on an overcast day in June. I had no idea it could be like that. None.

The new ones will be both UV blocking and clear–so that brightness is going to stay. You all are going to have to be patient with me if I get excited about finally seeing bird bums: I would have loved to have seen the zone-tailed hawk from underneath a few years ago after it soared across the yard and then landed on that thing, suddenly not much more than a shadow.

Oh, and: after the termite repair work 20 months ago, I went to the Benjamin Moore store to buy a small can of the new house color. I was thinking for the mailbox, but really it just seemed a good thing to have on hand. We never used it.

That spot where the painters missed and left exposed wood? That that smoky awning had kept me from seeing for over a year, much less in time to call them back to it?

That little can came in handy today and Chris’s guy totally took care of it.

Today both momma and poppa peregrine fed the lone eyas (baby peregrine) breakfast, which was a good thing, because it was banding day, and not only were they not going to feed her while there were humans on their nest ledge, they were going to be flying around defending against the possibility of any more such intrusions for a goodly while. As one does.

Which means that when that baby finally got fed again this evening, she was letting her parents know at the top of her voice just what she thought of how long they’d let her go hungry. And that whole abandoned to the giants thing! Yeah, cool bling on the leg, but, FEED ME!

The thought occurs, not for the first time, that whenever I let those sounds come out of my computer during the daytime, somehow the birds outside my window all just vanish.

During the worst of our wildfires a few years ago, our air quality index hit 385, if I remember correctly; our warnings to stay inside lasted 31 days.

With the Canadian wildfires, New York City hit AQI 407 today.

My first reaction to the news photos was, but you can still see the building beyond even if it’s a hazy orange–we couldn’t. After reading that number, though, I remembered cameras can’t fathom how dense that smoke can be. I could not get mine to take any picture that showed how we saw it.

On days when you can’t tell the sun ever rose nor where it is…

I so feel for what everybody on the east coast is going through. Wishing air filters and cleansing rain and the ends of the fires for all concerned. Wear a K95 mask outdoors. Stay safe out there.

It was a ward Christmas party, and someone ratted me out (never did find out who) so everybody sang Happy Birthday to me.

I was standing next to someone decades older than I was, and she grinned and elbowed me in the side. “‘N how old are ya? Thirty-nine and countin’?”

What do you say to that? I never did get why any woman should feel they should lie about their age; it was just not my thing. And with the friendliest of intentions on her part, it kind of put me on the spot.

Yeah, for about six hours now, I told her.

I spent the twelve months thereafter saying I was going to be 40 next year so people would believe me. I spent the year I actually was 40 feeling like, but wait, didn’t I, like, already do this.

Yonder kiddo remembered the story when we called to say Happy Birthday.

Let me think… 5:54 pm, as I remember. About three hours now.

I’m saying Dad was in on it. It’s exactly the kind of thing he would have done.

His pulmonary fibrosis took him just before the pandemic began.

Last week I was looking at my two boxes left of Andy’s slab apricots (not knowing I would later spot a few more carefully put away in the wrong spot) and thought, I really ought to send one of those to Mom. She loves them and I’m sure she’s out by now and I’ll be going down there soon and can always get more.

Those are the ones that are picked dead ripe so they go smush and don’t look pretty when they dry them. They’re not just sweeter, their texture is amazingly juicy for dried fruit, even mine that are nearing a year old now–they look great. They taste great.

It was Friday before I got around to finding the right size shipping box, thinking, one for you, one for me, and actually delivered hers to the post office.

Which means it arrived today. I confess I was not connecting the dates when I sent it off.

It’s my late father’s 97th birthday. Mom got some of their favorite dried fruit on the very day and a call from me wishing her happy Dad’s birthday.

Thank you, Dad!

It’s the first Sunday of the month, so there was no assigned speaker at church today: just, whoever felt so moved could get up and say what they felt.

A woman I didn’t recognize was the second to the podium.

She started out with, We lived here 31 years ago…

And I found I had just gasped under my breath but out loud, TObie?!

It was!

She said how befriended they had been by the ward back then, and now they’d come full circle: their daughter was coming for a program at Stanford and it was a chance for them to visit and tell old friends how much they loved them and how much their faith and love have grown over the years since we’d all last seen each other.

Her husband spoke, too, and came off the stand and gave Richard a big hug.

I knew they would be swarmed after the meeting and I wanted their kids to enjoy this, so I took a turn of my own.

Thirty-one years ago, I told them, I was a newly diagnosed lupus patient and got sent to the indoor therapy pool that was across the street from here; it’s closed now, but, one day someone dropped a roll of film there. There was no way to know whose it was except to get it developed.

It looked like a set of wedding photos. Except–the groom looked like Michelle-the-lifeguard’s new husband, only the bride wasn’t Michelle, and they were suddenly quite afraid Michelle would come in and see these while they were quietly querying every client who came in.

Do you know who these people are? when it was my turn to be asked.

Sure! That’s Steve and Tobie, thanks, how much do I owe you?

I watched their jaws drop in tandem just like mine had when I realized who was here–and then we all laughed. Steve, I said, you’ve got a double out there!

The pool folks had let themselves see all the ways the guy didn’t entirely look like Michelle’s husband after they knew it wasn’t him. Phew!

So many stories I could tell about our friends, and every single one of them would make you happy like they do me. Such good folks, so long missed. How often do we get to catch up after half a lifetime? (Or I should say in a nod to my mom, a third of a one?)

When the new neighbors moved in, I was talking to the mom one day and told her, looking up at our Bradford pear street tree (pictured), that it was just a stick in the ground protected by stakes when we bought the place.

And see that ginkgo? I asked, nodding towards the tall gorgeous tree two doors down from her. That was a year old when we arrived with our small children, I told her. We’ve gotten to see that grow up, too, that much in just these many years.

She has now seen how in the fall the ginkgo’s profuse leaves turn a brilliant yellow, as if radiating back to the sun all that had come to it during the growing season. It is gorgeous.

Her house had had a messy, sickly, kids’-ball-eating street tree (sorry, kids, we tried, maybe the winter winds will blow it out of there) but the former owner took it out years ago and it was never replaced.

Yesterday, to my surprised delight, it was.

There is a beautiful new ginkgo tree in her front yard and she and her kids will get to watch it grow up and get to say to some new young family moving into the neighborhood some day, We planted that.

Note to self: twelve now, with 159 and 166 grams including the 36g paper cones left on the two at the end of the repeat plus a purl row.

The mockingbirds were flying into the Stella tree for the first time yesterday, the heads-up that the cherries were starting to turn red. My mom reminded me of the grape-and-only-grape unsweetened Koolaid spray to keep birds away from fruit, and I armed a bottle tonight.

And then didn’t do it yet. The raccoons seem to think it’s fruit punch bowl time when that stuff shows up and I don’t have an Erva bunny cage around the cherry trunk yet. Eh. Tomorrow morning. (Do I type, in an old nightgown so I don’t care if the wind blows purple stains on it? And before I wash my hair.)

p.s. I thought this one was looking like it would start to come up today. By comparison, the other sprouted last Wednesday. Grow little apricots grow! 

Holly was going to be about half the distance here anyway, so could she?

Yes please? (YES YES YES ohprettyplease YES!) We hadn’t seen each other since before Covid and a lot of life had happened to them since then.

And so she picked me up and we went out for lunch.

Came back, stitched and knitted and talked. So much to catch up on. How’s the remodeling going. How are the kids. How’s that adorable little grandchild? Pictures!! Yonder daughter of mine finished her East Coast-zoned workday and joined us for a bit. We laughed. We had a great time.

But there was rush hour–so much rush hour to try to dodge and we kept it short.

I forgot the oranges we were going to pick but did send her off with an apricot seedling for her family to remember the day by. May it live and bloom and thrive along with all of them. I didn’t get its picture, much less hers, but I’m putting this one in to show her what hers looked like on April 30. It’s a lot bigger now and just starting to put out side branches.

And then she was off, north and east and back towards her own life.

While I suddenly realized I’d had my skirt on backwards all day.

How toddler of me.

So next time the laughing will pick right back up from that point.