I had peaches and plans. I was going to Kings Mountain Art Fair, the one time all year I get to see my old friends. Mel had messaged me that Kris hadn’t been well enough to make the trip but their son had and they were hoping and looking forward to seeing me.

I was almost to the freeway when I saw it and pulled off the road and called Richard.

Who said the obvious: do not drive the car with the check engine light on except to come home till we can get it looked at. Yeah they just looked at it last week. Still.

(Did the mice come back to the engine compartment and do more damage. Sounds like a definite maybe.)

I thought, I’ll stop by Trader Joe’s…no don’t. Tomorrow we’ll… no you won’t. Monday we can… No you can’t. All afternoon I kept reminding myself that things were abruptly different and we weren’t going anywhere. Not unless we can rent a car on a holiday. We might try.

I moped a little while and then thought, if I can’t go then I’m at least going to get the house a little more ready for guests so I can feel good about that.

We both did. It felt good. And yeah, there’s yet another blanket from the soakstorm being washed as I type.

Great to be over the 10-day bug and the fall and mobile again.

We were going through serious peach withdrawal: it’s the last few days of August, the season is short, we knew they’d all be gone soon.

One of Andy’s employees was new (to me, at least) this year and started off seeming down. I made a point of being a friendly face. And you know what comes next. Maybe.

Only, the last two times I went in I didn’t see her and wondered if she still worked there.

Today answered that question nicely. She got two flats from the back for me, one Cal Red, one Angelus.

I waited till I was rung up and then pulled two soft Malabrigo hats out of my purse and asked her to pick a color.

Okay, this was a first for me: she laughed–I’d never heard her laugh before, she hedged on accepting one, and finally explained, I have so many hats. My mom’s a knitter!

My turn to laugh: I’m not going to compete with your mom!

I totally made her day, she totally made mine, the hats came home with me but the love they convey was completely present.

I almost typed ‘his’ all those times.

I bet she still gets that a lot.

Remember the Southwest meltdown because their software was twenty years old?

I just spent an hour fighting with a bug in Alaska Air’s system demanding a pin for a transaction that their system said didn’t require one. Was there a help desk? No. I looked at Southwest–yow! Since when do they gouge?!

I finally closed the Alaska tab, took a deep breath, started over doing exactly the same things exactly the same way and it all sailed right on through. And good thing, because my Companion Code was about to expire for the year.

And none of that matters at all: what does is what we get to do because of all that. We’ve got some celebrating to do together.

Cleaning blankets. The guest room. That antsy sense of can’t-hold-still when you’re preparing for guests.

After dinner, the puzzle: he told me too late that his puzzle enthusiast mother had always stuck to 250 pieces or fewer because otherwise they take too long.

Dang. Yes. Yes they do. I’d been too much a newbie to realize what 1000 pieces was going to be like.

That one piece of rutted driveway had been missing for a week, and the last few days we were not admitting to ourselves that we’d lost interest in finishing the darn thing given that we could never finish the darn thing.

The vacuum unearthed it near the back door this evening. Somehow it had tried to follow me out to go water the plants and been stuck in the carpet. Yay!

We got right to it and didn’t stop till it was done and it’s pretty and all those sky pieces drove me nuts and we never have to do it again.

And then since organization mode had totally taken over the day I pulled out all the small-project FOs. Hats, ends run in, those go here. Cowls, ends run in, here. Anything with the ends not run in all go in here for some day when I have a strong need to Finish All The Things.

Then there was the one I labeled Favorites. The scarf I made for his mother’s funeral. The silk one, just because. The red cashmere one I wear with a particular Ukrainian blouse that I love but whose neckline I do not. Easy fix. Plus one that’s going to a particular recipient and the Favorites label fits her (also because there’s no more room in the ends-already-run-in bag.)

It’s okay to keep some, he said, making sure I knew that.

Cooler weather is coming and people are going to need a little bit of human warmth. I think I’m ready.

Today went far better than I had any reason to expect. Yay icepacks and prayers.

Or, as they teach us at church, do like it’s all up to you, because it is, and pray like it’s all up to God, because it is.

Meantime, I finally allowed myself to realize something today as I spread blanket after blanket out for their turns in the sun–some of which were salvageable, some of which were not.

Which is that I finally had a good reason to toss the ones that I’d never liked much anyway.

Meantime, there was a wool kingsize blanket in a dusty light lavender. After hot water and full agitation (deliberately–I figured it was a lost cause, but it cleaned surprisingly well) it is now a throw with ruffly edges. It would make a great boiled-wool something: a jacket? Maybe vest as you cut around that center part where the folded edge had been affected? Maybe a dog or cat bed for Pets In Need.

Maybe placemats. They’d be pretty water resistant, now. And they’d go with my Mel and Krises.

Knit a row, get ready for houseguests, knit a row, get ready for houseguests, knit a row, give the hands another break so it’s not too much all at once. Of either. Got the moose body finished, the head done, a third of the antlers, and was going to do more tonight.

We once hosted my sister and BIL and their six boys overnight and eight extra people is a lot of pillows and blankets to have to scrounge up.

Besides, this being earthquake country, you never know whom you might have to take in. (Been there did that.)

So the guest room has a large stack of blankets along the wall and all the extra pillows go from the bed to that wall. When we have a pair of actual guests on that queen bed, that’s way too much and the herd needed to be thinned. I reached for one.

It was damp.

There is absolutely zero anything to do with water whatsoever in that room. None. Nor has there been. As I told him, yes I use that bed for blocking but I haven’t even done that in awhile and I certainly don’t pour water over it.

Fourteen damp blankets, including the quilt on the bed where it touched the others. Only one pillow definitely needs to be tossed so far.

I pulled them all out and started running the washer. Four handmade quilts were laid outside in what was left of the sunlight. SusanH, yours was in active use and not in there, thank goodness.

But one that Richard’s grandmother had made us as a wedding present. One that she’d made for Richard’s mother. A crocheted afghan my grandmother’s friend had made her who knows how long ago. Ooh, man, that one, at least it was the cheap Chinese one from a thrift store that took it the hardest.

If I ever wondered if I’d had covid at some point that interfered with my sense of smell (the first bout of it did not), that answered it: I could see the black spots but it wasn’t till I started pulling everything out of there that I got any whiff of it and he hasn’t smelled it yet. But I could enough to tell how bad it must be to someone else.

The wall. Well, it was bone dry on the outside, at least.

My childhood friend Karen helped set up a tie quilt at her house when we were 18 and put it together with me at a summer in my life when I was so down and so needed that time and that help. Her daughter and husband are the ones arriving from Maine in a few days–that quilt had dibs on the washer. (Also because I knew it could handle it.)

Meantime, our covid tests arrived at long last after dinner and we decided to do me for now. Did it, set the timer for the results, went outside to spread out another quilt to dry.

Richard has the lights in the family room set to blink from wherever he is in the house for when I don’t hear something I need to. The lights were blinking. I know that timer is obnoxiously loud for him, and I had my garden shoes on that I didn’t want to track across not just the house but anywhere near that hall lineup of stinky blankets that didn’t need one more thing happening to them. A moment late because I hadn’t thought of it fast enough, I kicked them off.

While turning and rushing.

One clog caught on my foot and twisted sideways and then so did I.

It was a few minutes before I could let him help me carefully up. Part of me thought, this is where I get to be glad I usually can’t feel much of the pain after five or ten minutes. Hopefully this time too?

And that is how I am typing this. The shoulder/upper arm hit hardest and we’ll see what tomorrow says, but I can lift it now (Demo’ing to prove it to myself after typing that and going, oh. Maybe don’t do that again soon.) The hip I landed on is just bruised. I think.

I think that’s definitely it on the knitting for the day.

Oh, and the covid test? It was negative.

From the late Gracie Larsen, then head of the Lacey Knitters guild, founder of the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale, friend and mentor whom I simply lucked into as a member of my local knitting group.

And instigator of my lace shawls book. When I didn’t believe in it she sure did and pushed me forward. After Martingale published it, at the next Stitches West Gracie surprised me with this exquisitely fine lace leaf in a sandwich bag with a tag offering congratulations in tiny writing. So that I would have a piece of her to remember her by forever.

And oh I do.

People moved away, the group fizzled to nothing, and it was a treat to see her like clockwork at Stitches every year manning her guild’s booth where anyone who wanted to learn any kind of lace was offered guidance on the spot. Tatting, knit, crochet, you name it.

I had almost forgotten this leaf. It had been so carefully tucked away.

So this time Richard did the Saturday Trader Joe’s run.

He wanted to reach over for something and found himself saying, Excuse me, ma’am.

She looked up at him. And asked, Are you a ___ high school parent?

I am!

She said, Are you a ___ elementary school parent?

I am! Or was.

And… Is your wife that sweet little thing?

He laughed telling me this part and said he’d answered, She is!

And does she still knit?

She does!

He came home and told me he’d given her this address and I said, I’d better write something good tonight then if Penny’s going to be reading it! I’m so sorry I missed her!

Back when the Barbara Walker books of my childhood were republished in the late ’90’s (I used to pore through Mom’s copy of the first one in high school), I taught myself lace knitting from them, and when I started, I was only using lace weight and tiny needles. I made wedding ring shawls, ie ones so fine you could pull them through a ring. I was quite proud of them.

I also made a few people a smaller scarf or stole on those size threes. But I had to really love and admire you. I was new at giving away my knitting, much less making anything like that.

Penny was not my kids’ teacher, but she was one of the teachers at that elementary school when my kids were there and she got one of those. Only a handful of people ever did.

Hi Penny!!

I got a pro tip I never would have thought of: pop your hood every now and then. Let the sunshine in.

When we had the shed cleaned out, the men pointed out where mice had nested after seeing them leaping away.

All that area is open and empty now and I wondered where they’d gone off to.

Some Japanese cars use soy in the covering on their wiring. Richard told me, Oh, yeah, we had one guy who had to replace all the wiring on his new car three times–and it happened while it was parked at work.

Sounds to me like the coyote often seen trotting around that building (sighted often, even I saw it) wasn’t doing its job.

So. My car didn’t immediately respond to the accerator three times in a row between here and the pharmacy but was fine after that. The garage said intermittent problems are the hardest to track down but come on over and we’ll see what codes come up.

The codes were fine.

The mouse nest in the engine compartment that they cleaned out, judging by the look on the guy’s face as he returned my keys, not so much.

We’ve had that car 17 years and we’ve never had that happen before. I can just picture them skittering out across his garage floor, and close to closing time at that when their doors were about to come down and seal them inside their shop. Unless they tracked down every one and succeeded at getting them out. Not that they said that out loud.

I am SO sorry! I said, horrified.

Oh, said the woman at the counter, trying to be nice, we see a lot of that.

Yes, but…!!

Seventeen-year-old Gus Walz, tears streaming down his face, leaping to his feet and pointing to his father on the stage and proclaiming proudly, That’s my dad! as he put his hand to his heart and later ran to throw his arms around him, showed America how every child should feel about every parent and every parent should feel about their child. Nothing, and certainly not politics, should ever be allowed in the way of that.

The Walzes say Gus’s learning and social impediments are his superpower. After reading stories of men saying they needed to go reconcile with their adult children after watching that moment, Tim and Gwen are clearly right. Gus showed all of us how to be.

And how we want our leaders to feel about their families.

Got halfway across a row and knitted the rest on a different circular needle so I could lay it out flat to have a good look. Sometimes staring for awhile is the only way to really see it. It is 12″ or 15″ long, depending on which measurement you believe (I could definitely stretch it to be more.)

Oh hey I could… I wasn’t planning on… But yeah. I like that idea. Blame the puzzle we’ve been working on for that one, but yes, I think I’m going to do that after the next planned thing.

It’s a bit too wide again. 60″. Nice and snuggly, though.

Y’know, it’s still at the point where I could top the afghan off with seed stitch, call it a scarf, and walk away from the whole thing.

Nahhh. I want to see what it wants to be when it grows up.

Glad I wore a mask yesterday. Woke up this morning hoping I hadn’t infected anyone. There was a luncheon after the service but I didn’t stay for it; I’d been exposed to someone with what was hopefully just a mild cold–but you never know, and the utilities sampling says current incidence is very high here. I couldn’t risk the elderly folks by taking it off.

Awfully glad today I’d kept it on.

Got out the covid testing kit and found it had expired two years ago, so we’ll just see what tomorrow brings.

It was a good day to knit.

We were the parents of three, soon to be four. We had just moved across the country where we knew nobody and had more than doubled our mortgage payments. Things were quite tight.

Monajo simply randomly decided that it would be a great day to go visit the new young couple, and with a call and a would-it-be-alright, she stopped by. The surprise was that it was with beautiful homegrown veggies from her garden.

And what a garden. I had no idea. In this city of postage-stamp lots, she had at least an acre with a creek at the back looping in a half circle near the very old bay tree that had grown multiple trunks into what she loved to call her fairy circle, with a very large hammock suspended at the center.

She was a master gardener and loved making arrangements. One day she donated a large number of her flowers in order to teach a flower arranging class on a Saturday at church.

However you place them, visually, you want things to be in sets of three, she told us. Upper, middle, lower, is the traditional Japanese way, or…

I got there late–kids’ schedules and stuff–and there were very few left to choose from, and this was not my field of expertise whatsoever but I tried, I really tried.

She came over to see how mine had come out and helpfully said, Let’s get you started.

I looked at her.

Well, actually, I thought mine was done… (Thinking, and I will never be as good as you at it but that’s okay because we have you and you are a treasure.)

She was the original instigator of our December Birthday Club. She would have turned ninety at this year’s.

When I saw her infant great grandchildren I understood why the delay; those babies had needed to arrive before their mothers got on planes.

The flowers at her memorial service today were glorious, as you knew they had to be and where they had come from. Her children have their mother’s master’s touch.

And there were these tiny seed packets with a note for every person who came: explaining that sweet peas had been Monajo’s favorite flower. She had passed while they were in full, glorious bloom. These were the seeds from those flowers, and she was inviting us into her garden one last time and forevermore.

Conversation with a couple after church who remind me of us when we moved here with young kids. They’ve lived here about three years. Nice folks, quite fond of them.

A quick mention in passing and the guy did a double take: “I had no idea you were deaf!”

Me: “Thank you!”

I explained that that’s why I always hold my phone in church–for the captions.

Ohhh, his face said. He got it now.

And then the skein from Imagiknit arrived, Coco in Rios, and it too was perfect, depending on whether I wanted a dark morph moose or lighter.

So I googled moose pictures. They come in all black, dark brown, dark legs, lighter lower legs, dark antlers, medium antlers. That’s what I thought.

So basically I could take my two skeins and give it a lighter belly and lower legs and antlers. Works for me. We’ll see when I get there, though; after laying the work down on two long circular needles to see what I’ve got so far as a non-scrunched-up whole, I’m doing another round of pines first.