This time, I remembered to pack her some needles and a yarn that was easier for a beginner than the loose single-ply Mecha had been.

This time, Maddie got right into it and the only mistakes were from when she grabbed the cast-on tail end rather than the working yarn, and that was my fault for leaving it too long and having it be confusing.

Again this time, Spencer pleaded for me to teach him to knit, too, and I told him that when he was nine I would. (I did not want him to start out in life thinking knitting was too hard for him. Let his brain catch up to his wishing. Let him happily anticipate. He’d only been six for a few hours.) Meantime, Hudson and I laughed that Maddie got to be the cat this time for playing with yarn–and Spencer again got his own little ball to at least experiment with. Which he did.

I quietly mentioned to my daughter-in-law that her oldest had really wanted that ocean afghan but the reason he didn’t get it was that I’d have to make an intarsia one like that for all six grandkids before I gave one to one. But that I planned to give it to him as a high school graduation present.

That completely made her day. Which completely made mine. I told her, I’m enjoying this landscape knitting–so if there’s any special photo or place or something for any of them… Let me know….

(Found the photo. I’d forgotten about that light band. Parker might need a do-over on his.)

Today was the 29th, not yesterday, so Spencer got to be told Happy Birthday by me two days in a row and he was cool with that. All the more celebrating.

We took a late plane home. G’night.

Suddenly realizing, as I started the next beanie carry-around project, that that’s the same yarn and color as the time grandson Spencer got hold of the ball and played with it while I laughed (and kept my hat from unraveling.) He put his sister’s beginning knitting swatch on his toes. “Spencer is a cat!” And for a few minutes there he got to pretend he was.

He is no longer that little preschooler. Tomorrow (correction: Sunday) he will be six. I wonder if he’ll recognize the yarn.

I learned something cool!

Did you double-check? he asked. Just because you read it online….

The great Google Deep Dive later, site after site after site said the same thing. Some called it ferrous oxide, some called it rust, one spelled it out: ‘ferrous oxide (rust)’.

I had wondered for some time why old barns were such an iconic red and how, no matter where you are in the country, they all got to be about the same shade (with fading on the older ones, sure.) Having read “No Idle Hands: a social history of American knitting” I knew that red in Colonial times was the least colorfast of colors. This is still mostly true.

And that in George Washington’s day, women riding properly sidesaddle into Valley Forge with rescue supplies nearly got shot because their red petticoats were showing and someone had to yell at an overeager soldier that no you idiot the Redcoats (British) aren’t coming, it’s our wives and girlfriends! Who had apparently freshened up the dye job on those underclothes to look pretty.

But I digress.

So: your barns held your entire next year’s food supply and it needed to be protected. The wood planks the barns were made of needed to be free of decay, they needed not to let fungus or moss grow on them in the rain, and they needed to last year after year and hold up against the weather. Things needed to stay dry inside.

Linseed oil from crushed seeds from their flax plants mixed with rust created a kind of varnish and the rust turned the oil red while killing off the stuff that would damage the wood.

Sometimes limestone was added, sometimes milk (which makes one wonder about the smell on hot days but never mind) but the basic recipe was those two things. The effect was not only useful, it was pretty, and it made it really clear from a distance what that building was and where to find it.

My friends at Cottage Yarns today found just the right colorway for a slightly faded barn with specks of brown in Rio’s Jupiter dye to finish the look. I bought it, Kathryn’s husband went to go wind it up for me–and then I saw the Cereza. A single skein. It was brighter but not too bright. It was that perfect shade of red, with a steadier hand on the dyeing–not monochrome, but a bit heathered rather than a mixture of colors coming together. Bought it too.

I spent a lot of time today under every kind of lighting I could get while the sun was still shining.

And then I went with the Cereza.

The moment it actually went into the afghan it settled right in there like it had been looking for this all of its life.

I was so intent on getting my row count down last night that I actually forgot to write, and was surprised to find this morning that I had not posted.

And yet, I’ve often thought if I had to lose knitting or writing, I, well, writing is like breathing.

But then some times more than others, so is knitting.

Adding sunflower petals now….

Years ago, someone I know opened a candy shop near both a university and a high school: target audiences. It did so well she opened a second one in another town.

The guy she hired to run that one was a recent graduate of a top-notch culinary academy, I guess getting in on the ground floor.

This was when political ads were being run warning of a bogeyman–remember when superpredator got smushed into its own single word for awhile? Ie big and black and tall and on illegal drugs that supposedly made him extra strong. After all, the Willie Horton ads had worked for Bush and Dukakis’s candidacy had gone down in flames.

Her employee was a large African-American man.

Her husband was the one who told me of the phone calls–multiple, he reiterated over my stunned disbelief, not just one and not just one person, of people telling them they would not step foot in that second store unless they fired the guy. They had walked in, seen him, and walked right back out.

Instead she offered him a job at the first store and closed the second and made a point of telling that town why. She wasn’t going to be in any way associated with a populace that treated a good man that way and they should be ashamed of themselves.

That was thirty years ago.

Today I was in that town. My audiologist is there, and my hearing aids needed cleaning. Since I have a lot of knitting I want to do on that afghan I brought it with me, carry-around project or not. They warned me it would be awhile, and I knew that, no worries.

So I had a front row seat.

A couple came in. Mid-eighties, easily. He was tall and stooped and walked carefully; she was just as old but more easily mobile. Perfectly coiffed in the kind of hairsprayed upswept curls my grandmother’s generation regularly saw their beauticians for, and perfectly sculpted and tummy-tucked in her skin-tight clothes. She looked seriously about 85 pounds but for the improbably large chest. There is a posh country club nearby and all they needed was the golf cart to complete the look.

He settled down on the couch and she went to the desk. I had started an afghan row with its five dangly balls of yarn.

I finished the row.

Started another one.

Finished it.

Finally, she walked back towards her husband and did a disdainful little yank with her head back towards the young African-American woman who had been trying to help her with all the graciousness one could ever ask for.

There had been others before her who had appointments (including me.) They were going to have to wait.

My friend’s story of long ago came flooding back and I knew I had to do something to show support without putting the young woman on the spot. How do you do this right especially when you know you didn’t hear everything. But I’d seen.

Turns out that technician was the one to bring my finished hearing aids out from the back room two thirds of an afghan row later (and after the couple had left.) The insides had collected water because I’d let it go too long since the last cleaning and that means it takes awhile to dry the electronics safely. So mine took longer.

No worries, truly.

As I put them in I looked at her and asked a little sheepishly, knowing it would be cutting into her work time, Can I show off my moose?

Sure!

I spread the afghan out a bit so she could see and she exclaimed over it and reached to touch that inviting, beautiful wool as I held it so she could. I thanked her; she beamed; she told me, sounding less convinced of it as the words were coming out of her mouth, I could never have the patience for that, while her face started to say maybe I could? I actually want to, no really want to now…

I said, You start off small and work your way up.

Her face! Made me wish I could have taken the time to teach her on the spot.

There’s a yarn store maybe two blocks away; maybe we will have a new knitter soon.

But I loved that the fact that I’m one gave us a means to make each other’s day and, as much as could be done, make up for that earlier experience.

—

(Let me add here that having written most of this earlier and walked away to think about it some more, I’ve reflected on how hard it is to be elderly and stuck being a caretaker, if that was their case. And as someone whose own husband is 15″ taller and quite a bit bigger I know there are limitations on how one would be able to manage. But you just don’t demean others who are trying their best to do right by you. You just don’t. She should have known by now at long last that treating others badly can never make her happier.)

Two wonderful speakers at church today. The second was a man who started off by saying that my husband and I lived in the ward he grew up in in New Hampshire when he was a teenager, and so, he joked, “They have signed a nondisclosure agreement.” Brought down the house.

The first was my Richard.

With a very simple message, quoting from scripture about how dissension and anger are not of G_d: that we can disagree, but it must be with civility. That if we give in to rancor we are failing ourselves and those we’re talking to and G_d himself, who loves us without reservation and to whom we so much owe love by loving His children.

Nobody ever changed their minds by being argued with, he said. Only love changes people for the better.

It was the shortest talk I’ve ever heard him give.

It was all that needed to be said.

That flu/covid vaccine combination is not great for the next day’s plans but I’m glad we did it. It was actually easier than some, it’s just that it made me keep falling asleep.

So.

Nature and towering trees on one side of the river, a farm in pruned trees and neatly plowed rows on the other. (Or, what you do when you have dye lots that look at each other and ask, Say what??)

I’m torn between a farmhouse or a classic red barn later.

I knit a row this evening. That says tomorrow should be fine.

Being on Medicare and getting vaccinated was a new combination for me; I didn’t know which card to pull out so I did all three: Medicare, Supplemental, and Part D.

The guy stewed over the computer for awhile. Turns out someone had put my maiden name in the system and my last name bounced. We talked him through it, he tried again, and finally it worked.

Finally–not quite looking me in the eye–he handed me my two cards back.

There are three, I said. I gave you three.

He’d clearly been hoping I wouldn’t notice. He’d already picked one up off the floor and there had been no sign of the other.

He got another employee to look all over. Then to try. Then there was this little Monty Python sketch of all the methods they used (those tongs had a definite rubber chicken look to them) after they realized where it had to have gone.

There was the countertop, there was this one area where there were two filing cabinets just below the countertop side by side, and there was a metal plate under those cabinets. And somewhere in there, they determined, was the only place it could be.

They said they would work on it, and the original guy, who turned out to be the pharmacist, gave me my flu+covid shots and told us to wait 15 minutes to make sure there’s no reaction, like they always do. They promised us they would work on it in the meantime.

Forty minutes later, I said to Richard, quite sure of this though we couldn’t see from there, They’re not doing anything and they’re just waiting us out hoping the store closes on us.

We went back over there and I was exactly right.

They tried to tell us it was gone, it couldn’t be done, go have your insurer issue a new card, not their problem. Sorry.

Richard, looking at the cheap set up, told them all furniture is designed to come apart when you need it to.

They were in disbelief. We really wanted them to deal with this?

He offered to help, and he certainly looked the big and strong type.

They tried to say it couldn’t be done.

Things get put together and they can come apart and he was offering to do that if they needed the help.

So okay, boss pharmacist apparently thought, better you than me, and let him into the pharmacy area to help with those filing cabinets. Which he seemed to think were permanently installed.

They’re too heavy full, you have to empty them, Richard said to one of the women, boss-man having gotten himself as far away as he could. (Richard wasn’t about to touch official pharmacy stuff.)

Another store employee saw him on the wrong side of the counter and came over to ask what on earth is going on over here and all three pharmacy people said in unison and waving their hand away at her in unison, Never mind.

(One of the pharmacy women had basically said they’d all be fired if I went in there to try to help, too.)

Richard said to me afterwards, There was no organization in those cabinets–just stuff. Thrown in randomly for someone else to have to deal with later.

But drawer by drawer it all got removed and then at long last one steel file cabinet got moved out of the way. Then the other. (See? They do move.)

And there, under the metal plate on the floor that the two filing cabinets had been standing on, was my Medigap card. How it got there I’ll never know. But one hour and fifty minutes after we arrived for my shot we finally had my card back, and my husband is a hero because they would utterly have blown me off, and in fact did, but he refused to be. Nicely, but firmly.

It was probably not a good time to ask them if they could squeeze in the paperwork and a shot for him too even though online had said there was only the one opening. So we didn’t. His is tomorrow and thankfully somewhere else.

As I type this I’m realizing, we still don’t know which card we’re supposed to hand them. We don’t ever want to give them too many again.

Not that the following matters…

I knew that brand. My husband’s a licensed ham radio operator. Was this just a reporter who didn’t know what they were talking about? Or directing to an audience they assumed wouldn’t?

Walkie-talkies are children’s toys, he affirmed. Counterfeit or not, those would have been ham handhelds.

Now that is a sky with promises of the rainy season to come.

Meantime, I found a new use for finger puppets: every time I finish a row, I put one of those bright cheerful little things on top of the stack of books next to me that I’m not reading while I’m trying to get this thing done in time. I think I forgot to one time: 3484 stitches today if I didn’t, 3752 so far if I did.

I drove four hours to go two miles to see an old friend today and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Kelly’s kids and mine grew up together, or most of the way before she moved away. It’s been way too long.

Today also happened to be one of the very rare times when my husband had to go into the office, one of those, weren’t we going to buy a second car one of these days? days.

I can affirm that morning and evening rush hour across the Bay Area say the economy’s doing great!

As I was coming home, there were three people walking by taking in the feel of the area, a couple and, lagging behind a little, an older gentleman, whom I had to wait for before I could pull into my driveway–just as the woman was about to get into their car across the street.

I got out of my car. She closed the door on hers after seeing me looking her way and we all four converged eagerly on the sidewalk to make introductions.

They are putting an offer on the house next door tomorrow. I had the same reaction to getting to meet them that she’d clearly had to getting to meet one of the neighbors before doing so: YES!!!

I asked, Does it still have the koi?

A quizzical, Well, it has a pond, I didn’t see any koi…

Me: I used to feed Alma’s koi when they went out of town, and they forgot to tell me it was on a timer. Went over a bit late one day and got zapped hard with water by their raccoon defense set-up.

They laughed. We talked gardens briefly.

And I thought, that full bath Alma and Jim added onto one bedroom for a caretaker’s use would be great for their family’s grandpa to have his privacy.

I came away so hoping they get that house. But there have been so many people coming to see it in person since Saturday that, well, whoever gets to have these good people as their neighbors will be very fortunate. I just selfishly hope it’s us.

I booked it. Then I did the math. What have I done to myself, knowing how much I’d wanted to hand my brother his afghan in person and computing just how many rows per day at 268 stitches (six strands per row currently and six rows per inch) I’d have to do to get it finished by then. I’m not even quite to the halfway point.

Every time I’d gone to book that trip I’d found myself going to a certain weekend. No matter how many times I checked the fares further out–and Southwest, for all their sale emails enticing me towards them, kept giving an error message that was very frustrating.

But that set of dates worked.

Okay, then, that one, I don’t want to wait any longer to see Mom. It just felt right. Done.

And then I sat down and spent most of the last three hours knitting like crazy even though that’s too much because I have to at least try.

To make myself give my hands a break I went to go check to make sure I’d written the flights on my calendar. I had not. Okay, looking up at the itinerary and then down to the page as I flipped to the–

–there smack dab in the middle of when I’d booked it for were the words in my own hand, written small and emotional at the start of the year: “Miss you Dad.”

It will be the fifth anniversary of his passing. My mom misses him so much. We all do. And so that brother and my oldest sister and my son and I will be there with her on that day, celebrating the man with the best laugh any of us ever knew.

I can just picture Dad doing just that at the moment it finally got through my thick skull. I’m sure he’d been trying to get my attention for awhile. For Mom. For all of us.

A talk in church today:

He grew up in the more rural outskirts of DC, not all that far from where we did. His parents grew up very poor, the children of immigrants, one grandfather a refugee Ukrainian Jew.

His family had bought a small wheat farm in Maryland with the intent of as much self-sufficiency as they could manage in order to supplement their paychecks.

But it needed a new well, so his father took a branch from, he thinks it was a peach tree, and used it for divination.

Nathaniel hastened to add that divination has been debunked, there’s no science in it, it’s an old folk tale, he made sure we knew he knew that. But that’s what his father could afford to go on so that’s what he did.

Seems the peach seemed to tell him there was more water where everything was greener. Worked for him. So he got some help and dug himself a well and when there was a drought it kept right on going.

On finding out his neighbors’ wells had gone dry, he shared his water with the farmers around him–because when you’re in a position to be who and what someone else needs, that is a gift from Above.

And then Nathaniel read the scripture that whoso comes to God to take part in His love, “It shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Love thy neighbors.

Help them water their much larger fields. Because that’s the one thing they most needed that they couldn’t do for themselves right then, and his family with their very small farm could do something about it.

The children and their children have never forgotten the lesson.

Spent lots of time doing that staring I talked about, then drawing, attempting to chart, repeat. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the afghan turns out.

And in between, rested my hands while reading about the third of a mile wide and long rock face that fell into a fjord in Greenland last year after the glacier beneath it had melted just enough that it collapsed into the water after lo these many millenia and took the rock above with it.

Which was found after scientists spent days trying to figure out why seismographs around the world were putting out a reading as of a nine-day earthquake but without quite the zig zags.

There had been a tsunami inside that fjord 650 feet high and it just kept sloshing around in that bathtub.

There are often cruise ships in that fjord. But not the day the mountain fell. Metamorphically speaking.