I figured that when you’re dealing with a new cancer diagnosis there must be moments when you need both a distraction and something to look forward to. So I ratted myself out and sent her the tracking number.

Plus I had this Zoom-knitting hat ready to go in a particularly soft skein of Rios, a lighter weight than my usual thick winter-warm Mecha.

(What update/why does this thing now consistently cut off the tops of my pictures while refusing to let it be fixed? Huh. Oh well, you can see the rest if you click on it and then not quite stand on your head.)

The chemo cap will go in the mail tomorrow.

Sublime brand bamboo/pearl viscose 70/30 from stash. Slippery, so I knit it relatively tightly to counteract that.

I played yarn chicken with the small ball and actually had 70″ left.  Super soft. Note to self, since I have another ball of this green: I used US 5, 80 stitches, 10-stitch fern lace after three rows of ribbing, and it stays on. I’m quite happy with it.

I have no idea if Kathryn at Cottage Yarns in South San Francisco has any of that yarn left–when I bought mine, Sublime was referring people looking for it to her and I just happened to luck out. Pearl chips made into yarn!

(Blouse by MargoEmbroidery in Ukraine on Etsy. I special-requested it in long sleeves and a blue cotton/linen 50/50 blend that they call homespun because it’s woven in Ukraine, rather than the polyester shown in her photo, and I love what she made. Even if I flipped the tassels out of the way for making dinner and forgot about it till just now.)

I sat down in front of him. He looked at my face and asked what’s wrong. I stuck out my lower lip like the best grumpy pout a five-year-old could pull off in order to make fun of myself so I wouldn’t take it all too seriously and explained.

He said something I don’t think he’s ever said before: “Well then you have to rip it out.” He never tells me what to do with my knitting. But he was telling me what I was essentially telling him I had to do with my knitting, and yes, I did have to.

All those eighteen-strand rows: gone, and it feels much better now. There shall be a clean start.(The roots were supposed to go twice the width of the tree, not four times! I had counted from raccoon+tree rather than just tree. It was impressively bad.)

I managed to do it in an hour, including reknitting the last blue/green row, far less time than I’d expected, probably because I was willing to take scissors to those roots when they snarled.

And then I did what I’d been trying to get myself to do all weekend: walked away from the afghan, picked up the long-hoarded Sublime bamboo/pearl chip viscose yarn, paid lots of attention to the length at cast-on and hoped for the best fit as the chemo cap on size 5 US began. That yarn is so soft, and it temperature-controls for both warmth and cold like silk does. It’s in a soft green on the sage side and would go well with the cotton jacket my cousin with Stage 4 ovarian was wearing last time I saw her.

I can’t promise it’ll be perfect. But I did promise the love would be made tangible and get put in the mail, and for right at this moment that is by far the more important project. I just had to get over my fear of doing it wrong to be able to do it right.

Looks like there will be a lot of sweet cherries this year. So many flowers!

Last year with all the rain was the first time it produced more than the critters could raid. I had never had any reach overripeness before–it was instructional. Once those Stellas turn deep red it’s time to invite friends to come help pick quick before they get any darker.

I’m sure they won’t mind.

Begin: the rest is easy, the saying goes.

The math: a sixty-row motif equals how many inches and can that be worked properly into the eye’s need for the design to be in thirds or at the very least set up in odd numbers visually. That’s heighth-wise and at the start of the piece: now, how does it affect it width-wise when you need space to have this and this and add this and this later.

After more sketching and staring at colors in various lights, today I knew I would be disappointed if I didn’t finally just dive in and start to see what it wants to become in real life. So I did. And now the next big afghan project is past the ribbing and on its way.

Eight color changes on that last row, sixteen strands, mostly in yarns that grab as they go past. I signed up for this–and it helps that the new green goes so much better than the one I just, just couldn’t and that caused all that waiting for the new.

A note in my inbox. Oh good, it’s not a phone call nor telling me to come in to hear the news so this can only be good, right?

The needle missed and came up empty on endometrial cells altogether. Inconclusive.

The ultrasound is a month out (for now) and then surgery on the zombie fibroids and we’ll see what all else.

Meantime, I took a picture of February’s apricot sprout next to the third-year tree planted in the ground about that time. I chose the naturally dwarfing one for our yard: less work over time and it seems more resilient than some–its roots were fine with those recurrent atmospheric rivers when another one simply drowned.

I got a message asking if I had an Anya seedling I’d be willing to share? So the little one has been claimed.

And then I planted six more. Wherever they may end up, today needed a declaration that I wanted to put more trees into the future. So why not a fantastic apricot variety that can’t be gotten any other way.

(The wire racks were saved from an old double oven to make it uncomfortable for the rabbit to step on to eat the tree bark. So far so good.)

I’ve been fine/no big deal/not worried/it’ll all be fine/I’m sure it’ll be negative/ about the whole biopsy thing. But today I was  remembering the GI doctor who diagnosed Crohn’s: she suddenly realized she was talking about it without taking my measure on the news she’d just thrown into my life and abruptly asked, Wait–are you okay with this?!

What–that I have a life-threatening disease? I laughed ruefully. So what’s new?

Today I found out my cousin went to the ER in pain and found herself with a stage 4 aggressive ovarian cancer diagnosis. If I’m in shock, and I am, I can only imagine how she and her kids feel.

Somehow that broke through whatever facade I had with myself and now I am just really really really wanting to have my news given to me and over with, whatever it’s going to be.

So I threw myself into hanking and scouring coned yarn and deciding that yes, that blue really isn’t the right blue and yes, I’m really going to go order more and have to wait again for it to come–and then I did–because I can control what I put into my little sister’s project and by golly I am going to do it right.

During that thumb-twiddle wait I wonder if any of my wool, any wool, would be soft enough for my cousin’s head while going through chemo. If you have any experience on that, (I mean, I’ve certainly made them, I’ve just never gotten any feedback on them) I need all the guidance I can get.

The peregrines: the fourth egg hatched, two days after its siblings. It’s clearly a female because it’s almost as big as the others and it gets its beak right in there begging for food.

Monty brought in a meal without getting enough feathers off it first. Hartley harrumphed, grabbed it from him, did a how-it’s-done and then fed the kids herself.

The next time, Monty was determined and the food was prepared.

And so the cam crew managed to get this very unusual shot.

She held up the vial to show me, quite pleased, giving it a little swirl to let the dark red particles stand out in the suspension of pink liquid (solution+me) that for all my curiosity in things medical I kinda could have gone without seeing. But the message was, Much better. At last we’ll finally know for sure.

I was fine till I left that room and then suddenly I wanted to faint and barf, but never mind.

A year ago I had symptoms (still do), and while it was agreed all around that it probably wasn’t cancer you can’t leave something like that to chance, you have to biopsy. So she did–but got precious little in the sample. The ultrasound was reassuring though so she gave me my options on following up and advise on when to do so.

Today was that day.

This time she gave me a prescription to use ahead of time: one pill the night before. That’s it.

Which is a good thing, because the pain was instant and I hope never to take it again.

It opened things right up and today she was able to get that good biopsy and by the end of the week we should have the results.

After I got home I searched the name of that med because it had sounded vaguely familiar and I was curious.

I was staggered. Although, it made perfect sense: it is the second drug that is sometimes prescribed as a follow-up in medically-induced abortions. It induces labor.

And thus affects post-menopausal women such that the doctor can get a decent sample to see if they have endometrial cancer.

Women’s health. Full stop.

The blossoms continue upwards and my sour cherry tree is dancing for joy in a hoop skirt.

Meantime, my old friends Ron and Theresa at thebuffalowoolco.com have been selling the last of their bison/silk socks. They’re my husband’s One True Sock and we stocked up when they announced the cost of silk now is ending those and when they’re gone they’re gone.

But then the mill, using up the rest of the yarn, made a few more pairs.

The catch was that they were seconds.

Ron and Theresa and crew personally went over every single pair to make sure they were okay, and they were, but seconds are seconds and they knocked a chunk off the price.

When Richard opened the package yesterday (I got him something else too because socks for your birthday is officially a That Doesn’t Count gift no matter how much he likes them) it took me about a heartbeat. And then another.

Why they were seconds.

Their socks have a little bison motif knit across the toes and that motif is color-coded by size.

The XLs were yellow.

My mediums are yellow. His are supposed to be orange. It really speeds up the sock-sorting by a lot and I’ve always thought it was a nice touch on their part.

Ron confirmed it when I asked: someone at the mill had forgotten to change that yarn during the knitting.

I told him I’d laughed, because, of all the problems in the world right now? There’s more than one way to eyeball a sock size.

And I told him that surprising us with an extra pair that was bison/merino was very generous–and brilliant. Because someday my hubby will need more socks. And now he has a way to learn in advance that their other ones are great, too. But that was so unexpected and so cool to find tucked in there.

See? Socks *can* be a real gift!

Twice, we had forgotten to get more sugar. I never run out of sugar: it’s just one of those things that’s always there.

Angel food cake time of year and–well that was brilliant. I’d already separated the dozen eggs. Hah, maybe I could…

Going next door to borrow a cup of sugar sounds so delightfully old-fashioned (and half-embarrassing to have to, just like way back when. But we don’t go shopping on the Sabbath, and that was something that was entirely understood back there back then. Maryland was the last state to let go of its Blue laws that enforced the religious concept of a day of rest on many commercial establishments–because Sunday isn’t every religion’s Sabbath. Nor is everybody religious. Equal protection under the law. No governmental establishment of religion. Totally reasonable to revoke. Done.)

The thought also always takes me straight back to–

–I don’t think I had ever actually attached the word “refugee” to her. She was just Vicky. But when your colonialist mom sews what she can of the family fortune inside the hem of her little girl’s dress right before they flee the country in order not to lose that one last bit of all that they had…

As a young woman, that little girl became a nanny to one of my dad’s artist clients, who brought her along with his family on a trip to the US. My mom was cooking dinner for twelve rather than eight and she found herself out of sugar. Knowing Mom, it was surely to bake fruit pies.

She asked Vicky to go next door to borrow a cup.

Vicky came back astonished: Madame! Your neighbors! They are Jewish!

Mom was astonished: Yes of course!   (??!)

We would never…!

I don’t know if she knew that the dad of her young charge had illustrated anti-Nazi material before France fell or that he was Jewish himself. Maybe even she was.

But what came out in their conversation was that America had been portrayed in her growing up as the most flamingly racist, bigoted country there is.

And here was an American woman astonished that anybody would be surprised at having a Jewish family next door. And not just next door. Why would anyone even think about it, people are people.

Too bad it was too early to know that the family that would later buy that house was headed by an African-American surgeon.

After making all the baking sounds in the kitchen this afternoon I said to Richard: You know how we kept forgetting to buy sugar?

The look of uh-oh on his face.

We have a melanger. The box of superfine at the back of the cabinet. We had enough.

—

(Edited to add, and the verdict is, with more than half the sugar being superfine that was the best angel food cake with the best crumb I have ever made, and I’ve made a lot of them. I wrote it down in my vintage 1952 Betty Crocker to make sure I do it that way again from here on out.)

(Forgot to post this last night.) We went off to Oakland for the afternoon and when we came back, three of the four peregrine eggs had hatched!

If you watch this, that baby bird is amazing. A few hours old, not even at the dried white fluff stage yet and already it’s moving around towards where Momma is after being accidentally scooted out of the way while she was paying attention to the firstling. The video was taken just before the third made it out.

Given how bird flu has wiped out most of the peregrines in the greater Bay Area and left nests birdless, to see healthy parents and three living chicks so far feels so good.

Re today’s protests: the initial numbers are three and a half million people participating. The day before Easter, with families with so many other things to do, but they still did.

Long long ago in a job far far away…

He was trying to remember the guy’s name. No, the one before that, what was it. I said do you really want to remember it. No not really. So anyway.

And then he told me a story I’d never heard in full before. He said it was the one where he’d really learned that you have to listen to the other guy even when they’re blatantly wrong and not just try to say what you think.

He had a boss, and this boss had a vision of what he wanted the big project to be and told his minions to get to it.

But there was a problem: that software he wanted them to create and that hardware he wanted to put it into–wouldn’t work. Would break.

This was back when what you now carry around in your phone took a whole room full of computer equipment running on hamster wheels.

Me: Was this the job where the boss was trying to break the laws of physics?

Him: No, no, that was someone else.

The guy wouldn’t listen to anybody trying to tell him anything: you have your assignments, just go do them. You heard me!

This went on for over a year.

One of Richard’s co-workers was our neighbor down the street and quietly told him that the boss had commanded him, presumably at the peril of his job, not to talk to Richard. Why? Because he knew too much and wasn’t afraid to speak up.

People on the team were frustrated and angry and all that did was make things with the boss worse. They wondered how upper management was letting this waste of the company’s resources and their time go on.

Finally, my peacemaker sweetie went Ghandhi on the guy: he quietly talked to everybody and said, Listen: as long as we keep fighting him we’re giving him a shield to hide behind for *his* boss and he can blame us. If we all stop arguing so he’s got no one to push against, maybe that will finally make the difference.

So they did.

(And here’s where I was picturing the protests I’ve seen at Tesla, where everybody is having their say on their signs while loving being in each other’s company and having a good time together.)

The guy’s boss came into town to sit down with him and hear him out on how this big project was going.

The perfect chance to expound on his lofty ideas.

His boss listened to him in disbelief: but you can’t do that with that, you have to have this first to do that and you don’t.

Me: So what happened?

Him: The guy got transferred overseas. To a job with far less authority, about as far away as they could send him from us.

The English Morello tree today: absolutely winter-bare on top, fully in bloom on bottom, gradually working its way up.

That is how I don’t have to do all the harvest work at once, but rather it’ll be one hour every morning picking and pitting and weighing and freezing. One morning per future sour cherry pie for two weeks; after that, I told Constance on Monday, I get tired of it and call friends to come pick the rest. She laughed.

Part of it though is that I want them to see that if it’s their favorite pie, too (and it usually is), if they have room to plant a bush they can grow their own pretty quickly.

So. I’d pulled the last bag out of the freezer to celebrate her. A ceramic pan for the crispiest crust.

Loaves and fishes, way in the back of the freezer where I’d checked three times I just found another bag.

You know that has got to be gone by the first of June to make room for the new. Such a problem. Not.

Curious.

Usually, say in an upscale restaurant or the like, when there’s no price shown you know they’re saying, This is for those who *sniff* can afford it. All others kindly step aside.

There was one sign: Limit 1, with an explanation for those living news-free that there’s a national shortage. (California’s been particularly hard hit.)

No price.

Well, when you need them you need them, as I put the egg carton in my cart. I couldn’t remember when I’d even seen them there this year.

After we got home I found the receipt because I really wanted to know. The surprise was not what I’d thought it was going to be.

$4.99? I haven’t seen that price in months! I told Richard. The cheap ones at Safeway were $8.99!

I guess that’s why Trader Joe’s didn’t post it: they didn’t want their cashiers to be put on the spot having to deal with people trying to hoard in spite of the posted limit.

Think we’ll ever go back to $2.79?

Although, when you put together the chicken coop, chicken food, egg retrieval, egg boxing, egg transporting, egg stocking, (egg breaking), egg checking-out-ing, any of those prices for something so useful in so many ways while offering protein to boot really is a bargain.

One birthday cake, coming up.

If only someone made a half-angel food cake pan.