So, I decided, let’s make something useful out of my downtime. (I’m up to a lot more than yesterday.)  Screentime? Sure.

Our family cellphone contract is finally up and four of the five phones are in bad shape and need to go; it would make sense to make choices while all those who need replacements are actually here.

Shopping for a cellphone is like shopping for a car:  it’s annoying and it just. takes. so.  long.

John and Richard went on a non-buying expedition to see some of the androids in person while trying to make up their minds. Michelle and I know what we want. Then, how much data. One company’s unlimited looked good till I read the fine print that says how much could be added to your bill. Let’s not.

Hours and much discussion and more hours and screens later, I think we’ve got it. But just to make sure there are no second thoughts, we’ll wait to hit “buy” till the morning.

Lightweight 8-megapixel camera always at the ready, here I come. Maybe I’ll even catch a hawk.

Better than yesterday, and thank you, everybody. I’m just trying really hard not to infect my kids, especially John, who is supposed to travel from here to see a relative on chemo.

I actually felt up to maybe knitting today, but I just couldn’t get past the idea that I’d be putting germs into a gift and so didn’t.

It has been 29 and 30F or so at night this past week and after one pipe-freezing incident we’ve been leaving the slowest little drip in the kitchen till we get up in the morning (with mental apologies to the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.)

A neighbor who is away saw our weather reports and sent out a request for help checking on a hose of theirs, mentioning vaguely about its being there for the raccoons; would we or whichever neighbor sees this first go check it out and turn it off for them just to be sure?

First, though, we got some Skype time with my in-laws and our older children who are visiting them, and of course Parker was clapping his hands back at the four of us here clapping and cheering him on. There is just nothing like seeing a baby happy to see us seeing him, and everybody else, too.

Which probably helped make it so that my husband was laughing when he stepped back in the door from the neighbors’ a few minutes later.

They have a koi pond. (Oh yeah, forgot about that.) There is, it turns out, a motion-sensored water sprayer to keep the raccoons from raiding their fish.

Iced at night or no, “It works,” pronounced Richard: he grinned as I typed back to the neighbors that, not to worry, the deed was done.

At the end of our visit in November, my mother-in-law gave my husband a bag full of audio tapes she wanted reformatted so she could share them with her siblings while there is time for them to enjoy them and perhaps share their own stories back with her: recordings of their father, who died when my husband was 16. Recordings of her telling stories, so long ago that she sounded like her daughter, Richard’s sister who died of lymphoma 11 years ago. Recordings of her brother singing; of her mother, long gone, who once told my husband that he was eating for two now and who rewarded our coming to visit her, the widow of a dairy farmer living way out in the boonies, by sending us home with two bags from her freezer of the kinds of steaks and roasts that  starving students couldn’t have dreamed of buying and she knew it.

Dear, do YOU know how to do justice to a T-bone? She’s your grandmother! It was an unexpected and very nice problem to have. And the start of my husband’s habit of cooking the meat on Sundays.

Family voices that, after finding it would cost $65 per half hour of tape (!) to pay someone else to transcribe, Richard bought the missing piece of equipment to do it himself.

And so Friday and Saturday all these voices past and of those still present but much changed by now spoke across this room, with more to come.

A family photo book was made for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday; a copy was given to us today too.

A family photo book was made for my dad’s 85th birthday; a copy was given to us today too.

Photo mugs came out of a box with Parker’s happy face grinning all over them.

The generations continue.

The Buche de Noel is done, with coconut cream in the ganache for Michelle.

The boxes are piled under the tree: if you’ve seen one Amazon, you’ve seen’em all–tomorrow we get to find out whose was which and for whom. (Um, oops. Well, it does save on the wrapping paper.)

And I had a huge surprise today, but it was someone else’s story mostly, so I’ll wait and ask her first before I say more. But it was a very very happy surprise.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, solace in the solstice, and may the peace of the season be with us all.

The tree was decorated by the shortest person in the house. There are no balls above where I can reach and everybody’s quite fine with that.

A blue Malabrigo hat went where it was supposed to go, the giftee thrilled at the handknit; a good wool couldn’t ask for better.

Another gift got finished today and is blocked and drying. Just in the time of Nick!

A three-birthday day around here.

My friend Sterling’s wife gave out his cell number when he wasn’t looking and we all threw him a virtual surprise party with text messages. He thanked me and added as he wrote back, who is this?

Oh, Alison! Oh, okay, cool!

My mom went to her airport to pick up my older sister, who with her husband is taking care of their one-year-old grandson Geoffrey, his parents being deployed; so we got to sing Happy Birthday to Mom and talk to my dad and sister, too.

One year ago, and now… We got a quick Skype chat with Parker and Richard and Kim and we all sang him Happy Birthday, but since my husband was off at work, they’ll try later. Cool–all the more celebration for us!

And I got an answer from the doctor who had ordered the Reclast. The site that had said a low creatinine count was a sign of lupus nephritis had it exactly backwards. Low is good. It’s the high that’s a problem. Given that Reclast can affect kidneys of itself, and, yeah, there will be another test tomorrow, but it does seem to be clearing away.

It’s been probably twenty years since I had to know the details of lupus kidney disease, and I’ve never wanted to go back.

Looks like I won’t have to. Yes!

A certain young man is now officially one, his great-grandmother, that plus 80. It’s a holiday kind of a day all around.  Celebrate!

Took a nap today, puttered around the kitchen, walked into the family room at last to see, perched at most 15 feet away, a Cooper’s hawk–I think the female–looking at me in as much astonishment as I was looking at it: I didn’t expect *you* here! It considered my presence a moment and then in no particular hurry spread those beautiful 31″ wings wide, flared her long striped tail in the now-familiar circle, and she was off.

One of the first things Michelle asked when the kids got home last night was whether a certain package had arrived; it had. I picked it up to show her and said to Richard, “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”

To which my daughter reminded me of a certain earlier Christmas where I’d told her of a favorite yarn, and a familiar-looking package had arrived: I opened it, I pulled out this lovely yarn, I knitted up half a ball’s worth of it and then suddenly realized, wait–I didn’t order this color, did I? (Checking name on box.) Oh my goodness.

And so I’d stuffed it needles and all back in the box, wrapped the box, and threw it under the tree tagged from Michelle to me. There. I wrapped it for you.

Needle deprivation. That’ll teach me.

Looking at the clock, looking at the clock, trying to figure out what yarn to cast on to give my antsy anticipation something useful to do… (Edited to add, since they’re not home yet, Eco Duo won.)

Our older two kids are going to Texas to see their grandparents, with Grandma’s news today confirming the wisdom of seeing her now. We’ve been taking turns. She’ll get to meet Parker.

I’ve still been feverish, so Richard just went to the airport by himself: John and Michelle are coming in to the same airport, both their planes are early–and tell me, how exactly does a plane arrive 55 minutes before it’s scheduled? His had to sit on the tarmac because the airport wasn’t ready for it yet.

I cannot WAIT to throw my arms around my two younger children!

Got up late. Looked out the window: a female Northern Flicker! The spots were hard to see in the shadows and I had to go check with a birding friend to be sure. I’ve only seen them a few times before. Picture a woodpecker that often doesn’t actually peck wood, rather, it likes to stride through the grass stabbing at insects on the ground, which is what this one was doing.

You have to love a bird that looks like it’s sporting a sock-monkey’s smile.

Got the last of the to-go presents wrapped. Richard mailed them. Collapsed and read cover-to-cover the book “Avian Architecture” that Richard-the-younger and Kim gave me for my birthday.  Way cool stuff in there; I could rattle on all day now about bird structures! Who knew a bird colony on a cliff could look like barnacles on a boat.

My thanks to those who said they had no reaction to Reclast (and yes, that’s what it was); I don’t want to be scaring people.

Mine was fierce: it felt like both my lupus and my Crohn’s went nuts. Shooting pain, joints, shivery fever all night, barfing night and day. It has finally let up just enough that I can sit up long enough to type this. “One of the unlucky ones,” the doctor said to Richard on the phone.

Then he asked if I had hives. No. I really am one of the lucky ones after all; I should be able to take it again, then, and I do need it.

I was reading my messages, glad for the connection to the world outside my room, but was unable all day to sit up to answer them.

One, the best one of all, was from my sister: her granddaughter was born last night, to parents who had been trying to conceive and to carry to term. She’s absolutely beautiful: big wide-open eyes looking back, a full head of dark hair.

Just like my John looked like as a newborn.

We are so blessed.

Today was the true spirit of holiday rush.

Remember that four-year 29% bone loss? (Yeah, steroid meds are fun.) I was scheduled to have my first yearly IV infusion of an osteoporosis drug this afternoon. They needed a morning sample from the lab beforehand, preferably same-day.

At the lab, I asked, wasn’t there supposed to be a blood draw too?

With the place packed and signs pleading for patience saying that they had a new computer system in place and it would likely take a few weeks for everyone to get up to speed with it, they looked me up and assured me no.

Well okay then. I stopped by the house afterwards and then I was going to the annual lupus group luncheon. I look forward to it all year. There are old friends who turn out for it that I never get to see otherwise, and I’ve missed it too many times from having germs–you do not bring contagion to an immuno-compromised group. I had RSVP’d, I was germ-free, and I was good to go.

The phone rang as I was walking for the door. The doctor’s office: I was indeed supposed to have had blood drawn, and it had to be at least an hour, preferably two before that IV, the sooner the better.

I. Am. Going. To. My. Luncheon. And I did: and our group got seated at the door, which kept being left open and I kept getting up and shutting it. Lupus. Sun.  Come on, folks, you know what group is here.

The manager, bless her, said to me that the whole restaurant was reserved and everybody was here and then she locked the door! And put a chair in front of it to try to get people from the other group to go out the far one or at least notice that a message was being conveyed. Go her!

I probably shouldn’t have ordered at all. My soup arrived, a little too hot to eat yet, less than five minutes before I really really had to bag it up and leave (but it was so good). We were supposed to be rung up as a group; they let me pay and go, glad to be able to help. Good folks there at Allied Arts.

But I was stressed out enough to trigger my cardiac cough. Back to the lab. Back home.

This IV was all something new and they told me I would feel like the flu for several days afterwards, maybe even a week. I had no idea how I would react. Richard wanted to come with me to be a support and just in case I wasn’t up to driving home, bless him. I offered him half my soup, still warm.

We arrived at the oncology clinic. The nurse clearly was used to people who weren’t used to IVs, and apologized at blowing a vein on the first try: my blood pressure was so low, it was hard to find a good enough one.

Eh. I knew there’s a world of difference between that and a vein that collapses after a couple days’ use in the hospital and screams at the saline they have to push through it; this was nothing, absolutely nothing. I assured her it was okay, and it took a few tries before she believed me that it really didn’t bother me, none of this stuff did.

Dem bones dem bones dem dry bones. An hour of sitting and quietly reading with no pressures to get anything else done in the moment. Enjoying the quiet.

I’m just glad there’s something they can do!

(It’s still the 13th here, my blog timestamp is off an hour.)

As Richard hung up my coat at Flea Street Cafe for the birthday dinner, the maitre d’ exclaimed to me, Ooh! I love your necklace!

Yesterday’s silver beaded chain? Today I got to wear an alpaca beaded version. Picture a Saint Bernard with the proverbial cask: I now come equipped with emergency yarn around my neck. Not that I would ever think of taking these soft jewels apart, but still. It is so me. So perfect.

My doorbell rang this afternoon during the few moments I was actually home between errands: Andrea, bearing gifts and totally surprising me. Inside her two bags were thistle seed and a hanger for them for my finches, and this hand-crocheted Fair Trade alpaca necklace from Bolivia.

Wow. Coooooool! Thank you! And like I say, the lady at Flea exclaimed the moment she saw it, just like I did.

Moments after we walked in the door home again from there, the phone rang: our son Richard and his wife Kim, wanting to set up a Skype chat.

And so we got to wave hi and play almost-patty-cake via the cams with our little grandson. Parker, I am here to assure you, is as cute as ever.

We adjusted our camera a moment to be in a more direct eye-to-eye line with him rather than offsides, and then I seem to have waved hi just the right way: Parker got the biggest smile waving back, got all excited about it and turned and RAN TO HIS MOMMY. Three steps.

Wait. Did we just see what it looked like we just saw?!

While my son was going, Wow! He’s never done that before! We’ve never seen him do that before!

First steps. For delight at his Grammy on her birthday, to the safe reassurance of his Mommy. Does it get more perfect than that?

(Day two: quite good. Yay!)

I was at our clinic today, paying my December bill in person because I needed a receipt for it. I knew that meant I would have to wait; I came with yarn.  I set down my cane and my purse and then the admin lady smiled as my needles came out.

I sat next to a desk, and attached to that desk was a pen connected by a long chain of tiny silver balls to a black plastic base.

The previous person at my seat had painstakingly, perfectly wrapped that chain around and around and a few more times around, so that it sparkled in a circle at the base as if it were a small Christmas tree skirt. Horizontal tinsel.

I was charmed. The woman there was delighted that I’d noticed it too and told me about it. I wondered how long it had taken that person to get it set just so–and I didn’t want to mess it up, but when I needed a pen mine weren’t easy to find and the woman smiled again and assured me it was okay to go ahead and use that one. (I did try to redo the little desk sculpture but it was clearly going to take me a long time and I didn’t want to get in the way of her work.)

From wrapped to scattered in an instant.

I spent the evening with tape and colored paper to try to get some presents ready to go out of here, and soon. Some people do incredible jobs of present-ing a gift just so; for me, I can only hope that they’ll be charmed that I tried.

This is the first Christmas that we have a grandchild who will be old enough to open his own toys: things that wobble, things that go ’round. And you know that means there needs to be a good plain box, too, because those are always the best.

Parker ready to read to his younger cousin: hey look, he saved her bookmark.

When Holly was here in town several months ago, I showed her a project I was working on.

She admired the yarn, but as she did so, simply having another set of eyes looking at what I was making it into made me face that yes it was a doodle but no I didn’t like how the second half was coming out.

Finally today I sat down and risked it catching on itself all over the place and carefully ripped half of that little shawl back and reknit the now-squiggly length back up and past that point. It feels so much better.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you, starting with Stephanie, who have ever said you’ve never regretted frogging something that needed it:  at last I have a beautiful mink/cashmere project that I love and that lives up to what it should have been all along.

As it knit back up I gradually went from appeased pride, to, I can’t wait till the recipient gets it!

Meantime, Parker and his cousin, as usual, steal the show.  Birthday and Christmas season. Celebration times!