And today we celebrate some more. Just like our family reunions last week: rather than having everything all at once and then over, we spread out the joy a bit. One of my sisters had a baby on Dad’s birthday, mine came the day after, and another’s, two days after that, all in different years.

Or like they say, a day late and a tall-or-short. Happy Birthday, Richard!

We all celebrated last weekend because that’s when all of us, we daughters, sons, nieces and nephew and a great nephew, several grandchildren and one great-grandchild could all make it into town at once. So he gets to hear it again: Happy Birthday, Dad!

I just spent an hour trying to puzzle out why this picture wouldn’t load, finally got Richard to come over, he stood over the computer, I demonstrated…

And poof. Picture. I did everything exactly the same way, the only change being the 6’8″ computer scientist standing above me.  It knows who’s the boss of it.

Knitknitknitknitknit.

Wow, that was fast.

The last few days I’ve felt like I really needed to be working on that white fluff project in case something happened and I found myself wishing it were done yesterday. But I was busy doing a lot of back-home-again things other than sitting down and holding still and brushed away the thought with, it only needs about three more hours of work to be long enough; if something comes up, I can do that pretty fast. Right?

I did talk myself into starting something else today, putting a hank on the back of a chair and standing there winding it up–but my hands could not be convinced. I wound up that ball, telling myself I’d leave the cloud for when I needed brainless knitting for carrying around. I saw no hurry.

But I felt one. I just could not make myself actually cast on with the new ball. The cloud was demanding to be done. Now.

I had no idea why.

We were talking to the kids tonight and I found myself asking them, Is there anything you need knit?

After a moment’s hesitation, they said, well, actually… if…

Turns out someone they know well and we all love, someone fairly young, was diagnosed just a day or two ago with metastasized cancer. They were wishing… But they wanted somehow for something to go out quickly: for immediate reassurance, for love, for the hope that it would represent coming from all of us.

And here, right here in my hands…

Some of that lace will have been knit just because, just the very first few inches of it (that stayed, because kid mohair is too hard to frog and I knew that since I’d wanted to work on it once, someday I’d want to work on it again.)  A lot of it was knit because something somehow prompted me a week ago to go find it and grab it while packing for my trip, after all its years of ziploc exile. (It was the needles that stopped it. Never knit snaggy-fibered kid mohair with very blunt tips.)

And some of that lace, now, will have been knit expressly for the loved one it’s going to. Which is why I’m glad now that I didn’t think to grab the finer-tipped needles before the trip, which would have sped up the knitting and gotten it finished before I got home.

One hug of soft airy fluff, coming up. Phyllis, this is from the leftover yarn from your shawl.

Groucho Marx. Look at the little guy.

I wondered why the weeds took over my green lawn in the last two years after being lawn forever before that.  Those golden rolling hills of California? They’re green in the spring before the rains stop (supposedly by now, and the weeds got tired of waiting for it to stop being so wet and turned brown anyway.)

At long last I know why we’ve been going native.

I’d seen the little thing running up a tree about a week ago with a mouthful like this, and then later doing what he again did today–he was digging and trying to plant this mouthful as if it were a nut. A weed-farming squirrel!

The quail likes the seeds from these, and I guess the squirrels do too.

Um.

Still, it does look funny with that straw beard.

(No knitting today: too much to catch up on, housewise. Quite a few home improvement projects happened in my absence and I’m trying to do likewise in return.)

I did not know when I booked my trip that my aunt and uncle who live in Virginia were going to be flying in to Salt Lake City, where my folks now live, that very weekend–and that they would be joined by three of their children and their families for a celebration of their own. I hadn’t seen most of them since our big reunion for what would have been my grandfather’s 100th birthday in ’98.

I did know that there were cousins coming from my dad’s side that I hadn’t seen since my youngest was a preschooler. And that another uncle was turning 90; one of his daughters flew in from Florida for that get-together.

I did not know I was going to get to see a relative on my husband’s side who’s been fighting cancer; I hoped so, but I didn’t know. She was a good distance away; timing of treatments was an issue; I was not going to have a car.

But my son John and I did get to after all.

I got to see Abby, too–and to see her walking! With crutches, but her dad told me she’d walked a little without, too. And then told me, with her in the room, that she just *loves* it when he talks about her in front of her, totally calling himself on it like a good dad would: he saw her point of view and let her know he knew it and cared about her feelings while trying to fill me in so she wouldn’t have to explain everything to me.

I had introduced myself to her as the one who knit the purple hat.

Oh!

It was reunion after reunion, joy after joy, love held close, coming in a five-day-long stream rather than an exhausting all-and-then-nothing day. And I got to see my brothers, my sisters, my parents, and of course my youngest son, my nieces… The list goes on.

And to watch the news, rather a novelty now for this non-TV-owner. Remember my staring up at the new white stuff when, come on, guys, this was Memorial Day weekend? A skier on the screen was exulting that this was the best snow all season and the resort operator was saying they planned to keep the slopes open weekends till the Fourth of July.

That ski resort was where we held that big reunion, the slopes properly cool but summery, in August that year.

And–be still my heart. There was a sign telling people to watch out for falcons! http://wildlife.utah.gov/dwr/learn-more/peregrine-cam.html I’m just sorry I didn’t get a picture of the sign, much less the birds themselves.

My brother Bryan made a side trip to Arches National Park as part of his vacation and showed us the photos he took; one was of an antelope. An antelope!?

He smiled the happiest smile, affirming, “An antelope.”

Wow.

I got to see a striking black-and-white magpie, long tail flicking, landing on top of the low stone wall alongside the cemetery where our grandparents are buried. And a dead fox near the airport.

Bryan wins.

Now, if only he’d followed it around looking for any shed winter undercoat for my spinning wheel… G’wan, go back, bro, you know you want to…

Michelle picked me up at the airport this afternoon. It was so good to see her again. There’s nothing like family. We drove home, the post-seasonal rain gradually letting go; we walked in the door, I looked out the window, wondering–

–nothing around. So still. So unusual. (So much food available around here this time of year whether we provide any or not, so while I was gone, the others did not.)

I walked into the family room.

Immediately two towhees hopped in perfect tandem onto the wooden box.

Okay, I got the message. I’ll unpack in a moment. I went out and filled the feeders and one of the little Bewick’s wrens didn’t even wait for me to go back inside before it swooped around, singing loud and close enough by that I actually heard a few notes: Hey everybody! Feederfiller’s back!

It was like a Disney movie in slow motion. A few at first, then more and more, crescendoing till about two hours later, the whole crew was back. And more: a female scarlet tanager flew in, a bird I’ve only seen once and that was a year ago. I went Oh wow! out loud and scared it right off.

They hadn’t gone totally unfed; I’d succeeded in hanging a suet cake long side up where the squirrels couldn’t get it but so that the wrens could stand on it the way they liked to, without having to hang off the sides.  I saw the titmice working at it in twos, too, then chickadees: clearly, that idea had worked well.  And it wasn’t quite empty. Yet.

I put more in there, too.

It was the same old birds, for the most part, but in my absence some of their patterns had changed. It was fascinating to watch, not that I had much time to spend doing so.

A pattern of mine had changed, too, one of avoiding the project that would not be frogged: I hauled out a kid mohair UFO before the trip, abandoned ten years now, a shawl. At 16×50″ it is now nearly done and my seatmate and the stewardess raved over the soft cloud of lace.

I wonder who it finally needed to be done for.  I do know that memories of that trip and of all that love are knitted into nearly all its stitches.

My brother Bryan, owner of Jeppson Guitars, picked the piano hat that sings in the blues.

My other brother’s daughters each picked out their favorites–but not till one had piled the whole stack of scarves around her neck and all the hats on her head and declared it Dobby style (think Harry Potter.) My sisters picked out something. And my cousins from Nevada are coming soon and their hats are waiting.

Listening to my dad talking last night about his having gifted a fair amount of his art out into the world, I thought, this is where we all get it from: parents who treasure being able not to keep but to give of themselves freely.

Dobby picture coming when I can figure out how to get it online from here.

My sister Marian arrived a few hours after I did; much laughing has been enjoyed already. And when I mentioned the single bar left from Morgan, Mom told me she’s already been melting bits of dark chocolate in her own hot cocoa as of late.

Good influence. I haz it.

My brother asked me back in December what I wanted for Christmas.

A chocolate bar. Good dark chocolate. Just one, doesn’t take much to make me happy.

He bought me a case of Endangered Species Chocolate Extreme Dark 88%. And I (and Michelle when she’s been home) have ever since been gratefully breaking off just a little and melting it in our hot chocolate every morning.

I opened the box just now to grab one for my trip and found it was the last one.

“I’m going to take this with me and share it with Morgan in our hot cocoa there.”

Michelle: “Does Morgan drink hot cocoa?”

“He will when I get done with him.”

Happy Anniversary to my son Richard and his wife Kim! More Parker pictures when I can get them to load.

Running in a few loose ends before my trip. I should have saved some of the other snips before I took the picture so the colors could be more representative, in case anyone at my destination is embiggening that and wondering which is going to be theirs.

That done, it finally feels like I can pack and be going.  I have no idea what yarn to take with me or any plan in mind other than to just get on the airplane by myself and go. I can’t wait.

The squirrels are discomfited by the quail: they don’t tease it when it’s holding still like they do the Cooper’s hawk and they keep a cautious, mindful distance always. Whatever this weird thing is that showed up a few days ago, they’re not messing with it.

The quail was on the near end of the big wooden box that I put suet on top of for the ground birds that like it. He was singing at one point, for whatever reason, but he wasn’t admiring his reflection; there’s a screen door there. Maybe he just wanted to see in from higher up this time.

I suddenly saw a pair of black ears and the very top of a head leap into sight at the far end and before the whiskers could even surface, push back away just as fast and disappear back down. You could just hear loud squirrel swearing going on behind there–that thing is up THERE, too! Dang, that Feederfiller has her enforcer!

He knew I would squirt him if he jumped up there, but he knows how long it takes me to raise the squirt gun and open the door and he always grabs a bite before he runs. He can get away with exactly so much and he knows it and does–wow, I never got a reaction like that.

Ergo: the quail is scarier than I am. It’s bigger than they are, it’s outside, and it runs fast after them when they run from some random startling noise. And it can go up in the trees, to top it off.

The squirrel sulked and bullied and chased a mourning dove for a moment in retribution, and I thought wow–even a squirrel can get in a bad mood and take it out on some other being unlikely to get the better of them when they do. Who knew.

It reminded me of my kids having their moments towards each other on a bad day and as the mommy, working on getting them to be nice to each other. It is so joyful to see them all grown up now and looking out for each other the way they always really wanted to.

I bet my parents feel the same way. Well. This week, we’ll show them, huh!

Meantime, a box came today. A new cane; my favorite from Karen had been well loved for half a dozen years and was showing it. This one was quite inexpensive, enough so that if it didn’t work out I wasn’t going to cry. But wow–it was beautiful, artsy, and very lightweight. I really lucked out!

But when I tried it out there was just a tiny spot on the underside of the handle where the wood hit my hand wrong–it had a pimple, is the best description I can think of, and I knew it would get uncomfortable quickly if I had to grip it for long.

I wondered out loud where the sandpaper might be. It wouldn’t show if it had to lose its shine there. I showed the thing to Michelle.

My daughter is a genius. “Use a nail file!”

And that was all it took. Done!

I called my neighbors, who used to keep a birdfeeder so I knew they were interested in such things, to tell them there was a quail standing on the fence between us if they wanted to see it.

Oh yes, was the answer, we’ve seen him for a few days now–he keeps looking in our windows. Who would ever have thought a quail would show up!

And as the man was saying that, the little guy jumped off the fence and came running straight to me, again skidding on the patio in his rush to come say hello just as fast as he could. I love it.

I finally figured out what his funky running gait, profile, and staring in remind me of: the penguin in the Wallace and Gromit “Wrong Trousers” movie. Only way prettier.

Meantime, I continue to knit like crazy towards this coming weekend. I just need to remember to photograph all the projects I’m not blogging individually about before then. That closeout-priced cashmere I just finished up–chartreuse? For my family? Teal dye tomorrow, first thing.

I was talking to my older brother on the phone two days ago and said, By the way. Did you get the BYU alumni magazine that just came out?

The one with Jimmer on the cover? Yes…

Go over to it for me, wouldja?

Walking that way now…

Okay, now, open the back cover.

*Opens back.* Ohmygosh–is that?! It IS!!!

Yeah, he grew since the last time you saw him. Been too long. Can’t wait to see you!

(My son entered an essay contest at school and won. It’s now quoted from in an ad for the Independent Study department, along with a photo of him; he took some classes that way while serving as a congressional intern while he was an undergrad.)

I heard–something, this morning, and went to go check.  Looking out the window, there was a California quail on my neighbor’s roof!

I have lived here for 24 years and I have never, ever seen one here before. I was gobsmacked. Gorgeous, even from a distance.

And in the gorgeous bird department, my daily visits from my Nuttall’s woodpecker dressed in vivid black and white stripes glistening like silk ended around November;  I hoped it had maybe migrated, found better food, gone somewhere hawk-free, but I missed it.

This afternoon I saw one, a vivid red spot on its head, going up and down my trees. I have a Nuttall’s again!

I have a friend who’s about to fly out here on a business trip and she emailed asking about restaurants in the area. That got a good conversation going between Michelle and me re our favorites, and I was asking her, What was the name of…?

And as I started to answer my friend, something showed up to try out our own food offerings.

I am typing this with the quail pacing outside my window, looking in at me: why is all the good suet where I can’t reach it? Is that the stuff you don’t put on the menu that only those in the know get to ask for?

Richard walked in the door just now and got to see it.

It has this little deely bopper feather on its head that does the bobble-head shimmy when it walks or bobs for seed. I am utterly charmed. It has spent a lot of time looking in the window at me, and here it comes again.

I am typing this blindly as I’m being stared at. Feed. Me.

…And now I have quietly snuck more food just outside the glass door and it is ignoring it and staring in the window just the same. It hopped up on the outer window sill to come closer, not minding the three of us talking a few feet away. It has never seen people before, perhaps? It’s simply curious and happy to hang out with us.

But then, you can do that after a good meal at a nice place.

My car had major work done on it last Friday. It’s old, the family minivan with its age spots, the kids now off to university; it’s still here in part because our out-of-pocket medical expenses the last two years were more than my husband’s Prius had been.

My daughter and I had an errand we were going to run to Oakland and then San Carlos on the way home, some happy gallivanting with a little bit of bakery bribery to celebrate her being home.

And every time we thought about getting off our duffs and going and actually doing all that the last two days…somehow, Monday, it just didn’t feel like today was the day. Eh, Californians don’t know how to drive in the rain, let’s give it a pass. Nor Tuesday. Hey–let’s see if I can see Shadow take off on two wings and a prayer, I really do want to see him go. I sat tight and wound 2300 yards of a Colourmart.com cone into a hank, something that didn’t require looking, eyes glued to the unfolding falcon scene in the afternoon while still doing something useful.

But I really did need to get to the post office, so at least I finally got that done after the fledging. I then ran a quick errand to Trader Joe’s in the opposite direction.  I didn’t hear it the first few miles…

But which is why my car went straight back into the shop. They immediately took responsibility and told me they are not charging me: the power steering pump apparently cracked while they were working on other things and they didn’t notice–they were just glad the fluid had lasted long enough to get it back in there for me to say hey, what’s this new and rapidly growing noise? They told me on the phone this morning that it had completely drained out in their driveway and how glad they were that everything was okay.

Now imagine us on the freeway with all the freeway sounds drowning it out at first and then no place to pull over and suddenly no steering. We might well have been in the middle of the bridge over the Bay.

Someone was looking out for us. Not to mention all the people in all the cars that would have been around us.

Now she has it–now I can say it.

My friend Chan, whom I’ve not yet met in person–we tried last time I was back East but we didn’t quite pull it off–listened to me agonizing over knitting that cotton chemo cap I made for the in-law who does not wish to be named (there are two, actually, and their diagnoses were three days apart; it was not a fun week. Only one wanted a cap.) It was so terribly slow in the making–my hands could only handle a few rows a day. Cotton just has no give to it.

Chan made the trek to her not-close yarn store after carefully asking me about colors and came home with some very soft cotton yarn. No, she would not let me pay her back for it. Yes, she was determined she was going to do this, for a woman she’d never heard of before. (And isn’t that just the coolest construction?)

I got an email this morning from the recipient, exclaiming over her new hat, saying it fits well, saying how perfect it is as their weather has been getting hot, and saying that she believes that knitters are loving people.

My words are terribly inadequate but they’re what I’ve got: thank you, Chan. Thank you for being  in this life thing together with us. We feel very blessed.