Longtime readers will remember that my older son was called by the Mormon Church to be a missionary in Haiti. He was already fluent in French, so picking up Haitian Creole came easily; it was a simplified and altered slaves’ French.

The country went up in chaos while he was in the language training center before shipping out, and all Americans were asked to evacuate. The Church sent him to southern Florida instead.

When all those hurricanes swept through there, one right after another that really bad year, the Church told the missionaries, the Red Cross needs you more than we do right now–go volunteer at the shelters.

Which is how, when he and his missionary companion walked in and asked what they could do to help, he was pulled aside and asked to go talk to that Haitian woman sitting quietly alone over there.  Standard procedure was to ask each person their situation and needs as they came in, but she didn’t speak English; she looked okay to them. But please just go make sure for us.

When she found someone who spoke her language!  I have a mechanical heart valve, I don’t have my meds, I’ve missed my doctor’s appointment, I have a son brain-damaged by sickle cell anemia and I can’t control him in this strange environment…!

He was writing things down in English as she spoke while quickly letting it be known she needed help, stat.  He described it to me as, she had, by the time he found her there, simply given up. “She was in a world of hurt, Mom.”

He got taken aside later and was told he’d saved her life.  He emailed home, saying, Mom, if I never do anything else here, I now know why I needed to have this calling and learn this language and come here at this time.

…I talked to him yesterday.

People whom he knows and cares deeply about have not been able to make any contact yet with people they love back home.  It is very hard.

A word about Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres:  I made a donation a few years ago. (#2 there shows where to donate directly; I’m giving this first link for any knitters who want to be included in the Knitters Without Borders totals, just to show what knitters are made of.  Thank you Stephanie!, who raised over $600,000 for them even before this week’s earthquake in Haiti.)

But I didn’t like MSF’s spending the least money asking for more.  I found a way around that: I set up an automatic monthly payment. They know I have decided to give. They know how much.  It is not restricted to any one purpose, but rather, they are free to put it to use wherever the need is greatest.  As the wife of a Red Cross emergency services volunteer, I know how much that frees them to simply go do their work.

With that, they send the occasional email to let me know what they’re doing in the world and how important it is.

Like I could forget.

We can’t all be there in Haiti in person to help, but we can send the message that we would never let them be alone in their hurt if we can possibly help it.  It is a small world, and they and we are in it together.

I added to that amount yesterday.  Won’t you all join me.

No, Dad, I didn’t.  But with memories of that restaurant in Florida you took us to when I was 9 on one trip and again at 16, making sure I ordered that stew on the second go-round, even if it’s chicken in it nowadays, telling me a little of the history of that dish…

Take my Dad to a restaurant he really likes once, and he will find it should he get any chance to return, no matter where it was or how long ago.  Let me tell you.  I was three and a half when he discovered a seafood restaurant by the water in an older part of Seattle.  We were in town for the World’s Fair.

My own vivid memory was not about the food, but at being petrified at the idea of stepping off a perfectly solid, stationary platform to get on a shaky, shuddering little flying car hanging from a wire way above the ground with nothing below.  Sitting in the middle of the air.  It was a crazy thing to do, and each time we took the monorail at the Fair, I let my parents know it.  Loudly.

On the very last day, I finally, *by myself,* (I was so proud!) holding Mom’s hand, chose to take that mindboggling step and I crossed that gap in the floor.   Our monorail car jerked right in that moment, scaring the bejabors out of me.  But I still did it. I did it!

I was in my early 40’s when we were in Seattle again, this time for my niece’s wedding; with an afternoon that Mom, Dad, my older brother and I had to ourselves, Dad was sure he could find that seafood restaurant again from way back when.

And he did.  And it was still fabulous.  I bet you he could name the place for you, too.  All I could tell you is, there was a drawbridge nearby on the water and antique Native canoes hanging from the walls and ceiling, with a floor that kind of meandered randomly up and down all over the place in curves to match the canoes. But oh, the chowder.

So.  Recipe: take one large empty round clear Costco container, formerly containing four pounds of in-shell pistachios (and a bajillion biscotti before that).  Eat many, many pistachios till everybody’s ready to give them a rest for a little while, set container in cabinet, let it get pushed progressively further back and forgotten about till the pistachios are good and, um, ripe.   Last year’s crop.

Toss the occasional nuts to the squirrels. It’s that or throw them out, and given a choice between squirrel antics or raccoons trashing the place at night?  Right.

Get bright-eyed idea.  Squirrels should earn their food, the little freeloaders.  Remove lid, set round container on its side with the last few pistachios in there–throw in a walnut to sweeten the deal–set it at the crack on the patio for a little initial stability and go back inside to watch.

It was hysterical. I had two, a gray and a black, show up so fast I didn’t even see them coming as I walked back inside.  Two who have been hormonal and territorial of late, who would never have allowed the other on the patio at the same time if they could help it, now circling the mouth of that canister together, the tail of the one wrapped almost ’round the face of the other and vice versa.  Step forward. Jump back.  The other hides behind him.  Reverse, repeat.   Fur-vently wanting in, fur-ventingly knowing no way no how.  Nuh uh.  The gap between solid ground and the who knows…  The wide world outside vs the interior of that piece of plastic claustrophobia…  YOU go first!  But, but, wait, not till I do, but, but…

Quick, Henry, the Flip! (Triple word score points to anyone who gets that reference.)

The videorecorder was nowhere in sight.  Darn.

Best restaurant in their little town.  They might even go in next time.  If only the cover charge weren’t so steep.

I brought it back inside so they wouldn’t stew over it for the night. Besides, they’re such hams, I want to capture them on camera.

I can’t tell you any stories from today’s 4.1, because I had a bad night last night, got up, gave up, went back to bed, and zonked out hard through the whole thing this morning.  So here’s an old story to make up for it.

Our kids were a lot littler and we were at Back-to-School night.  I got our third grader’s classroom, Richard took the first grader’s; the rooms were packed with parents sitting on tiny chairs.

The first grade teacher was explaining how the children had been taught right from the get-go what the earthquake safety rules were: duck and cover, ie, get under their desk and hold onto the legs so that the top of the desk would protect them from any flying debris.

In the God-has-a-sense-of-humor department, a 4-point-something hit *as she was saying that.*  My sweetie dutifully raises his hand, and–

–okay, wait, picture this here. The man is 6’8″. He is big boned. He is big everything.

–and asks so very innocently, “Are we supposed to get under these desks now?”

(Changed the yoke, though, to make it a one-0f-a-kind. Just because. Original pattern in here.)

This is the Venezia merino/silk yarn Sam picked out at Purlescence last Thursday.  Glass shawl pin by Sheila.

Does it count as knitting it in four days if you totally didn’t touch the needles one of the days in the middle of the five?

Does it count as an FO if you didn’t run the ends in yet? The camera battery died, the bad picture with the running ends stays, I was in a hurry to show it off!

(p.s. Happy Birthday to my sister Carolyn!  She and I used to argue as kids over whether the 12 days of Christmas started 12 days before–ie on my birthday, or that it went to 12 days after–ie, hers. She was right, but I was the obnoxious little sister who refused to concede the point.  Okay, in our old age, now I will,  so, Merry Christmas too!)

Roomba squirrel!

When our first was a baby, I read everything I could get my hands on about nutrition and childhood: I was going to be a good parent to this perfect little new person.

One of the things I wanted to do right was to set her on  a lifelong path of liking her veggies.  (I guess I succeeded; she’s now the family vegetarian.)

So.  Sweets were out, even fruit juice till she got a little older–didn’t want to train her to have a sweet tooth, especially since type 2 diabetes was all over my extended family.

She was a young toddler when we were visiting back home one time, and my mom happened to make a really nice dessert for everybody.  When Mom was done, she put the spoon she’d been caramelizing the sugar for the sauce with in the dishwasher and turned away a moment, leaving the door down.

Sam toddled over just then and happened to grab that interesting-looking big spoon and, what else was a toddler going to do, stuck it in her mouth.

There was no wrestling it out of her hands. The *look* on her face.  What WAS this?!! YOWZA!!!

The squirrels vacuum in ever-wider circles under the birdfeeder, sniffing for any stray seeds, Roomba style. Leave’em alone and they’ll clean the place right up.

Someone gave me some just-slightly-sweetened walnuts for Christmas. I love’em, can’t eat’em, and nobody else here was going for them.  I finally decided, well, there’s more than one way to get entertainment value out of a food, and I put just a few outside.

I turned my head and one disappeared so fast I didn’t see it.

Then a bluejay swooped down, grabbed the second, then the last, then stood there with its beak very full waiting for the black squirrel who’d been coming for them as if to taunt it, flying away at the last moment.  Neener neener!  Got YOU, buddy!

Sibling rivalry, much?

I waited till the littlest black squirrel was around and put two more out just for it.

And it was like watching Sam at the dishwasher all over again.  What IS this?!!  Oh. My. SWEEeeeEET!!

It jumped up on a chair back to get a good view of anything incoming that might try to take it from her.  She didn’t run off with it, but sat there nibbling thoughtfully away.  It was a full half; it took her awhile. Then she came down and went looking for more.

And found it.  Even my opening the door to get a clearer shot (backlit by the lowering sun, but it was a good try) couldn’t dissuade her from staying right there savoring every second.  S U G A R.

Great Christmas present, truly. I totally love it.

January 2.  New Year’s will probably always now remind me of January 2.

There’s a whole lot I didn’t write in that post a year ago today.  I didn’t say it was an emergency colonoscopy.  I didn’t say how the doctor wanted me to get some blood tests run, too, but after he saw what he saw he made a point of telling Richard to take me straight home afterwards and not put me through going to the lab that day. He was hoping all that bleeding he’d wanted so much not to see would quiet down enough to make it easier to go in the next day.

It was all downhill from there.

We got a letter in the mail, that, fittingly, arrived today of all days: announcing the new company that would be handling our by-mail meds, which, were I still on it, would have applied to supplying my Humira–you cannot just walk into a pharmacy and buy a biological Rx off the shelf.

So now we know.  Caremark has been kicked out.  YES!! (I tell myself I’m not bitter.  And yet.  It is still true that had they done their job I might still have a colon. Had Blue Cross honored their commitments on time I might still have a colon, not to mention points south requiring that second operation.  They did not.)

But a year later, looking back… All of that is honestly a very small part of the whole.

There is this sense that I can handle anything now.

There is this sense that I can be there for anyone else now.

There is the knowledge that there were people who were there for me through anything and everything, including, to the best of your abilities, so many of you from wherever you were.  You let me know I was not alone and not bereft in that hospital room all those weeks with needles in my arms and itchy plastic anti-blood-clot machines working on my legs day and night, that my mom and my husband keeping watch there and my children who were away weren’t facing this alone either.  I cannot tell you how important your presence in the comments and by your prayers were during those days, the squares that were knit, the afghans that were assembled, the cards that were sent, the Thinking Good Thoughts that got thought. Thank you.

There were doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, even that housekeeper, who made me feel it was important to them that I had passed through their lives and thereby gave meaning to what I was having to go through.  In the process, they, too, strengthened my then-tenuous hold on my own.  How close I came–not that there was any doubt–was brought home to me when I got word two months ago that someone my little brother had grown up with had just had the same liver-inflammation complication of his own Crohn’s; he had not made it.  My heart goes out to his family.

I am intensely grateful to be here with my own family still.  Amazed at the things I can do now.  Intensely grateful at having had our kids home for the holidays.  Celebrate? Oh, honey, there are no words to say how much.  And it’s a whole new year!

I know, it sounds like having Amazon put paper and ribbon to your Christmas presents.  I can’t believe it–it took me how long to figure this out?!

Purlescence was having a don’t-make-us-count-inventory sale New Year’s Eve, and Sam and I did that errand, too, before she left.  We walked in and people jumped up and offered us seats; have I ever mentioned it’s a nice place? (Oh, never…) Thanks, but I was there with a specific purpose in mind.

I wanted fingering weight, but color and feel rated highest. Sam picked out this one.

Venezia merino and silk, in a shade of green she pointed out just about anybody with any coloring could wear, with a nice sheen to it.  Spun quite finely into many plies then cabled together–Cascade did a very nice job with the spinning. This one shouldn’t pill.  This one kept its softness despite the rate of twist. Well done!

Worsted weight. (Oh well, can’t win’em all.)  The Rooster Rock shawl proved to me I could work with that, so, okay.

I started to knit a variation on my Water Turtles shawl, and the slip knot at the beginning of my traditional long-tail cast-on stopped me right there.  In that yarn, it was just too thick.  I didn’t like it.  I started again.

No.

Huh.

Hey.  What if…

Now, I once explained to someone that there is almost never a good use in knitting for an e-wrap.  If you cast on via e-wraps, ie simply twisting the yarn into a loop like the cursive letter e and putting that loop straight onto the needle, when you go to knit the first row, there will be a length of yarn hanging down between those e-wraps that will get longer and looonger and looooonger as you go across the row, like a dog on a retractable leash running after a squirrel.

And yet.  I tried it. One e-wrap, just on that first stitch only, just there at the start, just that very first stitch.

I had to do several rows to see how it would really play out in context.  And when I did, it was, WOW.

I have knitted over a hundred of these top-down shawls by now.  Not so many on the heavier weight ones, so I guess I didn’t have quite the motivation to go looking before, but still–a hundred shawls! And I only just now get it.  This is how they all should have started. This is how all the ones I’ll do after this will.

I guess my surprise New Year’s present to myself and the whole wide world arrived e-wrapped after all.

When I was a kid, we came home from a trip out West one summer with a few Sugar Pine cones, part of my dad’s childhood, exotic in our own, and a delight ever after as a fireplace decoration and a bit of home to him.

And so it was with great delight of my own that I explained the backstory to Sam when we spotted them on the sale table at the Wild Bird Center today:  monstrous cones, slathered in suet and rolled in black-oil sunflower seeds to feed woodpeckers and the like, with a loop of twine glued to the end for hanging.  Sugar Pines!

I’ve spotted a ladderback in my yard a few times. They are huge, glorious black and white-striped woodpeckers that I would love to see closer up.  This might do the trick.  I bought one.

I had just the one spot where the squirrels were already trained to stay away from (and they d0.  So far.  Hoping this doesn’t–well, I’ll find out, won’t I?)  I hung the cone in the middle of the twiggy branch by the feeder.

It’s been interesting watching the little bird brains at work.

The squirrels ignored the whole thing. So far so good.

The house finches have always been feisty. They want the highest perch on the feeder and are often fighting their way up, then swirling off in a flurry of feathers and feet in a downwards figure eight pattern if another bird won’t give way fast enough.  When the seed level drops below the highest perch, they’ll still peck and threaten to get to the top and be king of the mountain, then fight their way back down to where they can actually eat.  Their position often means more to them than their food, and they will hang on when they’re done, loathe to give up a prime spot, till another one gets fed up with waiting and lets them know it.  Beat it! (Maybe it’s just their way of training me to pour in more seed.)

Meantime, the chickadees will hold back, coming and landing on the twig if it looks like there might be an opening soon.  They watch.  They wait.  Then when the finches fight their way off and let go, they’ll dart in, grab just one seed, and dash off to the trees to crack it open and eat in peace.  They know where all the openings are; they can gauge when a spot on the far side, out of their sight, is suddenly accessible and they’ll go for it fast.  They are bright little birds.

They never fight.  They don’t care if they have to hang upside down to reach what they want. They’re acrobats. And they are fearless.

And so it was this afternoon that this monstrous, you never know, this *thing,* it could be an owl, you know!, suddenly appeared by the feeder.

I wondered how long it would take the birds to get used to it.

The often-bullying finches were having none of it.

Then a chickadee went, hey, I know a sunflower seed when I see one! It landed on the twig and hopped right over to the pine cone.  It IS! And nobody else is around!  It pulled out a seed–and this time, for once, it didn’t fly straight away.  It had the thing entirely to itself and it knew it.  Nirvana!  It had lived for this day! It reached for a second. Then a third.  It did a chickadee dance for joy, running up and down the twiglets, checking it out here and there.  Coooool!

Eventually, the finches started coming; just one. Then another. But–they flew towards the feeder, pulled up at the last moment, then did this fancy dance in the air: yes! No! Yes! No! Yes! NO!!! and at the last darted away. Over and over and over, one, then a whole flock all at once.  They wanted that feeder.  They wanted that food.  They just couldn’t quite brave that horrendous risk.  They expended a ton of energy flying close but away, not daring to land.

The sun got lower, and you could tell they wanted dinner. Finally after yet another chickadee had landed by the cone–the chickadees had all ignored the feeder from the moment they’d discovered that cone–five finches went phew! and came at last.

But when the chickadee was done, they fled fast in a fright.

The whole afternoon, not a one landed if there wasn’t a stripey-headed little chestnut-backed chickadee announcing the coast was clear.  Not a one tried out the cone.

Score one for the little guys.

p.s. Happy New Year, and safe flying, Sam!

Pizza for Sam’s last night home. The conversation came around to her very tall father’s experiences walking into Shakee’s Pizza in Maryland at 12 years old and having someone automatically stamp his hand, because of his height, as being old enough to buy a beer to go with his pizza, while he was going, huh?

With shrimp, dill, and capers on Sam’s side of the pizza, we got to talking next about spices. “Saffron is the most expensive in the world, and you know what the second most is?” she asked.

“No, what?”

“Cardamon.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

(I being short in this family), “So, if you go into an expensive pizza joint they’ll cardamom?”

She looked at my Richard.  “It is a credit to you that you have stayed married to this for all these years.”  He grinned right back.

On the way to the airport, yonder son-the-older was doing what his siblings have been doing before him:  giving me a hard time about my ten-year-old clunker minivan. The thing is a piece of junk inside and out, yea verily, no denying.  Since I just laughed off the pride argument, he went for the mechanical one.  Hey, it still drives!

After we got home from dropping them off, I picked up the paper and there was an article saying most people don’t realize that all state and local taxes are, through the end of this year, deductible if you buy a new car.   Now.  Your Stimulus Plan at work.

And, it turns out… If you buy a plug-in electric starting Dec 31st, you get more tax-credit happiness.  For Just One Day, then, carbuyer nirvana.  (Right. And do you know how many plug-ins are available on the American market right now?  Do you know how many books I’d have to sell to get my dream Tesla?   The dealership is four miles away, but I’m told they charge $2000 just for the test drive.  So close.  So far.)

Now, my out-of-pocket medical for the year would have paid for a Toyota Yaris with all the options and a year’s worth of gas, so the clunker stays for just a little longer. But that conversation did get me looking, at least. And showing this new thought to those who are still here at the house.

What? What? Hey, *I* thought it was a cool-looking car…!

(And now nobody’s complaining about the clunker.  Hey, I’ve been a mom a long time, I know how to do this.)

Michelle was envisioning how to sweep away “this yarn infestation,” quickly explaining that she meant how to better organize it.

I say my needles just need to get out more.  (Don’t miss the caption.)

Old Maryland pictures and random thoughts:

Our John gave a wonderful talk this morning.  From the heart.  It’s good to have him home. Best Christmas gift of all.

Sam and Michelle gave me a cone of Elann silk/bamboo yarn in a pretty shade of pink–the same color I knitted up for my surgeon’s wife, wishing I had a shawl that color too.  And now I will.

Richard-the-younger and Kim gave me Blue Ridge brand sock yarn in the colorway “Rock Climbing,” which got them our Blue Ridge Mountain honeymoon story that would totally skunk any others–truly–and a grin at their sister’s rock climbing.   Y’all should try the spot below where Sugarloaf Mountain is pictured all over this post, even if the grips someone installed in the stone cliff face down there are messing with my childhood memories of Easter Weekend hikes to the top in the natural serenity of the place. (Well, as serene as you get with six siblings all trying to beat each other to the Civil War cannon at the top while Mom and Dad yell at them not to go out of sight.)

Wait, Easter?!  We’re not done with the Christmas music here yet.  Quick, to the piano!

Richard and Kim arrived yesterday afternoon at the airport, making our Christmas dinner and our joy complete.

This is the first time we’ve had all the children together since they’ve all grown up and been out on their own.   I wondered how it would all come together; I am here to say, while I have a moment while they’re out running an errand together, that I am extremely proud of them and of how much they’re enjoying each other’s company.

I think of the ten-year-old granddaughter of our older friends Conway and Elaine that I met at their youngest son’s wedding reception; that cute little girl, who seemed a bit shy then (and understandably so) among all the adult strangers, is now my beautiful, talented, and exceptionally kind daughter-in-law.

Today the boys tackled a task that has been physically beyond me for several years, and got it done. Michelle and Sam, who both love to cook, have been running the kitchen.  Everything feels like it’s coming together.

I remember a conversation with Cathy, a nurse then working for my family practitioner, back when I had four kids age six and under: she told me that when she got done with cooking the dinner and everybody was finished eating, she simply sat back–her kids were in charge of the cleanup and the dishes.

I remember looking at her in awe and going, Wow, how would that be? I looked forward to the day when I had a kid old enough to do the dishes!

I am here to tell every young mom, that day came.  But it didn’t stop there. It only got better.

Even if the kids could only bake enough cookies for a few, really, today. (They covered the table with paper plates full of fresh cookies ready to go, including my husband’s family’s specialty of Grinch-colored spritz Christmas trees with a red hot on top.  A batch of chocolate ones got baked and added at my request, but the kids did it all.)

Trying to get five adults to agree where to be at one time, with two cars involved, while preparing for Christmas and the two more adults to arrive, is…entertaining.  Visions of caroling were met with “But do we have to SING?!”

To which I answered, as I told Cliff when he opened the door at his dad Don‘s house, “Just two words’ worth: ‘Silent Night.’  I mean, c’mon, think about it.”

Merry Christmas to all, and to Santa, and everybody else traveling, a good flight.

I recently got a package I wasn’t expecting.  Inside was a wrapped birthday present from one of my older sisters: a book on hot cocoa.  (Wait–did she find out I have a blog?! She reads it?  Who knew? Oh– *hi*, Carolyn! And thank you!)

After John got home last week, he saw that book the next day, picked it up, and laughed, “I saw that and I nearly bought it for you for Christmas!”

Sam flew in late last night, saw it today, laughed, picked it up, flipped through a few pages, and said, “I saw that and I nearly bought you that!”

Man.  It’s like they’ve got me pegged or something.