I make a chocolate torte, a takeoff from what was originally in a Hershey’s cookbook but made even more decadent, that has become my signature dessert and part of my children’s childhood memories.

And I have a daughter who now is terribly allergic to anything dairy.  Not lactose intolerant but truly allergic.  She’s adjusted pretty well, but she misses that torte.

So every now and then we experiment, although we have a long way to go yet.  Hazelnut oil with chocolate is wonderful.  Her sibling’s using soy milk for the cream and substituting the butter in the cake with extra virgin olive oil, not so much.  (I shouldn’t type that. I really shouldn’t type that.  Not out loud.)

Saturday, Michelle came home from Whole Foods with a can of high-fat coconut milk–she figured the low fat version wasn’t going to cut it.  (True!)  I use super-heavy manufacturing cream in my ganache that I cover my cakes with; could one make a ganache with this?

So she gave it a go and melted the chocolate into it.  It tasted like a Mounds bar gone to heaven.  Then she added vanilla, which covered up the coconut somewhat.  I can just hear my dad, who emphatically does not care for coconut, exclaiming, Well, thank GOODNESS.  Heh.

I got a note last night from our friend Paul.  His daughters had doorbell-ditched nectarines from their tree at our door last week; I’d returned the favor a few days later by knocking on their door and handing his wife one of my tortes (my version).  Paul was emailing to ask about it and about the chocolate, and wondered whether we kept some bars of that Trader Joe’s chocolate on hand as a staple, then?  And just which of their bars did I use?

I had to think about it, and the answer was yes.  I do always have at least one of their Pound Plus Bittersweets on hand so I can easily pull together a pair of tortes (I always make two) as the need arises.

As for Michelle, though, I’d have to say, hum a few bars and she’ll fake it.

My daughter in Vermont wanted to see pictures of the plum tree she’d instigated, and the emailed picture didn’t go through, so I’m putting up shots here of the day it was planted and what it looks like today, two months later.  Sprouting like a teenager–it’s already taller than me.

My children gave me a new summer tradition, and they didn’t even know it.  About 8pm each Wednesday, I figure it’s late enough in the day that the UV levels are probably not a problem.  And I go out in the back yard–such a simple grace to be granted to one’s soul–and I water my trees.

The most amazing thing happened when I did last night: it was quiet as I walked out the door.  No counting to see how long it would take before I got squawked at (two steps, on average), no bluejays flitting noisily just above my head.  I’d seen two out there earlier in the day, but territory-wise, the back yard was all mine now.  Double-check those hearing aid batteries…but no. All was quiet on the western front. The little ones must have fledged.

And I feel like the proud momma as if I’d raised them myself.

I love knit night at Purlescence.  I was going through serious knitters deprivation while we were on vacation and then they were too for awhile there.

So here’s the scene: I asked if I could have the shawl back that they had in the window, the Julia pattern from “Wrapped in Comfort,” a little one made out of one skein of Handmaiden Casbah on big needles to stretch the yardage as far as it could go.  It’s softer than the blue Bare one I’d been working on, and softness was something the circumstances really needed.

Kay not only gave it back to me, it had been held on the model with a shawl pin made by a local artist, which she put in my hands and asked that I send it with the shawl to the woman whose husband Marc is so very ill.

Wow.

I regretted not having the Casbah to knit the shop another one; they have it on backorder, and it hadn’t come in.

At which point a woman across the room, Mary, who’d been quietly spinning away at her wheel, and who I hadn’t even known had heard any of that, reached into her knitting bag, stood up and walked over to me, and asked how many skeins it had taken to knit that shawl that was now in my hands.  One?  Good, then!  And she held out a skein, a beautiful blue, Casbah no less, and urged me to take it.

It took me a moment to sink in.  Wow.  I could knit it up and gift it in turn to the dear friends who own that shop.  And that’s what Mary was hoping I would do.  She was giving me her Casbah and blessing all of us in the face of the loss that this other woman that none of them had ever met was dealing with.  We were all in this life thing together.

I was fighting tears.  Wow.

Cast on.

Eleven years ago, our friend Conway told me that one of his sons and his family had been visiting and were just going out the door for the airport to leave when his son, a doctor, looked at him and asked him what was wrong.

Conway told me he’d answered that he was fine, saying, you don’t want to miss your plane, but that his son went, No, you’re not. And over his father’s objections he’d called an ambulance and thus had saved his father’s life from that heart attack.  Conway was bursting with love, pride, and gratitude as he told me this.

A month ago.  We arrived at the Loews Hotel on Coronado Island for our son’s wedding, started to unpack, and it was time to go meet up with Kim’s family somewhere around the lobby and then head over to the rehearsal dinner.  At the foot of the grand spiral staircase, I saw a few people I didn’t know and Kim a bit away, talking to someone.  I approached a 40-something man and asked, “You must be Kim’s uncle.”  I figured he would either think I was crazy, or, I was right.

The man smiled broadly and said indeed he was.  He was Kim’s Uncle Marc, Conway’s son who is a doctor.  I liked him immediately.

His brain tumor surgery Tuesday has had complications.  We wait to hear.  I had his age and kids’  mixed with his younger brother’s, though, yesterday.

I may not know him well, but what he didn’t know when we met in May was that I have been grateful to him for eleven years for dropping everything on the spot and giving his dad a little more time on this earth for those who loved him.

And the knitting for Marc’s wife continues.  It’s what I can do.

Suddenly there’s so much to process in a hurricane all at once.

A new relative we just added into the extended family just found out he has a malignant brain tumor. Metastasized.  He has young children.

A young man my son met through their internships in DC turns out today to be Marc, the son of a friend whose husband was killed in an accident just after they moved away from here back when Marc was in I think kindergarten.  I lost touch with his widowed mom when she moved the second or third time and have wanted for years to get a chance to reach out again and talk to her.

My son called in great excitement to tell me, not waiting for me to get to my email for him to share the news.  Marc emailed just now that his mom was just as excited as I am at our all finding each other again.  Synchronicity is wonderful stuff.  And he mentioned something to me about his wife–while I’m struggling to picture the little boy as the grown man.  Wow.

The day his family moved away, a number of us at the young-child stage got together at their apartment on Stanford campus, where Bryant, his dad, had just finished his PhD, to box and scrub and watch kids and help out.  Anything to lessen the pain of their moving.  Bryant bought us all pizza at the end of the day, a rare luxury for us all, and we sat or stood under the scrawny pine trees just outside their door they were about to close for the last time, reveling in the friendship with the poignancy of loss that they were leaving.  How much Bryant was going to, just a few months later, we could never have known.

When Bryant died–he was a pedestrian, struck by a passing car–there was a tremendous need here to do something.  We their friends here got together with one person setting up a video camera, and shared our stories of their father’s kindnesses from people the boys would likely not even remember when they grew up.  So that they had something to remember Bryant by, so they would know the kind of man he was, so they would have his good image to live up to.

So their father would be real to them.  Compassionate and human.

Marc marveled that I remembered his brother’s broken leg. I marveled that he remembered any of us at all. But he did.  But then…  Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.

Get out the video camera, take out the tape recorders.  Write up questions to ask.  Get the older folks talking about back in the day.  Their children and great great grandchildren will cherish every word.

Meantime, I’ve definitely got some knitting to do.

Jessie, our niece, dancing joyfully with her nieces, Hannah and Jane.

Jane in her daddy’s arms afterwards.

One very small boy got into the spirit of the occasion by taking his mommy flowers: and since living ones are always better, he scooped the whole thing out of the ground, rootball and all, ever so carefully, when nobody was quite looking at the right moment–little ones move fast–and brought them to her, two footsteps away. This picture was taken right after they replanted it together while I laughed and snapped his picture.

The funny part was when other guests introduced themselves and asked if we were there on the Hyde side or the Williams. Uh, yes, um, wait, let me explain… The groom’s last name was the same as the bride’s mother’s maiden name (no relation, though). And his mother’s first name and her late mother’s first name were nearly the same. (Think Kara and Karen, Laura and Laurie, Janet and Janice–that sort of thing). So it took some clarifying.

Jessie and her new husband at the end of the reception, ready now for Happily Ever After.

They are moving to our area when they get back from their honeymoon, so we’ll get to see them often, and I can’t wait!

I was standing in a local yarn store about two months ago, looking at the Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk. I love that yarn. I love the kindness of the women behind that brand–I’ve mentioned here before that I once had trouble matching a dye lot and got a phone call from New York City at dark o’clock one winter morning as a LYSO there called me back the next day, having no clue that the person who’d inquired was on California time. My husband startled awake, grabbed the phone so I could sleep, and then woke me, grumbling, “It’s your New York City boiler-room yarn pushers. They want you to know they don’t have your dye lot.”

Busted.

When I told Blue Sky, they promptly checked, found they could match it themselves, and mailed me two skeins and insisted it was on them for my troubles.

So here I was thinking how I have such positive associations with that yarn, and I felt, buy the white. You’ll be glad you have it. Buy the white. I had nobody in mind, just a strong feeling.

I was going through my stash (again!) looking for just the right yarn for Jessie’s wedding present, and that Alpaca Silk leaped out at me and I thought, I am SO glad I have that! And then it hit me that that matched the thought I’d had in the store.

So did I immediately cast on? Was I satisfied? I confess no. I argued. I had cones’ worth of plain baby alpaca, less impressive looking, perhaps less soft, but already balled up and ready to go. I had this, I had that, and the Alpaca Silk would require prep time and I was tired. I went and watered my baby plum tree, it being about 8 pm, no UV to speak of, and then the apple trees. I splashed at the bluejay that scolded me that this was its territory (and it actually, for the first time in weeks, shut up. It’s been keeping my daughter awake at night, and it actually stood there on the branch above me, looking at me, opening its beak a few times and then not chattering anything. I do believe it finally gained some respect.) I avoided the yarn some more. I wrote a note to a friend.

It’s the writing that did it–when in doubt, write it out. It hit me that thinking that that was just the right yarn and then not using it because I didn’t want to roll it up into balls and I didn’t want to have to splice them were just such dumb reasons not to use a yarn that I knew felt right. Get real. And I only had to ball up the first for the night, the rest could wait.

I can’t tell you what a relief it felt to get going with what was then sitting in my hands, going, See? See? I told you so! at me.

I didn’t want to make a Wanda shawl from my “Wrapped in Comfort” book in white and have Jessie’s exactly match my sister Anne’s. I wanted her to have something more unique. I spent some time hashing out lace pattern ideas and swatches, noted the wedding date–uh, ain’t a whole lot of time there, folks–and decided I’d have to leave room for ripping and redoing and redesigning for later on on that one. The result is this:

I cast on and started following the directions for the Constance shawl, but in size 6mm (10) needles. (As always, remember that I am a very loose knitter.) Then row 6, I knit plain. Row 8, I omitted. For the yoke, I did the seaweed pattern of the Monterey shawl, and will continue with the Monterey from there; the original had 361 stitches across the body, this will have 292 (three more than the Constance because the jellyfish pattern is a 12+4 whereas the Constance is a 12+1.)

Got all that? Good. Basically, this gets you a less-full Monterey shawl on larger needles, fewer stitches, and less time taken, but in a wonderful yarn. It will have 13 stitches more across than the Wanda shawl in the Wanda yarn, and the Monterey is a mesh-type stitch with a great deal of give to it. It is emphatically NOT a beginner’s lace; it’s complicated and requires lots of attention, it aggravates occasionally especially when you’re not used to it, and it comes out absolutely exquisite in the end, especially knitted up in a yarn like this.

Which is why it feels like the perfect one to knit for newlyweds. Not to mention, it looks like they’ll be taking a job here. I can’t wait to show them the Aquarium in Monterey.

“You can’t have it, Jessie, it’s mine!” Cheryl grinned at her teenager, who was stroking it. I had just given her a handspun angora scarf, simply done in a triangle shape: cast on three stitches and knit into the front and back of the last stitch on each row till it’s the size you want. It was before I knew how to knit lace. But spinning I could do, knitting I could do, softness in the face of Cheryl’s cancer, this was what I could do to cheer her on. It had been a few years since I’d made her a Kaffe Fassett sweater at my husband’s urging at his sister’s diagnosis, which was the first time I knew my husband got this whole knitting thing: Richard had even driven an hour away across the Bay with me to Straw Into Gold to help pick out the colors.

White angora this time. Cheryl beat the odds and continued on, as her doctors tried one therapy and then another. For eight years.

My in-laws left this morning to help out with the next grandchild’s wedding, and I found myself taking stock: finish the cashmere and silk project. Okay, I can do that today. Keep the second WIP off to the side–that purple one that’s mostly done can wait yet a little longer, because the person getting it has no clue and there’s no rush (even if *I* want it finished. I don’t like to let things sit like that.) There’s the ocean Sea Silk I bought for my mother-in-law that needs to get started, and the blue-formerly-Bare I’d like to dive into.

But. Most importantly. There’s the niece getting married in two weeks.

Jessie was in college when Cheryl finally passed; her dad had bugged out of his sick wife’s life about halfway through. (I debated long and hard about mentioning that here. One could write all kinds of outrage here and in the comments, and they would be soundly deserved by him, but not by his daughter.) If ever a young woman deserved some knitting from me in support and in celebration of her new happiness…

Whichever yarn in my stash wins out, I promise you it will be something exquisitely soft.

Gotta love that skylight view through the bathroom. A cacophony of crows indeed: they added their touch to the day.

Two toilet removals, many hours, much mopping, much laundering and folding of towels on my part and $634 later, the deed was done.

This morning my shower backed up. Could have been worse.

Michelle missed all the excitement yesterday, and went out to dinner with her friends almost as soon as she got home from work. So much for the easy way out for the rest of us: I hit the wall in the middle of cooking dinner with my mother-in-law, went in the other room and quietly told my husband that if I stood on my feet one more second I was going to barf. Which is what happens when I overdo. He’d had a long day too, but he instantly leaped up and took over, bless him.

I was far too tired to even knit.

I had gotten out the leftover brown rice and the Chinese hoisin sauce to go with the stir fry, hadn’t found the sesame oil, looked in the fridge, had seen the giant jar of pineapple mango salsa from Costco and thought, well, we gotta eat it sometime, and since I didn’t use sesame–I’d dumped half of it in. The more the merrier. Fruit. It’s good for you.

Richard went in the kitchen where the veggies were cooking away and the meat was ready to go in. Grabbed the hoisin sauce, cooked the meat, threw the rice in with the rest. One pot. Done like dinner.

And didn’t understand the funny look on my face when he presented it at the table in a color I wasn’t expecting.

Actually, it was surprisingly good.

Dad Hyde asked, as he wrapped it around his arm, “What is it?” I answered, “My mom calls them yarn necklaces.” This is a scarf out of Ellen’s handpainted merino-silk from Half Pint Farm in Vermont, bought at Stitches East last fall. One of those little projects for stuffing in the purse and carrying around that somehow, to my surprise, actually got finished when I wasn’t paying much attention to it. (When the yarn’s gone, it’s done.) Just add water and block it–except, um, maybe not now.

The silk and cashmere shawl in Constance’s shawl pattern (with some playing around with the yoke) continues only slowly; I’ve got company. Richard and Kim have internships for a month in DC and are staying at my in-laws’ house; my in-laws are doing various jaunts to keep themselves out of the way of the newlyweds. They’re camping out here for ten days.

Camping out is more of a description than we’d intended, as we wait for the sewer services folks to show up this morning. My pipes are barfing. These things never seem to happen when there’s nobody around to enjoy the excitement but us. I think I’d rather go to the Aquarium if I want to show them an interesting day.

Thank goodness we live in a time and a place when such things can get fixed pretty fast.

Twenty-four years ago, I dialed my OB’s office and asked the nurse which doctor was on call that day. Mind you, I had never said anything to anyone there, but she immediately called me on it: “Why? If it’s the wrong one, are you going to go out of labor?”

I hadn’t even told her yet that I was IN labor; what could I do but smile and answer honestly: “Yes.” There were two doctors in that practice, and by nine months I had come to admire and enjoy being around the one much more than the other.

Which is why I found myself apologizing to my dad that we’d missed his birthday by a day, but it was for the best. We were just stretching out the birthday celebrations a bit–we gave our new little boy his grandpa’s name.

Twenty-four years ago, we brought home a new son. Happy birthday, little guy. And now, Richard has brought us a new daughter. And the joy grows forever.

I have to show off my mom a moment. I wanna be like her when I grow up. (I’m amused that I get to invert the cliche of someone waving at the camera and going, Hi Mom! at the vast TV audience.)

Picture it, since I have the photo but don’t feel I can post it without asking–I got a wonderful shot yesterday of the small boy (maybe four?) reaching up and his great-grandpa, bent way over, reaching down, doing a “give me five!” together with great glee on both their faces.

I snuck in that photo of Kim yesterday in the time I had between helping set up the hall and the reception we held here for the newlyweds. Decades ago, the Catholic Church in Menlo Park (Kim’s mom’s family is Catholic) sold some land, including a few existing buildings, to the local Mormons. They kept the surrounding acreage and joked to our leaders, “How do you feel about being surrounded by Catholics?”

To which, I’m told, they were answered with a laugh, “How do you feel about having Mormons in the heart of you?”

The centerpiece of the property is a huge-trunked redwood that was honored as the best one in the city a few years ago. Both churches kept it for the treasure that it is, and it will grow on long after all of us are gone. It’s too big to fit in any one picture, and somehow that goes well with a wedding celebration.

We built our own church building, kept their cottage to house a genealogy library which is open for anybody and everybody’s use, and kept their reception hall. It’s a lovely old exposed-beam building with high ceilings and tall windows looking out on very old oak trees, and yesterday, that was where we celebrated.

It is also where our friends Conway and Elaine invited us to the wedding reception of their son fourteen years ago, where we first met another of their sons and his family–whose daughter is now in our family. Kim was ten.

In San Diego Friday a week ago, a couple who were friends of her parents sang, “Sunrise, Sunset” together, and everybody nodded yes at the “When did she get to be a beauty,” and laughed very much (he’s 6’9″) at the “When did he grow to be so tall!”

Introducing Kim, my new daughter-in-law, in her wedding ring (except for the reinforced neck edges) shawl, the Nina pattern in laceweight Fino baby alpaca/silk. A wedding ring shawl is any one that can be pulled through one.  My son emailed me this last night.

The roses’ colors go well together in real life.   Lene and everybody, I will do my best: this time I hope to have my own camera going.

Our new daughter-in-law’s parents both grew up in this town, so did our son, and now it’s our turn to celebrate.  And believe me, we will.

The last amaryllis of the extended season, a Picotee–the last bud just opened.

Mom and I went to Purlescence tonight, where I showed her off, got to hold Nathania’s baby (this is a picture from about a month ago that I finally got to work) and tried to make friends with my shawl project again, which kind of sputtered out in the wedding preparations. But when we got home, I ended up pulling out my drum carder. This box finally came yesterday, after the post office had lost it, and I wanted to play with my new toy.

Nancy and I had gone in together on an order of Seacell/merino 70/30 mill ends: wonderful, soft stuff, and cheap. But what you don’t pay in price, you pay in time and effort, this being not smooth roving but the stuff that didn’t quite make it that far and got put aside. Well, about time I put that drum carder to good use. (Are you still sure you wanted to sell it to me, Laura?…I can always mail it to your new house if you change your mind…)

I’ve never seen undyed Seacell before, much less spun nor dyed it. I am going to find out. (Tomorrow, as I glance at the clock. Or maybe next week, as I glance at the calendar.)

“Begin: the rest is easy.” Don’t remember where I read that in high school, but it’s stuck with me ever since. And now I have.