My hubby helped overbuy on frozen foods on Thursday, I told C at church, and there was no room for the chocolate torte in there anymore. It got moved to the fridge, where there wasn’t really space for it either; it had to go. Could she take it off our hands?

She couldn’t believe it. She told me if I wanted to cut off a slice for myself/ourselves first she was totally fine with that. Were we sure??

Her kids are home for Christmas break and I knew that getting rid of the whole thing was not going to be a problem and that it’s one of her favorite desserts.

But what I said later as I dropped it off at her door was, My daughter’s in town. She’s allergic to dairy–but she remembers how much she once loved these.

Ah. We were not eating it in front of her. Got it.

She sent me off with some oranges she’d just picked from her tree in happy anticipation of sharing back. They are so good.

She’s home, she’s home!

I hadn’t heard of the Cube Rule of Food? Oh, Mom, she told me, you’ve got to see this!

And now you get to.

It was a day when friends rallied ’round without any idea how much that meant and how vital their timing would be or even any idea that I needed them.

Debbie had spent some time on her sewing machine and these two beautiful pieces showed up in the mail with a lovely card.

Afton decided out of the blue to text me.

Other friends emailed to say hi.

We were going along having a perfectly normal day when suddenly Richard at work in the other room heard me gasp.

My cousin Kathryn, the oldest of the 29 grandchildren on that side and the cousinly matriarch to us all by her warmth and love and hospitality, died in post-op Christmas day after lung surgery. I was stunned.

Having the later afternoon off, Richard told me that I’d been so wanting to go to Andy’s Orchard before they close at the end of the year: their holiday stuffed figs have long been a favorite. But being sick and then not being sure I was up to doing that drive had kept me away.

Who cares about traffic. Let’s go, he offered.

And so we did.

There was an atmospheric river coming in and the skyscapes were glorious as we came around each bend in the road. It looked as if the ocean had jumped the coastal range to produce tides and lakes and ponds of clouds surrounding the road but clear sailing down the freeway itself.

We got the slab apricots that are so good, fresh persimmons, daisy mandarins (a new variety to me; my own trees aren’t ripe yet), a jar of honey. Sour cherry syrup to whip into some cream and add to almond muffins, or some such to come.

But the apricot- and honey-stuffed figs were sold out. They did have some small plain dried figs. I bought a box as my consolation prize.

The lady who works there carried my stuff to the car, having no way to know how much my back appreciated that, and gave me a fond farewell with a “See you next year!”

The car needed gas.

Richard did a search for a Costco gas station between there and home and somehow, the route that put us on had us turning…south. Ten miles? We live north of there. I was thinking, Stupid Waze tricks. Richard’s response was, Do you want to be on an adventure? Or not?

That suddenly sounded like a really good antidote to the day–more time together meandering through rolling hills greening up from the previous rain–even if it was going to put us in the middle of a big southbound traffic jam for awhile that we would otherwise have dodged. Sure! Why not.

The not-till-midnight rain for our town started up intermittently down there. We were not planning on it nor on it turning cold that soon. It was okay. We were on an adventure.

Filled the car. As long as we were right there, we went into the Costco–and the one thing we were looking for was cheaper than at our own Costco. Lower rent in farm country, surely, and we had insulated bags in the car, so that worked out great.

Waze warned, Do not take 101 through San Jose at rush hour–go around.

Richard marveled, It never tells me to take 85! It’s longer!

We’re on an adventure, I reminded him. It was a prettier route, too. The undeveloped hills to the west–and the skies had spread out to layers of blueness towards lightness above. Paintbrushed.

And so we ran away from home and came back again and started in again on setting it in order for Michelle’s arrival tomorrow.

And so the living continues on.

Family time via phone and computer. Chocolate Bouche de Noel for breakfast. Celebrations. Love. And I finally got a Cuisinart 14C replacement for the food processor that died and can make hazelnut tortes again. Yay!

We got to talking phones with our older son. I told him I’d figured out that the retail price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max is $20 more than the quite-a-bit smaller, lighter 16 Pro, but if you pick the Max, Verizon charges you $200 more over the course of those three years, so, no, I’m back to wanting the Pro.

Your Mom’s hands fit the smaller phone anyway, his daddy chimed in.

Which cracked the kid up. If you’ve ever played Rachmaninoff on the piano, an octave is my limit and forget the rest but an octave and throw in a bunch more notes will do him just fine. He in fact has the 16 Pro Max via a previous such promotion–and overheard someone saying to someone else that that really big phone on my 6’9+” son looks like a normal sized phone on anyone else. Like it had been scaled up just for him. And it’s true, he said, it’s the perfect size for me!

But you’re a teeny little thing, he teased.

Am nawww—oh right. I guess to him a 5’5″ woman would be.

His number is the one they spam, poor guy.

Which also means he knew more than I did, so that when Verizon’s site suddenly announced the phone offer was ending in an hour and forty minutes, he said there was no hurry. We hadn’t gotten all the info we needed; one of the kids wanted to go to see them in the store first; we weren’t ready. But that offer would reappear within days at the most, he insisted. Probably wouldn’t even expire.

Okay, so I didn’t need to know right this very minute what color our youngest cared about or what model his sister preferred. Hopefully. Or how we were going to get their new phones to them without having them being cut off from their service for a few days.

Two hours later, they’d added a new iPhone 15 option and seem to have deleted the Apple Watch add-on, but he was right, the basic offer was still the same.

And then he explained.

Verizon has always had far better coverage than T-Mobile. They use different technologies, and the wide open spaces of non-coastal America is a big challenge for the latter.

But T-Mobile has now cut a deal with Space X’s Starlink and all the sudden nearly all of Verizon’s advantage is about to disappear. Granted, signals from satellites have a hard time going through multiple buildings, he said.

Me: Meaning you might have to go outside to get a signal?

Him: Yes. (While knowing exactly where I was going with that. Sun? Lupus? Let’s not.)

But that, according to him, is why Verizon is offering free thousand-dollar phones to get you to sign a three-year contract. The competition and market are about to change a lot, and they know it.

I chatted with one of Verizon’s agents this afternoon, explaining my problem of four new phones for four lines but three separate cities for the new phones to be picked up from. (Two, if we wait till a plane lands at the end of the week.)

Not a problem, she said: I can mail each person their own.

Right after that chat there was an offer on their home page for free overnight shipping for each new line. I can just picture the agent yelling, Hey, Fred, tweak this for these guys, will ya? I’ve almost got the sale here!

Beautiful music and readings straight from Luke. More music. Young children lighting each other’s candles (fully and safely electronic, pretend you don’t see them pushing their on buttons.) A light lunch afterwards with time to visit.

A chance to thank Monica and her family in person for those homemade cookies.

Sharing a new-today picture of our son’s kids with those who’d been part of his own village when he was growing up. The oldest is clearly doing what his daddy did at that age: growing half an inch a month, so much so that we’d done a double take, having seen him just three months ago and, wow. You look at the feet of the next oldest where the camera catches him in the act of standing halfway to tiptoe, trying to keep up. Kids. They’re just like all the kids who ever came before them. Forever adorable, as I’m sure we at our best are even now to G_d.

The young parents I gave finger puppets to. Getting to meet the parents of one of them, visiting from far away.

Love and instant community whether we know each other or not.

Every day should aspire to be like today.

Let me quietly state for the record just so that in later years I can find when this actually happened, someday when we’re replastering and repainting: tonight we were setting up the Christmas tree in its usual corner.

Every year I wish we’d bought a flip tree, fully aware that we’d bought the wide, lush Douglas fir that they don’t sell anymore because I’d fallen in love with it back then. It comes together in five large, awkward pieces, and you have to find the dangling cords and connect 1 to 2 and 2 to 4 but not to 3 etc etc to get the lights to work. Never ever lose that diagram in the bag. (Found it!)

I said something about skipping the whole thing because of our backs but that was way too bah humbug for him; he wanted that tree up. Okay. Because of course I really did, too, and we were late enough at this point as it was.

He got the base down and went for that first big chunk to fit into the slot at the bottom.

I was in the next room going through ornament boxes when I heard the low loud BOOM and came running.

He said his head hit the far wall. I pointed out the quite large dent in the side wall; from what I saw of anything, that’s where his head clearly went but he thinks that was where his hand went. Uh, one boom, one big dent, but more importantly, are you okay?!

While he caught his breath I worked on getting the next four pieces out. He objected to my lifting piece #2, but after that let me wrestle #3, 4, and 5 out of their bags and bring them to him, both of us knowing that we are still buying milk by the half gallon so that I can lift it without too much of a tweak. If he was letting me help him with those pine pieces he was hurting more than he wanted to let on. Falling is not fun when you’re 6’8″ and big.

We did it. We got it up and I decorated while he went to go lie down a moment.

He said that no he didn’t at all need me to take him to Urgent Care but that if the slightest sign of a head injury showed up he would let me know. He promised.

I found his ibuprofen.

He loves his Christmas decorations and I take comfort in the fact that it’s going to comfort him that it got done and is so pretty. He always remembers, far better than I do, how much of a difference it makes to make that difference happen every year.

We talked ourselves into it. Because who doesn’t want to go into the downtown (parking is fun!) Verizon store during an intense promotion on the Friday before Christmas? I mean, it’s like car shopping! Everybody’s! Favorite! Thing! To! Do!

It took a couple of hours, actually, and then a spur-of-the-moment declaration of really wanting to see how the thing felt in my hands before ordering it, and he wanted to, too; his phone was also getting old (even if not ten years old like mine).

It was actually quite quiet in the store. We were surprised. Probably helped by the fact that the company claimed that the offer was only available online–but note the big sign out front touting the same offer to get people to come in.

Nothing got bought. But we found ourselves sold on a particular one each, and for me, it was not the one I would have expected: a certain somebody egged me on to make sure I got the one I *really* wanted, with all the bells and whistles, given that I hang onto mine so long; I figured, geeks gotta geek. Ask me if I mind.

So that was step one. Maybe they won’t be out of stock. Maybe I’ll be able to actually take good nighttime photos soon. Maybe I won’t get stuck with that lime green that is so not my thing in order to get that price. ($5.55/month/36 months comes to an extra $198 total for a thousand dollar phone.) Maybe, just maybe, they make covers for iPhones, y’know? (Otterbox, Lumens series, green, yes, yes, that’ll do nicely.)

Small company, great products for the older grands, and all Holly‘s fault for introducing me. (A link here would be a spoiler.) I ordered early to make sure they wouldn’t be sold out but asked if they could hold off on shipping till we were home from Thanksgiving?

Sure!

(They don’t wrap, they don’t have enough staff, but putting a box to the side for a few days they could do.)

Two weeks ago we were supposed to open it, wrap everything, and get the contents on their way to family, but as Richard said today, We live in the reality-based world.

He was driving me home from the post office. I’d expected a long line and there was only so much I was up to doing yet so we’d made it an outing together.

The Christmas rush and price increase hadn’t even set in yet. Three people ahead was nothing. The two grands with birthdays this week and next should actually get those on time, too!

The flu had not caused any problem with it at all, just worries that it would. We’re good. Yay!

1.82″ of rain, way more than expected, while a tornado flipped cars up in the mountains. San Francisco had its first-ever tornado warning but Scotts Valley took the hit. (No one was killed.)

It left me musing over the words of a friend some years ago who’d grown up here and had moved over by the coast. He’d never understood why people from the East Coast said they missed ‘real weather.’ What’s so great about shoveling snow in the cold or hurricanes or storms that take out the power or all of that.

But he told me he got it now: it meant being closer to nature. We all have an innate need to connect to the natural world and weather brings it right up close and personal and humbles us.

I think (and I’m sure the guy would agree) that we can do just fine without the sky throwing a temper tantrum with heavy vehicles, but I quibble.

Meanwhile, down here, most of the rain happened at night and my hero made a grocery run this evening with nothing barring his way nor slowing him down, just a normal, calm, boring northern Californian day.

With the first sprouts of winter’s new green everywhere.

I’m going to try again tomorrow to get this to work between my phone and my answering machine, but meantime: I have for years kept a recording on that machine of my mom and dad singing Happy Birthday to me. I’m pretty sure it was from the year before my dad was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, which he survived longer than they thought he would. I’m sure they were quite disappointed they missed me for that one day. I’ve long been glad they did.

My mother and her family were all very musical. Dad, bless him, I have multiple childhood memories of the spirit just sweeping him up into the joy of the song during hymns at church–and small children turning around to stare: How do you have a grown-up who doesn’t know how to sing? And who’s so loud about it?

I remember him being embarrassed and shutting right up mid-hymn one time, and he rarely sang at all there after that, though occasionally he would as part of random happy conversations at home.

And yet, what, sixty-odd years into their marriage? That recording sounds so sweet to my ears. They do say couples become more alike as they age, and Mom and Dad were so good for each other.

Love you, Mom!

And next week we get to call her and sing Happy Birthday. Let’s see if we can get my much-missed Dad singing along with us.

Last week he was a total hero and took the bins to the curb for morning pickup.

Today I was the one who was feeling stronger so I did.

Looking up and down the street, I wondered, Wait. Where are all the others?

I came back inside and stared in disbelief at my phone claiming it was Monday. It was not! It was TuesMondays, two, not one that we just got through!

Oh. Right. I guess I wanted to be one day further along on this than we quite are yet. Oh, well, that’s one thing we don’t have to do tomorrow night. (Sorry, neighbors.)

It had not gone out this week (neither of us was bending nor lifting anything Tuesday.) It had to be done. It was piling up. We discussed who felt most up to the task and he was sure he should do it but he might need help with the lifting, he said; we could manage it together.

And then I remembered that probably the only thing actually in that silly trash can was plastic packaging material, since we’d left town on pickup day last week, and went across the house to confirm that hunch.

Getting the new liner on afterward was the hard part and that did create the sharpest twinge I’d felt since, I dunno, yesterday, so back to the stretching exercises pronto.

At long last there was a task where the fear had been the hardest part. We can deal with that. Progress!

Her favorite part and mine: I spent awhile pushing Lillian on the platform swing. It was wet and a bit heavy from that water, it was covered in needles, I swept it off with my hands as best I could but this is what she wanted to do and she wasn’t about to let any of that stop her.

It’s hanging from a limb of a huge old Western Red cedar tree.

Someone walking her dog on the other side of the fence got the biggest grin as she saw these little feet coming up again and again while a five-year-old voice giggled and counted off the numbers with her grandmother: 20! 20! 21! 21! 22! 22! (I think she skipped 23, but I wasn’t going to quibble.)

That swing kept wanting to go just a bit sideways on its way back and there was a scratchy bush there that had grown somewhat in its way this past season, with the angle of the cedar limb aiming for it; I found myself catching the thing again and again and saying, Reset! (Hold high in the air, shift to the left a foot or so, resume count.) Go!

Reset!

24! 24!

I don’t remember how many rounds of 24 we got to. She was absolutely adorable, and I got a real workout.

How much I didn’t know.

Later, I moved her brother who was climbing on her to the other side of me as I cheerfully put myself between them, as one does when little kids are too caught up in their own momentum to do what they should. Reset!

Man, that suitcase was sure heavier and more awkward leaving than it had been coming. Surely those gift bars of chocolate didn’t make that much of a difference.

I’m now doing 10-20 minutes of back stretches every hour or two. My goal is to be able to pick something off the floor without joining it. I will be more mindful of my limitations next time–but I’m almost (almost. Do you hear me reminding myself here) glad I wasn’t these past few days; we had a great time!

Next time, though, (I don’t think she was ever in actual danger of scratching herself on that bush anyway from where she was sitting,) no resets.

Appointment: Monday. Yay.

Meantime, I was thumbing through the city’s Adult Ed class brochure they sent everybody today. Knitting classes! Meant for beginners and the more advanced alike, the latter being asked to bring their projects to work on. Fee: $160.

Now that’s called paying for a compliment.

Cooking classes. Learn to make Belgian chocolates? How to temper on a slab of marble? Sounds like fun, but I could fund a lot of trips to Dandelion in San Francisco for that much, and I already make my own actual chocolate bars. Sometimes. (Flips page.)

Python cooking.

Staggered doubletake.

Python CODING.

While Richard is already grinning, Yeah, you have to fillet it yourself.

Where could you even lay out 18 feet of such a thing. I know! You could wrap it around the kitchen. Avoid Florida-ted water. Don’t forget the Everglaze.