1. Happy Birthday to Spencer! Who, like Little Cindy Lou Who, is no more than two. A soccergame-type bag full of toddler-sized balls of various sports like his older siblings play with started the little guy’s day off in just his style.

2. The phone finally rang.

They want you *where* in twenty minutes?! (Mentally counting the number of cities away.) Did they know where we live?! C’mon, let’s go! I have never dropped my knitting so fast. He was actually only three minutes late, but I got him there before they closed and that was the important part. Yay for pandemic rush hours, I guess?

3. And then there was the debate.

Trump tried to badmouth his way through the entire thing, loudly, angrily, nonstop, utterly bulldozing Chris Wallace and thinking he could shake Joe Biden that way, who at last said, “Will you shut up, man?” It’s already been made into a t-shirt. Except that you’d have to wear that face.

Kudos to the caption writers who managed to get most of both men’s words even when both were talking, one’s lines in line above the other’s. I don’t know how even people with normal hearing made out what they were saying otherwise. Biden was not going to let Trump simply steal all his time–he wanted to be polite, y’know, have a debate, take turns, be respectful, do it normal, but that just wasn’t possible.

So. We learned that when asked directly, repeatedly, even by someone from Fox that no, Trump will not renounce racism. Instead, he called on the violent militia men like in Charlottesville and Portland to “Stand Back and Stand By,” and to (illegally intimidate) at polling stations (one guess as to which ones). It was a clear call to arms and not as a metaphor. When asked if he would abide by the election results he would not answer but instead called on the Supreme Court to, clearly, call it for him.

Biden, meantime, was trying to put out a firestorm of lies with a single garden hose: “That’s not true,” again and again. A couple of times he simply laughed, because, what are you going to do? You can’t change this guy and get him to abide by the rules or even plain decency.

Biden talked directly to the American people. He said he would not defund the police as Trump claimed but rather would give them actually more resources, not less–so that they could hire mental health professionals to help deal on scene with those who could be helped that way, and so that the police could get better training. He proposed bringing people together in the White House, Black Lives Matters activists and police activists, for them to see that much of what they want is the same thing. More justice. More awareness of how it is to walk in each other’s shoes.

More peacemaking.

You’re only going to get that from one of these guys.

Every vote matters.

Musings during the ongoing toss-and-organize and a wow, do we still have that.

Way back when my kids were in band I bought a seriously padded trumpet case. It’s big, because it was the most protective one I could find, because, kids.

It was in the back seat twenty years ago when my youngest and I were rear-ended into another car so hard that the car crumpled up to the back window, the glove compartment spewed open and all over us, the rearview mirror twisted sideways, I lost my sense of balance for life hitting the headrest so hard and the trumpet went flying into the backs of our seats hard enough to seriously damage the bell despite all that padding. West Valley Music spent a month repairing it. But that case helped keep that trumpet from doing worse to us and to it.

So it holds a lot of memories and it has taken a hit, but all you can see is that one side curves inward somewhat. The trumpet continued to be in it till the younger son lost interest after middle school and the older son, who’d had it first and had always done more with it and wanted it more, took it home for his own kids and let it live happily ever after.

In a different case that fits better in their space.

I just offered the padded one (which came from West Valley) to one group, and if that doesn’t work I’ll ask the school district’s music department.

Him, looking at CalFire pictures of where his friend lives up in the mountains and finding things mostly okay in that area: “There’s the poultry farm.”

Me, being deaf: “Upholstery farm? Is that where they tan the naugahides?”

Back when our kids were teens, Richard’s older sister had been feeling unwell and after running lots of tests, her doctor sent her to a hematologist.

Her first inkling of what she was in for was when she had to walk past the oncology sign to get to the man’s office. Nobody had said anything about cancer. It was her fortieth birthday.

And thus began her fight with a type of lymphoma that, at the time, had had zero cures and three known cases of remission ever, and it was not caught early.

They can cure it now. Back then, they kept coming up with new treatments that kept giving her a little more time. Her youngest was eleven, and while they were telling her to put her affairs in order she wanted to see her kids grow up.

Eight years later, she got her youngest off to college and saw a son married to a good woman. Six weeks later she was gone.

Richard had just started a new job when he heard her diagnosis and had no accrued time off but his boss’s reaction was, Go. Now. Go see your sister. I don’t want to see you for a week.

The fact that it was summer vacation made it easy to throw the kids in the car and drive to Salt Lake City.

We did that long drive so many summers after, wanting to see her while we could, wanting to be supportive in person as much as possible.

And every time we drove home, the Sierra Nevadas gave way to flat farmland and signs like the ones beckoning, Pistachios $2/lb!

(Those were the immature nuts that were closed as tight as a fist and a royal pain to crack. You want the ones that smile for the camera, you pay $3 but they didn’t tell you that till you got out of your car, and if you wanted them shelled that was a whole ‘nother thing altogether.)

The family of knitting friends who immigrated from Iran own one of those pistachio orchards, that being a traditional crop back home, and I’ve often wondered if we ever passed their farm. Wonderful people.

Michelle is doing the long drive home from her sister’s and asked us if we wanted her to pick up anything along the way. We knew where she’d be coming through, so I said something about maybe pistachios–don’t take the time for us, take care of yourself first and foremost, but if you want to stop and if you’re interested, sure, I’d be interested.

Some hours later the phone rang.

She was sorry but there would be no farm stops on this trip.

No problem at all, we weren’t counting on it–it was just wistful memories.

Because, she said: farm after farm had great big Trump signs. And she just couldn’t.

And I wondered, do they want so hard to stay unconflicted and unchallenged in their bubble that they’re willing to kill off half their summer tourist income for it? Not to mention, and all that for someone who’s tried so hard to take away the healthcare they maybe have no idea how much they might need someday?

I guess they do.

Where the firemen built a break.

Where my kids went to camp, growing up, at a church-owned property shared by youth groups from across the region. Where our ward (like many) held several family campouts. I can still picture Peter cheerfully flipping pancakes.

I’m quite surprised there was anything left of the dining hall at all.

Everybody needs a freezer box hideout to make goofy faces in.

And to grab your daddy’s cup at the table. (She’s watching carefully where it went.)

Wishing safety and refuge to all in the path of the hurricane. (The Washington Post is offering updates for free, no subscription needed.)

There’s a long way to go but our closest fire evacuations have begun to lift.

One more birthday picture. (Food powder based.)

Someone officially turned one yesterday and she wants to share the celebration.

The mattress we ordered is supposed to finally arrive Saturday. I guess it has been sufficiently quarantined from its New Jersey origins now.

The trucker’s route is sending him north from LA, and I just sent him a note asking him to please check the fire situation before coming: the fires are in the mountains, but there was a brush fire alongside the main freeway down in the valley a few towns south of us yesterday.

I wanted him to know that his safety is the priority.

Friends have been evacuated from their homes, we haven’t heard back yet from Richard’s aunt but the red zone on the map is thankfully not close to her and she is clearly peachy fine. The Salinas fire does not seem to be near her daughter’s.

The air was yellow today, the light reflections inside were weirdly orange, and you walk outside and your nose says, hey, you need some marshmallows to go with the graham crackers and chocolate in the pantry. Just hold the skewer out…thataway.

One picture in the news made it clear that Richard could have seen the rising mushroom of smoke from the other side of the mountains from his office, if not for covid and working from home. (Do NOT take the scenic route up the coast!)

But at least we got a slight break on the heat.

My prayers for the firefighters and those in the path.

We were FaceTiming with the Washington grands Sunday and Lillian was walking easily across the rug from parent to parent, giggling.

But when she got to the tile floor she slipped and tumbled and nuts to this and crawled to get where she wanted to go.

Back to the rug.

Her brother was on the couch and mostly out of reach.

She grabbed for his toes. He didn’t mind. She peered over the edge. Okay, the walking’s cool but what she really wanted now was to be able to get up there and find out what he was so interested in and be a part of it. She wanted to climb. It was just too high and there was no foothold to be found.

The previous week it was the walking she’d wanted so bad to be able to do.

Yesterday the kids sent us a video: Lillian, in bare feet this time, walking on that tile floor. Everybody clapped so she stopped and clapped, too.

Hey. This time clapping didn’t make her fall down–and she was on the tile. She noticed. She was hesitant as to how to safely start up again, though.

“Mathias, do you want to help your sister?”

Mathias appeared from around the kitchen island and reached for her hand and as soon as she could touch his she was off again and around to the other side.

It wasn’t that he was doing anything to hold her up physically, it’s that she knew he was there and he loved her. And that made it so she could see that she could do this herself after all.

Wait–new pictures today. Look at her go! Okay, got the shoes off.

Those toes! And she’s practicing the climbing thing–she’s motivated.

That’s still around? He hasn’t used that in…huh, long enough that the seam of the can had started to rust. Wonder why he didn’t just toss it–maybe confusion over whether spray cans can be recycled or not. It’s empty, right?

Well, no, it wasn’t, and that’s why that bit of hefting felt so surprising. The little squirt in the same motion to make sure that it was exploded the stuff outwards like elementary school kids out the door at the sound of the recess bell pre-Covid.

Holy cow.

I was suddenly reliving the moment years ago when the trash men had dropped a small bottle of fabric paint out of the garbage can onto my driveway, my car hit it, and it exploded bright red paint droplets across the front of my house. My holly bush was suddenly female with berries. At least this wasn’t paint.

That shaving cream REEKED.

That’s why he hadn’t used it. And now the wall stank, and the floor, and several skirts in my closet, and that shirt? It was time for it to go to Goodwill anyway, that’s as good a reason as any. (I washed it.) My hands. Dang.

It was bad, man, it was bad, so bad that I was afraid our food would taste of it even though I washed my hands repeatedly before cooking dinner. I couldn’t get away from it.

And then I found more blue splurts of the stuff.

Some manufacturer thought that smell would bring on the girls, the fine restaurants, cool cars and the good life?

You know there were no women in that boardroom.

Into the trash. Thankfully, these days they have us put the cans out to the curb ourselves.

I got the large wide flat boxes from my Dad maneuvered between the wheels and out from under the bed and was trying, including using a broom handle, to reach all the stuff that had fallen between the headboard and the mattress.

Note that a startup company a few miles away, years ago, decided to make a competitor to the then-popular Palm Pilot with more features, like a camera–and decided at the last second that it might have an even bigger market if they added a phone. Rumor is that they almost didn’t but smarter heads prevailed. There was an early version of text messaging.

And that is how the Sidekick came to be. All the cool people in Hollywood had one, all the tech nerds wrote about it. Not that that’s something I would normally know or care about in the slightest, and not that I normally aspired to own the latest electronics. But Richard’s co-worker camped out in front of the store to get one of the very first ones to be sold, showed it off at work, and then my hubby went straight there at 5:00 pm to buy one, too.

The moment he showed it to me I said, And did you get two? Because this is a deaf person’s phone and I need it more than you do.

It was extra cool that the young handsome face on the box clearly living the happy life with this perfect new gadget just waiting for you inside! happened to be our daughter’s high school classmate. Hey, I didn’t know Dan modeled! (Probably his mom worked there, and she knows a good-looking kid when she sees one.)

Richard went back.

And that is how the smartphone craze got started: a company called, don’t ask me why, Danger.

Can I…reach that… I snagged it!

Out it came from under the head of the bed.

An empty box for a Palm Travel Kit. Had a charging cord and everything, it said!

I stared at the thing, trying to grok it. That’s like a leash to go take my pet dodo bird for a walk.

With a superfluous pomegranate picture just because I thought it was pretty.

I was ordering some pre-tempered powdered cocoa butter for chocolate making, as one does to help seed the right type of crystal formation, while wondering how summertime temps in transit might effect what I was buying it for… Well I guessed I’d find out.

The baking supplier dangled a half pound of hazelnut praline on my screen, and it wasn’t going to cost me any extra on the shipping so hey why not.

When it came it said 50% hazelnuts and it was sweeter than I would have made it. Y’know, all I had to do was throw toasted no-skins-on hazelnuts in the food processor and an equal amount of sugar (or less, for us) and then I wouldn’t have had to work all the oils back through the heavy substance of the stuff. Done. Gotta admit that is tasty, though. Into the fridge with you.

So here I was a few days later and there was this batch of homemade chocolate, quite dark. We’d just eaten a small lunch that definitely needed more to it.

I wondered…

So I nuked a little of that chocolate for 20, 30 seconds or so so it wouldn’t burn, just enough so that when I smashed it with a spoon it gave way and became stirrable.

And then stirred in a larger spoonful of that hazelnut praline.

And then folded a large number of raspberries in.

I got asked if I could go do that again? Please?

We didn’t quite eat the entire twelve ounces of raspberries but we came close.

Somebody is eleven months old today and cannot wait to be able to take the next step.

Pomegranate tree picture just because. It grows like a yarn barf ball that the cat got into.

Seaching for something at the back of the middle shelf of the freezer in the garage this evening, several things from the top fell down on my head. Because I had just put them back in wrong.

I tried not to do a small freak out.

Including half a dozen concussive-type events with actually getting knocked out, I’ve had twelve.

My friend Phyllis’s sister died in middle age after two concussions in fairly short succession. I am a little too aware of the possibilities.

Got dinner done, went to go check on a plant, and was both opening the slider and stepping through when the bottom caught, the top bounced way back, and it smacked me so hard on the ear that after I caught my breath I had to take out the one hearing aid to ask Richard if there was blood. I have these semi-hard things in my ears, y’know, and, yeah. Not that he could see, though, so, good.

Next thing you know I’m trying not to throw up. Richard had me go lie down awhile with his, I have no idea what you call it: an ice head belt? It’s black, it’s like fabric-pot fabric, it has pockets for ice packs, velcro hinge-type things to flip over and hold them in, and sideways velcro to hold the contraption around your head. Good for migraines.

The room was spinning. It’s been worse, but. I was quietly feeling like, don’t leave me. I didn’t actually ask. He stayed with me.

After about 40 minutes, I got up and watered the now-four-branches baby apricot and veggies out of sheer cussedness: those pots dry out fast and I’ve put too much into them not to now.

Then I typed all this out so I would be able to go back later and see what date this was.

And went, but you know? What I really want to do? Is to finish that stupid hat I keep not wanting to work on.

So I did. I sewed on the ears–in a solid line down the sides of the upper face this time. I worked in all those ends and I used them to cover up some of the mishmashed color changes as best as could be done, and-

–wow. Who knew. Sterling was right. That one is a lot cuter than the second try–or just different, but, it matches much better what he was hoping for and it’s a really relatable, cute face now.

I can’t wait to get it to him.

I’m going to let him be the one who’ll drive over here. I’m taking it easy for awhile.