Celebrating her new job and life with a last dinner out together, not far from the airport.

A woman bussing tables on one side who took up my request, a waiter on the other, two little boys in opposite directions, two finger puppets, and suddenly there were smiles all around and it had clearly made the woman’s day in particular. And the moms’.

And then at the terminal the hug goodbye, and home.

So quiet.

I started in on a large bowl of cherries that had been in the fridge waiting their turn. The fastest way to pit those little ones, given their softness, I’ve found, is just to squish, split, and ptui it out of there by hand, over and over. Pits on a plate, and then when you’re done take the now-empty strainer and pour the pits in to reclaim any juice from them.

(I was going to write squish split splurt but I mentioned that first to my husband and he looked mock-askance at me and pronounced it vaguely obscene.)

Well, the kid’s gone, right? Sour cherries just don’t make her favorite type of pie.

Got those first two pounds into the freezer and needed to sit down a moment.

The kitchen kept calling me back in.

And that is why there are pumpkin honey chocolate chip almond flour muffins in the oven in the time I am typing this. With butter. I can use dairy in things safely again. Man, those smell good.

It never had a name.

It was packed high when her old friend volunteered to come on the long drive south and helped her unpack and then flew home, just so she wouldn’t have to do any of that alone in a town she didn’t know.

It was packed high when she moved north a few years later.

It was again when it took her to Washington State, and back down, and back up, and back down, several times a year as the lockdowns continued. But mostly it had out of state plates during that time.

It was taken through the carwash and made as pretty as its nine years could be before it was taken to the lot today. Carmax: after they’ve looked up its accident history you bring it in and they look it over and they give you a number. Yes or no. Door number one or door number two. Take it and walk.

It is not making the drive to Boston. Cars pay high rent too there.

And so some family looking for a super comfortable, well maintained, reliable, nice, very low mileage (most of it from those trips), nine year old car will have one they’ll enjoy, too.

I met up with her so that she could have a ride home, for the last 24 hours that this is home, in a surprisingly comfortable waiting area while they did all the paperwork for four sets of clients. I would have finished the hat I’d just started but for lack of a second circular needle–I’d considered, then had thought I wouldn’t need it. It wouldn’t be that long. It was.

But that’s okay; I can manage the decreases here.

Both kinds.

At home.

I am so going to miss her and I am so happy for her on her new adventure.

We were not planning on going to see any fireworks, but the fireworks came to us.

Our daughter got in one last visit with her sister before her move to a much longer plane ride away from the neiblings.

Her delayed flight home finally took off about the time it was supposed to land, which meant that we started driving on a crowded freeway at 9:30 p.m. on the Fourth of July for the airport.

Note to self for future reference: one might want to avoid that.

I have never seen so many fireworks in my life. Not only could we see the various cities’ official displays over the Bay (or I could, since I wasn’t driving), cool to have back after they’d been canceled in the worst of the drought and pandemic, but, a little less cool, people were shooting them off like crazy. Everywhere. Nonstop. Next to the freeway. Over the freeway. From behind the wall of the self-storage place over here, the auto body shop over there, in the middle of the trees (!!!) next to the something-star hotel built on what used to be the bad end of that town. We were heading into what looked like a semi-circle of them again and again, and the illegal ones didn’t go very high, either, with the sparks coming right down.

Did their mothers know they were doing this?

Someone’s house on the other side of the Bay caught embers and took fire in the shenanigans but the firemen were reportedly right on it.

One boom shook our car as white sparkles shot upwards right next to us.

Arizona? Nevada? You sure can’t buy them here. That’s a heck of a road trip for a little blow-up-go-sparkleboom.

Reports today were that two people had damaged their hands and dozens of fires had been set off by the more than usual illegal displays.

For us, it was also the distracted drivers swerving all over the place, mile after mile. One guy simply pulled over and watched the shows, which seemed quite reasonable, although, dude–get off the freeway first.

Which, eventually, we did, and hugged our kid home, and everything was fine.

Yeah I should certainly know it by now and I’m sure I do but cellphones make it too easy to just look up someone’s number without thinking about it.

So I typed her name in the search bar and hit the familiar old string of digits.

Now, there are two old friends I wanted to offer cherries off my tree to, and I figured we’d do one tonight and the next in the next day or two as it works out for them and I had decided to call this one first because it’s been the longest since I’d seen her.

The other friend answered that call, to my unspoken astonishment.

I looked back down at my phone: at some point in the past I had thought of the one and typed out the number for the other and I have no idea how long it’s been like that. Huh.

Turns out friend #2 was very much in need of a visit: she is having heart surgery as fast as they can get her meds to the right levels for it. Tomorrow would be good. She had not known she was a heart patient.

We visited while she munched on cherries–“Mmm, those are good!” But not for too long; we didn’t want to wear her out. I had no doubt her husband could use the human time, too, because caretaking and worrying is hard stuff.

Their cat sniffed at and then tried a tentative, ginger step into my upturned wool felt hat on the floor, testing to see if it qualified as a box, and we laughed as she decided that it was actually just too small to curl up in and walked away.

But she had to come back later to try again just to be sure. It was just the right depth and slightly oval and she really wanted to own that new nest. But she was not a small cat. She was our comic relief.

We shared a heartfelt prayer and the sweetest feeling wrapped around us all. So much love.

“Divine intervention,” said Richard when I marveled over that misplaced phone number, and pronounced it again out of sheer gratitude: “Divine intervention.”

They’re good, but the ones still on the tree will probably show me I should have held off a day or two more to let them get a little darker and sweeter.

Except that this recipe is demanding I go buy a bit of Brie right now so I can roast cherries in balsamic and then use them on toasted cheese sandwiches to make them, as the pleading promise of childhood offers the beseeched, pretty, please, with cherries on top.

Indeed they are in those photos.

I described it to Richard and he’s all in.

I asked Michelle if there were any nondairy Brie substitutes out there and she made a face and said yes but they’re vile.

Well alright then.

He and I will just have to try it out with the real thing. I am totally ready for it. (Other than, y’know, not actually having the cheese yet.)

One of the things we wanted to do before Michelle leaves was to stop by our old favorite haunt together, Timothy Adams Chocolates.

But the Sorry We’re Closed sign was up. We stood in front of the door, surprised and disappointed, while inside, Timothy saw us, threw the door open, flipped the sign over and welcomed us warmly in.

We were in luck: they were both there. Hugs all around.

And of course we bought chocolate, both liquid (I highly recommend the Madagascar Valrhona 64%) and not. Loved their new looks.

Adams is the designer behind it all, so I asked him if this one particular one over here with the colors and lines: was that inspired by Piet Mondrian? (asked the art dealer’s daughter, giving the name a French accent because that’s my second language. Dutch, not so much. While talking to someone whose last name is Holland.) Frank Lloyd Wright?

He laughed. And then he showed me the secret.

Just like everybody’s grandmother, he had a collection of favorite artistic–wait for it–buttons. In a jar. He shook them out. Gold and shiny, roses here, abstract there, he hunted, turning them over to see the tops, till he found it.

My Piet Mondrian wannabe, the raised lines of metal, there you go.

They’d already rung us up and I hadn’t seen it in time so I’m just going to have to go back to get my Grandma Mondrian button chocolate the next time. (Edited: Wait. They actually do call it the buttons collection? I had no idea. It’s the dark cream caramel one.)

We will be back.

I picked several pounds’ worth of mandarins and juiced them up today, and as I was doing so I remembered a dessert I used to make that was a variation on baklava for which you had to use the zest of a fresh organic orange.

The recipe specified organic, claiming that there were residues that affected the taste if the oranges used were not.

I was skeptical, but a friend was happy to share a few from his tree (this was before we had our own) and I tried it both ways and the grocery store oranges had a bitter aftertaste I had not expected. Huh. Al’s from his garden did not. Well then.

So here I was, running the little electric 1980s juicer that just keeps going and going and going, and I went and zested a bunch of them as long as I was using them. Because why not.

Now, Michelle and I love rhubarb strawberry pie and Richard will take his as straight strawberries, thank you, so when I saw rhubarb at the store I knew I had someone to split the calories with me.

Meaning, two pies were made today: she, a strawberry one for her daddy and I made the two-to-one rhubarb-intense version for us.

What’s that? she asked me, looking at the small plate on the counter.

The zest from a bunch of those oranges.

Throw them in. You don’t want just sugar and fruit, you want flavors. Spices. Add that teaspoon of cinnamon. Throw in that zest. Make it great.

Alright then!

We all had her strawberry pie for dessert. I had a small piece–I was saving room, and went for seconds with the rhubarb.

Huh, I wondered out loud after the first bite. It tastes like honey. But there’s no honey in there.

It smells like honey, Richard affirmed.

You want to try it?

But it was still rhubarb; thanks, but he did not.

To Michelle: You want a slice?

She will, for breakfast.

My sliver became a second sliver. This was really good.

But I am mystified: how does it taste like honey? I mean yes, I like orange honey and have some in my cabinet but none of it went into that pie. The only thing I did differently from any other rhubarb pie I’ve ever made was that organic homegrown orange zest. Huh.

It was a ward Christmas party, and someone ratted me out (never did find out who) so everybody sang Happy Birthday to me.

I was standing next to someone decades older than I was, and she grinned and elbowed me in the side. “‘N how old are ya? Thirty-nine and countin’?”

What do you say to that? I never did get why any woman should feel they should lie about their age; it was just not my thing. And with the friendliest of intentions on her part, it kind of put me on the spot.

Yeah, for about six hours now, I told her.

I spent the twelve months thereafter saying I was going to be 40 next year so people would believe me. I spent the year I actually was 40 feeling like, but wait, didn’t I, like, already do this.

Yonder kiddo remembered the story when we called to say Happy Birthday.

Let me think… 5:54 pm, as I remember. About three hours now.

I’m saying Dad was in on it. It’s exactly the kind of thing he would have done.

His pulmonary fibrosis took him just before the pandemic began.

Last week I was looking at my two boxes left of Andy’s slab apricots (not knowing I would later spot a few more carefully put away in the wrong spot) and thought, I really ought to send one of those to Mom. She loves them and I’m sure she’s out by now and I’ll be going down there soon and can always get more.

Those are the ones that are picked dead ripe so they go smush and don’t look pretty when they dry them. They’re not just sweeter, their texture is amazingly juicy for dried fruit, even mine that are nearing a year old now–they look great. They taste great.

It was Friday before I got around to finding the right size shipping box, thinking, one for you, one for me, and actually delivered hers to the post office.

Which means it arrived today. I confess I was not connecting the dates when I sent it off.

It’s my late father’s 97th birthday. Mom got some of their favorite dried fruit on the very day and a call from me wishing her happy Dad’s birthday.

Thank you, Dad!

Not sure I can keep up this pace every day, but progress feels great.

And not just mine: a certain someone snagged the apartment she wanted across the country despite much competition for it. A mistake was made, she pointed it out and saved the landlord money even though it would cost her, and she was in.

Knowing where she was going to land was a huge relief. We went to Dandelion Chocolate to celebrate (while doggedly not thinking about we don’t know when we’ll get to do that again.)

We spent forty minutes circling the blocks looking for parking, and finally one opened right up and she tucked right in there–and then realized that the guy ahead was in an illegal spot and had been waiting for that guy to leave so he could back into the legal one. Had he been waiting for that? Yes he had. She pulled right back out and let him have it. He waved a thank you.

About fifteen minutes later we found our spot and went and got our chocolate: hot, bars, and pastries.

And it was very, very good.

What was her friend’s favorite color?

(She knew what that question hinted at.) I dunno; blue, I guess??

They have been each other’s bestest through years and all kinds of life experiences, and now there’s going to be three thousand miles between them. The friend dropped something off at our house a few weeks ago and her face gave away how painful it was for her that the Silicon Valley downturn was taking her friend three thousand miles away.

I gave up on the blue I’d ordered (some of it still isn’t here yet) and started just going with the off-white afghan that already had the bottom edging done so I could get it to her faster. And yet, and yet… No matter what I told it, it kept telling me that that one was actually for… And I wanted to get it done before moving day and my hands just haven’t been letting me do that much of its heaviness at a stretch…

But. I had a blue afghan. I did, and it was all ready to go. I’d bought the fingering weight yarn years ago and had dyed it three gradient shades from royal to navy and then had eventually knit them together. It was even 2/3 cashmere like the white one, though 1/3 fine wool rather than cotton. I’d offered it to someone a few years ago and they’d chosen another option, I’d offered it to someone else last year and they chose another option, and I kept thinking, it just hasn’t found its person yet. Why is it so hard to find its person–I know they’re out there, someone for whom it has to be blue.

And then I’d forgotten about it.

A certain someone just walked in the door after a farewell dinner.

Where she told her friend, You have to open this before I leave so I can relay to my mom the look on your face when you do.

I finally went back to the 64/36 cashmere/cotton afghan I’d started before our trip. I’d put it aside, debating on a blue for the recipient, but this finally won out and I started into the main pattern two days ago. Notes: size US8, two strands dk, 271 stitches, 15 repeats, and it’s coming out 60″ across which is a bit more than I’d planned for so it’ll have to be quite long to match. Because knits shrink lengthwise much more than widthwise.

I like the look of a seed stitch edging but that part of the fabric has a tendency to look stretched out compared to the rest.

So I compromised with myself: I’m seed stitching but only on the wrong side rows.  Right side rows, knit straight across there. There’s surely a name for that but I’m too lazy to look it up. This may well be my new go-to.

I typed the above and then Richard, having answered the phone, walked into the room to tell me: his Uncle Duane passed away last night.

The rush of memories! When I miscarried my first baby with 20 hours’ labor at 12 weeks (they finally did a D&C) the day before a big family get-together, it was Duane who’d followed me a moment after I’d fled down to the basement and away from all those cheerful greetings: Doesn’t anyone know?! I cried at him.

Yes, they do, he told me: but my sister told us not to mention it, thinking it would be easier on you.

He heard me out, and then he told me of their baby who’d been stillborn at seven months. He cried. It had been twenty years, but the tears still came so easily to the surface.

He totally saved me.

At a niece’s wedding, the first time we’d seen each other in probably thirty years, I asked him, Do you remember that day?

OH yes. OH yes. And I knew it had meant as much to him as it had to me. All these years later, I can see that his ability to comfort me had comforted him by giving meaning to what he and his beloved Joan had had to go through: it is so we can know how to be there for the next person.

Duane was an amputee who took the experience of losing his leg and turned it into helping Haitians who’d lost limbs in their big earthquake get prostheses. He took great care of his wife throughout her Alzheimer’s. He was just a very, very good man.

The three of us started reminiscing: at one nephew’s wedding, I had heard of Aunt Joan’s diagnosis and went up to reintroduce myself to her and she smiled, Oh, I know who YOU are! as she reached for a hug.

At the next wedding two years later, she told me with just as much enthusiasm, I don’t know who you are but I know that I love you!

My sister-in-law said Duane had been afraid of having to be institutionalized if his brain were ever to go like his late wife’s had. He never was. There was a “sudden event,” was the description, and he was gone. It was a blessing to him, hard for all of us who love him, all the mixed emotions. We’re glad for him that it was fast and over with and that he’d gotten to live on his own terms to the end.

A DKO, Michelle said, after we’d told each other how we loved that man so much and he us.

We looked at her.

Y’know, a DKO.

??

Dude Keeled Over. (Looks at us as we burst out laughing.) What?

(Richard grabs his phone and starts Googling the abbreviation.) “Divine KnockOut.” He kept looking. She offered another possibility off the top of her head.

And with that we gave Uncle Duane up there a story to laugh with his wife over. As they would.

Eight percent chance of rain; dry conditions will continue, said the forecast, which I checked before going outside to snap a picture of my springtime mandarins because that sure didn’t sound like what it looked like to me.

The idea is to text my mom a photo a day, just for fun.

It was a faint drizzle as I hurried back inside, turning to fat drops almost immediately. Never did add up enough to nudge us past the 41.6″ so far for the year, though.

The normal amount for an entire year is 12.5″ and we’ve got seven months to come.

I expect the return of drought next because I can’t remember ever having two back-to-back rainy years here, much though our aquifers could use it, but we are still adding more energy to the system so we’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

XKCD’s chart on the effects of that from a scientist’s point of view.

After a long-planned trip abroad, our daughter got home today after 22 hours in travel from where the sun is halfway out of kilter in its path and season.

She’ll be starting her new job soon, with time to find an apartment across the country. So much change.

We’re told it was warm while we were gone.

The plants definitely took notice. (English Morello sour cherry with the top yet to bloom, sour cherry close-up, Stella sweet cherry.)

One yearling apricot seedling lost a limb in the heat but has new growth on the others; the other seedlings are doing fine.

And now the best picture of all. Even if it cuts off the matching little back of the head curl on Grampa.

Mathias was so excited about his new gloves that came with his gardening set that he wouldn’t take them off even for Legos. In the morning he’d tackled a tall mound of mud with a spade way too big for him and it had frustrated him, not to mention got him tumbled down that contractor-created hill a couple times; in the evening he opened his birthday present and there it was, beautiful and green, ready for digging in and just his size.