Nephew Ryan and his wife were in town and stopped by.

Friends stopped by (hi, Krys!)

Michelle is back for a day’s rest from her trek north and, a little too late to serve it up to the others, we had a rematch on the buche de noel experiment. Alice Medrich’s chocolate version of the cake part for the win, definitely–which is not a surprise. Anything by Alice Medrich is better than anyone else’s when it comes to chocolate.

This didn’t get finished in time.

In part because I ran out of yarn. I had made a baby hat, weighed it, measured it, and thought yeah I have plenty to make a matching sweater. Well but no I didn’t: there was no third skein different-dyelot emergency backup like I thought, either. Oops.

I searched my stash. There was more Malabrigo Rios but there wasn’t any Bobby Blue nor one that would do as a contrast color.

I do love that I got to use the musk ox needle (bought as a souvenir there last summer) as both stitch holder and working needle on this particular project. It needed to be part of it.

I’d started at the back, added and subtracted for the sleeves and then come down the front. I had not planned on a cardigan but somehow in the adding and subtracting stitches I discovered the knit 2 purl 2 was going to turn into a knit 4 at dead center–man. Someone goofed. (Note that I was totally winging the whole thing–there is no pattern.)

Typing that out it hits me that I could have added two more stitches and turned it into a cable going down from the V. If I’d thought of it in time. I would probably have just made it but with zero left to finish that neck a little more neatly.

Adding a button band and around the neck meant more ribbing and more yarn and I just plain didn’t have it. I would need to see the colors in person and had no way to get to a shop. Post-concussion, I’m not driving yet.

So it didn’t go into Michelle’s luggage to be proudly hand-delivered to her big sister and brother-in-law in Alaska tonight.

I did show off to Richard that all those funny angles I’d been knitting actually looked like a baby sweater now.

We all piled into the car and he asked, Which airport?

SFO.

Oh, okay, not San Jose, good thing I asked.

We were almost there when he asked me, Do you want to go to your yarn store in South San Francisco on the way home?

Me, surprised: Yes! Sure! Thank you! It hadn’t even occurred to me or I’d have brought it with! (Thinking, this not-driving thing gets SO old and here he’ll be taking me to the very place that dyelot came from!) I opened my phone and checked their hours. We were good.

And that is how once again we ended up at Cottage Yarns together at rush hour to Kathryn’s surprise. Remember those skeins of Bobby Blue I bought to go into stripes in that afghan? I asked her. They weren’t bright enough. She nodded. I did a hat and sweater instead–I need contrasting, or something, for the button band.

She knew right where the Bobby Blue was and opened the bag with the same dyelot mine had come from.

And we were good to go. And did. And drove home in the mildest rush hour week of the year.

Monday morning, we picked up the new walker in San Jose in time to head over for Betty’s birthday party with hers and mine stuffed in the car so that I could return hers with thanks. She may never use it again but she needed the hope that our expecting that she would could offer her. Our birthday girl was 92.

We parked on the street in front of the facility. It was a large assisted-living place with a step-up unit for those who could no longer do much for themselves, and Betty had been moved to that side whose front door now faced us.

Richard went for her red one and I reached for mine. Getting the black one out of the car, it was new and stiff and didn’t want to open back up. I had no idea why; I knew they were supposed to be able to lock closed but I hadn’t done that because I didn’t know how yet, and as I puzzled over the thing a moment Richard came around the car and started to try–just as three women coming off their shift with housekeeping badges on their pink uniforms saw us and rushed down the driveway to come help.

They didn’t actually know any more than we did; how could a rollator be hard? But it was just then and we got some good giggles in together while trying. At last the seat support straightened out and we were able to be on our way, having just made impromptu friends.

Every person we met inside was just like that–loving, eager to help, not the least jaded but rather tender and gracious towards each person under their care. I had no idea a nursing home could be like that but it was about as ideal as it could be.

If I ever end up in such a place I want to end up in such a place.

Our ‘net just crashed again. Richard checked everything here and then we talked to someone who was working customer support on Christmas Eve at Comcast. They are sending some poor schmuck out on Christmas Day to fix a problem they identified on their end.

Edit: scratch that–he just called them back and asked them to wait till Monday to let the person have their day off. They were happy to oblige. Heck, I was all ready to invite them to Christmas dinner, especially if it was the same guy as last week.

Suddenly we are (probably briefly) up again and I am typing fast: Happy Birthday, Maddy!

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all, a Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, and the peace of the season however one might celebrate it at this time of the returning of the light.

Random count-the-fruit-on-that-branch photo. The flowers are starting to drop in tiny stars on the ground below.

Richard dropped me off at the clinic this afternoon, where I hoped the doctor would tell my hand was all healed while he headed off to the airport to pick up our daughter.

I was knitting when the doctor came in. That part of my life is nearly back to normal.

Nope. The bone in the knuckle isn’t done yet: five more weeks. But the pinky is healed and I can now take the velcro off when I’m showering or washing my hands. Good, because those things are sponges–after the last five weeks, they were getting pretty rank. I got a new set and spares.

Richard and Michelle picked me up and we took our famished daughter out for a quick bite before dragging ourselves out grocery shopping for the weekend.

I wanted to go to the nearest place and be done with it. She said, you know, that huge Safeway (in the next town over yonder) has more stuff that I can eat.

And so that’s where we went.

Which is how we ended up in the same store at the same time as the guy who’d given up his place in line at the post office. He saw me before I saw him and he stopped right there, his face lighting up in recognition and delight. I did the same.

It was enough. We held each other in our eyes for just long enough–and then, with a nod, carried silently on, with him not wanting to interrupt my daughter next to me but both of us sure to have a merrier Christmas or whatever holiday one might wish for for having had that moment.

He had no way to know what had happened the day after he’d seen me–the c-spine, the ER.

But he got to see that yes, I was using a walker. And I could get across that store now, supported and safe. It had all come together. And I got to see how happy that made him.

Happy Birthday to Parker! And my mom, who is Parker plus eighty. I really like that.

Michelle was in town on business and of course had the weekend off. And so yesterday we drove to a mobility shop together for some mother-daughter time and tried out walkers.

Good thing. One had really too narrow a seat, and I am by no means a big person–that was a surprise. Another had two carry bags, which was what I was looking for and had hoped to find in person, but it came in a height that left my feet dangling in the air like a little kid’s. That part wasn’t adjustable.

Then there was this one over here that was like Betty’s and it was just right. One bag would do (not for Stitches West, but then hey, neither could two.) It was the color of my favorite childhood bicycle, that metallic green prompting all kinds of happy memories (never mind that time I collided into a car at a blind curve on a steep hill and my parents were in New York and the neighbor college student taking care of us drove me to the ER and I got to ride in her VW Bug! And that was really cool! I am told that a cop later came to her door and demanded why she hadn’t filed a police report, and Ms. Hibbert retorted in righteous indignation, I was worried about the child! …Who had all of a sprained wrist. My cool orange rubber Tony the Tiger handlebars earned by so many cereal box tops had taken the brunt of it. One was never the same, and was lamented.)

And all that.

Michelle: Mom. Black. Visual overload, remember?

Me: But I really like that green.

Michelle: M o o o m…

My new black walker with seat and brakes and single bag will arrive in a day or two and they will call to tell me to pick up my order and I am actually excited about having one at last. The one I’m borrowing makes things so much easier. A bonus I had not expected: I can wrap my wrist through the handles of my purse (because one does not leave it snatchable) while having its weight on the seat–no more having it fall off my shoulder when I wobble and catching and ripping hair out of my head. Which has happened many times with the cane.

I am writing this on my Mac via working internet. We got an automated phone call yesterday telling us chirpily that our internet was back now!

Uh, no. Try again.

And so at long last Comcast sent a truck out today (we would rather not have had them have to work on Sundays but this was not a choice we were offered) and so tonight, just before dark, I went to cover the mango tree and found myself waving hi and calling out thanks to the lineman on the pole just over the property line.

He came down and over to our house. Had that worked?

Us, testing: No.

Him: Huh.

Turns out the pole had taken damage in the storm and then had started working again for everybody except somehow just us. Richard proved to him that things were working inside our house and he went back out and tried again.

He was just as happy as we were when that did it. Good man. He exclaimed, Wow, you have nice neighbors: every single one of them told me sure go ahead when I needed to go in their yards to check the lines.

I need to thank them, too.

Finished the hat and cast on the next instantly: the bug has decisively bitten.

Meantime, we decided to test drive the walker idea in the real world and went out for a scoop of Smitten ice cream, which is inside a large grocery store.

Strolling the aisles, Richard watched my walking-on-jello gait a moment and remarked, “You know, if you ran into any of your friends you would really scare them.”

Naaah. They’d get a scoop and come join us and make Ministry Of Silly Walks jokes, just like he and Phyllis and Lee did when they dropped off the walker.

It is safe to say it did not get better in the morning. Walking into church, all the colors and the movement and the people and I could barely walk holding onto the cane and Richard both as every muscle kept trying to give way on me. I, um, scared a few people. They felt better after I promised to go to Urgent Care afterwards.

Home first for a moment to get ready because I knew it would be a long wait, where I looked out the window and went oh right and got the silly mango tree covered for the night. Somehow the green (can’t call all of it grass) and the stillness in the yard soothed my firing neurons and it wasn’t too hard. I wanted to be the one to do it.

We headed out.

The doctor at Urgent Care, prodding around: Does this hurt?

Yes, up a bit–here.

Then he said the last thing I ever expected to hear: Do *not* move your head. You might have broken your neck. He called for a c-spine and told us we had our choice of ambulance or having Richard drive me, but recommended the ambulance, but in no way was his facility equipped to deal with this–go straight to Stanford. He would call ahead and let them know.

As Richard put it afterwards, to justify me in my decision and help me feel better about it, If he was sure it was broken he wouldn’t have given us options. The c-spine was on and we skipped the $300 co-pay.

The ER took me immediately in, no waiting.

And then, as one always does there, one waits.

I was glad I’d brought reading material because I wasn’t sure how I was going to knit like that.

The young doctor was highly pleased and relieved to be able to come back and say that the CT results were negative: no broken bones, no bone fragments in the brain, the diagnosis was a pulled muscle in the neck and a concussion.

This was very good news at this point and we all knew it. He took that c-spine off me and at last my neck could relax after holding the one position for hours. I told him I’d been wondering how I was going to be able to wash my hair in the morning and he chuckled. I still don’t know how one does it when one doesn’t get to take it off so fast.

But it will be a good long while before I’ll be in any shape to drive anywhere. Given what could have been, I can live with that.

And the mango tree glows its quiet, warm blue in the night.

We wanted to set up the tree, and we wanted to get some work done on cleaning the garage. We’d gotten a good start a few weeks ago but it was time to get back to it.

Richard at one point slipped on something that had fallen on the floor and did this wild little arms-flying half-dance that I so often do but it was unnerving to see that big guy nearly falling backward like that. Close!

Next on his list was to get the wheelchair ramp back in the garage. We’d loaned it out for awhile, I thankfully hadn’t needed it myself in a very long time, we don’t even own the minivan anymore to use it with and it was past time to get that thing put back away. Glad we had it when we needed it, glad my health is much improved, and we hoped to stay done with it for a long, long time to come.

That thing is seriously heavy. And with its unsteady handle it is very awkward.

Richard was halfway to where he was going with it when I saw that thing he’d slipped on a moment earlier and, waiting till he was enough steps away, ducked right in there to grab it quick–if he fell holding onto that ramp he could do serious damage to himself. (Or not holding it, for that matter, given that he would have put it down by the time he got back to that point. Things you think through afterwards.)

What happened next was that he had to pivot to go around something and the back of the ramp where he wasn’t looking suddenly swung backwards hard against his efforts–bam! into the back of my head as I was leaning over. I screamed out in pain (which very much surprised me–wait–do I DO that?!) as it dropped me right there and I grabbed my head as he put the thing down, coming, astonished to see me there, not even grokking yet what had happened.

We got out of the *bleeping* garage (“I’m not going back in there!” “That’s okay!”) and spent the next ten-fifteen minutes holding each other with me bawling hard in fear as well as pain, him saying he was so sorry, me saying it’s not your fault I didn’t tell you I was coming behind you I should have, I’m so sorry, and all we could do was be there for each other.

That ramp had hit my head where it had smacked the headrest twice in the car accident that had killed my sense of balance. It did not help it. Later calling the cream in the fridge shrimp and then going what?? at myself did not reassure.

He brought me an icepack right after that good bawl and I put it to the back of my head for some time. He cooked dinner. He told me to take it easy.

A note from Holly at just the right time (thank you thank you Holly) allowed me to answer and just spill the whole story and to start to feel the beginnings of being able to cope; I told her I would go fire off a note to my neurologist, and did.

A few hours later, I got the last few rows of that Madeline Tosh ball knitted up into that cowl and bound it off and it was done and someone could love this, and that felt very good, even if I have no idea yet who the who is. I wish I did. It would help.

I’d already stripped the bed and washed the sheets and making the bed had to be done, and I did it after dinner myself, such a little thing but at that point such a great sense of accomplishment. Claiming and clinging to normal life.

Dang. And I had that brain MRI *yesterday*.

We are taking nothing for granted. We are watching carefully for symptoms. We know the drill.

I had two packages to mail, one heavy, long, and awkward, the other small and easy. As I pulled into the wait-for-a-spot lot at the post office there was this moment of, oh, right. It’s December.

People were pretty crowded together in that long line and I finally said to the guy behind me, not that he had but that I was afraid he would, “If you bump into me I *will* fall down.”

He apologized and backed off a little.

They processed I think two people in the ten minutes after that.

One of my quirks is that if I stand still a long time my low blood pressure starts to drop. Which does not help when you are holding heavy things. And did I mention that just for fun I had a brain MRI immediately before this errand? (Effects from that fall three weeks ago finally got me to let the neurologist run that test.)

Finally I stepped forward apologetically and placed the two packages on the table that the line starts alongside, saying first that I hoped nobody would mind if I put these down?

Note that I still have the black strips of velcro hobbling my rightmost two fingers together, and yesterday I went back in to the doctor to ask if I’d broken my foot, too? Because it’s sure not getting any better. She sent me to the podiatrist, whose take on the x-rays was, Probably. We are waiting on the radiologist. The foot was actually still swollen (I hadn’t noticed or I’d have gone in sooner) and she told me to keep an ace bandage wrapped around it for a week. She decided against the boot only out of fear that with my balance issues it would make me fall again.

So yeah, I was waiting on that line hand and foot, trying to hold that eight pounder and the cane in the other hand and and and. Yeah. That table up ahead looked really good to me.

A man further forward who turned back to say sure, put it down, took one look at me and offered to switch places in line. I was quite surprised, and then I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I was.

It was amazing to see all the stressed faces in that line visibly relaxing on the spot. The place felt different now.

A few minutes later, the man whom I’d asked not to bump me finally got up to the end of that long table, where he went searching for a pen so he could fill out a form without holding everybody up once he could get to the clerk–but the chain ended in nothing. Gone.

I fished through my purse till I found my Lisa Souza Dyeworks one and handed it to him. Paying it backward.

He gave it back when he was done and struck up a conversation. He was genuinely curious about my wavery unsteadiness, and I explained briefly the car accident and the neurologist saying it had severed the connections between the balance and visual centers of the brain, so, more visual stimulation, more trouble standing. (Sitting I’m fine.)

Had it happened locally? Yes, on X street where they’ve since changed the traffic patterns to separate away the school traffic (in part in response to my being sandwiched there.)

By this point we were friends. He looked me in the eye and asked, carefully, Maybe it’s time to consider a walker?

I’ve been resisting that, I admitted, looking back into his.

And in that moment at last I knew. Yes, there are times I do need one. Yes I’m way too young for that sort of thing, but yes, life happens and I do not want to break any more bones. Richard had brought up the subject just yesterday. This man’s question felt like a confirmation.

Not sure I can pull off doing two hands on a walker and one on the Costco cart but that’s where I most need one, but, anyway. You heard it here first. I admitted it here first.

I fished through my purse again and turned back to the guy who’d given me his place in line: a colorful parrot finger puppet, in thanks.

His face lit up: My little girl will love this!

They called me over.

I had not been able to find a box that was long enough and had had the brilliant idea that I could fit two large padded envelopes over the thing, one from this direction one from that and overlapping and taped in the middle and that would do the job nicely.

Why did you do it this way? The clerk asked. Then I have to charge you by the pound! Take it home and put it in a box and then I don’t have to charge you so much! Maybe I could find you a box, do we? No, we don’t have, take…

I motioned towards that long line and said I didn’t want to make people wait as she fussed over the thing. (And I REALLY did not want to again stand a long time holding that package. I wasn’t entirely sure I could.)

She was, in a word, slow.

(Please just charge me whatever it has to be and get me out of everybody’s way.) I was trying not to re-stress.

She took my money at last and at long last I was done.

The man who’d given me his spot was by now the next person up and he stepped forward to take my place with the most beautiful smile on his face towards that clerk that seemed to radiate for the whole world. And he saved me all over again.

I was steadfastly and adamantly a parent who did not tell my kids that Santa was real, ever, to the point of having been told by one of my siblings ages ago not to say anything to her kids because they believed.

Well I did, too, on the importance of the meaning of Santa, and I talked to my kids about that a lot. Starting with peace and going straight to the with goodwill for all men part.

My cousin pointed today to an essay on the subject. It is brilliant. It is exactly what we parents all hope for for our kids. I wish I’d thought of it but I’m glad someone else did.

Wool knee socks, leg warmers, two layers of wool sweater, scarf, double-thickness handknit wool hat, fingerless gloves, warm jacket–and still I was a bit chilled on our walk tonight. I grinned at Richard, Almost feels like New Hampshire again, right?

He snorted, Not quite!

Me: I knew that would make you guffaw!

The covers over the mango were, as always, held down with a collection of rocks with no air gaps as far as I could tell, held down along the dripline out from the trunk so as to protect the roots. What I did was to go grab a few old covers that were now too small to go over and tucked them in a line going two-thirds of the way around that outer perimeter on the ground. A few rocks on those too so that they wouldn’t end up impaled at the top of the redwood in the middle of the night–just to stay on the safe side.

It turns out that just that little change made the whole thing seven degrees warmer. That’s a lot! And it didn’t cost any extra electricity or put any more weight on the flowers under there.

A combination of, well of course, and, who knew. And–why didn’t I try that sooner? (I’m still a little mystified that it made that much of a difference, but hey, I’ll definitely take it.)

Years ago, Richard’s oldest sister made an advent calendar for us for Christmas. The fabric was pre-printed with a cheery scene, a big decorated tree with a teddy bear family below. She lined it, sewed buttons on each day, finished the edges, made a long loop across the top, put a dowel through it and attached a fine rope for hanging the thing.

And then there were the little craft-store teddy bears that she added ribbon loops to for hanging from those buttons, one tiny toy for each of our kids.

One got rescued from behind the dryer one year (I have no idea how it got there) and two walked off and stayed off. They were actively loved. So we have two in the decorations box still, keeping each other company.

We hang her calendar every year in her memory, bringing her back into the celebrations of the season.

Cheryl fought lymphoma long enough to see her middleschooler go off to college and her second son marry a fine woman. I wish she had gotten to hold her grandchildren. But she certainly fought the good fight those eight years. They say they can now often cure the type she had, when at the time, there had been zero cures. None.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee blogged about the advent calendar she just finished for her small niece, knitting a tiny ornament for each of the days. They are SO cute.

We’ll see if hope and intent make it to created reality. I really want to make something like Stephanie’s for my grandchildren. Even if they end up being for next year.

Let’s see, the baby will be seven months by then…

Before church started, I was enjoying some of my favorite little kids there running around a woman about my age who turned out (it was an easy guess) to be their grandmother. First I asked the two-year-old, Is that your grandma?

He stopped and looked at her with big eyes and then at me with a puzzled expression that said, Well who else would she be? How could you not know this?

Their dad was giving one of the talks.

Things I never knew, though I’ve known them for years. Before he and his wife had married they’d found out she had a brain tumor. Well then it was something they would face together, and they did, but they were sure that one outcome would be that there would not be a chance to have children.

Sometimes, though… Not everybody gets to have the blessings they fervently wish for, but sometimes…

They have two little boys and now a newborn girl and a blessedly normal life these years later.

And they know how good they have it. The rest of us came away more grateful for all that we have, too.

How else could we be? May we never forget this.