We ate the first three Stella cherries today, even though they’ll be even better in a week. A raccoon had pulled the bottom of
the birdnetting open and we wanted to be absolutely sure we at least got some. I fixed the netting.

Monday: the airline sent out a message saying that due to TSA issues they were currently recommending getting to the airports two hours early.

And then flights were delayed all over the place, my first by an hour when I only had a 43 minute layover–I was sure I’d missed my connection, but no, I got to the gate two minutes before boarding.

This was still flight #whatever going to SFO?

Yes.

(ohthankyouthankyouthankyou!)

Landed, got my baggage, made it outside six hours after I’d left for the first airport (a direct flight is 70 minutes) and called Richard to say I was ready.

He said he was coming but then he didn’t come and he didn’t come. But it was okay, that seemed to be going on with everybody: the crowd by the curb was not thinning. We were all in this together, whatever was going on.

A couple with two young girls of about four or five and six or seven joined me on the long polished wood bench outside the Southwest arrival doors. Like me, they waited.

The younger one started playing a video game on a parent’s phone. It was dark and probably past her bedtime.

I caught the mom’s eye, pulled out–you guessed it, two Peruvian handknit finger puppets–and asked her if it was okay if I offered them to their daughters. She hesitated just an instant and then broke into a smile and said yes, so I gave two to the littlest, who was closest to me, and she handed one right over to her big sister.

She didn’t examine them first to see which was cutest to her eyes for keeping herself, she just instantly passed one along and then started looking to see what she had. I was impressed.

The older girl looked at her white rabbit in pink overalls munching a carrot and exclaimed happily, “It’s a bunny!”

“Happy birthday!” I told them both.

At that their faces just lit up. The dad said to me, gesturing towards the older one and looking very proud and very happy, “It really is her birthday!”

“It is?! How cool! Happy Birthday! Oh that’s just SO cool!” (I was so very very glad I hadn’t run out of puppets.)

San Francisco Airport had moved their park-n-call to somewhere even further away (it was already a get-on-the-freeway maneuver) and more difficult to get in and out of, my husband apologized as he drove up at long last.

Ah, so that’s why….

As we pulled away, to my surprise a certain young family was happily and enthusiastically waving us goodbye, parents and children both, and in that moment the fatigue of the day suddenly utterly vanished.

So glad I went. So tired. Later time zone. As soon as that washer stops spinning I’m going to b

Airfare for a week away being what it is, it’s just me going.

Two funerals were scheduled for my uncle, who had been a three-term Senator: one in the Washington, DC area (I almost, almost… But it just cost too much. JetBlue wanted $1087 one way, Southwest, about $400 per) and one in Salt Lake City.

Here is the text of a lovely talk given in Virginia.

As for the funeral in Salt Lake, that one I get to go to. If you don’t hear from me for a few days here, no worries; I’ll be surrounded by family and making memories for life.

Phone calls, flowers, a book I can’t wait to dive into, homemade cranberry cake, and a large photo of the grandkids playing.

Life is sweet.

My grandparents built their dream home long ago and Uncle Bob spent his teenagerhood in it.

But then Grampa got elected to the Senate and they sold that house and rented a basement apartment for their Utah address–two apartments, the other in DC where there was a postwar boom and housing shortage, were enough to have to pay for.

And so another couple lived out their lives in my grandparents’ lovely place with the stone front and the floor-to-ceiling windows across the long living room at the back, very Californian and with a beautiful view across the valley.

And then that house came on the market again at long last. Uncle Bob snatched it up. But he too had to have a DC spot when he won his father’s old Senate seat, and so my aunt and uncle split their time between the two homes. After the next-door neighbor dropped a large tree on their Salt Lake City roof…the Basement Troll tradition began.

Our youngest was one of several nieces and nephews over the years whom they took in to help them keep tabs on the place. But mostly it was to look out for the kids more than the house–it’s hard to get started without a little help.

So many stories. So much generosity. So much more than I could ever describe. My cousin with $61,000 in medical bills (and that was with insurance) after her baby girl died while waiting on the heart transplant list, leaving her healthy twin a singleton. Uncle Bob could do something about the money part of it so he quietly did.

Here, meantime, the day was basically this (after a quick trip to Purlescence to replace my broken wheel band, thank you Sherry, this is the last of your purple cashmere) and this. I think I got very gently rear-ended in the rain, too, but when I pulled over the person drove off and on that ten-year-0ld bumper, well, what’s one more scratch, right?

I think the screw in the tire came later.

A little normal life. It’s a good thing, really. We thanked the AAA guy and he seemed less stress when he left then when he’d arrived, and that felt good.

Some of the best notes of the day:

Here–wait, nope, what lives on Facebook wants to stay on Facebook. Scott Howell recounting a conversation to the Utah Debate Commission. Let me summarize.

When Uncle Bob got primaried by the Tea Party, he went home that night feeling very low. Went into his study (and I can just picture him in that big brown leather chair there) and tried to fathom what had just happened.

The phone rang.

He wasn’t going to answer it. And yet, something about it… He picked up the phone rather in spite of himself.

“This is Barack…” Our President told him how sorry he was to hear about the election and said he wanted to thank him for his service to his state and his country, for his willingness to reach across the aisle to listen and to work with his colleagues. He left my uncle feeling that he had been the right person in the right place at the right time when it had mattered.

That phone call made such a difference to Uncle Bob.

And then there was this release.

One more thing: my cousin Jim added that when President Obama found out that Uncle Bob’s cancer had metastasized, he sent him a handwritten note. Personal, comforting, just a lovely thing to do, because he wanted to reach out to his old friend. Again.

Today just felt like the day.

It was also the day I decided to test this mobility thing after a month of staying away from driving. I went to the dry cleaners. I dropped off a return at the UPS store. I went home and checked my messages, rested, ran another errand, went home and checked my messages.

Picked up Richard and asked him to drive now; sure, no problem.

He found himself turning right on a whim and we went out for ice cream because the day just needed something frivolous.  Came home and the first thing I wanted to do was check for messages.

When we walked in the door together there was a beautiful dove on its back on the patio, its chest glowing peach in the fading sun. It surprised me. Its fragile legs were red, its splayed feathers a riot of white and black.

Its closed eyelids a bright light blue.

All this color, not such a drab little bird after all; who knew? But what a way to see it so vibrantly. It must have hit that window hard.

There was no sign of the hawk. And a Cooper’s won’t come back for something it didn’t kill–it is not a scavenger.

I was not about to invite the ravens around.

Richard called his dad to catch up a bit, and in the course of the conversation I asked DadH how long it takes if I… I…don’t want to dig in the spot in a year or two and get totally grossed out. I knew he’s been an avid gardener.

Six months, a year at most, he encouraged me.

And while we were talking that message came in.

I knew…

I went outside. I picked up the shovel. I immediately hit rocks. Lots of rocks. The previous owner had made a pathway of them and many many years later they went down pretty far and maybe they always had.

I wanted to see how far. I didn’t care. There was sunlight and there was room and I’d long wanted that spot and I wanted to make it work and if I had to dig under every stone by hand to pull it out I was going to do it, and I did it. There was a large root from the tree cut down over a year ago; I worked around it. I spent about forty-five minutes working those stubborn embedded determined hard gray planet-bones out of there and putting them aside to where, later, they would help hold the water in place for me and work with me.

It all looked like the scattered weeds and grass and dirt on the right before I started.

Yes I’m still supposed to take it easy. But sometimes, sometimes, hard physical productive work that anticipates the bounty of the future is exactly what life requires of us.

And then when I finally had that small gash in the earth wide enough (about 40″) and deep enough and soft enough to add soil to and plant my pea seedlings in, then, at last, it felt it was time to go to work on that dove’s final resting place. I took a few steps to the left and behind the mango tree. Its roots wouldn’t be that far over yet (and oh good, they weren’t) but eventually the little bird could offer it sustenance.

Here, moss grew on the smooth surface here and there.

The spade slid right in to its full depth. Such a different experience.

And again. Then I put it down, walked back to the patio, and unlike my usual careful measures picked the dead dove up in my bare hands to take it to its new place.

It was so beautiful. It was so soft. I was sorry it was gone but grateful to it for how it would feed my fruit. Then for all that I’d dug the dove was so long that I wondered if it would fit in there gracefully and with a pang I wanted its spot to do it honor.

Somehow the space was wide enough after all. I put it in deep and packed the soil back around it. I put a bit of the moss back on the top and watered the spot to settle it all in. Then over to the peas.

The message. My uncle, my love of an uncle, the one who invited us to stay at his house any time we were in town, the kindest man you could ever hope to meet, quietly let go of his pancreatic cancer and the stroke that had made his last few days all the harder and with his family around him, slipped away this evening to where he waits to embrace us all. As he always has.

The Washington Post put the story on their front page within an hour. Maybe they’ll correct the number of grandkids by morning.

The Salt Lake Tribune’s, here.

I was pruning a peach tree, making sure everything out there had enough water, planting my tomato seedlings at long last, amazed at how such small plants could have such a huge root system already–

–when I came inside a moment and Richard asked me if I still wanted to go?

Go to what?

He’d forgotten to tell me about the invite. I had no idea. Yes of course I wanted to go! Dinner suddenly became whatever could be ready in five minutes and then we were off to our friends’ for a house concert. I would have offered to bake a hazelnut torte or something had I known.

Beautiful vocals, beautiful instrumentals, getting to meet and appreciate the musicians and them getting to see their audience loving what they do, and Shadowlands’ CD tomorrow for Mother’s Day. Definitely the way to spend a Saturday evening.

Dirt still under the nails and all.

1. So then I tried spinning just the plum and the red sparkly today and got these 272 four-plied yards.

2. The tart cherries are trying to catch up to that color as fast as they can. You can tell which side the sun hits them on.

3. This video of Glenn Stewart rock-climbing city hall and banding baby peregrines.

4. It was the last Thursday night knit night at Purlescence: attendance has been low of late (all those political debates on Thursdays, I’d say) and they really did need the extra space for classes. So of course it was quite the turnout tonight. I’m so glad I got to go (thank you, Richard) especially given that I’m not driving yet.

5. Meantime, we got the very happiest of messages: Crystal, our seven-weeks-premature new grand-niece, after a month in the NICU was pronounced healthy and allowed to go home today. Her parents are ecstatic. We are, too.

A Dancing Queen and a Red Lion amaryllis that my dad gave me for my birthday several years ago.

And if you look way in the background, that’s my Baby Crawford peach that I planted in January in front of the fence and the third-year Stella cherry at the far left.

It’s the most amazing thing. You gouge a little hole out of the dirt, plunk in a stick, cover it up and it turns into fruit all on its own, for years and years and years to come. Well, not the amaryllises but they earn their keep, too.

And on a side note, just because it tickles me. The Grammy Salute to Music Legends that just happened: my cousin David, a musician and actor in NYC, just flew to LA along with his almost-95-year-old dad to accept a Grammy award on behalf of David’s late grandfather, Harvey Fletcher. The inventor of stereophonic sound, not to mention the first audiometer (I’ve seen it, it’s at Johns Hopkins, built into a gorgeous wood case) and hearing aids. For what he did for the world of music.

I love that my uncle got to be there and accept that. Rock on!

The concussion: I was feeling pretty good yesterday, did a lot of plying, turned on the stereo and even sang along to Alison Kraus a bit as the wheel whirred. Not entirely resting but not pushing it, right? We went out to dinner to celebrate a birthday and on the way home I was saying, hey, a few more days like this and I’ll feel confidant enough to start driving again. (With him in the car the first few times as a backup.)

Uh, Houston, we have a negative on that trajectory.

The doctor on the phone today decided I didn’t seem to need imaging for a brain bleed but if things were in any way worse in the morning speak up (it was, and that’s exactly what I did today) and we’ll move that neurology appointment forward.

When she said rest for once it was easy to do. Stabs said my head really didn’t want me to turn it to the left. They did let up a lot as the day went on.

And so off and on across the afternoon I did manage to get one bobbin plied. One really pretty bobbin that just makes me happy to look at, some Zegna Baruffa Cashwool that I stumbled across while looking for something else and went, oh, that’s what that peachy-pink has been waiting for all along!

More of Sherry’s cashmere. Add spinning wheel and there you go.

I found this in a description of the production of that superfine wool: the pasture must be perfect and only calm sheepdogs need apply. There must be no stress on the Cashwool-worthy merinos.

Sounds good enough to me to pair with Sherry’s gift.

To be continued.

Our grandson Hudson is three, and in honor of his birthday we got to Skype with him last night.

His cousin Hayes was there. A three-word update: he’s perfectly fine. And adorable. And kept coming up and looking right into the camera with a face that said, Wait. Those aren’t MY grandparents! I’ve seen these people before, what are they doing in that iPad?

Hudson was goofy and giggly and happy and suddenly grabbed that big one off the couch–pillow fight!

At us. Incoming! We ducked on our end (making sure to stay in camera view.) Hudson laughed that joyful laugh that little ones live for. Here it comes! We held up our hands in front of our faces with fingers stretched wide and ducked again. And again and again until it was time for dessert there at the other grandparents’ and it was time for them to go, all of us about falling on the floor laughing.

Best. Pillow. Fight. Ever!

From Colourmart‘s recent big mill-ends-of-the-mill-ends sale.

The cone, a vivid red on the orangey side, became this (first photo) yesterday and then this (second and third photos) today.

My problem was in not owning a dyepot big enough, if one exists, to allow 650 g of dk cashmere to float around in freely to let all the dye sift equally through everything; those three hanks I’d wound up barely all fit in there with the water at half full. And it was a big pot. (Side note: surely there are people who can hold up an increasingly heavy niddy noddy long enough to wind two thousand-plus yards onto it to make a single hank out of that much yarn; I am not one of them. I had to take breaks.)

I looked at my skeins, snapped a photo, and got my daughter’s opinion. There was a lot of difference between the skeins and within the skeins, mocking my efforts to immerse them together. “Artistic,” I told her.

Honestly, still pretty bright.

No problem. Easier to add than subtract. I repeated the process today, putting in first that which had taken up the least.

Not perfect but a lot better and a lot more even.

Note that I bought that second cone in case it turned out not quite what she was hoping for.

My daughter is knitting. And I had a chance to give her cashmere. All it needed was some prep work.

Merino from the gifted Karin of Periwinkle Sheep.

Impromptu stitch holder to remember where the round starts courtesy of my hair.

I was sweeping safflower seed hulls around and out from under the bird feeder in the dark tonight and of course I smacked my head hard into the thing and thought, well now that was bright, wasn’t it. Like I could hardly have guessed it was there.

This time I didn’t have to fight to keep breathing, so I think no concussion. (Looking at that old day-after post, I guess I should add, So far.) My sweet husband asked me a few times if we needed to go to the doctor, because, yeah.

So far I think we’re okay. Even if the idea of a seventh concussion does–well, since I didn’t quite recover entirely from the last one, it does give one pause.

It’s 3:30 am his time, he having just stepped off the plane. Been a long week. He’s home. G’night.