Our friend Alice was at the wheel, I was on the passenger side, Richard behind me as we drove back from Oakland this afternoon.

Her eyes steadfastly on the road and not even glancing to the side, being an avid birder she motioned towards what had caught the corner of her eye, saying, simply, “Look.” Knowing I would want to.

White dots in the distance and nearer, a single crane standing sentinel, alone. A closer flock appeared as the road continued past the cracked-brown edges of the shore: there in the gray-blue water of the Bay, the white pelicans’ plumage shone brilliantly in the sun.

They circled to play a game of Go Fish and a beak of orange-gold was raised in success.

So apparently there’s a Twitter meme going on whereby former teenage nerds are offering Ahmed Mohamed a show of support by building clocks themselves and taking a picture of wires and all and posting theirs.

My sweetie happened to take his with him to Timothy Adams tonight to show our daughter; thus we have a chocolate shop going on in the background and empty truffle wrappers in front. (And they were very very good.) I wish we could share those with Ahmed, too; maybe Mark Zuckerberg could bring him in after his tour of Facebook headquarters.

By now you’ve probably heard of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old who built a clock and took it to show to his engineering teacher at his new high school in Irving, Texas.

Now, being married to a nerd, we have a lot of motherboards and various other parts kicking around here. Lots. He’s actually got my yarn stash beat. (Note which one of us is writing this.)

The Heathkit company of our youth quit making electronics kits ages ago. Even I built some of their kits–it was a requirement in a college electricity course. My clock finally died after 35 years but the alarm in case the standing freezer gets too warm is still at work in the garage.

So into that vacuum stepped the folks who started Raspberry Pi after looking at how expensive gadgets had gotten; few parents would want to let their kid take, say, an iPad apart and explore its innards, and they decided budding nerds needed to have access to electronic parts to tinker with and to be able to make things at a reasonable price–and I mean exceedingly reasonable.

And thus we have, for instance, the controller that turns the Christmas lights on my mango tree on and off depending on the temperature range I set for it. Had we bought such a gadget prefab it would have been prettier but also more expensive and this way my sweetie has made himself a part of that tree’s success. He built that.

This is the hubby who decided one Christmas years ago when the kids were little that the usual setup of chairs across the hallway with blankets draped over it to block their view of the goodies ahead wasn’t enough. The rule was that you wait for Mommy and Daddy and Mommy and Daddy are allowed to sleep till a semi-reasonable hour after trying to assemble that #*% rocking horse till 2 am (second page of instructions, line 17 halfway down: “Before you start, make sure you…” And so forever after it had a screw missing because there just was no way.)

No peeking.

A motion sensor, a tape recorder, and the very unexpected sound of Daddy’s voice: “Go. back. to. BED, Richard!”

And so it was with some amazement that I listened to my ever calm peacemaker of a husband take off on that principal and those cops. “They should be in JAIL!” He was just outraged. In his own youth, he told me, he had gotten permission from the school, made fireworks (me: You *made* fireworks? him: Yes, I made fireworks!) and had brought them in.

They called Ahmed’s clock a bomb and when he confirmed his last name and refused to say that it was a bomb, after having illegally questioned him without allowing him to notify his parents much less in their presence, they marched him across the school in handcuffs, hauled him to police headquarters and arrested him.

Let’s see: false imprisonment, false police report, false charges, under color of authority, lack of parental notification, libel, and even after they found out that it really was just a clock the school still said he was suspended for three days as if he were somehow guilty for embarrassing them–and then they sent home a letter to the other kids’ parents about how their children were being kept safe (from, basically, terrorists by the sound of it) and that there had been an incident but everything was fine now.

Now, if they’d thought it was really a bomb, would they have left it sitting in the school as they blasted this child? But they did.

Would they have evacuated the school? But they did not.

It all comes across as the English teacher and the principal with the cops piling on trying to show that smart brown kid with the Muslim name just exactly who had the power around here.

But then, thank heavens, the aftermath began. President Obama on Twitter: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”

Mark Zuckerberg, NASA (he was wearing their t-shirt when it happened) and a growing number of places: You want to come tour our headquarters/lab/etc? We want smart people like you and we would love to show you around here.

Mohamed’s father, an immigrant from Somalia, thanked all those who stood up for his son: I love America. When we see something wrong we stand up.

The school is utterly unrepentant.

Some lawyer is totally going to clean their clock.

Finally seem to be over that bug and have my energy back. Time to really get out and go somewhere.

So I texted Michelle, having looked forward to the thought all month long: Want to go to Mariani’s?

She called back with a YES! so fast I didn’t even have time to see if they were still open for the season. Turned out she’d taken her car in for routine maintenance and they’d told her they wouldn’t be done for four hours and she was stuck with no wheels and nothing to do. (Prime knitting time, to a knitter, but…) She’d just wandered to the grocery store a few blocks down to buy a snack.

“I’ll be out the door in five minutes.” I hadn’t eaten yet. Yay for leftovers–I didn’t even bother to warm them up, let’s go!

And so we were on our way. She checked on her phone and yes, open.

We got to Morgan Hill, turned onto the street, and a small tractor was pulling up to the mailbox near the entrance sign. I came up alongside and hesitated before turning into the driveway: my car is a Prius and people don’t hear me coming. I didn’t want him to pull forward without knowing I was there.

It was Andy himself under that hat as he glanced up from his mail and the instant deep warmth in his face as he recognized us and waved us on in made my day. Sometimes on this planet earth of ours we allow each other to see how much we matter to each other even when we don’t know each other very well. I do passionately want his farm to keep providing the best of the best despite the pressures of encroaching city and drought.

On display were the last six peaches of the year. Most were huge, a pound and a quarter. I didn’t see it, so I asked, “What’s the name of the variety?”

The lady grinned. “Last Chance!”

We bought them all. I filled the rest of the crate with plums. We added strawberries, green veggies, honey, and a chocolate/apricot/marzipan candy that definitely warrants coming back for. Not too sweet. They got it exactly right.

There were also the very last of some green figs with a deep red center, and knowing they wouldn’t have a long shelf life, I only took seven or eight and left the other half for the next person coming along.

We’ll definitely go back to try out the monster Mutsu apples. Soon.

Looking forward to seeing the little ones soon. It’s been too long.

Michelle stopped by a bit, reporting that there had been a baby squirrel pawing at the window next to the door trying to figure out why it couldn’t just walk through that solid nothingness and go on in. She said it was very cute and it wasn’t afraid of her.

Right, you have to teach a city squirrel to be afraid.

She was telling me this just as a mama black squirrel and her slightly grayer baby were walking carefully, slowly down the fence line next to the kitchen, looking like it was its first exploration out into the world. I went from feeling like, you can’t humor those things! to, oh, that little one was just so cute. Even if I wish the squirrels didn’t produce a second crop of babies in August, I have enough of them to thwart. Adorable!

Two days ago I was telling Richard the squirrels had taken a deep bite out of a zucchini and left the rest–apparently they didn’t like it either. He chuckled. Today that zucchini was bigger and they actually somehow picked the thing and tried to haul it up the fence.

Good luck with that.

As far as I can tell they touched just the one and left the rest alone rather than taking a single bite out of everything and ruining the others to sit and rot. Given that they used to strip my underripe Fujis in a day–pick, bite, toss, repeat till gone–this was kind of amazing.

I think it means they’re hungry out there.

So far my now-clamshelled apples are still safe. Little fruity windows. No you can’t come in.

Someone on the neighborhood listserv mentioned that SunGold kiwis were available at a certain Asian grocery store. Sun whats? Yellow kiwis? What–? I was intrigued, and I wasn’t the only one and so the thing happened.

They’re yellow on the inside, ready to eat when you get them, juicy, softer than the green types and a lot less acidic, have an essence of mango to them and they are really, really good. This specific variety was apparently new as of 2012 so there’s not a lot out there yet–if you can find some grab them. A lot get sent from New Zealand to Japan, so I guess that’s why the Asian grocer knew about them.

Dave Wilson Nursery sells a red variety. Who knew. One guess as to what I went looking there for, but, nope, not yet.

The other thing today, though, I did not get a photo of; the iPhone was right at hand but the moment had a great big Do Not Disturb sign all over it.

This past spring when I watched the ravens threatening and mobbing my Cooper’s hawks, stealing their prey and stealing their nest? I kept an eye out for a new big nest up high out there somewhere but it just never happened as far as I could tell.

A finch ricocheted off the window this afternoon, appearing unhurt but still I heard it as I looked up.

A few minutes later–clearly not in chase, then–a juvenile Cooper’s hawk flew in past the bird feeder following that same trajectory to that same spot. Only, he u-turned gracefully at the glass, brushing it ever so gently with the very tips of his wings as if to confirm for himself that it was indeed a solid surface: useful and a danger both, then. Alright.

He landed on the edge of the wooden box, right at his father’s favorite spot for people watching, and chose to observe me sitting quietly observing him.

In awe.

What a gorgeous bird. Deep chestnut marled with the brilliant white in the chest lit up in the sun, the back that would later be blue-gray a matching brown. This was not the baby hawk bouncing around in the amaryllises that I got to see a few years ago, this was a raptor who was well into learning how to command the skies on his own. Who knew his own power. And yet he came down to me.

We took each other in and I silently welcomed him to my home. Y’all come back now, y’hear?

Wings lifted high, tail widening–and rounded, confirming Cooper’s, not Sharp-shinned, as if there were any doubt, and he was off.

He swooped back the other way a few minutes later towards the redwood. I laughed in delight.

And so a new generation finds its path.

The shawl: blocked. Done. I totally love it.

Remember the bubblewrap around the awning pole to keep the squirrels from jumping onto my bird feeder? It worked for months.

Yesterday, however, the lower two-thirds of it disappeared. What was left was still around the pole–but chewed on. What on earth eats bubble wrap?! I could not find the rest anywhere.

Till suddenly in the early evening there it was running down the fence line, a squirrel tripping over it each step as it glanced sideways at me with its mouth very full, looking at me like, I *know* you want this, it’s MINE now! It leaped into the tree in a sudden panic, struggled mightily to continue, snagged the thing and gave up and fled.

Oh now that looks lovely. (I apologized to my neighbors. They laughed and said they couldn’t even see it from their side.) That’s their tree growing straight over our property in front of the redwood, and under there is the 60-year-old corrugated roof to our shed gently blanketed in decades’ worth of redwood needles. There’s no climbing on that thing–it would collapse in a heartbeat. The limb lopper can’t reach. At least it’s not at the top of the redwood.

But I guess for the moment we’ll just have to let its freak flag fly.

Meantime, we got a card in the mail from the Census Bureau, which was doing a mid-decade test to see if they could move the whole process online. And so by force of law our household was to fill out their questionnaire at this URL by tomorrow, with a phone number to call if that weren’t possible, in which case they would send out an in-person census taker.

The thing checked out and yes they were actually them so I took care of it.

Richard walked in the door tonight to find me doing my best John Denver impersonation. Sing it with me: “I Filled Out Your Census!”

I was missing being able to eat a just-picked ripe peach or plum but wishing for a trip to Mariani’s was as close as I was going to be able to get. Today was not a turn for the better and I’m thinking I’ll take the doctor up on her offer come Monday of making sure I don’t have pneumonia.

I did have the one single Indian Free peach from my new tree that I picked about a week ago, maybe as much as a month early, to give the tree a rest and to thwart the critters–after all this waiting I thought it better that we get it imperfect than that the squirrels get it all.

Today: hey look–it had softened up and was ready. And so after all these months of anticipation, knowing we weren’t going to get it at its best, we cut it in half.

One side was white, the other a deep rosy pink. It was sweet enough and there were already nuances of flavors you don’t get from a grocery-store peach–wow, just wait till we get these at full ripeness. What a marvelous tree. This was already good.

But one very small peach. One could only wish for more.

Someone loves me. And the folks at Andy Mariani’s sent a get-well message home with the box.

Richard remembered the Zofran (an anti-nausea med) prescribed the last time we went through this and I managed to get it down and avoid the whole IV fluids thing. The fever has settled down too. Yay.

DebbieR’s comment about her finger puppets at work was the perfect comic relief, and thank you. Richard found himself remembering back to the time years ago when he was in a meeting at work and someone was having quite the meltdown over something of no consequence: and so without even thinking, parental instincts and all that, he reached into his pocket for one of the baby’s pacifiers and flipped it over to the guy.

Um. Oops. Sorry…

(I just asked him, who was that guy? He told me. Ooooh, yeah, okay…)

I had crossed off the word grandmother where it listed family history on the check-in form and the technician asked me about that.

“It was my great-grandmother. My sister corrects me that it wasn’t breast cancer, it was colon cancer.” (As much as anyone can tell from 107-year-old accounts and the fact that our grandmother was eight when her mother died.)

I asked her to be careful–“I don’t want *you* to get squished.”

“Oh, it’s happened.” A rueful chuckle.

And then, “Your doctor will let you know the results in a day or two.”

A mammogram before age 40 with no history of breast cancer in her family either saved my sister-in-law’s life a few years ago. Don’t put it off.

The Aquarium, dinner in Santa Cruz–a long, fun day.

The tufted puffins with their golden (Republican candidate’s name) locks swept back over their heads.

The special jellies exhibit we’d wanted to see was still up. Blue jellyfish? Brown? Since when?

There is always an artists’ exhibit in there somewhere, and those jellyfish chandeliers–if anyone starts marketing them I’d be trying to figure out where to put one. Wouldn’t it be fun to watch one of those in an earthquake? (Mild, mild, keep’em mild and entertaining only, that’s all I ask.)

Off to Chocolate, that fabulous restaurant in Santa Cruz, only this time we looked up: if your ceiling has to include industrial pipes, then….!

Home, tired, done. Can’t afford to do all that very often but today was a day that worked out to go so we jumped in the car and went.

And on our way back, taking in the scenery and happy to play passenger so I could, I saw what was either a whale breach out in the Bay or a really big splash of a sea lion in the distance. And I finally figured out what the rows of old towering eucalyptuses silhouetted across the hilltops looked like. They’re a terrible tree for California: they were brought here from Australia in the 1800s to grow quickly for lumber but they make terrible lumber so they were just left to spread. They are magnets for lightning and their oil explodes in fires.

And yet–that variety so prevalent in that area has this airy poof at the top and going down the sides, tethered just enough to the ground below.

Sky jellyfish. And they are beautiful.

There were about a half dozen years in my life when my children were babies when I wasn’t into knitting.

I was into smocking.

This involves creating tiny pleats in cotton fabric and then embroidering over those pleats and sewing up the little outfits. This especially lends itself to cute baby dresses, and I made dozens and gave many away to other new parents to welcome their little ones.

At one point, my sister Carolyn and I were due at about the same time. I made our daughters matching dresses, even if, given how hard it is to travel across country with toddlers and babies, we would never see them together in them before they outgrew them. Given Second Dress Syndrome, I kept them simple and quick. (Those sleeves match when they’re not arguing with a camera.)

When my lupus started four years later I could no longer hold those tiny needles but I still needed a creative outlet. Something that stayed done in the happy chaos. And that is when I rediscovered my love of knitting.

But meantime, my kids had outgrown the various smocked outfits and I had set them aside for future grandchildren.

Then we remodeled. It was the seventh year we lived here, and the first six had all been drought years. That seventh was a doozy, though, and I started joking that if we ever had a drought again we just had to get the state legislature to fund remodeling our house again and that would end it–it just wouldn’t stop raining.

When our contractor thought he was pretty much done our roof had seventeen leaks, all of them new. It took every bucket we could find while we tried to get that taken care of. There was a leak in an overhead light fixture over here, and over there, water was pouring out a light switch. More from the new sky lights, others just randomly wherever. Fun times.

Meantime, those smocked clothes were in a box with a lot of other boxes that got shuffled around depending on where work was being done on the house just then.

And one day I discovered that roof juice had permeated that box and those clothes and despite all I could do with a washing machine, those stains did not come out. All that work, all those memories, all that generational anticipation! I couldn’t throw any of them away–they were beautiful, aside from the damage, I just couldn’t.

Yesterday I stumbled across this simple little bishop-style cousins dress. It somehow was not stored with the others, as if it were waiting to be discovered, a spokesman for the others. It took me this long to figure this out? Hello, lady, you’ve got grandchildren… I wondered if my niece, now the mother of three little ones herself, might still have or even know about her matching outfit. I hadn’t thought about them in a long time. I think the sense of pointless loss had made me avoid them.

I had to try.

I rubbed some Seventh Generation detergent into the spots, put a little more in the sink and sudsed it up at the tap (not too much! It’s a drought! Tell the legislature they’re not doing their jobs!) and put it in to soak.

For eight hours. I squished water through from time to time.

The water turned brown.

And look at that. No baby food stains either.

I actually missed one roof spot near the bottom, so I’m going to rub more in and do it over. But look at that! Twenty-one years and three grandchildren later and I can actually start passing these down now.

I’ve got me some work to do. At long last.

p.s. I don’t remember if I used the Ultra Power Plus or their older version; I have both. But they’ve earned the link they didn’t ask for so here it is.

Ellen got to see all the fruit trees last week while she was here, and walking around the yard she said she loved how the place had all these nooks and crannies.

In the drought-absence of a lawn I have gained a respect for the lowly dandelion: they don’t stab and they don’t grab or prickle and they delight little children at every stage. I have just a few.

But the ones that love a desert… I’ve got the worst of them by now but I want the rest gone before the rains come. I’ve seen how fast they can flower after a shower–one day. One. Day. Across species.

And so, it being our allotted watering evening (9-6: not allowed) rather than coming inside between trees as I moved the hose around, timer in my pocket, I stayed out there, my entire upper body against the little pricker factories, pulling as many up by the taproots before sundown as I could.

And came in at last, dead tired, and explained to Richard why I hadn’t come in during each eight minute interlude to, y’know, go knit or something: “I was weeding a good nook.”

For the record: carrots well roasted in extra-virgin olive oil, then add a bit of cherry sauce that I picked up at Andy’s Orchard last week? (Andy’s grows cherries but they sell Cherry Republic’s bottled topping.)

A certain tall man is officially a fan. Pretty please with cherries on top and all that.

So I had to go looking for their website and now I really want my baby Montmorency tree to hurry and grow up!