A few years ago, my oldest gave me a set of Peter Rabbit notecards for Christmas. Parker was a baby, and she was remembering all those times I had read our much-loved Beatrix Potter set with her and her siblings.

Some time after our son’s family went home two weekends ago, Michelle found a digger truck behind her couch. I think it was smaller than this one at Amazon but it was very similar.  It was easier for me to get to the post office than her, so I brought it home and I found just the box for it.

It needed a card and I went looking. Amaryllis? There’s about to be enough pink around his house around the time of his birthday, no, birds? Nah, that’s my thing, I needed something that spoke to a little boy.

And you know what I found next. I had a few left.

Flipping through, I found *the* card. Picking apples? How perfect is that?

Dear Parker, I wrote, and explained that the digger had had a nice visit but it wanted to come home now. The mailman was letting it have a ride home. I told him I loved him, signed it, put it in the envelope and the envelope in the box and taped it up and mailed it off and drove away in happy anticipation of the look on his face. I tell you. It felt like Christmas.

And Sam had gotten it so amazingly right.

Edited to add, I said to my husband, Wasn’t that just perfect? He grinned and said, Perfect would be a digger pulling a submarine with a picture of Parker being the captain waving the (he added more to his verbal picture…) But yes. It was perfect.

And poof, just like that, woke up this morning and felt the burden of worry gone. Even if I don’t like that chimney exclusion.

By then, though, I’d figured out exactly what our new earthquake insurance costs the equivalent of: seven round-trip airfare tickets for two to San Diego every year, including airport snacks, give or take a Christmastime increase. Which certainly isn’t going to stop us from going to go meet the new baby due then.

I finally figured out that that was why the soft yarn I’d picked out for her was in a cheerful red. Well of course. And there will be bright sparkly lights in celebration everywhere come the day.

The slant of the lowering sun, just in that moment of the day, makes the shadow look so much bigger than the real thing.

And yet sometimes you just need to grab whatever pushes you to get the thing done and we wanted it done. We’d had it years before, till college tuitions and the like got in the way. Now was the time. Chris-the-agent and I exchanged emails and details Friday till well after five till I told him, hey, go have a weekend.

There was a 4.2 (oh wait, they’ve downgraded it to 4) forty miles from our kids Sunday night. The earth was antsy and so were we. Several little ones on the Hayward fault–that’s the East Bay-side faultline that all their hospitals are built within yards of and I think their water mains, too. Tell the people of the 1950’s: science. It keeps you from doing stupid things. You don’t just bulldoze the cracks and call it the cheap land.

One of our outside five gallon water storage containers got chewed through by a critter; drought, I guess, I need to recycle that one. The ironic thing is, the Napa quake seems to have upended underground water into the creeks there that so need it.

I went through the pages of forms again, writing in details like the diagonal bracing we found in the framework of the house when we remodeled years ago–cool, that was better than current code and this is a sixty-year-old house–and we both signed the papers.

Then I called ahead and drove over.

Chris was one of the first people I met in California 27 years ago but he wasn’t in today. But they all work together and the receptionist motioned me to Sandy’s office; I remembered her well.

Except that’s not the name she said.

Me, hesitating a moment: Does Sandy still work here?

She, with a look of oh, you don’t know, then…  “Sandy died. She had cancer and passed in November.”

But…but…! I just stopped there a moment, stunned. I told her I was so sorry. I told her it was taking me a moment to process, and she nodded, understanding, and added a few details so I would know.

I hadn’t known. I hadn’t done anything. And she’s… Well crum. I mean, what else can you say. Crum. I’m sorry.

Finally, into Sandy’s office, where the new-to-me guy’s young children’s pictures were on the shelf and we got down to business. Tell me, what is this about not covering masonry. That means my chimney, right? Not just stonework? (Which I don’t have.) Chimneys are what break most, aren’t they?

They do. Which is why almost nobody covers them in quake insurance anymore.

(Oh lovely.) What if it shatters my solar panels as it falls apart? (Said while suddenly glad they were at a distance from each other.)

“That’s a gray area.”

(Color me concerned.)

And yet. An aunt whose house was a half mile from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta got the full value on her $350k earthquake policy, and she needed it all. A tiny 2.9 strong enough to wake me up because it was so close? Three in a few days in that spot. What would a 6 there be like? Or a 7? I don’t want to know.

The policy didn’t quite take instant affect at signing; the guy gave me the minute of the hour of the day. Three more hours now. Wait, now that I’ve been typing this long, make that two. Less than.

I am remembering when I flew to Maryland a few months after our 7.1 and, getting off the plane, I felt like I could suddenly breathe and it surprised me. I had not realized how much I had been aware of the earth not moving, how I’d watched for light poles swinging on overpasses–and there were a lot of drivers that even then simply wouldn’t stop for a light underneath a bridge, even if it meant someone else could zip around and ahead of them. And no one ever did. Silent amity and unanimity.

But in Maryland it was just plain ordinary oblivious life again, and eventually in California it was, too.

Almost.

But if you ask someone where they were in the Loma Prieta everyone who was here has a story.

I think that I’m going to feel that sense of exhaling again after the stroke of midnight plus one.

It hasn’t been just me; it’s been him, too, and to me the fact that my unflappable husband sensed the need, to him the fact that I sensed the need, between us that made it a done deal.

Our budget just changed a lot with that first payment, but someday it will look like a bargain indeed. Right now I keep reminding myself that, compared to what could be, the premiums? They’re nothing earthshattering.

Spent a good part of the day going over insurance policies and talking to our agent.

Wait, really?! On our old one, there’s a clause for nuclear energy liability in the… No no, I have solar, not a nuclear plant, thanks, an energy surge here is a day where the fog’s burned off, not the whole city. (Really?! How on earth did that get in there? Who thinks of these things?)

But apparently the guy who was recently in the news after seeing a minivan whose driver had passed out, so he pulled his SUV up alongside and slightly ahead and gradually stopped the runaway before it could crash into a whole bunch of people at the light ahead–he’d be covered under this one policy, even though he deliberately let damage happen to his car. In the pursuit of protecting life and limb of others? This company would repair it for him.

I like that.

So, (reading on through the fine print) if the guy who broke into my house had sued me for the confrontation he had with the cops, apparently only because I had done no business with him would my old policy defend me and cover the costs of the suit. Gotcha. (Weird…)

And then I put it all down for awhile and we went out the door and met up with our niece for ice cream at Smitten. Only the best.  The backstory is hers alone to tell, but, sometimes a simple cone of ice cream together is just the thing.

And then back to the deductible-speak.

Him, in the kitchen: “Did you feel that? Earthquake!”

Me, in the other room: “No,” (thinking at the same time oh wait, so that was what that…) “but I heard it.” A small sharp cracking sound.

We both went straight to the USGS site, where it took a moment to show up. Yup, 8:24, right when he said it. Ladera. 2.9. Right around Kings Mountain Art Fair territory.

We like our earthquakes small and entertaining like that.

The kicker is that I was talking to an agent this afternoon about getting earthquake insurance again.

Edited to add: the art fair ended Monday, and there were quakes there Tuesday and Wednesday. All the booths that didn’t fall down, all the people who didn’t panic, all the squeezed-in parallel-parked cars that weren’t bumped into each other, all the artists who didn’t lose their stock and who got through the fair making a living without their customers tearing out of there…

If we had to have one there, you just couldn’t have asked for better timing. And not only that, people have a whole year now to get over the panic they didn’t go through.

(Ed. to add again: got woken up by the one at 3:24 this morning. Fun times.)

Up above the seven-foot doorway, ordered extra tall so that the men of (or who grew up in) this household wouldn’t have to duck to go through their own doors at home at least, we spotted it. And the resident short person who’d birthed a 6’9″er could only laugh. You guys…

Okay, well, that one’s easy for the kids to replace, the bubbles wouldn’t have passed the 3 oz limit on liquids anyway.

One can only wonder how an airplane full of people would have reacted to little airborne soap circles wafting over their heads coming from two happy toddlers. (Not while snacks are being served.)  One could hope.

I remember the newspaper story about the financial district in San Francisco completely shutting down once: it was snowing, real actual snowflakes in California right at lunch break as if by special order and all these people in business suits poured out of the skyscrapers and blocked the roads as they chased the little miracles of nature, trying to catch them on their tongues like little kids. Look! Snow! Here!

Um, maybe not so much so with the soap. Still.

(Hudson reaching for the Iphone.) I find myself torn between leaving it up there as a happy remembrance that the little boys were here–and my practical side that doesn’t want any kind of projectile right next to glass in an earthquake.

Eh. We’ll eventually get around to both of us remembering at the same time while in the same room because I sure can’t reach it. Till the day, there is a bubbles bottle all ready for Parker and Hudson to come back and play with us again.

Balls that bend and bounce against mere air, rainbows appearing and then rolling away, sudden splashes mid-air of their own: you never outgrow blowing bubbles together.

If you get to Kings Mountain Art Fair a half hour before they close, there’s not much sun getting past those redwoods to worry about and you can park close in. (And you’d better, because you won’t have any time at all to sit around and wait for their shuttle bus.)

And yet people were still arriving, not just me.

All weekend, Mel and Kris had wondered where I was and if I were coming.

There’s a short video on that link of Mel creating a bowl like mine. I love it and I love what they create and best of all I love them to–oh wait. To pieces is exactly not the phrase to use here, never mind.

I had long wanted a serving tray in their pottery; they had two left. I bought a few more mugs, since we had found ourselves running low or out while the kids were visiting. A bowl, a gift for a friend.

Ohmygoodness. They had toddler mugs. Almost all gone.  Oh if only. I had just seen Parker handling one of the regular mugs in person just fine. Mel and Kris had previously told me this could be so, that their boys hadn’t broken things, and I’d answered, But they were raised by potters.

Parker raised my faith in the possibilities after all.

At the last, I decided I would wait till I see Mel and Kris again at a show in November so I can pick out one set all together. I think I’d still get doubles of each because, y’know, toddlers. That means I’d need six. Let the budget breathe a moment first and besides, they didn’t have that many that late in the show.

I intend to see them at the next one early rather than late. It’ll be indoors.

There were a few pictures this morning that came out like this, of Parker lying down and Hudson staying close to him. Not every moment, but. We knew everybody was tired and that the little ones weren’t sleeping well in a strange place.

But it turns out it was more than that and that Hudson knew his brother needed a hug: Parker wasn’t feeling well and it became obvious on their way home from the airport.

It is amazing to me how much a little kid can run around while running a fever. And here we are after all the joy of the last three days, suddenly too far away to help snuggle him better to comfort them all. (And us.)

Breakfast was fruit and homemade lemon curd and waffles and maple syrup at Michelle’s; dinner, lasagna here.

But before any noodle anything, the important part: Parker wanted to pick an apple again. Never mind that they could use another two weeks, the Fujis are good enough now since they needed to be and so we went over to the tree.

(While the spade got put on the lowest limb of the big camphor tree–give him another year or two before he’ll be trying to climb up there. My baby Page tree needs its roots, honey.)

I didn’t have the scissors with me so it took a moment to get the tape out of the way and I managed to take a few leaves off getting that clamshell disentangled from the limb.

Parker pounced on it as it fell and examined every inch of the insides: no apple! How…?

It was still on the tree. I pointed it out and since it was, as the phrase goes, low-hanging fruit, he got to pick it all by himself.

Hudson, meantime, approved of the rocking chair.

And I can just picture some future visit when Parker is not going to get to pick an apple because it’s the wrong season. Hopefully there will then be something else ready for him, Meyer lemons if nothing else because there’s always one of those hanging around. Mind the thorns, though.

And a good day was had by all.

I dunno about them but I for one am sure going to sleep well tonight. Zzzzzzzzz…

I told our kids that I didn’t know what their luggage situation was like and whether they’d rather I mailed it home to them, but either way, if it was alright, I’d made this blanket for Hudson so he too could have a soft cushy one for doing faceplants off the couch into.

My daughter-in-law: “It’s so beautiful!”

(Thank you Malabrigo for the Rios.)

I asked Parker if it was okay to give his brother a soft blankie like his. He gave it a quick looking-over–darker green and a different pattern–and was quite fine with that.

And then it got ignored as sleepy things do while toys got played with and Parker helped me pick apples (don’t forget the scissors to cut the tape around the clamshells) and those apples got sliced and handed around and lunch got eaten and bubbles got blown as little boys danced.

Turns out Hudson had had a bad night being in a strange place and after falling asleep on the plane and having to wake up again after they’d landed and he was tired and so was his mom. She scooped him up to go set him down for a nap.

That toy in his hand just wasn’t enough in that moment. I quickly grabbed the green woolly softness and hunched down to be eye to eye with my 16-month-old grandson.

“Do you want a blankie?”

He gave me the saddest face in the whole wide world and nodded and said, “Uh HUH” and reached out to my outstretched hands, then snuggled his face into it on his mommy’s shoulder, holding it and her tight.

His first sentence to us ever. And with that it was his forever.

And did a far better job than anyone else ever has. They squeezed us in for the sake of our coming family and didn’t even give me an estimate on fanning the rugs dry; no time, they were off to another job. Don’t put the furniture back for eight hours and cover your feet with something newly clean if you have to walk on it.

Other than opening a window, we didn’t.

Richard was immersed in his laptop and I wordlessly showed him the picture I’d snapped after they’d left. He squinted at my phone’s screen with a “What’s this?”

“Parcheesi!”

Having met my husband when I was oh, about a week old….

We were talking (again) about maybe putting in hardwood floors (we wish) when we started reminiscing about the ones we’d grown up with. Waxing the floors was a big chore whenever it had had to be done.

I told him my grandmother used to make it a game for her kids, putting the wax down and then having them slide across the floor, sock-skating on the newly slippery-slip.

Till the day my mom kept right on going right on through the window. Oops.

“Like mother like daughter,” says he.

Busted.  “Yeah but mine was a storm door that I thought was ajar.” A glass one, of course. I’d tried to push it the rest of the way open while running and had had just enough time for the amazed flash of wow, I didn’t know glass bends! Uh…

Busted. We were both chuckling.

I guess when we’ve known each other all our lives we just plain can’t get away with anything, huh.

Parker and Hudson are bringing their parents to play with us next week. We have floor-to-ceiling glass all over this house and y’know? Carpeting might not be such a bad idea after all.

I was an endlessly bouncy little kid. Were you a bouncy little kid? Weren’t we all? Although: my mom used to call me Tigger for my inability to hold still and my endless jumping up and down in excitement and my three older siblings did not get that nickname before me. (As for the two after, well hey, by then it was taken. Neener neener.)

So someone asked why kids actually need that. And, with thanks to my sister Marian for the links, the answer is that the more kids move, the better developed their sense of balance and strength and their sensory system.

Balance? Who knew? (Can I have mine back? Shhhhh, Alison.)

So someone did something about it. I dearly wish Bouncy Bands had existed when I was a kid in the classroom. No noise, no distraction to others, no leaning back in the chairs because your feet are already busy, lots of energy expended.

The inventor did anticipate kids using them as rubber bands and counsels the teachers to head that one right off from the get-go.

A rubber half-band for your feet to fidget on.  Y’know? I could actually put one to use on this chair, come to think of it.

And then someone would have to invent a Fitbit-type gadget to count the calories expended from all that. Silicon Valley: on your mark! Get set! GO!!!

Because I think the inventor of these bands just made himself a billionaire–these are going to be everywhere. I sure hope his patent gets granted quickly. He earned it.

I was planning on writing about figs. Friends shared the bounty of their tree and my tall Richard helped pick a few higher-up ones for the others with his feet still on the ground. I always enjoy it when he does good simply by being tall–something he didn’t choose, it just is. Like the color of his skin.

I can no longer remain silent.

I haven’t mentioned the news of late because I felt nothing I could say could be enough and at the same time I simply wanted there to be one place on the Internet where people could rest from all that for a moment to read about, oh I dunno, mandarin trees and Costco shoppers playing falling piano to my roadrunner.  Or whatever.

And yet some things require they be addressed. I feel John Oliver has done the best summing-up so far of Ferguson, Missouri. Daily Kos, meantime, reports that Tibetan monks arrived there to represent for peacemaking, knowing that sometimes simply observing people often improves their behavior in ways that transcend the barriers of language.

The whole issue of the over-militarization of our police is being shown and borne on the shoulders of those who have the least but whose power is that they may yet change our nation for the better for what they are having to endure–the huge betrayal by those who swore to protect them, the betrayal too by those who give in to their anger late in the nights and allow the rogue forces to justify themselves.

There is the utterly innocent black man beaten by them before Michael Brown, who was charged with destruction of city property for bloodying the cops’ uniforms with four officers later lying during the deposition against their own signed statements. Enraged at finding they had jailed the wrong black man, they’d been determined to make him pay for it. There were video cameras everywhere there, as there must be in such places, and yet somehow no recording of it could be found.

One of those cops is now on the city council.

All those images, all that grieving for the human spirits on both sides of that huge divide and for how much better it could have been, should have been, needs to be, must become for all our sakes….

I wrote this on Facebook at Robin Williams’ death:

Every person matters. You matter. Whether I know you or not, you matter to me.

…….

And that, in the end, is all that matters among us. May we so live.

One is cute, 1500 is a bit Biblical.

The box looked the size and type that would have, say, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in it. There was a square cut-out in the lid covered in mesh.

So I expected a mesh bag inside with, y’know, a twisty tie or something.

Richard had thought that ladybugs for our yard would be a good idea, and for eight bucks towards doing good to the environment wherever they might go off to, why not, so he bought me some.  Computer scientists and bugs and all that.

So here he was Saturday night, flashlight in hand to help me watch my step out there (he’s a good one) as we went out onto the back patio. The ladybugs were more likely to stay in the area you put them in if it’s dark out.

But it was actually pretty well lit right there on the patio side of the window and I thought I’d start with a few over at the amaryllis pots on the picnic table. I lifted the lid.

And gave a small yelp and jumped back–but at least I didn’t drop the thing.

“What’s wrong?”

I mumbled something about there were bugs in there and a mass of them were coming at my hands and okaynevermindyeahthatwasstupid.

I tried to make sure they were aimed away from me at all times as we walked around playing Johnny Appleseed at nature, having no way to see if they were blowing back into our hair (don’t even THINK that!) Amaryllis. Fling! Page Mandarin. Fling! Cherry. Fling! Apple. Fling! Pear. Fling fling double fling leave the lid there too on that one and let them sort themselves out.

And some on the lemon, since I hadn’t quite been able to persuade the last of them to leave the cup part at the previous stop.

I woke up in the morning thinking, wow, did we just feed the birds dessert first or what?

But I saw at least one if not two ladybugs on every one of the baby fruit trees when I gave them a quick check, so, so far so good.

The ice cream box had little specks all over the bottom. I have no idea if there are eggs in there or if it’s all just bug poop. I think I’ll give it a few days. That I don’t have to go near it.