(Hudson and his Grampa, who was running on four hours’ sleep at the time, were both taking naps when I pulled out the camera for these.)

I just helped Michelle load her car up.

Grad school was the only time she had to take on student loans. We know how lucky that is. Thank you BYU for undergrad tuition that was about $3500 a year. I am not missing a zero. Running and checking–it’s $4850/year now, $9700 if you’re not Mormon. Basically, if you get in you’re on partial scholarship.

A Master’s at the University of Michigan as an out of state-er was a whole different story.

Living at home for the first year of work helped her pay most of that off.

It feels like sending a kid off to college all over again: she’s moving out, she’s moving to a new stage of life, it won’t ever be the same, we can’t really go back. Well actually, now we know we can if she or a sibling needs it.

But we really really enjoyed having her here this past year. She’s only a town away and I’m trying not to go through withdrawal too hard for the first night.

Her parting words, reminding me of an Indian dish she had planned: “Oh I’ll be back tomorrow night to cook that for you.”

It’s all good.

Having a hard time putting down the knitting for the friend’s daughter long enough to write. So let me distract you with a few more baby pictures. (TNNA is in San Diego next time? Hey!)

And thinking of little boys playing, if you didn’t see it yet? A ram very gently teaching a young bull how to go about this head-butting thing.

The bull is more the Ferdinand type, though. Peaceable.

Back to the Epiphany.

I know, I know, it’s name dropping, but this is just too fun not to share–for me it brings back so many happy memories with that good family, and I knew if I put it here I could find it again. My parents weren’t big picture takers and I had no idea this existed.

My brother Bryan says our Mom sent him this photo some time ago and before everyone else had heard of the guy, of his best friend from across the street just before the best friend moved away to South Carolina.

Stephen Colbert was four.

Meantime, I finished the Malabrigo Silkpaca shawl and have gone back to the Epiphany project after a week’s break to figure out how to redesign the part I didn’t like. Ripped relentlessly, thinking of how Stephanie says she’s never regretted frogging something that’s not working.

And now that I’ve seen how it could look because of how it did look but that came up short, (see? It wasn’t wasted time) I finally knew what to do to make it come out perfect. It feels so much better now. Full speed ahead!

Hudson snoozing….

It was Autumn Equinox on Sunday, and I was wondering where my Cooper’s hawk was; usually he makes a big show at each change of the season. Clearly he’s been here because there have been long gaps with zero wildlife in sight the last few days.

I was coming home from the post office this afternoon when, as I came into my neighborhood, I pulled to the side of the road: there were two of them high above the pines, soaring, circling, courting, claiming.

I came home a little lighter.

Then later back in the car again and near the foothills, another flew down over my car and led the way above the roadway, high enough not to be in danger, low enough for me to briefly see that it had its dinner tucked in close, heading home.

And all of nature seemed in balance in the moment.

The apple.

Juicy. Crisp. Slightly tart, not too sweet. It was as perfect as one could possibly have hoped for after all those years of anticipation.

Meantime, last Saturday when we were there, Parker decided he wanted to ride around the block on his trike and knew the way to talk his avid-cyclist daddy and his Grampa into it was to first go run get his helmet. Then he got his Lego Croc shoes on. Ready!

They ended up going around about five times.

How to tell when your apples are ripe (Googling).

Can’t tell by color.

The apples farthest out on the tree ripen soonest.

Lift one sideways; if it snaps right off, it’s ripe.

So that’s what I waited all day to try.

We had a major downpour for the last day of summer. I have to show you, just because I’ve never seen one poof out quite so much: this one house finch finally shook herself off and went for a dry perch. The birdseed was all over at the feeder she’d just left, but it was somewhat exposed and enough already with this wind and the randomness of water falling out of the sky–since when does it do that? (I wondered if she’d hatched this spring.)

By evening the storm had blown over and I went outside with scissors and a bowl to hold stuff.

I snipped open the tape on the clamshell that held the biggest two apples and a few leaves and one small one in there too, photo above. I carefully, carefully opened it and found to my surprise that there were actually the two big ones and three, count’em three little ones crammed inside. I did thin those, I’m sure, I think there were four each side originally, but there you go.

I lifted the nearest big one to the left and it came right off in my hand. Into the bowl, done.

I lifted its mate to the right. Nuh uh, nothin’ doin’, ain’t lettin’ go.

Oh okay, so, I put the clamshell back on, grabbed the shipping tape out of the bowl next to the apple and sealed the thing back up again. Sorry raccoons, these are still mine.

And I would tell you how the first ripe critter-free Fuji after 21 years’ anticipation finally tastes, except… I waited for the others so I could share the grand moment with them too.

Michelle got home at about ten o’clock. It’s bag night. (Every third night I can’t eat past dinnertime so that I can change the dressing in the morning. It’s a Crohn’s thing.)

The apple. It awaits.

Thought I’d show you all a photo of baby Hayes with his folks.  Two months already!

———-

Downtown: where even the ranting crazy homeless guy is dressed better than us.

Went tonight for a scoop of ice cream and to go see if someone was playing in the plaza; there always is on a Friday night.

There were two groups this time, the first an older white guy and an older black guy doing the blues. Just enough amplification, no need to shout down the passersby–they were good and they knew it. People stopped in their tracks to listen. We did too, and I would have loved to have bought a CD from them had I seen any. Swung my feet in time from a high bench. Richard’s feet reached the ground.

Waiting their turn was a younger trio, 40’s-ish. We took a walk while they were setting up and when we got back, the older guys were putting things away and the younger guys were just getting going with some Springsteen.

We found us a pair of open chairs. My sweet husband has been married to me long enough that he didn’t bat an eye when I pulled out some of Dianne‘s cashmere and started knitting lace leaves in the semi-dark–the mindless carry-around project, forever in the purse, always getting just a little bit closer to done. (And I would have cast off and sewn up the ends on the spot as a cowl had a likely victim shown up. Nope. No such luck. Still got to keep working on that thing.)

A young girl, maybe seven, was fascinated and they took a break for a moment to show her their guitars, their amps, whatever she wanted to ask them about, they answered. She ran back to her mom and they fired it back up. Rock on!

Soon after, some random person whose clothes, like I say, were quite well put together but his face and his thoughts, not so much, walked over in front of the band too, kinda danced to the beat a bit but then he started yellin’ at’em.  Waving, gesturing to the sky behind, making no sense except that it was clear he wanted the attention on him, not them. He would retreat awhile, then come back and start in on them again.

Finally the tall blond guy shook his head slightly: a gentle no, no. We’re going to keep playing.

And they not only did, they sounded just a bit better.  Like they were working a little harder to justify their claim on that spot? I dunno but they were kind to the young and respectful to the crazy who couldn’t help being crazy and playing for the joy of it and it was a gratifying thing to behold.

The odd man out of it sat down in a far corner and let them go to it.

I was asked at Purlescence tonight, So last weekend was the weekend? How did it go? Did they like the baby blanket?

If every knitting recipient reacted the way Hayes’s parents did, I answered, yarn stores everywhere would have to completely restock every week.

The alarm, it had to go off early again–he had an early meeting and my alarm has the siren song that can wake the deaf.

The lupus, it flares. But at a reasonable level: too tired and achy to do much today except put up my feet and knit.

Which I did. Wow, look at that ball of Silkpaca laceweight disappear. So, so soft.

Meantime, a few more photos to show off from our trip. Big brother, little brother.

In June, Parker cried inconsolably when we kissed him and waved goodbye at the airport, no nooo don’t go o o o; yesterday he was cheerful and happy as he waved back, quite sure he’d see us again soon. (And when we arrived, he asked where Aunt ‘Shelle was, remembering her having come with us last time.)

Next time they’ll come see us and he’ll get to see her too. Can’t wait!

Dark o’clock alarm for the earliest flight out. Dark again after the last flight back. Blessings on Michelle for driving us despite working till 2 am the last few nights. (So did Richard.)

Hudson being a charmer despite teething.

More tomorrow after a little sleep. But I just have to say: if you ever, ever want to knit for someone who will swoon, who can’t believe you did that, who loves all the people who loved them and shared or wanted to share their yarn to contribute to the afghan for their little (is he really already two months old? Yeah, she said, I know!) baby–my daughter-in-law’s whole family is just the best.

And Hayes’s mom also said that after he was chilled that first week that yes, he likes very much now to be warm. The afghan was perfect.

My sister Anne needs to see this. Her boys could totally pull it off. Enjoy!

And on an also-whimsical note but in a totally different vein, you may have heard that Voyager 1 has escaped our solar system–that actually it did August 25th of last year, but they waited till this week to announce it because they wanted to be very sure of their measurements. But yes. Confirmed. That’s when it was.

Neil Armstrong passed on August 25, 2012.

One great leap for mankind…

Finally a photo that captures the colors well!

I’ve been told that Cascade 220 softens up at washing. I wanted to know that for sure for myself.  And so, after I ran all the ends in today, I put it through the handwash cycle on my machine and then (taking a deep breath) put it in the dryer, checking it often.

And about ten or twelve minutes was all it took for it to dry all by itself in there.

Softer it was. It is done!

Got my hair cut yesterday by Gwyn and have been very very pleased with it. If you’re local, I highly recommend her.

Knitting: got the last pythagorean repeat finished on Hayes’ baby blankie and now I’m into the ribbing. But I knew it was going to be a letdown when I didn’t have it to work on anymore after an intense month of it.

And I knew that sometimes that makes me sit around and admire the thing–okay, call it what it is, dithering helplessly–rather than getting to it on the next big thing.

And I had the next emotionally-big thing to do.

So to head off any lagging, I got a good start on a scarf for a friend’s daughter who’s going off to college for the first time, to send her off with an extra helping of love from friends. One she knows, two she doesn’t: the yarn is the exquisite but discontinued Cascade Epiphany, royal baby alpaca/silk/cashmere, via a gift certificate to Purlescence from those two other knitters. Who were quite delighted for the new college student’s sake when I told them.

My husband likes the occasional dish of yogurt in the evening. He had some tonight.

A short time later, after thinking about it a bit, I offered that I would have some spoiled yogurt myself.

He wrinkled his face in confusion: “Spoiled? Yogurt?”

“Yes. Green.”

(one… two…)

His face suddenly lit up. “I think I’ll have some green yogurt too!”

I grinned from the kitchen, reaching for a second small rice bowl of Mel and Kris’s–they make a big spoonful look like a generous portion, no small thing.

And scooped him out some pistachio gelato, too.