The dark navy, almost black stripe? That one went really slowly as my hands recovered. But now the new green yarn is coming along nicely. I’m second-guessing myself, I always do, on whether the green really meshes so well with the others, but it’s very clear that once the denim blue is in after that it will be perfect in there. Colors have conversations amongst themselves, and those two will huddle at the end of the room, catching up.

And the green is already making the navy less black and more blue around it.

Re this morning, we all drove to the airport so that there would be someone in the car with the driver coming back to make sure he didn’t fall asleep. Not to mention that with the bridge closed, we actually had to use the carpool lane from San Jose, even before 6:00 am.

And I just poured myself a glass of milk partway down the outside of the glass. I think maybe I won’t get up at 5:15 tomorrow morning.

Meantime, our daughter Sam got her second paper from her PhD published here, making her Mom and Dad burst with pride all over again. (And if you’re waiting for a medical breakthrough for any disease, go bug your Congressperson hard. The sequester is ending careers for researchers as years of work are abruptly coming to a stop, and knowledge is being lost along with the jobs.)

Okay, enough kvetching, back to the happy anticipation. I can’t wait to see that baby blanket finished!

Kathryn had the exact color in the exact shade I was hoping for. And I got to see her! (And I took the other way home–the Bay Bridge closure, forgot, right, right, do NOT take 101 between San Francisco and the San Mateo Bridge right now. But it wasn’t too bad my direction at that hour.)

And our nephew Ryan, the one who lived with us last summer, is in town briefly so we took him out to dinner. And we got to see him!

And Michelle went to check in for her flight tomorrow and found out that, oh–it’s not at 9:50, it leaves at 6:50. AM.

And we get to see her off.

Think I’ll turn in now.

I’m on the navy stripe on Hayes’s blankie with a denim blue to come after and then done.  Close, but taking my time for my hands’ sakes.

Sale fares at the lowest price we’ve ever seen. About-to-expire voucher for luggage that the airline lost for four hours last fall. Total cost for two about equal to a single one-way last time we went (when we didn’t know it was the big San Diego marathon weekend.)

One blankie, hand deliverable, coming up soon. We get to see them! Can’t wait!

Hey, don’t steal from my Gramma’s fruit trees!

The raccoons climbed into the Fuji some time in the night and worked a little more of the shipping tape loose on several of the boxes, but at least one length held on each one and they just couldn’t quite manage to get their little paws in there this time. But they got real close.

I retaped the clamshells. (Again.)

A few weeks ago, one managed to pry open a box just wide enough to swipe a clawmark out of one of those apples–and in the process broke the stem, and the still-mostly-sealed clamshell tumbled to the ground.

The two half-squared apples that had been growing inside were still there in the morning, the one nailed, the other untouched: the tape had held just enough.

Square apples. Seriously odd-looking. I’m rubik-cubing the little critters a puzzle. You know, I could maybe grow some really funky shapes next year–I wonder if a raspberry double-pint flat would hold up against the growing apple inside long enough to… We could have an apple that looked like it swallowed an apple!

Okay, I have about eight months to think up ways to make them grow into funky shapes while keeping them safe from the critters. Any ideas?

Meantime, ripeness is scheduled for the end of September. I am so going to win this year.

There may be those who would like to sign a petition like the one I linked to yesterday but take issue with its stance on gun control.

And so I searched again. There is indeed a petition that simply asks the White House to award Antoinette Tuff the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her heroic actions the day of the school gunman in Georgia. It is here, and I have signed it, too.

Meantime, two little someones had a good time at their first baseball game.

I made up a zucchini bread recipe twenty-five years ago after buying and freezing and using for the longest time a twenty pound bag of pecan meal from Sunnyland Farms, and then another. It’s been a long time since I made this, though; I have no idea now where I had it written down.

But how could I resist those big blue Bambi eyes? And so tonight I tried to replicate what her memories were making perfect. And this will definitely do–so I’m putting it where I know I won’t lose it again. Here.

The ground pecans substitute for some of the flour and half the oil of this fairly standard recipe.

____________________

Pecan Zucchini Bread a Michelle–two loaves

Measure a mildly heaping cup of toasted (350, 10 min–or don’t worry about the toasting if you don’t want to) pecans and cuisinart them till they start to be pecan butter–I’m liking smoother over grittier since I’m the one doing it. It came to just under 3/4 cup packed.

Mix in a half cup melted butter. (Oh but I wish. Earth Balance worked fine.) Whip in two cups gently-packed, grated zucchini, and three eggs. (Oh. I was supposed to add in a tbl of vanilla?  Oops, I guess.)

In a separate bowl, mix: 2 1/2 cups of flour with 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/4 cups sugar (this is a cup less than what they said but plenty sweet for us), 1 tsp salt, and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.

Whip in the liquid mixture. Bake at 325 for about 55 minutes or till a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Try not to eat it all before morning. That first loaf is going down fast.

(Edited to add in the morning: I might take 1/4 cup flour out for next time, but it’s good as is and makes great toast, somewhat biscotti-esque, to spread with cream cheese.)

The bride didn’t know her fiance’s mom’s cousin lived in California…somewhere.

I way overslept–I mean, WAY overslept this morning, by two hours to my great astonishment; I’m fine. No flare. It made no sense. I told Richard, There’s got to be a reason because there isn’t one I can see. And so our plans of going to the Mormon temple in Oakland in the morning were completely shot and we got there in the afternoon instead.

We walked out the door there at 4:00 to see a crowd of people that happened to include Mike and Robert standing side by side front and center looking at us coming. I stopped, jaw doing a crash landing on the ground, and exclaimed before the hug, What are YOU doing here?!

Robert motioned, “Your cousins are over there.” (They’re the husbands of the two sisters.)

And their 91-year-old dad was with them too and so I gave Uncle other-Bob (I have three) a hug along with his two older daughters. They’d all flown in together for Peggy’s son’s wedding; the bride was from Berkeley.

We visited a few minutes, and then at last I had to plead sun.

Just enough time for totally unexpected joy.

One of Michelle’s friends gave her a book on chocolate today, and flipping through it at home, all three of us stopped at one page of pictures with the identical reaction: the old Scharffen Berger plant in Berkeley! It wasn’t labeled but we knew it instantly. We took the tour there years ago, back when the founders, not Hershey, owned what was then a start-up. They were determined, with input from the wonderful Alice Medrich, to make the best chocolate in America. (And then later when one of the men was dying they sold out and the little factory got shut down and now Tcho in San Francisco is setting out to take the spot of best chocolate-maker in the country–superb chocolate, highly recommended.)

The tour guide showed us the room where a woman was deftly and quickly wrapping individual chocolate bars. By hand.

And there she was in that photo and we could tell you that the photo was shot from the doorway we saw her through and that that was the actual woman we’d seen. I wondered if I was remembering right but Richard and Michelle both confirmed, and besides, there had only ever been the one person doing that job, from what we remember from the tour.

They had actually just bought an automatic bar wrapping machine at the time but then found it didn’t fit through the door in the old 1907 building, although we found out later they managed it not long after.

And what a building: the ceiling was in brick. Curves of bricks. Note that brick crumbles in earthquakes and that this place had been finished the year after San Francisco’s big burning 1906 quake. How a big double S set up stayed up there… It has been one of life’s mysteries for me ever since.

Hershey’s promised not to compromise the quality, but there are definitely those of us who feel they did.

We have thought for some time that if I could just get to the Tcho factory tour without having to walk through a lot of sunlight to get to it, we’d be right on it–and I just got my push to go find out.

I wonder where their employees will be in a dozen years. I’m curious to know if they bought the Scharffen Berger wrapper machine that had been right across the Bay Bridge from them. And I hope that woman is working for Tcho’s now in product development, taste-testing after all those years of being surrounded by the aroma of the world’s best cocoa beans. She’s earned it.

Hudson and his new cousin Hayes in their matching jammies.

Somewhat elevated risk, seven and a half percent chance, the form said–my mother’s mother’s mother died of breast cancer when my grandmother was eight, even though that’s the only case in the extended family that I know of.

So. Had the mammogram this morning and got it over with.

Got the results this afternoon–to my surprise. Already? Cool.

And that’s that. Feels great not to have to worry about it.

Don’t put it off. It’s too much fun watching grandkids grow up.

————

Edited to add: I have been corrected by my sister. Our great aunt had breast cancer and is the only one who had breast cancer but our great grandmother had what was most likely colon cancer–somehow I’ve had it wrong for forever.

As the late rays came in at a slant that we’re not and don’t quite want to be used to, the perfect juicy peach that had waited on its tree collecting sweetness nearly all summer. A little cream, a sprinkling of brown sugar on top. Just a little.

There’s only one problem with it, he said.

What’s that?

It’s all gone!

Parker and Hudson in their matching dinosaur jammies.

Meantime, yesterday I finished a silk shawl, counting grams per row every row but I made it.  Close! For two weeks it had needed just a few more hours (and getting past that fear of running out early)  but now I was needing the sense of accomplishment at finishing, and so I sat down and got to it. Done.

Back to the hat and Hayes’s blanket.

Parker and his beloved blankie. (And I hope by linking, the very kind Antonio at Malabrigo gets to see how treasured his Rios is. He told me at Stitches how rare it is to be granted a glimpse: all that yarn they send out into the world, what becomes of it?) One very happy little boy.

And every year at Stitches, there’s a vendor who does custom fitting and then creates and mails you a pair of shoes made in America, your choice color, style, leather and that are guaranteed to fit your feet at a Birkenstock-range price.

As a 6.5 EE, choice and fit are a rare and wonderful thing, and a few years ago I ordered navy sandals from them. I didn’t buy into the reflexology idea behind the funky knobby bottoms on the things (scroll down just a bit), but they were designed for you to be able to be comfortably on your feet all day.

There’s only one problem.

Ever since a speeder totaled my car, my sense of balance has been purely visual and tactile, and it’s a good thing I like Birkenstocks because they steady me with a lot of feedback as to just where and how far away the floor is and whether I’m tilting overly.

But those, not so much. I wore them  once and decided I risked breaking bones–they’re great shoes, just not for me.

Birkenstock had an outlet shop years ago in Gilroy till the company closed all their American outlets. But in the meantime, while my friends Mel and Kris were doing a show in the area, we found out later she and I bought the exact same clog in the exact same size and same color at about the same time. 37R. Twins. Cool!

Hey–I know someone who has to be on her feet all day at art shows who would fit those not-Birks…

And so, with her permission, I sent the navy pair off to where they would actually be worn.

And today she got me back for it. She found out I’d broken my favorite hot cocoa mug and asked for a picture.

I know the Kunihiros generally don’t mail their pottery; I was expecting to buy more at the show coming up at the end of the month and looking forward to seeing them.

She and her family made four castings of mugs, the letter in the box said, set them in a row, and together they picked out the one that best matched the photo.

The mental image of that just makes me very happy. The family gathered together, the row of mugs, the winner, and most of all the love.

My hot cocoa and I are going to do some serious celebrating with that mug in the morning! And I can’t wait to thank them in person!

We took the leaf out of the dining room table together this evening, the three of us, and it helped: shrinking it back down to normal took away the visual sting that Morgan and his daughters are no longer here at our house swapping stories, laughing over bad puns, enjoying each other’s company and making new memories to treasure. The visit was far too short.

Just one last set of sheets to run through the wash.

While I spent the day trying to remember what it’s like to be totally caught up in a knitting project, which I feel I should be doing now–it’s like I needed a day or two to, on some level, mope first.  It’s way more fun loving the people you love in person, y’know?

Oh. It’s like I almost somehow forgot: the knitting is all about the love, too. Well then!

From their beachcombing yesterday…

It took me a moment to figure out why the barnacles on the crab claw the girls found so charmed me.

Pearls. It looks like a string of little oceany pearls strung around it. (The top ones also look like Hawthorne, the crab in the Sherman’s Lagoon comic strip.)

And then I gave my brother and nieces all one last hug, the car doors closed, and they were off.

A good day at church. And then after the UV rating sank to one out of sixteen on Wunderground.com near the end of the daylight, we drove out to the marshlands by the Bay and took a good walk in the park together: seagulls flying overhead, an egret posing just so for their cameras repeatedly, and I watched, too, how graciously my brother’s children interacted with each other and with us; I adore them. Great kids. Morgan’s a single dad and he’s doing a great job.

A lot of habitat restoration had happened since the last time I’d been on the trail we went down. No, sorry kids, you can’t see the Golden Gate Bridge from here, but we could keep going to that causeway over there and back around.

We all looked at each other and kinda laughed and went, uh, I think not.  A bit regretfully, though; it would take us far out and well over the water but long beyond sunset.

And then we came home to Michelle’s homemade rhubarb and strawberry pie.

It doesn’t get better than that.