Last Sunday I finally saw her only as we were pulling out of the parking lot at church; Richard turned the car her way so I could ask. From the other side of the car I held up my needles and the stitches I’d done so far and asked her if she liked the color?

For who? she puzzled. It didn’t immediately sink in, and then she was stunned and overwhelmed: Oh, anything! Any color! Thank you!

She gave me a great gift in that moment. She gave me back that sense of, this is why I do this. To make people feel that loved. What all that yarn is supposed to be doing, not sitting around wondering what it wants to be when it grows up. About time I really got back into it!

And so I kept an eye on how long it took me to do the long rows, how many of them I was going to need to do to finish this thing, and kept at it till finally last night at about ten pm it was finally done and laid out to block. I wove the yarn ends in first thing in the morning.

And then I hedged my bets: I wore a shawl in a different color silk to give her a choice, and she duly admired it but knew I had knit that light pink silk one expressly for her and she’d clearly been hoping all week to see it again very soon. It was hers.

I can’t give back all that she’s lost in recent years, much less whom she’s lost. But I could give her a warm, soft wrap around her shoulders any time she needs to feel one there.

She just has no way to know how many more people will be blessed because her appreciation ran so deep. I know what knitting can do, I shouldn’t have needed that–but I did.

There was a new neighborhood being built just outside the then-future DC Beltway, with California-style houses with panels of glass set floor-t0-a break about waist-high-to-ceiling, looking out on the woods; it was near a ten-mile-long park set aside as a watershed preserve with Cabin John Creek running through it. Frank Lloyd Wright had built his youngest son a house to the left and down around the corner. You’ve seen Calvin and Hobbes on their sled out in the wilds? Yes.

There was a crowded neighborhood near the DC line of “war boxes,” my mom called them, small starter homes for returning GIs that large families quickly outgrew. My folks had four kids in one bedroom there.

And so three families picked up together when I was three and moved to the quiet new neighborhood where there were miles of trails along the creek to explore that had been built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression, there were children to play with, parents who knew each other and looked after each others’ kids and you knew you couldn’t get away with anything–it was a great place to grow up.

One of those families was Wendy’s, and so I’ve known them all my life. Their house was the second door to the upper right of this photo.

She and her husband decided to come from across the country to take a tour of Napa’s wine country and it turns out they were flying in and out of San Francisco airport. He had an old college roommate in the Bay Area who wanted to see him, and I meantime offered to drive up to the airport to try to see them for, oh, maybe ten minutes while they were waiting to go through security or something but only if it would work out okay for them.

They had a better idea than that.

They were meeting the old roommate for dinner in Burlingame at 5:00, and Richard and I drove up to see them at 4:00. To show off our husbands to each other. To reconnect.

We all ended up walking a half block from where we’d met up to a place Richard and I knew would be a lot quieter: and so there we were, back in Copenhagen Bakery, buying those Chef’s Surprises again. (And now we know why they’re called that: the filling is almond and–whatever. Not blueberry this time; his was apricot, mine egg custard.)

We talked. We laughed. We all showed off pictures of our kids, our two grandsons (they’re not there yet), Wendy’s sisters and kids and her parents, and it just now hits me writing this that I forgot to show her pictures of my folks–the point being that it is amazing how, 36 years after I probably last saw her and childhood long left behind, I could have picked any one of them out of any crowd anywhere. It was so cool.

Part of me, part of you, always will be. So glad it’s so true.

She wondered, Do you remember running through our storm door?

Yes, I thought it was ajar and I just went to go push it the rest of the way open to tell Marcy who lived across the street to stop bugging us while you were trying to teach me a new game. I had just enough time to think I didn’t know that glass bends… (And then I stuck out my arm across the table.) Wendy saw the scars, proof of her memory of the story, and exclaimed.

I added, I always tell Californians it was a window (which it was, but) because they have no idea what storm doors are. (Flimsy screen-type doors, only with glass instead of metal mesh, to give you one more line of defense against the latest thunderstorm or hurricane.)

How long had I had lupus?

Diagnosed 23 years, why?

Her sister they think might have…

I’m so sorry. While being glad I was proving that life can go on, d* the statistics, full speed ahead!

Wendy had been beating some statistics of her own this past year and we knew how good we had it that we were able to get together. It was so good to see her. So good to see what a good husband she has, and such beautiful kids!

The college roommate and his family walked past the windows of the bakery, glanced in, saw us and the guy’s face totally lit up and then his kids’ did–just like ours had (and had stayed that way, and I imagine theirs did too). Peter ran to go throw his arms around them, Wendy staying for just one last hug and laugh of our own first.

I tell you. I could live off the joy of this day for a long time to come. Thank you thank you thank you, Wendy and Peter. Blessings on you and yours forever.

—

Edited to add–p.s. You guys are heroes all over again. I told them about the Caremark debacle in Jan ’09 and how you guys called, emailed, stormed the gates en masse, and in a life-and-death situation made that company pay attention and get me my Humira after all, after their employee had told me on the phone that they weren’t sure they wanted the liability of providing me with such a dangerous (read: newly approved very expensive biologic) drug and had refused to send it. Go you guys!

Parker likes pulling and working gaps into the stitches on his favorite blanket and waving hi through them, but it got out of, well, hand shortly after we left them: his parents were afraid he was going to get his neck stuck in the thing and tried to figure out how to get it fixed.

I think he missed us.

They told him it had to go to the blankie hospital. And so the Malabrigo Dragonskins afghan came back yesterday. I had hoped to get it done and turned right around and back in the mail to him today–till I saw it. Torn, too. (It does kinda have a cute Monsters Inc look to it, don’t you think?)

I’m going to catch those open loops at the bottom with some spare yarn and…

Knitters: stockinette stitch it straight back up with the crochet hook? Right? Safe and sound and showing its history, seems to me after staring at the thing for long enough for reality to set in. After all, you go to the hospital to get your boo-boos fixed, and sometimes you get to show off your scars.

Meantime, my nephew and his wife, after trying for several years, have found they are expecting and that they are expecting twins. Yay! Today they livestreamed a party for which the local build-a-bear company knew, but they didn’t, what the results of the ultrasound showed.

His mom/my sister had had four boys and then still hoping for a girl, had had…identical twin boys. “Well, I know how to raise boys!” she told me. Garrett was old enough to really help without being a teenager yet, and now Garrett really wanted twins himself, and there you go.

They are thrilled. And I got to watch as Garrett opened the first beautiful box and pulled out: a teddy bear dressed in blue. A boy!

Then his wife Meaghan looked at him, looked back at her box, undid the bow and reached in, and–PINK! Anne finally gets her GIRL!!!

Pink and blue teddy bears, side by side, as the room exploded in joy for the babies. Who could be purple polka dotted for all anyone really cared, it just was a moment of coming together wanting to know a little better who these people are that they were going to get to gradually meet across their lifetimes to come. To celebrate. To life!

Baby hats. They’ll need nice soft baby hats.

The Washington Post ran an obituary on my friend Steve.

I did not know that muscle spasms from his disease had kept him from mastering Braille. One more thing for him. But I love how his can-do personality comes out in their article.

Richard and I went out to dinner tonight at Flea Street Cafe, as we try to on this day every year, and at one point a little boy showed up at my elbow. He had carefully rehearsed (or been rehearsed with) his word-by-hesitant-word speech.

“Thank  you  ve ry  much  for  the  gift” (and he couldn’t resist adding) “mayIkeepit?”

“Sure,” I smiled, “happy birthday!” And to his little brother too.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen small children at the very proper Flea Street before, and when the family had come in I’d glanced around to gauge the reactions and had seen fleeting glances of oh, this isn’t… But only briefly. So I imagine the other diners were parents too, knowing full well that children instantly know the emotional score in the room. Besides, they were adorable.

They were offered seats at the larger table right behind me. And all was well.

But at one point the–grandpa?–took the boys outside to run off a little steam while they were waiting for their order. Makes sense. I said quietly to Richard, who was facing them, If they need them, let me know. He knew exactly what I meant.

They were cheerful when they came back in, but at one point it seemed to me a good time to, so I turned and asked the mom if they might like a bit of distraction?

They were thrilled with the fingerpuppets. There was an exclamation of “OH!” from the mom as she looked a little more closely and I imagine saw that they were handknit. The little boys sounded so cute, and we went back to our fine celebration of the day.

We had had rather early reservations, and so we finished before they, and as we turned to go, the three adults at their table caught our eyes and thanked us, with feeling.

Hey, we remembered the days…

My one regret though is that I didn’t stop and make a point of thanking the little boys for being so delightful–I confess I was being a little too mindful of the adults waiting by the front door for our table and I missed the moment.

I like to picture two little fingerpuppeted hands waving hi over their dessert at whoever came next.

Happy Anniversary, Honey. Thank you!

A few Parker pictures from our trip–he let go of the ground and took his daddy and Grampa by surprise and had fun with it, if only for a little while; they wanted to be careful with little boy shoulders. There is nothing like the exuberance of a happy two-year-old! (Don’t miss the captions.)

Meantime, Marian and Sherry were clearly right, with every picture and description I could find being dead-on, and so now I finally know the name of my tree. Yellow Transparent. Thank you!

Sherry told me go pick them, pick them all right now.  Turns out they’re supposed to be ripe the first of July and they store better if you pick in the middle of June. I had no idea. And so at dusk I went out there and opened those clamshells; the biggest apple came right off the tree at the slightest touch and the others came inside  as well, along with a bunch of plums.

So. I have two apple trees that bloom together but ripen far apart. That’s actually pretty useful. And I imagine if I want pectin in my plum jam I can just chop a Yellow Transparent into the batch, as natural and homegrown as you could ask for. Cool!

Several years ago, I was at the Copenhagen Bakery and Cafe in Burlingame and in their display case was something that said, if I remember right, Baker’s Surprise. Or else Chef’s Surprise? They looked good, so, I bought some–and at first bite instantly wished I’d bought many, many more and that the place was much closer to where I live. Picture a crunchy amaretto cookie filled with sweet almond paste done just so, perfection in a confection.

Somehow the memory of them caught my attention the last couple of days: to the point of emailing the bakery, describing the things, and asking if they still made those? It would be worth the trip…

I haven’t heard back so far but I wasn’t really expecting to. Just encouraging them and hoping. If only. Maybe actually drive up there some day this coming week, if they answered? Somehow I just really wanted to go there.

Richard and I were out looking at flooring store after flooring store today, trying to decide this option vs that, and it was getting dinnertime-ish. We bought smoothies to tide us over and to get a chance to sit down a moment.

I mentioned that bakery and those cookies, and somehow on a whim he chimed in, Sure, let’s go!

It was about 35 minutes up the freeway.

The street it was on was closed and torn up. At least some walking in the late sun would be involved.  We shrugged our shoulders and carried on. The parking lot was full? Someone pulled out just at the right time, there you go.

Now for the backstory that we didn’t know was going to have anything to do with this: Katie, about our age, has been a teacher and mentor to some of the teenage girls at church for some time now, and one of them was being raised by her great-grandmother. Who recently had had to move to–where, I have no idea. But it’s hard to graduate from high school and have to have a new place to come home to, hard to have your mom figure aging and more than anyone else’s that you know, lots of changes flying at the kid all at once.

Katie had kept tabs on her, and it turns out she’d invited Helen to dinner tonight. She knew the best bakery in the Bay Area and it had a great cafe, too.

They were in disbelief at seeing us walk past the windows. Katie leaped up to say hi, and there we were coming into the bakery part at the next door down. There was this, What are YOU doing here! moment of surprised delight all around.

We bought our pastries–the guy grinned and proudly pointed out the amaretto/almond paste pastries when I asked, blueberries in them too now, and wow, they were good, he was right–and we went over to their table.

Helen! We were so glad to see her. Katie, too, but Helen was the biggest surprise. *So* very glad, how ARE you?!

And how often do teenagers get to see that the adults they know feel that strongly about them? That they are loved, that they matter, that it doesn’t matter that they’re not family. To see that age has  nothing to do with degree of friendship–that she was absolutely as important to us as Katie. Go Helen!

To Copenhagen: thank you beyond words, and please keep up the good work. We will be back.

You know how cats, caught up in something suddenly out of their control like skidding across a newly-waxed floor, will at the end feign perfect poise and studiously lick their front paw as if to claim they meant to do that?

There’s this one scruffy bit of tree-wannabe I’d wanted gone for a long time, we all had but nobody had ever quite gotten around to it. It split into two branches slightly overhanging the neighbor’s yard between their orange tree and their garden.

Never a good thing to shade away someone else’s fruit to any degree, even if there wasn’t much to the thing. I hadn’t talked another neighbor into taking down her battered kitschy Snoopy with the broken windmill arm that she’d put on the shared fence and was shading one of my peaches slightly, but it gave me incentive not to be that neighbor.

Pride goeth…

Those two branches were thick but I finally decided I could at least give it a try. I could have mentioned my resolve to my tall strong husband, but thought, nah, he’s busy with something. Got out there with my aging clippers held straight over my head, got a good grip on the smaller branch, looked like I might actually be able to cut through this thing after all, I was putting everything into it–

–when the trunk that I didn’t know was rotten suddenly gave way at the bottom. I was flipped over backwards, hard.

There were two thick tree roots running in tandem above the ground and my spine exactly lined up with them. Richard happened to look out in time to see the end of the fall and, he said, my head bouncing back up again.

Knocked the wind out of me.

And maybe the sense.  Ah my, the perfect poise moment. Part of me was able to think, I really shouldn’t be lying here with the sun on my face. The UV rating was 1 out of 16 before I headed outside but that’s still a 1 and I really ought to get up and inside now.

Willing myself to move just wasn’t getting it to happen.

It’s quite peaceful on this fine evening, looking up at that blue sky and all those green leaves.

Richard, rushing out the door, reached me by that point, wanting that not to have just happened, wanting to help, and the back-to-reality of having my sweet husband within view helped me focus.

There was the wry thought as he helped me carefully up, of, and *tomorrow* I’m supposed to have that injection for my med-induced osteoporosis.

He got me icepacks and I wondered what would complain the most later vs right then. The answer so far is the right shoulder, holding up the heavy clippers that had twisted downwards and then missed me (ohthankyouthankyou). At least we know we did what we could for it. So far I seem to have gotten off really easy, all things considering.

The squirrel escalator at the side of the fence got it way worse than I did.

So glad Richard was there.

Next time I might, y’know, tell him first what I was up to so he could volunteer to go do it himself. He certainly would have.

Skyped with the grandsons, talked with our kids, chatted with our dads, made angel food cake and mixed fresh berries and mango salad and all kinds of good things–

–and somehow, this evening, the account on Richard’s phone burped up old voicemail messages onto his suddenly-insistent cell. Years-old messages, very much to his surprise. How on earth did these show up?

I heard the raspy-to-me electronic voices and came in the room and asked who he was talking to, and he explained.

And among those very old messages were two from his mom.

Today was the first Father’s Day with her gone. He was sitting there listening to her voice.

Those two messages are staying.

The lace shawl is finished. I washed the mill oils out of the silk and tried it on, damp and all, and  it’s blocking now.

But the person I want to give it to and I are at opposite ends of the size spectrum and I did start it for me before I knew I needed to knit for her and it’s pretty clear it’s too small.  So I went stash diving just now and I think I’ve come up with a color she’ll like–or I could, y’know, ask. I guess I’d just needed to know who needed to be next on my needles.

Meantime…

The first time Richard mentioned it, Wednesday night, late, I opened the bathroom window and then I heard it too–an incredible moment of wow! Can you HEAR that?! (Yeah, yeah, I know you can.) I knew I wasn’t getting all of the sounds, but I got the tune!

It had to be a mockingbird. It sang again and Richard sang it an echo–a little lopsidedly, but hey.

The bird stopped and listened–and then sang the new version in response. We had a duet going. Where’s a banjo when you need one, and I wonder how it would respond to our old autoharp.

Then the next night there it was again in the same unseen spot in the tree right outside that window, only this time Richard whistled the tune back. And again got a happy response.

Then last night we just simply went to bed, party poopers on a Friday night, but he was telling me it was loud and singing happily away.

Waiting for its new musician friend to chime in, no doubt.

I went out in the yard at dusk tonight, checking on the plums–more showings of color here and there than yesterday, definitely coming along.

And the mockingbird came close by and sang to me. And I heard it and looked up into the apple branches in thanks.

On a side note: RobinM sent me the link to this guy’s gorgeous wildlife photos. Scroll down to April’s toads entry, and there was this little gem of information: “Ever wondered why a toad blinks when it eats… Toads can use their eyes to help them swallow. They push their eyes down into their mouth to push the food down their throat!”

Wikipedia agrees; they can toadily see it.

I wonder if that mockingbird could ribbit. Or would he say frog-getaboutit.

Sam asked us, while we were at her graduation, to deliver little boy presents to San Diego.

What is it? they later asked as I handed the first out of my bag.

Dunno, your guess is as good as ours.

And so Hudson is the big man on campus (got this picture today). And for Parker, a stuffed plush Happy Pill that laughs when you push its button.  Loudly.

This brought up the family lore of the toy fire truck that my father-in-law admitted to killing the siren on a week after Christmas only when the small recipient of said beloved bright red truck was well into being a grown man.

“Water,” I grinned.

Well, they would see. No need for now, hey, this is cute. Take a shrill pill and call them in the morning.

We got to see all four of our kids and our grandsons all in two weeks’ time (not to mention friends dear and far) and now I very much want to run go do it all over again right now. If only.

But meantime, another picture of Hudson at seven and a half weeks and of Parker hamming it up.

(Edited to clarify: I don’t talk in baby talk to little ones, but I have been known to quote them.)

There were a lot of sick people in the airport five days ago. We had stayed healthy for Baltimore, which Sam had really needed, still germ-free during our visit with the grandsons thank goodness, but after that last airport and plane filled with coughing people…

Only a bit of fever and cold, nothing too bad. I’m definitely better today than yesterday.

Meantime, we’d met Eve, our grandcat, four and a half years ago when she was still basically a kitten.

While we were in Baltimore, my friend Karen and Richard and I were at Sam’s place when Eve decided to come down and join the party.

We were told she never does that! Never! She stays away from strangers, she’s just not a party animal. But she did, and she let me stroke her soft fur and murmur sweet my-aren’t-you-spinnables at her. Maybe she remembered me?

Sam and I remembered the day she and the other kids had brushed the neighbor’s Persian and I’d spun the fur we retrieved into an 18″ strand, plied it with silk, and made it into a little pin for the very pleased owner of the cat: a 1×2″ knitted rectangle dangling from knitting needles made of toothpicks with pearl beads glued on the ends, ending in a little rolled ball of the yarn. Idea courtesy of Spinoff magazine.

Eve had gotten a haircut for the hot summer, though, other than her tail, so we’ll just have to wait for it to grow back in before we can go all jewelry on her.

But so there she was, seeking/allowing attention from me. A few minutes into it, Sam grinned and passed me a bag of cat treats.

After Eve was too full to really be enticed by them anymore–and we’d startled her by clapping and laughing in the conversation–I caught her rolling her eyes at my requests for one more petpetpet.

Caught her nevertheless giving us the hairy eyeball as she watched us getting ready to leave.

It’s okay, little cat, we want us to come back, too.

Didn’t quite make Dad’s birthday back in the day, but that way I got Dr. Jeffrey Nathan being the one doing the delivery, back when we lived in New Hampshire.

Meantime, Parker putting his foot down, showing off his Lego shoes. I put a shot of them up on Facebook, where the consensus in the comments was that we need a letter-writing campaign for grownup sizes.  Hey–I’d buy a pair!

A few more pictures of my second baby’s babies to celebrate his birthday by. And to thank him and Kim for being such good parents to our grandsons.

Grandson pictures! Go Richard, he got them to work!

The male Cooper’s hawk arrived in an unrushed swoop this afternoon that declared he wasn’t serious about hunting, more a telling off those persistent ravens as to just who owned this spot of the sky; he landed in the olive tree and regarded me a moment, giving me time to mentally thank him for letting me see him before he raised his wings in farewell and was off.

Right on cue to celebrate the day, too: Happy Birthday to my Dad! And to my niece Laura, who has had impeccable timing from day one.

(And don’t miss Frank Bruni’s “Gift of Siblings” from the New York Times, a beautiful piece in tribute to the family his parents raised and are. Oh, and, nothing is torn on Parker’s blanket; it just has carefully-toddler-worked-out gaps for playing peek-a-boo through.)

Still working on getting pictures on the blog.

We arrived Saturday noonish and found we’d chosen the same weekend as the San Diego Rock’n’roll marathon–and now we knew why the flights were crowded and expensive and how lucky we’d been to get a hotel reservation.

Hudson was waking up several times a night and a tired Parker at about the light of dawn with the transition to summertime brightness, so, giving them all bedtime and waking up times to themselves as they’re adjusting to the new baby was the way to go.

Sunday was the blessing of the baby, our christening ceremony, and afterwards, a luncheon at Kim’s folks’ that was a small family reunion on their side. I so love these good people. I chatted with one of her uncles who did not know I had known his father so well, and as we talked, he showed me the ring he wore that his namesake father’s father had had. Inscribed in it was the date of the Titanic (setting sail, I think, rather than sinking).

I’ve mentioned before, but, his grandfather/my grandsons’ great-great grandfather had had a ticket to be on that ship but had ditched the trip because one of his fellow Mormon missionaries he was going to return home to the States with was too sick to go, and the grandfather, being the one who’d booked the tickets, refused to make the one man travel alone later. Everybody was going together, he said; they could wait. Even if it meant they would miss out on the much-hyped trip of a lifetime.

Al wore on his hand that reminder of how much everything, including his own and his extended family’s very existence, depends on the things that always seem at the time to be such small gestures of kindness. Never let a chance to do right by others pass unseen.

Hudson at seven and a half weeks was struggling mightily to learn to smile back at will and caught me by surprise when he giggled a one-syllable laugh with a big brief smile as we held each other in our eyes with him in my arms. Oh wow!

Parker’s favorite blankie now is the Malabrigo Rios one I made at his birth. He has carefully worked his way into the stitches to make several gaps–nothing broken, just gaps–big enough for him to wave hi at us through. Peekaboo!

As we came past airport security last night, a young man was taking the stairs next to us  as we rode the escalator–lifting each step ever so carefully but clearly painfully but determined to keep on going and not take the easy way out, not now, not after all this. He was wearing a t-shirt: Finisher (and then the name of the marathon.)

I looked over at him as our escalator took us on up slightly faster than he was going. “Congratulations!”

The biggest grin spread over his face along with his thanks in return. I think he forgot his pain in that moment.

Parker, meantime, had learned to look for purple flowers on trees with me (the jacarandas were in bloom), and we saw several as we were on our way to that airport. He cried mightily as we got out of the car and hugged him and his daddy goodbye: he wanted to come airpane too.

Soon as we can, little guy, as soon as we all can.