And so now with the blog back I can mention that before all that, my husband was on the phone with our older son, who’d called with a computer question.

And in the background there was a game of Ring Around the Rosie going on and Parker’s delighted voice, playing with his Mommy: “We all fall DOWN!…AGAIN! All fall DOWN!…AGAIN!!”

And again and again, with the exuberant happiness of a little one. Priceless. Parker will be two in about two hours. Happy Birthday, sweetie, and thank you for all the love.

The phone rang about five minutes ago. At this hour? I wondered. (Actually, not, I need to fix that time stamp that didn’t change with the daylight savings change last month.)

“This is your daughter,” pronounced She Who Can Hear Across The House (but is toiling away on a tight work deadline), “do you want to take the cookies out of the oven? They’ve been beeping for awhile.”

I had made them to help lighten her load a bit for the evening. They’re a little more golden around the edges than they might have been. Perfect.

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Almond Meringue cookies

Mix 1 1/2 c almond meal (thank you Trader Joe’s) with 1 1/2 c powdered sugar, set aside. Whip three egg whites till they hold a stiff peak, fold in the almond/sugar mixture. Tablespoonfuls onto parchment paper on top of a baking sheet, bake at 350 for–well, it was supposed to be 15-18 minutes. And yes you can just use a heavily-greased cookie sheet, but with these, parchment paper really is the way to go.

If you want, dip these in melted bittersweet chocolate and then refrigerate.

———–

The funny thing about these is that my daughter once asked my friend Miriam for her almond cookie recipe and Miriam, bemused, answered, They’re your mom’s recipe.

Oh.

Good and fast and healthy (not to mention addictive.) Enjoy!

And on a lighter note…

I told the story of my daughter randomly running into my brother-in-law in the airport in Tokyo a week ago, she on her way home from Japan, he on a stopover coming back to the States from China. Turns out, the story gets better.

A recently retired old colleague of his from work–I believe (I could be wrong) that that would be from his recently-ended assignment to Qatar–was somehow in Tokyo airport, apparently didn’t hear the exclamation of “Uncle GEORGE!” from the pretty, young, thin blonde who ran to him, but did see George hugging and being friendly with a woman who was so much not his former colleague’s wife that the guy knew.

One might add, they did share the same last name, though. Oddly enough.

It’s your birthday and I get the cake? my friend Deanne marveled yesterday in a message. But somehow, for all the attempts at getting together, it didn’t quite happen then.

I had made her and her family a chocolate torte as a thank you for an airport ride and the other of the pair was to go to Julia and her family for the same reason.  (Sue waved away the calories for now.) I had decided I’d better call before dropping them off, since the ganache part shouldn’t be at room temperature for hours on end–but yesterday we just didn’t connect, any of us, I just got answering machines.  So the tortes stayed in my fridge for the day.

I also had two almost-rollaboard-size suitcases to give to a young family, in great shape because they had no wheels and so had long gone unused–those, too, I was supposed to get delivered in the last two days but somehow it just didn’t happen.

I picked John up from the airport this afternoon. I was never so glad to see my own sweet child right there with me safe and sound and my heart is beyond words for all those parents in Connecticut who will never again have that comfort. I was listening to the President on the radio as I drove, and the long silence… twelve seconds, the reporter said it was, and then seven more as he struggled with his tears, all of our tears on his face and in his voice… All those innocent kindergartners and first graders. All those good people. They were our children. They were our teachers.

The chocolate tortes got delivered today, instead. The right day. (Who could possibly have known.) Friends opened their doors and exclaimed over them, over John being with me, home for Christmas, how good to see him! We zipped back home for the forgotten green Travelpros and then dropped those off too, waving hi at the little kids playing outside with their next-door friends we knew well, too, that dad raking the leaves as he kept watch over them, the other young parents welcoming us in.

Love and coming together, again and again and again, was such a dearly-bought, vitally needed thing.

When we came home from Texas last weekend the phone line was dead again, only, this time the problem was inside somewhere.

It was getting old.

Richard stayed home this morning until he tracked it down to a problem in the jack in the kitchen; unplug the wall phone, boom, there you go, just in time. (Sing it, Paul!)

My little sister, 19 months younger than me and who was always almost catching up to me growing up, being just a year behind me at school and getting the same teachers, who (since she was the fifth kid) would say to her like they’d said to me, Oh, *another* Jeppson, called: “How does it feel to be an old fart?”

“Actually, I can’t fart anymore.” I grinned.

That stopped her a second. “I never thought of that!”

As for the Japanese earthquake, Michelle says she was in the middle of buying our Christmas presents when it hit. Given that they go on longer the further from the epicenter you are (an S wave vs P wave thing) and that there were aftershocks piling on, she said that with a pause here and there it basically shook for twenty minutes.  Carol King time.

Meantime, while we were at Richard’s folks’ yesterday, the phone rang: it was his older brother, checking in on them, telling his dad that he was in China on a business trip, the two of them chatting away for a little bit and then Dad offering the phone to MomH, too.

When Richard and I got home and went to bed at 3 am by the time zone we’d finally gotten used to, we set the alarm to be ready to pick up Michelle in the morning. The idea was that she would call when wheels touched down and we would drive up while she got through customs.

We waited.

Turns out her flight left an hour late, and only because her flight left an hour late did it happen that, with neither of them knowing the other was traveling much less where, Michelle found herself suddenly exclaiming, “Uncle GEORGE?!!” at Tokyo airport.

Of all the places to get to see him for the first time since the family reunion two summers ago. He had a stopover there on his way home. Out of all the places either could have been in the entire planet or even the directions they could have been looking in… What were the chances!

We got home 2:30 am Texas time, no blog last night. My laptop was indeed still plugged in at home. Phew.

You know how I never put anything in the front zipped part of my rollaboard for fear the bag will then exceed the maximum dimensions there and have to be checked? And how I carefully put the two ziploc bags of knitting-related material at the top of the smaller bag? (Hah. I can finally type without dealing with an Iphone autocorrect, it’s ziploc, not ziplock.)

At some point immediately before we went to the airport I must have decided the small bag was too full and moved it into that never-used zipped part of the bigger bag after all. So there it was. I always figured it must have fallen out when I pulled my knitting out of the smaller bag.  My sister-in-law now has her blue silk shawlette and there were the hats and I managed to cast off the light-gold silk for her just before we had to go. When we left it was drying spread across the long guest bathroom counter at the grandparents’.

Now to go pick up Michelle from the airport. She was in Japan on a business trip this past week, and was close enough to the 7.3 earthquake to feel it. There are stories to hear. And a week’s worth of email to catch up on.

They’re gone!

The silk shawlette for my sister-in-law. The merino-silk and Malabrigo hats for my niece who’s dancing in the Nutcracker. Richard’s cellphone, too, although, that at least has a replacement showing up tomorrow (it was insured.).

They’re little things in the face of big things, and after a very small tear and catch in the throat at the loss, I pulled out the silk I’d somehow brought with me to see if my SIL would like it–which made no sense whatsoever when I was packing–and now we have something to look forward to together that we both know she’ll love.

I owed her a hostess gift. Now she’ll get to see me working on it for her.

We made it home, late. Dad says to tell you all thank you for all your well wishes and notes of concern and that he wants you to know he tried to type his own thank-you in the comments but the right hand and the left arm weren’t ready for that yet. So I’m passing the good word along.

And then crashing in bed. Thank you, you all.

I didn’t sleep well last night, I admitted to John this morning; I couldn’t get that image of Dad on the ground and all that blood out of my head.

It wasn’t all *that* much, he countered–then thought a moment and added, But. Yeah.

So here’s how yesterday went: lots of people came to the openhouse. Old friends, old relatives: I don’t think I’d seen Max and Lee, Dad’s still-identical twin cousins, since I was ten. Much love, much celebration, much admiration of art.

Comparing notes between us siblings, all of us thought the idea of Dad taking us all out to dinner afterwards was too much for one day: he and Mom especially had been on their feet for hours and he looked a little unsteady to my eyes. Other ideas were brought up–take out, perhaps?–but dismissed. Dad wanted his family party.

And so we piled into two cars and went to the folks’ favorite Chinese restaurant.

Which, it turned out, had two concrete bulbouts jutting into the sidewalk near the door, one to either side. I did a last-second half-jump-and-dance in the dark over one as we approached. Mom and Dad had had to park around the block and they were a minute or two behind us.

Suddenly Mom was shouting into the restaurant for help. I didn’t hear or see but others did and I caught on quick. Dad was down and there were four puddles of blood around him. The goose egg was already huge and his hand was bleeding.

Someone had already gotten him a chair, I’m assuming brought by the waitress who was trying to know what to do. Son John and brother-in-law Bill lifted Dad up to it. Richard pressed napkins to Dad’s hand to stop the bleeding, Marian held an icepack to his forehead and then let me step in and hold it there with my other arm carefully around my father in support.

Richard and my brother Bryan had asked Dad questions and in the immediate moments he was lucid but then briefly out of it and the decision was obvious and clear and beyond any protests: emergency room.

No! I’m taking you all out to dinner!

John, can you bring the car around?

Absolutely.

I’m going with you and Mom too, said Bryan.

Dad pitched a fit: Bryan is diabetic and the food was inside that door right there.

Bryan told me later he could just picture John dropping Dad off at the curb and Dad falling again and maybe taking Mom down with him: no. He was coming too. Bryan is unruffleable and he stayed put in that car and off John went with the four of them.

Meantime, my sister Carolyn had gotten a message from her son that he was interviewing here Monday and had just realized that oh wait, his mom was here from NYC and–and so he got dropped off on his way in from the airport to the restaurant.

Almost immediately after that car pulled away.

So those of us who were left were talking when suddenly it hit us: Mom had the keys to their car and John had driven the other one. Oh wait.

And so when the time seemed best, John drove back to us from the hospital, gave us keys, and by that point the dishes Dad had pre-ordered were served. We boxed up meals, labeled Bryan’s and not-Bryan’s and sent those back with John to the hospital.

Dad had bent his right pinky backwards so far his skin had split wide open. Six stitches. CT scan of his brain was okay and skull uncracked, and our icepacks had done the trick: the goose egg was essentially gone when he came home, although he’s got an impressive bruise across the side of his upper head.

But before they could send him off, he started complaining that there was pain in his left arm and it was growing worse.

Okay, x-ray.

Broken.

But everything will heal and Dad, who is 86,  is still our Dad, and of good cheer even. Thank heavens. He laughed and laughed when I had to cut up his melon for him over dinner tonight and suddenly told him the old pun, melon-choly baby.

We all played our part perfectly, each of us, as he needed us and in the way we needed to in each of those moments.

It was a darn close call, and he’s going to hurt for awhile, but essentially, he’s alright.

Not done yet…

Palm trees at the airport. This was not skiing country.

The cheap tickets were through LA, so, back up and east to snow on the mountains, and between having been dropped off a tad early on Michelle’s way to work and when we finally arrived, the hank of worsted merino/silk needing to be wound into a ball was now a new hat with ends needing to be run in. Made for a long day; might as well make it a productive one. (Is it just me that feels like after sitting in an airport awhile you no longer remember what time zone you’re in when you haven’t even left your own yet?)

My family and I spent the evening laughing nonstop as we compared do-you-remember-whens between our parents and the oldest and youngest siblings with me in between.

Good times. And as Mom pointed out, her parents were married 72 years; they’ve got twelve to go.

Cold climate. Warm hats. Hmm. The warmest one not given away yet will match some of what I packed to wear, at least. There’s one on the needles but I suddenly realized while knitting at Purlescence tonight that they’re on gold-plated needles that I’m not going to risk around airport security.

My sweetie and I got married when gold hit its then highest-ever, totally unheard-of price of something like $360 an ounce or so, and that’s just the metal in the wedding bands.

Richard and I were students.

Richard’s dad had always wanted to try this: he had a bad tooth, Richard had a bad tooth, and their gold fillings had fallen out multiple times. His dad had kept the gold. And so, he got our ring measurements and they melted them down for us: voila! A piece of themselves being put into our happily ever after.

To me it said I was marrying into a creative and kind family. I’ve always thought it was great.

Fast forward umpteen years. Michelle was in middle school. Someone put some knitting needles on the market that were gold plated, not brass like some of the later ones but gold, and I pointed them out to her and got her to buy me a pair of size 5s for Christmas.

It was totally a setup. I was so sure that gold at $360 was engraved in the back of his head.

Richard watched me open that package that morning, and in that moment Michelle and I both saw it in his face: *gold*? Needles?! Isn’t that taking this knitting obsession wayyy beyond redemption? He was in shock.

We died laughing and I promised him that they actually cost under $20 and less than my Holz and Stein rosewoods (which were still on the American market then, darnit, I miss those, but the folks at Dyakcraft do a superb job of making ones that I love everything about. They’re the perfect replacement.)

The gold is about half worn off the metal ones by now.  They’ve been put to good use. And they are staying home tomorrow for their own good.

I got the ends run in on project A, project B, got a few sweaters washed and slowly drying for my flying to a colder climate, trying to get ready to go to celebrate my parents’ 60th.

Looking for something else after dinner, I stumbled across the utterly forgotten sheared-mink baby sweater. I so wanted to give this to my namesake great-niece. I so wanted it already finished. It’s going to be so nice when it is. The front was done, the back was done, lots and lots of dangly ends to weave in (oh fun), seams to sew, edges to add.

But deadlines are wonderful things and I should finally be getting to meet that sweet baby this weekend. After all this time and anticipation, I can’t leave this one to the last second, I just can’t (any more than I already have.)

I glanced at the clock. It was after 8:30. Ends and seams were now done, it’s all peachy from here. I was picking up the stitches for the first set of ruffly lace around the arm of the jumper. (It’ll fit longer if there are no sleeves.)

Two rows. Five rows.  Eight rows, glancing at the clock repeatedly, feeling I must really be in the zone because I’m getting this done in record time with the hand barely moving on that clock.

And another row, and I looked up again.

Waaaaait… (took me long enough.) “Richard, what time is it?”

“Nine forty-five.”

With the exquisite timing of a stand-up comedian, the battery on my wall clock had slowed and at last stopped while I was knitting. Trying to help me get this thing done–“We’re not STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPingggggggggggggg, Mommmmmmmmm………….”

Another one finished and blocking, another amazing transformation of splitty jumpy yarn and scrums of stitches like four-year-olds playing soccer into suddenly glorious, gorgeous, well-defined lacework. All it took was a drink in the water to settle it down. (If you haven’t read that post yet, my Mom is a genius.)

And just for silliness, I can remember my Dad buying a box of Hostess stuff once in my entire life (at the Giant or whatever it was called then on the Pike, Dad), Mom, never. But there is this recipe for what their cupcakes could have attained to, had they ever been allowed to grow up like we kids did. Instead of the coffee, this good little Mormon girl would try it with cocoa nibs boiled in milk and allowed to steep awhile. Should be interesting.

Michelle got up at 4 am again, Eastern time no less, to catch her flight. We had to set the alarm ourselves at our end.

Richard turned right out of the neighborhood.

Wait, what? She’s at San Francisco, right?

I dropped her off at San Jose airport, he answered. She’s at San Jose.

But…

We knew by then that her flight had landed 35 minutes early and she was already on the ground and we were running behind as it was, but going the wrong way wasn’t going to help anything and arguing would get me nowhere since I wasn’t the one driving. So I pulled out my cell and started texting: SFO, right?

Yes SFO! I sent you my itinerary…!

(I knew that, especially because I had written it down in my calendar: if I write it I remember it.) She says SFO.

You sure? I dropped her off at…

She says she’s at SFO, dear. (While managing not to say it as DEAR at that hour.)

Right, then. Left at the light and back thataway to the next northbound exit. I knew she was just sitting there waiting so I tried to help keep her company: We’re on 101 north now.

We’re at San Carlos now.

We’re at Milbrae now. (Which is really close.)

And then came her text: Stay on target… Stay on target…

Good to have her home again.