I did it!

I didn’t see any of the monarch butterflies that make Pacific Grove famous, although there were three deer ignoring me when I parked in front of them near Asilomar.  And several old trees that were tall trunks only now with woodpeckers installing new windows in them, remodeling the places.

So much to say.

I drove down there to see dear friends on their last day of vacation before they flew home to Maryland.  They brought the regards of a mutual high school teacher; they’d seen him the day before.

There was only one way for me to get to see them, so I swapped my gas hog for the husband’s Prius for the day and went.

And I would tell you more about how wonderful it was, but anyone who’s seen people they hold dear after a long time away already knows all about that sort of thing.

I got in that Prius to drive home, wishing I somehow didn’t have to yet, and turned on (I thought) the lights. Spraying the windshield instead.  As always on that car, always.

And laughed.

One other thought: at the end, they surprised me by offering to drive me home while following in theirs to make sure I got home safely. Folks, we are talking very nearly two hours each way and then they’d have to go back to that hotel room.  I didn’t take them up on the offer, but the caring, the generosity, the thoughtfulness behind it, and my deep gratitude at knowing such good people and having them in my life, I tell you, it carried me all the way home.  Energized! Just by making that offer… they did exactly that.

All I can say is, thank you. Safe travels to you too tomorrow.

Old friends came by today: chocolate torte was shared, old stories swapped, all of it far too short but I didn’t want to take too much of the time the two sisters had while the older one was briefly in town.

Gwynn grew up with my youngest. Her big sister used to babysit my kids. I’m not sure why it should feel odd that time passes, but in the presence of good friends it matters not.

Amy reminded me that my wedding present to her had been two 8″ springform pans and the non-perishable makings for her own pairs of chocolate tortes, along with the hand-written recipe, as personal a gift as I could think of given how much she loved those.

Had she made her own since?

Oh, yes!

Cool.  It’s true, then.  Raise up a child in the way she should go, and when she is older she will not de-torte from it.

Today, I was driving past the block that Milk Pail is cornered in and decided to try again: I was about out of bourbon vanilla, and I’ve found (insert big name brand here) to be watered down compared to theirs. You never know when the next big chocolate-torte-baking binge is going to happen; got to be prepared.

And lo and behold. A parking spot right in front.

The place was crowded as always and there was not a shopping cart nor basket in sight. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, it’s a mostly-outdoors market, and the warmth on their strawberries carried an intense freshly-picked berry smell throughout the place.

With a cane in one hand, that meant I ran out of other hands real fast because honey no way was I going home without some of those.

This was getting difficult. Which increased my incentive.  I looked some more and finally found a cart over that-a-way, but as I shopped there was a young man walking around, I’m guessing Middle Eastern, with his arms full like mine had just been and looking like all he wanted was for this to be over with. He looked tired.

So, let’s see, I got my strawberries, I got my vanilla extract, I got a few extras just because, with a cart handy, I could. (Shelf-stable coconut cream for dairy-free tortes.  Amaretto cookies, 200g, two bucks–yummm.) I glanced over at checkout and saw that by then he’d found a cart too; oh good. His face still looked like he was having a long hard day.

Sign that slip, I’m out of here.

But there were two little boys playing around the bushes and cars in front of the store, including around mine, laughing, running, teasing, being normal bouncy little kids with a parent shopping around in there somewhere, one hopes. I was concerned.

I hesitated. I looked. It seemed clear, but I know how kids can dart.  I got in my big blind minivan and–just then that man came out with his bags, and I rolled down the passenger window and explained and asked if he might check for me.

He not only looked and assured me, he stayed there, waving me back, double-checking constantly, looking out for those kids and me too, staying there till I was moving forward and on my way out.

It was such a small thing. And yet. He looked as if some of whatever it was in his day had suddenly been lifted. I was so glad he’d done that; glad for his sake. He’d earned that.

The greatest human need, I am convinced, is to be needed.

I went home and finished Don‘s chocolate torte–finishing off the last of that cream.

And Don, in turn, inspired by Friday night’s bidding war on that other torte, made a donation to Central Asia Institute, founded by Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, to help fund building schools for girls as well as boys in the most remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where most NGOs refuse to risk going. CAI funds the materials and the teachers; the locals do the building (up to code, too) and the teaching, making the schools theirs, not outsiders’.

Mortenson writes that his nine-year-old daughter asked him, after the major earthquake that devastated Afghanistan, what the children who’d survived all that did to play? To cope, they needed to play, what kind of equipment did they have?

He hadn’t ever thought of that.

She told him to start off with jump ropes but that they needed to have playgrounds. And so, through the wisdom of a child, the schools he was building started having playgrounds for the children.

A group of Taliban elders approached one of them after that, saw the seesaw and the slide and the swings, put down their automatic weapons, and played on the equipment! And then said, everything’s cool, carry on.

A small donation. A chocolate torte in thanks.

Another man willing to direct the traffic of one woman’s car so that someone else’s little boys would be safe.

It all comes together, in ways only God knows the extent of, when we look out for each other.

Okay, so here’s what’s been going on in the background:

Richard came home from work sick the other day. Thursday, I was afraid I was catching it and not wanting to expose more people, stayed home from Knit Night.  Friday, he was better and I was fine other than that I was still very very tired.

That night the Boy Scouts were having a fundraiser spaghetti dinner. There was to be an auction of desserts at the end.

Anyone who knows me knows that means one of my chocolate tortes had to be there.

And so I pulled myself together enough to get out the door to buy manufacturing cream, one of the key ingredients, at Milk Pail. It’s 40% butterfat, no additives, and it has a short shelf life.

Now, that place is a good one for locavores, good produce and cheeses, and it is very popular. It’s also in a badly-designed lot with minimal parking unless you’re willing to walk a ways (and climb through bushes and walk through a blind intersection and never mind).

Willing is one thing.

I went. The lot was as full as if Thanksgiving were coming.  But there was one spot, right in front, right there–and their employees had commandeered it for the moment.

I had nowhere else I could safely go, sunwise, and I just barely had the oomph anyway, so I put on my turn signal and figured they’d finish up shortly.

Every single car that encountered mine after that as I waited had some totally stressed-out person for whom I was just the last straw.  Pounding their steering wheel. Yelling. Losing it.

I had done not a thing wrong. I’m still trying to understand it.  I wasn’t even close to blocking anything.  Maybe they were all trying to run a quick errand on their last bit of energy and couldn’t find a spot except for the one already spoken for?

The last woman’s behavior was such that I was afraid of her screaming at me in the store. Bag this–I went home.

Where I put a note on the ward chat list, not mentioning the screamers, just saying I hadn’t been able to park at all and I’d really really wanted to make a chocolate torte for the Scouts; if anyone else more hale and hearty had the time to try for me, I would so happily make them a torte too as a thank you.

And then I put myself on timeout and took a quick nap, realizing that if I were complaining to my whole church about the disappointment over such a small thing, I was having a meltdown and needed a nap.  Bring me my blankie.

I got up a short while later, much refreshed, checked my messages, googled, and found out that hey! Smart and Final carries manufacturing cream too–who knew?

So I sent out a second message saying thanks, all’s cool, I’m getting some after all.

I got my usual pair baked but with not the time left to cool them. I improvised: I put the cakes on a metal baking sheet to conduct the heat away, moving them to another baking sheet as that one heated up. It did help some.

Ten minutes before we were supposed to be there, I started the glaze. I tried too hard; I zapped the chocolate and cream too long. I wrecked the top of this one; I decided, oh well, I’ll have to take that one–the one that lost a piece to the side because I took it out of the pan before it was cooled.

It still hadn’t entirely cooled. It melted the top even more.

You’ve seen those lava cakes? I had a volcano in full flow with the side of the mountain given way for it to pour down.

We got there late.  By the time they got to the auction, it had set–looking like that, but at least it had set.

I noticed the scouts picking up all the desserts but my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree one and leaving it quietly behind. I grabbed a scout (whom I didn’t know) and told him, Tell them it’s Alison Hyde’s chocolate torte. They’ll know what it is.

Okay, lady.

It was one of the last ones, then, and some of the crowd had taken their little kids home to bed by then.

Dave, bless him, held it up high and asked, What am I bid for Alison Hyde’s world-famous CHOCOLATE TORTE!

My friend Phyl started it at $20. That quickly went to $40.

And I thought, Thanks, you guys, but–did you SEE that thing?!

Phyllis was having company Saturday night and told me later, I didn’t care, I knew what it tasted like!  But Jessica outbid her and got it with great glee.

Earlier in the day, Mary, bless her, had seen my first email and had immediately jumped in her car to go get that fancy cream for me.  But for all that, Milk Pail, alas, was out by then.

Tyler, bless him too, emailed me to say he would go in a flash if he could, if it weren’t for being at work, even before he saw the offer part of my email.

Those messages (there was another, too, but I’m not done yet) completely and totally made my day on a day I so much needed that. Just their acknowledging me made it all feel better; the fact that Mary ran immediately to go help meant the world.

Now.  A half gallon of manufacturing cream is a lot of cream.  Eight tortes’ worth.

I went back to Trader Joe’s: I stocked up on their bittersweet 500g Pound Plus bars. Baked, cleaned pans, baked.  And then I started calling/emailing/knocking.

Phyllis’s guests stopped me today to tell me how good that torte had been.

When I offered to bring Mary one, she and her husband instead came here and picked it up.

Ditto Tyler and his wife.

Jessica got a prettier one, two for the bid of one.

I’m not done yet!

I heard it from both sides today.

Our friend Jean, Marguerite‘s mom, flew off to go visit her grandson, Marguerite’s nephew. He’s in the bishopric in the student ward where he’s finishing his doctorate.

And there, sitting in that church in Ann Arbor, was our daughter Michelle.

Jean has known Michelle since she was a year old.  Both of them had this jaw-on-the-ground moment of, What are YOU doing here?!

The answer, of course, was, finding themselves feeling very, very loved and treasured and suddenly very much at home.

I explained yesterday’s post to Nina and told her, So I have to choose the blackberry flavor. She laughed and allowed as how, yes, I did.

We were at (psst–Nina–what was the name of that place? Miriam’s? Marianne’s?) Makes all their own ice cream. In Santa Cruz.

Nina’s on the email list of the Golden Fleece yarn shop down there and they were having not only Malabrigo Rios in stock as of today but were putting it on sale–IF you bought ten skeins.

The hottest new yarn out there, with a lot of stores on a waiting list, and an incentive to go buy lots of the stuff? Hey. Turns out some of her customers showed up last night to see if the box had arrived yet, it just had, and they were going through it before the owner even got to see in there, picking out their favorite colorways they’d been waiting for.

Meantime, no way no how was I going to go buy ten skeins of yarn right now and I doubted the two of us together could, either. But I wanted some Nina time, and I do like seeing Malabrigo in person because the colorways have enough variation from dye lot to dye lot and you know how it goes…

(I can just see all the knitters nodding, oh yes, we know how it goes…)

Rios is the yarn I’ve been waiting for all this time that I snatched up that test-marketing skein of in April.  It is THE softest merino worsted I have ever come across.  Superwash, too.   Someone (thank you RobinM!) gave me a heads up that Webs had it now: I’ve been watching that page–they got some in on Wednesday and it is going fast. (Guilty as charged on the credit card. I did not know I was going to get an email from Nina right after I did.)

I did not need to up my supply in Santa Cruz. Really, I didn’t.

And then we got there.  I have a grandchild on the way, and new moms need good warm things for their babies *that they can throw in the washer*.  (Because at 4 am after the baby’s already gotten you up twice it’s probably going to end up in there anyway just because you’re too tired to think straight. I vividly remember a knitting grandmother I know scolding her daughter for turning the baby blanket she’d slaved over for x months into a, quote, postage stamp that way. I want my knitting gifts guilt-free.)

You see that photo in that old post?

Golden Fleece had that exact colorway.

They had it in two dyelots, and when I separated them and stepped back, it was clear they really were separate dyelots.

They had some of their sock yarn with that same Azules nametag on them, and it was markedly different. Not baby friendly, either; much darker, and where did that almost-black-in-this-light streak come from?

I have some Azules coming from Webs.

I have no real idea what it will look like till it gets here.

I want to start serious baby knitting, like, NOW.

You can see where this is going.

And so I bought the Solis green.  To match that hat I made.  And that’s it!  (Yeah right.)  I bought the Azules, to have  on hand for sure the colors that were exactly the way I wanted.  If that means an adult gets a Webs-yarn vest to match our little one, worse things have happened.

We stopped for ice cream on the way home, because it was another Santa Cruz institution Nina didn’t want me to miss, and I picked the flavorway I did in Lisa’s yarn‘s honor.

Which I now need to finish up, like, really really fast because I got me some serious Rios knitting to do.  Twist my arms.

Hey, Lisa? Your Blackbewwie  Sock! Merino is coming along nicely on that second ball–about two more days and I’ll be done. (Colorwise, mine is between her Blackbewwie and her Mulberry photos and the yarn is soft with a lot of shimmy and shine to it.)

When the first of my nieces got married years ago, my brother, parents and I flew to Seattle for the wedding and before we left, we ate at a restaurant that served me the most perfect one-person mixed berry pie, the best comfort food one could ever hope to find. There was just barely enough crisp crust to contain all that good dark fruit; it was a meal to remember all by itself.

That yarn color reminds me of that constantly as I knit.  I keep wanting to go make berry pie! I aspire to make one as good as that one was; I’ve never yet achieved it.

Or maybe I could at least zap up some berry sauce and let it start to melt a little ice cream to celebrate when I finish this project.

It looks like I will go right down to the last 25 g or so of that wool.  Small electronic scales are very useful for measuring how fast a yarn is disappearing into the fabric.

Went to Purlescence with an old friend tonight and got one whole long row done. Too much listening and laughing to get more done just then.

It was needed and it was perfect.

We had our twice-annual stake conference today in the town just north, wherein five wards (congregations) come together for one really big meeting. Lots of old friends there one rarely gets to see and lots of unfamiliar faces, too.

When it was over, of course, there were a whole lot of cars leaving all at once. One woman, younger than me, dressed in a rather tight skirt and medium heels, walked past us as we waited to exit the lot. I assume she was walking home to somewhere nearby rather than adding one more car to the mess.

As we got onto the road, there was a side street right next to the lot with people exiting from that, too, a traffic jam, a light ahead we were all trying to get to, and that woman was a goodly ways up ahead.  Walking never looked so sensible.

When, there in a brief patch of unpaved gravel where some work had been done, suddenly, she fell. Hard. Immediately two cars pulled to the side to rescue her, and we would have too but they beat us to it. I have no idea who she was or who they were, but a young woman was leaping out of the first car and, after a moment’s pause for taking a deep breath, was helping her carefully up. Clearly the older one was in pain, because they kept their arms around each other’s shoulders as the young one helped her to her (or possibly her parents’?) SUV. We will take care of you.  We will not leave you alone.

I felt for the one who fell (and that skirt made the fall more difficult to control–there’s a reason I like mine loose-flowing and long, but then I *know* I’m going to do some falling from time to time.) But whoever you are who pulled over, I wish I could tell you, thank you.  You helped all of us up.

Remember when I said I needed more rice bowls?  Mel and Kris answered and offered to drop by with some today so that I wouldn’t have to be out in the sun at Kings Mountain Art Fair.  They are *such* nice people; I couldn’t wait to see them.

RobinH emailed last night to say she was in town (she lives near where we used to in New Hampshire) and could she stop by?

Hey, let’s have a party!  And so it was that I got me some wonderful Mel and Kris time and then I got me some wonderful Mel and Kris and Robin time, and chocolate torte and much laughter was enjoyed by all–except, next time, Kris, I promise to bake something celiac-friendly. Does anyone have a good gluten-free cake recipe they would recommend? (Kris, if you want something other than chocolate, chime in for me, because I’m intending to put that same ganache glaze on it for you so you can finally have some.)

Robin was working on a sock and also a gorgeous green Aran that just grabbed me, and it took me a moment to figure out why my reaction to its heathery greenness was so intense: my mom had knitted just that coloration in an all-over diamond pattern for her father when I was a kid. He had wanted something formal looking, something he could wear in the halls of Congress without his suitcoat on and still be proper.

Mom couldn’t find yarn thin enough and ended up buying fingering weight in the form of–are you ready–needlepoint yarn.  Size 2 needles.  It took her a year. He wore it for decades, till he died at 95.

I watched that sweater coming to be and I adored it. I begged Mom to knit me a sweater next, and she let me pick out the yarn. And of course I wanted it in that pattern.

Worsted weight and much bigger needles and much faster, but yes, she did.  Now that I know what I asked of her…!

Mel and Kris headed out to Capitola for their next show.

I had to laugh, though, when Richard came up to the front door and a woman not his wife cheerfully pulled it open for him with a grin of Hi you live here don’t you.

My prayers go out to those on San Bruno Mountain. (I’m not sure what that link will look like by morning; it’s being updated constantly.)

My Monterey shawl? The first one was knit for my friend Michelle, who knows and loves the living things that are along the edges of the tides.

Her husband is a firefighter and he is probably up on that mountain.  I am saying prayers for him and for so many others.  I am holding my breath.

The current report is that a 24-inch gas main blew up in a residential neighborhood this evening and spread to ten acres so far.

Remember when I said I was researching treadmills? Ruth, whom I usually only get to see at Stitches every February, blew me away by offering hers.

Today, then, was the day.  Having gotten the master cylinder crisis already over with and the car okayed by my mechanic, my husband took the back seats out, mine being the car that was big enough, and we drove it to a place Far, Far Away.  (Shrek-and-see Deutsch?)

Where Ruth picked out a shawl and got a chocolate torte (frozen beforehand to be safe) and made us lunch and her son helped load the thing up for us. Hardly a fair trade.

“We have to take pictures for Chan.”

You’re right, we do.

She wanted me to model her shawl. Well, okay, blues with blue.

Never hand the husband the camera while teasing him.

Dear, wait–okay, could you take another one?  I think you got me at a bad moment. (As in, I *know* you did.)

“But the battery’s almost dead!”

I should have said, And we would need that battery for… what?…before we got home?

Oh. Right. Got to show those Central Valley tomato trucks, where you wonder about the ones at the bottom of that mound–now *there’s* a store-bought tomato for you! We tried to get closer, but there was a traffic jam and just no way to pass nor ketchup to it.

In Heinz-sight, it was probably for the jest, though.

(And yes, we did crank up that treadmill fast enough to flip me off the back, just to see if we could. But I’m ketchingup quickly.)

Thank you, Ruth!!!

He spoke in church today. He’s a young doctor who had just gotten back from a medical mission to Africa, and I know his wife was anxiously waiting his return. I asked if I could share his story here, and he told me warmly, Yes.

It was Sunday and he was in a city. He asked at his hotel whether there might perhaps be a Mormon church nearby?

The familiar in a strange place, the chance to worship with others where the Sacramental prayers are the same, no matter the language, all over the world.

Oh yes; just take a cab to the subway, get out at this stop, turn and go up the hill, you’ll see it, it’s right there.

He got off at that subway stop to find himself in a place where he, a white man dressed in a tie, felt suddenly very conspicuous. It was not a good end of town. And he clearly was not from there.  He was Other.  There was no sign of that church whatsoever, no safe haven.

In those moments, another man stepped off the subway. “He was wearing a purple shirt and carrying a Bible.”  That man was on his way to church too, and when asked for directions stopped and spent twenty minutes going out of his way to walk the stranger to where he was trying so hard to get to, befriending him and, by his actions, proclaiming the love of God in the world. By living that love.

And then he headed off to his own church.

The language is universal: when we choose not to be strangers, we are, I said to him and his wife, each other’s angels.

We were told today by one of our kids off at school that maybe the “old people’s noise ordinance” here wasn’t so bad an idea after all.

Yeah… There used to be a musician in our immediate neighborhood who did some of his growing up in this town and stayed (when he wasn’t on the road).

I used to see this guy out taking a walk sometimes, which I noticed because I did too, (y’know, wave slightly at the neighbor or nod a simple hi in passing if you’re on the same side of the street) and man did he look familiar. But I didn’t have a clue who he was.

There used to be another neighbor of ours down our street whom we knew pretty well, the retired chief of police, who complained to Richard about this hippy neighbor of his just across the fence from him playing his music loud with his buddies but always staying *just* inside the noise ordinance; Ski was used to calling the shots, given the position he’d had, but he couldn’t touch the guy and he knew it.  Bugged the heck out of him.

His neighbor went on to design psychedelic ties.

And he went on to have a Ben and Jerry’s flavor named after him.

Which happens to be Richard’s favorite.

(I can just picture him and Ski, the Ungrateful Dude–all those free concerts he was treated to!–now that they’re both up there, with Ski going,  So, Jerry…  Teach me how to jam on that guitar of yours?)

(Actually, I should have positioned those in an oval and captioned it, “Braaaaaaains…”)

So I had another bright-eyed idea on that same endless project, with the result that I was late for Purlescence because I ended up frogging four rows x 434 stitches, tinking that last one carefully stitch by stitch back onto the needles.  Slow way no how was I going to leave that mess in the middle, stranded.

And then I had to leave Knit Night less than an hour later because I had to pick up my husband at the airport. But in between!

I’d brought the unrepentant wool with me and I never got to it. (Funny how that was probably going to happen anyway.) I got saved by Susan, if I heard her name right, from Abstract Fiber.

She was there with samples.  There were projects made–oh, man, were they gorgeous! And she had a large bag full of sample-size skeins.

“Take some!” Gigi and Jasmin and Pamela urged.

How much are they?

“They’re free!”

Since when… okay, why? Alright, I’ll take one. And I picked out a few and tried to decide which, while they explained that they’d already chosen a whole bunch and that Abstract Fiber does not sell skeins with knots: so if they come across one, snip right there, you’re out of here. Eventually they have enough of those that they give them away as samples.

I’ll take one. I assume it’s one per customer. (That got me a lot of, Nah…!)

They kept egging me on. I kept saying, but…! Here, you, did you get to see them yet? And you over there? I want you to pick out all you’d like, I don’t want to hog all the purples or the anythings.

Jasmin dumped the whole bag out for everyone so it would be easier to see. I was assured it was not the first time that evening; I’d just come in late.

The end result was, I said I was going to choose some and put the rest back, that this mound was embarrassing–and then I turned my head for one second after boxes of regular skeins went past, to go ask about those because I really really like Artfibers yarns, and Gigi madly and gleefully stuffed miniskeins in my knitting bag behind me. (There were way more than those still left, honest.)

I was stumped when they grinned, “So what are you going to do with them all?” Uhbuhduhbuhduh. I dunno, but I’m sure going to have fun finding out!

(Burnside Bridge. I LOVE their Burnside Bridge colorway, always have. Look what followed me home too!)

I have a ton of work to do to justify all that woolly greed. And if you too love Artfibers and are in the area, Purlescence in Sunnyvale stocks them.

Oh. Yes. Hubby is home (yay!)  I managed to wait a whole half hour after we walked in the door, showing that of course my priorities are straight, why would you ever wonder, before I went and balled up that first Burnside.

And one last thing, one non sequitur to top off the evening: Michelle is madly and suddenly in need of laptop shopping. She found one with lots of features, except for one: it’s apparently put out by a videogame company with their name emblazoned across the top, and as she put it, “I have my pride!”

I offered to knit it a tattoo to cover it over.

“Nice try, Mom.”

Kyle and his wife and small children were here visiting today from the Boston area.  His is still one of my favorite stories ever. We caught up a bit, and I got his tired new babe-in-arms to grin and play peek a boo and to start to giggle. Success!  It was so good to see them.

A total non sequitor, but, I haven’t seen a possum in our yard since we cut down our date palm years ago.  Brought back memories.  But there was one on the back patio tonight and it ambled away at the sight of me, sniffing at the birdseed can and then hunkering in a corner behind the earthquake-supplies larger trashcan; I called out to Michelle. Hey! You want to see a possum?!

She came, but in the dark it was hard to tell where it had gone off to. I went out there in my stocking feet (not handknit), thinking one should only be so stupid about this (have you seen the teeth on those things?), camera in hand, and hoped the flash would find it for her and me both. Flash flash flash. Or if nothing else it would discourage it from staying.

Next time.  And surely there will be one.

Meantime, I pulled up the tight-fitting handle over the lid on the birdseed to lock it shut for the first time in a long time.