I’ve been determined to get back to Fillory Yarn to try to run into the woman who helped pick out Rios in a color that seemed moose-y two months ago, especially now that I really had something to show her.

She’d particularly liked the golden brown, and I did, too–and even better after I’d paired it with this darker one. I probably would not have bought the lighter without her definitive opinion that it was The One and my moose would have been much less without it.

So. That group meets on Thursday afternoons and today seemed like a good day to try. (The adhesive in the heart monitor is super itchy. A week from now it is definitely not going to be less itchy and distracting, just go!)

So blame it on the heart monitor, but it got me there.

I saw a long-ago familiar face, exclaimed, Oh, HI! and she welcomed me to sit down next to her.

It wasn’t till she said something about once babysitting my youngest and what was his name? that drew a complete blank from me that I finally asked her to remind me her name again?

LILLY!!! Ohmygosh yes!! She’s one of the people I’ve most missed with the ending of Stitches conferences. It’s been years. And–it’s John.

YES! That was his name! He’d come one year to push me around in a chair.

Then there was the time we were both having our scooters repaired beforehand, at the same place, turns out, going in at different times but with both of us saying what we needed it for and it apparently stuck with the guy: a conference. Of knitters. In the thousands. Who knew.

The thing is that when I came in to pick up mine he was dumbfounded. Was I alright? I had lost so much weight. So quickly. Surely there was something I wasn’t saying, but he wanted to know, and said it again, trying hard to be supportive, was I okay.

(what on earth is he on about)

He said something else and I went, Ohhh. You’re thinking of my friend Lilly not me. Huh. Well she does kind of look like my big sister. (And I am definitely not one to complain about people getting faces mixed up.)

Speaking of which, one woman across the table asked if I could pull the mask down for a moment. I did. She studied my face, and asked, Did you ever go to a little yarn store on such-and-such street in Santa Clara years ago called…

I did!

She’d been sure of it. Yes!

That had to have been a good twenty-five, thirty years earlier. Wow, you’re good. (Somehow I remember that LYSO as being younger… When did we age.)

A great time was had by all, the moose-yarn-finder was thanked, showing off happened all around, a ball of Rios was bought “to pay for my afternoon’s entertainment” and wound up for me, and at last I headed out to try to beat at least some of the rush hour traffic home.

Lilly had reached for her cane first–and spent a quick second staring wondering what on earth–as I laughed that wait, she’d grabbed mine. Our canes even matched. Wood, hand carved.

As she had said several times by then, Great minds!

So much better of a day! And then it got better yet.

In the afternoon I noticed the sign was gone.

In the evening a car went past the window–and we’re almost at the end of the street.

So I did what anyone would do, right? I finished up my conversation with my husband and went outside to pull the recycling and trash bins back in from the curb for the day.

That didn’t do it.

I wasn’t going to knock on the door and interrupt them on their very first day, but I thought creating possibilities not a bad thing.

I came inside, grabbed a pitcher, and walked back out to water the little columnar apple tree out front by hand, a gallon at a time. All those strange 100F+ days this past week, it could use a little extra.

I had just poured the fifth gallon when she came out of the house to get something out of her car.

And that is how I got to exclaim, Welcome to the neighborhood! while introducing myself to the new neighbor.

When we moved in we were young parents; our last child was born a year later, and the couple living in that house had kids in college and made our little ones their adopted grandchildren.

And now there will be a baby in that house, once they do a little work and move in for good next month. I can’t wait to pay it forward and get to see their little one grow up.

Somewhere out there, though, you know there’s a skunk (I once saw one on our welcome mat through the window thankfully just before we were about to open the front door) that heard their dog in garden territory it might well by now consider its own and it was probably thinking, Oh honey I can give you something to bark about.

So many future stories for that house to tell!

Two wonderful speakers at church today. The second was a man who started off by saying that my husband and I lived in the ward he grew up in in New Hampshire when he was a teenager, and so, he joked, “They have signed a nondisclosure agreement.” Brought down the house.

The first was my Richard.

With a very simple message, quoting from scripture about how dissension and anger are not of G_d: that we can disagree, but it must be with civility. That if we give in to rancor we are failing ourselves and those we’re talking to and G_d himself, who loves us without reservation and to whom we so much owe love by loving His children.

Nobody ever changed their minds by being argued with, he said. Only love changes people for the better.

It was the shortest talk I’ve ever heard him give.

It was all that needed to be said.

I drove four hours to go two miles to see an old friend today and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Kelly’s kids and mine grew up together, or most of the way before she moved away. It’s been way too long.

Today also happened to be one of the very rare times when my husband had to go into the office, one of those, weren’t we going to buy a second car one of these days? days.

I can affirm that morning and evening rush hour across the Bay Area say the economy’s doing great!

As I was coming home, there were three people walking by taking in the feel of the area, a couple and, lagging behind a little, an older gentleman, whom I had to wait for before I could pull into my driveway–just as the woman was about to get into their car across the street.

I got out of my car. She closed the door on hers after seeing me looking her way and we all four converged eagerly on the sidewalk to make introductions.

They are putting an offer on the house next door tomorrow. I had the same reaction to getting to meet them that she’d clearly had to getting to meet one of the neighbors before doing so: YES!!!

I asked, Does it still have the koi?

A quizzical, Well, it has a pond, I didn’t see any koi…

Me: I used to feed Alma’s koi when they went out of town, and they forgot to tell me it was on a timer. Went over a bit late one day and got zapped hard with water by their raccoon defense set-up.

They laughed. We talked gardens briefly.

And I thought, that full bath Alma and Jim added onto one bedroom for a caretaker’s use would be great for their family’s grandpa to have his privacy.

I came away so hoping they get that house. But there have been so many people coming to see it in person since Saturday that, well, whoever gets to have these good people as their neighbors will be very fortunate. I just selfishly hope it’s us.

A talk in church today:

He grew up in the more rural outskirts of DC, not all that far from where we did. His parents grew up very poor, the children of immigrants, one grandfather a refugee Ukrainian Jew.

His family had bought a small wheat farm in Maryland with the intent of as much self-sufficiency as they could manage in order to supplement their paychecks.

But it needed a new well, so his father took a branch from, he thinks it was a peach tree, and used it for divination.

Nathaniel hastened to add that divination has been debunked, there’s no science in it, it’s an old folk tale, he made sure we knew he knew that. But that’s what his father could afford to go on so that’s what he did.

Seems the peach seemed to tell him there was more water where everything was greener. Worked for him. So he got some help and dug himself a well and when there was a drought it kept right on going.

On finding out his neighbors’ wells had gone dry, he shared his water with the farmers around him–because when you’re in a position to be who and what someone else needs, that is a gift from Above.

And then Nathaniel read the scripture that whoso comes to God to take part in His love, “It shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Love thy neighbors.

Help them water their much larger fields. Because that’s the one thing they most needed that they couldn’t do for themselves right then, and his family with their very small farm could do something about it.

The children and their children have never forgotten the lesson.

They left for their 7:00 a.m. flight and we woke up to a house that felt far too quiet.

Walked in the laundry room and eyed the distilled water bottle next to the iron: Wait. That one was new, right? I hadn’t opened it yet. Why then…?

…!!!

And so life with its wry sense of humor handed me back one of those blankets nice and wet again along with just a few other things in reach of that water. No mildew yet, not this time. After all, I needed that extra laundry to distract me from missing them so much, right?

Our guests were back here in time for dinner. They’re leaving around 5 a.m. for their cross-country flight home and I will miss them so much.

Heading out, the burning question is, will those Reine Claude Green Gage plums from Andy’s grow in Maine?

I told her Trees of Antiquity not only sells them but considers that variety the best tasting stone fruit they have. They’d be a good one to ask–and I reminded her that our Sam grew a Meyer lemon in Vermont because she wanted to enough. Go for it.

Her glasses are bright pink with sparkles and they fit her gregariousness perfectly. You would want to be her patient. She’s a nurse.

The lace cowls: I had handspun lime-ish green silk with sparkles. I had a solid vivid red silk from a tubular yarn. I had handpainted merino in a heathery bright turquoise, the yarn bought from Serendipidye at Kings Mountain Art Fair last year.

I lined them up flat in a ziplock and pulled it out of my purse today and asked her to pick one.

She loved them all, she assured me, but that red! Definitely the red.

I quietly remembered knitting it a few months ago thinking, someone out there is going to love this color so much and I have to knit it right now and not put off weaving in the ends. It has to be ready for them.

I had not at that point actually met her yet.

Today it was the most perfect thing.

So is she.

My friend who took me to Kings Mountain? I took her to Andy’s Orchard today. It was only fair.

Meantime, how is it that never in my life did anyone tell me that young zebras are brown with black stripes? This picture a few days ago made me do a double take and eventually sent me looking for more.

There’s an extinct type called a quagga that, after sequencing its DNA from a museum specimen and finding out how closely related it was to a particular subgroup, researchers are trying to bring back through breeding and luck. They’ve got a small herd going that looks pretty close.

The stripes cool the animal against the heat. Quaggas were the southernmost type, living in cooler temps. They protect against biting flies. There were fewer of those flies there. And thus of stripes.

People were still talking in the 1800s about trying to domesticate that most gentle of zebras when they found out they couldn’t. They wouldn’t breed in zoos. They’d been hunted by colonizers. Animals that are less afraid are easier to catch.

There weren’t any left.

And now, or close to it at least, there are beginning to be some again.

On a side note, I kept trying to figure out why the name made me think of clams. The answer is, there’s a Ukrainian quagga mussel whose fading stripes are such that it was actually named after that zebra.

How on earth did I ever hear of a type of mussel in a river in Ukraine. Oh. That’s the invasive one they’re fighting in the Great Lakes.

Rabbit hole, I tell you. But fun to learn a little bit more about the world.

So much laughing. Such a good time.

It was the daughter of my high school best friend and the daughter’s husband, doing a long driving trip of a lifetime to see sights never seen before, with our house as a crash landing spot mid-California.

Amy and I each took a turn at generational double taking: she said they were going next to see her aunt, her father’s sister.

I started to say, I didn’t know he had a sister–and stopped and realized I meant her mother’s father, and of course she meant her dad and he did and silly me.

Just before they left this morning, I told her she reminded me of her grandmother: she was a sweetheart.

There was this flicker of confusion and she was trying to figure out what I meant. The only grandmother she ever knew was a step; her grandfather had been widowed around the time she’d been born and had remarried to someone who’d never had children, to whom Amy had been her only grandchild.

Your mom’s mom, I said gently. The one you never knew. I did.

She took a deep breath inhaling the essence of that thought and held me in a long, long hug.

I know what it’s like to grow up missing a grandfather lost to an early death. I know that wondering and I feel that strong wistfulness.

At long last, at least for her, I knew I could do something about it. The connection is real.

I sent them off with Andy’s peaches to share with her aunt and they will be back here Sunday before turning in the rental and flying home across the country. I cannot wait to see them again.

This is a long shot, I wrote to the church’s chat list, but my check engine light… If anyone happens to want to go to the Kings Mountain Art Fair on Monday…

And that is how I ended up spending the afternoon catching up with an old friend so that I could catch up with more old friends. Sometimes people just need to know what they can do that would help. She found a wedding present for her son at a neighboring booth; I found the time I had hoped for of visiting with Mel and his son Korey.

I bought some of their gorgeous work and surprised them with soft Mecha hats. Korey was amazed at how well his was going to go with his favorite sweatshirt.

As I was leaving he picked up this beautiful little bowl and said, looking me in the eyes, I made this. He wrapped it quickly in paper and added it to the bag on my arm, knowing how much I would treasure the gift.

I now have something much prettier than that old plastic case to put my hearing aids in at night.

And all of them got peaches from Andy’s, because of course.

Sabrina always, always addresses the congregation starting with an enthusiastic, Aloha!

Booger, wrote the closed caption.

And this is why I try not to randomly laugh in church at the wrong moments.

I had peaches and plans. I was going to Kings Mountain Art Fair, the one time all year I get to see my old friends. Mel had messaged me that Kris hadn’t been well enough to make the trip but their son had and they were hoping and looking forward to seeing me.

I was almost to the freeway when I saw it and pulled off the road and called Richard.

Who said the obvious: do not drive the car with the check engine light on except to come home till we can get it looked at. Yeah they just looked at it last week. Still.

(Did the mice come back to the engine compartment and do more damage. Sounds like a definite maybe.)

I thought, I’ll stop by Trader Joe’s…no don’t. Tomorrow we’ll… no you won’t. Monday we can… No you can’t. All afternoon I kept reminding myself that things were abruptly different and we weren’t going anywhere. Not unless we can rent a car on a holiday. We might try.

I moped a little while and then thought, if I can’t go then I’m at least going to get the house a little more ready for guests so I can feel good about that.

We both did. It felt good. And yeah, there’s yet another blanket from the soakstorm being washed as I type.

Great to be over the 10-day bug and the fall and mobile again.

We were going through serious peach withdrawal: it’s the last few days of August, the season is short, we knew they’d all be gone soon.

One of Andy’s employees was new (to me, at least) this year and started off seeming down. I made a point of being a friendly face. And you know what comes next. Maybe.

Only, the last two times I went in I didn’t see her and wondered if she still worked there.

Today answered that question nicely. She got two flats from the back for me, one Cal Red, one Angelus.

I waited till I was rung up and then pulled two soft Malabrigo hats out of my purse and asked her to pick a color.

Okay, this was a first for me: she laughed–I’d never heard her laugh before, she hedged on accepting one, and finally explained, I have so many hats. My mom’s a knitter!

My turn to laugh: I’m not going to compete with your mom!

I totally made her day, she totally made mine, the hats came home with me but the love they convey was completely present.

I almost typed ‘his’ all those times.

I bet she still gets that a lot.

From the late Gracie Larsen, then head of the Lacey Knitters guild, founder of the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale, friend and mentor whom I simply lucked into as a member of my local knitting group.

And instigator of my lace shawls book. When I didn’t believe in it she sure did and pushed me forward. After Martingale published it, at the next Stitches West Gracie surprised me with this exquisitely fine lace leaf in a sandwich bag with a tag offering congratulations in tiny writing. So that I would have a piece of her to remember her by forever.

And oh I do.

People moved away, the group fizzled to nothing, and it was a treat to see her like clockwork at Stitches every year manning her guild’s booth where anyone who wanted to learn any kind of lace was offered guidance on the spot. Tatting, knit, crochet, you name it.

I had almost forgotten this leaf. It had been so carefully tucked away.