I almost missed it. There was the most stunning sunset going on, deep pink and blue streaks as far as the eye could see from right to left and up to down. I walked out the front door to see if it reached clear to the east as well.

Which it did. But more importantly, an older neighbor was out front as well and I went over to say hi; I don’t get to as often as I’d like.

Turns out it was a day when things were going a little rough for her medically, and though she’s not one to complain, today she just needed a listening ear. But first she told me, It IS a beautiful sunset! And that set the tone.

Her triplet grandchildren are in college already?! How on earth did THAT happen?

She laughed: I know, right? Then she told me the suddenness of the empty nest was an adjustment for her daughter-in-law. “She’s a *good* mother.” A few minutes later she said it again, wanting me to know just how much she thought the world of the woman her son had married.

I’d caught her between her car and her front door, which when she went through a few minutes later, she no longer felt so alone.

And all because Someone had nudged me: Hey. You. Look at this sky I made–no, no, go, Look.

(Photo from Richard’s phone, since mine’s still on strike. It embiggens.)

I started to cast on with something else, but a ball from stash that I had not seriously considered got louder and more insistent with each stitch till I ripped the other off the needles and started again with this one. Why yes, my yarn is the boss of me.

Each row of Malabrigo Rios in the beautifully-named Stonechat was like a slow drive through an old redwood forest,  glimpses of light peaking through the quiet shades of brown.

And then there are the near-black stitches popping up here and there.

Redwoods can be hit by lightning and catch fire, as any tree might–but unless it gets to the canopy, the tree itself, I was told by a park ranger when I was a teen, gradually puts that fire out, even if it smolders for months. The flames simply don’t take them down.

The Stonechat was right. It was definitely the right yarn.

Note to self: size 6US needles in the body and 84 stitches. Kept to beanie length because it’s to cover the surgery scar on Jerry’s head rather than purely for warmth, given where he lives.

She loves orange, she told me last June. And blues. I didn’t have much orange in my stash–but I had this old ball in Lisa Souza’s Joseph’s Coat colorway.

I found the pictures. They were taken at night and by the bright light of day and the cowl was mostly somewhere in between, and maybe some of you remember it. I sure do. It came out so unexpected.

It started off with all the colors kind of melting together into an almost-purple, but then when I added a few stitches to widen it it changed the whole thing abruptly: individual colors stood out on their own and became like the brightest sunrise against the darkest clouds. I expected them to go back to how they’d been after I added a few more but they simply formed a new pattern altogether yet that continued off the second one.

No matter its quirkiness or even faults, of the three, this was the one she wanted to take away as a memento of the years they lived here.

I heard the news.

She’s a young mom.

Whose husband is now fighting a brain tumor.

That which they had gauged their plans by was suddenly thrown to the winds and what they are going through now is radically different from anything they’d wanted or expected. And yet there he is in his hospital picture, smiling, same as always.

In a hospital cap.

He needs a soft handknit one, stat. Even in San Diego.

If you feel inclined to say a pray or to Think Good Thoughts in Jerry’s direction and his family’s, it would be lovely. The G_d that I believe in honors either as love: and love is what we are sent here to learn and do.

May that great Love sustain them through all that lies ahead.

A story I got to hear my dad tell last week.

When Reed Smoot arrived in DC from the then-new state of Utah, his fellow Senators challenged him and refused to seat or have anything to do with him. And not only was he ostracized for being a Mormon, his wife was shunned, too, and she found herself very, very lonely in their new town.

Note that my grandmother’s book tells of how, in the early 1950’s when she was the new Senator’s wife from that state, her husband being a freshman, she was expected to put on white gloves, a hat, and go from home to home in order of seniority of each of the other Senatorial wives bringing her calling card. One was to comply with longstanding tradition. My Western-raised grandmother found it all very strangely Victorian.

The Smoots arrived nearly fifty years earlier. I imagine there were no such getting-to-know-yous–Mrs. Smoot’s presence was not wanted.

My parents as newlyweds attended the same ward (Mormon congregation) in DC as the Smoots’ son.

And this is what he told Dad:

The President was throwing a party at the White House, and when the President threw a party, the protocol was that no one was to leave before he did.

He knew full well what was going on.

(I should let Dad tell this, and correct me if I got any details wrong, Dad.)

When the time was fully spent, Teddy Roosevelt announced that it was time for him to head upstairs to bed. He then turned to her and her alone and pronounced, “Good night, Mrs. Smoot!” Then away from the crowd and was gone.

And that act of acknowledgement and kindness changed everything for her.

Awhile back, maybe two years? Colourmart had a dk 50/50 merino/silk in a cheerful chestnut brown, almost sold out, that I knew was exactly my friend Phyl’s color. So I hinted, and at the time she said she wasn’t into cowls.

Fair enough. But I bought a cone anyway while I still could because the shade was so perfectly her.

A week ago, I pulled it out of the stash and wondered out loud in her presence if that reluctance still held.

“Oh, that’s my color!” And yes, yes she would quite like a cowl out of that, thank you!

Alright then!

So yesterday, I showed her the project at the halfway mark: did she want me to continue going straight, or fan out?

“Is yours straight?” (Yes it was.) “Fan out.”

Okay, so I had to design how I would do that in that lace pattern…

…And it is finished and drying and I learned how much I like how that just came out and I intend to do that again–if nothing else, so that I can get it written down as I go, so that I can then test knit it from that written-out, etc etc.

The plain no-brain hat that I started after dinner, meantime, is well on its way.

I didn’t take this one to church last week. I couldn’t tell you why not, other than the passing thought of maybe I’d keep it for myself. The way the yarn was spun makes it look a little bit nubbly but it is marvelously soft and I love the color.

Yeah, I didn’t believe I would either–because I knew there was enough yarn left to at least make a smaller version. But still, that merino/silk stayed home.

Not today. Today it definitely insisted it was coming with me. I thought I was ready to head out the door to church but it called me back somehow. Okay. I walked halfway across the house and retrieved it just in time.

It was not picked out by the friend who went for the beige cashmere. (Whom I said “Happy Birthday!” to, having no idea it really had been her birthday two weeks ago.) It was passed over by the friend who picked the silver Classic Elite Chalet baby alpaca that I finished yesterday. (Yay for overnight drying.)

And then, at the last meeting, I saw Candice and what she was wearing and was suddenly pretty sure of myself. But first things first: ask, because you never know, and people should always have a choice and not just have to be polite at you. “Is this a good shade of blue?”

She exclaimed as I pulled it out, “That is the PERFECT shade of blue! Ohmygosh, is this for me?!”

Note that she is the mother of three small children. Note that this week, her husband’s been out of town and she’s been coping with the kids missing him as much as she has. (I saw one being weepy and remembered those days.) Note that this week is the week, it turned out, that she broke her wrist, while trying to hold everybody together in his absence.

I’d had no idea.

She didn’t need that cowl last week. She needed that cowl this week. It’s not just about the color.

I sent a friend a note today after I ran the ends in: did he want a “Created with pride by…” tag in his? Or did he want to be able to wear it this way as well as the other way?

The advantage to the tag is its making the hat traceable and returnable should he lose it–a friend of mine got a baby sweater back that way.

(Like he would ever lose it, I figure.)

See? That’s how you justify procrastinating doing that last obnoxious little task of trying to stab and pull yarn through that small tight strip of fabric–you delegate the decision and then ignore your phone while you blog.

Worked for me.

I somehow inexplicably, completely and utterly forgot that you’re supposed to spray the dormant peach trees with copper to head off peach leaf curl disease. Which three of my trees got hit with hard last year with all the rain we had, even though I did spray then. The disease can only take hold at cold temperatures on wet, new, growing leaves, but it can kill a tree and it destroyed all the fruit on those three.

A friend who’s a master gardener happened to say something on the subject, with the end result that I hired him to come do it for me. I knew that if nothing else, he would do it right and after last year I was certainly not sure I had.

It’s been warm during the day the last few days and turns out those same early peaches were starting to come to life again. They hadn’t broken bud yet though, so the job could still be done. We just made it.

And only because he didn’t have quite enough copper to finish his own job and wondered out loud if anyone had a bit to spare, to save him the hassle of buying and storing a whole big thing of the stuff for a year when he only needed a few spoonfuls’ worth.

I responded with, Sure, I do–  and then–  !!!

And now it’s done.

She chose the black one.

Someone else chose the red one (quite blown away, having zero expectation that I would knit for her. Seems my cover is not entirely blown around there–I can still surprise people.)

And I took the beige home for now so that the next person would be able to choose from a selection of more than one, too.

Simple patterns, potato-chip knitting, but in yarns you want to reach out and touch. Here, let me finish this hat for Lee and I’ll start the next one.

(Hawk update: Richard saw it swooping in front of the toyon tree.)

Finished (except for running in the ends.) And now the one after this is about 8″ along; it’s about the color of the chair this one’s sitting on.

After several days of growling at myself that I *knew* I had some beige cashmere from that mill-end of the mill-ends sale because I used part of it for Lanae’s, this afternoon I finally found it and cast on immediately. Red, black, or beige–Eli’s mom will get to choose which one came out the most to her liking. (I found it I found it!)

I mean, it’s not like it’s hard to find other people who want one of those.

I really should make a beige one first anyway, because I remember beige was on her short list. But I don’t have a beige yarn on hand that I’m happy enough with (especially given what it has to compete with) and I think black was her first choice but I need to ask.

To back up a bit: Saturday I picked up the second vicuna/merino cowl (the one that had a mistake in that splitty black yarn that was so hard to see) that I’d started for her, finally got the mistake fixed (frogging back would have been disastrous) and finished it off. I’d started it flying home from San Diego in bad lighting–but enough of the stalling, it was time.

I went looking for her yesterday.

She and her family weren’t there.

Just as well–I should have had both colors done and in hand first. (Even if part of me thinks, hey, 7% vicuna/93% 14-micron merino, hand-plied from cobweb.) I owe Eli’s whole family for taking such good care of my mango tree.

But on my way out the door to church, on impulse I also grabbed a cowl in a deep rose that I’d made just because I really liked the color and the yarn. Merino. Hand-dyed. And it was Stitches yarn, which you know means it’s a favorite. I hadn’t worn it, I’d actually kind of argued with myself while I was knitting it because I had other things waiting in the queue, I hadn’t even thought about it once it was done, and now all the sudden it opened the door, turned on the light, unzipped its ziplock and leaped out at me all on its own. Cowabunga!

Alright, I grinned, I take it your day has come?

There’s been a young couple these last half dozen years or so who, she reminds me very much of someone I knew growing up. Not that I needed the excuse to particularly like them both. You want lime-green shoes at church or bright orange pants and a ready smile to match, he was your man and I thought it was great.

They soon had a baby girl, and blink, suddenly she was an absolutely adorable toddler with a little brother.

I didn’t consciously notice, but come to think of it I think his shoes were black yesterday. Whatever. The young dad announced, with tears, that they were moving. His wife was visiting the folks and showing off the grandkids so she wasn’t there to say goodbye, just him; he’d flown back early to finish up the packing. He thanked us all for looking out for them, and while looking forward to their next stage, grieved losing seeing us every week; “We started our family here!”

Hey, you can’t just leave like that.

I cornered him afterwards. Had I knitted one of these for his wife yet? flipping the edge of my own cowl. She was high on my list but I was quite sure she hadn’t been checked off quite yet.

He laughed. “I bet you’ve made one of those for everyone in the ward!”

“Working on it!” and I meant it. “Does your wife like this color?” reaching into my purse. (It only occurs to me just now that I never did take its picture.)

As far as he knew. “This is beautiful!” he exclaimed, his hands feeling that soft merino, taking it all in. I told him I thought it was machine washable but I didn’t have the ball band anymore so don’t hold me to it. He tried to say something about giving it back if she already had one and I said no way. This is hers.

He was so touched. He couldn’t wait to give it to her. And I think, I really think, that in that moment it helped him ease forward into the new. Taking a bit of the old with them. They wouldn’t be forgotten.

Since I’m told Alphonso mangos take about six months to grow and ripen in June, seems to me our four-year-old tree has finally grown enough to be settled in on schedule.

I had wondered whether the beehive across the fence would take a winter break, but look at that center picture–clearly things are working.

This time it’s old enough to hold onto those beginning fruits, if we can just keep it consistently warm. We lost last year’s small crop by traveling in April and leaving it uncovered at night, but now I’ve got Eli to help and clearly he did a great job while we were away in November and December.

There are more flower clusters under those leaves.

Heavenly perfume or no, the squirrels still smell the latex in the sap and walk in a comical half-circle to go around it beyond its drip line (the line one would draw straight down from the outermost leaves), and always have.

So far.

And we are home. So much to tell. This isn’t one of Richard’s shots of Elon Musk’s Space X launch, it’s the one I took several minutes later. We were 300 miles south of where it took off and it still took up a huge chunk of the sky (this was the small part).

We said goodbye to our son John at the airport as we went our separate ways tonight. Same airline, different gates, our baggage checked in by different agents.

Arriving home, my smaller bag (thankfully mostly empty) was AWOL. He called just a few minutes ago to say that while he was waiting and waiting and waiting for his big bag (just like we had just done), lo and behold, mine, with our tag and name and airport on it, had shown up instead and he’d recognized it. Had his shown up first of course he would have been long gone.

He needs his a lot more than I needed mine. We’re holding out hope–hey, it worked for the two of us; meantime, that’s one $50 Southwest voucher for us when we retrieve ours at the airport when it gets in instead of making them deliver it.

The most surprising moment of the trip happened at church: I saw an old friend who with his family (a few years younger than ours) had moved out of our ward probably twenty years ago.

I knew that his wife had been very ill of late. I knew she had been in a coma for some time with her survival by no means certain–but I had heard nothing since and I didn’t quite know how to ask.

I asked how she was–and he, beaming, motioned, She’s right here!

Oh. My. Goodness!!!

Hale and hearty and enjoying a family reunion, just like we were. I tell you. That was one great moment.

Of many.

Three in the mail, done and done in time for every one of them to arrive in time via Priority mail, even the one going to Anchorage. My brother-in-law’s, though, I didn’t find the yarn I wanted, even at the shop I stopped in at on my way home from San Jose. Still working on working on it.

But hey. I got asked last week by various people who knew nothing of each other’s requests to do five knitting projects that I wasn’t expecting, hopefully before Christmas they wished out loud, and two of those are already on their way there and a third has been cast on. I’m pretty happy about that.

I baked Phyl and Lee a chocolate torte yesterday and didn’t manage to finish glazing it with the ganache until just after they’d shown up at our doorstep last night–with a surprise gift from Prolific Oven with “Happy Birthday Alison” on it. What comes around…

We stopped by and visited Betty today, and if she didn’t remember who I was this time she sure didn’t let on. Fifteen or twenty minutes was enough, she was starting to fade, but she wished me a happy birthday and I wished her one, too, a few days before her 93d. Richard asked her her favorite Christmas carol and then sang it, with me coming in and out (mostly out) depending on whether I could remember the next lines or not–it wasn’t one I knew well. His was a voice of angelic intention.

Came home, started a half-load of laundry, all we dare do till that machine is repaired or replaced–and there was a gurgle in the bathtub. Did you hear that? He knew. It took me a moment longer.

It wasn’t just one bathroom, either. Don’t turn on that dishwasher.

We have to decide which plumber to call in the morning, fully aware that we were once given a $7000 estimate on ripping up the front yard for the complete sewer line do-over that has been coming for some time.

Yeah… But our daughter sent us video of the baby’s first crawling, we got to FaceTime with him yesterday and this time he knew exactly who those people on the screen talking to him were, we got to likewise see the grandkids in San Diego across the electrons and Parker, who is somehow already turning seven next week, proudly played Hark How The Bells for us (with two hands!) on the piano.

And life is pretty darn sweet.