I really knew I needed to be seen when I was surprised to see the ileostomy bag. Forgot about that.

Richard drove.

The doctor: Nauseous?

Yes.

Did you eat anything today? What?

A slice of Kringle, a little leftover chicken (I know, the day after Thanksgiving!) and…and… (struggling) …a persimmon.

I was definitely loopy. She had more questions.

Okay, touch my finger, then your nose, then my (moved) finger.

(Wait, my nose is over where?) Right side passed, left side, out to lunch.

Okay, said the doctor, let me see if there are enough people on today down in CT, otherwise you’ll have to go to the ER. Then come right back up here.

A thank you thank you thank you to the people who worked in that department today. They were able to get me in in five minutes. No bleeding but definitely a concussion. My balance is worse than usual and I was told to let my brain rest and heal before doing anything that might risk a second concussion in a short time, especially given my history. Listen to my body: if it doesn’t want to do it don’t do it or it will take far longer to heal.

I had to miss seeing Mel and Kris at a show and that was really hard, but there was just no way. Phyllis had to go off without me.

Feet up. Rest. Knit. Something simple for now.

You’re going to need a second strand these next few nights, said he over Monday’s dinner.

I had gotten home 9:45 Friday night, the tree was uncovered till then, and some of the upper leaves crisped a bit.  If I’d known things were going to take that long I’d have done it before I left, but too late now. And now we had the coldest weather of the year coming–he was right, and so I wound a second strand around the mango leaves, watched them light up as I plugged them in and wondered how long my supply of bulbs was going to last. I’d already had about eight burn out last year.

Some friends called this afternoon: could they drop by with some Christmas lights? The warm, inefficient, not made anymore kind. For my tree–did it need it?

Yes please!

They showed up with buckets and boxes and more boxes on top of that, taking three trips to carry them all in, with them happy to find a good use for them and me happy to have them. Some hadn’t even been opened. Yay!

And so we chatted a bit. They asked about the birdfeeder and I mentioned the resident hawk.

Who put on a show right on cue, flying overhead. Twice. But the best part was how excited they were that they got to see it.

It’s cold out there.

She mentioned she hopes she gets to taste one of those mangoes someday. Absolutely.

It’s quite warm tonight under those frost covers.

Got a chance to talk for just a few moments to someone new at church. I can’t imagine being an American living in Russia, but she did for most of the last decade and told me just a bit about it before we were interrupted. There are so many stories waiting for when we have more time. When we make the time.

Ever since, I’ve been keenly wanting to ask not just her but everybody, just everybody, all day, what their own stories are. How they got to be where they are now, what they’ve learned from, some one thing they’ve gone through that they think might help someone else to know about, something that mattered to them.

Anyone want to share anything, please, I want to hear.

A bunch of us carpooled to a church thing in Oakland this morning, the owner of the biggest car driving a half dozen of us and then bringing us back to where we’d all parked at the local ward.

As the other cars drove off, I had this pang of, Don’t leave till we’re sure we can, too!

Which didn’t make sense until we went to turn on the Prius.

Well crud.

Owner’s manual, do we tow to the dealer, hmm. AAA time.

I texted the couple we’d just been with who lived the closest; the husband dropped by and used his keys to open the church so we could use the bathroom while we waited.

I didn’t say it was three o’clock and I hadn’t had breakfast yet. I’d tried, but it takes a few hours for my system to make friends with food and this had been one of those mornings and I’d thought, eh, we’ll be home by 1:00, 1:30, that’ll be fine.

Try 3:30. Michelle, who was in San Jose when she found out, brought us Luna bars and kept us company just before the tow truck finally showed.

The twelve-volt battery, not the hybrid battery thank goodness, had to be replaced and he did that for us.

The whole thing was a hassle, in other words, but not a big deal and definitely a first-world problem. We could have asked the friend with the key for anything and he’d have done it. For that matter, it was the annual Scouting for Food day and a semi was being loaded up in that same parking lot and the Scouts all wanted to come jump our car for us, but that’s not what it needed. The cheerful offers were what we needed, though; they made a difference.

Last time I was at Purlescence I asked Kaye what was new and she showed me a suri alpaca/silk blend that looked like Kidsilk Haze, only softer. Cumulus by FyberSpates. Very nice stuff, and I love a good alpaca.

I picked out a vivid turquoise blue, telling her, Someone needs this color. I don’t know who, but it’s speaking to me: someone needs this.

That skein was the cowl I knit up during my eye doctor appointment last week. I brought it to knit night tonight to show off to Kaye (while wondering if I would find out where it was meant to go).

Cari came in and I headed over next to her to chat awhile and catch up.

She saw the cowl and exclaimed over the color as I handed it to her. I didn’t tell her, but I’d actually thought of her at first sight of the yarn but had dismissed the idea because I just didn’t think it was her color and then I’d totally forgotten about it .

But oh, it was. She held it against her neck (I didn’t know she’d been looking for something that wasn’t itchy.) Her eyes closed a moment in ooh…aah.

And then she tried to give it back to me.

Nothing doing.

“Nuh UH!” as she tried again.

An impish grin from me with a pleading, “Please?”

She crowed in delight, took off her scarf, put the cowl on and kept it there. She asked me, Where did you…? and then went over to grab a bunch more skeins to match.

And I confessed to her that that time I’d given her a cowl before? I’d made her one, but I’d hedged my bets on the color and had grabbed a second from my stash at the last second and she’d picked the second one and it wasn’t particularly soft and it had bugged me that I hadn’t given her a soft one. Now at last I had.

A few minutes later, I happened to pick up a Dream In Color skein, loved the color, and put it back. “I don’t need any more yarn.”

Next thing you know she was buying it. She was already knitting a hat in that exact same yarn, she just hadn’t brought that project tonight.

Alright, that removes temptation quite nicely, thanks, thought I as they rang her up.

And you know what happened next. My purse snaps rather than zippers shut. Yes she did. “Fair’s fair!”

Tom’s mom (he was a college classmate of mine, small world) told a tale in church today that had us laughing.

She grew up in a small town on the Canadian prairie and attended I think she said it was a one-room schoolhouse–but whatever, it was small and very old-fashioned and if you were late for school you got your hands smacked with a ruler: you *will* be on time.

So one day on her way to school she and her friends got distracted and explored the new cellar being dug for a new building along the way.

Her friend’s dog landed down in there too.

Should they leave it there? Or risk being late for school? Should they tell? Should they try to get it out?

Finally, they just couldn’t bear the idea of abandoning the poor thing and they had to do something, so they tried to get it up the ladder.

All the pushing from behind in the world was not getting that dog up that ladder. The harder they pushed the more it was nuh uh, not gonna, you can’t make me.

What to do.

One of them had a precious roll of lifesaver candies. They considered. They pulled out the yucky pineapple ones that the dog was certainly welcome to and placed them on steps above its nose to entice it upwards. And it worked! The dog went up a few steps, snatched the lifesavers, and hustled back down to the bottom of the pit to crunch away happily.

After doing everything they could think of they gave up and climbed the ladder themselves and tried to make up for lost time getting on their way, when running up behind them came that dog. It had been capable all along of getting out of its predicament, it had just felt all along that being with them was the important thing. Mud walls, dirt floors? Those were a problem?

I confess that as her story went on I had a stifled and hopefully not too goofy grin: she’d gotten me quietly remembering the time years ago when she’d so much wanted me in her theater production, so sure I would jump at the chance, so sure she could make it happen for me and her surprise when I, with all the gentleness I could say it with, told her in complete seriousness that I would rather have a root canal than be up on that stage. Any stage. Not my thing. Babysitting for those who were, that, I’d be happy to do, I offered. (And I did and it was her one-year-old grandson.)

I felt for that dog. And it got out of there with everybody happy just like I did.

It was the annual dessert auction fund raiser for the Scouts.

You know Dave is really good at this when I’m not the only laughing and going, wait, what did he say? as he rattles off in hyperspeak.

He noted that it was our first such night without Shirley and that she had always bid on every dessert, at least something, making everyone’s effort appreciated; and here we had (he presented it) someone had baked one of her favorite recipes in her memory and honor tonight.

Meantime, Donna was livestreaming the proceedings for another elderly member of our ward who in her 90’s had recently moved out of state to be with her children. She hadn’t wanted to miss out. Well, hey, they could do something about that, even if we couldn’t bring her dessert.

Richard and I had both been cornered by various people as we’d come in: You DID bring your chocolate torte, right?

Two! (Recipe here.)

They were waiting, Dave knew it, and he saved them to almost last.

T. had told me in no uncertain terms that one of those was going to be his, but his hand faltered and dropped at $150.

Meantime, others were making plans, and two families in cahoots nailed the second one. One of them proudly presented to me afterwards their toddler’s face completely smeared in ganache–she’d had a good time with her slice. (I didn’t think fast enough to go, Hey, Donna, Nettie would love this!)

$295 for the two of them. The mind boggles and it makes no sense to me, although, fundraiser, okay. And I should stop bragging. I know.  Still, a new record, that’s for sure.

Rain, blessed rain this morning, 1.57″ at our house and over twice the forecast, an inch officially in the area overall.

Then at nine pm we realized that the lights weren’t coming on on the mango tree and it turned out the outside GFI circuit must have been rained on. Reset. We’re going to have to watch that this winter.

But even without the lights, damp soil helps hold in the warmer temperature of the day far better than dry and that and the frost cover (carefully anchored with rocks at the ground, no gaps) were helping hold in the heat even when none was being added: by ten degrees’ difference from the outside air.

Meantime, I spent an hour and a half–just like I did on Saturday–knitting, ripping, knitting, ripping, doing the math, proving it by making those stitches–and ripping again. Dang. I inwardly warned said project that it was in danger of being Dorothy Parkered.

I guess I scared it. At long long last I saw the rookie error in my math (and I’d had the number right the fourth time, too, darnit, even if I’d had the why wrong) and I got it right. The pattern worked.

May I stop here and give a shout-out to Karida Collins at the Neighborhood Fiber Co. I was using her Penthouse silk, which is a 2-ply spun not too tightly; it’s very soft. There’s always a tradeoff between softness and durability: adding twist makes a stronger yarn but it also adds friction that translates to a rougher hand. I way overspun a bit of rabbit fluff once and made it feel like rough burlap just to prove it could be done.

And yet this luscious yarn totally held up to being ripped out I know six and I think seven times, six fairly long rows’ worth, again and again and again and throw in several more agains and it still looks good enough to photograph for publication.

It was so compelling to me to knit it exactly right. This one’s for the whole world. Karina’s gorgeous handiwork deserves that.

A four-year-old and her two-year-old brother: one single doorbell ring tonight. But oh so cute. Clearly coached to take just one, and they did, but then subversive me I told them to have some more and that little boy’s hand moved faster in response than his daddy could possibly say anything to. And then hey, you can’t penalize the older one for obeying the rules, so, to her, (remembering my late grandmother and her candy bowl), “Have some more.”

I’ve probably told this one before, but when our own were little, there was one Halloween where they all woke up with a stomach bug and that was that.

Our neighbor, then not yet a grandmother but hoping, had, it turned out, gone out and bought a gift for each of our kids: a delightful gingerbread-house-looking paper box with See’s chocolates and candies inside. We had the only small children on the block and she’d gone all out for them.

And then they didn’t come and it got later and they didn’t come and they still didn’t come. She’d so been looking forward to them ringing her doorbell and all of us being so surprised.

Finally, she walked over and rang *our* doorbell. And immediately on hearing the news cried, Oh, poor kids–to be sick on Halloween of all days! She was very sorry they couldn’t eat any of this yet, sorry they hadn’t gotten their chance to dress up silly.

But now after a bad day they had something to look forward to.

It hadn’t gone the way she’d planned, but the way it worked out, her generosity and empathy would never be forgotten.

(Found a second flamingo!)

I hadn’t made a chocolate hazelnut torte in awhile, and I forgot to add the layer of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan before greasing it. Then after the minimal allotted baking time, I kept doing the toothpick test to past the maximum minutes and finally just pulled it out–a little overdone. I should have trusted my nose when it proclaimed perfection.

And without that parchment paper, the cake stuck to the pan despite my best efforts to gradually ease it away from there. Lopsided, and I mean truly lopsided, but including dishwasher time it would have taken me five hours to make another one.

I confessed that I’d considered scraping the pan part off and mushing the thing back together and pretending it hadn’t fallen apart, but, um, that’s harder to do when you’ve been munching on the strays. (And leaving some for Richard. Sometimes with all that heavenly smell in the kitchen all you need is just a taste.)

So. Off to deliver it to a mom with a new baby because we could all use such a thing at such a time. Delivered in an Andy’s Orchard box with a paper bag over the top to camouflage it out of her toddler’s sight, deflecting the little one with persimmons bought yesterday at said orchard.

Yay! Persimmons!

She was amazingly well behaved: I went through my purse and found a pink flamingo finger puppet that matched her dress and offered it to her. I mentioned that there’d been a green snake, too, but nah, I didn’t think so.

She was curious and wanted to see the snake.

It had gone to some far corner and I pulled finger puppet after finger puppet to the top of my bag looking for it, and finally, there it was.

She peeked in and admired them all as I held the bag open so she could–but never once did she ask for any of them or try to reach for them. Looking was all she wanted and she had already fallen in love with her flamingo and it was enough, and I thought, that is one well-parented, well-loved little girl.

I told her mom I have to do this again so she can see what that (don’t say the word torte out loud now that the kid is awake from her nap) was really supposed to have been like.

Trying to write a blog post after getting home late from Convocation at Stanford and then chocolate afterwards with friends…

While here’s my husband sitting down at the computer next to me and exclaiming over a new batch of grandkid pictures that came in while we were out. Sorry, this post is hosed, I gotta go look over his shoulder with him.

But I gotta say, four year olds playing soccer? Swarmball. Totally swarmball. And totally adorable.

I have Googled, I have read a ton, I have learned that Africanized honeybees were found in Lafayette, the other side of the San Francisco Bay from here, for the first time just last month. Oh joy.

But I still didn’t find anything explaining this, and the beekeeper friend who happened to drop by tonight hadn’t ever heard of such a thing either. So here goes.

The last few days I’ve found dead honeybees outside my door to the patio, eight or ten or so. When most of them disappeared I figured the Bewick’s wrens had hit the jackpot–I’ve seen them eat spiders.

This afternoon I saw a single honeybee fly in to where the others had died and, curious, I stopped what I was doing and walked over to my side of the glass to watch.

It looked like it was attacking another honeybee! I missed the first part so I don’t know when the other got there but the aggressive one was not letting it up, it clearly seemed to be trying to subdue it till finally the other one seemed to lie still, but the aggressive one was still at it. Finally–and this is what is really weird–it *picked it up and flew off with it*! I saw its feet holding onto the other’s dangling abdomen, and if he left any parts behind I missed it.

Now, a ready queen will fly up in the air once to a waiting congregation of drones prepared to mate with her for her to collect a lifetime supply of sperm, but this was on the ground and a one-on-one fight.

Reading, it seems the flight patterns of Africanized bees are more like yellow jackets than European honeybees, jerky and faster, not the slow, gentle whistling-a-tune stroll of our familiar honeybee. Yup. But this was no yellow jacket.

I may be wrong (and please tell me if I am!), but I think I just saw my first Africanized one. Right at my back door.

He was gobsmacked.

A week ago, as a middle-aged widower himself, he grieved with me at the sudden passing of my friend Robin the day before. He had never met her, but deep and personal loss, that he knew even better than I.

Today I told him I had had this machine-washable wool and I’d wondered…and then, as I’ve said here, it had just felt like she’d settled my question re a plain watch cap vs something cabled, how to know what he might prefer: that instant feeling of her laughing and the words, “You have the skills, what do you think they’re for?!” How I’d laughed, too.

How it had come to be like this, then. And I thought, Robin’s still blessing people.

I thanked him again for helping us out Friday a week ago and explained that it was a honeycomb pattern for the bees that make all of life better–for, well, everything and everyone. Truly, nothing else would do.

The man is a master gardener. He looked at the hat and at me and held it close to him and exclaimed, “I will treasure it for the rest of my life!”

A side note for the non-knitters: when you’re making most cabled patterns, you cross the cables while working from the right side, not the purl side. This limits your crossings to every second, fourth, six, eighth etc row.

I had someone for whom I’d been thinking a hat would be just the thing, so two days ago I was debating with myself: a plain watch cap? After all, ribbing is very stretchy and it would be guaranteed to fit without my having to worry about it.

Or do something fancier, like, cabled? I was well aware that cabling requires a third more both stitches and yarn and at least that much more time: cabling is a bit slow and the work condenses in on itself so you have to have more of it to create a wide enough fabric. Which also makes for a warmer hat–more wool in the same space and with some of it doubled over itself.

But most men like their clothing pretty plain.

At the question it felt as if Robin were immediately there and laughing, telling me, Fancier! C’mon, you have the skills, what do you think they’re for?!

Still makes me grin to think about it. Both because the thought made her feel so close by and because it somehow evaporated any doubt on my part as to whether or not the thing would be appreciated or whether doing it this way would be worth the extra effort.

Now the thing about knitting a hat is that, using two open-circle pairs of needles to work at the venn diagram where they intersect, you always have a right side row facing you, you’re not going back and forth but rather you’re simply going round and round and round. There’s no having to wait for that sixth row to start the cabling: you can do it on the fifth one and break all the rules.

And I’m doing honeycomb stitch.

Real honeycombs have five sides. Five rows. Fives rule.

Somehow that just delights me beyond all reason. And the fit is coming out right, too.

An elderly friend needed a ride today and so I got to spend some time with Gail.

We talked gardening and trees a bit and she laughed as she remembered what her father had planted when she was a kid: a bitter almond tree and a sweet almond tree. She told me, The squirrels never touched the sweet almonds. Because of the bitter!

If they only knew, right?