A potluck tonight, and the speaker afterwards was an old college classmate of mine in town for his high school reunion.

He’d built a house near his folks and his kids had grown up with ours until they’d moved away for his job. It was great to see him.

So.

Tom did a trip around the world in 72 days, ending in September, joined at different times and places by adult members of his family and extended family.

I knew I’d heard of Svalbard somehow but I had to look it up afterwards: it’s between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole, and he described a warning sign saying Do Not Go Past This Point Unarmed.

Very few people live in that large area, it’s mostly tourism, mining, and research.

One resident told him, the polar bears ate a guy two years ago. And four years ago.

(So by that, we’re about due, right…) So he asked the guy, Have you ever seen a polar bear?

No! And I don’t want to!

It was noted that they do outnumber the human population there and that they, along with tigers and crocodiles, are the only apex predators who actively hunt humans, and that if you see a low-lying rock there might be one behind it hoping you walk by. They’re willing to wait. Take your time.

He and his nephews climbed an icy mountain there in a storm. Tom’s advice afterwards was, Don’t.

Turns out Svalbard is where the famous Norwegian Seed Vault is. Ah, that’s why I knew the name.

That green and blue that slipped onto the other side of the back of the bag.

Mo-hair, Michelle remembered with a laugh from one teenage recipient asking me quizzically thirty years ago. MO-hair! Tell me, he demanded, What kinda animal is a MO!?

He was in foster care and admired Richard’s and my Kaffe Fassette coats of dozens of colors and in his enthusiasm ended up with a vest of his own from the leftovers.

I saw him recently and thanked him for changing my life: his reaction to what I’d made was what got me started on seeing how important it is to knit for others.

There might still be a few other skeins in there all these years later, here, let me see.

Backing up a bit: I was thinking some of the bins in the family closet had some empty space by now that could surely be put to use, but it’s really hard to wrangle them out of there and heavy lifting was out of the question.

A certain someone was happy to dive in there for me if I would go through them. It would make it easier to get at the puzzles and games, too.

Consolidation has begun.

Five games (how did we end up with three Balderdashes? Answer: because people kept gifting it to us) and a stack of puzzles that still had the original shrink wrap on them (no missing pieces on those!) all got claimed by friends today.

Some of the yarn… Showed its age. Not by its condition–I store wool well–but by the archeological dig of my knitting history as I went through stuff.

Thirty-five years ago really soft wool yarns were hard to find.

I remember the first time I found baby alpaca. The late Robin and Russ sold it in–I think it was 25 gram skeins. (Edit: 40g.) Today I re-found some of that, all dyed by me because at that time you could have it in brown or you could have light brown but I didn’t find white anywhere till later.

Back then, too many of the really fine-fibered alpacas were being turned into shearling rugs rather than sheared, while the farmers were paid by the pound for the wool, and spikier thicker fibers weighed more for less work.

But as the hand knitting market for the good stuff grew, the quality improved. I thought my discovery was so great then, and compared to the rest of the market it was. But (picking up skein after skein today) I’d hesitate to even grade it as baby alpaca now. It’s okay, it’s just not swoon-able.

So I’m stuck with the same problem I had the last time I did a major overhaul of that space: what do I do with these? I have them because I liked them but to actually sit down and knit I’m always going to reach for something that my hands love as much as my eyes do. The really good stuff is stored in the other room.

In particular (eyeing one bag of white loopy boucle and measuring it at 1.23 lb including its ziplock) what do you do with this (it came out of the alpaca bin but I’m sure it’s wool) that just isn’t getting any more enticing over time? How does one in good conscience keep the good stuff for oneself and fob the lesser off on someone else?

And yet, at the time I bought it, I was that someone else who was delighted to find a natural fiber yarn I could afford.

Oh, and, the seven ounces of aran weight purple-blue wool/angora. Who put meh wool with angora in 2002? Or: given that the words angora and mohair were at the time used interchangeably to describe mohair goats till the trade association came down on it to stop the confusion, is there actually any rabbit in there at all? And yet, it does have that softness mixed in. Hmm.

I’m not driving yet, re the post office, and Michelle’s flying home soon. Hmm.

Michelle looked around at all those bins and exclaimed, clearly trying to undercount it to be nice, You need to not buy any more yarn! And the stuff in the other room–you have enough for, for, like, two years!

We both heard Richard guffawing quietly in the other room. Oh honey.

They had me come back today to measure the pressure in my eye and make sure all was well and for me to ask questions.

Was it normal to see, when we turned the lights off last night, a blazing half-circle of light?

The retina specialist chuckled. Yes, it was. And this and this and this: everything was as it should be. But be careful: he counseled sitting on the couch and acting like a slug. Yes, knit, definitely, no, four pounds of wool is not too heavy a project.

Michelle and I were walking to the parking garage when I suddenly stopped. Coming as we were going…

Mrs. M? I asked.

She didn’t quite stop but she didn’t quite answer.

Shirley M? I asked again. The woman who had asked me about twenty years ago, Do you remember in this neighborhood in 1952 when….  And I’d grinned, I wasn’t born yet. She had expressed annoyance at my making her feel old.

She stopped. Wait–that name I’d just said. That WAS her!

I saw that I needed to explain who I was. ‘Your old neighbor across the fence’ didn’t quite do it at first. As Michelle described the encounter later, “She was a little confused.” But she eventually caught on and was delighted. We got to meet her son, who was bringing her in just like my daughter had been bringing me in and who was clearly delighted that his mother’s outing was turning into a reunion with the old neighborhood. (He was grown and gone by the time we showed up in the late 80’s.)

I knew she’d moved into assisted living when her husband had died; email sharing of stories is different from in person, though–and clearly, things had changed since that conversation. She told me again.

They both wanted to know if I’d met the new people who’d bought their house, and it was clearly important to them. I said I’d dropped off homegrown tomatoes but so far, I’d missed them.

Which means I need to go try again, and not only that, I now have an excuse to show up to do so: Mrs. M wants me to make sure you’re properly welcomed into the neighborhood.

And all was right in her world in those moments. It was great to see.

There are no words.

My first thought when I heard the news was to my friend who had been through this before and how it must feel for her to see this again. Her cat had suddenly taken ill and instead of going to services she had taken him to the vet on emergency, where he died in her arms, while, unknown to her…

Someone in my Zoom knitting group tonight asked, with others nodding, Didn’t they have security?

The frank answer could only be, Mormons haven’t personally been put through this before.

(Well, the then-governor of Missouri ordered all of us to be shot on sight because we were threatening to outvote the slaveholders which would toss out the Missouri Compromise and end slavery hopefully peacefully, but that’s been awhile.)

I mentioned that our own ward had once been picketed by a group looking to intimidate.

But they got our start time wrong and almost nobody was there. Then there was a sudden hard downpour of cold rain and who was there to even notice they were even there? They left.

Then the sun came out for everybody arriving for church in the hour after that.

If only…

Meantime, my retina and cataract surgeries are in the morning. I have heard about bubbles and head angles and one person lying in bed for a week and a week of not looking up and not lifting anything–there’s a maybe on all of that, it depends on the doctor and the specific procedure–and I have no real idea what the next few days are going to be like.

Curious. This Supreme Court just in effect nullified its own Citizens United ruling.

Because it ruled in a shadow docket case, meaning one for which there were no hearings, was not aired publicly, with a decision that does not even have their names signed to it to hold themselves accountable to the public–that the president can decide to withhold funds that Congress had decided on a bipartisan basis to spend.

In this case, on foreign aid.

One of my high school friends was laid off from her USAID job months ago and she could tell you many a story about just how effective a peacemaker we were in the world in helping people learn to farm and feed each other better and in establishing public schools where there had been none. She saw it. She lived it. We were perceived as Good Samaritans. The Anya apricots that I go on and on about how intensely flavored and juicy they are? That’s how that original seed ended up here: a farmer from California working on behalf of the State Department befriended people along the Silk Road, who offered him their best to show the world what they had and that not everything there was about war. The good that’s done when individuals help individuals across cultures and backgrounds goes both ways and USAID, with little publicity or public knowledge, is how it happens.

And every year for decades, Congress has voted from both sides to sustain those efforts.

Power of the purse? Separation of powers? Constitution? Voting as a representative of one’s constituents on the matter? Pffft, who needs that. Wiped away with the swipe of an anonymous pen.The president controls all. And you know the only thing this one cares about money is how much of it goes to him.

So, since they can pay for nothing and do nothing now no matter how they vote, why would anyone donate to the campaign of any member of Congress again? (Or at least, of those who are going along with this.)

Besides, there are so many of them. Why bother when there are only six to have to deal with on the Court who have shown that they can be bought off.

Turns out I didn’t squint well enough at the fine print and got the name of the sock knitter wrong (there are only so many of us avid knitters there.) All straightened out now.

One more week till I get to start the months of recovery from retina surgery and I am ready for it.

We don’t have collection plates nor fundraisers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he reminded us.

With the exception that the youth are allowed to have one activity every year to raise money for camp: locally, that’s at the church-owned campground up in the mountains that the kids put many volunteer hours into cleaning up after the CZU Complex fire burned the facilities down a few years ago. Most of those redwoods have begun to green out again, thank goodness.

They have really earned getting to go and to see the forest renew year by year after the devastation.

Last year there was a carwash.

Today was a party. Balloon animals for the little ones and showing them how to make them, cotton candy, come have fun.

We had baked goods by volunteers. Those, you paid for, one of two prices: Original, and Generous, trying to meet everybody’s budgets. First claim first served.

And a silent auction: a picture of the thing offered and a sign-up sheet to put your bid on. Dog walking by one of the teens, water your plants while you’re away. Lessons in various languages. A tour of Filoli Gardens.

Sue likes to knit socks and offered to knit a pair to fit.

I offered a Malabrigo Mecha hat.

The dad of the now-grown Eli, who used to take care of my mango tree when we were away and who loves the teal hat I knit his son, took one look at the blue twin to it and made sure that that was going to be his and made my day.

Someone wrote down $10 for Sue’s socks and probably thought they were being generous for a pair of socks.

She was going to have to bid a whole lot higher than that if she wanted those. After the huge expenses of this past week I hadn’t been going to spend a dime but I knew she wasn’t offering even the price of the yarn (unless it was a really good sale and/or old stash.) But how would she know that.

How about a different number to look at. After that it’s up to her (and hey, I would dearly love a pair from Sue’s hands.)

I got pulled away to family errands before I found out if I’d won but I was assured I would be emailed and could take care of it then if I did.

To quote the good doctor (as in Suess), Who sees who sew whose new socks, sir? You see Sue sew Sue’s new socks, sir!

Sue’s note said pick your size and color. I think forest green sounds good.

Last night at dinner our daughter was recounting some experiences and thanking her daddy for teaching her that science is about the how, religion, the why.

Today one of the speakers at church was a scientist at Stanford. He came bounding up to the stand with a little planter full of beautiful small white flowers, like he couldn’t wait to share this! He talked about discovery and learning and how glorious it was to gain new insights into this beautiful world G_d had created for us to live in.

And then he held up his pretty little flowers for all to see. They were petunias (clearly one of the mini varieties).

But what made them different, he said, though we couldn’t see it yet, was that they had been given the gene from a firefly: they glow in the dark.

Then he invited everybody who was curious to come to the mother’s nursing lounge (where I bring chocolate every week, that’s my assignment) because that was the darkest room in the building that could hold a number of people. (I wondered for a moment about kids finding out what else that room held, but I don’t think any noticed.)

First he had one of the women knock on the door and peek in to make sure we weren’t interrupting anybody.

That is the first time in my life that my camera, not my mom or dad from when I was little, scolded me to hold still for the picture. It managed to capture this much.

So. Cool!

(Ed. to correct what my hearing missed: this NPR article says the firefly gene didn’t take well enough so they used other bioluminescence genes from a mushroom and a fungus. But you can actually buy these now.)

Edited again to add after reading NGS’s comment: so if animals eat them, will their poop glow?

Today was the last test result, the last appointment on the whole endometrial thing.

But first the oncology surgeon had to tell me that he’d taken that Kit Donnell peach home and shared it with his wife: he told me emphatically, That was the best! peach I have eaten. In. My. Life! He wanted to make sure he remembered the name of the variety right. He thanked me several times for telling him about Andy’s Orchard.  I looked it up, he told me: August.

He was clearly very much looking forward to next August’s crop.

The nurse had the biggest smile on her face.

Baby Crawford is the other really good one, I told him.

Oh! He was instantly on it, getting this down. He was not going to miss that either! Baby? Crawford.

I turned to her and apologized that I hadn’t brought two peaches last time, and she laughed hard and I thought, You were thinking the same thing. I should have. But I didn’t know you were going to be there. And I didn’t have enough left to bring a bunch.

So, on to business. No cancer. No virus that might someday cause cancer. No surgery. Fill this prescription to help with the atrophal shedding.

I told him, Plot twist: after two and a half years of bleeding, it is somehow almost almost gone. (How to tell G_d a joke: tell Him, You weren’t going to let up on that symptom till that man and his wife and maybe that nurse discovered that farm and that fruit, were you? Because those peaches are divine.)

At the last he said, with the very warmest of smiles, And then I never want to see you again. For your sake.

Whoever he was, he was in such a hurry to get a chance to chat with the speakers after the meeting that when he squeezed out of his pew just behind me he had no idea that when he hip-checked me, while I had no idea it was coming to brace against it, I did my funky which-way-did-up-suddenly-go wobble and then tumbled to the floor with my cane thankfully only smacking the carpet and not someone’s leg.

In front of about forty suddenly horrified people on that side of the room, with the four nearest arms immediately reaching to scoop me up. I confess to quickly looking back over my shoulder to see if the guy had even noticed.

Nope.

But I bet the speaker visiting from San Diego whom he was in such a hurry to get to did.

(Oh wait, someone I know *did* see my dignified little dance. Hi, Julia, hi, Eric, nah, nah, I’m fine no worries.)

My first thought had been, No! Don’t mess with my knitting hands, I need those!

My second was to wonder how often I had inadvertently hurt someone and never known it. It made me want to pay closer attention.

I did do the icepack thing when we got home, just to be careful.

Here, taste the tip of a spoon here, see what you think of it so far.

They approved.

Then the kids drove to San Francisco to Dandelion Chocolate for some sibling time and brought home a splurge of bakery goodies and hot chocolate. Not your standard lunch. That orange sanguine entremet–wow!

As my dad loved to say, How many meals do you eat in your life? Now: how many do you remember?

Then John drove me to Kings Mountain Art Fair, with the ocean to one side on that twisty road and Silicon Valley laid out below on the other and the Fair on the spine of the ridge, where we got to see Mel and Kris. Mel knew exactly what I wanted when I broke my favorite tall mug and held the new one up in happy anticipation of my delight. Which he got. I liked it even better than the old one. Kris was there for the first time in several years, her chemo long over and looking great. I picked up one of the smaller mugs–and it had a sheep on it! (With apologies to them that my photo washes the colors out a bit.)

I knew she played with adding hummingbirds and dragonflies and honeybees…

She was delighted that I was the one who bought her first sheep.

Not long after we walked back in the door, Michelle and I ran an errand exploring a store that sold favorite pantry items she hadn’t been able to find in Boston. And because she liked going there; it was part of being home.

John cooked dinner.

We all got to FaceTime with Lillian, who wanted to show her grampa the wart on her foot in solidarity. She wanted to see his foot, too. He gently told her she wouldn’t want to.

And then at long last we turned off that goshawfulloudnoise that had been going in the kitchen for 26 hours at that point (24 is about optimal on the conching) and John and his dad worked for a couple hours more at cooling and re-warming and thus (hopefully) tempering our new batch of homemade chocolate correctly while getting some one-on-one time of their own.

I got to do the honors of pouring it out and did as messy a job as I ever do and we managed not to devour it before it had even set, probably because, really? We had a lot of cleanup to do. And we’d had a lot of chocolate today already.

And all of it was very very good.

I like days like this!

Ceramic makes pie crusts crisp in a way no other material does.

A few years back, I asked my friends Mel and Kris if they ever made pie pans. They said no, but then decided to go play with the idea. I happily got two of the results.

They are big, meant for baking for a crowd, not like my store-bought one.

Today Richard came home from his sixth day of treatment and fifth day in the hospital. There was one last slice of grape pie in the smaller pan from last week and, after having saved it for the breakfast he didn’t ever get to have, he finally got to taste it.

He settled into his chair in the kitchen with no desire to spend any more time on any bed during daytime, and I got to work on those peaches. I at last felt like I could. Like I could breathe again.

Boiling water, peaches in the mesh strainer, count to five, out, peel, slice, work a little orange juice through, freeze a pie’s worth. A big pie’s worth!

Four, so far. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the next box. The neighbors to either side got peaches. Proud parents sent us a photo of their toddler’s absolutely gleeful face after biting into one.

I know a family with teenagers who are going to need a surprise pie in the coming darker colder months. A big pie. To let some of their peach gallivanting to rescue a couple in pain come back to them again in thanks.

One friend asked a few days ago what she could do to help and I somehow let myself say out loud in spite of myself that it was the week the Kit Donnell peaches at Andy’s were ripe, that I consider them his best, that I wait all year for them and I was just going to have to miss them this year. Otherwise I’d be buying a bunch and freezing them.

We can do that!

What?! He’s in Morgan Hill, it’s a 45 minute drive each way when the traffic is good, I can’t ask you to do that!

She and her family decided to make a day trip to Santa Cruz, let the kids have fun at the beach before they all finish growing up and going away, stop at Andy’s on the way and get some of those fabulous peaches for themselves, too and learn about what he had to offer. So much of California was still new to them. Exploring is fun!

The whole thing turned into so much joy. They were absolutely jubilant at the day, the trip, the getting to do something that they knew meant so much to me and we had a good hug this morning.

Her daughter helped me load my boxes into my car after the main meeting at church, I got them home and then made a beeline for the hospital.

Where I surprised Richard with a new Nautilus puzzle that I had ordered Tuesday, right before all this hit. A clown fish.

Having no idea that the most pieces in the smallest size would be the best for doing on a bedside hospital tray.

Two of the friends who stopped by to visit him couldn’t help but match up a couple of pieces themselves, to our great delight.

When I was growing up my mom baked a lot of pies, and one of my favorites was one that it surprised me that none of my friends had ever had.

They thought the very idea was weird.

But then, my folks took us to pick-your-own farms and the grapes that went into those pies were not your bland Thompson seedless: they were meant to have flavor.

They were surely geared towards the DIY winemaker types but we were Mormons so we made juice and we got pie.

All of which came back to me when my friend Catherine, delighted at my delivering some peaches, gifted me with some grapes from her garden. Then when she saw my reaction she put more in the bag. Then more. After all, I’d done that drive so she didn’t have to. (We have a standing arrangement that if they’ll let me buy that many, I’ll pick up a lug for her, too.)

Hers were about the size of cranberries. I ran a handful at a time in my palm, searching for stems and hoping I got them all. It reminded me of processing sour cherries–a bit of work but so worth the effort.

The pie is in the oven and I put too many in and the top fell apart because I rolled it too thin and it is overflowing a little and the only recipe I found was for seeded Concord grapes from my 1952 Betty Crocker so it’s all guesswork. But since my mom used that cookbook I figured it was the one to start with. Their 1 1/3 c sugar became 1 1/4 because I know their editors went heavy on the stuff in everything but I didn’t dare mess with it too much on the first try.

It wasn’t done as I was typing this but pulling it out of the oven to see if it was, I dipped a spoon at the edge to see what I was getting.

Wow that was good.

Even better, now that it’s out.

I know who needs to try some of this. Hey Catherine!

Her mother had an apricot tree and she misses it.

Which is how the latest Anya seedling very happily found its new home. Funny how a random conversation can lead to fruitful discoveries about each other!