I bet you every Mormon reading my post from last night got it before I did. I woke up abruptly this morning with the sudden, crystal-clear realization: it’s Fast Sunday!

Meaning I took all that scrumptious warm intense chocolatousness over to Becca and her husband and they resisted temptation and waited till after dinner tonight to touch it. They laughed a good one when I told them I’d realized what I’d done when I hadn’t waited till this evening to bring it over.

Somehow they forgave me.

I was paying too much attention to the vicious speech and its aftermath, the twisting non-apology that came only after advertisers started to bail, to the much-ignored fact that one of Ms. Fluke’s points was that birth control pills are used in treating ovarian cysts and ovarian cancer, which is what her friend had needed them for.

I was one of many who wrote to the folks funding his show, but finally, enough–I needed an antidote to all that.

Her timing was perfect: my friend Jade called and came by in the afternoon. We’d run into each other at Stitches for the first time in probably three years and were interrupted, and it was such a joy to just sit down and spend some time together, this time with a cheerful, “Hi, Jade!” from Richard. And I do like to show him off. He’s a good one.

And then as soon as the sun was down enough, he and I went to Milk Pail to get manufacturing cream–and it was in stock this time! Yes! We got the last one. Totally lucked out.

And so (bwaahaahaa) at around ten, after checking with her beforehand to make sure she would be up and it would be okay, we delivered a late-night snack, a still-warm chocolate torte to Becca’s door.

It felt so good to see her so delighted. It did me much good. Chocolate torte: comes in self-serving sizes.

It was an odd little thing. I fairly often wear black skirts to church: not for any particular reason other than the laziness of knowing they go with everything and I can choose any top and shawl or scarf I feel like without stressing over it. They let the knitting stand out.

After all the intense color overload of the last two days, something in me rebelled. I pulled out a crazy-busy paisley that I’d bought on sale on impulse in vibrant, autumny reds and golds. The loudest skirt I own. I rarely wear it.

I had a shawl knitted in Malabrigo’s Botticelli Red tucked away, unworn, waiting for me to finally declare that long-suffering second book project done. Just sitting in a bag. Well now come on. I’d been wishing I’d stuffed it in my tote and shown it off to the folks at Malabrigo, so today I wore it to church to quietly show it off there, at least.

And then here’s the killer: the other knitter in our ward sat down next to me and was exclaiming over this shawl she hadn’t seen before. I said something about Stitches–

–and she went, What’s that?

Oh. My. Goodness. Knitters, I have failed. I am so sorry. She knows now, and we are looking forward together to next year’s. Let the impatient anticipation commence.

(For those coming here for the first time, Purlescence has copies of my book at the cover price, plus I assume shipping and tax; you’d have to ask them the details. I come in Thursdays if you want yours signed.)

I was coming down Highway 101 just past NASA Ames on my way to Stitches when I saw it: kiting on the wind, unusually close to the ground and to the road so that I was able to make out actual details in that brief moment–an adult peregrine falcon. I tell you. The day would go well.

And overall yes it most definitely did.

I had several people who had offered to lift the scooter out of the car when I got there–but down is easy, right? I just went ahead and did it.

That got me my comeuppance: I had found what was as far as I saw the last spot and it was on level B at Santa Clara Convention Center, not far from the elevator.  I thought, score! I found one without having to ride a long way in in the sun from the Great America lot!

There was a step of goodly height surrounding that elevator. No curb cutouts. Nada. A flight of stairs was the other option (yeah that works, uh huh). Had I ridden around the garage to the next level, I knew there would be cars coming at me going from bright sun to dark shadows and possibly being unable to see something they would never expect down in the roadway. Not an option.

At that point I could have called for help, but I was outside. The sun time I had had to spend yesterday had already caused some lupus flare warnings; my choice was, back or heart. Or autonomic nervous system damage. No contest. I did it, but I paid for it.

Okay, enough of that, on with the Stitches report.

Antonio and the rest of the crew at Malabrigo loved the shawlette made from their Sock, loved the two-colorway lined hat, and I loved that they loved seeing a little of what they create becomes. They are such nice folks, and their yarns are so soft.

Susan and crew at Abstract Fibers loved the shawlette I’d made down to the last two yards of a skein of their Picasso baby alpaca. (I’m the daughter of an art dealer; I had to knit a yarn called Picasso.)

And I got to hug Dianne at Creatively Dyed.  Karen and Barbara at Royale Hare. And so many more.

And… A few years ago, I bought some silk from Lisa Souza in her Earth Birth colorway, (glancing at her site) Max looks like the right one. It was a Friday at Stitches; I took it home, knit straight till bedtime, rinsed it and laid it to dry having used up the whole thing and then I showed it off to her the next day. There you go–done! (There may have been some ego involved. Just a tad.)

So, yesterday I was remembering that story out loud to Lisa and Rod as I pounced on the perfect silk in the perfect color: Blackbewwie, a deep shade maroon with a bit of plum to it. 750 yards.

Today. I roll up to their booth. I reach into my tote bag. I pull out: the  Blackbewwie.

“It’s BEAUTIFUL, Alison!” Lisa exclaimed. (While her face went, Buh buh buh but *how*?!) She loved the pattern, she loved how it had come out, but, (holding this full circular shawl up, looking at it, looking at me)…!

Totally set her up. It was her Sock Merino and I’d bought it last year.

Heh.

I just happened to have someone else I needed to knit that color for now.

DebbieR, Carol, Katrina, Jasmin, and Kevin all offered to help get the scooter back in later; Kevin got to do the honors. We stepped off that elevator at level B–

–he could not believe it. He pointed out where a curb cut should have started from and tried to fathom how the center had been built with such a stupid mistake or how it could have been allowed to have been left that way. No handicapped slots there was not an excuse.

Preach it, brother.

Then he made it look absolutely effortless as he got that scooter down there and then lifted the whole thing back up into my car.

I spent careful, slow time on the treadmill that Ruth gave me, last night and again today; it helped my back more than anything else has. This cheers me greatly. It will be over soon.

Stitches for me was over far too soon. I have a whole collection of super heroes and I love them all.

So. Here was the plan this morning: I ride the scooter out to the car, take it apart, put it in, go to Stitches.

Here’s what happened: rode the scooter out to the car, took it apart, got the seat and the battery pack, which is the heaviest part, into the car. Carefully sized up how to get the base in: bend the knees, correct angle, etc, reached for it–

–and as I lifted it something felt like it snapped in my back. I managed to get the base safely down to the ground without dropping it, so it couldn’t have been too bad–but then it did drop me and I sat there on the sidewalk in intense pain, going, NOW what am I going to do?!

And I had to lift that battery pack back out again in order to get the thing back into the house. I did; I thought that was it, my day was over, I’m done.

Becca to the rescue. “I’m a nurse, I lift patients heavier than that all the time.”

“Are you sure?! I mean, it’s heavy!”

And not only did she do that, she drove me the ten miles to Stitches and she did it all over again to pick me up in the evening and she took me home.

Wow.  Someone definitely needs a chocolate torte.

But here I go again: Richard remembered this evening that he has a commitment tomorrow starting early in the morning till late afternoon. He can get the scooter in my car but not out again at Stitches; he can pick me up in the evening and deal with it going home if I can get there without him.

Um…

But in the meantime, as I waited for Becca at closing time, my old friend Warren happened to come out the same door. We had been looking for each other all day. I had knit him a hat, while second-guessing myself and wondering how much a knitter needed a hat.

He surprised me by saying wow–he’d been needing a hat! He said you’d think he would have one, but he was always giving his knitting away and he didn’t have one and he just never knit for himself.

And there you go. Perfect.

(As for the scooter, we’ve got it worked out to where I just have to lift the pieces out of the car at the event. Okay; down is the easy part.)

Somehow a conversation this afternoon meandered to a random point that seems to have been exactly the right thing.

I had some friends over. I happened to mention that I’d learned, oh, decades ago, about a study done in California where the researchers wanted to find out who married whom and why. They tested many couples for all kinds of abilities and quizzed them on what kinds of things they liked, how they saw the world.

After sifting through thousands of results, there was one thing and only one thing that was true nearly across the board. Not religion, not race, not background.  The answer was so striking that I have never forgotten it.

Klutzes tended to marry klutzes. Coordinated people tended to marry coordinated people.

And in the couples where one was one way and the other the other, there tended to be accusations of Why can’t you be more careful! Responded to with Why are you being so judgmental? Can’t you tell I’m doing my best!

And somehow my saying that was exactly what one of the two women I was talking to needed to hear: Yes! Finally! It all made sense! She was the klutz in her marriage, and she was grateful to hear me say I very much was one too, though in my case I did marry a fellow klutz. It does make it easier.

Those researchers shared their results with at least some of their participants, as I remember, and were gratified at finding that quite a few mixed couples thereby came to a much better understanding of each other at last, where in some cases there had been great friction. Peace was created and in one case a marriage was actually saved.

Now if only I could go tell those people who spent the time to participate and those researchers back in I think the 1970’s that now, in 2012, their work continues to help others.

Understanding ourselves and one another clears the path for love.

“What is your name?” she asked me.

My friend Becca had put out the word to a few of us that her neighbors were halfway across the world from home and were having their first baby. We had all been first-time parents ourselves; we knew everybody needs their mom when they’re coping with a newborn for the first time. You love them more than life itself and it is so very sweet an experience–but it is all so totally new for you and for the baby itself, who is learning to adjust to this day/night thing, needing to be held, fed, changed, bathed, wrapped, sung to, held some more, the parents needing time simply to take in the wonder that is this brand new human being who sometimes manages to get both eyes to look in unison straight into your own and into your whole soul.

We weren’t the grandmother. But at least we could help. Being a bunch of Mormons, we did the Mormon cultural thing: we signed up on Becca’s list to take turns bringing dinner for the new mom and dad to help them not have to worry about spending time buying or preparing food (or at least, not so much) while needing to hold their baby. Let the parents just be parents for a little while.

It occurs to me that this is our version of sitting shiva, at the start of life rather than the end, although both are so needed in their own times.

For me this was also a chance to make food that Richard loves and I do too but that I can’t risk eating much of anymore since my colectomy. Split pea soup? A favorite, although I substituted out the ham for chicken (rotisseried by Costco, gotta have a little salt to it) for cultural if not religious dietary reasons for the couple.  It simmered away for two hours, filling the house with the peas and the carrots and the big onion.

Into a disposable/reusable snap container.

Blackberry cobbler. Got about a third of the 13×9’s worth onto a sturdy paper plate, covered with plastic wrap.

Now the question was how to walk from my car carrying this in one hand with a cane in the other and my funky balance and not dropping anything–and I had just seen a perfectly able-bodied man dropping his 18 ounces of blackberries across the floor earlier when I was buying mine. The only big box around was–well, here, I could slide the items in sideways since this two-milk-jug one seems to be all there is. And then close up the box in case I stumble. And then carefully open the box once I get there so that she doesn’t put it upright like it looks like it ought to be and scramble the cobbler all over.

I got there. I rang the bell. A beautiful new mom with her dark-haired newborn over her shoulder answered, apologizing for her dog’s barking, saying it had become protective of the new baby.

Protective is good! I affirmed, hooking my cane over my arm to get it out of the way and getting that box open to show her what was inside, along with my card tucked in there: if she needed to ask any questions about what was in the food I wanted her to be able to reach me.

The dog was not convinced I was friendly. It helped keep the visit short; I put the food down where the woman asked, just inside the door. The baby was SO cute. (And so tiny! You forget how small they start…)

Such a short moment in our lives. And so important. Welcome to the world, little one! Welcome to motherhood, to the mom: we’re all here for you. We understand.

I am so glad I didn’t let the chance run away from me undone.

Paying it forward on that little rose plant…

Richard gave me amaryllis bulbs back in December, and today, the first one was close to blooming: five blossoms showing, the color just beginning to come in.

We have a friend who is just one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, who was asking me questions about a year ago about Crohn’s disease; turned out she had just been given that diagnosis and was trying to take it all in. She’s a widow, about retirement age, a lot older than most people get it and with her beloved gone, it made me keenly aware of how lucky I am. I was I think the one person she knew who had it too.

We happen to know she loves amaryllises like I do. So I called and asked if we could drop by tonight.

A few minutes later, she was on the sidewalk with her small dog, watching us pull up.

She was so delighted. “What color is it?” as she held the pot. The streetlights weren’t telling.

“Pink and white, it’s an Appleblossom.”

“Oh, my favorite!”

That bulb was big enough there ought to be a second stalk showing up any time to continue the show. There is nothing like watching something grow as you care for it, and amaryllises do such a spectacular job of responding to a simple daily glass of water.

Happy Valentine’s!

And to Katy’s beloved late husband: that was for you, too. Your Katy is just the best. But you knew that.

We told Sam we would check our (silenced) phones if she texted us during church; we wanted to know how her day was going.

And so while our friend Russ was on the stand making an impassioned plea for people to participate in a Red Cross blood drive the church was going to be sponsoring in Menlo Park, that message came in, driving home Russ’s point unbeknownst to him.

Seriously down on those platelets. More so. Trying one more thing before transfusing.  There are risks–but if she has to, a profound thank you for each person who makes it possible, and likewise to all who have added their prayers with ours.

It’s been a stressful time around here.

Our doorbell rang. It was a friend with a tiny miniature rose plant and a few homemade chocolate chip cookies, just because. Happy Valentine’s!

She had no idea. She had no idea how much it meant to me. I am determined to grow that three-inch Parade rose into something that blooms in my garden for decades in grateful remembrance of that act of unexpected kindness.

And as the sky started to dim in the late afternoon I suddenly had a feeling of being watched. Curious. I glanced up.

And just outside was the male Cooper’s hawk, perched on the chairback under the birdfeeder, people watching. My heart went out to him in thanks; somehow, when life gets really hard, one of them always seems to show up.

And there he was.  Beautiful red chest, bluegray/white racing stripes on his head, craning his neck to show a gray stripe at the bottom of it too.  He bobbed a bit, looking around just in case any dinner might happen to stumble on the scene, but mostly he was simply watching me.

We took each other in.

He opened his beak and again and said something I wished I could hear.

I thanked God for sending him to me; and with that, he raised his wings, turning, and flew in the one direction where I would be able to follow his path between the trees across our yard and on past the neighbor’s as he went–gone in a wingbeat, so fast!

I feel now like I can handle anything again.

Any mention of that group brings back the fierceness of great loss. They came, and I wrote here about how proud I was of the children in our community in their responses.

The last line in that post has proven to be true.

My sister Marian writes of what happened when they announced they were going to protest at a funeral in her town today.  The Powell boys.

I don’t know who that radio announcer is, but when I find out I’m going to thank him for his act of great compassion and humanity. And I thank the people who came to that church for theirs. Well done. So very well done. I’m so sorry for their losses. And so grateful for the great goodness in so many.

IdiditIdiditIdidit, it’s soft, it’s pretty, it’s blocking, it’s done, I really like how it turned out and now I’m free to go knit something else for someone else. Yay!

If I can’t fix everything, it’s nice to have just this one thing, this knitting thing, that always turns out the way I want if I spend enough time on it. I can make it behave to help let the rest that is life be what it will.

Thank you all for all your messages of love and support.  Each note, each quiet prayer within or Thinking Good Thoughts, each one of you has been greatly appreciated. Wishing you all blessings in return.

One of my husband’s co-workers saved a New York Times article a week ago and sent it home with him, wondering what we would think of it.  Front and center was all about what their food writer had declared to be Mormon cooking.  There was a big picture captioned “updated funeral potatoes,” a take on that classic dish for feeding a big crowd that was a novelty to the co-worker but not so much to us.

No I do not cook with canned cream of anything soup myself. Go for the classic au gratin here if anything, thanks. The writer would have you believe that means we’re a generation removed from living in Utah.

Actually, that part is true.

Meantime, a lot of life suddenly got squeezed into the last two days, too much. I hereby request a breather for a few, I thought earlier today.

And then I got exactly that. I got to meet DebbieR; she’s a peach. She was in the area briefly and we met up at Purlescence.

I opened that door, she was two steps away on the other side of it, she came towards me recognizing my face from the blog and told me she was Debbie and I instantly felt in the presence of a true friend. Everything there confirmed it totally. I feel so blessed.

She was traveling with some friends who were very good about waiting for us as we caught up as if we’d always known each other.

After they all left, I knitted quietly for awhile on a baby hat, getting my Sandi-Nathania-Kaye fix, and then excused myself: I needed to go home to babysit the phone I could hear on and my PC’s inbox.

I had gotten a message from Sam earlier: with ITP and lupus, there are episodes where you just hold your breath and pray real hard.  The last message we got sounded better; we’re hoping she gets a new med approved and that it will work because honey right now nothing else does.

Debbie had offered her to knit her fingerless gloves in her choice of color. Sam was thrilled. Debbie asked me if a lace pattern would allow too much UV exposure. Debbie is thoughtful and careful in addition to being generous with her time.

How do you thank someone who looks out for your child  and takes her into her heart as if she were her own? A shoutout to DebbieR: Thank you. It doesn’t begin to say it.

And yesterday.

My friend Andrea asked me a few weeks ago to make two chocolate tortes for her; sure. She brought me some of the ingredients, the most important to me being the manufacturing cream, because it is sold in an open-air store that has sun exposure issues for me.

So I had the rest of that half gallon of cream afterwards.  You can’t just leave it there. I baked. A spare torte ended up in the freezer.

Every time I asked Richard if he’d like it for xyz, for this group or that, for us to munch on or… ?, he would answer, not yet. No, let’s wait. No, let’s leave it in there for now. I thought I had good reasons to share it and free up the space; he just didn’t feel…

Okay, no problem. There was no rush.

Yesterday that co-worker’s wife got a call in the morning: her father had passed. She went off to work: where she was told she was being laid off after 27 years. She went to the doctor: she got told that yes, that was probably basal cell cancer.

She has a bandaid now for the part they could fix.

Richard asked his co-worker today to be sure. Then he asked me.

Oh honey absolutely yes.

And that is how the chocolate torte that Andrea made to come to be became a gift of friendship and community at the moment it was most needed.  Without my even having to go out in the sun to make it for them–I know how much that couple likes those tortes. It was something I could do. Did do, all ready.

They stood there in the dark in front of their house this evening, holding it gratefully, inhaling the thawing chocolate.

I thanked them for saving the article. We joked wryly over funeral potatoes. I told them chocolate torte was my real Mormon cooking.

An article in the New York Times about the construction of the new Bay Bridge prompts this post. It says that the old span was built in the 1930’s and was not designed to withstand a big quake, with a picture of the short fallen section from October 1989 to prove their point.

I am here to take issue with that for Brother Brossard’s sake. (I’m not sure I’m spelling his last name right.) He knew.

You may remember my occasional posts about the December Club, the once-a-year potluck brunch certain members of my ward (congregation) throw ourselves in celebration of having a birthday at the time that everybody else is worrying about Christmas.

When we first moved here twenty-five years ago, Louis Brossard was the elder of the group; I remember him as a sweet man, frail and old and kind. I remember him playing a bit on a harmonica year to year.

When the Loma Prieta quake happened, I found out at that year’s party that he had been one of the engineers working on the original Bay Bridge. He said it was designed not to fall into the Bay in hard shaking and that it did exactly what it was supposed to do–just one short segment took the brunt of it and went down while the rest stayed up, saving countless lives at rush hour. He also noted with definite pride that *his* section of the bridge had not fallen!

The last time he came to our group, he lifted that harmonica to his lips, looking almost too tired to from the effort of getting ready to come join us that morning, and he could not summon the breath to sound that first note. He was crushed. He tried again; there was just not enough wind in him to share the music only he could hear now.

I knew then, but so much didn’t want to know.

Very soon after, he was moved from the home he’d lived in forever to an assisted living place. We talked on the phone a few times; he so missed his garden, his passion in his widowed retirement.

I immediately resolved to bring him flowers to tend.

I went to the local nursery, trying to find something not too heavy, not needing too heavy a cup of water, and bought a small potted plant of bright, happy color, the first few flowers ready and blooming to cheer him as he watched the rest open up. A perennial, to make a statement that I wanted him to enjoy them the next year, too, and the next, and the next, and. I called and arranged a time to come over.

But an assistant had gotten him into the shower (I’m guessing on their schedule rather than his) at the time I arrived and then the person had left him for a moment. I knew he knew I was coming, but he didn’t answer the door. I was hearing impaired, he was more so; I knocked louder. I waited, wondering what to do; there was no one in sight to ask for help. At last I left the little pot in front of his door, praying it would be seen and not tripped over.

When I got home, I called again to make sure the little blossoms might cause no harm, knowing how frail he was. He told me he had called out to me, but there was nothing he could do on his own to get to that door just then; he’d gotten those flowers, though, loved them, loved the thought behind them, and wanted very much to thank me.

He was a gem.

And I never got to see him again.  Those flowers outlasted him.

Whenever I see the Bay Bridge, all these years later, always, I think of Louis Brossard.

The old eastern span will be totally gone when the new work is all done.

And I wish I knew how to play Taps on a harmonica.

Here’s what I was working on. Got it down to the last five yards. Close!

Meantime…

Fragile Handle with Care, said the box.

A loud hard THUMP as it hit the ground in front of my door this afternoon.

Wait, box? Addressed to me? I wasn’t expecting any box.

Inside were this yarn bowl and tea mug, hand thrown pottery that I had admired in Angela Ingram’s Etsy shop but certainly hadn’t ordered; I sent her a note to make sure that hadn’t been a mistake. I sure didn’t want to stiff anybody.

She got right back to me: these were a gift from (name deleted in case she doesn’t want me to tell on her, a friend both online and in person), but that person hadn’t stipulated putting a card in. Don’t worry, everything was cool.

It definitely is. Very. Ndicsdwmttoh–you are so busted. Thank you! And a thank you to Angela for packaging these so well so that they weren’t.

The Malabrigo Rios made itself quite at home immediately in the bowl, trying to proclaim itself as next project in line, and I have a daughter who loves her herbal teas; now I can wave a cheerful mug at her as incentive to fly home to visit.

Thank you!

It was dark. The doorbell rang, a hard knock. We looked at each other wonderingly a moment–did you have someone coming over? No, as I got up to answer just in time to see a dark minivan making its escape.

Tonight is when the teenagers have a meeting at church (and my apologies to the perpetrators for not getting the whole thing in in my attempt at an Iphone shot while not stepping on the daffodils.) Come to think of it, I made a pair of chocolate tortes for them two weeks ago, and I’m guessing that had something to do with this. I had forgotten all about it.

I think someone loves us.