My friend Jennifer taught a lesson in church today and in preparing for it, she typed out her remarks and references, then later handed a copy to each hearing-impaired person so they could follow along and not be left out. Giving context for the parts not quite heard. It’s a wonderful, thoughtful thing to do.

And so before she started she handed me a copy as people were coming into the room.

A woman came in and sat down next to me a moment, someone who’s new.  She looked at me wistfully and told me how badly she wanted to hear what Jennifer had to say, but that her daughter had (I didn’t hear what exactly) going on and she was going to have to leave. She was clearly disappointed, while wanting to do the right thing and support her daughter.

“For charity is the pure love of Christ.” Much more than giving of money or clothes but actually feeling and acting upon that which is best and most divine in us. Loving one another with all that we are. A lesson to be energized by, for sure.

The woman is someone I recently knit for, and she also just wanted to spend a moment with me before she had to leave.

It was very clear what I could do to make her feel better in that moment: I handed her those lesson plans and explained how I came to have them. Her face lit up, she thanked me, and then she was gone.

A few moments later, now that all were settled in, Jennifer stood up again and started–and from across the room looked over at me and seemed confused a moment (I thought, or maybe she was beginning to wonder if, somehow, maybe…?) at my empty lap. No papers in my hand either.

She interrupted herself to say she didn’t know why, but she’d printed out an extra copy of those lesson sheets. By chance was there anyone here who might need them?

And I got blessed, not just with her original thoughtfulness and effort, but with the chance to tell her what she’d done when she didn’t know why she was doing it.

1. The little silk chemo cap I made arrived where it was going and I received a note from my beautiful relative along with a picture of her wearing it. She made my day.

2. I wrote a little while back about Sue Nelson and XRX’s fundraiser to help pay her medical expenses: they were raffling off their Great American Afghan, a part of their company’s history, in hopes of her being able to continue her experimental treatment for her cancer.

The winner of that raffle was announced tonight. And Angela Tennant, the winner, had one request.

That the afghan be given to Sue as a comfort and a get-well wish, helping her feel warmed in body and spirit.

I don’t know Angela Tennant, but this I can say: tonight she declared herself a friend to us all.

And today there were four healthy eyases eating up a storm. Clara the mother peregrine seemed to be methodically feeding mostly one, then mostly the second and on through till all were falling over sleepy. Then she scraped up the gravel to create a berm for extra warmth on one side, the weather having turned cold, scooted them carefully underneath her wings, and took a rest, too.

I had a conversation tonight with a friend whom I’ve known since junior high, who now lives in the town where we lived during our first job after grad school. She said something about taking her dog to go swim in the local lake.

Lake?

A road I’d driven a thousand times was named after that lake, but I couldn’t remember an actual lake.

She thought I was pulling a junior high stunt on her. So I described my old route to pretty much anywhere from our house in New Hampshire.

Then I went to go do my treadmill time for the evening, and it hit me. I HAD turned left rather than right and driven the other direction on that road–once. I didn’t get very far.  I don’t think the whole thing was paved going that way, and what pavement there was was something you could only find in New England-type weather: there was a yellow sign early on warning “Frost heaves.”

This is back when we were just starting our family. I puzzled over how frost could have morning sickness.

And then I saw the huge boulder in the road. Not on the road–in the road, coming up out of the pavement right smack dab there in my way, bursting out from underneath, taller than the undercarriage of my car. It was at a blind spot where there was barely room for two cars to pass even if that thing hadn’t been there, and highly dangerous.

And so I always drove the long way around to get to the other end of town. I never saw the lake from that road.

Wait again–it came back to me. My friend Dottie Peyser had had that lake in her backyard, near the end of that long route around; her place was such a gorgeous spot of the earth. She ran a smocking guild once a week out of her home, and in those baby days I smocked then like I knit now; she was older than my folks and we were great friends. And what a view she and her husband Bill had out back!

I saw Dottie knitting once at our meeting and teased her about it and she said something to the effect of, well but she was a knitter too, and once you’re a knitter you never get over yarn. You always come back to it.

She was right, of course.

I wrote to them after we moved here, checking to see how they were doing. The post office returned it for insufficient address. I wrote on the envelope, by now already fairly marked up: Dear California postmaster. This is going to an old part of a small town, where *there are no street numbers* assigned. The mailman there knows everybody and their house by name and by sight. Please deliver.

They did.

Dottie passed away; Bill had a  heart attack and called me to tell me he’d survived it, and that she was gone. He wanted to know how his semi-adopted grandchildren (ours) were doing.

That was 24 years ago. And somewhere, I still have a picture of my oldest, at three, grinning hugely with their teacup poodle in her lap and her arms around it.

A chance mention by someone from junior high about her dog. It brought so many good memories back after I took a moment to reflect on the treadmill.

And it also got me thinking. I never knew that road went along the other side of the water.  How many things do I miss seeing? Even if I can’t do sun, even if it has to be close to sundown, I need to get out in nature all I can. Walk in the redwoods. Splash in the cold edge of the ocean. Make it so I never, ever forget a lake again.

Usually the hatching is spread out over several days, sped up a bit from the timing of the laying, but today, the San Jose nest had three chicks hatch! Little white peregrine fluffballs called eyases. My friend Hilary made the little felted creature in that link for a fundraiser for the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, and my Malcolm the Falcon shown here last year for me. She is a gifted artist.

Meantime, we had a friend over this evening to work on a computer issue with Richard’s help, and I used the opportunity to make myself sit down with a shawl project that had stumped me–what to do below the shoulders, which pattern to choose–and just simply made myself pick one idea, fer cryin’ out loud, and get on with it.

I had gotten the yolk done and then it had incubated at that stage for about a month, right in sync, come to think of it, with those peregrine eggs. It feels good to see it finally spreading its wings gradually in my hands.

Joanne asked what kind of sundae others were eating. I laughed. Since she’s expecting twins she ought to have two pickles with hers, right?

About three hours later I happened to head out to get the drycleaning, and since the grocery store was right there, thought I ought to pick up a gallon of milk while I was at it.

The clerk chuckled at my cart. Bananas, ice cream, and the milk I’d come for.

It didn’t occur to me till I got home.  This subliminal advertising thing–Joanne, you’re good!

Thursday night, getting ready for Purlescence, I didn’t have a portable project for it.  I’d finished one and hadn’t decided  the next yet–but it was time to go. I grabbed needles and the first ball of merino I saw and off I went.

I got the brim finished by the time I went to bed that night but I kept wondering why I was knitting this. My daughter-in-law has one like it; was I subconsciously trying to knit her back to being here in person? (Oh, and maybe bring Parker too? This picture’s about six weeks old now, we need to take new ones.) She loved hers so much when I gave it to her that it certainly made me want to go do that again.

Well then.

I didn’t work on it much Friday, despite my nagging desire to finish a thing once started.

The phone rang about 9:00 this morning.

2:00? Okay, thank you, that sounds good, we’ll see you then!

I suddenly had two-thirds of a hat to knit, and fast.  And I mean fast! I knew there was no way I could knit one from the beginning in time for the very helpful fellow who would be dropping by, but for his wife at least, whom I’d never met, I had a head start in that lovely Malabrigo softness.

And I knew that the best way to make a good person happy is to do something to honor those closest to them.

So the doorbell rang this afternoon a little after I danced across the house waving the thing to Richard going, I finished! I finished! The fellow handed me the thing he was going out of his way to drop off for us and started to turn away with a wave and a cheerful hi.

I stopped him a moment. Explained what I’d done. I saw someone I took to be his wife (she was) waiting in the car and waved hi to her as he left, hat now in hand. I shut the door after him.

You know that doorbell rang again before I could get across the house.

And so I got to meet a delightful woman whom I felt matched me right down to the longish gray hair and the hearing aids.  We swapped a few hearing stories and laughed together. The whole time I’d been raceknitting, I’d been wishing I could actually meet her, and I got to!

When a ball of yarn leaps onto your needles like that, sometimes you’ve just got to obey it.

Oh, and one other thing? The female Cooper’s hawk swooped across the yard just about the time I finished, me on my perch just then and she coming to hers, the metal dolly ten feet away. My eyes followed her in as she came and I turned. She seemed to approve of that nest I’d built–awfully small, though, don’t you think–and a moment later, with a nod of her head, (birds do that to gauge distances but never mind) she swooped back to the right and away.

Justice is blind? The Washington Post reports: Antonin Scalia caused a four-car pile-up this morning on the George Washington Parkway, with a former NBC reporter witnessing from the car behind him.  She says he didn’t brake and that that’s an originalist interpretation.

Karma kaze driver.

Ahem.

I had a really good day today, so I threw out the cabin fever and ran a few errands that had needed doing while I was down. On my way home, I noticed at a light that the person behind me was my next door neighbor. I waved hi. She didn’t notice. Approaching our neighborhood, she turned left.

Well, I thought, for once I’ll get a chance to time the difference between that left and turning here at the light. She gets the stopsigns and the twists in the road; I get the wait and then the straight shot forward.

And then we were facing each other head-on, turning in tandem onto our street. Totally a tie.

I pulled in my driveway and got out laughing, calling over to her as she got out. She’d had no idea she’d been behind me; we chatted a moment, glad for some neighbor time.

“How’s the new grandson?” She has triplet grandchildren, she knew how happy a question that was.

But at one point she had to stop me to just exclaim, “You look FABULOUS!”

I was very surprised and blushed and thanked her and admitted I’d had the flu and had lost some weight the last few weeks. (The bod, it’s a flu-zy around germs, picking up on them constantly, don’t listen to it.)

“You don’t need to lose any weight,” she affirmed–“But you look so young.” She said it again:  “You look FABULOUS!”

I tell you. I can never move away. Not with good neighbors like mine.

The San Jose Merc ran an editorial and included this link for telling PG&E’s board of directors what you think of how their company’s being run. Their server was down most of the day when I tried to say my piece, so I saved it, waited till after 5, and it went right in. Coolant heads must prevail.

On a more cheerful note, I love that, by the sound of it, the cops were going to write up a ticket for putting art illegally in public and were going to make them take it down, but wait: you say it’s a craft? Well then! And so we have a yarnbombed London phone booth.

Meantime, my doorbell rang today: a friend with her little girl in her arms, the little one shyly reaching out to me with a fistful of daffodils in one hand, and in the other, a bottle of my favorite mango juice. Just to make sure I’m getting better.

You know that little girl is going to want to do that again to someone else, too–that was fun, Mommy!

It’s the little gestures and thoughtfulness that make it totally feel all better when the big things seem a bit much. Thank you, April!

I knew they did this but had never really asked about it before, but it was time. I called the Los Gatos Birdwatcher shop a few days ago and asked about their delivery days. No way no how was I going to be able to get myself down there nor would they want me to.

And so it was that on yet another rainy day today, my doorbell rang and I ran and opened quick as one of the shop owners stood trying to hold my heavy bag of non-sprouting no-millet no-hulls no-mess sunflower birdseed out of the drips. John offered to put it anywhere I wanted and I motioned to right there just inside the door, thank you so much.

And he handed me my little suet cake.  I keep one hanging and another for crumbling into bits where the Bewick’s wrens can reach, replenishing the supply when the one black squirrel that’s taken a liking to it goes after it. (The others wrinkle their whiskers and go ewww, dude, you *eat* that stuff? But in normal life all I have to do is reach over and touch the supersoaker and he’s out of there.)

Although when I was too ill to manage doing even that, I saw one wren actually fly up to the caged one, alternating stabbing away and frantically looking down at the ground and around. Munching high up on the vertical was clearly not in its comfort zone–but one must eat.

Since I’ve been up and about and more helpful again, that’s been the end of that tomfowlery.

John asked if I were doing better now; yes, mostly, but still, I promised not to breathe on him. (Ignoring the autoimmune side to things–but that is indeed thankfully easing off too.)

And it struck me afterwards that just being asked by someone to whom it clearly mattered made me take stop and take stock and think to myself, Wait–it’s true, I AM a whole lot better. Remember Tuesday? And and? And the Tuesday before? Honey, I got nothin’ to complain about.

Just a little moment in a life.  And yet the way he carried it out was beautiful: he wasn’t just delivering a product, he was serving and doing for me what I could not at that moment do for myself, and serving with grace. For my birds too.  Glad to help. There they were, just outside the glass that is the back wall, chattering away at the feeders, and he looked over at them and smiled.

Shame he didn’t get to see the Cooper’s.  But just imagine all the birds he could tell about.

He answered the phone. “You want me to hand it to her?” And then he continued listening, and then talking, and then finally held out the phone, telling me my doctor wanted to talk to me.  Acknowledging afterwards she’d wanted to talk to him first.

Because apparently I would give too cheerful a spin on things.

Busted.

But no! Really! I woke up with a temp of 99 and able to stand upright this morning for the first time since this started. (Just don’t push it too long.) I guess all we had to do was buy that blood pressure meter to make my bp stay up enough. (Gotta love that $1.62/ounce breakdown on that price. Doesn’t everybody buy electronics by the pound? So, how cheap would that make an Ipad2…?)

Note in the reviews that there were some complaints that the thing read too high. Note that some of those reviews are answered by others gently saying, you need to read the instructions. Palm up…

And the best? Who knew 5.5 mm rosewoods were so heavy, but, I got about 400 stitches knitted tonight. It felt like I was reclaiming a part of myself.

As the phone call was ending, Richard was going, Ups and downs, ups and downs.

“Did he say ups and downs?”

Yes he did. But I’m ready to stay at the ups.

Well, I was at this stage.

And then I got all these messages from my readers–you lifted me up more than I can say.  Thank you.

Our kids called or messaged home, as did various other family members.  You know that did me much good.

And today my friend Kathryn emailed and asked what she could do. Could she, say, doorbell-ditch some ice cream for me?

And I, Haagen-Daz right in front of me, had to tell her, Sorry, Richard scooped you.

Marguerite called and refused to be brushed off. I told her Richard was working from home, keeping close tabs on me.

No, but what do you crave? I need to *do* something!

Honestly? I’d love one of those little (I was thinking 8 oz) bottles of mango juice from Trader Joe’s. But it’s not worth the trip just for that one little thing, don’t feel you have to.

She showed up on my doorstep with a quart of it and flowers.

I have so many good people around me buoying me up–we both do–both in person and by phone and online. I feel well taken care of and very very fortunate on all counts.

My first dinner since Monday stayed down.  It was small, but, hey, and the ice cream did too.

And I’m a lot closer to feeling like this.

Nina, whose Ann Arbor shawl graces my book (OOP but cover-price copies available at Purlescence), called today; she needed to stop by after work a moment.

During our short conversation, she decided instead to go home, grab her knitting–yup, got her addicted too now–and so we sat and chatted for about an hour, wondering why we didn’t do this more often.

I showed her Lorraine’s qiviut scarf and the little lace scarf I’d made out of one skein of the Arctic Blend. Ten bucks for a qiviut blend. It is lovely stuff.

Nina had the same reaction to Lorraine’s handiwork that I did: she immediately put it on and declared that wow, she felt like a million bucks. It looked smashing on her, too, she was absolutely right. Just her colors. I so wish I’d thought to take her picture in it.

I showed her the matching big skein of yarn, not yet knit, as all the Warm Hats stuff and baby blanket got ahead of it in the lineup.

Well now.  I could totally knit that gorgeousness up for her, she thought out loud. (With a grin.)

I explained that, editors willing, it’s to go in the next book.

She laughed, “You can tell stories on me again. After all these years, you’ve got lots of stories to tell on me!”

Wait–was that a hint?

On his way out the door from church today, carried in his mother’s arms, was a baby not quite at the walking stage yet but with a marvelous mop of light brain (note to my big sister: yes, I meant to type brown, not sure where mine was on that one) hair and usually I can get a cute grin out of him to match. I don’t think he’s quite ready for a finger puppet yet; he might try to eat it. So I just play peekaboo and the like with him when I get a chance.

It had been a long time away from his crib and it was naptime and he had the face of a little one who’s about to start making it known loudly.

And then suddenly he saw me. His little face burst into a grin! And he stayed smiling, waving bye bye at me, all the way out.

I tell you. I could float on that one for days.

I don’t use it very often, which isn’t good for the batteries.

Richard had them recharging last night.

I can’t do Stitches West on my feet. I’ve tried. The old head injury effects go into overload in the massive visual presence of the place and my balance disappears even worse and there’s just no way around the fact that Disneyland for knitters equals chairtime for me. That’s okay; there have been many many people looking wistfully at my ride by the end of the day every year.

Richard set it up and went out the door for work; I tried it out.

Dead dead dead. Ain’t goin’ nowhere. Darn.

Jasmin‘s brother Sam, who pushed me last year, was in LA.

My daughter Sam, who pushed me the year before, was across the country.

Well, I *could* try to walk it. (Yeah, let’s see if we can induce a seizure finally after eleven years?)

Um.

I did not call him. I did not text. I didn’t say boo. What could he do? I simply didn’t get myself out the door. I was about to, I kept telling myself, looking at the clock, noting that I’d paid for a two-day ticket, while arguing back at myself, okay, so then, when? How? Use the manual as a walker so you’ve got both hands holding on, at least?

Suddenly there was the front door opening again, and *My Hero* (trademarked) walks in: he wanted to make sure I didn’t get stuck and had it worked no okay he’d wondered if it might not have right he’ll go get that other battery pack and try that one oh yes he’d had it charging too.

You’re home? You did? We do? You can?

He was in a rush to get to work (some days I really really love that short commute) as he unscrewed the battery pack and replaced it. Here try that love you bye gotta run.

YES!!!

And that is how I got to go zipping around Stitches West and have the time of my life among my fellow knitters and friends that I only get to see once a year.  And to meet some new ones. (Michelle, did you see? I was wearing your socks you made me while I was in the hospital.)

I came home to the news that we had gone past 30% of Congress today. GO KNITTERS! Then I read Jocelyn’s post and followed the link in it. Folks, we need gentility, top down, and we need civility in Congress now. If you haven’t yet, will you join Ellen and me and 162 hats’ worth of other knitters in spending a few hours to help get the word out? How often do our few stitches get a chance to create changes for the good for millions of people? Good wool, good work, good plan.

Stitches still has plenty of good yarn left for it. I promise.

The first speaker at church today said many things, but one that stuck with me is that her father had told her, if your heart and your head are ever not in agreement, pay attention. Sit down and figure it out till they are.  We are to follow the Spirit that leads to all that is good in our interactions with God, ourselves, and each other.

The second speaker talked about his little sister Katie.

Katie was born with hydrocephalus. I grew up with a kid my age around the corner with that, so I was particularly interested to hear him tell about his sister, whose case was clearly far worse than my friend’s; Katie wasn’t just a little slow, she had definite mental retardation.

Her brain shunt got infected and she passed away recently.

People her family didn’t know not only paid their respects but showed up in their lives to tell their stories. Things the family had never known. Lives she had touched.

And one of those was a girl who, twenty years earlier in kindergarten with her, had been, she realized later, bullying another child in the class.

Katie’s reaction was to step in, hug the victim of the moment, and tell her, Stop! She’s my friend!

To Katie, everyone was her friend.

The woman told the grieving family that it had made a permanent impression on her: from that moment on, she wanted to be more like Katie.

A kid who was different.

A kid who set the example for everyone else around her to live up to.

A kid whose heart and head were forever in the same place.