Good friends are moving to Texas this week (whether we want them to or not).

There was a get together. Bring desserts. Come.

And so, over brownies and cake and strawberries and the like, a bunch of us got on the subject of comparing climates we’d lived in. I told them how one guy in our ward in New Hampshire back in the day had been a home teacher to a young family, and he knew the dad was in Singapore on business; meantime, Leeane, the mom, had three kids four and under and a 20- to 25-foot wall of compacted iced white across her driveway after the snowplows had come around her cul-de-sac.

You do not want your baby outside in zero degrees and you do not want to leave the kids unattended while you spend hours dealing with that. She was stuck.

Mike got his teenage boys up very early and shoveled themselves out so they could go start shoveling her out at about 6 am so she could get out and have some face time at church with adults. Freedom. (Mike O’Connell and sons from Merrimack, wherever you are now, the thank-you’s are still floating around 25+ years later.)

Another fellow chimed in with his own weather story, Michigan vs Minnesota.

Wayne talked about how he was going to miss being able to bike where it’s just perfect: just cool enough, just right, year round, he’d been doing sometimes 150 miles a week before his recent knee surgery. A hundred degrees for sixty days straight last year in Dallas? That makes it a lot tougher, he said, I dunno…

You don’t have to shovel heat, I offered, trying to help.

He laughed. True, that.

I did not get to see Holly.

I did not make it to Purlescence nor did I get to see the Cascade folks. I’ll send them the photo of Parker’s sweater from the gift of their yarn from the last time.

I did get to drive Gail to one of the two things she’d wanted to do.

And then I waited for a friend who was supposed to stop by briefly.

And she didn’t and she didn’t and she didn’t answer her messages either, but I figured it was just missed signals.

She’s my age. Her brother had died today. No not in Colorado.

And then I managed to get a hold of my own brother. Yes in Colorado. Who did not, as it happens, take his children to the premier at that theater that he goes past, he told me, “all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.”

After that it felt like a good day to sit tight and be glad for my family members right here right now for every moment I have with them.

(Ed. to add Saturday morning: after I posted this last night, I saw an article wherein a young woman recounted that she’d come face to face with the gunman and was suddenly struck by the utterly ridiculous thought of, I can’t die wearing a Twilight t-shirt! And the guy had moved on.

It was funny, it was absurd, it was comic relief, and it was life.

Holly was not only in the States but San Francisco today. Hey!

And so she drove down and we spent the day sitting, knitting, and chatting along with Michelle–who does not quite yet see why what we love is so enticing, not just for us but for her. But the yarn, it calls. She knows what sweater she wants. She knows what fibers she does and does not want it to be. She knows I will not knit argyle. Holly (thank you Holly!) told her how much she was going to love making it herself. (I once did not only argyle, but argyle Kaffe Fassett style. In cotton. Eighty-one, count’em, 81 strands of laceweight cotton *per row* some rows. It was nuts and it never quite got finished.)

And so…

Richard got home and joined us. Dinner was eaten. Holly and I went off to Purlescence.

I had cast on shortly after she’d gotten here; I was a third of the way through my 440 yards by the time she left and she was close to done with her own. It is amazing how much you can get finished when there’s an interesting reason to keep the fingers going while you listen–the best part of course being the time together. Thank you, Holly! And Michelle for joining us.

Meantime, for anybody local: Cascade‘s reps are coming to Purlescence tomorrow, 5-8 pm. There will be new yarns to see. Holly and I are hoping to go, if her schedule works out that way.

My friend Karen gave me some plums from her tree this past week, not quite enough for a batch of jam, so out of sheer curiosity I threw in some ripe mango–and the juice of a lime. Since we like fruit sauce more than jam, I went easy on the sugar, enough to keep it from spoiling, not enough to make it gel.

After tasting the result, I would do that again in a heartbeat.

I was pretty much out of jars at that point, though, and not done experimenting. Gail offered me her old canning jars; she hadn’t done any of that in lo these many years and she wasn’t about to start again now. (Boy did that sound familiar. She’s old enough to be my mom, though, so she might have a point.)

And so Saturday evening I went over to pick them up.

They were in two boxes in her garage.  To her surprise, they were also filled–with what, or when she’d done it, she had no idea. Clearly (squinting at the liquid black with a topsoil of green) whatever it was was in no way fit for consumption anymore.

But those jars… (To my relief, I couldn’t get them open. Nobody’s volunteered yet. But it will have to be done. Disposals are a wonderful invention, and, come to think of it, so are face masks.)

Curiosity got to me and I googled the brand. Atlas Mason home canning jars stopped being produced in–are you ready for this?

1964.

Yup, they’ve got that wide-shouldered look mentioned on another site, yup, them’s the ones, looks like.

Umm… Not to sound in any way ungrateful…

Karen asked me at church today if I was going to need any more plums. Yes, I con-Kerr-ed, and thank you, just as soon as I get some over to her of what I’ve already created (in a new jar) from her first batch.

Shortly after seeing Gail, I learned that the local Target has pints and halfpints in stock again now, that their store season isn’t over yet. They come to about a buck a jar.

As mentioned earlier, I was made head of our ward’s part in an interfaith blood drive. Which was held today.

The woman who is the liaison between the Red Cross and all the local wards got me set up weeks ago with the materials and showed me what I needed to be doing.

The last time I was actually in a blood drive was when I was in high school and got excused from Mr. Ball’s science class to go to the library for it. Organized by class period. Assembly lined, efficient.

I can’t donate now, of course, even without the mouse cells from the Remicade in ’03, but I’ve wished for years for a way to show those who do how much I appreciate it. And so I asked if perhaps I might come and, say, entertain the kids of those donating? I’m not a morning person, but I could do some of the afternoon or something.

Great idea, she said, how about you do 11-2. I’ll see if I can find someone to do the 8-11. Bring some toys and books for them and maybe you could help with the refreshments.

I got to the Catholic church where it was being held, doing too long of a walk in too bright of a sun trying to find the place.  With some mild cardiac effects of too much exposure yesterday, I was feeling a little fragile.

The place was jammed. I was looking for whom to check in with but the signup table wasn’t it, and a woman noticed and came up to me. She gave no recognition at my name.

I said I was one of the ward blood drive coordinators. She identified herself as being with the Red Cross.

I had my bag full of kid stuff, but we saw one, count’em one child in the crowd, with both parents, “And they’ve decided not to donate.”

Huh? Why go all the way out there and then not? I didn’t get it, but I didn’t say anything. Whatever.

And then here’s the thing: I told her my husband was sick. I was fine, but just so they knew.

“So you’re a carrier?” she asked.

And with that I was dismissed. Seemed wiser to both of us, honestly, but having said I was going to show up, I showed up and let it be their decision. She did not want me there. I debated saying something to the friend I’d been w0rking with (yes I should have) but from what I’d seen there was no need for babysitters and at two and half hours left, how would you find one? Why would it even be an issue? Anybody coming with small kids would already have thought through that IV-no move-no-chase-kids thing.

Hours later I got a note forwarded to me I did not expect. From the woman who had indeed come for the 8-11 shift, frazzled, exhausted, worried, trying not to be indignant, wondering if something had happened and I didn’t know how to reach anybody? Why hadn’t I shown up??

Yow.

As far as I’d known, it was an assignment manufactured entirely in my own head. Yow. One of the Red Cross people had called in sick and people were piling up. They could only process four at a time when all hands were on board, which they weren’t, the calendar was full, but they were still taking walk-ins and she had stayed till an hour after it was supposed to have been over–and someone told her they weren’t going to do this again, not with that kind of a wait. Not the message she’d hoped for. It was intense.

I still don’t know exactly what she did or why I was so needed. I wish I’d been able to help–but I’m sure that a whole lot of people, had they known, would have been very glad to help and very glad I wasn’t there. Just in case.

But the good part of it is, we had a really, really successful blood drive. The turnout was fantastic.

Re the sick person at Purlescence yesterday: I totally understand. Her young daughter was sick the week before, then she caught it; it got so isolating and so old and she was keenly in need of adult facetime mixed with the positive vibes of creativity. So she came.

I get that. Believe me. When my oldest was five, she caught chicken pox, the last day of kindergarten after it had gone around and around the classroom, missing her–till it didn’t.

She’d had it at three months, so I thought she was immune, but no, if you’re under six months old the first time, you can get it again, often much harder the second time. (Yeah, and the youngest later did the same thing.)

At the very end of her being contagious…her brother caught it. At the very end of his, the next kid caught it. And likewise the next, stretching out our period of isolation from the last day of class to a few days before school started up again in September. The entire summer with four kids six and under at home only. No park time. No friends over. No vacations. No day trips. Not even so much as a stop at the grocery store together.

Then the vaccine came out–young families now are so lucky.

An entire summer of at least one kid sick nonstop and our not being allowed in public to spread the contagion. I was about ready to go out of my screaming mind.

So I knew.

But at the same time, the young mom who was there last night has not lived through and could never have known (see Jan 09 posts especially) what I’d gone through since those days, I mean, how many people have immune systems that attack their own organs at the slightest germ?

She came out for a moment to her car for something and saw Anne and me off by my car talking and called over to us, glad to see us. Oh there you are!

Suddenly I saw why it was a wonderful thing that there had been an unusually large number of cars and I’d had to park several shopfronts away: let’s see, a cough goes 20 feet–yeah. I’m safe here.

Anne called over, She doesn’t have an immune system (which was as good a shorthand as any.) The woman was contrite.

Which was all I needed. Anne told her, Let Purlescence know next time so they can call Alison.

Which I thought an uncommonly gracious thing to say. No blaming, no pouting, just a learning experience with no harm done (I fervently hope as I type that that everybody else that was there stays healthy). We all get to be young once. This is how we grow in our understanding of one another.

Meantime, after months and months of searching and I know how lucky we are to be able to say this and how many others so much wish for the day themselves. I want to shout it from the rooftops after all the angst and all the hoops and the crucial reference who flaked and didn’t answer their messages for the longest time: MICHELLE GOT THE JOB TODAY!!!

Parker in the hotel crib last weekend after he let me snuggle him to sleep…

We took the freezer apart again. The resident small person who could squeeze into it got, well, drafted. This time, we knew that hairdryering the coils wasn’t going to keep the job done past a week even after all the vacuuming at the back last time, and after some fussing with a meter–after I got a connection apart and then put tips to tips while Richard behind me read the readoff–he was able to narrow down the cause to one, and a $70 part is on its way.

The two-day-56F milk has been tossed and replaced; things are cold again for now. I wonder if the mailman will deliver the defroster control box over next door.

The doorbell rang just after we finished up. Oh hello, come on in!

And then it rang again, only this time I was expecting it and helped Jocelyn puzzle out her sweater pattern.

Got to Purlescence, and… Got headed off at the pass. Just inside the door, Kaye and the visiting Anne warned me: someone was sick.

So I signed a book for Monica and then Anne and I walked back outside to catch up a bit. It had been too long.

What I didn’t know is that she had stopped by to drop something off for me: “You’re always making things for other people, so I wanted to make something for you!”

I was speechless. She loved it. I loved it. Thank you, Anne, and I hope you get your crabapple tree (from the comments there).

I wore it proudly to Trader Joe’s to get that new gallon of milk. I showed it off when I got home.  And when Anne, while we were chatting, shivered a bit in the foggy air outside the shop, I told her I had this really pretty shawlette I could loan her for a moment… She laughed.

(Four for four on the sideways-Iphone goof–sorry about that.)

The doorbell rang and I put the project down mid-double decrease, the tip of the needle still in the stitch, hoping briefly the silk wouldn’t jump. Michelle and I got to the door together and opened it, *so* not expecting what we saw that it took us a moment to realize it really was who it was.

He used to be married into our family. He lives on the other coast, where he teaches at a small college.

We have a longtime mutual friend who lives here. She and he were both there, holding out large plastic tubs to us.

We had put some large tubs out for the recycler to pick up today, doubling our doubletake: wait, what?

The mutual friend’s husband left her, emotionally, a long time ago, recently, officially. And so she, too, is divorced.

He had flown out to help her in her move. Her house should get a good price, but still it’s so much work at such a difficult time. There were some reminders of her ex she wanted out and Goodwill seemed just too meager; she wanted them to go to someone who would use them and appreciate what they were, but who?

Then, ALISON! Surely, she thought, my network of fiber artists could…

Handwoven. Handspun. Handknit. From her and her ex’s big trip to Nepal, much of it still in the packaging. More than pictured here. Pretty, thin wrap skirts that would make a great beach half-coverup. Woven vests. More sweaters. The wools are scratchy, as I expect from that part of the world, but hey.

Wow. And yes, I could definitely find appreciative homes for these, starting right here–there were two of those  cotton sun jackets and the small one fits me.

I had not seen him since his own divorce.  Richard and I had asked no questions, just tried our best to be supportive. Caring is not a matter of legal decrees–we love him, period. We had not known if he had known that.

So when it finally got through my thick skull who that somehow actually was on my front porch, I threw my arms around him and he, me.  (I hugged her, too.) And did again when they were leaving. We held each other in our eyes and knew: the caring was still there, would always be there. I was so glad they’d taken the chance I would be home.

I do not know how or when or if I might ever see him again. But the message was received and the message was mutual.  It was such a comfort.

(Ed. to add, I’ll be at Purlescence’s Knit Night tomorrow. Just sayin’.)

Pectin? the woman at the grocery store asked me. What’s that? I explained that it helps the fruit gel when you’re making homemade jam; she said into her walkie-talkie as we searched, This lady needs this stuff for making jello.

Um no actually.

Thinking I just didn’t need that many, I had given dozens of canning jars away the day before all those plums arrived and now I didn’t have enough. The only part of making jam that was easy to find was the sugar–everybody’s summer fruit trees must be producing at once. Before this was Silicon Valley, it was Valley of Heart’s Delight, orchard after blooming orchard, and the idea of having at least one producing tree endures in the culture.

I got some raspberries to try raspberry plum jam with (thank you DebbieR!) and I found the pectin at the fourth store. A few strange squat jars at the third store. They’ll do for now.

And…I spent a little while thumbing through the online Stark Bros catalog. They know what will grow here, including–Seckels? Really!? Seckel pears, my absolute favorites, the ones I’d been told needed mega-cold hours? (The Moonglow pollinator looks good too.)

We shall see. Discussions have begun.

But the other thing that happened today.

Another neighbor showed up at our doorstep with misdelivered mail, shaking her head at the mailman who couldn’t read an address–but I was suddenly glad for the moment. Richard thanked her for bringing it over, while, me, I was running into the kitchen. Then I chased after her with a bottle.

Was she on a diabetic diet? Or could she eat–did she like–plum jam?

I *LOVE* plum jam! she exclaimed.

This is all A’s fault, I told her as I held out the jar; she gave me the plums from her tree.

I did not expect what happened next. For me? in a voice so…vulnerable, and she turned away a moment not to burst into tears. I pointed out the delightfully silly bottom of the jar, trying to help.

But I came home so very very glad.

Many years ago–Richard thinks 20–our neighbor knocked on the door with a bag of plums from his tree, wondering if we and our children might like some?

The childhood memories that brought back! I made plum jam in great delight–did you know having the skins pureed in there gives a sour-cherries effect? I showed up on his and his wife’s doorstep with a bottle; he thought that was great and promptly gave us more when his wife wasn’t looking. She was embarrassed, but I assured her quite honestly that please, no, I was thrilled! And so they got a bottle from that batch, too.

But we’re certainly not the only ones around for them to share with.

I wanted a steady supply of my own. And so, my kids gave me a Santa Rosa plum tree for Mother’s Day a few years ago, to my intense delight. This year it was producing for the first time. The squirrels stripped my Fuji apple next to it, day by day, but the plums they left alone.

Until they didn’t. Several dozen newly purple were suddenly just three. I was disappointed but not terribly surprised.

And yet. That very afternoon, while I was off running errands, the phone rang and my daughter answered. I came home to a bag and a bowl full of plums and a message…that… They have some worries to worry about. The fruit became the way to share the message.

I needed to do something.

That was Friday. With the wedding Saturday, then a family barbecue thrown by my niece and all the other things going on this weekend, today I finally got down to business.

It’s been awhile. I realized I was a bit out of practice–I had to doublecheck the instructions rather than just breeze through, making sure I didn’t forget any steps.

My mom always taught me that after you fill and wipe and close up the jars, you twist the screw-on part all the way–and then back it up just a nudge. Turn the jar over and let the heat of the jam help make sure that top is truly sanitized, then when the jar is cool, flip it back over and tighten that thing good and tight now. Wait a few hours and then that reassuring pop pop from the kitchen as each seal becomes sure.

Did I overcook it? The jam must have compacted quite a bit in the settling, I filled those jars up a lot more than that. I don’t remember seeing quite this effect before.

The neighbor, pleased, declared her halfpint cute.

Thank you Supreme Court. Now my daughters can reliably get health insurance and can pay into the system for it.

Speaking of which. I’ve had an easily-flaring laryngitis that has seemed autoimmune-related for four months now.

I got to see Dr. M today for the first time in three years and secretly wished, as he came in, that my hair still had that youthful dark sandy color–just a few gray hairs on him after all these years.

Got a tube down my nose and throat briefly and I thanked him: he gave me a topical anesthetic first. The ER doctor I encountered at Stanford, who simply shoved it down, could definitely learn from him; he’s a good one. After that one experience I did not know it could be done gently, but in Dr. M’s hands it was a breeze. Just making sure nothing serious was going on.

And with that cleared and out of the way, he stopped and looked at me a moment and said, wonderingly: “You never change.”

Wait, wait–I’m the one with the gray hair! It wasn’t till about two hours later that it hit me–remember that inadvertent eyelid lift that cost me my grandma eyes when I had the skin cancer cut off my scalp? Too funny.

We swapped small grandchild news. His daughter has twins on the way? Then I’ve got some soft hats to be knitting soon, and prayers to add for their safe delivery. Twins! Very cool. To life!

We have a laser pointer that tells the temperature of whatever you aim it at. 62F on the orange juice inside the fridge is not a good idea. (I vacuum the coils.)

Meantime…

My friend Gail needed a ride hither and yon today; she’d saved up four errands for one big afternoon on the go. Reading happened. Knitting happened, and a nebulous idea for a pattern began to actually come to be while I waited.

On our way back towards her house, there it was again, on the same telephone line, though further down the road this time. We both saw it and again exclaimed over it: by the size and shape I’d say this one was a female. Beautiful, beautiful big bird standing watch over the cars going by.

And so once again a Cooper’s hawk made our day while driving Gail around. And after I got home, I saw two Nuttall’s woodpeckers dancing together around my olive tree. I’d seen one bathing in the water in the curb last week so I knew one was around somewhere again. I’d been waiting for months. Two!

And life is good.

Now to get back to work on that project. (Yup. More of the dk silk, in not wheat but wheat cream, a pale golden shade.)

It was Ryan’s birthday today, and his girlfriend’s parents invited us all over to dinner.

Our part of it: one homemade angel food cake.

One bag frozen raspberries cooked with about a half cup mango juice and a not-full 1/4 c sugar in the microwave for about three and a half minutes, then cuisinarted so that the seeds (which do add to the flavor) become one with the puree. Pour over diced pieces from six ataulfo-type (smallish yellow kidney-shaped) mangoes.

Chocolate sauce: fill a measuring cup to yay high with pieces of good dark chocolate, then pour coconut cream to almost that high. Dunk every bit of chocolate below the surface once before nuking so the chocolate doesn’t seize, then one minute for my about a cup and a half’s  worth of chocolate.  Stir hard while the pieces melt. Can serve as sauce or refrigerate till hard, scoop into balls, roll in cocoa, and call it truffles. (Mine was still sauce when it was time to go; it’s all good.)

One portabello mushroom/onion side dish, sauteed by Michelle.

Two other cakes, one by the girlfriend and hers was the best. Chocolate pear torte. I’d really like the recipe.

And a good party was had by all.

It was, to be softspoken about it, an intense day.

We went to the wedding reception this evening of Marguerite’s daughter. Beautifully done, the couple and their families so very happy. So much joy. The way it should always be.

And here’s the funny part: they held it in the Rotunda at City Hall in San Jose. Okay, picture me jumping up and down in surprised glee when that invitation came. Wow!

And to top it off, with what I can only ascribe to the choreography of God, we parked the car and were on the plaza walking towards the Rotunda door when, looking up, I said to Richard and Michelle, Do you see what that is?!

No, what?

The peregrine falcon casually turned a half-circle around the circular building and away towards the direction of the nest, the one I used to be on the camera crew for. Just. So. Perfect.

As were the bride and groom.

The other thing that happened. The phone rang this afternoon. “Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, Richard!” (Wondering what the occasion might be.) I found out soon enough.

I have always thought that that freeway bridge was an example of old and, at the side near the airport, poor design. The kids were on it in heavy traffic when for reasons no one knows, someone slammed their brakes hard. And were hit. A third car hit. While our son Richard in the other lane was braking and trying to avoid and so the guy behind him slammed into him and threw him into the others and if we heard right, our kids were then hit yet again.

And they are okay. The car, not so much. One person left the scene via paramedics, braced and collared, but nobody was killed.

Cars are only so much scrap metal anyway. I told him that my big accident when I was hit, the doctor told me to keep moving gently all day, all day, while consciously relaxing and that that would keep the muscle damage to a minimum.  He was right. (He missed the brain swelling and the damage to my balance to come, but maybe it was too soon after to know.)

They’re okay. Repeat. They’re okay. Two hours later we were in San Jose, watching old friends finding old friends, everybody embracing the happy couple, four years after we were doing the same thing with our own kids and now grandson who had us holding our breath today.

Love your dear ones. Life is far too fragile for anything less.

I was saying to someone just yesterday that I hadn’t seen my hawks in months and I missed them. Rather fiercely, actually. I hoped they were okay. The squirrel population seems to have suddenly gone bonkers–ten at once?!–and a few of the new ones trying to raid whatever they can have looked close to starving. This didn’t help me think the hawks were okay out there. The balance was off.

I moved a chair on the patio to try to thwart the little monsters and I guess it made the perch he needed: later, as if summoned, the male Cooper’s landed on the back of it. It was afternoon. It was not his usual hunting time.

He glanced around the patio a bit because that’s just what you do when you’re a raptor, but mostly he was watching me watching him while I was being fervently grateful he’d come. He’s here! He’s alive! And the ravens didn’t bully him out of his territory after all. Yay!

If a wild thing living free can feel loved, I was giving it my best.

He looked relaxed, and to prove that he fluffed out his chest and head feathers a bit. LookywhatIcando.

You sweet showoff you. So gorgeous.

We enjoyed each other’s company awhile longer, and then, mission accomplished, he was off in no particular hurry.

I got up, baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and soon Michelle was home and then Richard; we walked next door to wish our neighbors goodbye.

When we moved here, the folks two doors down had children in college and gone and ours were not all born yet; now ours are grown and gone and they’ve decided it was time for them to move next to their children. Their house sold in a day.  Ohio will be very different.

And so their three-doors-down neighbors were throwing a goodbye party, something we all needed in our impending loss; who else would know about how their orange Persian with the jet-engine purr who would walk over to hang out with my kids? Or would come crash a nearby party like the one just then? We will miss those good people. I’m so glad we got to see them.

Side note: probably fifteen years ago now, I combed that cat’s long soft fur, spun about 18″ out of it, plied it with silk and knit a 1×2″ piece. Glued some pearl beads on some round toothpicks and put the live stitches on my faux knitting needles. Add a pin backing, and there you go!

She kept that memento of him on her fridge for years for all to see.

I got to talking with Bill, who’s behind our fence.  What are the chances that the one person who would know anything would be the one person I said anything to! I asked him whether my birdfeeder had brought more birds into his yard too; he chuckled and admitted he didn’t know birds, really–but: there was a dove that hit the window trying to get away from a hawk and then the hawk hit it too! A big hawk. It had lain there about a half hour before finally picking itself up.

Was it a Cooper’s? Was it the female? (I’m thinking, a third larger, a rounder front, tell me…)

He knew it was a hawk, he chuckled, but that’s about it.

After today’s visit I know the male is clearly doing fine. I hope his mate is too–but it was good to know at least something.

And I bet Bill went home and looked up Cooper’s hawks.

And we all hugged the friends who are leaving and, even knowing they need to, so much wished they wouldn’t go.