And so, there was a message in my inbox from Sam this morning after his mom, Gigi, read my post: would I like a Sherpa?

Would I?!  I answered with a Yes Please! and immediately started baking chocolate.  Sam is a peach.

And so I got to traverse CNCH in style.  We ran into Gigi and his sister and a few friends at one point, and as we were talking, he started teasing his mom about her haircut, how it went just so at the back now.

I looked up at him and grinned, Well, if she used a hot curling iron for that, you know… Train up a curl in the way it should go, and when it is cold it will not de-part from it.

After I got home I glazed the pair of chocolate tortes I’d pulled out of the oven just before I’d left.  One for Sam. And one for…

That second torte went out the door almost immediately but then came right back in, and I got handed an object.  I had no idea what it could be.  I was told, “Turn it off!” I was absolutely mystified. Turn what off? What are you talking about?

I about died laughing and wanted to take pictures after explanations were made but was told that doing so might not be held in the highest appreciation at just that moment–it would be funny later, but but.

Remember that glaze recipe?

Chocolate-truffled cellphones.  Total Immersion method.  Yum.

(Yeah, we were afraid it was net-working, but it handed over the chocolate and nothing got hurt.)

Let’s see, (taking notes) I need this and this and I can’t do a thing about them right now–nope, the taxes aren’t going to be finished today after all.

Too many hours of all that and I was off to Trader Joe’s and bought chocolate hazelnut gelato immediately before closing (adding in berry sorbet in case of guilt).  Escape!

Meantime, Don, having no idea that that’s what I was immersing myself in and that I was being seriously knitting- and reading-deprived, sent his son Cliff over with a CD they’d burned, of what I think of as knitting music: the perfect thing to turn on and let the ears pay attention to while the fingers glide along, knowing their part of the duet by heart.  A relief for a day like today, something to look forward to; thank you, Don and Cliff!

It was fun to watch, though, that the squirrels had figured out, every single one of them before I even woke up this morning, that the game was up.  The birds seemed to know it, too;  they were flocking to the feeder all day in great numbers.  Here, *we* get all the sunflowers now, but you down there, *ptooie*, you can have the leftover millet.  Neener.

The runt of last year’s black squirrel litter who’d acted nearly tame for awhile was suddenly on his best behavior again.  Scrambling up the back of a chair, not too close since he wasn’t allowed to, keeping away from the amaryllises, standing and begging and staring long and longingly at me through the window.   When I laughed, it knew it had won and scrambled down to where it knew I would throw to, just like old times.  Nuts to the squirrels!

Nope, don’t see a line for claiming them all as an aggregate dependent…

Last winter, while my husband, my mother, my friends and readers, my doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, a housekeeper at Stanford–everybody played a part and everybody played it well in taking good care of me, strengthening me, being there for me, and I am so grateful–I, of course, could take no care whatsoever of my collection of prized amaryllises. They were the least of our worries.  They were outside under an awning, up high on an old picnic table so as to be out of reach of the snails that would devour them.

But that also meant the winter rains couldn’t reach them. And when I came home, I could not lift the weight of a water jug as my long incision healed ever so slowly.  The others remembered to once or twice each over the months.

When at last I could do my part, the pots just sat there with the bulbs desiccated. I was sure most of them were dead.

A few were.  But the others, I could feel that the bulbs still had some heft left between my fingers, enough for hope’s sake.  So I kept on watering those pots long past the point that leaves should have started to show already.  They did not. I watered anyway.  Throw in a little Monty Python: “I’m not dead yet!”  I hadn’t been, so they weren’t allowed to be either–have faith in that heft and keep trying.

This went on for months.

I finally got a few leaves here and there.  I figured that was the most one could ask for, really; if they could produce four, the chances were high they’d bloom next year, and that would be wonderful, but if it had to be the year after that, then so be it.

This bulb produced only two.  And yet–I glanced outside two weeks ago and was very surprised to see a bud.  I brought it inside. Eventually, I found six pots with buds so far, and not wanting the wildlife to develop a taste for the flowers, brought them inside and out of their squirrelly little reach.

I really had wondered if they were dead after all.  It had just been so long with no response I could see.

The first one opened today, is opening today, the flower smiling wider and wider in slow motion as I type this.

It is standing there reminding me what I so easily forget, how much Life is a gift, beautiful and powerful beyond all understanding.  It is not limited, no matter what our expectations may be at any one time.  The life force is strongest when we hear its call to cheer someone else’s day–as so many brightened mine when I was in dire need.

Pouring water into flowerpots.  Typing an email to someone lying in a hospital bed, sending up a prayer, Thinking Good Thoughts.  A small moment to each patient bulb, and then another, and then another, adding up.

To pure joy.

Thank you, everybody.

And remembering, as I write this, the One who endured all, rose above all, and loves all, Happy Easter!

There was a choir concert at the church in Menlo Park tonight.  I was the only one here able to go, but our friend Jim was playing the organ and I wouldn’t miss for anything being there in memory of what his family went through a few years ago:  to cherish and celebrate with him by my simple presence the life of his son, remembering the joy in Jim‘s playing as he got the news, right there at the organ at a Good Friday concert, that Nicholas was being released from the hospital.

And to remember God’s Son most of all.

“Two shall be working in the field; one shall be taken, the other left.”  I think I get that obscure phrase better than I used to. Life simply is what it is.

I was two minutes late and the place was packed. Looking in the doorway, I saw one open seat only.  Taking it, I found myself sitting next to Alma. Alma!! We threw our arms around each other in silent exclamations of surprised delight.

We lived near each other and saw each other every Sunday when her first two and my younger two children were babies; her Nicole was a preschooler and Nathan a toddler when they moved away.

About ten years later, my friend Michelle, for whom I knitted the original Monterey Shawl, had her young daughter admitted to Children’s Hospital, and I went to visit her with a toy to cheer her up.

Only, the parents had forgotten to add the detail that when they’d moved here, they’d kept their old insurance, meaning she was in Oakland Children’s Hospital over an hour away, not at the Lucile Packard one at Stanford right nearby. Oops.  She wasn’t there.

Well, that didn’t work!  I was walking back down the sidewalk towards my car, wondering why why why–when Alma and I saw each other. After all those years.

Alma!!!

Alison!!!

Only–I knew if I were seeing her there, of all places…

Her son Nathan had had a childhood cancer treated, one that no child had ever survived that rare type of tumor if it were larger than so many centimeters.

His had been the size of a watermelon.

And now it was back and so was he and there we both were.  We grieved together, and I absolutely knew that that was why Michelle and her husband hadn’t thought to mention which hospital; their daughter recovered quickly from a temporary thing, and I needed to be in that spot on that day for Alma to receive that comfort.

Nathan had wanted to be a fireman when he grew up.  A firehouse near where they lived took him into their hearts as he fought the good fight, so much so that when he passed, they came with their big red trucks to the funeral in his honor and to comfort his family.

And of course I came too.  I remembered Nicole and Nathan, the big sister holding carefully onto her little brother’s hand, the two of them inseparable, always; what would she do without him?  Alma told me they’d stayed close like that as they’d gotten bigger, too.

That was all, again, about a dozen years ago.  And there she was tonight.  I’d come to celebrate that Jim’s son had survived his fall from the ski lift over that Spring Break–and found myself there beside a woman who, as the music went on, was wiping tears, particularly, it seemed to me afterwards, during Mary’s Song.

And I knew. Oh, honey, I knew.  You don’t get over the loss of a child; you only get through it.

I can only hope that knowing that someone else was there who knew and who somehow ended up, again, right there, helped.

We were walking into church today and I saw, at a side angle as we approached…

Back up a moment here.  For years now I have had visual memory damage and a specific difficulty with recognizing faces of people I’ve only recently met or that I don’t often see.

…And yet, “MICKEY!?!” burst loudly out of me before she’d even turned around.

Sixteen years.  It had been sixteen years. She was the young grandma with neon-(wait, I forget–was it purple? Fuschia?  Blue?  I think it varied.  Punk-spiked and wild-colored, anyway) hair.  Her grandkids were just slightly younger than my kids. Who did not have a California Cool-version grandma quite like my Norwegian-born friend Mickey. I adored her.  Always will.  And somehow my soul refused to let my memory damage defeat me or even slow me down, not for one instant, the moment I saw her today.  I’m still trying to figure out how it could have been so (and her hair was normal now), but… !

Her daughter had moved to Washington State, and Mickey with her, in 1994. I did not get to see those children growing up with mine, and I have wished it could have been otherwise.

She turned at hearing her name and took me in for a full two seconds before it hit her and, “OH!” as she threw her arms around me.  She was too kind to say anything like, when did your hair go so gray? Where are all your little kids?  How did you get so old?  Where on earth did that cane come from?

GOOD to have you HOME, Mickey!!

After church, we sat and just talked, not enough, oh, never long enough, but till I was afraid I was wearing out her friend who was waiting to take her back with her where she was staying. (Thank you, Jean!)

Why had she come? I asked.

Simply because it was time to see old friends.  Just because.

Okay, now, that is a thought to live by. Grab your plane tickets, let’s go.

And in the meantime.  While Richard was sitting waiting patiently for me by the main doors, he was being charmed by a young mom’s two-year-old daughter waiting with her mommy for her daddy to be ready to go, too.  He described the scene later over dinner: if her mommy asked her a question, she had to jump up and down before she could start to answer with a giggle. Bouncy bouncy bounce. Every question. Every time.  She was *so* cute.

Michelle, intrigued, asked, And did she have blonde curls?

Richard: Oh, yes!

Michelle: Oh, that’s just too perfect.

Richard: Yes, it’s exactly how you used to bounce; you didn’t walk, you bounced, jumping up and down with each step.

Michelle: And singing Little Mermaid!

Me, laughing: Oh, boy did you sing Little Mermaid!

Michelle went on to tell us a vivid memory of hers, long forgotten by either of us: her daddy was crossing the street with her to the Double Rainbow ice cream store downtown, a very special treat, one-on-one Daddy time to celebrate her birthday, when suddenly she realized: she hadn’t sung her song! She hadn’t bounced! She was so excited that she’d forgotten and she’d actually *walked*!  THAT’S not how you do it!

And to Richard’s horror, she’d darted back across that often-busy street so she could do the job right.  Bouncy bounce, sing Little Mermaid.  There you go. Did it right that time (and, I’m sure, with her daddy’s hand holding tightly to hers just in case this time).

She remembers that sense of satisfaction in getting it right.  Uh uh uhhh, uh uh uh-uhhhhhhhh. Put joy in the world!

At any age. At any time.  In any color.  Curly, punk, blonde, blue.

I want to see Mickey’s daughter and grandchildren; I say, the reunions have only just begun.

And I hope to see my young-mom friend’s exuberant little daughter grow up here, so her mother and I can swap tales in some day to come over when we had cute little girls always jumping up and down for the sheer joy of being alive and well loved.

Maybe I should go spike my hair.

(And as I finish typing this, Michelle is singing Easter music in the background.)

She didn’t know she was modeling for me.

I was out with friends tonight, and although it was warm at the time we took off carpooling across the Bay, I carried a sweater and a shawl in my knitting bag with me; it’s always cold at night here when the San Francisco fog rolls in.

Several hours later, I caught one tall friend shivering, and being plenty warm myself with just my sweater, I surprised her from behind when she leaned over a moment (ie, I could reach!) and wrapped my Bluejay around her shoulders.

She loved it.  I told her I was afraid she couldn’t keep it, because it was one of my in-the-book projects, but she loved how soft it was; baby alpaca? Ooh, nice.

I told her how that bluejay got its heathery effect, and she laughed.

But I got to see one of my shorter shawls on one of my taller friends and mentally gauge the fit and length and how to adjust them to better fit more people. Always a good thing. She reinforced some ideas and did me a favor.

And yes, she cheerfully gave it back at the end; I’m sure she had no idea it was with a pang on my part.  But really, though, it was a tad short on her anyway.

A trip to Whole Foods for the Earth Balance pseudo-butter for Michelle’s baking, and a quick glance over the fresh breads.  She was reading ingredient labels and I went Oh! as I picked up a loaf in its paper bag and it was still warm from the oven–but: “sourdough starter” is not allergen specific enough. Some have milk in them.

So I went over to the baker standing nearby and asked.

And boy did we hit the jackpot. We found ourselves talking to a delightful man around her age who not only knew the products, he was clearly someone who loved what he did and did it well. Cakewrecks would only be able to use his offerings for their Sunday Sweets best-of-the-best pages.  And:  he was someone who was likewise allergic to milk. He showed us his favorite breads and told us which desserts in the display case were safe for her; they were all of the ‘how do you eat this when this is so gorgeous’ variety.

He went and proudly got us samples of his vegan brownies.  In return, I gave him this site addy and told him about how successful we had been at substituting coconut cream for the manufacturing cream in my tortes.

He said something about coconut milk, and I corrected, no, coconut cream. There was a moment of confusion on his part, and I said something…to which Michelle, later, as we got in the car, went, “Mom. I bought the coconut cream at Milk Pail, not here; they don’t carry it here. You kind of put him on the spot.”

I did? You did?

I bet his store will carry it now! (You know, maybe I could parlay this into an excuse for making another pair of tortes, and I wouldn’t even have to make a half-gallon of manufacturing cream’s worth.  Right?)

Oh, and, the ganache on the torte? The man knits. Crochets, mostly, but, the whole yarn thing. He’s into it.

Yeah, I kinda am too.

A quick p.s.  Round thirty-leven in Squirrel Wars: the tin foil wrinkled when I went to refill the feeder and  Michelle says don’t try to make a living at making funky hats.  But I definitely won this round.  Briefly contemplated buying a kiddie wading pool for the squirrels to high-dive into, complete with a safe way for them to climb back out. Squirrelympics!

How to free a fridge of that last half a chocolate torte: slice it into tiny pieces, splay them out artfully on two paper plates like the finest hors d’ouvres (that’s Horse Doovres to those in the know–family joke), and take them to a Linger Longer potluck held after church.

How to get the kids to eat their veggies: line up the tables end-to-end before the kids are set free, with the tops beautifully arranged but in only veggies and dip so that when the kids get out of their Primary classes hungry, that’s all they see there is to eat.  After a suitable interval of snackage, bring out the rolls, the ham and the cheese, and, note to self that corned beef is a good idea on many occasions anyway; a thank you to those whose traditions dictate it be eaten in March. Good thinking.

I looked over and there was suddenly a scrum of small bodies going on at a particular point in the setup.  I knew instantly what was up, especially when adults were gathering in, too: someone had decided enough healthy food had been consumed by that point that it was safe to bring out the heretofore-hidden desserts from the kitchen. (And I had been in that kitchen earlier, looking for mine; I mean it when I say dessert had been hidden. Those moms did a good job!)

By the time I got over to the table, curious, there was an only barely large enough crumb left for forensic certainty that that had indeed been one of my plates.

I had one last tiny piece sneaked away in my fridge at home. It was very, very good.

And a good time was had by all. I rather didn’t expect the nurse I mentioned Tuesday to show up, given exposure issues with chemo, and as far as I know she didn’t, but C. was delighted to offer to take care of the shawl for me later; we’re all in this life thing together.

I did recognize one nurse there:  another of C.’s co-workers, who’d come straight to the party still wearing her scrubs.  I went up to re-introduce myself, although I couldn’t tell you which floor or ward or when I remembered her from, but given what last year was like, that’s not surprising.

She didn’t remember me at all.  I was upright and dressed for the occasion rather than decked out in a hospital gown and Eau du IV.  I was rather hoping for something like this, where that doctor was just ecstatic at seeing his patient doing the happily-ever-after, but hey.  Just the fact that someone recognized her and was healthy now and was glad to see her will, I’m hoping, give her a lift on a day sometime when she might need it.

Their work can be so hard.  But it is so important. They need to be told that their efforts matter, and nobody can like a patient can.

There was a women’s social and a dinner at church tonight. Chocolate torte #3 has been dispensed with.  But before I left, Richard was reminiscing with a chuckle over the time when someone at another potluck there had asked, in a bit of indignation, “Who assigned the Hydes SALAD!? I was looking forward to that torte!”

When the typecast fits, bake it.

So there I was.  Brian’s grandma took me aside and told me–I wasn’t sure if she said it was all of them or just the one–but at least one grandchild, then, went to bed last night with their hat firmly kept on their head and in the morning, there it stayed.

She couldn’t begin to know how much that meant to me and that she’d told me.  Moments like that keep me knitting.

Meantime, I finished the shawl for the nurse fighting cancer this afternoon, rinsed it and laid it out to dry in the round.  It’s always so magical, that moment when a glob of random yarn loops transforms into its glorious self and you step back and actually, finally, after all those hours, get to see.  It was such a sense of accomplishment, and its purpose so close to who I am and why I do what I do that, even though I tried, I could not get myself to settle on any new ball of yarn to start something else.  Not yet.

It felt so strange to walk out the door with no knitting project.  I mentioned that to Nicholas’s mom at the dinner.

She looked at me and smiled. “It’s okay to rest between projects.” I think she’s right–but note that I had to think about it awhile first.

Okay, that’s long enough.  I’m home.  Cast on!

I didn’t realize till afterwards that what I’d been waiting for was to see them receive them in person.  I hoped each one would choose and like their own particular hat–but you never know. What is a given, though, is that kids are transparent in their emotional reactions to things and I would know if someone still needed soothing afterwards with something they liked better. I think I needed to know that.  And so I’d hesitated.

Only the baby was having none of it, even when we tried playing peek-a-boo from under the wool, but he was tired and it was something unfamiliar.  Tomorrow he’ll be grinning and cooing and playing happily.

So the story is this: word was that Brian‘s family was here visiting grandparents for a day or two. I knew that grandparent time is precious; I knew that when there is great pain, a family gathered round in the strength of home may feel intruded upon by outsiders who simply can never quite entirely know.  I hesitated for several hours–but at last, I called and asked if I might borrow a moment of their day.

They readily welcomed me on over.

I told them how, several years ago, one good deed begat another good deed till, to my delight, a surprise box full of Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarns from Tina at BMF arrived on my doorstep–and then, I told them, every time I went to go knit the Silkie, trying to honor her gift by making good use of it, that one yarn just kept telling me, No. Not yet. For nearly three years it would not let me knit it. Last year at Stitches I bought two more skeins in the “Love” colorway, and it too resisted my needles.

Until recently.  Now I knew why.

So except for the first hat, before I figured out what I was doing, all the hats had a strand of Silkie; they were all individual, given that I knit in two strands, but all my hats were in the same family.   (Even the non-Silkie had the other strand overlapping.)  I pointed out the one hat that was completely different and described my longtime online friend Karin driving six hours round trip to finally get to meet me in person when we were in Vermont a year and a half ago; she’d wanted to knit a hat, too, for them, to convey her support. I told them how the folks at Purlescence had wanted to offer up their own goodwill towards them and wouldn’t let me pay full price on the matching yarns.

They loved them.  Each child picked one while making sure the others got one they liked, too; I was impressed.

The dad lined everybody up, seated me in the center, hats on all, and I looked around and went, “What, no bunny ears?!” The kids cracked up. (While the baby tried to pull his off.)

Their second-youngest son was whittling away on a stick during most of this, as happy as a knitter with cashmere in hand, and he grinned at me with his turquoise hat on his head.

When I left, he was outside in the garden, whittling away some more, totally immersed in his creation, hat on head, totally happy.  Yes.  Oh, thank you, thank you! I wanted to tell him.

When he gets older and his fine motor skills mature, maybe we’ll get some really cool knitting needles from his woodworking. You never know where a moment will take someone.

The Minions of the Pointy Sticks were laughing and knitting when Gigi pulled out her cellphone for me and called her son.  Just to make sure he was home. (Try to make sure he doesn’t leave!)

And then I excused myself, got back on the freeway, and headed toward their house.

Maybe I’ll embarrass him if I tell on him that he was vacuuming and didn’t hear the doorbell. (I hear he’s already spoken for in the has-parents department, sorry, you can’t have him.)  So I knocked hard.

Sam opened the door to a chocolate torte being offered up.  He’d mentioned last week, out of my earshot, how much he’d wished for “the best chocolate cake I have ever eaten in my life before or since,” after I’d made him one for his pushing my chair at Stitches five years ago, and by his sister’s indignantly-teasing reaction I knew I had to hear that one and made him repeat it.

I tell you, that wish was definitely my command.  That’s an easy one.

Standing in his doorway tonight, he told me how much I’d turned his day around five years ago; I told him how much he’d turned mine around too, oh my goodness most definitely, and I thanked him again for last Saturday.

Any time.

Any time back atcha.

(Time to go wind that second hank of suri.)

Last January, Richard ran into our old friend C. at Stanford Hospital; she works there as a nurse. Her kids and ours grew up together, we’ve known each other for ages, and she greeted him joyfully.

And then she stopped suddenly and asked–Wait–does this mean Alison’s in here?

That shawl project I mentioned yesterday?

I bought the hand-dyed Cherry Tree Hill suri laceweight at the DBNY sale.  When it came, it was wiry in the hands and very thin and I knew it would never get knit by itself.

So I went looking for something to tame it and add weight to it.  I found two blue laceweights in my stash, one dyed by me, one dyed by Lisa Souza, that I knew would look stunning with it.

But I also had some 20/20/60 cashmere/silk/superfine merino in Verdoso from Colourmart that matched the fairly small bit of green in that suri. I’d already hanked, scoured, and balled it up, which you have to do with mill-oiled cones; it was in the color of life growing upwards in the spring anew.  It was so soft now and it was ready to go.

I liked the blue. I preferred the blue. I wanted to do the blue.

But the green said, simply, No. Me.

We argued with each other for a few days.

No, the green flat-out declared, I said me, and that, honey, is that.

Rargh.

And so I got started, and as I got the yoke worked on, I thought, you know, I think I’d still like that blue better–maybe I should just frog this so I could prove to that yarn that I do know better than it does, thankyouverymuch.

Green it was.  I tried to get as much done as possible before Stitches, and then, like I say, my hands had to rest for days after wheeling around there.

It was such a relief to be able to get back to work.  I put a fair amount of time into it yesterday and today, feeling like this needed to be ready–if for no other reason than that then I could dive into the fun new stuff.

And yet.  I’ve learned time and again that when something is that insistent, there’s always a good reason for it.

Maybe I shouldn’t blog the whole thing yet, just wait for the day I go to give it, while probably wearing a different one to offer to trade, because, you see, this insecure part of me always wants to whine, But what if she doesn’t *like* it?

And yet.

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday and the nurse there exclaimed, Oooh, that’s *pretty*!

That helped more than she could know, and then, today, all the more.

The mail came this afternoon while I was knitting away.  A letter. It was from C.  She was throwing a party, bringing old friends together as she tries to do about once a year–and this time also hoping to raise money for breast cancer research.

For the sake of a young co-worker of hers. A single mom with breast cancer.

Who is a nurse at Stanford.

In a department I was in last January.

I had two nurses by that first name.  They saw me near death’s door. I am well now. For all their hard work and their caring, I am where I am now. I owe them all so much.

“Wear green!” said the invitation.

Oh, honey, and bring it, too.  I shall bring it, too. And I will tell that young mom that that green cashmere blend knew what it was doing.

And she will see me healthy.  I will take the colors of growth and new life with the first bluebell flowers of spring sprinkled here and there, and wrap them around her shoulders from all my heart.

Hey, KarenL, remember helping me tie this quilt in high school with the frame set up in your living room? Simon and Garfunkel playing in the background: Wednesday Morning 3 A.M., and I forget what the other album was.

Michelle’s comment about peacock tails got me reaching for peacock colors afterwards. I knew I was about to go off to Stitches, about to go buy gloriously gorgeous new yarns, but I just couldn’t have a day without a project!

Yeah, well.  I way overdid it with my hands on that chair Friday. (Thank you, Sam, so much for taking it over on Saturday!)  I simply had to wait, with all that lovely yarn staring at me, not that I wanted to confess that to the blog. Not Going To Happen Right Now. No Knitting Allowed. Heal.

Today was dark and stormy, the kind of day for curling up with a good yarn; I was doing better and gave it a go.

I’m actually glad now that I have something in my way that will take me a good dozen hours to finish up:  time to be creative in while keeping my mind open to what the first of the new wants to be when it grows up.  I knit so much and with so many yarns: they come, they go, it’s on to the next.  But, unlike some skeins, I don’t want to just play with these from Lisa, Dianne, and Melinda–I want them each to be in the perfect design from the get-go. They’re just too pretty not to be.

Knitting time. Thinking time. It’s all good.

(Oh, and yes, I found our certificate from when we tied the knot. Phew!)

I’ve been staring at this blank page.  Where to start.

(Maybe if the yarn weren’t all in hanks. But it is. And I am too tired to wind it up into balls.)

But still.  All these glorious, glorious yarns and colors.  And a thank you to Dianne’s husband for running out to their truck for my Waterfalls Elegant hank from their stock.  Where to start.

I tell you, it’s going to be a very fun year.

I got to see Lisa and Rod, so dear to me for so many years, and Sheila.  Dianne.  The folks at Blue Moon.  Karen at Royale Hare, Melinda and Tess at Tess.  I got to meet the folks at Malabrigo: to my surprise, I found myself in a conversation in French at one point, but we all spoke yarn. And I got to see so many, many friends who were simply walking around trying to take it all in, too.

To Jasmin‘s brother Sam, who pushed me today, sparing my hands and arms for knitting, Michelle and I plan to get that manufacturing cream on Monday–you earned that chocolate torte! (Recipe in comments, actual cake forthcoming.) Thank you!

And I have now held an actual vicuna-blend hank of hand-dyed gorgeousness, 15% vicuna and still in the qiviut-ic stratosphere.  Which is a good thing. Pay those South American ranchers well.  Shear a wild vicuna, save a vicuna by making it worthless to poachers, save a species–well done, Peru!

And someday I will afford some and knit some.  (No, new skeins, that wasn’t a sheep shot.)