I bet you Sue knows what I’m going to write about tonight.

1. But before I get there, I knitted a little Camelspin on the side today in a sudden hurry to get that done yesterday.

2. Nope, no phone call today from the doctor, or at least not while I was home, and no messages were left while I was out foraging for chocolate.

3. My daughter had a co-worker who, last Friday, was having a horrible, rotten, no-good-I-think-I’ll-move-to-Australia kind of day. (That’s the refrain on most of the pages of a certain children’s book–just to make that clear since one person who’s going to be reading this has a loved one who *did* move to Australia and who clearly has turned out very nicely for it.)

4. So I offered to bake a chocolate torte for them. (Here’s the recipe.)

5. Tomorrow is that person’s birthday, it turns out.

6. Well then!

and, 7, since I always make two of them, and since today’s our anniversary, and since Michelle can’t eat dairy, I substituted hazelnut oil for the butter, coming about two tbl short out of two cups needed for two cakes–close enough. We’ll call it the low fat version. I can’t begin to tell you how heavenly it smells.

8. Richard and I are home now from going out to dinner so we might go cut into that second cake if I stop typing a moment.

9. We went to the restaurant where Sue works, hoping to see her; for those of you who’ve read “Wrapped in Comfort,” (still available at Purlescence) it’s the first story, and yes, that Sue. Nope, they said, wrong night, not here, sorry.

10. On our way out I explained to our waitress why I’d so hoped to see her: how, when we moved here we came here a lot while on a per diem the first month, and how 20 years later she still remembered what my then-small kids had liked to eat. She loved my kids and we all adored her.

11. At that point, a different waitress exclaimed, “She’s here now!” Sue and her husband had decided to beat the heat and go out for dinner too, coming to this really great place they happened to know really well.

12. Hugs, love, intro to her husband, and then Sue told him that our kids were the best ever. “Some kids in restaurants, you know, but yours were always perfectly behaved.”

13. They were just shy of 1, 3, and 5 at the time; I don’t remember them being perfectly behaved. But I do remember them as being perfectly loved around her. Every parent of a small child needs some other adult who feels their kids are adorable: it helps the children and it helps the parents, too, to all rise to the occasion.

Sue was there. Our occasion got even happier. She laughed to her husband about my four year old who liked lobster. (It was a moving-expense per diem, the corporation didn’t care in the least what she ordered as long as it was below $25. Come to think of it, four-year-olds ordering lobster several times a week because they miss New Hampshire would be memorable.)

14. Happy anniversary, Richard! With no skunks this time.

(If that one of the three budding amaryllises turns out to be white, I’ll know it was the one Sue dropped off at Purlescence for me back when I was sick. Thank you, Sue!)

Love you, Richard!

I wrote in my book about my friend Lisa who, when I was diagnosed with lupus, offered to trade off babysitting our preschoolers every morning so I could do swim therapy and then she would go work out, a gift of her time I could never hope to repay–when all she had to do was put her toddler in his stroller and run if it had been only about the exercise.

Her little boy David used to religiously leave a toy or some small object of his at our house to make sure he’d be able to come back.  It took us awhile to catch on to him; it was such a funny little thing to do. And he did it just about every day he came over.

My husband’s aunt lives in the hills nearby and her youngest is two years older than our oldest, so we got frequent and very welcome hand-me-downs from her.

I would come across some stray whatever and wonder, where did *this* come from?! Must be an Aunt Mary Lynn that I just don’t remember. I would check with Lisa on the phone later, or David would reclaim it quietly the next time–and stash something else behind a dresser, under a bed, or whatever hiding place appealed to him that day.

The so-called Aunt Mary Lynn objects became a regular joke between us, and when Lisa and her family found they were moving to Michigan she lamented, But who there is going to know what an Aunt Mary Lynn is?

I drove over to meet Robin at her brother’s house today and we sat and knitted awhile together. Then after a phone call or two and some time meeting two small nieces waking up from their naps as their mommy arrived, it was a good time to go pick up Kunmi.

Going to the door, Robin had her hands full; I offered to grab her knitting for her, tucked in a plastic bag and just a few steps from me.

Sure, thanks!

I had my cane in one hand, my purse and big knitting bag in the other and then hers and decided the easiest way to deal with this was simply to stick her knitting in with mine.

We went off to Green Planet Yarns in Campbell (hi Carol there!) and had a great time. Robin found just the yarn for hats for those nieces: soft baby alpaca with sparkles. In pink. It doesn’t get better than that.

I came home quite tired. “Mom? What are those red spots on your face?” Lupus rash. A little too much sun. Time to take it easy for a day or two.

Robin and Kunmi’s flight home to Maryland leaves early tomorrow morning.

And I sat down on the couch, pulled out my knitting–

–you saw this coming–

–and out tumbled Robin’s Alchemy sock yarn and half-done project in its bag.

Aunt Mary Lynn yarn. This is a first.

(Richard told me I was too tired to drive it back over there and to just mail it to her; I called her, and she reassured me she was quite happy to knit those hats with that new yarn and not to worry about it.  Robin is a dear.)

So now you know she has to come back. It’s the rule.

Robin and her knitting-group friend Kunmi, having flown out together to visit their families here, stopped by today. We were chatting, and then Kunmi glanced out the window and exclaimed, “You have goldfinches!”

We walked over into the family room with the big picture windows and the feeders just outside and I discovered a fellow enthusiast.

The birds played their part perfectly: I scooped out a little suet cake and tossed it on the box, saying that that would bring in a Bewick’s wren, and right on cue one flew down from the trees to the patio, then the dolly, then up to that box for its snack. They’re friendly, I explained, and plentiful right around here but nearly extinct on the East Coast; I treasure mine.

I described how my son Richard and Kim had given me a book for Christmas that both describes various species and lets you play their songs–right up close to my ears where I can hear! Cool! So, Friday I’d been playing the calls the book says that Cooper’s hawks make when something threatens their nest.

I looked up to see that everything had fled, gone, the patio, the feeders, the hanging cake, the box. Even the squirrels. Too funny.

But even funnier was sitting down at the computer the next morning and, not having seen either hawk since most likely their babies fledged a month or so ago, there was the adult male: right on the box, right there, looking eye-to-eye with me through the window.

For about a minute.

You know how breathtaking that is. And it was a cool morning, so midway, he fluffed up his feathers a bit; I wanted to stroke them, they looked so soft.

Hey, hey, none of that thought, and he fluttered over to the dolly and looked again from a little bit farther away. Cocked his head and looked around; there hadn’t been any prey around when he came in, it’s as if he simply wanted to make sure about those sounds he was hearing the day before. Or something.

American goldfinch, lesser goldfinch, house finch, Cassin finch, Oregon junco, plain brown California towhee vs the brilliant colors of the Eastern ones, Kunmi loved it.

In came a jay, and she exclaimed over how different it looked from the ones back home. They laughed when I said, Yes, it’s long and thin like it’s ready to hit the beach.

I told the story of the new world-leading cardiac center at Stanford that came to be because of a blue bird, I’m assuming a jay because of its willingness to hold still through all that.

A moment of kindness that changed the world of cardiology.

We went off to Coupa Cafe, where both of them found a way to treat us all; we went to Apple’s flagship store, about to be–hmm, re-shipped? There will soon be a much bigger one.  (Hey, Robin, I bet your brother already knows about it.) We meandered through some of the old areas of town and neighborhoods near Stanford, enjoying the architecture.

It’s wonderful to see the place where you live through the eyes of those who do not.

Two highschoolers at church, a young woman and a young man, interviewed my husband and me a few weeks ago for a project they were working on; they seated us together and then asked each of us our memories of various events in our lives.

There was a get-together tonight at the home of one of those kids, and I happened to be talking to the dad of the other. I’d wanted for awhile to tell both sets of parents what I’d seen that day in their children–the light in their eyes. I’d never had a real conversation in private with either kid before that day, but I tell you: they were *nice* people. I was very proud of them.

The dad beamed, and as the conversation went on, he admitted that, still, for all that, his two kids fought with each other. It drove him crazy how much they fought!

I laughed and tried to reassure him of the normalcy of all that. Is there a parent out there whose kids never once fought? Kids learn as they grow how to get along with people who may disagree with them in the safety of a family setting, given comfort (no matter how much they may resist it) by the fact that if they overstep, there are limits and those limits will be enforced. And also–that someone else’s point of view is as important as their own.

I was once at the wedding of a young man whose little sister was 11 to his 29 if I remember right, and they were teasing and needling each other while their mom rolled her eyes. Siblings!

Part of being human.

And since we are only human. As part of that growing up, all kids need their basic inner goodness reflected back at them: every kid needs an adult who is not their parent thinking the world of them and expecting only the best out of them because they only have to see the best.

And I have to tell you, having a teenager think the world of you back just totally rocks.

Robin wanted to knit her sister-in-law something, maybe a hat, or, say, fingerless gloves for walking the dog; we agreed to all meet up at Purlescence for yarn choosing.

I had shown her my qiviut project already, so I brought along a shawl I had started doing in Cascade Epiphany before putting it down to work on all the crazy-knitting I did for my family reunion.

I related to them the question I’d asked Kaye last night: “What would you say is the softest yarn in your shop?”

Kaye had thought hard a moment: “The Epiphany. That, and the Cashvera.” (The latter is heavier and part synthetic.)

The two sisters checked out both; Robin asked me questions. Yes, I’d made a hat using 70 stitches and knitting the Epiphany doubled; for a single-color hat (unlike mine), knit plain-ish, one skein should do it.

Robin’s sister-in-law, who isn’t a knitter, tried to resist being splurged on, and yet–she in a way returned the favor: she said how wonderful it surely would feel for Robin to have that yarn going between her hands as she worked with it, and it was clear she wanted for Robin to be able to enjoy that.

Can you just picture their smiles as they got in their car to go back to work? I got to see it. Purlescence now has two fewer skeins of that gorgeous royal blue.

And having paid all that attention to that yarn myself during all that, my needles had an Epiphany of their own for awhile after I got home. While they were checking out the shelves and the shop models, I’d worked out the kinks of the pattern I was putting together and had gotten past where I’d let it stump me previously.

And now I am making the leap into the unknown with the qiviut, too, from part one to part two: how will a yarn I have never used before look all dressed up in these laces? I’m finding out.

Larger-needled project and small, switching off as the hands tire of holding one or the other, a slow, lovely dance back and forth.

Begin the Beguine.

My friend Robin, a fellow knitter, flew in from my hometown and I got to spend part of today with her. We tried to figure out how long it had been; must have been three years now, way too long. We were catching up, we had no particular agenda–till she said she’d realized she’d packed no chocolate.

Hey!

I had her sample some of mine: Valrhona 71%, some Endangered Species dark with hazelnut toffee, and then we were off to the local Whole Foods, which has more choices than anywhere.

She passed on the Vosges chocolate/bacon bar. So far.

She went to her brother’s after that (I don’t get to keep her all the time) and I to KnitNight.

Where I got six carefully-knitted rows of lace done at Purlescence. Qiviut is like the finest cup of hot chocolate: you savor it slowly, a sipped stitch at a time.

Wow, that was fast.

The last few days I’ve felt like I really needed to be working on that white fluff project in case something happened and I found myself wishing it were done yesterday. But I was busy doing a lot of back-home-again things other than sitting down and holding still and brushed away the thought with, it only needs about three more hours of work to be long enough; if something comes up, I can do that pretty fast. Right?

I did talk myself into starting something else today, putting a hank on the back of a chair and standing there winding it up–but my hands could not be convinced. I wound up that ball, telling myself I’d leave the cloud for when I needed brainless knitting for carrying around. I saw no hurry.

But I felt one. I just could not make myself actually cast on with the new ball. The cloud was demanding to be done. Now.

I had no idea why.

We were talking to the kids tonight and I found myself asking them, Is there anything you need knit?

After a moment’s hesitation, they said, well, actually… if…

Turns out someone they know well and we all love, someone fairly young, was diagnosed just a day or two ago with metastasized cancer. They were wishing… But they wanted somehow for something to go out quickly: for immediate reassurance, for love, for the hope that it would represent coming from all of us.

And here, right here in my hands…

Some of that lace will have been knit just because, just the very first few inches of it (that stayed, because kid mohair is too hard to frog and I knew that since I’d wanted to work on it once, someday I’d want to work on it again.)  A lot of it was knit because something somehow prompted me a week ago to go find it and grab it while packing for my trip, after all its years of ziploc exile. (It was the needles that stopped it. Never knit snaggy-fibered kid mohair with very blunt tips.)

And some of that lace, now, will have been knit expressly for the loved one it’s going to. Which is why I’m glad now that I didn’t think to grab the finer-tipped needles before the trip, which would have sped up the knitting and gotten it finished before I got home.

One hug of soft airy fluff, coming up. Phyllis, this is from the leftover yarn from your shawl.

I heard–something, this morning, and went to go check.  Looking out the window, there was a California quail on my neighbor’s roof!

I have lived here for 24 years and I have never, ever seen one here before. I was gobsmacked. Gorgeous, even from a distance.

And in the gorgeous bird department, my daily visits from my Nuttall’s woodpecker dressed in vivid black and white stripes glistening like silk ended around November;  I hoped it had maybe migrated, found better food, gone somewhere hawk-free, but I missed it.

This afternoon I saw one, a vivid red spot on its head, going up and down my trees. I have a Nuttall’s again!

I have a friend who’s about to fly out here on a business trip and she emailed asking about restaurants in the area. That got a good conversation going between Michelle and me re our favorites, and I was asking her, What was the name of…?

And as I started to answer my friend, something showed up to try out our own food offerings.

I am typing this with the quail pacing outside my window, looking in at me: why is all the good suet where I can’t reach it? Is that the stuff you don’t put on the menu that only those in the know get to ask for?

Richard walked in the door just now and got to see it.

It has this little deely bopper feather on its head that does the bobble-head shimmy when it walks or bobs for seed. I am utterly charmed. It has spent a lot of time looking in the window at me, and here it comes again.

I am typing this blindly as I’m being stared at. Feed. Me.

…And now I have quietly snuck more food just outside the glass door and it is ignoring it and staring in the window just the same. It hopped up on the outer window sill to come closer, not minding the three of us talking a few feet away. It has never seen people before, perhaps? It’s simply curious and happy to hang out with us.

But then, you can do that after a good meal at a nice place.

Now she has it–now I can say it.

My friend Chan, whom I’ve not yet met in person–we tried last time I was back East but we didn’t quite pull it off–listened to me agonizing over knitting that cotton chemo cap I made for the in-law who does not wish to be named (there are two, actually, and their diagnoses were three days apart; it was not a fun week. Only one wanted a cap.) It was so terribly slow in the making–my hands could only handle a few rows a day. Cotton just has no give to it.

Chan made the trek to her not-close yarn store after carefully asking me about colors and came home with some very soft cotton yarn. No, she would not let me pay her back for it. Yes, she was determined she was going to do this, for a woman she’d never heard of before. (And isn’t that just the coolest construction?)

I got an email this morning from the recipient, exclaiming over her new hat, saying it fits well, saying how perfect it is as their weather has been getting hot, and saying that she believes that knitters are loving people.

My words are terribly inadequate but they’re what I’ve got: thank you, Chan. Thank you for being  in this life thing together with us. We feel very blessed.

The baby peregrines at City Hall have discovered that it’s fun to sit on the lower ledge and watch the world go by, and now they’ve started flapping their wings up there, not willing to just sit and stare anymore.  Their white fluffy down is almost gone. They’re not quite ready to fly, but it is possible to get caught up and over by a burst of wind doing that–it happened a few years ago.

Somehow, though, (watching one step around his brother by holding onto the outer edge) birds just don’t seem to be very afraid of heights.

Meantime, my friend Karen of the Water Turtles shawl fame (OOP but Purlescence has copies) was told by her neighbor that a small bunny had been eating the neighbor’s flowers and then had gone into Karen’s yard to hide.

She went out to see, and there it was. Smaller than her fist. It froze when she came near, letting her get it into a box; she released it by a pond and grassy area nearby.

Knitter’s notes re the falcon-colored hats: needles size US 5, loose gauge, 68 stitches, 2×2 rib, one entire skein each very soft Di.v’e Autunno merino wool bought at Purlescence.

Funco the Jinch/hybrid stopped by again several times today. Cute little bird! Energetic and spunky and fun to watch: there is no fear in him, only the necessary prudence.

Meantime, Michelle from the other room heard a Rubbermaid box thwacking against the door of the closet as it tumbled down at me and called out, Are you okay, Mom?

I was just starting: going through boxes, taking out yarns, assessing yarns, you stay, you go, you maybe, I debated, I consulted. Old plans vs new.  Not quiiiiite the right shade… If I haven’t been inspired enough to use it or overdye it in how long and it still doesn’t call to me? Well then? (Being able to buy yarn in person at the store has its definite advantages over online sometimes.)

And yet. A cone of 35/35/30 cashmere/silk/merino from Colourmart.com got hanked and scoured in hot soapy water in happy anticipation–their yarn with all the mill oils still in is a lot of extra work but the price had been sufficient inducement to get past that. Definitely. I’ve used it before; it is luminously soft. Dry, dry! I want to play!

Some cashmere/merino that I’d plied years ago on my wheel from infinitely thin up to a workable yarn finally hit its reality check: I was still never going to use this one. Wrong color and too dark to overdye–it’s going where it needs to, out.

I was in hyper-busy mode without an actual project to make me sit down and hold still and catch my breath. Organize, choose… Hamsterball time, where you can’t make yourself stop running and bumping into things.

I needed my knit night. I took two balls of yarn and two pairs of needles and decided I’d let them duke it out once I got there–I still hadn’t granted myself time to think out what I was actually going to start making right now today.

It was so nice to just sit down at Purlescence and decompress. For once, the group was very small; it was easy to hear. Perfect.

The Dive’. Their soft merino won, because there was only enough of it to knit it simply while I listened. A hat is in progress. The fingers did the walking while the knitters did the talking.

And hey, there’s one last cone of that 35/35/30. Don’t look at the clock, I could go hank it up right now… (Stop!)

Laceweight (the darker turquoise blue) dries fast. This is a good thing.

I finished at 1:00 pm. Spun the shawl out in the washer (no spraying water) to speed it up, laid it out, about two hours later set out another white sheet and picked the shawl back up and laid it out over there now so the first, now damp sheet wouldn’t slow down the process. A hair dryer was tried and given up on.

They laughed tonight when I added, “So I didn’t turn on the air conditioning on a hot day to speed up the process.”

The lace pattern is a play on the recipient’s name, and since she enjoys the occasional bit of bird news, it looks to me like a flock of birds in flight.

When I was desperately ill two years ago, the folks at Purlescence gifted me with two skeins of Mooi buffalo blend as a mind-blowingly-nice get-well wish in that basket they delivered to our doorstep, full of other things too from various knitting friends pitching in to the cause. Being able to sit up and knit again was a dream at the time, but I have to tell you, it really did give me something to hold onto and look forward to: I couldn’t let them down. And that Mooi was such soft stuff.  What I would make with it someday, I did not know yet, but I knew I would.

One of the Purlescence women was in the hospital last week. You know I finally knew exactly who that yarn was meant to be for all this time–it had just needed the right time.

Delivered. Done. She loved it. YES!

So I’m walking into Trader Joe’s for some quick Easter-dinner shopping and the person walking in right behind me as I’m putting my car keys in my pocket I recognize a moment late as someone who occasionally shows up at Knit Night, although my brain blanks on her name.

She stops me, admires the scarf I’m wearing, and asks if it’s one of my designs?

You know, sometimes you kind of want to look halfway dignified. But just then I was suddenly trying to figure out why I was entangled on myself sideways and then trying to extricate a stitch from the end of the scarf from the ring on my keys which were not coming back out of my pocket because I couldn’t see because the rest of the scarf was in the way, and having your scarf snagged out of sight but immovable and you don’t want to snag the stitch even worse and you know it is and you’re trying not to be distracted when someone’s being nice and you know your hair looks terrible today anyway and–

What can you do but laugh and say yes it is and thank you?

—————

(Notes on today’s pictures: there’s been this one male house finch I’ve been trying to snap for awhile whose side feathers look like Isaac Asimov’s sideburns from the ’60s. I have no idea why. It can fly just fine, but boy do you notice that one, it’s three bird-bodies wide!

The tree photo, taken by zooming and which you can see especially via embiggening, is of a flock of small birds at the top; I think finches but I was able to make out a crest of a titmouse way up there too. I’ve seen crows on that tree before; Glenn Stewart of SCPBRG has spoken about how families of crows will gang up to harass a predator that’s bigger than them, particularly a more vulnerable young one. The Cooper’s hawks’ nest is tucked about ten feet below this picture–and the small birds have always stayed well away from there before, maybe an individual passing by but nothing like this. Curious.

I did see one of the Cooper’s two days ago, so they seem to be fine. Maybe the house finches were throwing a coming-out party for this year’s fledglings? Mi casa es su casa. Oh–wait…

In today’s patio news: you remember yesterday’s was curses, foiled again. And that Pam vegetable spray had apparently become tasty as well as entertaining.

I discovered that my parchment (porch-meant?) baking paper, which is silicon-coated, is quite wide, enough so that a single long sheet could wrap all the way around that pole up and down. Tape of course wouldn’t stick directly to it, but I could wrap it tight around corset-style, half a dozen places. Worked just fine. You could see the squirrels checking it out, grumbling under their breath.

In other news.

A line for Don’s list: I wondered if morning was ever going to come, and then it dawned on me.

I was trying to figure out the math on a pattern today after being awake from 4-6 am. Note to self: don’t spend an hour whining that you don’t want to get up–when the bag breaks, the cradletime will fall, get to it before it does skin damage. But you don’t think clearly at that hour.

Richard drove my tired self to Purlescence tonight. He’s a peach. (And while there I finally got something useful and working right out of my day with that pattern working out the way I’d envisioned; it felt good.)

Penny was there, hoping I would show up. When I did, late, she stood up, wrapped her new shawl around her shoulders wanting me to see how absolutely perfect it was, and then wrapped her arms around me in the most heartfelt embrace. She told me that when her Richard had brought it home last week, “I was just…stunned!” And she hugged me again. And again, a few more times. She looked radiant.

I know I shouldn’t need that kind of gift in return for knitting something nice for someone. But I have to tell you–it sure helps me cope with the dumb stuff better. And it sure motivates me to go knit for another someone else.

I do have a fair amount of yarn squirreled away to work with.

I hadn’t seen June’s daughter Mariel in awhile, and she had her hair done up somewhat like her mom’s used to be; I did a doubletake when we saw each other. It was as if I were walking in and seeing (almost) the June I met 24 years ago. I saw someone else a few minutes later looking like they were having the same reaction.

She marveled afterwards as memories were shared at how she’d laughed… But of course she had, we all had. It was our June they were talking about. There was Hank, who’d had eight kids while June had only had one; “You have too many grandkids and I don’t have enough. I’m taking yours!”

And so June would have one over for a day with toys and attention one-on-one. The kids loved it. June loved it. They loved each other.

And I’d had no idea I had competition for my chocolate decadence cake. I’ve been making mine from its original iteration and beyond since 1990. And she never told me?

Hats were worn. Two of the women who’d helped June feel special with her new scarf that I blogged about? Theirs were twins, classic pillboxes with black netting and a great big black bow.

And to my delight, the woman sitting behind me during the service was my kids’ old middle-school art teacher. She asked after them all and I showed off pictures of my daughter-in-law and my son Richard holding Parker. She knew Kim’s parents and grandparents and was thrilled at the small-worldism that Kim had met and married her old student.

Her late mom, Virginia, an accomplished organist, used to tease him: if he goofed playing in church, she would tell him, “Great improvisation, Richard!”

So maybe that keyboard hat I doodled and improvised and came up with was just the right one to run into Virginia’s daughter with. It’s all good.