I always figure if a doctor is running late it’s because someone really needed their time and got it and I’m all for that.

Still, I teased her: I finished my knitting project. I’ve never done that before. I had to read my phone like normal people!

She chuckled.

You were out on maternity leave. Your little one must be–kindergarten?

She loved that I remembered: He’s in first grade.

So is one of my grandsons!

Okay, so with that bit of reconnecting after that long gap we sat down and talked bone densities.

I had been wondering why I needed to wait months for a new-patient visit when I hardly considered myself such, but in fact she spent an hour being very thorough, checking every possible med for possible interactions with my new meds since the last time I saw her, every trajectory on this osteoporosis history.

Turns out that what they’ve learned since I had Prolia infusions eleven years ago is that if you stop taking it the bones regress to where you were before you started. Oh. There was good reason to stop it at the time, but now it’s time to try something new, so we are.

I fell Sunday (fairly spectacularly, with multiple people running for me and half the crowded room suddenly frozen–I was not trying to be that good at it) and twice more last night. She was wondering if I remembered her saying to always try to catch yourself in a fall because hand bones heal much faster than hips and I told her, I remembered that and I was really good, I did exactly that! I broke my finger in two places the next day!

I didn’t need to be quite that compliant, like, this was not an encouragement to go throwing myself around.

I know…

Sudden side note to myself: now, while I’m thinking about it, I need to quick go figure out a new carry-around project and put it in my purse because it is out of knitting and there’s that mammogram in the morning.

With Stitches gone, the yarn stores set up a week-long Bay Area Yarn Crawl, and I understand a lot of other areas are holding them, too. You print out your Bingo card, you have each store stamp their name in their little box on your card (Nina printed out three out of curiosity and they were all different) and there are goodies. People get out of their ruts, run into old friends (we did) and discover new stores and help them out a little bit.

It’s the closest the shops can come to setting up a Stitches conference on their own.

It would not have been something I would have paid much attention to–it is safe to say I do not currently lack for yarn.

Nina didn’t need any either, but what she did see was an excuse for us to spend a day doing something we would both enjoy. And man did we ever!

She wanted to start off with Fengari’s in Half Moon Bay. I hesitated, remembering tourist-town yarn prices, but caved quickly as I reminisced about how, when Holz and Stein, makers of the best knitting needles I’ve ever found, made from the leftover wood from making musical instruments, announced that they were ceasing to export from Germany anymore–shops everywhere sold out of them quickly as people stocked up.

But a year or two later, it turned out, Fengari’s still had some.

In a back room, not as well lit, and you had to know and you had to ask. I don’t remember who tipped me off. It took me two trips to the coast to talk myself into spending what it was going to cost, but good tools last a lifetime and I treasure every pair. I bought about twenty.

My favorites were rosewoods, several varieties of which were now on the CITES endangered list, and that may well have been part of H&S’s calculus.

A knitting needle speakeasy. (I kid. It was remaining stock.)

So! We were at Fengari’s, a good twenty years later, and I asked if they had any, still, shaking my head and declaring it an obvious no because, hey.

And they said, We don’t–but actually, Royal Bee up the coast might well.

Royal Bee was next on our list anyway.

They actually had some: three pairs. In size 7 and 7.5 mm. Not US sizes, millimeters. In US sizes that would be like 10 3/4 and 10 7/8 and there isn’t quite a Harry Potter train station reference in there but there ought to be.

Nina likewise had declared them the best needles there are and took a pair home even in that size because you take what you can get.

We drove up the coast from there, reveling in the ocean to our left and the beautiful countryside to our right. The tunnel! That was on my bucket list! I told her. When Devil’s Slide collapsed into the ocean again and Caltrans got tired of making bridges and then watching them go poof, they finally after years of arguing bored under the mountain so that the wildlife corridor could continue above.

I had wanted to see that view (the Mavericks surfing spot!) and then that tunnel for years: not enough to make the drive over just for that, because it seemed silly, but I’d wanted to anyway. And now we had! Score! And she got to, too! It was silly and it was wonderful and we had a glorious time of it.

At the end of the day I’d bought: that pair of needles and a jar of fig ginger chutney at Royal Bee. Who goes to yarn stores to buy bespoke chutney, but for $12 I could be curious once.

So, needles. A jar of jam-ishness. And a single, vivid, colorful skein of Malabrigio Rios.

From Fengari.

And after the bridge alongside the long narrow Crystal Springs Reservoir (N-Are you looking for the Flintstone House? Me-I always do! N-My husband always does too!), then a few minutes later wending through Stanford’s greening hills of Spring rising above the roadway as we neared home, I looked up at the small wild oaks dotted here and there rising to the tops above and told Nina I suddenly realized for the first time where some of the inspiration for this afghan might also have come from.

And I would never have realized it had we not just spent the day we had.

Terrible nighttime photo but it’s getting there, it’s getting there!

Still haven’t decided if I’m going to embroider green moss on the rocks.

The only trees that don’t have purple flowers between them are the ones I was doing while running a fever and just simply didn’t think of it while pushing myself to get something productive done. So they mark their own little placemaker in time, to the reality of the making, and I find I’m okay with that.

Y’know… When I put the ribbing on the other three sides, I could double the number of stitches on the first navy row at the top, put every other one on a lifeline, knit the ribbing in the usual number to twice the length and then fold it over and cast it off with the waiting stitches. A three-needle-bindoff or some such.

That way (insert rod) you could have a (pet proof) wallwarmer as well as a couch warmer.

Nah….

Working on the last tree, then will come the last of the water, and then–

–part of me would love to explore how to knit a sunset in the sky above.

Part of me is like, whoa, no, go for fluffy clouds. That’s intarsia enough.

Right on cue, the Washington Post put up a photo of some really unusual clouds that showed up at, where else? The Catoctin mountains. As I knit memories of Catoctin, Maryland, including a pick-your-own farm.

Circus tent top or cane handles? What would you call those curlicues? They’re amazing, but I’d do a sunset before I’d ever try to pull that off. You do want people to be able to know what it is.

Actually, they kind of look like Peeps chicks. They finally got to fly!

Another week, another row of trees ascending the hill. Slowly but surely.

And on an intermittently rainy day it was nearly reaching my ankles as I knit, keeping me warm. I am so enjoying this project.

The fourth row of peach trees on the left is coming along…

Mid-afternoon we found ourselves having the first warm day of the year along with our first peach blossoms. It was 75F.

I celebrated by knitting a few more of my own on the left after snapping this picture (a bit scrunched together on the 40″ needles.) Side edges to be added later.

 There are a lot of palm products out there these days, which means there’s a lot of coconut coir looking for a market. It’s being sold as a substitute for peat pots for gardeners, among other things.

But according to one gardening forum, it removes potassium from the soil, which keeps your plants from being able to create leaves. They’ll be stunted at best.

Which is why this apricot seedling grew all of three inches last year and looked like this.

Once I’d read that warning, I peeled the coir away from the two apricots so afflicted and hoped for the best. (Most of my vegetable sprouts in those pots simply died.)

It also explained why nothing ever grew within five feet of the trunk of the date palm we used to have and not a blade of grass grew there for five years after it was gone. Bare dirt. Even Californian weeds couldn’t take it on.

In its first day of the new season this Anya descendant grew leaves that are about as big as last year’s ever were and it was such a treat to see the first sign of spring–and from that particular plant. I think it’s going to be fine.

Actually, the bark part is fine.

The left side of the (creek–East Coast description, river–West Coast description) has peach trees, with two strands of orange for the fruit, while the right side has one strand of that orange and one strand of a lighter shimmery silk/cashmere for the apricots.

The distractions of pain and feeling unwell played into this (they’ve put me on antibiotics now after all), but, when I started in on some new branches this morning I used both oranges and didn’t notice till after three rows.

Huh.

Well that felt dumb.

I could spend five or six hours ripping and redoing it; intarsia is slow, frogging intarsia with fragile yarns is even slower.

Or not. I decided early on with this project that there would be no mistakes here, just new ways of looking at things.

One of my kids did a semester abroad living on the Left Bank in Paris. Now it’s your turn, little apricot!

(I’ve never seen an amaryllis quite like this before. I was going to take its picture outside but this is as far as it got.)

So it turns out the rules have been changed re those phytosanitary certificates: credit cards only. Which was the opposite of the previous rule and it surprised me because usually government entities in California don’t want the surcharges from the banks. If I could come back down, I was asked–or, she offered very generously, she could drive to my house for it.

It seemed a very small amount of money to waste that much of her time over and they were busy; I could come, no problem.

So there I was again.

I waited till she was done and then said, I don’t know if you’re allowed to accept it in your job. But I like to spend my Zoom meetings making simple hats that I don’t have to look at my hands for, and then find people to give them to. I’d love to offer you one.

I’d brought four to choose from, and she oohed and aahed over how pretty they were.

It looked like a work-from-home day for everybody else I’d seen the previous time. As we chatted briefly I bragged a little on my afghan project; she considered that a moment and said, It’s like a quilt, only in knitting.

I thought that was a really cool way to look at it.

But she said reluctantly that I was right, she wasn’t allowed to accept one. I tucked the hats away and said that I was going to think of her, then, when I looked at them.

With great fondness, too. I was glad I’d not only gotten to meet her but that life had offered us that little encore. All the best to her. And Ellen had gotten her tree safe and sound!

(Medical stuff. Sorry. Here, let me throw an afghan picture in there. Wait. Does that creek look like a top-down sock with the toe needing kitchenering to anybody other than me?)

——-

It’s weird, I said.

It IS weird, the doctor answered.

The lump started growing back last week. At first I thought it, nah, couldn’t be, that’s just from the biopsy.

But then it grew by the day, quite a bit faster than the first time (which was Thanksgiving to Jan. 9), going from a hard little round thing hidden under the skin to a large swollen angry red spot that someone in a lupus group Zoom meeting yesterday commented on–she could see it.

The original had never gotten to that point.

I messaged the eye doctor two days ago. This time it wasn’t an occasional small twinge, either, it was definitely painful and itchy. I got an appointment for next Friday.

By yesterday the only reason I wasn’t running to the clinic to see any doctor, anybody! was that I had a long-scheduled dermatology check today. And dermatology seemed a logical place anyway.

So there I was.

She looked at the pathology report to reassure herself of the biopsy having been negative. But then how–?

So. The lump is gone, the lump is back, it’s thumbnail sized and the eyelid is red and puffy. I picked up a prescription for a steroid cream and came home exhausted and starting to feel a little feverish.

After about an hour with my feet up, without even having done or taken anything yet, there was the most unexpected sensation: like it was receding. A little, but, hey! I got up and looked in the mirror and my eyelid did look less puffy and it hurt less. Huh! Yay! I’ll take it!

But now my upper cheek was. And it wasn’t when she snapped a picture for the other doctor. Doesn’t hurt, though.

So weird.

At least everything’s still working fine.

The dermatologist is going to keep close tabs on this with the eye doctor. She made sure I knew I was to call if I needed it for anything, any time.

It’s surely a complete non-sequitur, but I am so glad I got both my Shingrix shots!

You’re their best but also worst nightmare, he told me over dinner.

Me: –?

Basically, he said, because I was a nice person to deal with–but could I imagine having to deal with every.single.plant.sent. individually?

Here’s what happened. You know they would have looked at me funny if I’d said she’s an in-person friend, but she is, and she lives in Oregon now. And she and I wanted to get one of those super-rare super-good apricot seedlings to her.

So I looked up what the rules are, because the last thing I would want is its being confiscated at the state line and destroyed after I’d nurtured and grown it this past year, not to mention the disappointment to her.

Oregon has a long, long list of banned plants you cannot bring in. That’s okay, California does, too–like the gorgeous understory-level mountain laurel that I grew up with that is a silent carrier for the Sudden Oak Death disease that began in the last 30 years or so, and they’ve discovered that the redwoods

I seriously had to stop typing a moment

but it’s true, Sudden Oak Death kills the ever-unkillable towering, majestic redwoods, some of which are older than Jesus’s time. We could lose every one. California has been throwing money at research to solve that and experimenting with tossing antibiotics around tree drip lines.

I’m not about to mess with Oregon’s forests nor crops. There are so many variables added when it’s not just a kernel anymore–I wanted to do this right.

Our county agriculture office seemed a bit bemused that I was so enthusiastic about my particular apricots–and maybe at my willingness to follow the rules? How many people do? But for respect for the redwoods if nothing else, was my point of view. Do unto others. Etc. (Maybe I was atoning for those kernels I did mail the last few years?)

They were certainly willing to help. No, apricots did not show up on the banned list. Soil was, though, and inspection for a long list of diseases was required.

They told me the fee for the phytosanitary inspection. No problem.

They walked me through my part of the forms: I was being an exporter because I was sending it out of the state. Yes write one box and one plant in that one box and how I was going to ship it. (Unspoken: because that’s so not what they usually deal with.)

Then just before I went there I had to carefully take the baby tree out of its pot, get rid of every bit of dirt bigger than the equivalent of a hole left by a size US 8 knitting needle without shredding the roots, wrap them in damp paper and then into a 2 gallon ziplock zipped most of the way for the transportation time, and I was off to San Jose. Across the street from the hazardous waste plant.

One of these things is not like the other…

They had told me they would prepare their form and mail it to me afterwards, shouldn’t take too many days.

Visitors were clearly rare. Signage was sparse. I climbed the steep stairs and went oh okay, there’s where I’m supposed to go.

You call via a wall phone with a number posted by the desk opposite, once you find it, and wait for someone to come out of the locked area.

I did and pulled out my knitting.

A few minutes in, someone came out to use the restroom across the hall. On coming back, she stopped a moment and asked, Was I making a cowl?

The secret word!

She told me with a big smile that she was a knitter, too, and you could just hear the capital in that K.

I told her, I miss Stitches, wondering if she got the reference; she instantly responded, Oh, I do, too! We were in strong agreement that someone had to re-start that business. There were so many of us! Clearly enough to make it worth someone’s while, and with that she headed back through the door I was waiting by, having enjoyed the conversation thoroughly.

I don’t know if that made the difference. I don’t know if word was conveyed by the five other people who went through that door in that time that I would not be antsy at the wait, to say the least.

All I know is that a new person came out that door, inspected my plant with its roots dangling nakedly in her hands and healthy as could be, she made me wait awhile again–and then chucked that thought, opened the door again, and invited me back there while she finished the form and double-checked with me on the name and address it was to go to.

I paid. I was done. It was done. I was free to mail it, just make sure that paperwork is inside because it could be opened at any point along the way and checked for that phytosanitary report and certificate.

I had been saving a long narrow box and the cushioning for it since Christmas.

Between yesterday’s full dormancy and this afternoon’s 64F, it had started to show the first tiny signs of spring and it could not safely spend three days in the dark.

They promise me it will be in Portland tomorrow.

Bonne Noel!

Photo from yesterday, actually, but I’m out of daylight. Side edges to be added later.

The other thing I did yesterday was to go to the Social Security office.

I officially changed to my married name with them years ago but the IRS never got the memo. Social Security always had it right, at least, and I no longer had to worry about the state refusing to cash the check for my driver’s license renewal. (Checks. Boy that *was* awhile ago.)

It finally tripped me up again. The Boomerbenefits.com person told me the only thing for it was to take my documents back to their office and walk it through.

The Social Security people told me to take the taxes under my full name problem to the IRS office, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Given Jean’s funeral, I went in the afternoon, a little afraid they would close promptly at 4 and kick everybody out who was still waiting. My previous experience had been back when W Bush signed the Patriot Act and messed over millions of women over how official their married names were or not: the databases had to match.

It was hours and hours in a building and part of that town I’d never want to be in again among people who really didn’t want to be there nor work there.

This was closer and much nicer–nothing fancier than a good paint job and decent flooring and no dirt, but what a difference that made, and they were much more efficient. And actively helpful.

But since I didn’t have an appointment there was still about a 75 minute wait. I pulled out my purple cowl project.

A woman about my age (I can just see her smiling on reading that) walked in, saw how closely placed the connected chairs were, saw that there were only a few individual seats here and there but it was all definitely going to be too close to strangers, and hesitated and nearly walked out.

I smiled, “I don’t bite,” and she chuckled, looked relieved, and sat down next to me.

We made friends on the spot.

Turns out she’d always wanted to knit or crochet. She had even bought a crochet kit for–I think she said a sweater project?–and she’d tried a few times to teach herself how to do it, but it seemed too much to master all at once and it had sat there for years.

I told her, sometimes you need to simply start with something else, maybe something smaller, and then come back to it.

She looked at me. And the small, make-time-useful portable project in my hands. Yes. Yes, that made a lot of sense, thanks.

Eventually they called my number, they called her number, and that was that.

I walked out of there regretting that I hadn’t offered her my name or email so that she could ask any questions or get help getting started; it was the crocheting that had stopped me from offering, it’s been so long I’d be looking at YouTube videos myself.

On thinking about it later I realized the difference would be that I only need to refresh the memory on what term goes with what and the rest would come right back to me.

I did mention to her that I’d found knitting easier on the hands.

The SS office’s website had warned that there was very little parking but I’d pulled in going, Four spaces?! There are only four spaces?! How does that work!

Turns out the rest of them were on the far side of the building, y’know, where I ended up finding the front door, too. Oh.

And so as I was wishing I could ever see her again, walking along the outside of what I now knew to be Windows 5-12 inside, a small red car about the age of my Prius slowed down.

And there she was, waving hello, glad to see me again, too. My face totally lit up and so did hers.

I really hope she gets her sweater and her new skills she’s long dreamed of. I think the chances just went way up.

(I.e, glossy and smooth.)

I’ve now finished the tree nearest the water up there and the fifth one at the end of the row has begun. Slowly, the water is channeling right and towards it.

The sandy areas on the left are from the force of the water coming against that turn before relaxing below.

Do I continue with the apricot (right) and peach (left) look, or do I throw in some red fruit in the next set? Cherries? Purple plums? Or Golden Nugget plums from Andy’s Orchard in yellow. So good!

But then you’d have to explain them all the time. Nah, probably not.