Hawk yoga. Every pose you could think of, including one I hadn’t seen before: wings raised in sharp inverted Vs with a tight lean forward as if ready for takeoff, then relaxing again on the fence, a foot slowly rising up and disappearing into the poofy feathers against the chill of the day. This is the life, he sang into the wind.

Half an hour. I considered walking a few steps over and back to pick up the hat project as I watched the hawk show, live!, but nah, why disturb him.

I suddenly wondered if, had I done so, what a small ball of yarn in blues/greens/purples would look like to him, with its long tail constantly jerking around my hands.  Caught me a live one!

After he left, anyway.

Lynn, here, the post where I got to meet her in person in Texas the day after she got engaged, her happiness lighting up the whole church. I got to see her again last month when we came back to see my in-laws, and Lynn and I spent an evening at her old knitting group in the Madeline Tosh ship in Ft Worth where she’d been a regular before she’d married and moved a few towns away.

I twirl a small forkful of Lynn’s late mother-in-law’s orange honey that she gifted me with about every other day, savoring it, trying not to run out too fast, thinking of her and how grateful I am for her friendship every time I look at that jar. How glad I am that she and her Beloved found each other in their lives.

Yesterday was their first anniversary.

Today her beloved, one of the very best, slipped away before hospice could even finish setting up at their house.

I’ve wanted to grab the next flight. I can’t afford it. What I did do was go searching in my house, for–something, I didn’t know what, and found a shawl project that I’d long ago stalled out on: it had been put aside while I’d debated how to finish it and while I had had people needing the love from something hand knit Right Now, and so the shawl had become abandoned altogether and at last pretty much forgotten other than the occasional guilt twinge in its direction.

I didn’t even remember which pattern it was; I was surprised when I pulled it out to see it was Y not Z. Huh. I always did like that yarn.

I sat down with it. I decided, seventeen months after I’d started, at long last what to do: a few rows there, that’s all it had needed all this time, that and a decision, and I cast it off, blocked it, and with that I tied up one loose end in my own life. It is done. And after its submersion in the water, it feels like one of the most beautiful things I have ever knit.

And it’s not at all Lynn’s color, darnit.

Y’know, I mused to myself, if I hadn’t been stuck in an airport away from my other needles I most likely never would have started this with these–but I’m glad I did.

And then I made myself keep going, determined not to abandon the project again, even though I found the tightness with those smallish points a bit hard on my hands–it was a day when I just needed to finish something that would stay done. Even if I didn’t know what the next row was supposed to be as I went. Which is why it was just four more rows, four times now as I addlibbed.

I cast off at last, rinsed, and spread it out, amused: it is not the least bit what it was going to be when I started out, other than, well, red. And lace. But I really really like it. Can’t give it away till I make another one and write the process down this time–so that I can do it again and again after that, proofing and testing that writing. It’s a slow process. But it’s a good feeling to think, yes. This one will do.

Wait, how did it get this late and I didn’t even blog yet?

Oh. Right. I was finally knitting, for the first time in over a week, after the needles grabbed me and just would not let me go. Sorry that that Eco Duo hat came out really too small for you, Dear (it did, didn’t it?) I’ll just have to make you another (pardon me while I wear it to Costco. ‘Cause, you know, it fits me like that. There are advantages to being 15″ shorter than he is.)

And then I dove into a project that I hadn’t quite finished on the plane ride home from Texas. As I worked I decided that no, I’m going to make it bigger than I’d planned–so it is, once again, four rows from being done, only this time those four rows are going to get done pronto.

It felt so good to have yarn working its way through my fingers again. With family time too!

To explain. We had plane tickets already for my parents’ celebration when we got the word.

Turns out Southwest doesn’t fly into Fort Worth, and we’ve done the two and a half hour drive in from Love Field airport in rush hour before; no thank you.

And so we flew home, had thirteen hours overnight to launder, repack, sleep, and run right back to San Jose airport in the morning.

My husband’s mother is now under hospice care and his father just had surgery for the form of melanoma that you want to have, if you have to. It was time to come see them, too, and the cheapest tickets were the ones with that thirteen hour layover.

In a way, my losing that ziplock bag and the expectation along with it of surprising my sister-in-law with silk and her daughter with hat-ly warmth somehow became okay: because my shock and my loss, acknowledging freely that it was over minor stuff, quite honestly gave us an opening to come emotionally together over, this good woman who has taken such good care of her parents daily. Who needed someone to feel as she does about her own losses, far and beyond any stitches gone to the air.

I had wondered if she would like the blue I’d picked; instead, I have the memory to treasure forever of her exclaiming, on seeing the deep cream dk silk that the good folks at Colourmart surprised me with as a gift a few months ago, “Oh, that’s pretty!” It was gratifying to know I could do her some good in return for all that she’s given of herself. In retrospect, I think happy anticipation was the best idea.

I am so glad I put that cone in my bag!

And then I found the second Malabrigo hat–at some point somehow I had switched which ziplock bag it was in, and so one project out of the four was saved. And my niece exclaimed over it, too. Score

The new silk shawl is humming along nicely.

They’re gone!

The silk shawlette for my sister-in-law. The merino-silk and Malabrigo hats for my niece who’s dancing in the Nutcracker. Richard’s cellphone, too, although, that at least has a replacement showing up tomorrow (it was insured.).

They’re little things in the face of big things, and after a very small tear and catch in the throat at the loss, I pulled out the silk I’d somehow brought with me to see if my SIL would like it–which made no sense whatsoever when I was packing–and now we have something to look forward to together that we both know she’ll love.

I owed her a hostess gift. Now she’ll get to see me working on it for her.

Open house today for the new museum for Dad’s artwork.

Tomorrow the details. It’s way late here.

Cold climate. Warm hats. Hmm. The warmest one not given away yet will match some of what I packed to wear, at least. There’s one on the needles but I suddenly realized while knitting at Purlescence tonight that they’re on gold-plated needles that I’m not going to risk around airport security.

My sweetie and I got married when gold hit its then highest-ever, totally unheard-of price of something like $360 an ounce or so, and that’s just the metal in the wedding bands.

Richard and I were students.

Richard’s dad had always wanted to try this: he had a bad tooth, Richard had a bad tooth, and their gold fillings had fallen out multiple times. His dad had kept the gold. And so, he got our ring measurements and they melted them down for us: voila! A piece of themselves being put into our happily ever after.

To me it said I was marrying into a creative and kind family. I’ve always thought it was great.

Fast forward umpteen years. Michelle was in middle school. Someone put some knitting needles on the market that were gold plated, not brass like some of the later ones but gold, and I pointed them out to her and got her to buy me a pair of size 5s for Christmas.

It was totally a setup. I was so sure that gold at $360 was engraved in the back of his head.

Richard watched me open that package that morning, and in that moment Michelle and I both saw it in his face: *gold*? Needles?! Isn’t that taking this knitting obsession wayyy beyond redemption? He was in shock.

We died laughing and I promised him that they actually cost under $20 and less than my Holz and Stein rosewoods (which were still on the American market then, darnit, I miss those, but the folks at Dyakcraft do a superb job of making ones that I love everything about. They’re the perfect replacement.)

The gold is about half worn off the metal ones by now.  They’ve been put to good use. And they are staying home tomorrow for their own good.

It was a little after ten p.m. Richard’s back was bugging him; no problem, my turn then.

The light out that side burned out years ago and somehow we just never seem to remember to replace it–actually, we couldn’t now, not that obsolete type. Eh. I could barely tell where the dark plastic trashcan was to open the lid–okay, there, over you go.

I always have this guilty feeling that I must be clonking some poor raccoon in the head when I do that.

Meantime: fussy pattern, super-splitty fussy yarn. Bad combination, and I’m still dragging; I didn’t want to be bothered with it. I ripped and started over. Nice, plain purl rows–no purl two through back loops stuff. I didn’t want to be no stinkin’ fancy-pants designer tonight, I just wanted to knit.

And then I had to go off on a tangent and make it come out a new way anyway.  It’s coming along nicely now. I quite like it.

And on the total silliness side, courtesy of Kevin at Purlescence, I offer a picture of taking it easy on oneself, sipping honey and fresh-squeezed lemonade for the flu. Here you go.

Clearly, they put a small person in a much larger person’s sweater with the head out the neck, their legs out one arm,  hands out the other and the hemline opening carefully skootched under. I think. Don’t go racing to knit that; just go find someone much much bigger than you.

(Glancing sideways at the 6’8″er who doesn’t know I’m typing this. Heh.)

I did finally pick up yarn and needles and dive in today. I can’t tell you what a relief it felt. At last!

Let’s see if the software is in a good mood today: I rebooted, now trying again on the same process, same pictures–hey, there you go!

Meantime, I have some knitting needing doing. It takes such a long time–but then I remind myself that part of the inherent beauty of it is that it takes a lot of my time. And my love. It’s all about the love.

Running off to get right to it, then.

I counted fourteen mourning doves under the birdfeeder this evening, a huge number; usually there’s just a few. I wondered if I wasn’t the only one noticing.

Richard was home when together we looked up to see the hawk do a loop clear around the awning pole–and then he looped again!

Silly bird. Don’t you know that if you cast on with an e-wrap the length between loops gets longer and longer as you knit across the first row?

This morning:

Can you get in here right now to the lab and we’ll put a stat on it? And then appointment at 1:00.

Sure thing.

It didn’t really make sense to go home in between, turn around and come back, so I threw an extra 100g skein of yarn in my knitting bag just in case.

And so, after talking to various people on the phone all week, the GI doctor taking emergency calls today welcomed me in–with great apologies at the wait, and then another wait in the middle as she had to dash out to answer someone, but I told her, I’m just grateful you saw me, thank you!

But one of the first things she said when I got there was, Last time I saw you you were in the hospital!

And I said to her, Your baby’s three now?

She was very pleased that I remembered she had been pregnant. (Secret guilt here that I’d never knitted for her new little one.  I am going to make up for it now by knitting for her–not out of guilt but because I’ve always wanted to, and now I have an excuse again.)

We discussed. Not the stream of blood while changing the dressing but not gone either.  She tested: tender here and here, yes, but not really bad and I know really bad. Hmm. Tell you what, she said, I’ll put in a non-urgent request for a CT, and they’ll get you in in the next two weeks; if you don’t need it, cancel. If you need it a whole lot more than you do right now, call me and I’ll mark it urgent and they’ll get you right in.

I asked, and she said there was indeed a new med on the market since the Humira that might be a possibility if it turns out I need it.

There is?! YES!!! She told me the name and I said I’d go Google it; no, says she, I can get you more information than you can get by Googling, here, wait a second and I’ll go get it for you.

Came out of there with a plan and a knitting plan and happy anticipation at telling her thank you for the simple human comfort at being seen in all the ways I’d needed it. Life is good.

The lace hat I was already working on yesterday when Representative Cleaver was speaking is finished. The cabled hat that I dropped two stitches at the needle switch awhile ago is now finally ripped way back and restarted: he’s getting a cabled hat and it’s back to halfway done so far.

Had quite a few laughs at the typos in the closed captions during tonight’s convention. John Kerry, it claimed, said: “We do batter where we must, peace where we can.”

That was even better than the spoken “a man and a woman” scrolling across the screen as “a minimum bomb.”  Let’s all go have that proverbial Army-fundraiser bake sale! (As the cold-war saying goes, it’ll be a great day when the schools get all the funding they need and the Army has to hold a bake sale.) Batter up! Bring on their just desserts! Robert Fulghum once wrote about how great it would be if we could stop wars by dropping from the planes colored paper and crayons, a bit of childhood delight revisited to make friends with the enemy below. I guess he’s saying we could let people have the means to draw down the fighting.

Add in some carrot pecan cake and some chocolate chip cookies, too, and surely you can’t go wrong with that.

(p.s. And maybe you’ve already seen this, but how many handknit lace fences are there out there? With thanks to Betsy Bowman for the heads-up.)

I got tired of the squirrel scrums. So I changed the birdseed to safflower a few weeks ago and the suet cakes to ones with chili peppers as the second ingredient.

This means the juncos and towhees only stop by when a little suet hits the ground, but it’s so much more peaceful out there. With the coming of fall and the need to fatten up, the bushytails have finally started coming by, but never more than one at a time, they don’t eat much when they do come, and they’re certainly not about to make any effort to get at the stuff. It’s like offering a kid boiled brussels sprouts.

This also means my supersoaker got shelved. I wonder if that’s why the Cooper’s hawk has come back.

I looked up this evening in time to see–wait, was he trying to land on the birdfeeder?!  Or did he just brush it while trying to flush out a potential finch on the other side that he couldn’t see through the seed (only, there wasn’t one).

Huh.

Then he flew to the barbecue grill and watched us for awhile and Richard got to see him too.  A bit late of a hunt; it was definitely dusk. Beautiful, beautiful bird. We communed, with his permission. And then he was off.

Meantime, in the political world, a cousin here said a cousin there was going to be speaking at the Republican convention–and so I sat with a project that had needed justthismuchmore for so long and finally finished it off while I listened. Okay, lady from Oklahoma, you forgot your ninth grade history, but whatever. The woman who yelled about too many regulations–she paused for applause and had to wait for it. Oh. Right. Clap. Not everybody did, and I wondered how many spills and polluting incidents had come to the audience’s minds: 14,000 people would not have gone to the hospital this month had the Chevron refinery that blew up in the East Bay here been better regulated. Fourteen. Thousand. It looks like it will be now.

About an hour into it, I went back and doublechecked the messages: oh. Today’s not the day. And then I looked at the list of speakers for the right day and did a doubletake–wait! That name from–! I *knitted* for her once!

If you see a red scarf…