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.

This link courtesy of LynnM: who knew that Prince Harry, handknit fingerpuppets style, would think to plan against a small royal meltdown? (I wonder if the growly-faced one wanted one too.)

(Let’s see, do I cast off here or do I do two more inches on this shawl. Graceful long length vs the practicality of not snagging it on everything, and it’s laceweight but fairly wide so that factors in too. I think it does need another pattern repeat. Hmm.)

In other words, if I dither over it some more than I don’t have to stay up tonight doing that cast-off.

I finished it I finished it! I had a new idea I was working away at and really wasn’t quite as sure of as I wanted to be the whole time. You know how lace does this crumpled tin foil act while you’re creating it.

Today it was dry. Done. I picked it up, put it around my shoulders, stood in front of the mirror, and marveled, oooooh. *This* is exactly what I’d hoped it would be when it grew up! But you never really entirely know till that point. It not only worked, it taught me a whole new thing in the process and I find that deeply gratifying.

It was Abstract Fibers’ Picasso yarn in the Valentine colorway. (Baby alpaca. Anyone surprised? And Picasso–being an art dealer’s daughter, how could I not knit that?) I’d told my husband it was my big splurge at Stitches West. Bright bright bright and the perfect celebratory thing to be knitting away on to celebrate Spring and, on Easter, the rising again to Life.

And another reason I’ve been so happy today: I wove in ends that had long needed it and mailed off a project that the recipient knows nothing about but that sure made me feel good anticipating the look on her and her parents’ faces that they’ll see, even though I won’t. I knew the color was right and the yarn too. This is what all those stitches we do are for in the first place: showing others that they are well loved.

The squirrel update: I’m a creative meanie. I had a now-empty 20-lb bag of birdseed, all safely poured into the metal can but the bag still smelling highly of sunflower.

I threw a few very stale cashews way down in it. (I’m certainly not going to eat them.)

As the day progressed and this unknown object sat there on the patio, I watched the progression: scared squirrels, then nosy squirrels, then squirrels anxious not to have me be around seeing them while one of them tried to chew his way in from the side, apparently not liking the inner liner, though, and then finally, at last, when just one was there, a tail disappeared, fluff by cautious fluff.  The little thing had to have crept clear to the very bottom of the bag–whereupon I stood up and opened the back door.

Furry black lightning. In full zigzag/eaglesighting mode. Wish I could breakdance like that.

And then since I’m nice I walked out of its sight so it could come back and have a snack. Chocolate, me, cashew, you. Thank you for the entertainment; fair enough of a tip.

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…

I’m putting in a picture of Parker; June loved babies and she was a friend to his great grandparents and all four of us grandparents.

There was an earthquake today, the 105th anniversary of the great San Francisco quake that ripped the entire San Andreas fault and was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles to Nevada, but this was only a 3.7 and I completely missed it. A baby quake. I had to laugh when I heard about it; that’s supposed to happen tomorrow, not today–tomorrow’s June’s memorial service and we had one during Al’s funeral. Can’t let Al beat her at this waving goodbye with the chandeliers stuff.

It took me the longest time to find this post–I couldn’t remember what pseudonym I’d used for her.  Jo.  I stole her photo with her new hairstyle from her memorial page.  For all the time I knew her before that, she wore it in a high bouffant which, in her later years, showed off her leopard-print hearing aids better.

An email went out today: June had always loved to wear a nice hat, and wouldn’t it be cool if we women all showed up wearing hats in her honor. Oh honey you bet.

June Darby, the first woman to get an MBA at Stanford, passed away two weeks ago, just shy of her 90th birthday. She is missed. And I am printing out that old post to give to her daughter, thinking of that bouffant white hair and that old, classic, muscle-car Mustang of hers and how she laughed and laughed at the doubletakes of the young men pulling up alongside her at the light who suddenly didn’t want to drag race after all.

(Parker saying Gooo! Qiviut! to the baby in the mirror.)

1. Today there was a newly-fledged Oregon junco, the little bird’s colors pale and its landing bouncy and uncertain. What seemed to be a parent, a tad larger and rounder, flew down a small space behind it. (Mother! I can’t be seen in public with you!) Not coming to eat too, but just keeping a careful eye out as the little one hopped around a bit on the box, found the food, and scooped it up rather open-beaked.

Good job, well done, honey, and they turned in tandem and the little one followed his mom back up into the air a split second behind.

2. In case others don’t know why the federal Tax Day isn’t till the 18th this year.

On April 16th, 1862, with the Emancipation Proclamation still eight months away, Abraham Lincoln declared slavery over in Washington, DC, paying $300 for the freedom of each one.  Your big government at work. It became a holiday in the Capital, and, to quote the Washington Post, “By law, local holidays in the nation’s capital affect tax deadlines the same way federal holidays would.” Most states changed their date to match.

April 16 being a Saturday this year, DC’s holiday is being celebrated the 15th.

3. I spent a lot of time winding yarn today, and found myself thinking, if I’m going to wind merino to have all ready to go then I just have to wind that qiviut too. I can’t let unwound hanks ever stop me from diving in at the right moment.

And so I got out the bag of 50/50 qiviut/merino from cottagecraftangora.com. As each delicate strand passed through my fingers, I realized that soft as these felt in skein form, actually handling the yarn was a revelation. Wow, this really is what I’d hoped for.

But I completely did not expect that it would also tell me in those minutes playing with my eyes and my sense of touch what pattern it wanted to be among all the lace swatches I’ve toyed with and what story it needed to tell, a story I love of people I love. It came to me, it took me by surprise, and it was and is going to be perfect.

Now I know. All I had to do was let the yarn come closer to hear it speaking its own language.

Parker could tell me all about that one.

I know, it’s a sheep shot. But that sheep–always raising a racket, always chasing after those little birdies. I tell you. He was a baaah’dmutton.

The knitting: I started to cast off, stopped, switched to a different size needle and tried to undo those first few kid-mohairy stitches. I could just hear Natalie and Nat King Cole’s famous duet: “Unfroggetable…”

And then there’s LynnM’s description of my backyard as San Franserengeti. Love it.

So. The ends are run in. It is blocking, and like lace always does, it went from looking like not all that much to absolutely glorious.  It’s finished!

And on a wildlife note: I’ve been taking the main birdfeeder in the last few nights, putting it back up first thing when I get up. Trying to discourage the squirrels. They can’t get much but they can shake some out if they go at it sideways and they get a real pinata party going in the early mornings.

So last night I pulled a chair out from under the picnic table and set it to the far side of the thing so I could step up to reach.

When our kids were little, my husband set up a hidden timer on the TV (the few years we owned one so that I could have Sesame Street on while cooking dinner.) The idea was, they could only watch under supervision.

We got up one Saturday morning to find a certain small child had pulled his pillow off his bed, pulled out the knob on the TV, and had gone back to sleep, baby blanket up to his chin, waiting for the show, any show, to come on.  He was snoozing away when we came in the family room and saw the test patterns on the screen. This may have been a factor later in the non-replacing of the decades-old TV.  (Ahem. Test patterns around here are made by me now.)

This morning there were rows of finches on the branches tied by the pole, facing left towards the empty spot, waiting. And facing to the right, with empty air between them where the food should have been–a small black squirrel. Perched on the top of the back of that chair. Staring, just staring at that spot, refusing to let even my coming around the corner deter it, fervently willing what it couldn’t have anyway to reappear.  Pulling its tail around it for a blanket in the brisk morning air, needing a pillow to complete the scene.

I made sure to spill just a few seeds for it when I wasn’t looking. Just a few.

(Ed. to add.) Speaking of scenes: if you want to see some really cool bird photos, you’ve got to see Glenn Nevill’s site.

Thursday night, getting ready for Purlescence, I didn’t have a portable project for it.  I’d finished one and hadn’t decided  the next yet–but it was time to go. I grabbed needles and the first ball of merino I saw and off I went.

I got the brim finished by the time I went to bed that night but I kept wondering why I was knitting this. My daughter-in-law has one like it; was I subconsciously trying to knit her back to being here in person? (Oh, and maybe bring Parker too? This picture’s about six weeks old now, we need to take new ones.) She loved hers so much when I gave it to her that it certainly made me want to go do that again.

Well then.

I didn’t work on it much Friday, despite my nagging desire to finish a thing once started.

The phone rang about 9:00 this morning.

2:00? Okay, thank you, that sounds good, we’ll see you then!

I suddenly had two-thirds of a hat to knit, and fast.  And I mean fast! I knew there was no way I could knit one from the beginning in time for the very helpful fellow who would be dropping by, but for his wife at least, whom I’d never met, I had a head start in that lovely Malabrigo softness.

And I knew that the best way to make a good person happy is to do something to honor those closest to them.

So the doorbell rang this afternoon a little after I danced across the house waving the thing to Richard going, I finished! I finished! The fellow handed me the thing he was going out of his way to drop off for us and started to turn away with a wave and a cheerful hi.

I stopped him a moment. Explained what I’d done. I saw someone I took to be his wife (she was) waiting in the car and waved hi to her as he left, hat now in hand. I shut the door after him.

You know that doorbell rang again before I could get across the house.

And so I got to meet a delightful woman whom I felt matched me right down to the longish gray hair and the hearing aids.  We swapped a few hearing stories and laughed together. The whole time I’d been raceknitting, I’d been wishing I could actually meet her, and I got to!

When a ball of yarn leaps onto your needles like that, sometimes you’ve just got to obey it.

Oh, and one other thing? The female Cooper’s hawk swooped across the yard just about the time I finished, me on my perch just then and she coming to hers, the metal dolly ten feet away. My eyes followed her in as she came and I turned. She seemed to approve of that nest I’d built–awfully small, though, don’t you think–and a moment later, with a nod of her head, (birds do that to gauge distances but never mind) she swooped back to the right and away.

The San Jose Merc ran an editorial and included this link for telling PG&E’s board of directors what you think of how their company’s being run. Their server was down most of the day when I tried to say my piece, so I saved it, waited till after 5, and it went right in. Coolant heads must prevail.

On a more cheerful note, I love that, by the sound of it, the cops were going to write up a ticket for putting art illegally in public and were going to make them take it down, but wait: you say it’s a craft? Well then! And so we have a yarnbombed London phone booth.

Meantime, my doorbell rang today: a friend with her little girl in her arms, the little one shyly reaching out to me with a fistful of daffodils in one hand, and in the other, a bottle of my favorite mango juice. Just to make sure I’m getting better.

You know that little girl is going to want to do that again to someone else, too–that was fun, Mommy!

It’s the little gestures and thoughtfulness that make it totally feel all better when the big things seem a bit much. Thank you, April!

A comment from a friend about patience prompts this.

My brother, years ago and well before he had his own family, told our mom he couldn’t see himself having six kids like she’d had; he just didn’t have the patience.

Mom stared at him and exclaimed, “Where do you think I GOT it!?”

I am here to tell you, he did just fine. (No, not six, but it was the whole future parent thing he was wondering about being good enough for. He’s a great dad.)

When you’re new at something, becoming really good at it can seem unreachable.  Pick up a violin, figure out which hand holds the bow, go play in the orchestra? But even Elizabeth Zimmerman had to knit her first-ever stitch.

Come to think of it, I know a lot of musicians–people who know what it’s like to spend years getting really good at their craft–who are natural-born knitters.  Reading musical notations is a brain exercise of translating from squiggles on a page to finger and hand movements.

Knitting patterns are simply a second language to the hands. Fluency comes with practice.

At first glance as the page opens, it’s a rusted-out skeleton of a very old car with its license plate falling off out of sheer age and neglect. Then you look a little closer… Czech it out! If it were another nationality, we could call it an American I-doily singing in the rain.

Spent some time knitting, coming up with a whole cool new lace idea, putting the project at hand aside to go swatch and go write, not finished tweaking, glad I could do a bit more now. Getting there. Mostly.  Since March 15th I’ve lost seven pounds I really didn’t need to lose, but this morning it had stabilized.

Just please keep that Crohn’s away from me.  If tonight is like last night in reaction to eating a good dinner, (look, Ma! no Zofran!), I’m calling my GI.

The Cooper’s hawk swooped in and landed behind me in the late afternoon during a brief break in the rain, the misted sunlight intensifying the colors in her feathers. Gorgeous. We regarded each other a few minutes.  I think things are going to be okay.

(Ed. to add Friday evening: last night was a far better night than Wednesday night. Thank heavens.)

Nina, whose Ann Arbor shawl graces my book (OOP but cover-price copies available at Purlescence), called today; she needed to stop by after work a moment.

During our short conversation, she decided instead to go home, grab her knitting–yup, got her addicted too now–and so we sat and chatted for about an hour, wondering why we didn’t do this more often.

I showed her Lorraine’s qiviut scarf and the little lace scarf I’d made out of one skein of the Arctic Blend. Ten bucks for a qiviut blend. It is lovely stuff.

Nina had the same reaction to Lorraine’s handiwork that I did: she immediately put it on and declared that wow, she felt like a million bucks. It looked smashing on her, too, she was absolutely right. Just her colors. I so wish I’d thought to take her picture in it.

I showed her the matching big skein of yarn, not yet knit, as all the Warm Hats stuff and baby blanket got ahead of it in the lineup.

Well now.  I could totally knit that gorgeousness up for her, she thought out loud. (With a grin.)

I explained that, editors willing, it’s to go in the next book.

She laughed, “You can tell stories on me again. After all these years, you’ve got lots of stories to tell on me!”

Wait–was that a hint?

Random curious photo: our local mini-tsunami got its picture taken here, the water playing jump rope across the San Francisco Bay.

You asked for Parker pictures; here’s another from our visit to San Diego. Parker’s already beginning to look older than that.

Meantime, Nathania made my day last night when she looked at the cotton chemo cap I’d made and exclaimed over the depth of the cable: “Cotton usually goes flat!”

Well, I used really small needles to get that effect, but I could only do a few rows of that a day in that yarn so it went really slowly.

She looked at me, knowing cotton knitting, going, Yeahhh. But meantime, I am so glad at how it came out and it was with such a sense of joy that I sent it out and on its way to tell the recipient I love her and hope all the best for her. It was exactly the right project for her. I’m so glad I made it. I so hope it eases at least that part of what she’s going through.

Specs: cast on 16, another riff on the Knitty Coronet pattern, only with a different cable and no fold to the brim, just straight up from there. The two four-stitch cables were crossed every other right side row so that I could adjust the length easily, keeping it in the pattern while matching how long I needed it to be to fit her. (Which is 2″ more than it would be for me; I’m glad they measured.) I did a three-needle bindoff on the right side of the brim part so the seam wouldn’t chafe, and at the top, I crocheted the end to a few inches long and left it for decoration without running it inside, French beret style, again for the sake of comfortableness.

(And yes, that is a Vincent Van Gogh in the shower curtain behind me. I am, after all, an art dealer’s daughter. Art museums are a great way Toulouse-Lautrec of time.)

Okay, so, 45 minutes later, I come up with the perfect comeback.

I zipped over to Safeway tonight to replenish the milk supply for my morning hot cocoa; in, out, home, was the plan.

There was a guy with some gray in his hair and a basket on his arm who approached the checkout line, hesitated, stepped away to look over at something else just a moment and started to step back just as I was right there now and in his way.

Hey. I was pushing a cart, he was holding his groceries with a two-pieced metal handle pulling heavily against his arm. In my fatigue-centric world, he wins; I offered him to go ahead of me. I was in no hurry.

There was the polite, You go ahead. No, you go ahead.

Alright then, so I did.

And turned and complimented him on his sweater to be nice back.

“It’s Irish,” he told me proudly. (I wasn’t surprised. It was also machine-knit, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.)

“I made one for my husband like that, only, there are no patterns as big as he is so I had to design my own since he’s 6’8″.”

Oh my. That opened the door. The Voice of Authority proceeded to tell me that sure I could, just go to a store where they sell yarn, they have all the patterns.

“Yes, but not that big.” I smiled sweetly, letting him in on the laugh. (Right?)

He insisted there are no new patterns in knitting, just rehashes of what’s already been out there. Those Irish, now, each town had their own. He tried to convince me that they might have been originators but nobody else could be, not now, it’s all Been Done.

I told him I design some of the patterns in those stores (thinking of my book)… (Again with the smile.)

He seemed offended. No no no little girl, is how he came across as he made clear his stance that such hubris on my part was not to be tolerated.

I didn’t argue with him, just let him go on, my eye contact level fading away.  My transaction soon give me a graceful way out–slide your card here–then I turned, smiled, and bid him a good evening.

Home. Put the milk away.  Sat down in the family room. I double-checked the cabled pattern lineup I was starting for the cap of the hat whose braided brim I’d made during my lupus group meeting today, a hat that will be identical to no other on earth when I get done–

–and looked across the room at my piano.

Seven and a half octaves. They’re all there. All those keys were invented years ago. You couldn’t possibly design anything new with them, it’s this key and on up through that one, one right after another, it’s all already been done.

(Ed. to add: I felt sorry for the guy for so needing to dominate that he wrecked a perfectly pleasant conversation. So as I drove home in the dark, I said a prayer for him: easy to do, since I don’t ever have to see him again, and the effort certainly couldn’t hurt him and did help me. Who knows. Maybe the Universe will teach him a little kindness from the encounter. I can hope.)

Merino wool takes up dye more quickly than silk does, making it easy, in the case of my Filatura di Crosa “Wave” yarn, to have a heathered effect come out of the dyebath: two fibers that have been through the mill and share differences and similarities from the experience.

Soft but closely knit and strong and warm. It seemed perfect for her. A braid of a cable around the brim, the stitches picked up and then more braids working their way up: Fisherman’s Wharf and sailors’ ropes, even the yarn itself named to match the power of the ocean reaching halfway around her district. I liked it.

It was Jackie Speier’s hat, and I didn’t get it finished in time to mail with the Senators’ yesterday but I did do those last few rows today. I emailed her office a heads-up as to who I was and what I was up to, said I was going to put it in the mail, and then looked around her site for where to send it.

Hey. I thought it surely would have been San Francisco. It was closer in–a trek, and getting towards 3:00 rush hour soon, but certainly doable.

I called.

I got this male voice stopping me as I tried to introduce myself, going, Wait. Run that by me again? What?

Gradually, I got to hear his voice sounding happier and happier as he heard me explain the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads concept and why it was important to me that Jackie Speier get one of those hats.

He seemed a little more hesitant though when I chirped brightly, Great! Then if you don’t mind I’ll hop in my car in a few minutes and bring it over.

Thick clouds at home became a cloudburst the further north I drove. A slightly soggy-looking (red-tailed?) hawk perched on a signpole over the freeway made me laugh in surprise: always a touch of raptor, isn’t there, waiting to be seen for the noticing. Speaking of which, Clara‘s third new peregrine egg made its appearance on camera today.

Traffic was not too bad yet. The rain caught its breath a moment as I parked the car; a friendly touch, that.

I was screened downstairs and signed in.  I went up. I explained to the buzzer at the door, as before, who/what/why. A woman’s voice seemed to hesitate at first; I imagined her asking and the guy there going, oh yes, her, okay, so she did come, it’s okay.

But that’s just my guess. It’s kind of hard to lipread a doorbell for missing details.

I entered and immediately knew who it was that had been on the phone: the man on his feet now whose smile was all one could ever hope for. The glass between the staff and the waiting room was surely protective, but the woman near him quickly opened the door to the waiting area and came to me, smiling as well.

I’m not quite in Ms. Speier’s district, I quickly acknowledged to her, pulling the hat out, but I feel she represents me. She’s not one who needs the message of one of these hats like some of her colleagues do; rather, it’s that I personally needed to knit her one to thank her so much for what she does and who she is.

She asked if I were following the pipeline hearings. Ohmygoodness yes. Thank you Jackie Speier! Our very lives in this neighborhood may well depend on her firmness in holding PG&E’s feet to the fire they created.

I got to see, in my few minutes there, how much those two staff members clearly love their boss.

Which says to me all over again what a fine leader she is.

The hats. We’re at 245. Not a big jump from yesterday, but still, steady upwards progress.  Thank you, hat knitters! May every one of you come away feeling as blessed by your recipients’ responses as I did with mine today.