Our baker’s-dozen-months’ membership ends next week and we’d been wanting to see the new Baja exhibit. Richard is still under orders to stay off that foot, so today Michelle and I drove down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Coming up the sidewalk towards the entrance behind us were two tall teen girls and I turned and asked them if they were going to the Aquarium.

Yes. (Since I wasn’t their parent they didn’t quite roll their eyes.)

I said I had two guest passes and was using one (nodding towards my daughter) and would one of them like to go in for free?

Well YES! But I was a complete stranger making a completely unexpected offer and it flustered them as to what they were supposed to do–suddenly the dad they’d been studiously not walking with joined up with us, along with the rest of the family, and I explained. It didn’t matter which of them came with us, just, if they wanted to they were welcome to. I could only get one in, but I could do that.

 Members go in this door, people paying, that one, so that was a bit awkward, but I know how expensive those tickets are and there was just no good reason not to put mine to use.

We got a very nice thank you and then she went on to join up with her family just a bit ahead.

That blouse I ordered last year turned out to be a little bright for me but I never sent it back, and this morning, somehow that turquoise-blue seemed just the thing. I had reasons for wearing something else but it just announced it was it and it was just plain bossier about it than I was. Eh, okay, then, no biggy. (One of those moments you notice after the fact when it all comes together.)

A few days ago, an ad in the local paper caught Michelle’s eye when I was pointing something altogether different on that page to her: she saw not the planning commission story but the small-box notice from the city that the last of the free concerts in the park for the summer was going to be Tuck and Patti. She couldn’t go, but she definitely thought we should.

And we definitely agreed. It would start almost late enough for the UV not to be an issue, too.

And then I forgot all about it.

We got home from grocery shopping and Richard asked, What time does that start? Do you still want to go?

I would have missed it entirely. I’d forgotten. We should eat dinner…

No, said he, if we want to sit somewhere decent we should run.

Okay, good thing we had ice cream at Smitten on the way home, it would have to hold us.

It was going to be closer to the Bay than we are and it always cools down a lot at night in this area anyway–I delayed us a moment while I went searching for a cowl that matched that blouse. I was sure I had one.

I did, some hand-dyed Colinette silk bought at Purlescence. Pretty stuff, if a bit bright for me; one of those yarns that leaps out at you and says it will be the most perfect thing for…someone… I always thought it would look better on someone larger and darker than me, and pulling it out of its ziploc this evening I found I’d never even woven the ends in. It had never been worn. Richard waited patiently while I did a quick job of that. (Photo of one of the snipped-off pieces.) And then while I grabbed a heavy sweater. He’s a good one.

I always come away from listening to their music wanting to be a better person and we own I think all of their albums. I’d seen them once before, when they played on the plaza at City Hall to thank the town for getting their career started, and at the end that day, when the crowd had thinned and mostly gone, Tuck asked me, clearly sure he did, Where do I know you from?

Around town, is all we could guess.

But it left me feeling a bit of a connection to the both of them.

Loved loved loved hearing them tonight. They went off the stage setup to the back at the end and I was surprised that there were some people wanting to take their picture or say hi but the crowd wasn’t entirely swamping them yet.

I’d already been thinking I needed to say it in as few words as possible so as not to hog their time. The experimental med that could have killed me on the spot, having no real choice–and yet. I had.

Seeing that I wanted to say something, those closest to me gave way and nodded me forward.

I took off that long cowl and said to Patti: “I knitted this silk. I was in the hospital thirteen years ago trying really hard not to die. Your words, ‘I won’t give up, my path is clear’ were part of my soundtrack. Thirteen years!” as we hugged each other.

She took my hands in hers and asked me, her face full of emotion, “And what was your name?”

“Alison Hyde.”

And Patti? If you see this and that’s not your favorite color combination, tell me what color you’d most like and it will come to be.

Life threw me one of those moments where I needed to make something for someone and it needed to be made specifically for that someone–no taking one out of the already-readies–and it needed to be done by, one could only wish, tomorrow.

Friday will do in a pinch.

I needed to start NOW. Trying to decide what yarn it should be threw me into a major stash diving, where I came up with two old partial-skeins of Cascade Epiphany in a deep royal blue. (Discontinued but I found this page for substitutions if you want.) That was so totally it. Super soft, a color that looks good on everyone, and it wouldn’t take too long.

But in sitting down and thinking cowls (while being really glad you can make one fast in a pinch) it occurred to me that the last time I’d made one in such a dark color was the black one my older sister had requested at our dad’s birthday get-together, early June. I remembered. The last two skeins of black Woolfolk that Purlescence would ever sell, a souvenir before they close next week–I knitted it up on the Alaska trip, which is fitting given that Kaye, one of the owners, is from there and my sister fell in love with the place last year as much as we did when we got to go.

Wait.

Did I ever mail that?

Not that I could remember.

Then where would it be?

Not with the finished cowls. Huh. She just broke her upper arm, and giving her something she likes that she can put on by herself would really be a good thing right now; I needed to find that.

Okay, so, I sat down and quietly started knitting a bunch of rows and as such things do, the thought I’d been looking for came right on in and pulled up a chair beside me.

Which got me out of mine: I couldn’t possibly have, could I?!

I had. I’d left it in the small carry-on bag this whole time. We’ve been home from visiting the kids in Anchorage for two months and man am I slow.

So now I have two of them to hurry and get in the mail. Carolyn’s big black blob is rinsed and shaped as I type and will be dry in the morning; the one on the needles, not so much.

And *then* I do the top edging on the afghan.

I picked up a peach this morning from last week’s box from Andy’s and put it right back down: an impressive puddle had been hidden under it–we should have eaten that one four days ago. I guess we handled it too many times trying to find the softest and ripest. There was a heartfelt thought of, oh if only…

I don’t feed the squirrels but I just couldn’t toss it. Not one of those peaches.

Maybe it would encourage them to search for food away from my ripening figs? Right? So I put it in a bowl so it wouldn’t weep across the carpeting and took it to the farthest point in the yard from my figs and the neighbors’ tomatoes over yonder and put it on a stump, the remains of one of the fence-threatening trees we cut down two years ago to make way for replanting in fruit trees.

I went out this evening to check if it might by any chance still be there, unnoticed.

As if!

You can see where more of that pink juice ran out onto that stump. It took me a moment to find the pit a yard away and yes, it really is that red.

But what is funny and intriguing and quizzical is this: a gently rounded stone with no sharp points had been placed right where I had put that peach down. It was definitely larger than the pit. It couldn’t have gotten there without that peach having been gotten out of the way first. Wherever it had come from it had not been there before and I don’t know how far they’d had to carry it and it would have been heavy in their mouths for getting it up and onto that stump.

But they did.

They left me a tip.

That was the strong feeling.

Urgent Care had told my husband to follow up with a podiatrist on Tuesday and he wasn’t up to driving yet so I was there, too.

Three different medical specialties use the same check-in desk, which is why that familiar face of a perfect stranger was there. I sat down by her. She was about my mom’s age.

We instantly started talking as if we’d known each other forever. I told her, You live on our street! We go past and kind of wave at you all the time, you’re where the road does that steep turn. Do you remember Larry and Terry? We bought their house almost 30 years ago.

She did, and she was pleased to find out why we looked so familiar and exclaimed, I just love our neighborhood!

I do too!

It was only natural in that setting for her to soon start telling me a little of why she was there. First she told me the good parts: that she’d discovered some kind of pooper scooper where she could keep walking her dog without having to bend over.

Does that help?

Oh yes! She told me of some half-way measure her doctor had been doing for her–because she (clearly very much) didn’t want to have a knee replacement.

My mom had that! I told her. She was, let’s see, 83 and it’s been a couple of years; she’s always taken long walks every day and she couldn’t and now she can again and she loves it. No pain!

At that the woman stopped and looked at me like that was something she’d been afraid could never be, so sure of it, had not let herself see how badly she wanted it. I think she’d needed not a doctor but someone who’d been there (if only via second hand.) Someone else who liked to take walks, someone who had made it through the difficulty of surgery and downtime and physical therapy and recovery at that age, who knew it had been worth it. There was this sudden fierce hope in her eyes that didn’t want to let mine go.

Right then they called Richard and I told her how glad I was to finally get to meet her and hurried off after him.

A few more thoughts on Saturday: my hubby wanted the traditional family Emergency Room Medicine–which means a cone of ice cream on the way home. I had no interest but he’s the one who went through all that, so, hey. Tradition. Sure. I stopped at a Coldstone Creamery, ran in, got his favorite and ran out.

Then to the drugstore to get his phoned-in prescription at the only pharmacy for many miles around that was open at nearly 8 pm on a weekend.

Your insurance will refuse to cover it, they told me, because we’re not in their network.

You’ve filled it already?

They had. CVS *might* still be open, he said. Probably not. (The doctor had said he was phoning it to that Walgreens because he thought they were the only place in four cities that would be.)

And if it’s not… And even if it is. I was so very very tired, and more importantly, his very life might well depend on getting that med in him quickly. “It’s under a hundred? Fine. Go.”

I got back in the car where Richard was still trying to keep his foot propped up as best he could in that space and went off to Trader Joe’s: we had to do some grocery shopping, and we had to keep going while we were going because collapse was so close.

The innocent clerk with the gentle smile asked me, “And how was your day?”

I will forever be grateful for that and for his listening; I tried to keep it brief.

I started loading the car and Richard said Michelle had gotten stranded and had been trying to reach us and we had to go get her right now. He was worried and pushing me to hurry.

I stopped right there, having not had lunch yet and the sun was nearly set on this fine summer evening and said firmly, “I am going to drink something and I am going to eat something or I am going to burst into tears.” I considered what I’d just bought and realized it was his favorites to make him happy with–but no drink. I have this drink 8 oz every two hours or your kidneys fail thing going on for life, this was serious. The clinic’s drinking fountain had been awhile ago at this point.

He handed me a ten and I dashed back inside. I grabbed a mango smoothie and another clerk saw me coming and opened a line just for me and got me out of there fast (blessings on her! I think she’d overheard the earlier conversation.) I chugged it fast, we got to Michelle in no time, and then at long long last we made it home.

Where I wondered why on earth I hadn’t bought one of those two-minute bags of microwaveable dinners they sell, and generally pretty good, too.

Actually yeah I did. Richard found that grocery bag the next morning after it had been left out all night.

Chuck.

And then.

Then there was the respite of the rest of Sunday. Church. Old friends, new friends, the services themselves.

A couple was visiting from out of town and I had this flash as the man’s eyes briefly met mine, of, Wait. I know you. Weren’t you at BYU with me? (I didn’t quite say it out loud. I’ve pattern-matched wrong on faces before.)

And thought, naaaah, couldn’t be, that guy’s way too old.

….. *blink* ….

But surely he…the Wilkinson Center, yes…

As it sank in: Wait, *I’m* that old. (Did you forget that little detail, hon? I mean, really?) Helped by the fact that meantime he’d done that same double take and flash of recognition.

Oh well, by that point it was too late to chase after them with any sort of dignity, so, that was that. At least now I know he grew up to be someone with deeply kind eyes. His wife does, too. It helped so much, and they could never know.

This morning the deep purple in the toe area, the fierce swelling in the reddened foot and lower leg: those are gone. His color is normal, normal everything as if all that hadn’t happened. He was still wiped from fighting back the infection along with the antibiotic, but he’s going to be okay.

It was one of those times when life says, Take nothing for granted. Hug your dear ones. Be kind. Be grateful.

IRhythm, it turns out, has nothing to do with music.

Me, Tuesday evening: So it’s really cool, see, the new ones, you don’t have to have a landline to phone in the results every night and there are no wires or anything! (Having done this twice before in 25 years.)

Richard: That means memory has improved and gotten cheaper.

Me: Not to mention the rest of the technology. (Wondering if this was my friend Alan’s startup, it being his kind of thing. Silicon Valley can be a small place.)

I said to the tech at the time, Tell me, how does it stay on for two weeks? I have to change my stoma barrier for my ileostomy every three days or it starts to give way. Granted, it’s got digestive enzymes coming at it all the time, but still, three days vs. two weeks? Doesn’t the skin shed it by that point?

It should hold, he answered. If an orange light comes on that means it’s not right against the skin and if that happens we need you to tape it on. Do you have anything that would hold it well…?

Uh yeah I’ve got some old stoma barrier stuff I can cut up no problem there.

They saw that pulmonic heart valve being officially “moderately” antsy on an EKG once years ago. The next time they EKG’d it it was fine. I’ve had a right-bundle-branch block, I’ve had it almost disappear while I was on an anti-tumor necrosis factor med. Lupus is ever the hit-and-run disease.

To back up a bit: I had a longstanding routine appointment Monday with the cardiologist and a cardiac cough episode that happened on cue the day before got his interest. “You haven’t had that for awhile, have you? You go sometimes six months without an episode.” (Meaning, you and I both know how hard it is to catch this in the act.)

Yeah, I do usually get a bit of it in the summertime though because there’s always a little more UV exposure no matter how careful I am.

Then he said all these soothing and comforting things about how it wouldn’t damage my heart.

And then he ordered the heart monitor, which was installed the next day after the insurance agreed. It came with a booklet to make notations in about when, much how, and how long and I was assured it was okay to write down more than what it had room for if I had too many incidents.

Oh goody.

Five days. No orange light yet.

But again, this is all same-old same-old and I’ve debated saying anything here at all. Till I realized that the next time I have to go on the latest and great in heart monitors I’ll want to look up when the previous time was. So you’re stuck with this. Sorry about that.

The bottom third of the Indian Free peach is tucked in because that’s where the birdnetting hit the top of it this past spring and after an initial tight squeeze, it grew right on through. Looks kinda like a compression sock on a tree.

And yes that fence is six feet tall and yes it’s eighteen months old.

Meantime my somewhat far-fetched goal for a Saturday had been to do a sixteen-row pattern repeat on my afghan (3856 stitches’ worth) but as we got past noon and there were all these errands to run I was resigned to the idea that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Turns out it was the errands that weren’t going to happen after he got out the red laser pointer thermometer thingy: the next thing you know, he was making a dot on my wool-socked feet. All it needed was a cat chasing it. What?

Then at his.

Why are you…?

Actually, it was pretty genius. His foot with the wound was ten degrees warmer, consistently, and that sealed it: he finally called the doctor.

The doctor: Go to Urgent Care. Now.

Turned out there was swelling above the ankle now and it had gotten much worse over the course of the day.

H o u r s later I finished that pattern repeat a half-minute before the nurse finished winding that white netting tape around and around. But the important part is, another day and he might well have been on IV antibiotics and it looks like we came in soon enough.

Yay $5 laser thermometers. Not just for measuring caramel sauce temps. Yay geek geniuses. Yay for antibiotics that still (hopefully) work.

Richard Thompson. Here.

And here. (The strip. Don’t miss it.)

He didn’t get to draw Cul-de-Sac for enough years. But I’m so glad for how he saw and what he gave us in the time that he could.

A hawk, possibly a Sharp-shinned or maybe even a Cooper’s, circled close overhead as we sat in the rental car in front of my father-in-law’s a moment this morning and set the GPS for the airport. And again as if tracing the cul-de-sac in the sky. As we pulled out, it went ahead of us a bit and circled one last time in good-bye and then away, and I exclaimed to Richard that it was the perfect ending to our visit with his dad. It had been *so* good to see him this past week and the hawk coming so close was like a connection between Texas and home, a sense of till-the-next-time.

There was more to come.

On the flight leaving Dallas before ours, there was a family–a dad, a mom, two little girls about four and five and a baby–who got to the gate just in time to preboard but it was clear it had been a hustle and a hassle making it at all in time and they were stressed. Their flight was late, which had helped a lot. The dad was trying not to be cross. But his face gave him away.

It was a risk… I didn’t want to be putting him on the spot and I didn’t know how he would react when all I knew about him was that he was not feeling overly charmed by his cute little girls in just that one little moment. But who would want to be judged forever by those public moments when you’re not the perfect parent. I wavered.

But by then I’d already found two cute ones in the depths of that purse and they spoke for themselves: these were, first and foremost, for the parents. A pink flamingo with black beak and eyes and a black condor, the tips of its wings and tail edged in white.

Meanwhile, the guy looking at their boarding passes was finding something not immediately right and making them stand there and stand there and stand there while everybody else was waiting to go on that plane (no pressure!) and what that did was create a sense of anticipation while giving me enough time to get me over my fear of reaching out. So there you go.

A small tap (it was the dad, I couldn’t reach the mom without falling over a trash can or a kid), his turning around, and suddenly his face lit up and then at me in wonder and then the mom’s too and they were surprised and thrilled and the wife said, “These are so cute! Thank you! Did you make them?”

“I wish, but no, I buy them from Peru but they are hand knit. We’ve had little ones,” I smiled, nodding at their children, who hadn’t caught on yet that these were for them.

They thanked me again and it was like that was what the no-nonsense airport guy needed to be done with them and he sent them on their way past the gate.

As they headed away I was relieved and glad to have seen the best in both parents having immediately come to life. That was the gift they gave to me.

A quick Cooper’s hawk report: one landed on the fence and watched me today like old times–warily, but it did.

I loved it for coming and as I felt that, he suddenly relaxed and fluffed out his feathers and took in the day, and a fine day it was. It was so cool seeing him so at ease.

But after finally getting him to come back I’ll be deserting him by not filling the feeder.

Richard mentioned that we should pack an umbrella.

There was this Californian moment of oh…! I remember those! (Haven’t used one in years)… (Running and checking the Ft. Worth weather report again. Ours, 79F, theirs, 99.) I remember the surprise from the first time we went there that the oranges and juice were so much sweeter in Texas for the heat.

We are off in the morning to take care of his dad. The house will be sat, the tomatoes ripening. If you don’t hear from me, the plan is also that Lynn there will be taking me to sightsee West 7th Wool yarn shop Saturday afternoon.

Sweet will be the times spent.

I saw a flyby in the morning, which was cool, and this evening, Richard looked up at hearing a finch hit the window–just in time to see the pursuing hawk hit it, too.

But…but…! As I remembered the time I washed the windows and Coopernicus arrived right there a couple of feet away and examined closely: yes, there’s still something there, still in this particular space as always, okay, got it.

He would circle within an inch, absolutely amazing to watch, clearly knowing exactly where that plate of glass was.

The fact that today’s Cooper’s hawk flew back out of here was a relief. But also a reminder that that particular species is often found by biologists to have evidence of healed broken bones.

We were fresh out of peaches…

Two weeks ago we asked at Andy’s when the Lorings would be in. Today we asked again as we came in–and I laughed when they said they were picking them tomorrow. We were one day too soon.

But hey, a reason to come back in the same week? Incentive to share Baby Crawfords? Cool. They were so good last year that I planted my own in January, with thanks to Andy for that variety. (The white one there is a Silver Logan.)

My friend Nina has wanted to make the drive down there with me for some time and just hasn’t been able to yet, so tonight I brought some over to her to give her a better idea of what I’d been talking about.

The great juice of summer dripping down everybody’s arms as the slices got passed around her loved ones: the way a peach is supposed to be.

Every now and then, even the online mapmaker folks goof. Don’t know if you’ve encountered it but I have a couple of times. Like the time I was trying to meet up with an old college roommate and finally pulled over and called her.

The map said this road connected up with that. Turns out that the one stopped a block shy–you had to go around this other way.

So. I used to on rare occasion go to Green Planet Yarns when they were in downtown Campbell, but parking there was always horrible, and Purlescence was closer and easier all around, so, eh. I did like the owner, though, even if I didn’t know her very well, and she stocked some nice stuff.

And then Green Planet moved to San Jose.

The map…

I tried. A year ago I spent an hour wandering around on (turns out) the wrong side of the freeway, pulling over several times to check my phone to see what it was saying now, since I couldn’t hear it. Finally I gave up in frustration and headed home.

I joked with Kathryn’s husband at Cottage Yarns a few days ago when I went to show her the Mecha afghan that I’d be back in two weeks (again) with the next one in Rios, but after all that color intensity, when I actually sat down to knit my eyes said no. I actually finally wanted to knit up some vanilla dk weight cashmere/silk I’d bought from Colourmart a few months ago: I wanted plain ordinary white and I wanted to knit that warm, soft yarn, even if it would need small needles and even if superwash merino might be far, far more practical. I’d bought this because I wanted to make this, so, so there.

Grab the impulse while you’ve got it and go.

Hmm. Size 4 was making a great fabric but I learned in one little swatch that my hands needed a little more give, a little bigger loop for that needle tip–and that it still looked fine on 5s. (3.75mm)

My circular 5s were 24″ long. Wait–how, after all these years, could I not have…! Surely I do in some forgotten bag somewhere, but oh well. My 231 stitches were packed in so densely that it was a constant fight to push them along or out of the way. My hands never got to relax nor could my eyes see the pattern coming to be.

There was only one thing for it. I knew who would have the brand needle I wanted.

Yay for repaired maps: this time I found them.

There was not a soul I knew in sight. That felt strange.

But the clerk was friendly, and I bought a skein of supersoft thick wool in the most perfect purple, a semi-instant cowl-to-be. The color won.

She offered to wind it up for me. And not only did they have my needle–they were closing it out. They had one last rosewood 40″ size US 5, and it was on sale and it was perfect and I got exactly what I’d come for. And a 40″ US 4, too, because.

Re the yarn: Sure, thanks!

Which means I had a moment to just stand around, or….

There were two knitters at the table. They invited me to join them and then included me in on the conversation as if I were just as much old friends with them as they were. They told me when they’d be hanging out and that they’d love to see me around again.

I think my transition to Purlescencelessness just eased a bit.

Having woken up to the news of an utterly innocent and well-loved man in Minnesota shot dead by the cops as he reached for his driver’s license, bookended by the snipers in Dallas tonight shooting eleven cops, killing four (update: five), who were there to make sure a protest rally stayed peaceful…

Both feel like the Kent State days of my childhood. We have GOT to stop doing this, thinking like this, acting on this. I want the Peace sign to make a huge comeback in our society: offer love to one another, not warring.

On a different note.

It was almost exactly a year ago, and I remember because it was right after the Fourth of July but while most of the traffic around my husband’s office was very low because people were on vacation, when I came around a blind curve in a steep hill and saw it.

There had been a pair of red-tailed hawks soaring above the nearby buildings for as long as anyone could remember, kiting on the thermals.

One of them had been hit by a car just at the end of that blind curve where neither could have seen the other coming. It was on the shoulder, an enormous wing angled upright, being blown softly by the wind.

A day or two later, I saw a bicyclist stop and pick up its body carefully, as if to honor this huge beautiful bird for having graced our lives, and he moved it to a small depression in the hillside where a tiny stream of water sometimes runs in winter, as if in burial. Away from the hard road and back to the nature it belonged to.

I mourned, too, for the hawk that had lost its mate. I saw it from time to time, alone now, as I waited to pick Richard up in the evenings.

Yesterday morning at 8:30 I had just turned up that hill a little farther down when I saw it: those wings, that size, the brilliant white against the new light of the day. A bit of gray in its tail and shoulders and its feet tucked in. It was rising, soaring on the wind.

Rushing home to my Sibley’s guide, it was a light morph of either a ferruginous hawk.

Or of a red-tailed. So there was a hawk nest up there this year after all.

Flying free, last year’s pain a distant memory of its elders.

May we learn from the hawks.