Him, a few days ago: So what do you want to do for the Fourth?

Me: It would be fun to drive down the coast, dip our toes in the ocean. Wait–beach traffic. Holiday traffic. Never mind.

One of the facts of life here is that there are a very few very tight windy roads over the mountains between the Bay Area and the coast.

So he proposed going back to the Aquarium. The southern route around wouldn’t be bumper-to-bumper. (Just a little, it turned out.)

Sure! I was quite surprised. How about… (Googling for the perfect almond pastry.) Maybe throw in a bakery exploring?

Sure!

Except the place I wanted to try was closed today so we didn’t get to find out if the almond utter nirvana described per Yelp was true or not. But we had to love a place whose first name was Parker.

Our year’s membership was ending July 30th and at $275 to renew with guest passes again, that would likely be it for awhile. Hang in there, little bakery, we’ll get there someday.

Two weeks ago I was focusing on seeing everything; this time I was taking a lot more photos so as to bring more of them home with me.

I took a picture of the California red-legged frog for all my fellow knitters: our mascot, local version.

The Sunfish photo came out surprisingly well, given how dark the tank is and that there’s no flash allowed. But it moves so very very slowly that the Iphone got it. That’s almost the whole fish–there’s a slightly scalloped edge just to the right there, feather-and-fin style and you’re done.

I asked the receptionist to verify that our passes were good through the 30th. She checked, grinned, and said, August 30th.

August?! Really?!

Yes!

She so loved being able to say that. Sometimes they offer a baker’s dozen of months when you sign up for a year and I guess since we’d come in twice in two weeks they were out to make us happy and she had great fun surprising us.

Well then. We just might have to come back to explore Parker Lusseau when it’s not a holiday. We’ll see. Oh and? The Aquarium employee who told us last time that the  place starts emptying out 4:ooish? Genius. We had the whole upper level of the sea otter exhibit to ourselves and that has NEVER happened. …Well, till the one in view woke up from its nap, whereupon a family came upstairs to see. Their kids were adorable.

Otter with its blankie pictures tomorrow.

He was 13 months old and in a strange place with his grandparents at a church he’d never been to before, while for whatever reason his parents were elsewhere in the building just then.

Muh Muh Muh? Spoken softly. He toddled the back row in Sunday School, looking for Mommy.

Actually, the grandmother could easily have passed for an older mother so I wasn’t quite sure there till we introduced ourselves to each other afterwards and her son and daughter-in-law joined in the conversation.

Meantime, he was not crying but he was clearly tired and not quite sure of this place and all these strange faces.

We were silently cheering him on. We’ve all been the new kid on the block. Everyone at the back of the room was smiling at him and loving it when he caught an eye here or there.

One mom had silver sparkly shoes with a pattern that wove in and out and he stopped, got down, and explored how the top of one of them felt while she chuckled. Tangible light! Look at that! And you could cover it over with your hand, too, and then make it come right back. What a cool world!

At one point he went to his grandparents for a hug and we wondered if at last he would start crying; I reached into my purse and found a finger puppet and got it over to them. A turtle.

Grandpa caught on pretty quickly that this little handknit didn’t have to be a lump sitting on the palm and I saw Grandma showing the little guy how it went on her finger–and now it could go on his.

Would he throw it down and throw that tantrum at last? There was this moment of indecision in the air.

He liked it! Hey Mikey!

A minute or two later, toddling over to me, for the first time in there (be still my heart) he looked up into my eyes–and he smiled.

What a difference! He had a huge smile! It took up his entire face and it totally changed how he looked, totally rocking that toothy Mad Magazine mascot thing, ready for cheerful mischief. (Remembering how my grandsons’ daddy liked to stuff silverware down the heating vents starting at that age.)

Standing with all of them and with Richard in the swirl of people after the meetings were over, the parents had three ages four and under? So did we when we moved here. Turning to the side, these are the first grandkids? We told the grandparents we were at the same stage now.

It’s hard to uproot and move away and even harder when life revolves around the needs and schedules of small children. We wanted them all to feel this was home now.

The giggles of a totally-won-over-now tiny human being playing peekaboo around his grandma’s shoulders at me as we grownups got acquainted went a long way towards conveying that sense of belonging.

Got up an hour early to make sure I wasn’t late taking Michelle to the doctor; her car is out of the running at the moment. Got her home, got Richard to work, got home, had two hours to myself, got Michelle and took her to work down in San Jose because they wanted her to come in today in person and thought as long as I have to wait two hours, I might as well discover Green Planet Yarn’s new digs rather than drive home only in time to drive right back.

The freeway down there, it turned out, was dealing with a major crash, so I thought I’d just do the surface streets from her office to that shop, no problem.

Big problem.

But it had to be… it wasn’t. I at long last pulled over and looked at my Iphone. Maps *click*. Twelve minutes thataway? I’d turned the wrong way.

Ten minutes into that, my phone buzzed and I pulled off again: Michelle said her meeting was cancelled, could I come back at 3:30 instead?

2:45. My phone hadn’t updated my location; I still wasn’t sure I would find that shop nor how long it would take me to get all the way back to her if I did. Traffic was picking up and I knew a lot of it would be diverted as rush hour was starting and after two hours into this trip, the enthusiasm just wasn’t quite what it was.

Forget it. And so, for the fourth and last time I drove through that bad end of town, briefly certain I must have lost a tire to that pothole, heading back to her office–if I could retrace my steps.

Which, it turns out, you can’t.

Just when it looked like my road was ending and was going to dump me into a ramp to the shut-down freeway waitwaitwhat?!, a side arm opened up going thataway and I saw the new sign to the road I’d most wanted to find and knew my way from there.

Six cities, six hours at the wheel by the time I’d picked Richard up from work–and two gallons of gas used in all of that. Go Prius go. (Fully aware I could have been more than halfway to the grandkids in San Diego by that point.)

Settling back in the parking lot at Michelle’s office at 3:03, meantime, I sent her a note saying I was here, I was going to knit, I was simply going to sit tight till she was ready. No hurry. Had lots to do.

She showed up at the door immediately–and confessed she’d only said 3:30 because she thought I was having a grand time at the yarn store and she hadn’t wanted to interrupt me.

I’d spent that *whole time* lost? she asked. Why hadn’t I used my GPS?

I looked at her in what I hoped was gentle–alright, utter in spite of myself–disbelief–and said simply, I can’t hear my GPS.

She looked steadily back at me and asked, With your bluetooth?

.

.

.

The bluetooth.

.

.

That connects to my new hearing aids.

.

And I’d actually remembered to bring the thing. I don’t like to wear it, it’s heavy on the neck but at least it was there in my purse this time, for, you know, phone calls, even though I don’t take calls when I’m driving e v e r .  But I’d actually remembered to bring it. This is a rare thing.

The bluetooth connects the hearing aids to the phone and the phone has GPS and I had it right there the whole time and I could have….

And then we both just howled, laughing. What else can you do. The thought of listening to a portable electronic device, much less while driving, I mean, it just never in a million years would have occurred…. Ohmygoodness, I was wiping tears and trying to catch my breath. Ohmygoodness. Just too funny.

Well, I’ll remember next time, that’s for sure.

One more thing about Rita yesterday.

I was sitting next to her at that table and I told her the story of my grandmother at 95 with a big glass bowl full of individually wrapped candies: she was offering my kids some. They were–here, let me try to remember–maybe 5, 7, 9, and 11 at the time? My mom was in town too visiting her mother while we were there.

Mom and I silently gave the kids the hairy eyeball–just one, kids.

Gram’s eyes twinkled: “Have some more!”

(Us: Just. One.)

They each in varying degrees of age and awareness took another piece in a combination of eagerness and hesitation and trying to figure out just what the power dynamic going on here was.

She egged them on yet again, and again, one piecetaking at a time: “Have some more!”

Till eventually they had filled their mouths, all their pockets, their socks by golly, everything they could think of, and at the last they totally emptied that bowl. And it was not a small bowl. If the number of pieces didn’t come out evenly between them, I don’t remember, but they had the good sense not to complain nor I think did we have to prompt them to say thank you.

Gram was having the time of her life.

I told Rita, “She knew she was making it so they would never forget her–and they didn’t.”

Lovely Rita looked at me with her good eye and this suddenly profound moment passed between us as she in her own great old age affirmed, “Yes. Exactly. “

Last time I ignored it while it gradually got bigger and bigger–and then my daughter got diagnosed with melanoma at 29 and I finally listened to my husband and got my basal-cell cancer diagnosed and cut out.

I have a divot in the center of the top of my head and a bit less hair, not that anyone but me could tell, to remind me to take such things more seriously.

This time I didn’t wait. I made that appointment as soon as it was clear that that bright red spot was definitely bigger than when I was squinting to see if it really was a thing.  Front and center at the hairline on my scalp, let’s get that one cut out in the really early stages this time, okay?

The verdict today:

Angioma. A swollen little blood vessel that is just there, is all. They show up. It may go away. It may always be there now. Utterly harmless.

So much better to know than to wonder about it for months on end and then have to pay its price.

Someone out there needs this nudge like I did: please get checked.

That particularly aggressive melanoma? It was caught in the first two weeks during an appointment for something else. Surgery but no need for chemo at that early, and three years later she continues to be just fine and I am too.

Go in.

I’ve been going to the same drycleaner for lo these many years. I’ve never known the name of the woman who is the face of the establishment, a tiny woman, probably Korean since a lot of them around here of that age are, and she struggles to remember mine given that I’m such an infrequent flier: “Hyatt?” I only come a few times a year. But it’s been a lot of years.

But she remembers my husband’s handknit sweater, the Aran with the 86″ wingspan (the one he wore to a job interview and I teased him that I got him that job), and we bonded over that way back in the days when I was still afraid to handwash such things. Special instructions: Do Not Block. I didn’t want all those hard-won cables flattened out.

I don’t think she’s ever seen my 6’8″ husband but she’s known the size of his suits and they just amaze her.

I had a pair of his wool pants to drop off that I should have done awhile ago.  I’d been wondering at my own procrastination mixed with forgetfulness. But today everything fell easily into place: I remembered it and I did it–on a Monday, even, 5:00ish though, so that if they said it wouldn’t be done till Friday I’d still have an extra day to remember to retrieve them before he would need them Sunday. I wouldn’t have to pay extra for an overnighter.

There was a tall man just ahead of me when I arrived and it became quickly clear that, at least right then, he was the overbearing type who does not see people who serve. Granted, we all have our moments we regret–but still. Not fun. As he gave this gentle woman a hard time over nothing at all I felt for her. He was well dressed in clothing only. I almost said out loud, c’mon, dude, lighten up.

Except that I didn’t want her nor her business to bear the brunt of any reaction to me.

He turned to leave at long last and she immediately stepped sideways my way and made a point of focusing solely on me.

One pair of pants? (And then came the struggle for the name.) I chuckled, adding, “Alison.”

L? She started to write L Hyatt-cross out–Hyde and I had her cross out the L too and put in A, just to be on the safe side. We both chuckled. As if there would ever be any confusion whose those were, no. But no matter our language barrier, I made a point of being the friend who understood what she’d just been put through and that I wanted to make up for it. One can say a lot with just face and eyes and a smile in the voice. He was gone now and she was in the safety of a friend.

Oh wait–I remembered to ask. “When will they be done?”

She hesitated a millisecond. “Wednesday.”

I was quite taken by surprise. “Wednesday?!” (I suddenly got that if she overnighted it without charging extra her husband might give her grief.)

“Wednesday,” she affirmed with the happiest face ever.

He was an adorable bald little baby when he first started playing peekaboo with me at church from his mother’s arms.

At eighteen  months he was old enough to go into the nursery and give her a break so I saw a lot less of him. He had thick blond hair now, a little boy of cheerful disposition with the distinctive waddle-walk of that age and as he reached way up to hold his daddy’s hand and walked in there one particular Sunday I marveled at so much change so fast. So very normal. They don’t stay babies, do they.

And he was still always ready to turn and wave hi my way with his whole being lighting up at the sight of me. I really hadn’t done much to earn that, he simply offered the gift of loving for love’s sake.

There are a lot of young families that cycle through this area, landing a good job out of grad school, getting some experience, and then moving on when a job offer somewhere else offers the chance of being able to buy a house with a reasonable cost of living.  (We marveled when we moved here at the old people who could never afford to buy their houses now and now we are those older people. Wait, wait, not *that* old, but still.)

And so his family did just that two years ago.

They were in town, visiting, and so there they were at church today.

He’s past napping stage but I guess all that vacationing took it out of him–he fell asleep during the main meeting with his mommy holding him. At four, he’s a lot bigger now and she admitted her arms were getting tired.

Several of us converged on our old friends at once and he stirred a bit. The first thing he saw was me. And he was in a happy place and snuggled back down with a smile.

After the last meeting, she was catching up some more with some of us who have so missed them and again holding him and I suddenly realized he was playing peekaboo through the back of the chair, eyes on me, waiting for me to notice: bobbing up then down in happy anticipation. Of course I would see, he knew it. That’s what honorary Grandmas do.

I was amazed he remembered me. I mean, he’d been a babe in arms! I was grateful to have meant so much to such a new person that it carried forward, glad that it helped what was a homecoming to his mom and dad feel like one to him too rather than being one more strange new place to get through on their trip away from home.

Every smile matters. Both ways.

Our one-year membership at the Monterey Bay Aquarium has five weeks left on it and we’d wanted to see their Tentacles exhibit while it was still on.

This morning: “Do you want to go?”

“Sure!”

“What time?”

“Let me get this load out of the washer and we need to fill the car.”

And then, wild and crazy young things that we are, we threw a few cans of fruit juice in the car and took off down the coast. Got some serious blankie knitting done while he drove.

The GPS on his phone was misbehaving so we used mine, knowing there had been road construction. But his is the one that has a charger in the car, so I was down to only getting a few pictures once we got there.

Nautilus can naut(tell)ilii.

Sardines are the silver jewelry of the sea.

We watched a cuttlefish that kept pulsing dark purple in waves down its body, S-curving around a lighter almost yellow at its edges and in time to the waves of the water, the darker area matching the (lava rocks?) at the bottom of the display. There was a white anemone nearby and hiding in it another cuttlefish had gone white to match. Put a color or pattern next to them and watch them change to try to vanish into it to prey and not to be prey.

Richard got some pictures I’ll have to share later of the horned and tufted puffins–I was delighted to be within inches of some of the birds that our daughter saw on a recent boat ride in Alaska.

But quite a few people in the crowd around us cracked up when I mentioned that the tufted puffins looked like Donald Trump’s hair, they really  do.

We drove through the artichoke fields of Castroville on the way home and found ourselves a farmstand and came away with the very freshest and a jar of their artichoke marinara sauce. It was clear the place had seen many a tourist, in that there was a large sign showing how to eat their crop–thistle show’em.

We came home too tired to cook. Tomorrow is soon enough.

And family!

Drop off, pick up, oh I forgot my could you get me yes of course I’d be glad to workapartmentphysicaltherapistapartmenttrainstationhomehaircuthometrainstation apartmenthome(onesingle minutebeforethephonerangtogoagain)work–starting at 8 am, grateful for hot cocoa in a travel mug and a family that I love.

And then bacon-wrapped scallops for a quick dinner because, y’know, there they were, just sitting in the freezer waiting for a day that had earned them and today, happy as it was, was definitely the day.

And then finally I got to sit down, hold still, work on the baby blanket, and chat with friends at Purlescence. Good times.

I should have taken pictures–the place looked so different from last week.

They’d been using towering dark brown cubbies inherited from the previous yarn store that I know had had them 25 years ago and very likely a few decades before that, too.

Once the Purlescence crew started taking them down they found out just how past their prime those homemade bins were–the extra bolts they’d put in had held them together just long enough. (To all the Californians thinking earthquake, they’d bolted the sides to the walls, too, as one must.)

There are light wood half-walls now, the yarn hanging on hooks to either side, everything on display and in view.  Wow, the place looks so much better. The airflow in the room is better, the lighting is better, the dark caverns that the aisles were have vanished into history and what they call their living room area no longer feels like an isolated corner. I can’t begin to imagine how much work that was to pull all that off in a few days.

But it’s as welcoming-looking and warm and friendly now as its owners are, and that’s saying a lot.

Just saw a note.

My foster-parenting friend told me last week that Andy‘s need for a safe, secure, and loving environment was never being considered by the court–only whether the remaining bio parent would take him on.

Which apparently didn’t happen at even the most basic level of commitment. The foster parents knew that’s how it was; the social workers knew; the system repeatedly did not care.

Until now.  In a complete turnaround that surprised them, the court just opened the way for the adoption process to begin after all. It’s not a done deal yet but it’s far more likely now. I cannot begin to express how grateful I am.

I know there are a whole lot more of you reading this blog than that ever comment, and I just wanted to tell each one of you whoever you may be my thanks for your prayers, for your concern for one  innocent little toddler out there in the world, for Thinking Good Thoughts his way–the latter, I should add, I believe with all my heart that the God of love counts just as seriously as any prayer, since the purpose of our being here is to learn better how to love.

And now Andy will have a much better chance in his life at exactly that.

Got home at almost bedtime, so, quickly, here goes: my dairy-allergic daughter went to a vegan food fair at Santa Clara Convention Center and stopped by our house with fabulous chocolate she’d found there: the 70% dark chocolate from Earth Circle Organics and everything from Mama Ganache. Not to mention Equal Exchange, with their Panama bar already being a longtime favorite of mine for melting in my daily hot cocoa.

But oh, that Mama Ganache stuff. “Here, Mom–try this, too.”

I had time. I dropped everything and ran out the door and totally lucked out with a parking space eighteen steps from the door and met up with those vendors myself. (Mama Ganache needed a bigger sign–I passed him twice before I found the guy, I thought he was part of the booth next to him.)

Talked to the guy a moment and found out he’s from Maryland, and suddenly, wow, a mutual sense of, someone from home!

I grinned at his raspberry chocolates and told him my husband’s grandfather had had a quarter acre raspberry patch in DC and had turned down a huge sum at the time for it and by whom.

*IN* DC? the guy asked, knowing that area as well as I did.

Yup. Our wedding was an all the raspberries you can eat day.

And with that I bought some of those bars, along with his patties that remind me of some childhood ones like nothing else I have ever found before, and he threw in an extra of the raspberry ones in a hail-fellow-well-met. Really nice guy.

It is our friend Lee’s birthday today and we were going out to the movies, dinner, and then dessert at his and Phyllis’s house afterwards so I had to get going fast.

And a grand time was had by all there, too.

It is a true measure of our devotion to that couple, longtime friends that they are, that I did it: I actually did it.

I gave Lee one of those raspberry chocolate bars.

(And I actually sat through a loud Tom Cruise action movie for his sake, too. I tell you. True friendship. Totally.)

Okay, off to bed with me. Chocolate in the morning.  Happy Father’s Day!

Computer crash (thank goodness for old laptops in the meantime–oh wait, it’s back up now), Friday night plumbing fail in the kitchen; that keeps the snacking down, at least. I think I’ll go work on a nice, soft cowl project while I wait to see if the latest attempt to fix the sink works its way through that pipe. I hope.

As long as it doesn’t back up in the bathrooms I think we’ll be okay through the weekend either way.

Do men ever react to this sort of thing by wanting to go get their hair cut?

It totally caught me by surprise. I had forgotten all about it.

I was cleaning and organizing and there, hidden away towards the day was the Christmas present. Now, it’s a family joke that I hide them so well that I find the smaller ones especially throughout the year after people were supposed to get them, but this one. Tears leaped into my eyes–I did not expect that. Stop that.

But it staggered me a moment. I had ordered it for Michelle, wondering if she would like it, if it would be too Mom, but it seemed such a useful little thing.

It was, basically, a lunch bag. In the form of a small canvas tote, insulated, offwhite with blue handles, a mini-me of my then-knitting bag (before The Purse that I got for Christmas). She’d had issues with the cafeteria at work via staff who didn’t get that allergic to dairy means butter, cheese, milk, every possible form and that yes just a little bit does matter. The safest thing was for her simply to bring her own, and so, very often she did. An insulated bag would make it easier and I’d thought this one was cute without being cutesy.

It came.

And I think it was the very next day…

I looked at that little tote and it hit me all over again how deeply grateful I am that my daughter is still alive and I once again said a prayer for all the others, the families, the other injured, the dead, the cops and the firemen who had had to see it all.

Last week she finally was able to begin to work again. Part time. From home. The commute would be bad enough, driving home after sitting for hours too much, but oh, at long last, as she’s so much wanted, she has started to begin again.

Hey kiddo it’s yours, you want this thing?

We were out taking a walk this evening and went a square block further over than we have in awhile.

Someone else is living my dream. We had no idea this was there and we wondered how recently it got set up (probably very recently) but, we not only got to see one in person finally, it’s in our own neighborhood!

And it had a steady light inside so one could read the titles in the dark. Well done.

There was a couple inside the house it was in front of and it was pretty clear that, while they were trying not to be seen seeing us and we were trying likewise to respect their privacy, they were enjoying how thrilled we were.

So, so cool. And I’m wondering what titles we have that are good enough to offer up to it. (Hey, any knitters in the neighborhood? I mean, that don’t already have…because I know there are two and they do.)

Meantime, it hit mid-9o’s today and these plums declared themselves done and fell to the bottoms of their clamshells, and oh, the smell of sun-warm newly ripe fruit. I saw a squirrel looking longingly up at that tree, thwarted.

I want a bumper crop and I want to make jam and I want to leave it on a certain doorstep with a thank you note. (Grow tree grow!) Ah well. I might have to settle for something else, like, you know, knitting or something.

I almost… I was tempted…

I thought about giving my son some Calvin and Hobbes books for his birthday, maybe even the entire boxed anthology (of which Bill Watterson once said was like looking at a coffin of his career.)

And I remember that same then-little boy wanting me to read those books to him and when I diverted him to something else, not quite wanting to give him any ideas, him studying those pictures on every page and really not needing to know what the words were.

I decided not to do that to my daughter-in-law re Parker.

I was never quite sure whether Calvin was implicated when my two oldest climbed a tree with the garden hoses, one of them tearing a brand new pair of pants in the process, and loop-de-looping, at least two per seat, they made swings out of them. Did a good job, too, with the hose ends well secured by totally mummifying that tree and they had so much fun that we left them up there for I think the whole summer.

One particular strip showed Hobbes asking Calvin if he’d asked his mom first if he could try to fly from his second-story window using his blanket as a parachute, and what Calvin shot back became a line for the ages in our family: “Questions you know the answer to, you don’t need to ask, right?” (Aside always added to the kids: YES YOU DO.)

Followed by Hobbes looking down and tsking, “His mother’s going to have a fit about those rose bushes.”

When Watterson was just getting started as a cartoonist, to be accepted into syndication he was told he had to sign on to allowing the syndicate to make extra money off his creation should his strip become popular. A lot of it. Hobbes dolls, bumper stickers, whatever they might think of.

Then when Calvinball really did take off, the syndicate started pressuring Watterson hard.

He didn’t want to see a million badly-sewn tiger dolls mocking what he’d worked so hard to create in the vivid imaginations of his readers; it would be a betrayal. Hobbes was always shown as real only around Calvin and a simple stuffed animal when his parents or arch nemesis Suzi were present.

And so he did what Sandra Boynton did when her publisher insisted on stocking her delightful greeting cards alongside their new line of porn ones: he stopped. If they couldn’t treat his artistry with respect he was done creating for them.

Richard Thompson eventually began his Cul De Sac strip that shows life through the eyes of small children, and like Calvin and Hobbes, it was masterfully done. There is such a need for being able to understand how the very young human beings around us think–we need more of this.

But those are reruns now–Thompson was stopped by young-onset Parkinson’s. The brilliant insight is there but the hands, not so much. There is fundraising happening in his name towards research into the disease.

Turns out Bill Watterson is his fan. And so in a less-than-six-degrees-of-Pearls-Before-Bacon moment, with an eye towards funding that charity, wonderfulness happened. The Washington Post scooped the story but reading Stephan Pastis himself tell the tale of how he got Watterson to draw again after 19 years–at least a little so far–along with Pastis’s being so thrilled to get to co-create with his hero is a great read.  Here you go.