Chocolate and pastries at Dandelion in San Francisco for the birthday celebration, by special request. I wanted that more than going out to dinner.

I thought I’d mentioned it here but I’m not finding it: in October I found a pattern for a dandelion gerdan being sold by its Ukrainian creator, but the only place selling a finished one anything like it was someone in India with scathing reviews warning would-be buyers away from having anything to do with the guy.

I only wanted to do it to support Ukraine anyway–that was the whole point.

Well, so maybe I should consider the idea. After all, I figure digital sales are safer than going to the post office there.

So I priced out beading looms and read up on various models and why and that led me to start wondering about the beads I already had and how good I might be at using them in a way I hadn’t previously considered, which got me to later ask the blog about what all those numbers mean, and thank you for the help.

But reality: moderate cataracts and corneal dystrophy. An inability to feel much in my fingertips. Chasing the really tiny beads around with a tiny needle? Thirty years ago, but not now.

So I asked the artist if she knew of any of her fellow countrymen making her pattern for sale. I said a little about Bloom County, how a dandelion field was its solace and spot of heaven, and how I think one of the best chocolate makers out there likely took its name from that comic strip.

It’s the Pogo of our generation, but I didn’t go into that much detail.

She considered a moment and told me, Yes–yes I think I can do that for you, sure, I’d be glad to.

Saying it that way completely endeared her to me: every knitter out there knows what a great compliment it is to the person we allow to jump our queue, and how they often never even know they did, much less how much it means.

She warned me it would take her over a week to make and I responded, I am in no hurry–I’m just thrilled that you’re willing to do this for me, thank you. Whenever works best for you in your schedule, you come first.

I signed for the package less than a month later, and in terms of mail from Ukraine in the middle of the war, that is lightning fast. I certainly can’t say she’d manage that the next time but she did on that one for me.

And that is how I came to own a dandelion gerdan to wear to Dandelion Chocolate today, where one of the staff exclaimed over it.

And where, as it turned out, we ran into a former co-worker of Richard’s whom he introduced me to. Sam, if you’re reading this, I apologize that I couldn’t hear a word in the noise. I tried hard. Richard explained to me afterwards that your in-laws card and weave wool and you’ve read my blog from time to time and what I wouldn’t have given to know that while you were right there to talk to! So cool! But at least I got to meet you, and you really tried, and thank you for that.

(Frost on apricot.)

We were FaceTiming with the grandkids in San Diego who called for my birthday yesterday and the 7, 9, and 11 year olds (two of those numbers change next week) along with their 4 year old baby brother nodding solemnly were telling us that it had rained for two days and they’d had to stay inside to play. They need the rain, we all do, but…

I told them it had rained here, too, and had left a puddle.

And that the puddle froze. It was solid ice this morning!

ICE! I had their full attention. No such thing had ever happened at their house. (It helped that it had been a very shallow puddle.)

I said, Yeah, and when I went to change my clothes, you know there’s just this little flap of metal between the dryer hose and the outside. The underwear was in the dryer.

I topped off my tale with, I put on frozen underwear!

(Just in case you ever want to know how to make southern Californian kids go wide-eyed and then fall over laughing so long and so hard and so shivery as they imagined just what that would feel like. I think I just stamped a dominant Gramma memory for life on their childhoods. Ice cube undies, yessir. I am so going to hear about this at their weddings.)

Without in the least bit planning on it I’ve found myself humming that tune all day.

I didn’t wait for Mom’s birthday.

I am what Paul McCartney thought was old when he was young years old today.

Oh. Wait. I spent my usual writing time not blogging but composing a thank you letter to Sola for making my mother so happy. (Typing fast.)

Mom got her package today (don’t look at the price tag Mom); her birthday is next week but I had told her don’t wait, go enjoy.

Once she saw it…!

She made herself stop and try on her new hand-embroidered vyshyvanka before calling me so she could say it fit–she knew it would and it did–and then realized that that intricate work was not even sweeps of blanket stitch but tiny X’s of cross stitch. Done by hand in Ukraine, all of it.

She ran to her friend’s apartment to show it to someone who would understand just how much work and how much love went into that and look at this!

Then she came back upstairs and picked up the phone and called me and was so happy I was almost in tears. This. This is why I did this. This is why Sola did this and what she was so looking forward to, too.

I didn’t get to go with Mom to her Christmas party tonight a plane flight away from me where she showed it off, but my heart sure did.

Go to Andy’s first and replenish my apricot supply or go to the post office? I had plenty of time to do both if I hurried. I’ve never tried his Japanese-style preserved Hachiya persimmons but after the New York Times’ write up, I need to and Andy’s is the only place I know to get them.

Wait.

Priorities. Get the Christmas presents mailed so you know it’s done. The shipping process isn’t going to speed up the closer we get.

Last year I did my homework and it was cheaper to use the post office. So I got my mom’s and my daughter’s off there and then headed over to the UPS store to buy a box of the right size for the other grands.

Turns out the size they had was close to my 27x22x14″ one and they cost the same to ship.

But the price! Twenty-six less than the post office! I ran home, packed it up at long last, ran back and got it done, with thanks to the random stranger who saw me struggling to wrestle it out of my car with the cane in my way and carried it in for me. So grateful. It was a bear.

Rush hour kicks in ~2:30 around here and it just felt like, no, don’t go, it can wait. The drive to Morgan Hill? Let’s try Monday.

What I didn’t know and was not expecting was an email from Andy’s: they’d had a covid exposure. The book signing and holiday get-together are canceled and they are closed till further notice.

They’ve been so careful for so long. Andy, like most farmers, is not young. I’m going to be holding him and his close in my prayers.

It’s that time of year again: the one where you recycle what you know is a perfectly good box (plus about five more) and you know you’re going to want it in two or three weeks but you think you have plenty of time to find another one and not have this cluttering up your house, and besides, you don’t even know what you’re going to need then because the things you’re going to be packing haven’t even come yet, much less gotten wrapped.

And then two or three weeks later you sit there with everything looking all pretty for their trees and ready to go, your tape measure in hand and your screen open to USPS Send–Pricing.

Your largest box, which came Santa-ing six grandkids in two different states, is a lot bigger than you need.

The next largest is a half inch too small and you only just managed not to shred the wrapping paper trying.

But, but, you just had that other one…

Because they want $83-something for that monster one. Doesn’t matter what it weighs (to a point irrelevant to the question at hand), it’s oversize. And they’re happy to offer incentive to ship smaller.

I could ship way bigger for that much: at Southwest’s very best sale fares, I could fly me there and hand-deliver a free suitcase’s worth in person. Just not in December.

I need a 22.5×16.5×11.5H if it even exists, plus a little extra for the December birthday presents (but they can go separately.)

I knew, I knew I was going to need that earlier box, but did I listen to me? Did I open the bin outside to see if it was even retrievable after being stomped on, like it kept pleading for me to do?

It is I-told-you-so-ing faintly from whatever it’s being reincarnated into. Likely more boxes.

A few years ago a friend was telling me that knitting with beads is easy, and showed me how before she moved away.

But so many details I didn’t know to ask about. What is an 8/0 vs an 11/0 and does it matter and is the bigger number the smaller bead or the opposite, and where did those numbers come from anyway and why are they fractions. And if you’re just stringing them, what kind of thread should you use?

Questions I learned when an online yarn store was selling out their beads and I thought, hey, those must work with yarn because it’s a yarn store selling them, right? And I bought a bunch of pretty colors. Plus some sparkly white to be, y’know, practical and all that.

And there they have sat.

I found a simple beaded scarf pattern from someone who appeared to be American and it seemed like you wouldn’t need to buy a beading loom for it, so that was good–till I read a scathing review saying the pattern had been lifted from someone else’s video.

Now whether she’s right about that or not I don’t know; it seems to me that that simple a mesh would be like designing feather and fan–it’s easy, it’s been passed on forever, I’ve known people who claim they don’t know how to do lace, just feather and fan. Which..is…a lace pattern, but never mind.

So maybe it’s like that.

But whatever, I followed her link because a video is always going to show you more anyway. (I’d skip the first four minutes or so.)

I’m guessing it’s in Russian. It might be Ukrainian but I think that’s hoping for too much. There are English captions as best as the machine could do.

I still don’t know how to pick the right synthetic thread and size needle to make such a thing, and I’m willing to buy a pattern, hopefully from a Ukrainian.

After the holidays are over I just might try after all out of curiosity.

But even so I’ll be buying from Ukrainians. They need the help and the work and I love what they create. (Yeah, I do–I need to knit that. Gorgeous.)

If you ever want a quick visual of how California’s water is doing, see this chart of major reservoirs posted by the state. Scroll over a description and a blue dot pops up on the map to show you where that one is.

It’s been record-breaking cold these past few days and it’s been raining (we actually almost had snow–wait. It could be we even did, but gone by the time we woke up) and those bars are improving. Which shows you just how bad it had gotten.

It took me a moment, as I peeled the first layer of the frost covers off the mango tree yesterday morning, to be sure it was the ice breaking on top as I pulled and not the tree ripping leaves off along the way. They weren’t even in direct contact. Right. It’s the ice.

Brrr.

But not complaining. Water!

Monday, the wheelchair pusher absolutely deserved a handknit hat and it didn’t even occur to me till a moment too late. They were in the rollaboard anyway–oh wait.

The crowd was closing in behind me.

Climbing up into the bus to return to the car rental (every bag present and accounted for this time), there was a snowstorm on its way in and it was even colder than the week before.

The driver’s head was bare. Not even a ‘fro for warmth, just that last close-cropped bit left behind his ears. He was 55-ish.

I stopped at the top of the steps and looked in his eyes and asked him with the intensity of a grandma, Are you cold?

He was surprised.

I whipped the deep green Mecha beanie right off my head, my hair going all electric socket: “I have another hat in my purse.”

The warmest smile entirely took over his deep brown face. The words were a simple, “I’m okay, thanks,” but spoken in what felt like a magical moment of deep appreciation both ways:

You are seen. You matter to me. Take good care of yourself. Go have a wonderful, wonderful life and maybe we’ll even meet again.

Re yesterday’s post: I have long had a piece of paper with my contact information inside that rollaboard, but when I was packing I noticed it had gone missing. I was going to go write up a new one in just a moment after I finished this…and then I forgot.

Now one is zipped inside the meshed-bag compartment where it won’t fall out.

Re the big magnetic-snap (if only it had a zipper!) tote bag with knitted cables embossed into the heavy leather, my adored Charlotte Ronson that was the most me purse I’ve ever had: but aging gets to everything eventually.

I took it to the shoe and luggage repair guy, who exclaimed over how nice that leather was. He did what he could to rehab it for me; I used it awhile longer but it was just no longer church-on-Sunday-able, and I’m not one who switches back and forth between purses for fear of forever grabbing the wrong one. It is in emeritus status. I would keenly love to get another, to the point of requesting a local leather worker if he might consider embossing one of his like that for me even though I am far from a designer handbag type person, but I got nowhere.

So that’s the answer to those questions.

Meantime, our kids who flew in Wednesday afternoon flew back out Friday morning. Saturday, a very tired three-year-old Lillian was told by her mom that it was time to take a nap but she refused, turning to look at us accusingly: “If I do you’ll disappear!”

No, no, honey. We will still be here when you wake up. For a few more days; we’re not leaving till Monday.

We kept both those promises, and I’m missing all of them very much right now, but at least she and her five-year-old brother got to hug and wave us goodbye.

And I’m left thinking about dumb things like purses and suitcases to distract myself.

The noisy life is more fun.

Walking in airports with all their movement and visual overstimulation is a seizure getting ready to pounce–I can do them sitting, it’s the long walk in that environment that overloads.

So, as usual, I was doing the wheelchair thing. SeaTac is a big airport and I was just as happy to have my carryon tucked under the seat and give my back a break, too. Big plus: those guys know their way around the place, which seems permanently under construction, and we sure don’t. The chair pusher who stepped forward said a few last words with three others standing waiting and I got the impression it hadn’t been the best day for him but he waved it away with yeah, it’s okay, it’s okay.

And off we went.

There was a bit of a scrum as what seemed like our entire planeload tried to all get on the same bus at once to take us to the car rental building, and my balance skittered like water flicked into a hot pan of oil–both Richard and the chair pusher urged me to get ON when some instinct told me to turn around to make sure they… But the chair guy was afraid I would fall and was focused on making sure I was okay.

We were the last ones off the bus because Richard was still looking for my rollaboard. You know, the one with the hats I’d knitted, my extra yarn and needles, and the cashmere sweater jacket I’d bought twins of so that I could match my mom when Soft Surroundings had a super-duper-duper sale (2 cashmeres/$50 for a few hours.)

It was gone.

The bus driver, bless him, parked right there and spent an hour on the phone with Southwest and airport people trying to track it down for us. Turns out Southwest has contracts with multiple wheelchair pusher companies and they didn’t know which one it was.

Whoever he was, that driver was a saint and a rescuer and I am profoundly grateful. But no luck.

I’d taken it onboard specifically so I’d have it with me and not risk losing it. Oh, and did I mention where I’d packed my ileostomy supplies? You cannot just walk into a drug store and buy that type of bag. At all. It’s a three-part system that you change every third day and the bag part is for a single day.

Richard said, But you always keep one in your purse against emergencies, right?

(Dude, I haven’t done that since I downsized to a smaller purse two years ago. Didn’t even think of it or I would have.)

I had nothing. Nothing but the acute awareness that a badly manufactured batch had, since October, left me with eight failures in eighteen days after years without problems.

We finally and profusely thanked the bus driver (did I mention it was 39F and we were freezing?) and sent him on his way. Were we going to go back to the terminal with our rental car to try to see if it was in lost and found yet? We were not, because we already knew that as far as the driver could tell it was not, and it was already past the time our kids (much less the grandkids) go to bed at that point and we had a goodly drive ahead of us.

Our younger two kids flew in the next afternoon, apprised of the situation. Michelle offered to dash last minute to our house two cities away in the wrong direction to grab more supplies, but first I called Southwest and they referred me over to Lost and Found.

I described everything in my small suitcase that had no name tag because we hadn’t thought it would need it and they sounded like they were waiting, waiting for it–and pounced when I said, And ileostomy/colostomy bags. That was IT! Yes! They had it! We could come and pick it up anytime!

I gave them our daughter’s name. Our son got there before she did even though her flight was supposed to land first but whatever, and as soon as he walked in there with the right name and the right info about the contents and the situation and the sister’s name and my phone number that all matched, they handed it right over.

And everything was right there inside it as it should be. Even the single-serving beef jerky airport snacks.

So.

Last night, a week later, we were again flying at night, y’know, the cheap, direct-flight seats. We showed up at the Southwest counter and Richard asked for a wheelchair for his wife, as it says on my ticket.

This time there was just the one wheelchair pusher nearby–and it was our guy again! The immigrant from Africa with the scars on his face that made you want to ask oh goodness what did they do to you before you managed to escape from–? But who would ever want to make him feel like that part’s all that people see.

Because what I saw was a good and honest man. I got to see him instantly taking in the fact that not only was it us, we had the rollaboard! We’d gotten it back, after all his worries, he’d succeeded! He was so, so happy, and I thought, by the grace of G_d for both of us, you got to see that we came out okay and we got to see how much that meant to you. What a treasure to have met.

He about danced and the cheerful smile on his face as we went back across SeaTac going the other way this time was something I will never forget.

I wouldn’t have wanted to say I was desperate nor to have admitted it to myself, for that matter.

They had me come in an hour after I called this morning, which was wonderful.

The tech asked me what the problem was? I told her that Saturday the right hearing aid was simply dead. Entirely. I’d tried switching batteries between the two and that clearly wasn’t the problem.

She had me hand her both–cleaning them was a good idea as long as I was there–and then she, from behind her mask, asked me a few more questions.

I explained that without my hearing aids I’d once been oblivious to a fire alarm going off; could I step back several paces and have her lower her mask so I could lipread?

She did, and we did our best from there. She went off to a room that away and I sat down to knit. When she came back, she showed me what had happened: the connecter piece between ear and hearing aid was broken. It was under warranty. They could send it in, no charge.

I’m seeing my grandkids tomorrow, I told her, and I so want to be able to hear the little ones.

I’d never seen her before, I don’t know if she was from the other office covering someone’s holiday-week hours or what, but she had just seen just how deaf I am.

Hang on a second.

She conferred with the other tech. She called someone, apparently her boss, and then she disappeared in the back.

They did, they had one in stock on hand for that brand and model of that hearing aid and she fixed it. No charge, happy Thanksgiving!

I managed not to burst into tears as I gave her my heartfelt, Thank you!

The nights have been mid-30s this week.

Which is why a box was dropped at our door this morning: a snatch-proof ten foot plush blanket. Watch out, the ombre dye job in the comments is real–but I’m okay with that. Let the warm and cozy begin!

Grandma M! he laughed.

This being in the morning with the whole thing over with, I guffawed: “I had the same thought!”

Our oldest was born during our grad student days and when she was maybe two months old we got invited to the wedding reception of an old friend of his. Who happened to live in a small town high in the mountains in Utah a few miles from his grandmother.

We were Saving The Planet (yes kids that was a thing in our day too) and not using disposable diapers. We had cloth diapers, but not just any cloth diapers, they closed with velcro so you wouldn’t have to worry about stabbing your baby in the dark of the night. Or you.

Grandma offered to watch the baby for a couple of hours while we headed over.

We forgot to tell her, but figured velcro is pretty self-explanatory anyway.

We didn’t stay long, but when we came back Grandma was trying to be nice but clearly she. was. ticked.

Where were the diaper pins?! How could we hand her a kid with no pins on her diaper? Did we know just how long it had been since SHE’D had a kid in diapers–and she had to go FIND the stupid things?

Bless her heart–she did it.

After we got home an hour away and fed and went to change the baby, size-wise on her she was wearing kilt pins and we realized what we’d done to his poor grandmother.

The at-home sleep study that I drove three and a half hours a day for two days to drive Richard to/from work to have the car to pick that equipment up and drop it off again the next day?

It only got the oxygen reading on the finger. They wanted a do-over.

I told them, well, the velcro on the chest belt did keep giving way gradually and I kept pushing it back up all night.

No commute problems this week.

So I got the equipment back yesterday, set it up, and again the velcro just wasn’t doing its job well enough. I reviewed the video again. Nope, I was doing it exactly the way that guy was.

Dang.

It was a miserable enough night ahead with prongs in my nose, rubber on my finger, a belt around my chest, tubes in the way whenever I tried to roll over and #$!-unhelpful lights on the equipment that stayed on all night that I wasn’t going to do this a third time. I went looking and I did, I found a large safety pin and I pushed it in place to hold that belt and I definitely called the entire contraption stupid in my frustration.

The pair of green lights in the morning conveyed that the test had worked this time. (Waiting for confirmation on that.)

But I thought you had to be a *great* grandma to safety pin velcro.

I still get the emails and delete most of them, but I thought, eh, okay, I need a break from election updates, I’ll bite.

One very ordinary looking house out in suburbia somewhere. (Redfin link here if the Zillow one doesn’t work.) Complete with Narnia lamp out front.

And then you get to picture #10.

That’s the living room. That’s the dining room. And that’s…

An attempt at a new definition of living on the water. But you’re going to have to hold your plate the whole time you eat or everybody else is going to be wearing it.

But wait, turns out, there’s more: that part’s actually an ADU addition–and it looks like the only windows to the living room of the main house are looking straight into the ADU side and relying on their now-outside windows for light, so if they pull their blinds between you you’re in the dark all day. Not even a skylight, just the front door on the other side of the kitchen.

And the city signed off on that? When all they had to add to the plans was an outside walkway’s depth between the two living spaces?

This is why we hire architects, folks.