DebbieR and her husband stopped by! She surprised me with an oven mitt she’d made me–no more burned hands and no more flipping blueberries at Richard and we all had a good laugh together over that. It was very kind of her. We had a too-short but sweet visit.

The best part of Stitches, with Kris my potter friend helping me figure out what was being said in that loud echoey room, was when the announcer came on to say that the lost engagement ring belonging to this person in that booth had been found–and the whole convention center burst into cheers and clapping, thousands of people wishing the couple every happiness forever. I added the echo this time.

And there was one other thing yesterday that I’ve been mulling over how to say without invading their privacy. And–I could be wrong. And yet….

They’ve been vendors at Stitches for a number of years now. I have bought a little from them but not a lot, much though I might want to; I’m certainly not their most frequent customer. But yesterday when the crowds were down there was room for my chair in there and I wanted to see what they were up to these days. So I ventured in.

His face seemed–distracted, inwardly so, as if a bit lost from the crowd. In pain, is how it felt to me.

She, not the more gregarious one in the past, struck up the conversation, feeling the edge of my soft Lisa Souza-yarn shawl and telling me what a pretty color it was on me.

I kind of laughed, held up a foot with a deep rose Birkenstock Fayette on it and said, “And it even matches my shoes.”

“Ah. Women and their shoes.” Something in her voice–it was by no means disdainful, it was a knowing of humanity and loving it in all its foibles.

It was not the voice of the saleswoman I would have recognized from the past.

But I said, “No, actually, I have the feet of a man.” (I didn’t add, and then some. EE-wide.) “This is the first time I have ever been able to buy a shoe just because it was pretty, that was purely frivolous.” And I silently marveled at it and she did too for my sake.

I admired some of their newest yarn but when I tried to imagine justifying it to Richard, I could not; it was a quite good price for what it was but it was still well beyond me this year, and I put it back down as she engaged me in conversation some more, both of us enjoying each other’s company in the moment, knitter and longtime familiar face to same.

Something was…different.

At one point I saw the two reaching out for each other’s hand for just a moment’s touch and it seemed so pure and so private and so intense that I felt I was an interloper and, happy for them, wheeled on.

Richard had come early the day before when he was picking me up and had waited while I was oblivious and I wasn’t going to do that to him the second day; right at 6:00 I was at the doors, not knowing the freeway was a parking lot and I could have had more of my once-a-year time talking to friends.

She brushed gently past on her way and turned to get my attention and wish me all the best, holding me in her eyes a moment, connecting one last time before I left, that most beautiful handknit hat on her head.

With, I finally noticed as she continued on her way, no hair showing at all from underneath it. Suddenly I knew. I would have given anything to race after her to go befriend her anew and beyond the pleasantries of the day, to tell her husband that my husband would understand, that I had come to Stitches five years ago needing to put myself squarely back into humanity and friends and creativity and life! two weeks after being so very ill that none of the medical personnel had thought I would survive–but I had, and she would, she had to, if I could she could, please be well.

And please know that my prayers now go with you both. I am so glad I got to see you. I’m sorry I didn’t see sooner.

And I’m also not. Because for those wonderful moments you created for me you didn’t have to relive all that but just be.

I got off to a later start than I’d intended. Because I was walking down the hallway towards the front door when I looked up.

It’s been at least two years since I last got to see a pair of Cooper’s: the female picked herself up forty-five minutes after hitting the neighbor’s window, by his account, but she was never seen by any of us again.

Today, looking up through the skylight, to my very great surprise, there they were, two gorgeous raptors at the tipsy-top of the silk oak next door towering over that yard and ours, swaying in the flimsy uppermost branches, one flicking its tail for stability from time to time, the sun shining directly on their orange chests. King and Queen of the Mountain.

They were courting. Wow! I called to Richard to come see, too, and he came immediately, but before he could get there the two hawks dove thataway in perfect synchrony.

At Stitches: the brother-in-law of the Antonio I know introduced himself at the Malabrigo booth. He was thrilled with his new scarf and insisted I take some of a new test yarn they had.

He had no way to know that his apricot matched the color of the chests on those beautiful hawks just earlier. So perfect.

Allison at Imagiknit was wonderful as always. If you ever want to know what Malabrigo’s up to next, her store is their American flagship.

Susan at Abstract Fibers and I connected again today; I adore her and oh my, such beautiful dyework. She sent me off with some Valentine.

Kris and Mel and Ben and I chatted some more.

I went back to the Cephalopod booth, where I had almost…almost…and then stepped across into Karida’s space yesterday and away from her temptation, but I told the woman, “That skein haunted me all night. I had to come back and get it.”

She was amused and surprised and gratified. “It haunted you?”

“It haunted me,” this time picking it up with no intention of letting it go back on that wall. The Rainbow Gum Forest photo I’m seeing on her page doesn’t begin to do it justice (it’s the skein at the bottom of my picture), but I can only hope I will.

I bought some baby alpaca from Lisa Souza. I always do. I always will. With silk this time. I wanted so many of her yarns that it stumped me and I just bought the one in Joseph’s Coat.

Teresa Ruch had some tencel in the most intense, shiny shades of deep rose that was probably *the* most elegant skein I saw at all of Stitches. But laceweight tencel is not my thing. I had thought it was silk, and I put it back, quietly disappointed.

We talked a little, and I told her of a bamboo blend I had made into a shawl where the bamboo had been slippery–and it had quite easily snagged way out to                                                    here. And then some. (Like, a foot.) I can fix such things, but yow it was a bear and it had made me highly reluctant to try bamboo again. Granted, the openness of the lace had probably contributed to that, but…

She took that as a challenge: she showed me how hers was spun and why it thus wouldn’t be likely at all to do that. When I told her that I knew bamboo could be from the inner or outer part of the plant, that that affected softness greatly–and it’s never labeled as such and you have no way to know, she joined in with me on the last part of the sentence and affirmed as I ended with, unless you feel it in person.

Yes.

And with that she decided she wanted me to be convinced enough that she pressed some of her 4 oz/227 yard hand-dyed turquoise in my hands, a lighter color than many of hers are, a bit of purple added in, a beautiful yarn, and asked me to try it out.

I so wasn’t expecting that. I certainly will.

Stitchsisterz had round balls of 100 g/400 yards of cashmere for $25 that was perfect as the carry-along strand to a likewise-fine baby alpaca/silk I’d wanted something to go with–and as I paid for it, the second woman in the booth scooped a copy of my book out of my basket and without even asking the price looked at the one printed on the cover and handed me $25 right back and would I sign it? Um, twist my arm? Thank you!

Jimmy Beans Wool was across from Lisa, and I wasn’t even going to dare look–but that one colorway of Madeline Tosh yarn required I go over there to see closer up. They told me that MadTosh had custom-created Technicolor Dreamcoat for them.

Twenty years ago I knitted a Kaffe Fassett coat in 68 colors that my husband called his Technicolor Dreamcoat. Or sometimes his Joseph’s Coat. Are we sensing a theme here?

I just got the one–really trying to be good this year, honest–and it was showing at the top of my bag as I sat in that chair as I wheeled around and I had random people asking me repeatedly, WHERE did you get that?! (Which also happened when the Valentine’s was at the top, and when the… It’s all good, all of it.)

I later said to Kris, “You can go to your local yarn shop and maybe find a yarn that almost, almost is exactly what you want. Then you come here once a year and you can find”–and we said it in unison in both word and arm-sweeping gesture, “EVERYTHING!”

Then as Richard and I were taking the scooter apart at the curb cut, some random woman in the deepening dusk saw by the last of the light and from the convention center the Wanda’s Flowers shawl I was wearing and exclaimed over it. Really exclaimed over it. Like, this was the thing she had been looking for all day type of exclaiming over it. Richard said, “Yeah, it’s one of her designs,” as he hoisted the scooter up and in, as I said, “Yeah, it’s Lisa Souza’s yarn” (thinking in the moment that that’s what was so pretty. I was wearing it in her Foxglove color, baby alpaca.)

The woman looked just speechless that we were leaving, and that shawl was going away, and she would never find it again, and and and, and I said, “It’s my last day, I’m not coming back,” (as I told Mel and Kris earlier, I’m too Mormon to shop on Sunday–they laughed) and I whipped out a copy of the book, read her nametag, confirmed the who to, signed it, and handed it over to her as she stood there stunned and speechless and happy and trying not to lose which page that shawl was on. I was pretty sure she’d be able to find it again.

And we rode off into the very last of the sunset.

Martin at Starkpower gave us one more thing to try, since Richard had the equipment to do so, but no such luck.

The guy at Batteries Plus in San Jose was quite surprised when I said we’d been referred to him by the online seller of the lithium-iron batteries (he said to say thank you, Martin), that I’d never heard of their store before but I was glad they were there; we got there an hour before they closed at eight. He had one single battery in stock to match our good one–only, it didn’t, because it was a different brand and it would be taking a risk to put them together.

And Stitches time I am not going to risk. We settled for the plain-old heavy plain-old lead-acids, and actually even a little more so, 14V instead of 12V to try to make it through the whole day for sure. They were pre-charged and they tested them for us to make sure they were okay and we tried it at home with the scooter put back together to be sure.

And I am good to go.

Now to just remember all the things I was going to remember before heading out tomorrow.

Dearly wishing we still had the minivan so I could use the ramp.

Hudson’s second day of walking and he was ready to be scooped up instead, my son says of when he snapped this today.

My backstory: the speeder who hit my car fourteen years ago severed the connections between the visual and balance centers of the brain and it makes it exceedingly difficult to walk in visually intense places; my left side collapses, my muscles go spastic and the slightest bumping-int0 sends me flying. The lupus made healing more difficult. I wasn’t epileptic–yet, warned the neurologist, but he told me I was very close to it and not to risk it walking around for long periods in loudly-colorized heavy-motion environments like Stitches. Sit.

So now, the batteries on the scooter didn’t seem to be holding a charge anymore. Increasingly over the last several years they’ve been problematic, and last year it seemed like I had to stop every few minutes and recharge for as long as I got to zip around after I did. (Hi, I’m Alison, do you mind if I borrow a plug in your booth for awhile and block your customers’ way in?) I didn’t see how it could manage this year at all.

It would be much better for lead-acid batteries if I used them all the time, but I don’t; in most of my life, I can manage with a cane.

So we finally took the scooter apart Friday night after planting that pear tree, as long as we were being productive and virtuous, to see what type of battery it was so that maybe we could simply finally ditch the old ones.

Uh, yeah. They’d ditched us first. They’d exploded.

We looked up the type and Richard found something that really appealed to him: a lithium-ion version. It would easily take ten pounds (!) off the weight of lifting that 90-lb scooter, they would last far longer, and when and how long you charged them vs how often you used them, all those issues would be over. They wouldn’t randomly explode if you left the chair plugged in all night.  (ahem)

But it was late Friday California time and the by-far most reasonably-priced place was closed for the weekend, today would be a holiday, and they were on East Coast time. But what could I lose. I sent off an email.

And got an email back Saturday! When they were all supposed to be off work.

It was not quite a sure thing in my mind till this morning when I checked my email, when, there it was, the order confirmed: two batteries, already FedExed. I would be good to go.

The guy at Starkpower.com hadn’t been sure I would want to fork over the second-day shipping charges for something that heavy, but hey, as long as we were in that deep. Their website wasn’t set up to deal with anything but the cheapest and slowest way here but he found out what it would cost and promised it could be done. I asked Richard if he was sure, and he was emphatic that he didn’t want me to be stranded by that chair anymore, he wanted me to be able to just go and enjoy Stitches and the Aquarium freely, year after foreseeable year to come with the much better and lighter and longer-lasting batteries and just not have to worry about it anymore. He’s a peach.

I cannot tell you how freeing it feels now, and just wait till this weekend!

And to Martin at Starkpower.com? You’re wonderful. Thank you so much.

I rebooted my phone today, thinking, well, that’s at least one thing I can do. Wasn’t expecting anything–but then when I typed out a name and phone number I knew and hit go, all the sudden my whole contact list came back to life. I have no idea why on earth it had disappeared but I’ll sure be asking questions. What a relief, though.

Meantime, a story I wanted to tell last night but for the late hour:

About fifteen summers ago, my sister who then lived in Texas (and North Carolina before that) told me she and her family had a work-related reason to drive to Salt Lake City for about a week, y’know, just in case we wanted to meet up with them.

My younger kids had never met her nor her family. My older kids didn’t remember them. Every time we had had specific reasons to get together over the years something had gotten in the way, and I did not want to let that happen again.

This was well before my parents retired there, and I ended up calling my Aunt Bonnie and Uncle David. Carolyn and family would be staying with her in-laws; Aunt Bonnie and Uncle David offered us to stay at their house for I think it was five days. They wanted to see us and they wanted to make sure we wouldn’t miss our chance for the cousins to get to finally meet each other. Come!

After a long hard day’s drive, we arrived to find Aunt Bonnie on crutches. Wait, what on earth happened to you?!

She had broken her hip a few weeks earlier. She had quite deliberately not told us because she knew we wouldn’t come if she did, and a hotel for six for that long was out of our range. It was that important to her and Uncle David that their nieces get their families together that they simply kept quiet.

Uncle David was the one who made up all the beds upstairs and prepared the rooms, there being no way she could. We would have done at least that much ourselves and spared them, had we had any idea, but they just waved any concern away and welcomed us warmly.

I will forever be grateful for their uncommon kindnesses. We all will.

My cousin John took his parents in a few years ago to take care of them as his dad’s Parkinson’s progressed.

Talking to him today, he had never heard that story about his folks. He told me that he’d been fielding call after call for two days of people wanting him to know what his dad had done for them and how grateful they were.

I could just picture John getting off the phone and asking his mom to tell him about that time when… She’s earned every moment of it. And so has John.

I did not know as I was planting my Comice pear tree on Friday with Richard’s help that the day’s news would make it into a memorial to my uncle, but now it will forever be so as it grows and thrives and bears the most perfect fruit in great quantity, to be offered freely to all.

(Ed. to add, Hudson started walking today!)

(Okay, it’s not at all as close to the fence as that photo makes it look.)

We bought a huge pot last fall on closeout at Costco, and on a wistful whim I bought a big bag of soil there too earlier this week; maybe the cherry tree needed more, right?

It was Stitches weekend a year ago that the water heater blew and my transmission did too. One of the things we talked about while deciding whether to try to replace the car right away was how, way back when we only had the one, that uninterrupted quiet time together at the beginning and ending of the work day was something we had actually missed in the years since.

Let me report that it has worked out okay most of the time. (The commute being under four miles does help.) Although, there have been days.

We were almost to the office this morning when Richard said that the one problem with this today was that he couldn’t sneak out early to go buy me roses this Valentine’s.

I said wistfully that actually, I’d really rather have a Comice pear tree than roses. (And I knew they are by far his favorite pears, too.) I had bought that pot talking about a mango tree, waiting for the season to change to where it wouldn’t possibly freeze en route from Florida, but when it came down to it, we both preferred the other, didn’t we?

We did.

We could plant it in that pot in that spot in the back where the tree guys are going to take out a dying cypress after nesting season is over; we could get a year’s head start on growth and then tip it into a hole there later. Or even just leave it in the pot to help keep it small. I already know the neighbors on both sides of that corner are hoping for bigger and over the fence.

And so it was decided. I called Wegman’s Nursery–and yes, actually, they had three, still. I headed over there mid-afternoon. Forgot my sunblock (BAD lupus patient, BAD!) but remembered my hat and I wandered around the place and finally (with help) found the fruit trees in a side yard there.

The Comices looked great, with one particularly thick and sturdy and strong-looking. *Very* nice–I was impressed.

The guy helping me asked if I wanted the (flimsy) pot it was growing in? It would be an extra five bucks. It wasn’t much and I said no and he grabbed the tree and shook the thing off–and all the soil away from the roots. Oh. It was still dormant so he pruned it for me and wrapped the roots carefully up in a plastic bag, pulling the handles tight around the trunk. Laid it across the back seat of my car once it was paid for.

But in the pruning, he lopped off the top, which included a big side branch and looked like a new bare-root tree unto itself and rather than have it be tossed, I asked if I could have it? I mean, I could plunk it in water and hope it sprouted roots, couldn’t hurt to try, right?

The guy chuckled and handled it with the reverence he did the tree itself. This was someone who clearly likes what he does for a living. But he did say that the tree really needed to be planted today, or at least not to let the roots dry out, but, plant it today. I promised him I was going to.

My friend Sally pointed out to me that the little one wouldn’t have the same rootstock, and she’s right, so I checked: the graft they used is supposed to help limit the future size of the tree, although one could prune anything to whatever.  Okay. I know that you can buy rooting hormones but I don’t think I’m that invested in it–so if you’re local and you want to play with it and see if you can turn it into a free tree, let me know and it’s yours. Must supply own partridge at Christmastime.

The pot needed holes drilled into it and the drill needed charging up. Richard took me out to Smitten to pass that time well: order the most excellent ice cream and watch them create it in front of you, frozen by nitrogen. The Tcho‘s chocolate is the first chocolate ice cream I have ever tasted that does that flavor really, really well. It was our first time there and definitely not our last.

Home again, there was drilling and sweeping away of plastic curlicues and flashlight holding and dumping in of guano-covered gravel that had been under some of the trees out back for stability as the Comice gets heavier and hauling of soil and watering and pushing out a well in the pot and planting and more soil and more watering and tamping down around the root ball and wishing there were more to put in there.

We will buy more soil tomorrow. Right now those roots are moist and protected and looking good.

My sweetie gave me my long-wanted Comice pear tree for Valentine’s and helped me plant it and I am beyond thrilled.

And: when I picked him up at work, he was standing outside holding a vase with red roses and baby’s breath and loving my disbelieving laugh of, How did you pull that off?! Google Express? (But they don’t do perishables, I thought, but maybe for Valentine’s?!)

He grinned. “They were selling them in the cafeteria. For a reasonable price, even!”

So was my tree. Make that, so was our tree.

I’ve got me a good one. Just the best.

The timing.

I utterly forgot to pick up a prescription yesterday, but it was okay, it could wait till today but it couldn’t wait till tomorrow when I have an appointment and would be at the clinic anyway. An extra trip, but that’s life.

I bought birdseed in Los Gatos closer to noon than I usually go out in the sun in and was going to stop back at the house in between but somehow I found myself instead changing freeways and heading straight to the clinic from there. Not what I’d planned.

“Have you ever used our pharmacy before?” the new employee asked.

“Twenty-seven years,” I grinned back at him.

The med had not yet been filled, and so I sat down and pulled out my knitting. It was a two-stranded project and it took a moment to untangle the balls  from where they’d rolled around and through.

And as I did so I was facing, slightly offset and from about eight feet away, a man who looked like–nah, it’s not, I decided. But maybe. I tried not to be too intrusive as I glanced his way.

He finally looked up from his phone and glanced in mine–and held my eyes in a suspended moment of, wait–are you…!?

Okay, yes, confirmed, it seemed, so I asked, “Are you Walt?”

“Yes!” He smiled and sat up a little straighter.

Delighted, I swept up my stuff and moved to a couple seats over from him. The place was not crowded.

He tried to reach out a hand to shake mine but the brief shadow across his face as he tried to move pleaded with me not to no matter how much he wanted to, so I smiled and leaned forward a moment instead in what I hoped conveyed it’s okay not to have to.

It had been so long. “How ARE you?!” he asked, and asked again, so I answered a bit more than I might have by simply saying, “There have been bumps along the way and, eh, threw out a colon that wasn’t doing anyone any good but I’m doing well, thanks. And how are *you*?”

“I don’t walk easily,” he half apologized, and I wondered whether it was a car accident or what, but clearly something major had happened. Let him say as much as he wanted to (or not), I felt; he was just reveling in the unexpected moment together and it was enough.

I asked after his kids; they were a toddler and baby last I’d seen them.  We had been seated at a restaurant and by random chance he and his family had come in–it occurred to me thinking back on that that he’d never seen me walking with a cane before, wouldn’t have known about the speeder that hit me in ’00.

Twelve and fourteen now? “Cool!” I exclaimed, remembering how interesting kids are to talk to at those ages. He glowed in pride and I glowed for his pride. They’d been a long time coming for him.

I mentioned Parker and Hudson, and he laughed that it would be awhile before he had grandchildren. (But then, he’d started about twenty years later than we had and that was fine.)

They called his name, and he got up slowly, carefully, cautiously, not the fit ever-young man I remembered, but hey, he still has most of the color in his hair and look at mine.

He turned back from the counter when he was done and I called him back to me for one last thing I wanted to say: “When DEC imploded and Richard was job hunting, after he interviewed with you you called at the house to talk to him and he wasn’t home and you got me instead. I got off that phone thinking, I don’t know who. you. are. but I HOPE my husband goes to work for *you*.”

A warm, wide smile broke across his face and his whole body relaxed. “Thank you. You just made my whole day. Thank you! That was…a long time ago.”

Best. Boss. Ever. It was a great loss when he moved on to another job fifteen years ago. Walt is the best.

I’ve been debating saying it for awhile. Who likes a show-off? And yet, since saying oh wow I finally finished the 450th stitch on row 49! is kinda boring, here goes.

I got talked into signing up for one of these flash-sale sites because, should I ever actually buy something, the someone who referred me there would get $25 towards her next purchase. And I was actually in the market for a new purse.

I had been for quite some time, long enough for the zipper to break on one old purse and for the next also-old one to show its age badly in ways that were not repairable either. I had not bought a new one in easily a dozen years. The problem was that I knew exactly what I wanted and it did not seem to exist and I did not want to spend money on something that was so personal if it would be a disappointment.

I am spoiled as a fiber artist: I remember when we were car shopping in ’99, looking at the ugly tan minivan we ended up with– “Champagne” in Chrysler-speak–and wishing I could dunk it in a dyebath to get the color up to speed.

I wondered more recently if you could boil leather with some of my fiber dyes and not wreck a Chrysler-color purse. I’m not a many-handbags type (even if I do have a few old ones I’ve never let go to Goodwill. The one I bought with my grandmother Christmas money 30 years ago when I was a new mom? It stays. Forever.) I’m a buy-one-wear-it-out type.

It couldn’t have lots of dividers that take up good yarn-project space. It had to be able to hold the Ipad I don’t actually have yet, although we do have one between us. Wide enough, definitely, for the handicapped placard to slip into after finding that my small Grandmother purse is useless for that. Something soft, sturdy, leather, on the big side for knitting’s sake but not too heavy for when the arthritis is flaring.

So I was looking at that site one day, something I’d avoided doing because who wants to even go near the temptation over perfectly frivolous stuff?

That one! Richard, look! There it was. (One of my kids saw it too on her own computer and went Oh, that is so Mom.)

I gave myself a goodly while to think about it. Nope, still there however many days later, down to three left.

Charlotte Ronson was the brand (not a name I knew) but the price was actually as good as some at the leather-goods store at the outlet mall a long hike from here. And a whole lot prettier. Well huh. And I wouldn’t even have to brave the crowds.

The end result is that I told my husband that it could be birthday and Christmas and Mother’s Day for however long to come he might like, but after years and years I had at last found the one and only purse I actually really thought was ever so perfectly perfect and worth the splurge. And the color!

And he, sweetheart that he is, bought it for me. A week before we found out we were going to be forced to blow $13 grand on the heating system. I was quietly glad as I put the box away for the wait, and he, bless him, was too because it made me so happy. I skipped the birthday and waited till Christmas, and–it still surprises me every day how grateful I am for this thing. It still makes me happy every time I look at it. It is so soft. It is sturdy but it is surprisingly lightweight. The color is exquisite. It is tall, snapping shut at the top, and holds quite a bit of knitting if asked. It not only has an Ipad pocket that also snaps shut, it has knitted cables embossed into the leather on that large pocket. Knitted. While the lining is a light color that makes it easy to find everything.

Charlotte Ronson, whoever you may be out there, (oh look a link!) thank you.

Best of all, it represents far more than any material good has any right to that my husband loves me and looks out for me. It made me happy so it made him happy, and I’ve tried to respond in kind moment by every moment and to live up to his generosity.

It’s such an odd thing in this life to be perfectly satisfied, needing no more. I have all that I might ever want.

Here’s a new one in the category of things heard for the first time with the new (now one-year-old) super duper Oticon hearing aids that never happened with the previous sets.

I ran into an old friend yesterday; we were delighted to see each other, and she was talking to me as she reached in for a hug.

Then she pulled back, startled and laughing: she had heard her own voice in stereo effect as she got close and it threw her a moment. Oh! Right! You wear hearing aids. But–they *do* that?

Well I guess they do.

Can’t wait to see everybody at Stitches…!

Photo for Ellen,who wanted to know what that last skein of Stitches ’13 yarn looked like. Neighborhood Fiber Co’s Penthouse Silk.

On the bird front: it’s nest building time. For the first time in a year I saw a/the misplaced-habitat (before ten years ago they were never seen this far north) Zone-tailed hawk again in its usual skyscape.

A crow was harassing it.

But never coming close. At all. It was alone and its heart was just not in it–that 51″ span could turn around in a wingbeat and return the favor and it knew it. What it did do was get the hawk to come down close to where I could get a good look, glad for a red light and that I wasn’t the one driving.

Today we ran a whole lot of errands. Tomorrow I get to put up my feet, listen to the blessed rain coming down again, and knit.

Ninety, 100, 40, 80, 100: these are the chances listed on Wunderground of its raining tonight, tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Already did some this evening. So badly, badly needed.

Motion caught my eye this afternoon while all of that was still just a hope and looking up through the skylight, I saw my hawk soaring high in the thickening clouds above the redwood, dancing a rain dance on the updrafts, gathering it all together to send it on down, send it all down.

And I went outside and inhaled the essence of those beautiful peach flowers before the rain could wash all the petals away. I brought two back in with me and pressed them in two bird books.

Thirty-three years, I think it’s been–that hat is OLD. That hat was knit before we were parents. That hat was knit in doubled worsted wool on straights and seamed (I had to look for it–I did a pretty good job, who knew.) Gauge swatch? What’s that? Decreases? That’s, like, knit two stitches at the same time, right? Circs? I’d never tried them.

And yet somehow I concocted this hat for my 6’8″ husband. It came out, um, even for him, a little big. As in he vanishes down to his shoulders if he puts it straight on.

I stumbled across it tonight and told him,  thinking out loud, You know–I could cut the top off, frog it back to where the ribbing starts, and we could have a thick warm cowl out of that thing.

He got this big goofy grin on his face and took it from my hands and pulled it down over his nose, a big poof in back.  “That’s MY hat!” he protested, and you could just make out the grin under the bottom of the wool. Did he want to model it, then? Nooooo, no he did not thankyouverymuch as he made silly half-faces at me.

Just in case there are any new knitters reading this: we all start out as beginners.

That thing makes for great peek-a-boo games with the grandsons.

It’s not just one or two blossoms anymore, it’s several branches. I’m beginning to be able to see just how gorgeous my yard is going to be in Spring in a few years as these trees grow up.

We were talking to Sam last night and I was marveling to her that we had flowers. On a peach tree. In January!

She did one of those shake-your-head-ruefully-while-laughing moments, and answered, Let me tell you: WE’VE got things in bloom. A type of shrub and a type of tree, dunno what they are yet, but, yes, they’ve got flowers on’em.

Me, stunned: In *ALASKA*?!!! In *JANUARY*?!!!

She affirmed: In Alaska. In January. We were warmer than Florida, so, I guess… But…yeah. They’re blooming. It’s the weirdest thing.

I was in the middle of answering an email about Coopernicus when there he was, swooping in, same time of day.

That branch is a favorite king-of-the-mountain spot for feathered and furred because it offers a commanding view of the birdfeeder and the yard, but it is dead and is on our must-go list, I’m sorry to say. Too dry. Too flammable.

And then I noticed for the first time that there in front of the dense limbs and leaves it also provided room for him to open those big wings wide unimpeded to lift off at full speed if need be. Interesting. (Those branches that look big and in the way in front of him in the second picture are actually the little twigs around the birdfeeder.)

He watched over me for 28 minutes, occasionally telling the world about it, occasionally looking around at every leaf from his side–while the rest of the bird kingdom held its breath unseen.

He left and there was a sudden explosion of life. A junco tumbled out of the olive tree, pulling up to a safe finish just at the ground. Towhees jockeyed for suet, a chickadee to the feeder, then a dove arrived below at the all-clear. Briefly.

Another grand scurry and all became still again.

And I went off to pick up my husband from work so I could tell him what the doctor said about the latest on the Graves results: autoantibodies that cause hypothyroidism and autoantibodies that cause hyperthyroidism. For the lucky patients, they balance out. Me, well, no.  Several months of testing to come.

And I utterly forgot to give the doctor the hat in my purse that I’d knitted for his wife. Which answers my question as to whether it was the right project for her: no. Not there yet. But then knitting some more while having a spare for the give-away bag is not exactly a punishment.

Remember that day my doorbell rang to my great surprise after I’d blogged about my 20-year-old leaky springform pans that had smoked up the oven when I’d made a batch of chocolate tortes? There was Don’s red minivan in front of my house, Don on the passenger side waving hi, and there at the door was Cliff, holding out two new pans for me to bake from. “Well, I gotta have my chocolate tortes!” grinned his dad when I ran out and gave him a hug.

When Don first became ill, I offered to bring him one so that he could have a slice any time he felt like it; he was appreciative but said he wasn’t allowed to eat it now. I would have offered Cliff directly, but I didn’t want to make it any harder on his dad just then, having a favorite but denied food right under his nose. Not the time.

I got a beautiful letter in the mail today from Cliff. Telling me of his father’s last days. It was pancreatic cancer he had had–I had misheard on the phone, turns out.

Don had reached a hand out to Cliff; Cliff had held it gently in his own for a long time, and finally told his dad he was going to go eat breakfast and then come back to take care of him.

And in the short time Cliff was in the other room, Don, having offered and been given comfort and a last moment of shared presence, slipped peacefully away.

Cliff was grateful for his dad’s long and good life, and promised to let Richard and me know when the memorial service would be. We are honored.

If it would be welcome, and I expect it will be, I will bring chocolate torte. I have good pans for that.