White lines running down blue background. Richard said to just let it keep running through the files, that’s what it was doing, trying to mend itself.

Okay, well, we can hope.

Woke up this morning to find my PC sitting primly waiting for me to sign in. Who knew. (He did. Go Richard.) Yay!

Annnnd…

I had one last thing to do last night on that project I’d just finished: block it. Wouldn’t take long.

I was sitting on the floor with it on top of an old quilt back, moving the damp stitches just so here and a little more there, leaning over it as I worked. It was about bedtime and I was tired. Moved a bit–and I heard it before I felt it. There was no mistaking and no pleading and no no please no. My hand I’d been leaning on had been on my hair (it was?) and I’d ripped it right out of the side of my head.

The skin cancer, the back of the hairdryer that sucked it in while I worked on the freezer, this–maybe this just isn’t the year to keep the hair long.

My sweetie says it had no virus, and yet–well, it’s six, maybe seven years old–my PC crashed today. The kind of crash you wish you had everything backed up on the cloud.

Oh wait. I mostly do. I think. Um.

And then… He thought it a good day to update my very out of date laptop, just to make sure at least that stayed in good shape.

Not done.

Is it ready yet?

Oh, right, sorry, I’ll check it.

Is it ready yet?

Huh. No, it isn’t, should be. (He was working from home.)

Ten programs, it said it was plowing through. Which is why I didn’t have the laptop, either.

And so an amazing amount of knitting got done, and it felt wonderful. I had a project I’d started on on old bamboos that felt like fingernails and–wait, how are our kids going to know about chalkboards?–and I’d been avoiding it.

It is done. I sent a small thank you Up There: the computer made me do it. It’s beautiful. And now I don’t ever have to use those needles again.

I’m still holding out faint hope that the same won’t be true of the PC.

And I finally got my laptop back and it warned me I needed to update some things. I decided it could wait.

Three people, two cars, multiple errands that had no room for delay, and Michelle’s first day of work.

I dropped Richard off at his office. An accident, the freeway a parking lot, later a guy in a hot red sportscar trying to defy physics as he impulsively zoomed a left in front of me, the car in my other lane having turned out of the way exactly in time to save us all as I braked and veered. So close.

Remember that car alarm that is designed so my mechanic cannot disable it permanently that randomly goes off every now and then? The one that nearly got a man killed? I learned long ago from the manual that you have to put the key in the driver’s side and turn it quickly three times to the left to get it to stop. HONKHONKHONKHONKHONK

I was in downtown and next to an apartment complex, rush hour starting up, lots of people to bother, and this time it really meant it. Nothing stopped it, not the key, not the fob, not this, not that, nothing. I went through the manual again, noting wryly that I had written loudly on it where to find the page quickly. HONKHONKHONKHONKHONKHONK

Finally a mailman pulled onto the crowded street, found (an illegal) parking space a way down, hiked back to me and asked, Did you try this? (Which was not in the manual.)

Silence never sounded so good.

I went home absolutely beat.

And got a note from Suzanne: wasn’t it nice that I had the good health to be able to go do all that today?

She was right. I’d so needed that. Her gratitude changed everything.

And Michelle came home radiant. It was a little scary, the things they expected her to come up to snuff on so fast, but they were putting great faith in her and oh by the way you’re doing the big presentation in two weeks on…

A boss who believes in her already. She’s determined to live up to that. Perfect.

Years ago, a new Stanford grad asked Richard how on earth to decide between two job offers. One was more prestigious and paid more; the other, though, really spoke to him.

Richard told him: Imagine you’re driving home from work. Now, look in the rearview mirror: is the man looking back at you smiling?

The guy thanked him, took the lower-paying job, and years later he sent us a note letting us know where all that had come to–it had been the right road, most definitely. We will never forget that he took the time to let us know.

Michelle had thought she’d wanted a different job more, and when it didn’t happen, I told her she was going to be glad later that she hadn’t taken the wrong one.

She came home with the whole world her mirror. She’s smiling too.

There was a second wedding this week: one of Michelle’s classmates from the University of Michigan got married in Berkeley yesterday.

And so Michelle’s recent roommate flew out for it and she stayed with us for two nights, taking off early this morning. A second classmate had a red-eye flight home late tonight: so he would have, it looked like, nothing to do all day in a strange city.

Hey.

And so Michelle went to church while he rode BART over to our side of the Bay; having him a lot closer made it a lot easier.  She picked him up from the train station and took him to the Rodin sculpture garden at Stanford, art dealer’s granddaughter that she is. They hiked The Dish (and saw no mountain lions). He came to dinner; he exclaimed over the ataulfo mangoes in the salad, he loved her lemon-from-the-tree meringue pie, we had a great time. By the end of it we were all rooting hard for him to take a job here–there is a transfer offer in his future with an office here, so it’s a possibility. We talked up the place, hoping.

It was hard for me to see both of those good young people go and I’ve only barely met them. The day had me remembering when my own friends all split up at the end of our college careers, when the costs of long-distance telephone calls could easily wipe out a student’s paycheck and it was that or mail without the word snail yet but that often didn’t happen.

It’s great to know your kids have friends who are just the best. I wish them every blessing in their journeys ahead.

The note I got from John about how much our aunt was admiring and enjoying her new silk scarf was enough to keep the needles going for a long time to come. It was wonderful.

Meantime, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is biking from Toronto to Montreal, along with some of her loved ones, in a fundraiser for a group that provides care to AIDS patients.

I have a cousin whom I think I last saw when I was not yet in kindergarten. I never knew him as an adult, didn’t even know where he lived but wished very much that I did: I could ask him if he remembered sledding down the Marx’s hill on those round metal sleds, we could reminisce over our parents and our childhoods as a starting point of getting acquainted again; he was family.

I found out only after my uncle told us of his death that he had been ill.

It turned out he’d had AIDS. In the early days of the crisis when there wasn’t much they could do, when patients were so often blamed and feared and told they deserved to suffer, that it was God’s wrath. In retrospect, it sounds a little like the mentality of that traveling group from Kansas, doesn’t it? I shiver at what it must have been like.

Not knowing meant I did nothing to offer him comfort or support. I have regretted that intensely, all the more so because, it turned out, he had been living in San Jose and we’d been 25 miles right up the road for a few years by then. If only…

As I write, Stephanie’s sponsors have given $45,470 to the cause, and if you click on “view team page,” those first five names at the top with her are her friend Ken, her sister, and her daughters. Their friend Paco is on another team, and via knitters reading Stephanie’s blog, has gone past the $8,000 mark himself. We have this hobby that teaches the power of each individual stitch added to stitch added to stitch.

Every act of kindness counts. Every now and then, they get to become visible like that.

(At the end of typing those sentences, it’s $45,495 now. Wow.)

Cousin Michelle came for only the briefest visit at the very beginning of the reception, when aunts, uncles, cousins would be there but maybe not so many guests yet; with no immune system… But she wanted to see everybody, so she and her husband (whom I had never met) came. I was so glad.

She has breast cancer, and the news since diagnosis has not been comforting. We talked a bit; I told her I had survived 22 years since my lupus diagnosis, 13 since my Crohn’s, and said a little of what that has been. And I am still here.

She thanked me, telling me that comforted her greatly. I told her my prayers continue.

Cousin Joe came. I hadn’t seen him since he’d been quite little. I told his wife that one of the younger cousins had been three when he’d met my (6’8″) husband, who was then in college, and the little one had screamed in indignation, YOU’RE NOT TALLER THAN *MY* DADDY!!! and he ran away crying.

“That’s Joe,” she laughed.

I said to Richard later, Was it Uncle Dwayne or his wife that has the early Alzheimer’s?

His wife.

Huh. Because I thought so, I answered, so when I went up to them all standing together I re-introduced myself for her sake and she’s the one who exclaimed in joy, each word emphasized, “We. know. who. you. ARE!!!” As if anyone could possibly ever forget!

The father of the groom came. I hadn’t seen Mike since the divorce. He was humble, he was kind. I was so glad for him. I had worried. He and his ex treated each other very well and rejoiced together over their son’s happiness. I was so glad–and proud of them.

Richard’s sister, recovering from breast cancer herself, was a marvel in how much energy she put into making the day as perfect as could be. She did a great job.

Jacqui, the bride, was a joy and a gem, the kind of person where, you walk into her presence and you know you have a friend right there. Instantly.

My aunt and uncle let us stay at their house while we were there. (They were away.) I left a light blue lace silk scarf behind in thanks, and my aunt will be there tomorrow.

And we got to see and hug my parents for a few hours today before we left.

We landed at Salt Lake and drove and drove. Past the Evanston (Wyoming) a hundred miles sign and to the house near where Richard’s mom’s family was from.

Old farm country was clearly rapidly turning into nice homes. I wondered how many were for vacations only. Winter is not gentle above Salt Lake.

I asked my sister-in-law in the kitchen of her new house if there were a lot of people in her neighborhood who lived there year-round vs the snowbirds.

She mentioned in particular that the neighbors straight up the hill were here all the time–and that they used to live in California.

Then she mentioned their names. I was stunned.

I’m sure the story’s on the blog somewhere, but. We had old friends back in New Hampshire who, when layoffs looked imminent there and we had already moved to California, Richard helped V, the dad, land a job with him, and so, they followed us out there.

A few years later, DEC disappeared and the jobs moved on. We had gotten together a few times but not in probably ten years when V and his wife called one day and invited us over–but gave us their new address. They had moved.

It sounded really really familiar.

We pulled in that driveway, knocked on the door, and when V opened it Richard asked, So does it still have the projection room to the left at the end of the hall?

Wait, *what*? He was stunned. How did YOU know?!

It had been the Z’s house. We knew them a little and their kids a lot, who used to entertain in their folks’ big place. The parents had moved to somewhere that sounded like the middle of nowhere in Utah in their retirement; why, we didn’t know. Why age where the weather is heavy and must be lifted and moved out of the way for months every year?

Their new house looked very much like their old one: had you asked me whose house it looked like I would immediately have told you the Z’s. It’s in a beautiful part of the world, very green with a river running nearby; I saw red-winged blackbirds, magpies, swifts, and someone had built a tall wooden pole with a platform next to the road on our way up into the neighborhood and it had clearly become a raptor’s nest. Someone there loves the birds.

As does my sister-in-law.

And now I know the Z’s have good neighbors again.

Good friends are moving to Texas this week (whether we want them to or not).

There was a get together. Bring desserts. Come.

And so, over brownies and cake and strawberries and the like, a bunch of us got on the subject of comparing climates we’d lived in. I told them how one guy in our ward in New Hampshire back in the day had been a home teacher to a young family, and he knew the dad was in Singapore on business; meantime, Leeane, the mom, had three kids four and under and a 20- to 25-foot wall of compacted iced white across her driveway after the snowplows had come around her cul-de-sac.

You do not want your baby outside in zero degrees and you do not want to leave the kids unattended while you spend hours dealing with that. She was stuck.

Mike got his teenage boys up very early and shoveled themselves out so they could go start shoveling her out at about 6 am so she could get out and have some face time at church with adults. Freedom. (Mike O’Connell and sons from Merrimack, wherever you are now, the thank-you’s are still floating around 25+ years later.)

Another fellow chimed in with his own weather story, Michigan vs Minnesota.

Wayne talked about how he was going to miss being able to bike where it’s just perfect: just cool enough, just right, year round, he’d been doing sometimes 150 miles a week before his recent knee surgery. A hundred degrees for sixty days straight last year in Dallas? That makes it a lot tougher, he said, I dunno…

You don’t have to shovel heat, I offered, trying to help.

He laughed. True, that.

I did not get to see Holly.

I did not make it to Purlescence nor did I get to see the Cascade folks. I’ll send them the photo of Parker’s sweater from the gift of their yarn from the last time.

I did get to drive Gail to one of the two things she’d wanted to do.

And then I waited for a friend who was supposed to stop by briefly.

And she didn’t and she didn’t and she didn’t answer her messages either, but I figured it was just missed signals.

She’s my age. Her brother had died today. No not in Colorado.

And then I managed to get a hold of my own brother. Yes in Colorado. Who did not, as it happens, take his children to the premier at that theater that he goes past, he told me, “all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.”

After that it felt like a good day to sit tight and be glad for my family members right here right now for every moment I have with them.

(Ed. to add Saturday morning: after I posted this last night, I saw an article wherein a young woman recounted that she’d come face to face with the gunman and was suddenly struck by the utterly ridiculous thought of, I can’t die wearing a Twilight t-shirt! And the guy had moved on.

It was funny, it was absurd, it was comic relief, and it was life.

As mentioned earlier, I was made head of our ward’s part in an interfaith blood drive. Which was held today.

The woman who is the liaison between the Red Cross and all the local wards got me set up weeks ago with the materials and showed me what I needed to be doing.

The last time I was actually in a blood drive was when I was in high school and got excused from Mr. Ball’s science class to go to the library for it. Organized by class period. Assembly lined, efficient.

I can’t donate now, of course, even without the mouse cells from the Remicade in ’03, but I’ve wished for years for a way to show those who do how much I appreciate it. And so I asked if perhaps I might come and, say, entertain the kids of those donating? I’m not a morning person, but I could do some of the afternoon or something.

Great idea, she said, how about you do 11-2. I’ll see if I can find someone to do the 8-11. Bring some toys and books for them and maybe you could help with the refreshments.

I got to the Catholic church where it was being held, doing too long of a walk in too bright of a sun trying to find the place.  With some mild cardiac effects of too much exposure yesterday, I was feeling a little fragile.

The place was jammed. I was looking for whom to check in with but the signup table wasn’t it, and a woman noticed and came up to me. She gave no recognition at my name.

I said I was one of the ward blood drive coordinators. She identified herself as being with the Red Cross.

I had my bag full of kid stuff, but we saw one, count’em one child in the crowd, with both parents, “And they’ve decided not to donate.”

Huh? Why go all the way out there and then not? I didn’t get it, but I didn’t say anything. Whatever.

And then here’s the thing: I told her my husband was sick. I was fine, but just so they knew.

“So you’re a carrier?” she asked.

And with that I was dismissed. Seemed wiser to both of us, honestly, but having said I was going to show up, I showed up and let it be their decision. She did not want me there. I debated saying something to the friend I’d been w0rking with (yes I should have) but from what I’d seen there was no need for babysitters and at two and half hours left, how would you find one? Why would it even be an issue? Anybody coming with small kids would already have thought through that IV-no move-no-chase-kids thing.

Hours later I got a note forwarded to me I did not expect. From the woman who had indeed come for the 8-11 shift, frazzled, exhausted, worried, trying not to be indignant, wondering if something had happened and I didn’t know how to reach anybody? Why hadn’t I shown up??

Yow.

As far as I’d known, it was an assignment manufactured entirely in my own head. Yow. One of the Red Cross people had called in sick and people were piling up. They could only process four at a time when all hands were on board, which they weren’t, the calendar was full, but they were still taking walk-ins and she had stayed till an hour after it was supposed to have been over–and someone told her they weren’t going to do this again, not with that kind of a wait. Not the message she’d hoped for. It was intense.

I still don’t know exactly what she did or why I was so needed. I wish I’d been able to help–but I’m sure that a whole lot of people, had they known, would have been very glad to help and very glad I wasn’t there. Just in case.

But the good part of it is, we had a really, really successful blood drive. The turnout was fantastic.

Parker in the hotel crib last weekend after he let me snuggle him to sleep…

We took the freezer apart again. The resident small person who could squeeze into it got, well, drafted. This time, we knew that hairdryering the coils wasn’t going to keep the job done past a week even after all the vacuuming at the back last time, and after some fussing with a meter–after I got a connection apart and then put tips to tips while Richard behind me read the readoff–he was able to narrow down the cause to one, and a $70 part is on its way.

The two-day-56F milk has been tossed and replaced; things are cold again for now. I wonder if the mailman will deliver the defroster control box over next door.

The doorbell rang just after we finished up. Oh hello, come on in!

And then it rang again, only this time I was expecting it and helped Jocelyn puzzle out her sweater pattern.

Got to Purlescence, and… Got headed off at the pass. Just inside the door, Kaye and the visiting Anne warned me: someone was sick.

So I signed a book for Monica and then Anne and I walked back outside to catch up a bit. It had been too long.

What I didn’t know is that she had stopped by to drop something off for me: “You’re always making things for other people, so I wanted to make something for you!”

I was speechless. She loved it. I loved it. Thank you, Anne, and I hope you get your crabapple tree (from the comments there).

I wore it proudly to Trader Joe’s to get that new gallon of milk. I showed it off when I got home.  And when Anne, while we were chatting, shivered a bit in the foggy air outside the shop, I told her I had this really pretty shawlette I could loan her for a moment… She laughed.

(Four for four on the sideways-Iphone goof–sorry about that.)

The doorbell rang and I put the project down mid-double decrease, the tip of the needle still in the stitch, hoping briefly the silk wouldn’t jump. Michelle and I got to the door together and opened it, *so* not expecting what we saw that it took us a moment to realize it really was who it was.

He used to be married into our family. He lives on the other coast, where he teaches at a small college.

We have a longtime mutual friend who lives here. She and he were both there, holding out large plastic tubs to us.

We had put some large tubs out for the recycler to pick up today, doubling our doubletake: wait, what?

The mutual friend’s husband left her, emotionally, a long time ago, recently, officially. And so she, too, is divorced.

He had flown out to help her in her move. Her house should get a good price, but still it’s so much work at such a difficult time. There were some reminders of her ex she wanted out and Goodwill seemed just too meager; she wanted them to go to someone who would use them and appreciate what they were, but who?

Then, ALISON! Surely, she thought, my network of fiber artists could…

Handwoven. Handspun. Handknit. From her and her ex’s big trip to Nepal, much of it still in the packaging. More than pictured here. Pretty, thin wrap skirts that would make a great beach half-coverup. Woven vests. More sweaters. The wools are scratchy, as I expect from that part of the world, but hey.

Wow. And yes, I could definitely find appreciative homes for these, starting right here–there were two of those  cotton sun jackets and the small one fits me.

I had not seen him since his own divorce.  Richard and I had asked no questions, just tried our best to be supportive. Caring is not a matter of legal decrees–we love him, period. We had not known if he had known that.

So when it finally got through my thick skull who that somehow actually was on my front porch, I threw my arms around him and he, me.  (I hugged her, too.) And did again when they were leaving. We held each other in our eyes and knew: the caring was still there, would always be there. I was so glad they’d taken the chance I would be home.

I do not know how or when or if I might ever see him again. But the message was received and the message was mutual.  It was such a comfort.

(Ed. to add, I’ll be at Purlescence’s Knit Night tomorrow. Just sayin’.)

Parker didn’t want to try on his new vest and it was warm enough Saturday that I didn’t blame him.

So I did. Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the one it fits best of all?

Meantime, the fridge is back to needing a bowl of ice. And maybe two. Or ten. This time, we have to figure out which part needs replacing.

Let me work on this new silk project while I ignore it…

Many years ago–Richard thinks 20–our neighbor knocked on the door with a bag of plums from his tree, wondering if we and our children might like some?

The childhood memories that brought back! I made plum jam in great delight–did you know having the skins pureed in there gives a sour-cherries effect? I showed up on his and his wife’s doorstep with a bottle; he thought that was great and promptly gave us more when his wife wasn’t looking. She was embarrassed, but I assured her quite honestly that please, no, I was thrilled! And so they got a bottle from that batch, too.

But we’re certainly not the only ones around for them to share with.

I wanted a steady supply of my own. And so, my kids gave me a Santa Rosa plum tree for Mother’s Day a few years ago, to my intense delight. This year it was producing for the first time. The squirrels stripped my Fuji apple next to it, day by day, but the plums they left alone.

Until they didn’t. Several dozen newly purple were suddenly just three. I was disappointed but not terribly surprised.

And yet. That very afternoon, while I was off running errands, the phone rang and my daughter answered. I came home to a bag and a bowl full of plums and a message…that… They have some worries to worry about. The fruit became the way to share the message.

I needed to do something.

That was Friday. With the wedding Saturday, then a family barbecue thrown by my niece and all the other things going on this weekend, today I finally got down to business.

It’s been awhile. I realized I was a bit out of practice–I had to doublecheck the instructions rather than just breeze through, making sure I didn’t forget any steps.

My mom always taught me that after you fill and wipe and close up the jars, you twist the screw-on part all the way–and then back it up just a nudge. Turn the jar over and let the heat of the jam help make sure that top is truly sanitized, then when the jar is cool, flip it back over and tighten that thing good and tight now. Wait a few hours and then that reassuring pop pop from the kitchen as each seal becomes sure.

Did I overcook it? The jam must have compacted quite a bit in the settling, I filled those jars up a lot more than that. I don’t remember seeing quite this effect before.

The neighbor, pleased, declared her halfpint cute.

The flip side of yesterday’s story. My great-grandfather had ten daughters and no sons who made it past childhood to carry on his name.

My freshman year of college, my roommate was dating a guy I really didn’t care for.

I was, for the first time in my life, within accessible distance of the annual reunion of that great-grandfather’s descendents, held around his November birthday.  He was born in 1856. Gram, born in 1899, was his last surviving child and I wanted to meet all these people I’d heard about all my life and see the cousins I knew, too.

I don’t remember how I got a ride an hour north; I just remember walking into the warm light of the building from the cold dark outside, and, two steps right there behind me, the door opening up again…

That “We’re all each others’ brothers and sisters” line? I learned to start reminding myself that on that night. Kay’s boyfriend and I stared a moment and then said to each other in unison, “You’re not a Grant, are you?”