Heard last Wednesday at baggage claim, a mother to her young son: “Our suitcases are fixin’ to come out.”

Culture shock, right there in plane sight.

We are home. Jet lagged and exhausted and so very glad we went. And hey, you know how to make major progress on a UFO? Put it in your carryon and sit in the bulkhead for your tall husband’s knees, where you can’t get at your bag except for the ziploc you grabbed out right before he put it overhead. And have that fasten seatbelts light mostly stay on.

Size 4 and squinting at slippery silk laceweight on a turbulent flight, but knitting slowly and carefully and having only a few Oh NO! moments, I got eight rows  of 460 or so stitches done. (Nine?)

Late. G’night.

(Or almost. Waiting for the house to get above 57 first.)

I finished the hats in time. The girl one with the cabled brim and the alternating knit/purl sections for a slouch effect can be turned inside out and the brim folded up so that it can fit the baby as she grows, with the cable right-side-out either way.

I also gave the moms a package of mesh laundry bags in multiple sizes: I told them that once when we were at the baby stage, our washing machine totally backed up. Richard took it apart, and jammed down inside the hose were baby booties, nursing pads, all sorts of very small things that had flown out the top of the tub in the spin cycle, enough all at once this time to finally show why things were disappearing.  Zip them in those bags, though, and they’ll be safe.

Took me three stores to find those. OSH hardware saves the day!

For fun, by the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t miss the tree that became the paper in a book that became a bonsai tree. Can’t you just picture Snoopy riding it like a surfboard? Cowabonzai!

I was working on a project I badly wanted to finish and block tonight when the phone rang.

Help Cecil help!

It took longer than it should have to get myself to respond, I’m a-comin’, Beanie Boy; I really wanted to…but I instantly knew: so much for that.

My car’s in the shop, he came home to get me, I had dinner ready, we bit into it and threw it out. So much for the quick prefab Costco dinner–I wonder what aisle it got moved to and then put back in their freezer. Or something. We scrounged and scrammed.

His office was being moved and the building was being vacated and everything had to be packed or tossed, and having someone there with zero emotional attachment to anything really speeds an awful job along–not to mention simply having someone else there pitching in. Call it a date night.

Tuesday’s picture of our grandson holding his lion tail was the screensaver on the monitor. Love it.

We’d done a lot, we were tired and slowing down, when he opened a bottom drawer.

Wait. What is this thing?

Oh, he told me, pulling it out and handing it to me, that’s a laptop.

Really?! (Opening it up. Or trying to. Fumble. There’s a latch like that? On an electronic…?) But, I asked him in confusion, it says Digital. (You know, DEC, the big computer company that went blooey before laptops were invented. The folks that moved us to California 24 years ago. Good people there back in the day, we miss them.)

No, they were invented already, and yes, they did call them notebooks, he assured me. (The thing says HiNote Ultra II.)  But they were nothing like today’s. Still. This was really cutting edge, he told me. (Well, yeah!) It was way lighter than anything else out there. It had a floppy drive you could take off, and it had an internal hard drive.

Did you work on this project?

Nah, not that machine…

Dang this thing is cute. (No emotional attachment, eh?)

(Here at home, I just weighed it: both pieces come to 4.4 lbs–we’d guessed five at least. The darker gray piece is the floppy drive.)

Does it still work?

Yeah, probably.  There’s that battery pack I just had you throw in the electronics trash down the hall.

I ran back down there. Irretrievable.  So much for that.

He pulled out a weird-looking plug: there you go.

I’ll probably take it back to that electronics bin tomorrow, but I just have to play with it a little first.  It was like a lost puppy (and I’ve lived in Silicon Valley too long, clearly). As someone who remembers watching the original Apple IIe in action, I had to see what this one looks like when it’s all lit up.

So far, given how wiped we both feel, I’ve only gotten to blogging about it. I keep wondering what its appeal was: maybe it was all in the pretty packaging. So ugly it’s cute. Note that I photographed it on the chair I inherited from my grandmother; gray and gray and age on age, it fit.

I know, give me a day and the novelty will wear off.

Who knew that a doctor’s shoes could connect me with my grandmother?

He was wearing a pair of Wallabys today, new-looking ones; I knew exactly how comfortable those were. Back when they were a huge fad in the ’70’s, my father was on a business trip to Spain and knowing my odd-size feet and how much I’d wanted a pair, and finding some at a good price, took a chance–and they were perfect. It was my first-ever experience at being so thrilled at the most perfect shoe purchase (with the love of my Dad to top it off.) I had never owned a shoe that fit well and was comfortable and was perfectly, totally in style. 6.5EE is never in style, but look at these! Authentic Wallabys!

I wore those through high school, I wore those in college, where I was walking in snow at I forget how many thousand feet up high in the Rockies. The salted soaking sidewalks ate at the suede. I wore them till they looked like Harry Potter’s sorting hat in the middle of a sentence.

My grandparents had recently retired and were living an hour north of BYU campus.

My grandmother was a very gracious woman who would never say a disparaging word to or about anybody. She once said that she’d listened to enough of her friends whine about old age that she’d decided that she, for one, was going to be a sweet old lady. And so she was.

So there I was at Gram’s, cousins gathered around for a Sunday evening get-together, when she notices my feet.

I knew I had this coming. I waited to hear what she would say.

She searched for the right words of–well, encouragement or something somehow, and finally just chuckled: “Alison. Your shoes!”

“I know, Gram. But they’re so comfortable!”

She laughed warmly. There wasn’t much left to constrict my feet anymore anyway–nor my heart. I felt so loved.

I gave up and let them be after that school year; there wasn’t enough left of them anymore.

My grandmother had been a concert pianist.

I said to the doctor today, “How did your concerts go?”

“You remembered! You have a sharp memory!” (Oh goodness if only that were true.)

But how could one forget–and then there were his shoes…

Not to mention the waiting piano hat I pulled out of my knitting bag at the end of the visit, to his astonished delight: I’d knitted this? For him? I’d designed this? “I think that’s maybe one of the nicest gifts I’ve ever received!” and he went out into the hall grinning hugely to model it at the nurses’ station.

I offered, and I’m writing it here just so they know I meant it, to knit something for his wife too. I asked what her favorite colors were?

How many men do you know that can answer that question right off the bat? He’ll get back to me on that.

The yarn is at the ready.

(Oh, yeah, and, my 20% hip bone loss in two years is now 29% in (correction–four), despite chugging the milk and trudging the treadmill. My grandmother went from 5’9″, very tall  for a woman born in 1899, to a tiny little thing. I want to walk in her footsteps and be gentle to all to the best of my ability, but I’m trying to keep my own shoes on along the way.)

We live within a few hundred feet of the gas main that blew up in San Bruno last year, obliterating homes and lives. We got a letter officially notifying us of that and to call PG&E if we should see dirt bubbling up. (Uh, no. 911. Thanks.) The letter also mentioned that using a cellphone or driving your car out of there could spark the leak if you did.

This is what we live with.

Pipeline 132 blew up again today, 100 yards away from any houses this time, mud erupting across two lanes of freeway.  A knitting friend of mine happened to be right there in her car with her small daughter. I’m so glad everybody’s okay, and thank heavens it was a Sunday and not at rush hour.

They still insist it’s safe and want to increase the pressure in untested lines. It was already such a hot-button subject for me–it’s way too close to home.

So. Much more in the spirit of a good Sunday evening, may I offer this link to a glass music artist. (Notice his keyboard graphic at the top!)

We once got to listen to a concert by a man who had an array like that of crystal goblets filled just so with water; he had a small tray alongside the front for him to dip his fingers into, then he would run them in circles or half-circles along the rims of the goblets.

He had started with a few, gotten into it like a knitter hooked on qiviut, and by the time we met him courtesy of our friend Russ, he estimated he had spent $100,000 to get his set of perfectly-pitched glasses across the octaves: the ones that are are rare and must be searched for and discovered.

And then celebrated!

I asked him if he’d gotten his MacArthur Genius Grant yet. He fervently wished–please, go ahead, nominate him, please! If only.

I asked him how loud he could make one of them. He sheepishly admitted he’d been curious to know exactly that, once, and had kept at it and at it till he’d shattered one–his face in telling me the tale a mixture of the adult rueing the expense and waste and the fact that he had had to search for a replacement (there was a factory he traveled to in, I believe, Germany) and the little-boy impishness in his delight at discovery: he couldn’t not know, now, come on.

I wish I could remember his name all these years later. I was delighted to find someone else doing this too now. Go listen. It’s good for the soul. Beautiful.

BUH BUH BUH! Another row bites the dust! BUH BUH BUH! Another row bites the dust! And another row’s gone and another row’s gone and another row bites the dust! BUH BUH BUH!

…Back when we were newlyweds we had a couple in the apartment upstairs, who, neither spoke English well and neither knew the other’s language and they were taking a dance class because you can communicate with movement and they could only afford one ’45 single and they only played one side of it. Night after night after night. And guess which tune shook our walls till all hours? Yeah…

I so wanted to finish my project today. If I showed you a picture the recipient would instantly be on to me, so, no, but, I thought I was about two-thirds done and started in on it a little before 1:30. Welcoming every interruption I could get for the sake of my hands, nine hours of knitting and quite a few rows later than what I originally planned, it is indeed done.

I *DID* it! Let’s DANCE! (And so we did. While singing that tune. Amazing what a little enthusiasm’ll do for you.)

(Parker and his cousin four months younger.)

My daughter Sam, as a young teenager about fifteen years ago, (come to think of it, back before I had Crohn’s too) asked me if, if I had the chance, would I choose to cure my lupus, or ask for my hearing back?

That was an easy one–she was surprised when I instantly said, My hearing back. The lupus is just background noise. The hearing loss isolates me more from other people.

It was about a year ago that I was sitting in Relief Society at church, the women’s meeting, when the teacher announced we were going to break up into small groups to discuss the topic of the moment.

Groan. The acoustics in that room are bad to begin with, and scenarios like that totally make me want to bail: all I can do, usually, is sit and watch other people having engaging, interesting conversations, getting to know each other better amidst the blare of what to me is just loud white noise.

I got put in a group with Jennifer. I didn’t know her from Adam; she had just moved here. But she has a nice, deep voice, easier for me to *hear, and she was totally understanding about the whole thing as soon as she knew. I remember saying to her, I don’t know you yet but I want to.

The grateful smile on her face made me remember what it’s like to move to a strange town and not know anybody.

I too felt instantly like I was in the presence of a friend, and, by how she handled things, she changed my longstanding attitude towards those small group scenarios–and frankly, I’d needed that. That inner poor-little-me pop-up gets old, fast.

I’ve wanted for a long time to figure out just the most right thing…

She likes purple. I couldn’t figure out what the perfect purple would be to the eyes of someone whose ancestors most assuredly didn’t (or surely didn’t mostly) come from Scandinavia and the British Isles like mine did. I guessed, but just couldn’t get past that sense of uncertainty; I wanted it to be perfect. And I wanted to actually get around to it and get it done, whatever the it might come to be, but nothing… what I could find just didn’t grab me.

Remember that mink/cashmere yarn I recently discovered? Laceweight, one strand of white, one the very softest beige, knitted together for a heathered effect: after I saw the beige, advertised as cream, I ordered the white specifically to put them together like that specifically for her–I finally had my answer. I used two balls and I used them all up down to the last couple of yards and they were perfect.

And then I waited all week long for the moment to come.

But then this morning, searching the crowd before the main meeting started, I didn’t see her. After all that work and all that happy anticipation? No Jennifer? (Earth to Alison: just because you knew and came early doesn’t mean she knew or did.)

But then, at Relief Society, there she was at the back. Yay!

After the meeting was over, I pulled her away from the crowd; I didn’t want to make anyone else feel left out or hurt in any way, ever. And I said to her: “Do you like–” (shifty eyes) –“weasels?”

That was such an utter disconnect that she had no words to respond with.

I repeated it.

Okay, now she threw back her head, laughing: “I’ve never met any weasels.”

I explained about the bad translation describing weasel wool, and that no, I didn’t buy from those guys. I said it was sheared–I watched her face–mink: 70%, and cashmere, 30%, as I pulled the ruffly lace scarf out of my knitting bag. Her eyes got huge with disbelief.

Kim had stepped aside by us as if to talk to Jennifer next, and told her that I’d knit her a scarf too. Jennifer held that supreme softness against her face, just speechless. She put it on, then held the edge out to see the lace pattern.

That’s it. That’s all I need. Any time I might ever again need to prod myself  to go spend the hours knitting to make someone else happy rather than wasting my time doing something of zero impact in this life, I will have that moment to remember to push me forward to do that which brings joy into this world. Thank you, Jennifer; you made it easier for the next time.

Again.

———-

*Consonants are much higher pitched than vowels. By far the majority of people with hearing loss lose the highest frequencies first, then gradually lower and lower ones, and so, they can hear someone talking–the music of a speaker’s voice, is how I think of it–but they can’t figure out what they’re saying. They accuse others of mumbling, but it’s their own ears  that are. That last sentence would be, a uh-oo uh-eh uh uh uh uh i eh o ee ah aw. And if I can see your face and know the context of the conversation, with my hearing aids in in good lighting I can usually follow that.

I felt like I’d rejoined the human race when I got my first pair at 27.

Parker’s getting ready to walk. Not quite there yet, but working on it. The next couple of pictures were of his small cousin trying to encourage him up and him going plop, but those came out blurry–moving too fast.

I’m reminded of a time I was in a store with my hands full, trying to keep my then-three-under-five entertained and obedient while trying to browse: get in get out be done.

The store actually had a small children’s alcove with toys and a TV; I don’t even remember what kind of store it was (fabric, probably? I think so.) But I do remember that alcove and my gratitude at the thoughtfulness behind it.

The cartoon that was on was almost over at the point that I finished my purchase and said, It’s time to go, kids; Sam did the typical whine of, Can’t we watch the rest of our show?

I considered that very briefly and, unable to see any reasonable reason why not, answered, Sure. And I sat down on the floor so we could all watch it together.

An older woman took all that in and pulled me aside when it was over and told me that she had never thought of reacting that way back when her grown kids were little, and she regretted it so much that she hadn’t given them a moment to have their own time like that, to show them that they mattered, too. She was proud of me.

When you are a mother of small children out in public, unexpected words of praise make all the difference, every time, and the moment is never forgotten.

As soon as it was clear to him that we were headed to the door, my son Richard, Parker’s daddy, happily took off like a shot to get there first: it’s always fun to beat slow old Mommy.

Another older woman stopped him mid-dash and scolded him soundly: “Little boy, you don’t run like that in my store! WALK!”

I looked at her, astonished–this is the woman who put out the toys and entertainment?

All I could do was tell the truth. “He doesn’t know how to walk. He only runs.”

The gift that that second woman gave me was the story of her words to tell to young moms now, who worry when they see me unsteady on a cane when their little ones are being perfectly normal little people. And occasionally, I have been known to sit down on the floor and hand them my lightweight sassafras-wood cane for them to run explore with. Shepherd’s crook. Little Bo Peep.

Ya gotta start’em on the sheep thing early.

Got a specialist I don’t see too often.

Got a note that he wanted to see me, okay, so, I went in. Got the standard questions. How’s the lupus. BP steady? Weight?

“Well, actually, the weight’s been down a little. My Crohn’s did a flare up last month…”  (Cool diseases! Shiny! New! Colect them all!)

He sat down at the computer and pulled up a graph showing my weight across who knows how long, and looking at one point about midway, he said, “Well actually, your weight’s up a bit from two years ago.”

I looked at him, trying to see if he was serious. He was. Stunned, thinking, Don’t…you…rememmm…. I burst out laughing because, my stars, there was no other possible response to that. “Yes, 104 pounds on steroids!” As in, at least ten of those pounds were water weight on that obscene IV dose. As in…!

But I said no more than that.

To his credit, he laughed at himself along with me.

This one’s for Susan Schutz: Parker in his Dr. Seuss-green socks, handknit by Susan, whom I owe a big thank you to. She loves to knit socks. I love that other people love to knit socks.

Meantime, I read this. I want one. I want one at church, I want one at Stanford Memorial Church where we attend the occasional convocation on campus, I want one at Menlo College where we attend the occasional concert, I want one at the theater, I’d install one… I simply want one everywhere I go. I read that article and wondered how it could be that I had never known much about nor appreciated such loops before.

(Quick: John! Do my hearing aids have telecoils? I don’t think they do… Can we do them as an add-on?)

And that’s right after I come up with the six thousand bucks to get the hearing-aid necklace that a Stanford professor individually makes to order, with a half dozen or so microphones in it and background sounds screened out by the body. I met him when he spoke to a local group, I’ve seen it demonstrated, I’ve been gobsmacked by what could be.  I. Want.

But eh, it’s fine, I do okay with what I’ve got and I’m really glad I’ve got aids with really great sound quality. Just knowing these other possibilities are out there makes me a very happy hearing-impaired musician.

Thought about all this, cranked up the stereo today and knitted most of the small shawl I started last night for a friend. A sheared-mink/cashmere blend, and looking forward to her surprise, it was hard to put it down and call it a night.

An old Chrysler minivan pulled up at the service bay today after the driver looked around for a regular parking spot that didn’t involve a lot of extra steps in the sun.

Parking error 404: Not Found. Go to Service.

So I stopped in front of George’s door, y’know, over where you’re supposed to wait for someone to come ask what you need done with your Toyota. Um. Make it quick, I figured.

The warmth radiating from his face when he saw me coming into his little office again, before he had any idea why I was there (getting out of–you know–a…Chrysler…!) The surprise when I handed him a printout from my blog post about him and told him I hoped his boss would see it. The oh my! extra delight when I said, “It’s not as good as the old country’s, but,” and pulled out the baklava and a stack of paper napkins in case he wanted to share.

I don’t think I was in there more than 30 seconds before I dashed back to my car and out of their way and away.

Some half minutes can make up for a whole awful lot in life.  I have to say, I was given a lot more in those moments than I at all gave; thank you, George!

I called first; George, the woman said, will be back in on Friday.

Ah, okay, then, thanks, I wanted to come back in and tell him thank you for how nice he was to me yesterday.

The receptionist’s surprise and delight sounded like a kid who wanted to know what was in that Christmas box: what was that all about? But she didn’t ask and I didn’t say.  And now at least one person who works there knows there’s a customer who was happy enough to be making the effort to say so. Always a good thing.

Come Saturday, meantime, I think we’re due to work on a little habitat destruction together: that morning scene of water intermittently spraying vigorously from the same spot on the roof has happened again two more days, and the rain is days gone. Fallen leaves or something must be providing grubs for something up there, or maybe they’re finding a birdbath effect; clearly there must be standing water. Not a good idea. It’s a mostly-flat roof, a  California fad of the 1950’s.

The first time, there was a towhee perched on the edge of the shed just below there, getting sprayed; it looked back over its shoulder, got doused again, and flew away from it.

Today it was a black squirrel, probably watching to see if there was anything worth raiding. Hey! It snorted and jerked away as it got it full in the face. HEY! And it took a big leap up onto that roof to show just who was boss here.  Cut that out!

End of waterfall.

I’d have loved to have seen the end of that. Although, don’t tell the squirrels that from the occasional audible mad dashes that have ended suddenly midpoint, it seems the hawks have learned that white roofs are great for picking off black squirrels. We have a lot fewer of the big oldtimers than we used to.

And for the first time, a few days ago I saw a hawk disappear into the upper branches of the big redwood whose limbs reach over our house. Right above that spot.

Went to a meet-and-greet for the author Douglas Thayer today.  Found I’d somehow missed out on a really great professor back when I was studying in the English department at BYU years ago.

Meantime, the idiot light on the Prius had come on, and since I had time to deal with it, hey. So I was the one who drove over close to their quitting time, expecting to drop the car off and walk home with as little sun time as I could manage.

The assistant manager, George, said no, no, we can check that out and get you on your way I’m sure, no problem.

Great! Except there were benches to sit on–outside. Only. Um. I did a tour of the showroom and met a salesman who separated himself from the pack and would be very happy to help me ditch my old minivan (later, later, still got a kid in college after these eleven years). Actually, he seemed nice enough: I was glad to see that the obnoxious one that had made me walk right out of his sales pitch when we were buying the Prius didn’t seem to be there anymore.

I escaped: I went back to George and explained about not being able to be out in the sun.

I didn’t even have to tell him about not really wanting to fend off salesmen nor offending them by sitting on the floor watching them talk; without a word, he totally got it. He went looking, found me a barstool-type chair, and gladly brought it back to his tiny cubbyhole of an office. It had a door to outside, access to a narrow hallway behind him, and room for basically him and a customer or two standing. Tiny.

I sat.  We were close to eye level (hey, I’m used to being short). It was a quiet time of day. We chatted a bit; and then, more and more, we really talked.

He told me about his daughter in college. His youngest son’s chronic condition. I was sympathetic, and he decided I was someone he could open up to.

I explained, when he asked, what lupus was–and then I got to watch in his face exactly what had been in my own 21 years ago when I was told what I had and could never in my life from that point on ever get away from.

He was crushed; but then he picked himself up and said, “So you adjust. You find new patterns.”

Yes! And I told him, “I’m a nature lover. And so I bring nature to me.” I told him about the birdfeeders. About the California Thrasher the other day, the vanishingly-rare-here Zone-tailed hawk, things I would never have seen nor known.

I told him about how I felt my children had grown up to be people who see when someone is in need and they step forward to help, that they are kinder and more compassionate for what they too have had to go through with all this.

My car was done.

That’s it?

Yes, and no charge.

?!

He was very pleased.

Trying to pull out of the dealership, there was simply no turning left against the lanes of rush-hour traffic; I gave up, pulled right, went into a neighborhood, came back around and back to a long light.

Where, looking up, I saw a large bird and a small bird. Waiiit… That soaring wing pattern, that’s a raptor… As they flew gradually closer, the small bird was no small bird, it was a crow, and the one leisurely coming up behind that it was getting away from–

–I’ll be darned. It was. It was the juvenile Zone-tailed hawk. IT’S STILL AROUND HERE!!! I got to SEE it again!!! I got home, flipped through my Sibley, but no–there was nothing else that matched it. That was it. Wow. WOW.

George had mentioned at one point his mother back home in Greece.

I needed a quick grocery run this evening, and I decided to go to Trader Joe’s.

Where they had A, B, C on my list… And what I had really come for: a package of baklava for a certain automotive assistant manager to offer a piece of to his customers tomorrow for as long as the sweets last. They may not in any way equal the Old Country’s, but he clearly loves his new one, not for its perfections but, like all of life spread before him, simply as it comes.

It started with a blood draw.

My daughter Sam has ITP, idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura: the autoimmune version of hemophilia. Catch a cold or even athlete’s foot, crash the platelets as the immune system fires up in scattershot mode. (If you follow that link, she was at 10; normal is 150-400.)

And so when she arrived at the university to begin her PhD program five years ago, she needed a doctor and she needed a blood test, fast.

She got sent to the lab. The phlebotomist chatted as she set her up, and on hearing why she was there, immediately told her exactly which doctor at that clinic she should see and why, in very specific terms that had to do with how his personality would react to her history as well as his particular medical skills. He would take good care of her in a way the others would not.

And so he has. That was the doctor who, when her chart came in, I believe before he’d even met her, declared she was to be his patient, period.

That was the doctor who, this past summer, ignored her protests of that spot on her arm having been biopsied five years earlier and having come up benign; he just didn’t like the looks of it. Her ITP had gotten her sent to him just two weeks previously as well as this time, and though they hadn’t even discussed the spot nor had she thought of it, he had, and he thought it looked different this time; he was going to biopsy it again.

She saw no reason to.

No, it just felt… Now. And so he did.

A particularly aggressive melanoma but caught at the very earliest stage. Early enough that she didn’t even have to go through radiation or chemo–though they did have to take four inches out of her arm and she will have to be screened every three months for recurrences from here on out.

Hey. Beats the alternative.

We were on the phone tonight, the three of us, and Sam rather apologized to me for something she’d done.

Then she gave me the context. She told us about that phlebotomist. She told us she’s been going to that specific one ever since that first time they met, that they’ve become almost like family to each other.

I had made Sam an ethereally fine wedding-ring shawl in the softest merino, and she confessed she’d tested it once just to be sure: yup, it really did go through her ring! It was wide and beautiful and lovely and she got many compliments on every one of the rare occasions when she dared take the fragile-looking cloud of lace out to wear.

The phlebotomist had mentioned to her recently that she was to attend a wedding in the family, and that she was to wear a bright orange dress that was just too much for her; she had been wondering how on earth to tone it down, but had no ideas and no time to shop.

Sam asked: would a wide, slightly offwhite lace shawl help? A rectangle. It was certainly formal enough for a wedding. (She did not remember till I said it on the phone that I had knitted it while we drove 13 hours and back to take her to her freshman year at BYU, finishing it after the trip. Stealth knitting, right in front of her–I’d made it to tuck away for her for someday.)

As she was admitting to me she’d offered up the loan of that shawl, hoping I wouldn’t mind, to whom and why, I exclaimed, “She saved your life!”

Steps into a future that neither knew then, but still.

Sam considered the thought and, a sense of awe in her voice, answered, Yes–yes, she did.

I mentioned someone who had wanted to clean white wool with bleach; Sam shuddered, No, no, you don’t do that!

Right. They hadn’t yet and it was okay, and I taught them in time about how bleach dissolves wool and what to use safely.

Sam: I don’t think this lady would…

Me, affirming: Probably not. But if she does, I will knit you a new one.

And she knew I was saying what she’d felt too, that this woman had earned everything we could give her without reservation and together, then, we freely offered her friend all of the love that is in that shawl.

I went on to offer to knit the woman her own, for that matter.

I could hear Sam’s grateful smile across the thousands of miles.

I was off at a luncheon with some friends (thank you Mary Ellen!) and he was waiting for me to get home.

Okay. Let’s see, the parts are about this much, Costco’s having a sale to just replace the thing altogether for close enough to the same, the work involved is about the same…

And so we played plumber today. A do-it-yourself video was conferred with just to be sure. Richard, on his back under the kitchen sink, glad for that gel mat under him, trying to unscrew going one way while I tried to hold on from the top to keep the faucet parts from moving: his grip vs mine, on and on and endlessly on. It’s a good thing I knit a lot, although more regular piano practice on my part of late would have helped there, too. We tried to trade places at one point, but I simply couldn’t reach high enough. He managed not to break into a chorus of “Short People.”

“Get me an (XYZ) wrench!”

“Which one is an (XYZ) wrench? Where would I find it?” (Digging through his tool stashes. The occasional stifled heavy sigh from the man under there who wouldn’t know a merino yarn from a mink–we do understand each other. )

The assembly was rusted in, but between us we finally got it out of there. It took us all afternoon.

After much resting, pumpkin pie for dinner just because we’d earned it and our mommies weren’t watching, some knitting time for me with some sweet baby alpaca telling my hands, There there, I went over to him on impulse and said, “So between us we’re stronger than steel?”

Took him by surprise. His whole face turned into a not-quite-out-loud laugh, and he shook his head with puckered lips, “No.”

“But it made you laugh!”

We ARE stronger than steel.