I bought a vyshyvanka for my granddaughter Maddy, who’ll turn eight at Christmas, and it came today with the surprise of a beaded bracelet and beaded head covering with ribbons to tie it on with, because Nataliya is wonderful like that.

And there was this. Made of wood. It could be a small sunflower coaster, sure, and definitely a symbol for a country that grows most of the sunflower oil in the world, but all those little holes are begging for laceweight or beading thread or something and to be used as a tool.

What kind and how, though, I am guessing at because I have no idea.

For that matter you could loop yarn through one of the petals and wear it as a large necklace of about the size of all those VW emblems that were being stolen off cars right and left in the ’80’s. (I’d forgotten about the Beastie Boys and VW offering a free emblem to anyone who asked in order to save their customers’ cars and their future sales figures.)

No but seriously, if anyone’s seen one of these before, what is this? I feel like I should know.

Rescheduled twice till the original reason for it was history, I finally got in to see the neurologist today, six months after the fact. We’re still pretty new to each other.

I was knitting that blue cowl when he came in.

We talked about a bunch of stuff and then it was time to do an exam.

He had me try to stand on my toes. I managed not to fall on him but it was a near thing. He had me lift my toes to stand on my heels. Again the involuntary collapse.

He asked me to grab my cane and repeat both of those and with that extra tactility to tell my brain which direction the floor was in when parts of my feet had abandoned it I had no problem, it was as easy as sitting down.

An offhand remark: he wasn’t mansplaining, he was marveling when he just had to tell me that he’d found out that you can’t just knit something–quickly. That things like sweaters and blankets, they take a long time. A *long* time!

I chuckled. Yes. Yes, they do. I did not say, And you’ll get your turn, but I knew his appreciation had just shown me it was so.

He grabbed a pin from a tall box and poked it around. I could feel it in my hands and arms but more as a slight pressure than anything else. Legs and feet? Okay, that’s a prick point.

I discussed a little family history: (sorry for the repeats to those who’ve read these before.) My grandmother never had a headache in her life, she had no idea what it was like to have one. My cousin was born without the ability to feel pain–like the time he got hit by a car, walked home, told his brother, said he was tired and was going to go lie down, and the brother ratted him out to their nurse mom who rushed him to the hospital in time to save his life. I told him one of my kids wasn’t that bad, but definitely on that scale. And also got hit by a car as a kid and tried to shrug it off.

I had started out as normal myself but for years now my own ability has been impaired. I told him of the time my tall husband took off his undershirt, hit the overhead light, shattered it, ducked the falling glass and fell into the oak  hamper while I, still in bed, just heard the loud thump against the wall and leaped out to save him. Like I was going to pull him out of the hamper? I found myself running across broken glass.

And just sat down on the bed and laughed because we’re such a pair of klutzes–and because I knew that in five minutes I wouldn’t be able to feel the pain anymore. And I didn’t. This can be a bad thing, like during the heart attack and not calling 911 because, um, wasn’t it supposed to hurt, but at other times it can be quite handy. It’s like the bod says, Okay, listen up something’s wrong, okay now I told you–you go deal with it.

He (clearly fervently) wished he could offer his other patients a way to not hurt after five minutes and pronounced me as pretty fortunate for that. He’s right.

On my way out I found myself about to go past a quite elderly woman with a head covering I’d guess as Slavic as she was being pushed in a wheelchair, her face a blank. I was wearing my hand-embroidered, very traditional red and black on white vyshyvanka and the effect on her was instant: an energy that hadn’t been there a moment before as my shirt had her full attention and recognition, she looked up into my face in wonder and smiled. No words needed.

And I looked in her eyes and loved her too and smiled back.

I said to Richard later, not for the first time, And this is why I wear these. This is part of why I buy these.

Yes.

The Alaska afghans had a dandelion in them because I was so enchanted by the one outside the kids’ door at their old house in Anchorage that was blooming well above knee-high. And because I got to feed some to well-fenced-away elk through the chain links after the farmer there said that that was their favorite food. There were a few blooming just, just past where the animals could reach to and they were happy to grab the ends and spaghetti-slurp them up from us (and thank goodness for how long those stems were; the reindeer over to the left were tame but the elk came with warnings.)

So.

I decided this afghan needed a dandelion, too. A few rows after this you’ll be able to see better where the yarnovers settle into; it’s kind of a stick figure of a flower.

But it got me thinking of Dandelion Chocolate, because they make the best there is and the pastries to match and because bite by daily bite we had just finished off our last bar from them. Chocolate and sugar. Two ingredients. That’s all.

A few people in Ukraine are making, among other things, beaded necklaces with dandelion flowers below and their seed poofs floating off above.

On a whim, I sent them a link. Not that they need to go buy jewelry for all the staff or anything–but sometimes it’s charming to know someone created something both fun and meaningful that’s out there in the world just waiting to be admired.

Of course they loved it, but then, how could anyone not.

One of the upsides of dealing with a frustrating customer service for way too long a time in my day–I had a response in my inbox to which I flatly said No and we went back and forth from early morning till after dinner time–was that when it was finally resolved and they finally made it right I needed that knitting over there. I needed it in my hands. I needed to see progress and progress that was happening because it was doing what I told it to do when I told it to do it and it was blossoming beautifully and each stitch that I did was done and stayed done and not only that, its whole reason for being was to make a friend happy. And it happily compliantly will. And I get to enjoy the cheerful anticipation of that in every single hour while I’m working on it.

So there.

I had a routine checkup and was wearing a vyshyvanka (Etsy link) from Nataliya, a lovely woman from whom I have now bought similar ones for my granddaughters.

One was to be for Lillian’s third birthday? There was the surprise of a small bracelet of red wooden beads tucked away in the package in celebration of a child she did not know simply because she wanted to share in the joy.

The female doctor and nurse admired my blouse and I did a little advocating for Ukrainian starving artists.

But what really made my day was the older woman I passed on my way out who stopped me and with a thick Slavic accent asked, You shirt! You make eet?

A woman in Ukraine did, I explained.

Ees beautiful! Beautiful!!

She was so happy to see something clearly so familiar to her and in that moment it felt like we were offering each other this wonderful, mystical sense of a universal place called home.

Next Tuesday, Amazon said. The box showed up today. Ask me if I mind.

Comes assembled, they said. But, it turns out, screw the knob on the drawer yourself, lady. Yeah, I think we can handle that. (Note the lack of application of said knob. That drawer came in handy already!)

I tested out the setup by talking with my mom while trying not to lean on its slight wobbliness, and we now know that my sister Carolyn’s name types out as Kill Christmas. You know, I can actually do that kind of word mangling better than it can but it’s trying.

Speaking of whom, she and her husband have been househunting online. A few days ago, she flew to see her grandkids in Ohio with a day trip to the town in New York where she’s been looking. On that very day the most perfect house for them went up for sale–and now it’s theirs. Great condition and reasonably priced, to top it off. And she got to see it in person. Because it was on the one day.

I can’t wait to see what she does with her new horse carriage in back. Would it kill Christmas if I asked her for a pony? Always wanted one when we were kids.

Nina got her peaches and dried apricots from Andy’s and I threw in some of his plums, too. The lady at his farm agreed with me that fruit straight off the tree was the perfect homecoming after time in the hospital.

My heart monitor came off and went in the mail per protocol.  So did a birthday present for Lillian, who is turning three whether her Grammy can fathom that number so soon or not.

Writing all this it suddenly struck me what it was that I didn’t do today and I didn’t even think of it till just now: I didn’t knit.

Wait, how did that happen?

About twenty years after she moved away, M-L was here at church today, catching up with old friends: she was on a trip that took her close enough to here that she couldn’t pass up the chance.

I cannot begin to say how much it meant to get to see her.

We laughed over memories of her twin toddlers being told to offer Oreos to my husband and those two adorable little boys sneaking around the corner, snarfing down the creme centers, putting the cookies back on the plate, and proudly offering up the soggy remains as if no one could possibly ever catch on.

Her husband was the one who, during the flood of ’96, opened his front door to see if any water was backing up, just time to see their koi from their backyard pond swimming past his feet. Brad loved to tell that story.

He was also the first person in the county they’d moved to to contract covid, when even the tests for it were new. The first one there to survive the ventilator. He wrote a rare-for-him Facebook post that day of his intense love for his family, his gratitude to all who’d taken care of him, his plans to hike in Finland with his family the next year where his wife’s mother was from. He was going to go to rehab to build his strength back up and then at long last, home!

He stood up at the side of the bed–and was suddenly gone. This was before they knew covid causes blood clots.

I’ve long kept in touch with M-L, but to get to see her and share in person the love and the support and the grief and the pride in her now-grown kids and mine just meant so much.

We got home. I had an email waiting. Richard made a phone call and was out the door but told me not to come and not to be exposed. Were visitors allowed? As he explained afterwards, Part of being visiting clergy is an inability to read when you need not to.

And so he in his K95 mask got to visit our friend Nina, who is in the hospital with meningitis, and to be there for her husband, who knew Richard would know what this is like.

I tried to keep her company before and after by email while trying not to wear her out. I know how responding to even the most appreciated message or in-person visit can wear out a sick body even while reviving one’s spirit.

She is delighted at my new phone gadgetry and could I call her on it, she asked.

Today? Or would tomorrow be better, I asked.

Tomorrow.

I told her I’m looking forward to it.

I didn’t call you but I didn’t call anybody else either yet so don’t feel bad. The one call so far was made by the tech to the company to do that one last step to get me officially registered by having them hear me say yes I’m me and yes I want this.

What I did do was order a 31″ tall foot-square table afterwards (with a drawer! The thing doesn’t need a drawer. Who knows, but still, I got the one with the drawer) to put it on. It’s actually wood and, the kicker, no assembly required (yay!) and under $100. Sold. I’d had no idea I was going to be buying furniture today, but the woman said, You have a table? You’ve got to have a table. She couldn’t imagine me sitting down on the floor every time I got on the phone.

So we set it up on a box for the moment–and I sat down on the floor to try the thing out. I like breaking people’s brains that way.

The box kept trying to flip its lid.

So.

There’s this small tax on your phone bill and mine that we’ve all paid all our lives towards accessibility. And what that means is that if you go to an audiologist and have your hearing loss documented, that audiologist can then call CapTel, who, after verifying that you have internet, will then send a technician out to your house. They will install a machine that does what human transcribers listening in on your calls used to do: it routes your call through their system which automatically transcribes it into captions on a mini iPad-sized screen next to your keypad.

There was about a one second lag time between speech and caption but hey, there were captions. Slow is better than no.

There’s also a volume setting that goes to too loud even for me, and I didn’t know there was such a thing. And one where you can change the voice to lower pitched, or, if you’re a rare case, higher ones so you can follow better.

You can only have one answering machine: it or a regular one, and we have a regular one and Richard was busy working and I wasn’t going to make a unilateral decision and wasn’t sure I wanted to save captions of spammers anyway. Easily deleted, of course, but, so, we didn’t set that part up.

I didn’t use my new gadget yet.

I think I’m a little afraid of being disappointed if it isn’t perfect. The guy on the other end that one time had an accent that the captions bungled and I wasn’t sure of the vocal quality either; I just need to try it out with more voices and get over being new to this.

We are all going to trip over that unfamiliar piece of furniture-to-be in the hallway at one point or another–because the main in the kitchen where we were going to set it up didn’t work (who knew?) and the only other place we could make it work was outside Michelle’s old room. Which means a chair in the hallway, too, oh heck throw in a footrest, right? (Uh…) I told the tech I was glad I’d told the architect during a remodel years ago that I wanted that new space to have room for any future wheelchair to turn around in easily.

I want to be able to hear my mom. And that is what finally got me to blow off the pandemic and get this in motion and welcome what turned out to be a very lovely stranger into our house.

I said to her at the end, It must be wonderful being able to make it so people can communicate again.

Her face lit up as she exclaimed, Yes! And then she begged me to get the word out so more people could have this. “The government doesn’t advertise,” she said and a moment later said it again, but if only people knew! They pay for it anyway and it could do so much more good in so many more lives.

I promised I would pass the good word along.

The contrast: I read recently that you generally don’t see treetops all entangled in each other because they can sense each other’s growing ends and turn out of the way. I imagine they avoid some degree of future fragility that way.

And then there’s this.

Someone designed an experiment to see how a low-growing rosette-leaved ground cover in pine forests interacted with its environment. Because, science. They designed a gizmo to measure how much a leaf pushed it out of the way in 24 hours’ time: testing repeatedly, they found it put out pressure about equal to lifting a dime.

The kicker is that the plant is named Elephantopus–now there’s a safari-and-sea portmanteau for you, who thought that one up? And the force it exerts vs its size and weight is equal to the capability of an actual elephant.

No word from the octopus family on the matter.

They studied one next to some up-and-coming rye grass: it folded its leaf in such a way as to block out twenty shoots’ worth and hog all the sunlight for itself and starve out its competition. Scrappy little thing.

I’m picturing the tulip poplars up there looking way down and going, Now kids. Behave.

Our school district held to the traditional Tuesday-after-Labor-Day opening long after that was no longer fashionable. Years ago we got next-day camping spots at Yosemite, passing school bus after school bus as we drove there–and ran into a family we knew who were doing the same thing: no six month wait, just call and come right in, everybody else’s kids were in class.

The good old days.

Our friends Phyl and Lee throw a ‘last Saturday of summer!’ pool party every year before school starts. We older parents all remarked how odd it felt that that meant today.

Richard and I always arrive late when the sun is low.

I wasn’t about to go swimming with a heart monitor on, but sitting around the pool with old friends at a potluck, that we were definitely into. Made new friends who let me hold their baby.

All of this by way of saying that if you ever make my chocolate hazelnut torte recipe as four dozen mini cupcakes, if you get them in the oven and five minutes later see the bowl still sitting there on the counter waiting to go into the batter that has the half pound of hazelnut puree/cocoa/salt and you exclaim AAAGH! loud enough to be heard across the house and you only got the quarter pound of hazelnuts in that was a different step of the process–no worries. It’s all good. Yes the texture is more crisp cookie on top and a smoother texture than usual below because it’s got all that extra sugar relative to the ingredients that actually went into it, and not a whole lot of Cuisinarted nuts.

The verdict? They were devoured fast and I’m glad I saved a few here for breakfast.

I do have that half pound of waiting hazelnut meal with cocoa in it to play with, though. Whip some egg whites and sugar to meringue them into cookies? That’s my guess so far.

A Zio. Who thought that’s what it should be called?

No exercise nor shower for 24 hours. Push this button when anything happens and write down the events when they do.

(Getting out of bed and turning on the light and finding a pen and trying to sound coherent at 3 a.m. is not high on my list.)

So yeah, out of an abundance of caution the cardiologist decided to put me back on a heart monitor for two weeks so that’s what I did for fun today. I found myself the first few hours reaching to scratch that unfamiliar pressure a bit and freaking, Don’t DO that did you push the stupid button tell me you didn’t! I didn’t. I think.

By tomorrow it won’t feel like such a novelty. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never done this before.

My little sister thought this one was cool, and she’s right: a 6000 square foot 1920 house near the shore of Lake Michigan that some guy decided to thatch. (One building site in the UK said thatched roofs last 50-60 years, but you have to put new thatch on top every two. Just as a warning.)

Here’s a little history of the place in case you ever wanted to live like a very rich hobbit.

Then there’s this other one, which comes with its own cave. Where they had a tree. And they built a house. And they incorporated the tree into the walls of the house both inside and out and if you want to walk down that hall, well, climb or crawl, buddy.

Whoever buys that absolutely needs to have an indoor cat to explore those limbs.

And absolutely needs not to have a dog.

It was a good old-fashioned Bay Area summer day today–meaning, when the breeze blew it was actually a bit chilly. It’s how it used to be most of the time when we moved here thirty-five years ago.

The doors at church were open for the fresh air after a rash of covid cases last month.

I’d brought a Coolibar sun jacket to wear walking to and from the car; it doesn’t wrinkle and it easily stuffs down into a purse  and I really do need protection from even that much UV.

I’d almost brought a wool cardigan instead, though, and sitting there with that breeze coming right in at us I was wishing I had. Coolibar to the rescue near the beginning of the service.

When we broke for Sunday School, Suzie came up and told me she’d been wondering if I was wearing one of my Ukrainian shirts today. She hadn’t been able to tell from behind with that jacket on.

I was.

She was relieved: People forget, she told me, like it’s not still going on. She was really glad I wore those.

I was surprised and quite gratified. I’d bought them to make a difference to artists under siege trying to still make a living in the middle of the war. I’d had no idea it made one to her, too, but it did, it meant a lot, and her conveying that meant a lot to me in turn.

And I thought, we’re at the empty nester stage where I can afford to splurge on such things; she’s in the throes of the kids in college and soon to be in college stage. I remember how it was.

I would pronounce one a hand-me-down and share it if we were at all the same size.

The termite guy came a few days ago to do the annual inspection.

His eyes studiously avoided the Andy’s peaches on the kitchen table that were smelling like every perfect golden orb of summer truly ought to. So just before he went out the door, I punctured his resolve by asking him if he’d like a Baby Crawford and a Kit Donnell I’d bought at my favorite local farm? (Picking them up and holding them out to him.)

You should have seen his face! He was so looking forward to those and so happy at being shared with.

There are new neighbors moving in across the street–tomorrow, according to my former neighbor who now rents the place out.

Only, as I was reading his text this morning, I saw a young family walking around the front yard there for just a minute or two, apparently showing their little kids what the place that was soon going to be home looked like. So it wouldn’t feel like a stranger to them but a new place to look forward to exploring.

I did a quick debate: I need to return the empty boxes to Andy’s but they’re the best things for not squishing easily bruised fruit around little kids and how many should I and I need to go introduce myself so okay what should I put these in…

They were already walking back to their car.

I opened the door and tried, but they were out of earshot and I’ll just have to wait for tomorrow.

Which was probably actually better; those few I had left were a week old and I really ought to get a fresh set for them–a thought aided and abetted by an incoming message from my friend Catherine asking if I were going anytime soon and could I pick her up a box of peaches if I did….

That settled it. I drove to Morgan Hill. Another box of Kit Donnells, Andy’s late friend he’d named his new variety after, another of Baby Crawfords, and Catherine and I could mix and match on those later (and did.) I threw in some Sweet Cherry Pluerries and some Green Gauge plums.

The clerk, recognizing me with a smile, asked as she checked out my fruit what I was going to make with all those.

The heart had only one instant answer to that and it surprised us both.

“Friends.”

She did a little gasp for joy and looked me in the eyes and exclaimed, “Yes!”

The nurse on the phone: “You’re a complicated case.” She wasn’t even sure which doctor to refer me to, and I said I’d wondered the same thing so I’d decided to throw it all in the lap of my primary care and let her decide.

The upshot is that we already know I have the autoantibodies for both hyper- and hypo- thyroidism and that they usually cancel each other out but since the hyper- speeds up the heart, let’s test that first. So I drove over to the lab.

Okay, not that. Next!

The phone rang after I looked up my results: they’ll call back and let me know what the next step is. But if I have a night like Friday again, go to the ER, okay?

Yes’m. I told her that 30+ years of lupus had left me a little too blasé about such stuff and I apologized for that.

Meantime, for those who didn’t hear, there was a surprise at the Newport Folk Festival on Sunday: Joni Mitchell, who  had polio as a kid and a brain aneurysm awhile ago and hasn’t done a set on stage in twenty years, showed up and sang with Brandi Carlisle.

Who cried a little for sheer joy and love and I think so did everybody else, including me. Go Joni.