Today is the day. There was one year where all four of my kids were teenagers. Adolescence is officially over here.

Twenty years ago, both my daughters needed surgery, and both the doctors involved wanted to schedule it for the day of or the day after my due date. Um, this doesn’t work. Picture a small child under anesthesia at the outclinic surgery center, the mom going into labor, and the dad stuck, torn between the two, not being able to just leave his child, but his wife needing to go to the hospital–especially since my labor time had been halved each successive pregnancy and this was my fifth pregnancy, the fourth to survive to fullterm.

What do you do?

So I did what I do. I prayed hard. God, You know, and I have not a clue.

I woke up in the middle of that night from a vivid dream of having just had the baby and looking at the clock. I knew in that moment what day John was going to be born and what time. He was not going to come on his due date and get to be a Feb 29th baby after all.

I called the girls’ doctors and was able to move one surgery up a week, the one that just couldn’t wait; the other, I moved back. I told them I was having the baby on the 7th (nobody asked; let them assume a planned C-section or inducement if they wanted, had they asked me I’d have told them straight out why I was saying that.)

And then at 1:05 pm on March 6th I started labor. Hey! According to past history, this one was supposed to last less than an hour! Okay, whatever. There was a concert at church that evening, and I went. Someone asked me how I was doing, and I cheerfully chirped, “I’m three minutes apart.”

“What are you DOING here!?” they demanded.

I sat down, the music began, the labor stopped, I enjoyed the concert, I stood up at the end, and boom, I was in labor again. I guess John wanted to take some time off and listen to that piano too before he really got to work.

He arrived forty-seven minutes after midnight, exactly on time and exactly as I’d dreamed it. The biopsy on his two-year-old sister’s cells had come back precancerous but they’d caught it in time and she was okay; her doctor told me he was glad we hadn’t waited.

And I’m glad John waited until we could get her squared away. But then, he’s always been a considerate and very kind child.

Happy birthday, big guy. And if any of my readers are in Texarkana, Texas at the moment, (he’ll probably spend some time in Louisiana and Mississippi later) and you see some of those Mormon missionaries go by in their dark suits and white shirts on their bikes, wave hi to Elder Hyde for me and tell him his momma loves him.

Scene: college apartment with four girls in it, ’79 or so. I loved to bake; Kay tried very occasionally, mostly cookies, but pretty much left the oven to me.

One day, though, she decided to make some I think it was banana bread, but some type of quick bread, anyway. Only instead of putting in the 1/4 tsp of baking soda that was called for, she put in 1/4 cup. The loaf rose beautifully (um…) and she was quite proud of herself. She invited all her roomies to dig in as she sliced us each a piece and put them on plates. Hey. We were being high-class here in the solemnity of the occasion.

Roommate #1: “Um, Kay…”

Roommate #2: “What did you DO to this?!”

Roommate #3 (that would be me): “That’s really good, Kay,” (finishing it off), “can I have a second piece?”

Gaack. It was as bad as you think it sounds. But I was nothing if not a loyal friend; Kay and I had been roommates since our freshman year, and I wanted to encourage her to keep trying what I enjoyed doing. I didn’t want her baking career to stop cold on the spot.

Ever since that day, I have not cared for the taste of soda in food. Especially bread. If the recipe calls for it, I substitute baking powder. Chocolate chip cookies? Why do that to a good cookie? Don’t tell me it’s to neutralize the acid, I know the theory, theories don’t make food taste better, soda is soda, I make cranberry orange bread without the stuff and it’s wonderful my way and that’s about as acidic as you could ask for.

Now. Here, from the chocolateandzucchini.com website, is the world’s best blueberry cake. I notice that it has a smidgen of soda in it right now; the author has put it in and taken it out from time to time, trying to decide. My copy is printed out from when it wasn’t in there. I can guarantee you (taking a bite) that you just can’t improve on it my way. And half a cup of butter to three cups of blueberries? How can you go wrong? I use a non-runny plain (but definitely not nonfat) yogurt, frozen berries.

Go ahead, try it. Impress the people who live at your place.

I had an email conversation last night with a friend who grew up on the Virginia side of the Potomac River from me; she mentioned that using “sir” and “ma’am” was always a mark of respect, and her culture shock at finding that her more-Northern relatives thought she was sassing them.

I grew up on the Maryland side of the river, where “sir” was very much a part of the conversation, “ma’am,” though, not so much. When I was quite little I had some teachers who expected it, but “sir,” that one, we never outgrew. It was polite speech on up to putting the guy on a pedestal, depending on the tone of voice and the context, but it was always positive.

Here in California my car was once hit by a guy who seemed to have had a few, and when I tried to exchange insurance information with him, he at one point bellowed, “Stop calling me SIR!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m a Southerner.” (Oh, bright move, Alison, call him sir while apologizing for calling him sir. And I don’t really think of myself as a Southerner, although I’m from south of the Mason-Dixon line, but it was the best fast explanation.) Apparently he thought I was calling him a doddering old fool. Um… I thought I was doing the opposite, even if he didn’t deserve it.

It hit me after that friend and I chatted that I’d called that eye doctor “sir” in my post earlier in the day, and I’m sure he didn’t mind one bit if he read it, but I’m laughing at myself for missing the potential cultural difference. Hon, I ain’t sassin’ nobody. He earned that honorific.

Got it done, got it delivered. Okay, here’s the story:

Remember when I missed that second play date with Lyn?

An eye doctor who teaches at Stanford has a patient who is in my lupus group, who asked him if he would come and speak to us. He told her he’d be glad to. When he came, he clearly had spent many hours putting together a powerpoint presentation so we could see slides of what he was talking about, and written descriptions on more slides to help us remember the details.

At one point, he said, This is what iritis looks like–but you don’t have to worry about it, it’s very rare and only 4% or less of lupus patients get it.

I raised my hand and said, I’ve had it.

A few minutes later, he put up a slide of optic neuritis, again assuring us, But this is rare.

Guess who raised her hand slightly, with a slight nod of the head. He immediately came back with, That’s more common with MS, have you been tested for MS?

Spinal tap. Yup. Negative. I didn’t add that when the neurologist told me I had to hold absolutely still curled up afterwards for half an hour, I asked his nurse if I could knit; after hemming and hawing, she told me, well, that’s a new one, I guess so! So in the position I was told I had to stay in, I was holding my daughter’s sweater above my head, stitching away with it dangling onto my nose and thinking I must really be crazy to be doing this–but my Christmas deadline was looming… (My fellow knitters understand that one.)

Doctor V. said something about anti-inflammatories, and I shrugged, I go completely deaf on one dose of NSAIDs. Not an option. Oh. Steroids, then. Steroids don’t touch my lupus, I admitted. I told him, Remicade saved my life after my lupus spread to my GI tract, giving me symptoms of classic Crohn’s, but it gave me congestive heart failure; permanent chemo is it.

I saw the tears that leaped to his eyes, and I was suddenly glad I hadn’t mentioned the dysautonomia or the car accident to pile it on. I wanted to throw my arms around him and comfort him and tell him, it’s okay! Really, it is!

Because his tearing up had hit me right where I live. Someone knew. Someone who was a doctor, who knew what all those meant, who was there for me. It mattered to him. Thank you, sir, more than I can say.

At Stitches, I told Lisa Souza about that doctor and that day, and her reaction was to *give* me a hank of her silk/merino Max yarn she’d dyed in her Sky Drama colorway for me to go knit up for him as a thank you from her, too. To express her gratitude as well for his empathy and kindness in taking so much time to be there for patients he hadn’t even ever met before. For giving two hours out of his day, plus transportation and all that preparation time, answering every possible question for us. He’s a good one. She wanted to tell him so, too.

The Carlsbad scarf and story in the book that mentioned my eyes? Her silk in Sky Drama.

And so I made another Carlsbad scarf for this good man’s wife with Lisa’s generosity. It had to wait till all the Stitches knitting was done, it had to wait till the Lunasea Silkie for Andy got finished, but at last I got a chance to get to it.

And it is now where it needs to be. Being a tangible reminder of our gratitude–Lisa’s, mine, every patient’s in attendence at that lecture–for an eye doctor who truly sees and who was willing to give so freely of himself.

Thank you, sir. My best to you and your family.

I have to write here my reaction to Channon’s comment:

Warrenton! I was at what was supposed to be a five-day-long girls’ camp in Virginia that got evacuated during Hurricane Agnes.  According to Wikipedia’s dates, I would have been thirteen; memory says I was twelve.  Anyway.

We got as far as Warrenton on our way home on a bus before we got told we weren’t going anywhere else, all the bridges were underwater. The person who had all the food in her car had made it home, but the bus behind her, unknown to her, had sunk in the mud when it had come to pick us up and had been delayed by having to be towed out of it–and a tow truck big enough to haul a bus stuck at an out-of-the-way location took awhile to find, while the rain kept piling up. So there we were that night, no food, no place to go, no way home. The Mormon Church in Warrenton, with a brand new building, took in all these muddy kids, and we slept on their floor for a couple of days till the waters receded enough to let us go on. Someone that the adults knew from church back home in Maryland was also stuck in town, and he let the kids go to his hotel room, several at a time, so they could use the shower and feel human again.

The camp counselor showed up at McDonald’s the first morning and ordered, “Sixty-five Egg McMuffins to go, please.” After that, the people at the church took over, bringing food. They weren’t a large congregation, and there were an awful lot of us. We were there for, if I remember right, two nights.

And so you see, I have a very soft spot in my heart for the folks in Warrenton, Virginia. Good people.

Meantime, here are a few more Stitches photos from my friends.

Lyn.

Jan.

Jocelyn.

Nancy.

Catie.

Vera.

I don’t have pictures of everybody, so if anyone has more, shoot me an email, would you? Thanks.

Tina at Blue Moon Fiber Arts wrote back in delight: you’re a Camel fan too?!

Yup. Pink Floyd meets a Jethro Tull-ish flute. Their “Never Let Go” song with its words, “Man was born with a will to survive…never let go!” was my inner theme song I kept turning to and playing in my head five years ago while I was in critical condition. It was both motivation and comfort.

I had asked Tina why she’d named this colorway Lunasea, and mentioned that it was the name of a Camel song and that that was why I was interested in it. Yes, she told me, that was it. She had asked her customers to help name her new colorway, someone had volunteered that, and because she was an old fan of the band, Lunasea had totally won out.

Nine days before that hospital stay started, I was in my doctor’s office in bad shape after a month’s worth of refractory Crohn’s, saying I had concert tickets for that night in Santa Cruz, an hour away, and I really, really wanted to go. But I would skip it if he told me to.

Go if you want to go, he assured me. Have a good time.

My friend Michelle, whom I later designed the Monterey shawl for partly as a thank you for taking me, was an old Camel fan too; her mother was a Crohn’s patient, so she was perfectly understanding of my not being sure till about 6 pm whether I was going to make it. But at the last moment, I called her and told her, oh, c’mon, let’s just go!

Andy Latimer’s group had a song with lyrics that pertained to spinning and weaving, and I at one point months earlier had had a short email conversation with them on the subject. There was also an album I ordered where they had accidentally duplicated an earlier order instead, and I wondered how on earth to return it when the simple errand of running to buy another shipping envelope or new tape to reseal the original package was, just then, a huge deal to me, since I was ill. In the end, I simply re-ordered the one I wanted and told them, I grew up in an artistic household, I’m a little protective of artists, I’ll just give the extra copy to Michelle and everybody’s happy. Don’t sweat it.

That evening, watching them from right near the front, they hadn’t toured in some time, and Andy looked a little out of breath a few times as he played. I thought, it must be tough to keep on rocking on stage as you age. But they clearly had a good time, they played numerous encores to a packed, cheering crowd at The Catalyst, and a fine evening was had by all.

Since this was the kick-off concert to their tour, their plan was to mingle with the crowd afterwards to celebrate.

And so Michelle and I got to introduce ourselves to Andy. And–he knew who I was! When I told him my name, he exclaimed, “OH!”

And then, with a tenderness in his voice that surprised me, he asked me gently, “How’s your health?”

Such a different effect from the proud man I’d just seen playing his heart out on that stage. I… The last thing on earth I wanted to do just then was whine about Crohn’s, or anything else for that matter, not after getting to actually go and actually hear them play and triumphing over all that. I kind of turned away a moment–and then spoke to the truth: I looked up at him straight in the eyes, and gently, gratefully laughed, “I’m here.”

That hit him hard, somehow, and he turned half away himself for a moment. Then he, too, turned back to me, and said quietly, looking back in my eyes, a heartfelt “Yes.”

In that moment we were both entirely there for each other. Whatever may come to you. I care how you do. Be well as you go forth from now.

I had no idea…

There was an email in my inbox last fall: Andy had had, for years, a mild case of a disease that impaired his blood’s ability to take up oxygen. (OH!) It had suddenly taken a rapid turn for the worse and he was about to have a bone marrow transplant.

Monday, there was a follow-up email: he’d been doing well, but at 90 days post-transplant he had just had a serious setback and was back in the hospital. Light a candle for Andy, was his wife Susan’s hope. Send whatever hope or vibes or thoughts you might want to for Andy’s sake. The doctors were reassuring, but it was so hard to be back in the hospital…

Oh honey, don’t I know it.

And so the Lunasea Silkie yarn that Tina sent me to knit up for Andy got knitted the last few days; Stitches is over, their crisis is now, it was time to get that knitting DONE.

I usually wait till the recipient has gotten their surprise before I say anything. This time I’m not waiting. I know how much prayers, candles, Thinking Good Thoughts, for me it’s prayer, but whatever people feel comfortable with–I know how much of a difference it made to me back in the day. And so I pass Susan Hoover’s request along. For the man who was willing to meet me, a stranger, where I was when I was the one who was sick.

Andy? If you read this? Man was born with a will to survive. Be well, friend.

This is Cris in her Julia shawl in Jade Sapphire cashmere that she wore at the banquet Saturday night.

Meantime, a few weeks ago, when I couldn’t get the computer to accept my camera card for https://spindyeknit.com/2008/02/berry-time-for-bigfoot/, it was a warning sign that the computer itself was about to blow. Which it did. (This is the WIP I was trying to show.) I quietly posted from a different one for a little while till the hubby fixed it, and laughed that, oh, well, maybe I was supposed to leave this shawl more of a surprise than that.

Which it was.

Lyn used to manage Creative Hands, a yarn shop in Belmont. She moved to North Carolina after living here for forever and was sorely missed by her friends when she left. She came back this month to see a new grandchild and to hang around for Stitches, and you know the amount of time spent with an old friend is never enough.

Meantime, I had this Lisa Souza alpaca/silk yarn that was lovely but that was a bit towards the gray side for me. And yet it leaped with glee onto my needles two weeks ago and announced which pattern it wanted to be when it grew up, and it felt so joyful to finally be letting it become itself that the knitting worked up very quickly. I had a great sense of anticipation as I played with it, wondering… Who?…

Lyn set up a–well, a play date is the best description I can think of–at Creative Hands for people who wanted more time to visit with her. Two, actually, and I got to go to the first, but for the second, I just couldn’t make it. There was an eye doctor who teaches at Stanford who had volunteered to speak that day to the lupus group I attend, and it was imperative to me that I be there. Crum.

But that disappointment helped clarify what I needed to know, and then it just felt so obvious: that Berry Poppins colorway, how the pink and the purple melted into those soft fibers, those were exactly perfect for Lyn; I’d seen those colors on her many times. She loved handpaint yarns. And I knew.

Nancy Weber, who used to work with Lyn at the shop, was in on it with me. I was trying to figure out the best way to get it to Lyn but I kept missing her at Stitches. After we took our seats at the banquet, my last chance before she flew home, Nancy said, “Here.” (Since I just wasn’t very mobile.) And she took it over to Lyn’s table as if she were at a bar, telling her, “The woman at that table over there wanted to offer you this.”

Lyn, stunned, opened it, stood up in slow motion, came over and threw her arms around me, wiping tears and saying it would be a comfort to her when she went back to North Carolina.

Which is exactly what I’d wanted. For it to be a comfort and a reminder of her friends’ caring.

Who were all about to pull off something major themselves for my own sake, and I just truly had no idea either till it happened.

 (Edited to add later: actually, he said “Wrapped in Comfort by Alison Hyde” over and over, but it sounded too full-of-myself to write my own name over and over when I posted this.)

So many stories. SO much to say. My goodness.

Someone came up behind me yesterday at the show, brushing a hand lightly on my shoulder to get my attention as she stepped in front of me and beamed, “I love that book! I see you got the yarn to make the same shawl as the one in the book!”

Oh my goodness. Um, yes. I burst out laughing, and then thoroughly enjoyed myself as she exclaimed “Ohmygosh you’re the AUTHOR?!”

But the best part of all was at the end. They had been going to surprise me. But then they realized they’d better make sure I was going–and actually, I had had no intention till that point, I knew that three days of Stitches was absolutely going to do me in (it always does, but my goodness, what a way to go), and then the evening banquet on top of that? No way.

But I had to attend when they ratted themselves out and let me know what they were planning.

The dinner was followed by Rick Mondragon of XRX, the sponsor of Stitches, and someone whose name I just couldn’t hear MC’ing an event that included having knitters parade down a catwalk with their creations.

My scooter is not compatible with holding a cane, so I hadn’t brought one. I know, my husband’s been telling me I need a collapsible one that fits in my purse, he’s right. Anyway, the scooter was dying the death again by evening, and I managed to get it into the banquet hall and plug it in, found myself a spot and sat down and was joined shortly by my friends.

When it came time for the runway, they were calling people up alphabetically. Jocelyn sent a note up to the stage. A moment of off-mike hemming ensued. Okay.

So then, at pretty much the end–I don’t think anyone paraded after them, I think we became the grand finale, but then, I was pretty distracted by then so if I’m being egocentric by saying that, I apologize–ten friends from my knitting group went up together. They did the police lineup thing together on the stage.

Another friend gave me an arm and helped me over to a temporarily-empty seat near the end of the runway so that I could see better. My left side kept trying to collapse, and I was unsteady, to say the least. My friends weren’t going to let that stop them. They had already agreed I was to be moved over there, and move me they did.

And then Rick had the ones on stage parade down, one by one, as he called out, “This is Fae. She’s wearing the Julia shawl in Lisa Souza’s merino in the What-A-Melon colorway from ‘Wrapped in Comfort.’ …This is Cris. She’s wearing the Julia shawl in Jade Sapphire Cashmere in black from ‘Wrapped in Comfort.’ …This is Jocelyn. She’s wearing the “Peace of Mind” shawl in Sea Silk from ‘Wrapped in Comfort.’ …This is Vera. She’s wearing the Bigfoot shawl in (mumble, sorry) from ‘Wrapped in Comfort.’

And on and on. Lyn raised her arms high as she twirled at the end of the catwalk, showing the full scale of the circle and the effect of the pattern. The crowd cheered.

When they were done, Rick had me stand and be acknowledged. I was fighting tears. Wow. Someone I did not even know was kind enough to tell me afterwards she had been, too.

And then the one friend close by stood, took me by the arm, and helped me stagger back to my own chair.

And then those women in their shawls came off the stage, went straight to the back of the room, grabbed me, and took photos with multiple cameras of all of us together. (Although the one in the zinnia scarf escaped.) I was throwing my arms around them, and there were more tears. How can you thank your friends enough when they… What I wouldn’t have done to have had Richard see all this… Rick was so wonderful in letting us put on a display from a book his company hadn’t been the ones to publish…

Wow.

At the end, I got my scooter back and got someone to flag Rick down for me as people were leaving. I thanked him profusely for what he’d let happen. There was a genuineness and a warmth in him as he responded.

And I said gratefully to Nancy as she drove me home, and Lisa, who’d manned my camera for me, that that was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

And to think I’d almost missed it.

I asked my hubby if the chair would still hold a charge overnight while parked outside in the car in the cold. Okay, relative cold, low 40’s, it’s California, I know, people here don’t know from cold.

Answer was, he wasn’t sure.

In the parking lot this morning in Santa Clara, I thought, oh no. Every time I started up the scooter, the battery indicator flashed on red and stayed there–and yet, every time I stopped, it was full on the green. But I was too tired still from yesterday to do anything but just get on anyway and wish at it, Go chair go, and go, thank goodness, somehow, it did.

I again had the time of my life visiting friends old and new, with an extra bonus: Robert showed up! I introduced him to a few friends between signing books at Pam’s Pacific Meadows booth; I told Pam this story (skip down a few paragraphs to go past the knitting pattern details in the way.) He showed me pictures of the medicine blankets the kids in his class are weaving for others; he’s teaching the next generation to give of their creativity and to think about the needs of others with their work.

So many so kind people, and I got to where I found myself spelling joy backwards–and I am not dyslexic. What was my maiden name again? Oh, yeah.  I was exhausted.

I went to go get the charger for my chair, and–picture the thing stranded in the desert. Only, instead of gasping, Water! Water! it, like a little kid, gasped for Juice! Juice! The thing died. In front of a long line of people. One guy called out to me, as I sat there thinking NOW what do I do with a hundred pounds of dead metal!, “There’s a wall socket here!”

Oh good. I hadn’t seen it between everybody’s legs. Thank you! I plugged it in, plunked myself on the floor, waited a few minutes, and roared off with the crowd in the line cheering. Okay, I’ve had lots of wheelchairs-at-Stitches stories, but I have never had a chair have a clapping, rah-rah-go get’em cheering section before. Too funny. Thanks, y’all.

I will be signing again at Lisa Souza’s booth at 11 am.

Which is exactly what I did as I wrote last night; it was late and I was cheerfully exhausted. I had such a good time at Stitches!

Kevin at Wagtail Farms in Australia and I emailed back and forth a bit in the last week or two; I had that Julia shawl I’d done from a single skein of his kid mohair. Would he like me to bring it so he could display what one could accomplish with his yarn? Sure!

What he wasn’t expecting was the questions he got from me last night: did he have anyone back home who would love that deep teal color? (He was clearly wondering, where are you going with this?!…)

It took a few minutes for it to really sink in. But when it did, I got to see the love in his face for his sister and for his mother as he debated out loud which of them to give it to; his mother seems to have won out (I hope I’m not causing trouble by saying that!) I can understand that; honor thy mother is half of one of God’s top ten. He tried one more time–don’t you want to come by Sunday and pick it up? Nope. He talked about offering yarn in exchange, and I was fine with that, but really, I’d already been paid. He loves his family. I got to see him glowing with that love. How many times do we let strangers in to see what really matters to us? I feel pretty privileged. How could I ask for more?

My husband and I went camping in the Shenandoah Mountains in Virginia on our honeymoon. Borrowed his folks’ trailer for it; we did it civilized style, y’all. Even if his grandmother got his little sisters to sneak open the camper and throw rice inside the sheets beforehand.

We were toasting marshmallows over a campfire one night–I mean, isn’t that one of the reasons people go camping? The marshmallows? You’ve got to find just the right stick for it, you’ve got to get the fire burning down to just so. There’s an art to it. Besides, when you’re learning all about this new person you’re now married to “for time and all eternity,” and he’s 22 and you’re 21 (and a half–don’t forget that half) and you’re just starting your way into life in the first place, really, who knew that he had the patience to hold that stick there like that, waiting and holding his high, turning it slowly like a spit till the entire marshmallow was (for him) just the right shade of medium brown all over and an even temp throughout? But why would you want to do it that way anyway? Isn’t the glory of a campfired marshmallow having it burn to a satisfying crunch on the outside while totally melting on the inside? Heh. I could not only cook but also get to eat half a dozen of mine to the time of his one, easily.

It’s all about the marshmallows.

Yeah, the skunk agreed with that assessment. And also Richard’s way of cooking the things. It sauntered out of the woods, came up between us while we sat there frozen in place in disbelief–reached over, grabbed his perfect marshmallow off his stick from right over that fire , and sat back to savor every last slow bit of it. Taking its time. The way a marshmallow ought to be enjoyed.

With its tail caressing my new husband’s arm.

He had this look on his face, turned towards me, pleading with me with every molecule in his being, Please don’t laugh. PLEASE don’t laugh.

It was all I could do, but I managed not to laugh. Or move, either.

It finished up, it ambled off happily, then it called its friends and threw a party. Bunch of gate crashers. By the time the four skunks we could see were dividing up the rest of the bag on our picnic table, we were well out of range, following their antics with our flashlights.

I’m sure nobody sells skunk-shaped chocolates; I may have to get my sweetie a bag of Campfire marshmallows for Valentine’s. He’ll know why.

Linda W’s comment about her possums with the bubble-wrap butt bows had me spontaneously bursting out giggling the whole rest of the day. Oh my goodness. I can just see it.

A note first about this picture: I never let my kids hit each other growing up, and no she didn’t; twelve years ago, my kids were play-acting whack-a-mole together on that redwood log. That thing was big enough for a tall 11-year-old boy to stand up in, and as soon as I lifted the camera, his sister gave us a variation on the classic give-your-brother-bunny-ears shot. Ergo the caption.

Now, then.  In those same woods as that picture. On the subject of raccoons…

There’s a state park in the Santa Cruz mountains not far from here, Big Basin, with one of the last local old-growth redwood forests in the area. If you make the mistake of taking the shorter route there, you get there via a long, hilly, insanely twisty lane-and-a-half-wide road, not for the faint of heart nor stomach. (I thought loudly at my husband but did not say, Barf bags in the car are from YOUR side of the family. Dear.)

We noted the “Do not feed the wildlife” signs wryly as we checked in and picked a campsite; good luck with that one. We were unloading the minivan and starting to set things up. A couple of us were putting the food over on the picnic table while others fussed with the tent when a raccoon, bold as you could ask for, came out of the woods and jumped into the back of the van and got shooed away by an indignant child. Another ‘coon snatched the bag of potato chips that had just been put down at the other end of the table from me, as I spluttered, “But I was standing right here!” while it took off with it. I was suddenly glad I’d bought the type I had.

Jalapeno flavored.

When I was growing up in a house in Maryland set back in the woods that ran alongside a ten-mile-long watershed preserve, one of the signs of spring was having a pregnant raccoon fairly often at the back door at dinnertime, nosing around the dining room window while we ate a few feet away, ready to saunter inside and swap recipes with Mom.

I remember the ugly rat-nosed possums that fell into the trashcan, and, unlike the raccoons, who had so kindly lifted the lids off for them, couldn’t always hoist themselves back out. Dad would tip the can over, give its metal bottom a good thwack with a broom (we had a genuine Fuller Brush Man model, with a metal handle), and go back inside. You couldn’t scare the thing out, he’d learned, it just faints on you and there it is; you’re certainly not about to stick your hand in and pull it out, either. But you want to teach the thing that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So, a booming thwack to reverberate in its ears a moment, a retreat, a wait for it to come to, and a hope that you made it a sufficiently unpleasant experience that it leaves.

Maybe after it’s eaten its dinner in there. All in good time, my dear man, all in good time.

We occasionally, somewhat despite our parents’ common sense, opened that back door and tried to feed the mom-coon out of our hands. It was so cute; what we really wanted to do was pet it. But there was a particular one that liked the smells that were behind us better than the stuff we were offering, and tried to slip quickly past the two of us kids sitting on the stoop and zip right on in and help itself. You know how moms are. They’re used to being in charge. We jumped quickly together to block it, and it thought better of it, but only quite reluctantly. It turned back around towards us, ready to make another attempt. That got us an, “Okay, kids–time to close that door!” And that was the last time I remember us trying to do that.

While my computer is being a cat arching its back and hissing at my camera, one of my readers sent me a picture of the friendly animal she’s got in her back yard that comes peering in the window hoping for a meal. Tunie has named him Rupert. Just don’t open the door, ‘k?

I was in Trader Joe’s yesterday, and picked up a bag of a type of apple I’d never heard of before, a Jazz apple. Huh. Well, always curious to try a new type, sure.

I ate one in the evening and immediately wanted a lifetime supply on hand. This was *good*! Where do I get me a tree of these to put in the backyard!? Longtime readers will remember my mourning the lack of Spencers in California, but oh my goodness these were what an apple is supposed to be like! Googling the name, I came up with this link.

One tangent danced me straight to another. To remembering Tim, one of the best teachers my kids ever had in school, who taught them to love to play music and to love jazz and to love one another. He taught jazz at both the middle and high schools. His older band participated in a national high school competition at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and did so well that his kids were invited to come back for the main Festival and play as professionals in the fall! Our kids aspired to be in that second band.

So we drove the family to Monterey to hear the juniors and seniors play at that competition. One of the pieces they placed with was written by one of the kids in that group. Another was Bedtime for Bigfoot. I LOVE that piece. And I loved watching those kids having the time of their lives. Tim, bless him, started them on the downbeat, and then, with a huge smile on his face and a nod to his kids, walked off the stage: this was their shining moment, they knew how to do it, and he wanted the glory to all go to them, not him. Bigfoot never had such a good time as they did that day. I can still picture them. Rock on!

They performed it again later in the year at the high school, and an hour after that concert was over, I asked my then-11-year-old son to sing me the first note of that piece. He nailed it dead on. And that’s when I absolutely knew that that child had perfect pitch too, a musician like his mom. More than, definitely–he totally outshines me now, which is a lot of fun. You know the “hum a few bars and I’ll play it?” Outrageously well? That’s him.

Tim left to pursue a doctorate and left a deep gap behind him. We still hear from him from time to time, to our great delight when he checks in. He got married last summer, and I knitted up something new: one of my circular shawls in a laceweight rather than fingering weight, designed just for them, in white, fine enough to go through a wedding ring except for being snug at those reinforced neck stitches. Better make it a man’s size wedding ring.

Bedtime for Bigfoot. As I eat my Jazz apple.

And suddenly–what, three years after I knitted and named the first one?–it hits me. Why I named my feather-and-fan-variant shawl in my book what I did. Yeah, because it’s an expansion of the Rabbit Tracks pattern, but…

Bigfoot.

And just before Tim moved away, I bought the CD of those kids playing. I play my CDs while I’m sitting knitting. Bedtime for Bigfoot. I just never, ever put it together before.

I want me more of those apples.

And let me know she did. With great delight on her part, and mine as well. The Blue Sky Alpacas scarf is blocked, bagged, mailed, and on its way to where it rightfully belongs.

And I got to see this

And this

And missed the shot of the pelican flapping its great wings and the snowy egret near it in the marsh, but I can at least give you the context of where I see them on my way to the post office.

I got passed by a late-model black Maserati utterly impatient with the speed limit, flooring it around me when he got to the dotted line in the road. I looked at his rapidly receding car and thought, you take your riches, hon. I’ve got mine. I win.

But gimme my birds back.

Eh. Next time. I’ll be back.