Small company, great products for the older grands, and all Holly‘s fault for introducing me. (A link here would be a spoiler.) I ordered early to make sure they wouldn’t be sold out but asked if they could hold off on shipping till we were home from Thanksgiving?

Sure!

(They don’t wrap, they don’t have enough staff, but putting a box to the side for a few days they could do.)

Two weeks ago we were supposed to open it, wrap everything, and get the contents on their way to family, but as Richard said today, We live in the reality-based world.

He was driving me home from the post office. I’d expected a long line and there was only so much I was up to doing yet so we’d made it an outing together.

The Christmas rush and price increase hadn’t even set in yet. Three people ahead was nothing. The two grands with birthdays this week and next should actually get those on time, too!

The flu had not caused any problem with it at all, just worries that it would. We’re good. Yay!

1.82″ of rain, way more than expected, while a tornado flipped cars up in the mountains. San Francisco had its first-ever tornado warning but Scotts Valley took the hit. (No one was killed.)

It left me musing over the words of a friend some years ago who’d grown up here and had moved over by the coast. He’d never understood why people from the East Coast said they missed ‘real weather.’ What’s so great about shoveling snow in the cold or hurricanes or storms that take out the power or all of that.

But he told me he got it now: it meant being closer to nature. We all have an innate need to connect to the natural world and weather brings it right up close and personal and humbles us.

I think (and I’m sure the guy would agree) that we can do just fine without the sky throwing a temper tantrum with heavy vehicles, but I quibble.

Meanwhile, down here, most of the rain happened at night and my hero made a grocery run this evening with nothing barring his way nor slowing him down, just a normal, calm, boring northern Californian day.

With the first sprouts of winter’s new green everywhere.

I’m going to try again tomorrow to get this to work between my phone and my answering machine, but meantime: I have for years kept a recording on that machine of my mom and dad singing Happy Birthday to me. I’m pretty sure it was from the year before my dad was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, which he survived longer than they thought he would. I’m sure they were quite disappointed they missed me for that one day. I’ve long been glad they did.

My mother and her family were all very musical. Dad, bless him, I have multiple childhood memories of the spirit just sweeping him up into the joy of the song during hymns at church–and small children turning around to stare: How do you have a grown-up who doesn’t know how to sing? And who’s so loud about it?

I remember him being embarrassed and shutting right up mid-hymn one time, and he rarely sang at all there after that, though occasionally he would as part of random happy conversations at home.

And yet, what, sixty-odd years into their marriage? That recording sounds so sweet to my ears. They do say couples become more alike as they age, and Mom and Dad were so good for each other.

Love you, Mom!

And next week we get to call her and sing Happy Birthday. Let’s see if we can get my much-missed Dad singing along with us.

Oh Amazon you silly. Yes every December you raise prices relentlessly as Christmas gets closer while pretending not to, it can be quite annoying. Yes you know how to cash in on your customers’ procrastination.

But seriously (watching it jump overnight from 7.11 to 9.99.) On what planet is someone going to give their nearest and dearest cotton ostomy covers to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child?

The rest is not my story to tell, but this is: last week, when I spent the first three and a half days pretty much flat out in bed, on that fourth day when I was just barely functioning but at least up after noon, I found myself randomly doing a google search and finding something that surprised me. The very first item.

Which was nice, and hey (passing it along to the relevant person) you might be interested, I said.

Having no idea the context into which that email would fall nor how greatly both it and the timing of it would matter.

We talked on the phone tonight and I said, Dad’s still looking out for you.

Last week he was a total hero and took the bins to the curb for morning pickup.

Today I was the one who was feeling stronger so I did.

Looking up and down the street, I wondered, Wait. Where are all the others?

I came back inside and stared in disbelief at my phone claiming it was Monday. It was not! It was TuesMondays, two, not one that we just got through!

Oh. Right. I guess I wanted to be one day further along on this than we quite are yet. Oh, well, that’s one thing we don’t have to do tomorrow night. (Sorry, neighbors.)

The talk was amazing. Being able to hear it and read the captions when I knew they normally don’t have that set up there was a vivid example of exactly the things he was saying.

That the things that matter in this life are our relationships. The choices we make. And how we treat others.

And he talked about plants. How watering them allows the roots to access the minerals in the soil and support all that shows above ground; the water offers more than just water, it makes everything the plant needs down there accessible.

While I remembered neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks’ observation that if you kneel in the dirt with a dementia patient, no matter how far gone their brain is, and hand them a little seedling, they will always, always plant it roots-side down. Never roots up leaves down. It is built into our very beings to know how plants grow.

It is built into our very souls to want to love and be loved.

Our church building is in the middle of its annual five-day creche exhibit, with the whole place turned into a temporary museum, every piece on loan. The people who run it are gifted designers and creatives and the place is always gorgeous. There are concerts every night, a hands-on children’s area, and everything is a gift to the community. They wouldn’t accept payment if you tried. If you’re at all local, I highly recommend a visit.

Which means that for actual church services we double up with another ward in another building.

A friend offered to carpool. I said I’d love to but we’re sick. She said just so you know there’s no Zoom option there.

And then there was a ward email from another friend, proud of his identical twin who was going to be a speaker Sunday, not to miss it!

Oh, I wouldn’t for anything… But there’s no way I’m knowingly exposing anybody else to this.

I told him my dilemma yesterday. He got back to me today. Someone in the background, he didn’t say how much of it was him or his brother or who, managed to work things out so that yes, he then announced to the whole ward, there will indeed be Zoom available for those who are ill or otherwise in need of it.

I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful a Christmas gift it felt to be looked out for and included. Someone chose to go out of their way to do the inconvenient thing and set things up differently for that day so that we wouldn’t have to miss it.

It had not gone out this week (neither of us was bending nor lifting anything Tuesday.) It had to be done. It was piling up. We discussed who felt most up to the task and he was sure he should do it but he might need help with the lifting, he said; we could manage it together.

And then I remembered that probably the only thing actually in that silly trash can was plastic packaging material, since we’d left town on pickup day last week, and went across the house to confirm that hunch.

Getting the new liner on afterward was the hard part and that did create the sharpest twinge I’d felt since, I dunno, yesterday, so back to the stretching exercises pronto.

At long last there was a task where the fear had been the hardest part. We can deal with that. Progress!

Barbecue tongs for getting the laundry out, a hairband scooted under the bridge of my glasses so I can rescue them from the floor. Pushing your back flat if possible when you cough.

And stay upright as long as you can to keep the crud out of your chest (having just spent three and a half days essentially asleep.)

Four days down, ten to go?

We had a great trip. More later. It wasn’t till the drive back to their airport that we suddenly started to feel the germ they’d been getting over when we came (knowing full well and deciding to come anyway.)

We wore masks while traveling. Would have anyway.

Mix that with waking up with my back giving way on me this morning if I tried to stand up, it was a bit of a day and not what I want to be writing about. Lots of back stretches on the floor. Managed to sit up for the first time for half of my Zoom knitting meeting. Finally got some soft food down at 6 pm and that seems to have helped everything.

But we were fine while we were there and got to love on everybody and that’s what I care about.

Wishing everybody a very Happy Thanksgiving.

A year ago, we were delayed after boarding, it was raining, there were accidents on the freeway coming from the airport, and we finally pulled off at an exit and went looking for a food establishment, any food establishment.

We found an ice cream shop. Richard hesitated a moment and I said, Calories. I didn’t care what kind at that point, just, we needed to get something in us fast and get back out on the road. The app said that under current conditions we had an hour to go.

There was a young couple waiting while our order was coned up trying to manage two small children, and the usual finger puppets came out for a happy distraction.

I mentioned that other than airline pretzels we hadn’t eaten since 11:00 a.m.

The dad’s eyes went big: nine hours, if I remember correctly. I could just picture him imagining trying to get through that with his kids as he went, Oh wow.

So. Not doing that again.

It’s easy to find small packages of junk food, but I was hoping for at least some protein. There’s a brand of Korean barbecue jerky that doesn’t use nitrates or nitrites nor is it tough (usually). Costco sells it in mega-packages. I wanted single serving.

There they are, they do exist!

It came today. Amazon said so, with a picture as proof.

I picked up the small package that had USA added to my address, wondering, what on earth? Who is this from? Why?

I just hope the person who ordered the zipped hardshell book holder wristlet with an inner compartment for a wallet substitute (that’s all I can figure this thing is) isn’t being a horrified vegetarian right now.

Baked my own answer to the dilemma. Now I just have to figure out how to get my cranberry/orange/almond flour muffins onboard (like I have enough space for that?) without having them fall apart. Probably way healthier anyway.

And the answer: not cancer. No worries.

And then I got so caught up in looking at my children’s Christmas wish lists that I forgot to post this last night. ‘Tis the season. Happy Thanksgiving!

The New York Times had an article on how to talk at Thanksgiving to people that you want to get to know better–basically, that you want to hear something positive from. Mercifully, it did not directly reference Nov. 5th.

One could ask things like, Who is someone you only ever saw once who made a difference?

It was a year ago, wasn’t it? We were flying into Seattle. The woman next to me was studying my hands as I knit, every motion–affirming when I caught her eye that she had long wanted to learn how.

She lived in San Diego. Her son, an adult now, lived in Seattle. She was so proud of him; she missed him so much.

She admitted late in the flight that he had offered to take her the next day to shop for a hat. It was going to be quite cold and she simply didn’t own one. She’d gotten the jacket in time at least.

Which matched the hat on my needles. I scrambled to finish it and work the ends in before we landed and I did it. I did it. They could enjoy their time together without having to work through crowds and cashiers and all that if they didn’t want to.

She is the one who made so much of a difference to me.

Every time I see the Mecha skeins in the store now, I think of her deep appreciation and want the next person to be that thrilled. With the colors, with the soft wool, with being thought of and found knitworthy.

I want to ask her if she ever took those knitting lessons, to revel in her successes. I hope that she gets to experience from someone else how she had blessed me.

A week ago, needing a new carry-around project now that the baby blanket was too big for that, what landed on my needles was yet another boring old plain washable wool Mecha hat. It’s like type O- blood: the universal donor.

I finished knitting it a few minutes ago and I’m about to start another. Even around here, a warm hat on a cold day can make all the difference to someone.

Maybe she’ll fly to see her son this year, too.