It is, it’s a Sandra Boynton creation, and very funny.

Continental drifts of words reversing to Pangea form, glacially.

I do think we need to call it a night, though, hon.

Ohmygoodness.

You know I love Ukrainian vyshyvankas, their embroidered shirts, and Ukrainian gerdans, their traditional beaded necklaces woven on beading looms.

I have a particular favorite artist on the latter.

My father the art dealer spent decades helping keep the hundreds of years old French Aubusson tapestry weaving guild alive, and in many ways I am my father’s daughter.

Etsy at the beginning of the war in Ukraine forgave all debts and waived all fees for all sellers there. So everything you pay goes directly to the seller.

But also, according to what I have read, they have a policy in response to scammers such that if the computer address where your shop is listed doesn’t match what you later use, they’ll block payment. In war zones where people too frequently have to flee, the seller has to work out with Etsy that they are still legit.

Which brings me back to Lyubov. Many of her projects are one-offs and the designs are her own with the work carefully done with finer beads than most and an artist’s eye for where the light travels in the piece vs the matte beads.

My cherry tree gerdan came from her.

And frankly, you pay for that talent. She had one with a field of sunflowers on one side and above, a seagull with black wing tips taking off into the bright sky opposite a lighthouse where the tide was coming in below, the blue waves and white foam forming the curls framing the head of a woman rising from the water with a sun tattoo. Such tiny beads. So. Much. Detail. (I loved that one but just couldn’t afford it.)

Her home is–was?–in Kherson. Last year she showed me pictures of the bombardment her apartment had taken and vowed to rebuild. She had family whose home was entirely gone.

It’s easy to want to support someone who deserves it in every way.

She created some new pieces–and then her shop went down.

A few weeks later, hoping she was okay, I sent her a note asking after her. I told her I was hoping to buy her new Lilies gerdan if it was still available because I have a four year old granddaughter named Lily.

She reposted her shop, albeit with fewer pieces. There it was.

But the payment wouldn’t go through. I tried. I contacted Etsy. I sent a note to her. I tried again. And again, hoping something had changed. I bought a $4 sunflower sticker to prove to Etsy there was no problem with my credit card. Nothing.

I didn’t hear back from her and feared for her safety.

It turns out she had been hoping to surprise me, and in fact she very much did: she had my address so she simply packed it up and put it in the mail so that I would have it. Five other people had put it in their carts but she knew where she wanted that one to go.

After our busy weekend, I tried again today to see if everything was fixed and if my payment might go through this time, and as usual it did not. So I sent her one last note.

And with that she told me what she had done.

I was speechless. And thrilled. For the necklace, absolutely, but also very much for how it confirmed the goodness of this woman I’d love to meet on the other side of the earth.

I wanted to do my part and asked if I could pay for it, and how?

She decided to let me PayPal her. I would have anyway. She would have waived it anyway. I did it anyway.

After all the times I tried to be there for her the best I knew how from my distance these past few years, she was the one who chose to be there for my granddaughter and me. I am in awe of the person she is in the middle of all she and her family have been put through, and so grateful.

Slava Ukraini!

Hottest day in the heat wave, the Saturday after the Fourth of July, thirty-five degrees cooler at the beach than inland, where are you gonna go. Right?

Except it happened to be the day of a family get-together with a cousin who actually lives near the beach. Otherwise we would never ever…

Much Waze and Googlemaps checking ensued.

Ken’s brother later exclaimed, Four hours forty-five minutes?! (For an 83 mile route.) You could walk it backwards!

Which made me laugh, and no we didn’t take that route, and it was a 6 pm event so we left late enough that most people who wanted to spend the day at the beach were already there (or trying to be) so the extra 45 minutes wasn’t too bad.

The dinner was outside, but at 7 and under the shade of a huge oak so I pulled up a chair.

Cousin-in-law Ken’s mom, who lives in Arizona, sat down next to me to catch up a bit. There are only so many weddings and baptisms and the like to get to do that.

That close to the ocean and in the thick fog and breeze it was getting cold. I’d grabbed a silk cowl on my way out the door with the fleeting thought of, since anyone can wear silk (well yes it matches my blouse?)

It matched her dress even better, and she was quite grateful for the rescue. It is amazing how much warmth something around your neck can add. (It’s the Fettucia tubular silk in that link in blue, bought at a half off sale, just so she doesn’t worry about that price tag if she sees this.)

When it was time to go I told her, When am I ever again going to have a chance to totally match your outfit? It’s for you. Loosely spun silk has a tendency to stretch over time, so it may, just so you know.

Richard wanted to go before the two hour trek home (reverse beach traffic ended up demonstrating that it was a thing) so we didn’t linger too long from there. But I’m so glad for those limited times that she and I have had.

And eight-year-old Caleb, who was who the day was about in the first place, was celebrated and loved by all.

2.41 lbs.

These are getting to be a habit.

Enough already.

Got out the Sharpie.

So there.

Only took me 44 years to decide to do that.

A certain former reporter who is a private pilot mentioned in his Substack the case of the Southwest plane (NBC link) that went into a Dutch roll a few weeks ago, and explained how that had happened. He linked to a video (YouTube) of it actually happening to another flight years ago. Yow.

Which led to a brief exchange with him, because on one of our flights a week ago our Southwest plane suddenly dipped way down to the left and then immediately after, way down to the right. We were sitting at the front (the pilot in that first link said you would feel it at front and back but not so much in the middle) and all the passengers around us were looking at each other, like, What was THAT.

And then the plane seemed to straighten out and be okay.

I asked him, Do pilots always report those incidences? Are they required to?

His answer was, typically, no, unless they thought it had damaged the plane or was a sign of damage. But there are ways of anonymously reporting them, designed to protect those who do so. It is possible our case could have been turbulence–and it was possible we would hear more about it in the coming weeks.

Turns out not even Southwest knew about that recent case right away. But when they did they took it to Boeing and said This is your problem. This piece should never have had power mid-flight.

You know, there’s a reason I routinely say a prayer for the pilots and crew members before every flight. I don’t usually feel like it’s actually needed other than for my feeling like I’ve done my very small part towards a safe journey for all.

But I guess you never know.

With some fussing at myself over having put it off, I headed out the door to run to the pharmacy.

There was a Tesla at the vacant house next door. ? Wait. Had to be… And then the driver, instead of pulling out, got out.

And with that I met the real estate agent starting the prep to sell the place. I’d needed to meet her, she’d needed to meet me, and she happened to be leaving at the same moment I was so there we were.

I told her where the neighbors behind that house had left some damage to the fence during their construction. I told her about my difficulties in finding a surveyor so we can redo the part of the fence between us where it had been rerouted for the now-gone redwood, and we’d like to have that foot or so back; she could help me with that. She knew who to call. She was on it.

Such a nice person. We have each other’s name and number now and I look forward to meeting whoever the new neighbors will eventually be.

I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen and thinking it was too big a day to squeeze into this little box in front of me.

Okay, let me try. Church renewed the soul, as it should; a dinner potluck with friends did, too. That ended early because there was this lecture that some people wanted to go to and it sounded interesting so we went, and… Yeah don’t have to do that one again. But whatever.

The one thing that saved it was that we ran into my second cousin (who had looked as ready for this to be over with as I had been) and her face lit up when I came over afterwards. Lisa told me she had seen my mom yesterday at her dad’s 95th birthday and how great my mom had looked. It clearly made her day to be able to tell me that, while I said, Happy Birthday to your dad!

He and my mom are the only two surviving grandchildren of their generation, their famous grandfather having been born in 1856. My grandmother had raised Lisa’s dad/Gram’s nephew for awhile after her sister/his mother had died from childbirth–penicillin was known but not widely enough available yet–and the two cousins are close.

I’m glad they got to see each other. I’m glad I got to see his daughter!

Picture #11 really sells the place. That train wreck was a long time coming. Although I bet the heating and cooling bills were low after that glacier of grass swept halfway over the house. Wow.

We could have a little fun making up AirBnB-type ads for the place. The che-Shire cat: come see the disappearing home! It’s got the Ring halfway on!

Meantime, yesterday I was trying to make an appointment about that rib but the Medicare bounced. I spent two hours on the phone, with Medicare insisting it wasn’t a problem at their end.

Without that cleared the clinic would not book me an appointment, because not only would I not be reimbursed, if I ever–once–paid out of pocket I would be kicked off Medicare for life.

Whoa.

Which is why I’m mentioning any of this at all, because who wants to learn that one the hard way.

At long long last the doctor’s office realized that why yes in fact we did spell your name wrong and that’s the problem. But by that point all the appointments were gone and I had to settle for waiting till today and someone I’d never met.

Which is how I met a great guy I’d be happy to be sent to anytime.

The x-ray came back: no breaks. Yay!

There was maybe even going to be a matching hat and cowl.

We went to a ward picnic last night at a park that always has a cold breeze coming off the Bay in the evening. Quite a few of us wore warm vests even though we didn’t quite need them when we arrived but we knew we would soon.

The start of the cowl was my carry-around project; on impulse I tucked the hat in too on the way out the door. You never know.

About an hour and a half in, there was a young dad in short sleeves rubbing his arms against the cold. His wife had their baby in a front pack and that was keeping them both a little warmer.

The baby wasn’t complaining in the slightest; he had way too many interesting new things to look at: people with unfamiliar faces but far enough way to safely just be interesting, a pick-up game of softball on the field with kids and grownups alike, Chinese elm trees waving long boas of green on the breeze, neighbors walking their dogs around the perimeter, and the smells. Mown grass. (That is no longer common around here.) Hot dogs on the grill. Salad. Fruit. Brownies. You name it. (I wonder how those come across if the only solid food you’ve ever tasted so far is something like rice goop.)

I did a mental check. Yeah the colors would do, and I said to the dad, “You look cold” as I pulled the hat out of my purse.

Yeah, it is, he said gratefully as he instantly turned with it to put it on his small son, folding it over and over to make it work into quite the headsweater. The baby had a big head but not that big but he made it work.

The thought of putting it on his own head hadn’t remotely occurred to him and his wife got to see her husband putting their child first, though I’m sure it was absolutely no surprise to her.

But I don’t really know them yet. Or rather, didn’t. It made me smile all day today, too.

Finished the baby afghan.

Reached over the back of the chair behind me for a different skein of yarn with the usual level of klutziness and I was taken aback that kind of falling on that wooden edge hurt at all, much less like… But eh.

But not eh, as the day went on. Do not twist, do not lift that stoneware, do not laugh. I did anyway, being the boss of me and all that.

So it appears to be round three of, looks like I’ll call the doctor in the morning in order to be told that yes I did break that rib. But we’ll see.

I have forever remembered with great fondness a graduation party I went to: high school was over and it was one last chance to see old friends before we might not ever again. So much emotion and appreciation and, frankly, grief.

The woman hosting it was someone I had always very much looked up to. I never did get to see Susan again, not so far, at least. But she found my blog and I ended up with a beautiful lap quilt that her four year old granddaughter had helped her with and I treasure it.

So when the neighbor next door let us know well in advance that she was throwing a graduation party for her kid, when it would be and what to expect, I was so happy. It’s going on right now.

An Amazon driver was walking to then from our door with a look of take-this-job-and-! so I opened it and waved and yelled Thank you! as she got to the sidewalk.

She looked in the direction of the neighbors and back at me to see what I thought of all of this and all these cars that had made it so she’d had to walk in Amazon only knows how far to get to our house. There was no way her truck would have been able to turn around at the end of our street.

Thank you! I cheerfully yelled again–and this time I watched her whole demeanor change: her face totally lit up.

I could just imagine her thinking along with me that these are the kids who spent so much of their teen socialization years in quarantine, in isolation, in loneliness; there is no substitute for being with friends in person.

And then they could. Right this very minute they could again. All this lost time to make up for. They weren’t being obnoxious or even overly loud but they were clearly having the time of their lives and squeezing out every moment of being together.

Still.

For one last day. They will treasure the memory. They will always hold those friends dear, wherever they may end up.

To life!

(Foil at bottom to thwart slugs.)

The ordinary weekly chore of dragging the hose around the yard, pointing it towards a tree, setting a timer, BRAAAAAP then the next then the next then the next, repeat, while taking the time to closely see the changes: some week by week, some from even just this morning when my tomato was an inch shorter and the netting tent was tall enough.

This is why I haven’t put in an automatic system. There’s calibrating to varied sizes while knowing the sizes will change but also I seem to want it to make me have to go out and spend one-on-one time with the outdoors in the evening, when I finally can in the day.

Everything’s growing. Everything’s reaching up and out to what each plant or tree was meant to be. The best of the sun to them all.

These are the moments when I think having something living to watch and nurture and see responding to care, even a seedling in a paper cup, is as necessary to the soul as the air that we breathe.

Bright, cheerful, blinking, and suggesting a tree underneath: the new neighbors put up a set of Christmas lights from the get-go. It’s actually kinda cool. And they leave them on all night about every other night.

I figure if nothing else, sheer curiosity will get me to walk around the block when the sun is safely low enough in order to introduce myself to the folks behind our house.

But there is the unwanted temptation to ask, what on earth?–nicely, while trying not to be all in their business.

I do think though that I should ask if *my* lights are bothering *them*. There’s no curtain on our transoms. No light pointed out the window, either, but you never know how it looks from the other side.

My goal was to finish the roof today, but it looks like I won’t quite make it. Still, pretty good progress.

There is not a bobble on that door, just some light that got caught on a stitch and it decided to go Ta daah! for the camera.

Barbara Walker’s version has a chimney. Only a few minutes ago did I suddenly realize that, oops, mine does not. Well then but it’s new construction, right? And California has outlawed building chimneys in new housing: something about live embers going up them that the state just somehow thinks is less than desirable a possibility these days.

That house…

Okay, when I was twelve we visited a childhood friend of my mom’s, and the friend’s kid my age had a pixie cut. All the rage. Her mom had done it and I thought she looked adorable and I wanted that haircut.

The friend wasn’t about to touch someone else’s kid and Mom said that that was not something she’d ever done.

I insisted she could. (She was Mom, she could do everything!)

She resisted.

She gave in because I was so sure I wanted this, she did the best she could–and I hated it. HATED it. All she did was make everything really short! (Well, duh, kid, she did not say, what do you think a pixie cut is. It probably helped that I was her fourth kid and she’d had serious teenager-mothering practice by then.)

Mom had been cutting my hair and my bangs all my life and I never let her touch it again and grew it out from there to two years of high school, scruffy bangs at the half-point and all. The back even reached my waist if you brushed the curls straight while it was wet–just don’t let go.

That house is twelve-year-old me staring back at me.

Well, hey, the baby is due October 31st. So a haunted house is just the thing. Right?