I had someone I felt I owed a thank you to, who’d been admiring my gerdans at church.

I knew what it’s like to move here with kids while trying to afford the crazy housing costs, even if she would find it laughable if I told her what those numbers once were for us. We didn’t have a dime for extras.

So this week I went through those necklaces several times, trying to envision her reaction to color/style/length and what she had seemed to like the most.

I couldn’t find her. I stopped her teenage daughter: Is your mom here?

No, she’s not, she half-apologized.

I got her to follow me away from the crowd a bit and, reaching into my purse, told her, Your mom is so supportive. Would you be willing to pick one out for her?

I got a polite that’s nice that’s nice that’s nice–and then I pulled out the last one.

She gasped!

We had a winner!

Oh, she couldn’t wait. This was so perfect.

And here’s the thing: suddenly it was all about the daughter being in so much delighted anticipation of making her mom happy. In retrospect it was the most perfect day to have brought it to church.

And I was willing to give up that round white classic beaded Ruth Bader Ginsberg collar because a week ago, when a gerdan I’d ordered from Kherson arrived, the artist had decided to surprise me with the gift of a second necklace entirely: round, rather than long.

Quite like that RBG one. I didn’t need two, and so the one that was simply a bought thing (from Ukraine, so important just the same) went into the bag for my friend/her daughter to choose from.

My friend in Kherson could never have known what she was going to help happen when she decided to do that, surely with much happy anticipation of how delighted it would make me. And it did.

Love, multiplied.

Migraine, could you go without me, sure hon, feel better, and with that I was off on a quick grocery run alone.

At the 5:00 time/place that I’ve been avoiding ever since I ran into that guy.

The one who, years ago, I tried to exchange info with after he hit my car that ended with him pounding his fists on the window of my hurriedly-locked door screaming, “What are you, some kind of damn private eye?!” because I’d taken a picture of his license plate.

The one where a cop later told me the guy had done time for assault.

The one who showed up at that store all these years later whose face instantly contorted with rage on seeing me–but there were lots of witnesses around this time, and he was older now, and he managed to calm himself down as I got out of there as fast as I could. Did he think all these years that I’d somehow caused him that conviction? I have nothing to do with the man. Whoever he is.

I haven’t been willing to admit just how much I haven’t wanted to go back at that particular time and day ever since then. I’ve gone–but during working hours. Just because.

But there I was.

And as I was checking out, I saw, not him, but my dear friends Marguerite and Russ and they waved a cheerful hi and turned and wheeled their cart over to join my line and come say hi.

They totally rescued me. They had no way to know it. I had not known till that moment of extreme emotional contrast just how much I’d needed to be. They just happened to choose that day and that time to come to that store and the love in their faces the instant they saw me was like suddenly I could breathe again.

It occurred to me afterward that I hadn’t even thought to pray for help coping with the fear and the what-ifs because I was trying so hard to believe I didn’t feel that fear.

The choreography of G_d. It is very humbling. And the joy!

The tennis racket bug zapper: it works better on small insects but it was all I had. By what on earth opening had that hornet even gotten in here? It was huge!

And then it was against the window with that bug zapper pinning it down but it wanted to just keep right on going, so I did, too, arm stretched, finger on the button, not daring to let up to check on the thing.

Finally, after a good minute or so, I decided my best bet was to open the slider with my other hand and try to sweep it out of here.

But it wouldn’t go.

I smacked the zapper gently on something outside. It clung. I thwapped hard. It clung. Finally I dared look a little closer, and it had indeed given up the ghost once it had been zapped long enough. Thwap! I got it to fall out and made a mental offering to the birds out there, but it is clear they prefer their meals sushi style. It’s a raw deal.

Okay, so all that happened, and shortly thereafter I went to go water my trees.

Every time I touched the handle on that slider I got a little shock. What?

The first time, I thought, well that was odd, but by the sixth time (I go out and move the hose from tree to tree and set a timer for three minutes, come inside, repeat for each) it was clearly a thing. Huh.

We had that door repaired a few years ago and I’d never noticed that the inside handle is metal while the outside one is plastic.

I started opening the door from inside by pushing along the window, then coming back in using the handle because that side was fine.

I took a basic college course in electricity and none of this makes any sense to me, so I asked the resident geek and it made no sense to him either. Shocking, I know.

So it’s been a few hours now, I typed all this, and had to go see if it would still do that if I touched it. It did not. Well yay.

But still: why? I mean, if you could store electricity in glass who would need batteries? The zapper never touched that handle. So strange.

And just like that, back to normal. Now! With extra flu shot protection! Operators are standing by, order yours now!

And so back to the afghan, too.

Meantime, I posted something on Freecycle.org and on a whim scrolled through the posts. There was

“Wanted:

Yarn and crochet materials of any size.”

You know I have to do a little stash digging first, but you know I have to answer that one. I gave up knitting in college because I couldn’t afford it and it took me nine years to get back to it–I know what it’s like. I will ask questions first, of course, and then we’ll see from there.

To match the actual barn, I debated on a purl line between the big doors and the loft window and didn’t but probably would in a do-over, but never mind.

The deadline just became Christmas again, so I have plenty of time to work more of that cloud into the skyscape.

I might be taking it easy tomorrow, or it might have no effect on me: I got a flu shot today. Just before spending time in radiology–where so far the results sound good. No ovarian masses.

Yay. I can relax.

I hadn’t seen Kris in four long years. Way too long.

I’d forgotten that I’d sworn to myself I would never, ever again go the way the map apps direct you towards the Kings Mountain Art Fair. And that was before last winter.

The tiny coastal mountain road alternates in its switchbacks to which side has the drop off with no barrier, it is not level nor smooth and it was not comforting to see spots where the asphalt had stretched and cracked on its way sloping down towards the redwood trunks below. (And above, because, redwoods.)

Sign (twice): Road Narrows.

Me: How?

Kris later told me, Oh, yeah, we did that road with the truck once and never again.

The truck? On that?!

In two places my lane was altogether gone from the past winter’s storms. Oh, I’d heard about that, I just didn’t know where it was.

It rained and the road was slippery, intermittent with fog-rolling-in time of day which was like driving through cotton candy.

Only for you, Mel and Kris, I thought again and again till I saw that blessed Skyline Drive sign at long last: a much better, straighter, wider road across the spine of the mountain and the one the Fair is on.

And then just like that it was all worth it.

For lupus and sun avoidance’s sake I had arrived just after four–it goes till five–and most of the booths had pulled rainproof tarps around and I don’t know that there was a single other customer walking around by then, so I certainly wasn’t interrupting any sales by catching up with my friends and their son for old times’ sake till I declared it was quitting time and time for them to kick me out. I brought peaches from Andy’s because I could. They loved me and I loved them and their kids are great and we even reveled in (and ducked under their tarp from) the rain.

Such good folks. And they do such gorgeous work. I bought this tall hot cocoa mug with a hummingbird poised just like the one that had once danced through the spray from my hose, facing me, so close. Such a happy memory. (Bought a few other things, too. Needed to make up for those four years.)

I continued down Skyline towards home, appreciating ever so much that it was an option and hoping my readers would forgive the whine if I try to write it down so I actually remember it next year: Go. This. Way. Both ways.

—

The postscript is that our daughter is flying home for the weekend and after Kings Mountain, I ran to stock the fridge in anticipation. I was wearing my large sunflower gerdan. An older woman with an accent stopped me ever so briefly, looking at it and me. She said softly, “Thank you.” Then moved on quickly so as not to accost a stranger too much but had needed so much to say something before the moment passed.

While I was instantly wanting to know her whole life story, if only I could ask. Because we would be friends. I knew it because she had already befriended me.

But she had said what she had the words for.

There was suddenly one more thing I needed to do with my day: go tell Oleksandra in Ukraine that her art had blessed that woman’s life, too, and to thank her. And so I did.

This is so cool. And the fact that it’s a four hour drive over a terrible road inside a national park that’s not close to population centers means they’ve mostly been left alone.

Rocks move across the dried landscape there. Boulders. Nobody’s ever seen them do it, though people have certainly tried for forever, and yet they do it and they engrave their everlasting path across the desert and it was clearly a natural phenomenon.

Just how do stones play Scottish curling games of their own?

Someone finally figured it out.

A random question: why would you sink a narrow staircase with a sharp turn in the middle of your kitchen? (Here’s the Redfin link in case the Zillow one balks.) Okay, it was their house, they can do that, but–why, why, why, would you have cabinetry that can only be accessed via standing with your feet likely unevenly on those stairs? Not from the other side? Why would the things inside those cabinets, whatever they are, be very big and very heavy for one person to easily carry, much less while on that staircase, and it looks like they’d need to be filled (how?) and emptied and cleaned constantly. I’m assuming they’re for coffee making for a large AirBnB crowd? But what a setup.

If you tripped on the stairs would you pull boiling water over on you? Paging Agatha Christie. You do not want me in that kitchen.

I mean, I’d put melangers and ten pounds of chocolate conching away in each, and they’ve definitely got enough counter space to pour it all out afterwards. I’ve seen meat smokers like that, but certainly not inside.

The small lake is enticing, the stark black and white color scheme depressing, and. Man. That kitchen.

I do not understand.

Years ago, I want to say twenty-five? There was a knitter in our town who, stepping out her front door, tripped and fell and landed on her knitting needle in her knitting bag. From the description, I’ve always assumed it was a metal straight.

The firefighters wanted to pull it out as they put her into the ambulance. She told them, Don’t you touch that!

In the ER, the x-rays showed that the needle had pierced her heart and that if they had done that at the scene she would have bled right out.

The staff also told the woman, Did you know you have breast cancer?

She did not.

Being stabbed through the heart with a knitting needle saved her life and I remember there was some later news story that showed she did survive the cancer because they had caught it early enough.

I thought of that woman today, whatever her name was–just not quite soon enough.

I had the afghan laid out on the floor and was sitting on and off it, going back and forth between chain stitches on a crochet needle and a long thick sturdy metal yarn sewing needle, try this, rip, try that, okay that’s better, working out how to add details.

At one point I realized I’d dropped the yarn needle. Not seeing where it must have gone I looked some more, then swished my hands around a bit trying to get it to appear, and finally decided it must be caught up in my skirt so I went to stand up to shake it out.

It was upright in the carpet and went straight into the lower part of my knee with my partial weight on it, going about half an inch in.

The nurse on the phone: Was the needle dirty?

Me: Well, I didn’t exactly disinfect it first, I mean, yarn…

She wince-chuckled. Yeah, alright, okay, looks like your last tetanus was two years ago.

She asked me to describe the pain. I said, well, that’s the thing: I have to rely on other ways of telling me I really messed up because I often don’t feel pain in my extremities anymore (no, not diabetic) and if I do, it’s often over after five minutes even if it sure shouldn’t be. Which is nice–but dangerous. But it doesn’t feel right and it’s a bit stiff and hard to bend or straighten all the way, it does hurt a little sometimes, yes it did bleed, and I figure tomorrow it will probably be worse.

That it likely would, she agreed, and set me up for tomorrow morning early.

Just, no secondary cancer diagnosis thankyouverymuch, that’s my one request.

Two hours later I looked at that afghan, thought horse-that-threw-you thoughts, and tried to get back down there with it and my knee went yeah no hon.

Oh. Okay then.

Cats run.

Skunks amble amiably. Never seen one scared, and I think they rarely would be, so I dunno.

I was coming around the corner of the house this evening to turn on the hose when a streak of black and white raced away while I tried to figure out what I’d just seen: there are no cats that live in that direction, and if there were, it would know a dog lives in the yard it just ran towards. A big dog with opinions and a voice. They do not have a cat.

There was no bark. It must have been inside.

Even if none of the immediate neighbors has one, I’m going to have to still guess that was someone’s cat with the back paws slightly crossing mid-leap away.

Okay, typed that, thought, well, c’mon, let’s find out then, and found a video of a skunk running.

Even in that heartbeat of a glimpse the tail of the thing I saw wasn’t that poofy. So there you go. Not a pole cat.

I wonder how many people have told the owner their pet looks like a skunk.

No hurricane here.

Nope, not on this side, either. Nor did we feel the 5.1 quake; that was way south of us, too.

We did get a pretty sunset out of the deal.

Alright, back to barn raising for me.

Andy’s Orchard.

The stone fruits were so delayed this year that I’ve learned I have to call ahead to see what they have; it was a long drive that one time for six peaches.

Today, for the first time all season, yes, I could come pick up a full box of Kit Donnells. Alright!

Trying not to be greedy but thinking of friends who know what those are, I asked after I got there if I could actually have two?

The clerk misheard me. He cheerfully brought out three, and all the sudden everybody on my list was going to be happy. Cool! The best week of the best peach!

As I passed the “New Homes Late 2023” sign alongside Andy’s farm, I thought for the millionth time, Hang in there, Andy, hang in there–we need you.

I did a double take: but those don’t exist yet! Right? Do they make prototypes that actually, y’know, go out on the road? Rather than just sitting there looking pretty (and immobile) in some showroom somewhere where they want to show it off?

I had to go home and search till I found one to be sure whose it was, and I found no pictures of a Tesla Cybertruck that had it painted in military camouflage colors. But that’s what it was. Not far from Google’s self-driving-vehicle headquarters. Do I detect a taunt?

It looked like nobody taller than a toddler in a carseat could possibly sit behind the driver of that thing. Elon will have to take a backseat.

I was going to go back there with him but when they called his name somehow I just didn’t. We had already discussed it and found neither of us particularly cared if I did or didn’t and I was in the middle of a row of a merino-silk that likes to drop and run like crazy. Eh. Have fun.

He came back from triage moments later and said, The nurse glared at me.

I finished row after row more, there were quite a few people in Urgent Care this afternoon, the wait was long, and then with my hands needing a break I finally opened the book I’d grabbed as backup when he had suddenly decided he needed to go in.

Whoever it was that recommended “The Fabric of Civilization: how textiles made the world,” by Virginia Postrel, thank you thank you thank you. Archaeology to history to genetics and written compellingly interestingly. I am learning so much.

They called him to the exam room and again I found myself staying where I was, while wondering why.

There was a young woman who was doing the same thing waiting for her friend; my guess is they were college roommates.

She worked up the courage and finally complimented me on my necklace. It was a sunflower gerdan from (are you surprised) Ukraine.

She was very happy at finding out where she could order one from and it was clear it was going to be very meaningful to her to do so. I adored her on the spot.

We chatted. She described herself as a writer. I told her I was one, too. Her: Cool! She started telling me about the fantasy fiction she likes to write.

She’d been watching me knit lace, and I told her I wrote a lace shawls book–but with a story to each. What inspired it, who it was for, with the point being to bless others with what we can do.

The most important one, I told her, was the story of right after 9/11: Joan Baez and her niece came to city hall for a multi-faith gathering; her niece sang. Speeches were made.

And at the end, they asked everybody to take the hands of those around them for a moment of silence. And then as they so felt moved, to speak into that silence.

A few words here and there as strangers held hands with their fellow man. Finally, one man said decisively, May America always be like this.

Amen, the crowd murmured, and with that we let each other go.

I told her, I made a circular shawl in remembrance: it looked like a paper cut-out of people holding hands.

And I told her she would make it with her writing. Her books would be published.

Because I knew in that moment that if a stranger who had actually been published believed in her, she could believe in her, and if she could believe in her she could do it.

Richard reappeared a few minutes later, and as we got in the car to leave I asked him at last, Why did the triage nurse glare at you?

Oh. She told me I should have come in much sooner. If the antibiotics don’t heal that wound right up to get right back in there.

Will do.

And then I told him about the up and coming writer. I wished I’d gotten her name so I could buy the first copy.

Yesterday, running an errand, I saw a very nice black car and suddenly found myself humming Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good” that spoofs the rocker life. (Live version, slightly ad-libbed.)

And then the guy passed me just as I was humming, “My Maserati does 185, they took my license, now I don’t drive” –and it was! He was driving a Maserati!

I had to go home and look up the rest of the long-forgotten lyrics. Richard and I had a chuckle over the whole thing at dinnertime. And so the ear worm carried over into today, as they do.

If I had pulled out my planned red yarn any time in the last few weeks and held it against that green expanse of afghan, I would have realized how it turned pink against it and needed to be replaced before Kathryn left town, because she carries everything. But I didn’t, and so now I was going to Fillory Yarns (where they had just the right thing but not enough of it) and Uncommon Threads to see if I could fill the gap.

There’s this weird intersection that should have its own light where you have to turn a diagonal left to get onto the main road. GPS relentlessly tells you to turn a full left onto what is actually a long cul-de-sac and then come back out so that you’re pointing straight across to turn left rather than being at an angle they disapprove of. It’s wrong. You just ignore it.

In front of me at the stop was what had to be that same black Maserati, ready to do that funky diagonal turn.

And this time I pulled up behind him as I was actually already singing his song, and once again, that very line. Windows up, no worries.

He suddenly started up his car and escaped into the cul-de-sac while I just howled: I wasn’t THAT bad, dude!

(Red yarn: now on order. Colourmart. Cashmere. They checked the shade. That look like classic red barn to you? It does to me. Here’s hoping–and more waiting.)