One last note that I saw him busy typing into his phone at the curb, so he didn’t see me waving hi and I let him be.

Quote:

I just picked it up. It is fabulous.  Thank you so much!

This put a big smile on my face:

“If this is still available, I could really use it. My trumpet case is
held together with tire tubes, staple gun staples and duct tape.

Joe”

And so it is off to a good place and Joe’s note made me feel like, okay, that’s what it’s been waiting here to find. Go Joe.

Musings during the ongoing toss-and-organize and a wow, do we still have that.

Way back when my kids were in band I bought a seriously padded trumpet case. It’s big, because it was the most protective one I could find, because, kids.

It was in the back seat twenty years ago when my youngest and I were rear-ended into another car so hard that the car crumpled up to the back window, the glove compartment spewed open and all over us, the rearview mirror twisted sideways, I lost my sense of balance for life hitting the headrest so hard and the trumpet went flying into the backs of our seats hard enough to seriously damage the bell despite all that padding. West Valley Music spent a month repairing it. But that case helped keep that trumpet from doing worse to us and to it.

So it holds a lot of memories and it has taken a hit, but all you can see is that one side curves inward somewhat. The trumpet continued to be in it till the younger son lost interest after middle school and the older son, who’d had it first and had always done more with it and wanted it more, took it home for his own kids and let it live happily ever after.

In a different case that fits better in their space.

I just offered the padded one (which came from West Valley) to one group, and if that doesn’t work I’ll ask the school district’s music department.

Couldn’t hurt to mention to Panasonic that their microwave died just outside of warranty and left a customer unhappy, right? So I sent them a message and it was answered today with a link.

Which showed that a new inverter part, which might or might not be enough, was $118.95, probably plus shipping plus the time spent waiting for it to come. And then the next part. And the next. And the hassle of playing repairman, although, he could do it.

A new microwave that was essentially identical to the one we had, was, it turns out, $119.99 if you bought it inside the local Costco so they didn’t have to ship it.

I debated spending five times the price to get a fancier brand–not that I wanted to spend that kind of money at all but it would be so nice to have something dependable. Doesn’t exist. At least this way I’d get five years of warranty with five microwaves.

And so I blew that extra $1.04. Call me the last of the big spenders. First time I’ve been inside a Costco in seven months, but tomorrow’s hot cocoa made me do it.

I just spent over two hours researching microwaves. My Panasonic started heating slower and slower at 14 months and after two weeks of that, today it’s cold hot chocolate for you. It’s done.

I want a smaller footprint than 20″, as long as it’s 1100 watts. Can’t have it. I want easy to clean. You can have that. I want it not to die while it still feels new, I was very careful to keep it spotless to prolong its life but no go, and for ~10% of every single brand across Consumer Reports, expensive or cheap, it will die early–take your chances.

I want to like how it looks. Well then.

So, Costco has at a very good price the same machine that’s died on me twice now, so at least the next time I break the glass turntable I’ll have a backup one. (Again.) So I can drop it. (Again.)

Taking the recycling bins to the curb, my neighbor was returning home. It was good to see he’s still getting his daily walk in.

He stopped a moment, wanting to explain that the firefighters had been in front of our house because his wife had fallen and he had not been able to pick her up. But it’s okay, she is fine; that’s just something they do when you need them, he told me gratefully.

I came away thinking, we went to their 50th anniversary party long enough ago that I cannot be sure how many years it’s been. Fifteen, easily.

They still have each other, and that is something to celebrate for awhile yet.

My hair broke the spatula.

It took some doing. I was about to reach forward into the mixer bowl to scrape the edges when, in that movement, my hair, which, granted, has gotten a bit long these days, suddenly wrapped itself around my wrist and it and in that moment of surprise (I’d love to see the slow-motion video of just exactly how) the spatula went flying. The silicone head, the reason I bought it two years ago, ran off from the cheap plastic handle from that Amazon set.

I picked them up and looked. This was no trial separation. They were toast.

The bread dough will be, too, but not till tomorrow when it’s good and ready.

My mango variety drops its fruit just before they’re fully ripe, and I’ve learned that if you just slightly brush the bottom of one with your fingertips and it falls into your hand, you got it when it was ready to let go.

Two were like that while the fire sky had been gray or worse for three weeks. They were good, but the intensity of the perfume was not at all up to last year’s–they’d needed that bright direct sun the ashes were filtering out.

The third and last one that had survived what the winter had thrown at the tree waited till there was bright sunshine again for several days. It was very small, but held great promise in the palm of my hand.

Like Alphonsos do, it needed a few days indoors. I put it in a beautiful hand thrown rice bowl from my friends Mel and Kris which displayed it with the majesty it deserved.

And man, was I tempted. More than I’d like to admit. I’m not proud of that.

But I was hopefully going to get more mangoes in future years.

There is never enough time, there is not much time, there is hopefully as much time as she and her family need. Her granddaughter gave her a new great-granddaughter this weekend, and there is joy.

I checked with her daughter, who assured me that there was a caretaker there who would open the door; just tell her I’m Jean’s friend from church.

There was no plan whatsoever of my going in and actually seeing and risking her, but I could at least hand something over to them from there.

I had a card that popped up a bouquet of paper flowers for this lovely master gardener. The woman who shared her pomegranates that are why I have such a tree in my yard too, now, having never known before what a pomegranate was really supposed to taste like. Who was eighteen when she witnessed Pearl Harbor, and lived.

Twice she had tried to grow mangoes like back home. Twice the trees had died in our cold. She knew what a homegrown mango could taste like. If only.

At 94, she finally got to have one again.

And I suppose the fact that the sky took away a little of the perfume and presumably (like my figs) some of the sweetness (although it still smelled wonderful), she gets to still believe her childhood Haden ones were the best.

For those who have not yet heard: author Cat Bordhi was a master teacher, both in knitting and in life, and her daughter worked from home from her home with her young son these last few months, keeping his grandmother company as she gradually slipped away from us all. I’ve met Cat. She was a lovely, loving soul.

I have a pair of socks she designed, socks like no pair I’d seen before, and it is a fitting honor to her that they were knitted and gifted to me as a complete surprise by a friend who knew I would love them.

I went to pick a fig or two this morning and saw a few speckles on the ground and wondered at the idea that it had rained a little in the night–it was not in the forecast.

And then about halfway to the tree it got through to me that the rain was getting through to me–it not only wasn’t done, it was just getting started. I got my fruit for breakfast, hurried back inside, and found myself not soaked but wet and cold enough that I was definitely changing out of that.

It didn’t make it to even a hundredth of an inch.

But the air cleared up and the sky turned a forgotten blue. We can breathe again.

Meantime, after wanting to for a long time I bought a silk comforter six months ago and after watching this video of mulberry leaf to finished quilt, am utterly in awe of those who created it.

I started to sit down at my computer just now and Richard, working at his next to me, pronounced, Your blog’s back.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The company that hosts it did a major update and broke it and there was nothing we could do at our end but repeatedly remind them day after day that they had a problem and needed to fix it. (While praying they could and would.)

Pass the chocolate, we’re good to go here. Onward!

My alarm went off in what seemed to be the middle of the night. (Pictures to follow.)

The Bear Fire, the Oregon fires, all those others that are still going or just starting: smartphone auto-filters just weren’t up to it. Holly did a good job with her good camera.

It wasn’t night, but it wasn’t really day, either, with the sky a deep deep dark orange overcast–and it stayed that way. We simply weren’t going to have any day today, rather, it was as if it were about forty-five minutes past sunset all day long. It was very weird. At noon it seemed to let up enough that you could see more clearly across our small back yard for a few minutes, and again around five, but that was all the light we were going to get.

The air quality actually registered as moderate with the marine layer between us and the towering smoke, but the national weather service sent out a tweet saying quite honestly that their instruments were not designed to measure from fire and as far as doing anything outside, use your nose as your guide.

Be careful.

I went out anyway at 1:30 to pick up a prescription to if nothing else stop the annoying auto-calls about it, and to get a flu shot as long as I was out there.

Our (admittedly understaffed) local CVS takes an excruciatingly long time to do the simplest things while studiously avoiding customers. And so even though the Rx had already been filled it was well over an hour later that I came back to my car.

Where the ash was already re-coating the windshield. I looked around and thought, if fire ever actually broke out around here right now, how on earth would anybody know?

And yet another announcement of friends moving to where housing is more reasonably priced to work remotely from there.

And so there is now a quite lovely wooden bench under the elm tree for enjoying a good book from, for those who can do the sun time and as our grandkids get older. I quite like it.

So, yeah, I never made the connection between that night in the hospital, Lee’s photography, and the need to knit fish on a turquoise background before, but what was supposed to be a post about sourdough last night suddenly helped me connect all those long-time dots that were back there somewhere in my brain waiting to be found. Who knew.

On the food experiment: Trader Joe’s sells a frozen spinach artichoke heart cheese dip that’s quite good. I had some thawed and ready in the fridge.

Yesterday was about seeing how well that would go with sourdough.

I let the dough rise overnight as one does with the thought that I would mix the stuff in in the morning (and give myself one last chance to back out of the idea.)

Which means it was cold right out of the fridge going into the bread dough which wanted warmth.

Which meant that, since I didn’t do the smart thing and nuke the dip a bit, the usual one-hour morning rise was going to need to be a whole lot longer. But that would have made it really sour and taken an unknowable amount of time and I had plans for the day, so I just popped it in the oven anyway. I ended up with a dense focaccia variant. It was good but not excellent; next time just make normal sourdough toast and dip it in the dip.

And then on with the morning.

Man, I have never seen a line like that at Goodwill to drop stuff off! At least they let us–they weren’t taking any more donations for awhile there. Closets are definitely being cleaned out.

There were two fire trucks parked on the road a half block from Andy’s. It was hard to see if there was smoke in a pocket of the hills above or if that’s just where the wind captured an extra bit of what was everywhere anyway, but either way, CalFire was ready to be right on it.

Ripe Green Gage plums are one of the best fruits on the planet and well worth the trip to Morgan Hill.

Spent a long time going through yarns and fish photos and measuring and eyeballing and I think the next two are figured out. I kept thinking, as I often have, that what I really need is my friend Lee’s pictures from his dive trips. (His ability to sketch would be nice, too.)

He and Phyl have from time to time offered us much-enjoyed evenings of seeing his underwater photography and one of those times was not long before Crohn’s put me in the hospital the first time. The doctor had me on morphine, and this time I was the one on a trip–with Lee’s tropical fish lazily meandering around me in the very brightest colors against a turquoise background, keeping me company all night, keeping me amused and distracted from the severe pain and feeling less alone because all of that was because of happy memories that had come from them.

A friend dropped by this afternoon with homemade jam from her fruit trees; I sent her off with a cooled loaf of cranberry pumpkin sourdough because I always know that one will be good.

We were kind of ready for something else, though. I was paging through my Artisan Sourdough Made Simple tonight and I didn’t really want to do it this way I wanted to try that and now there’s an experiment in the kitchen rising overnight and if it turns out fabulous you’ll hear all about it tomorrow. And if it doesn’t we’ll pretend this paragraph was never written.

In my dreams.