I learned the hard way that it’s worth waiting for Lee; last time I thought I couldn’t wait the extra day, I ended up with a kitchen sink that left the living room rug squishy with water for our $800+. It took it a few days to collect that much under the foundation to the point that we could notice it.

When Lee later came to rescue us from that, he saw what the guy had done and told me that that was an under five minute job with a twenty dollar part and warned me about the new ownership of that company.

So this time I waited.

Turns out he was waiting for a delayed flight home with doctor appointments lined up for the week, but he highly recommended his friend who used to work for him.

So I called that guy. He was going to come around 5–but things were taking too long and he called back this afternoon very apologetically; would tomorrow at 5 be okay?

Let’s see, take my chance on some random guy off the internet again or stick with the honest ones who know their job and answer to each other on it and stand by their work.

Good thing I ran four laundry loads after the dryer guys left Saturday.

Which is surely why the slowing system belched Sunday, but hey, we’ll get it back to normal with his help.

No one was doing anything with water this afternoon when he heard the big gurgle sound and hurried to check it out.

The tub was filling with water. The bathroom floors were in Deep Splash mode and flowing out the doors, with ours flowing under our closet and soaking any clothes that touched clothes that touched the floor, and I am married to a tall man. I instantly knew what a huge job this was all about to be.

But everything had been fine a half hour earlier!

And if you mop it up with towels–I had this moment of oh I’m so glad we got that dryer in time! immediately followed by, wait… Water was pouring out of the laundry room too. With no machine in use all day.

At least it was clear. It was clear it was clear it was clear. Not that I’d trust it for that but at least it felt better.

Shortly after, a friend drove up with his shop vac as I was twisting out towels out front and told him I was watering the azaleas.

Dave pitched right in. We sent him home with Andy’s peaches and a pound of dried apricot slabs and he asked about how to take care of the apricot tree we gave him a few months ago; I showed him mine so he could see what his would look like at a year older, and at the difference in growth since he’d picked up his.

This city owns its own utilities and they answer to the voters, which I love because it means their emergency guy came out within minutes to check the city’s line to the house. He was actually apologetic that the problem wasn’t there so he couldn’t do anything about it; we sent him off with thanks and a peach.

We sent yesterday’s installers home with a small box of peaches each.

We’re hoping our favorite plumber can make it tomorrow.

And after that I’m going to have to go back and pick up more peaches at Andy’s because we’re going through them pretty fast.

Okay, it looked like we were back up, I tried to post, and everything went poof. As Richard put it, The blog was well and truly hacked.

Let’s see if I can retrieve it… There it is! And yay again for the resident geek! But my preview is gone and it’s late at this point and you’ll just have to take it with no editing work.

—

And the blog is back up! Yay for the resident geek!

After ten long months of hanging things to dry in the kids’ old bathroom overnight, with family coming soon that just wasn’t going to work anymore. Did Speed Queen owe me a working dryer under the warranty? Yes they did. Would they do it? No they refused. Did the seller go to bat for me with them? No. Speed Queen would only repair the old one, telling me they never replace, and the repairman said that that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take because the board sparking meant it was too much of a fire hazard. Nearly burning the house down once was enough.

He was clearly afraid I would sue them and he would be dragged into it and he was done with it. He wouldn’t come and they wouldn’t give. And so I got nowhere.

I fantasized about returning it to the seller’s doorstep but didn’t want to be charged with dumping.

I can now no longer prove to Speed Queen that their machine is as the guy told me: it is gone. The new one via Costco is a Frigidaire with good reviews and the delivery men were the best.

Two things I learned: companies seem to be cutting costs by getting rid of the interior light and by curving the top of the back dashboard inward at the sides so they can use less metal. Many reviews complained about clothes falling down behind in the gaps that created.

The Frigidaire is much closer to straight up and it has an interior light and it’s a classic front-entry like I wanted and by golly it works, it works and that’s all I ever wanted in a dryer. It cost about half what my Speed Queen did. Warm clothes that are softened in the process! No more burlap towels!

So: I opened the door to the delivery guy with the greeting, My hero! And explained it had been ten months without one. He laughed. 

There were two of them and they each got sent off with a box of peaches from Andy’s bought yesterday and napkins they were going to need for them. It was 4:30, they’d been working since 6 a.m., they were tired, but they both perked up at those peaches, more so than the tip.

The inaugural load has begun. At long, long last.

Oh Birkenstock. Do none of you knit? Do any of you who do knit have a dog or a cat?

Because seriously, the yarn barf shoe, with the strap playing ball band trying to hold it all together, is the funniest thing you’ve ever done.

A hey, how are you. A response of, It’s been too long. A, How about we…

And there we were in an impromptu dinner together after a your house or ours we don’t care we just want to see you guys. Fruit from Andy’s. Her yarn in bins over there so she could choose the colors for the next big project, just like mine are over here at the moment. She pulled out my book and said she was going to knit a shawl for a friend and I pointed out the simplest to do (the Julia) vs the more involved (like the one named after her.) I said doing a three-stitch idiot cord for the neck edge makes a stronger one than what’s in there (hey, you learn something 20 years down the road) and you have the cast-on three, the ones you pick up the stitches along the length of it and then three last ones along the far side. You want a wider edge than I made some of those–start at the count at row 2 on some of those if you need to so it drapes better in the front if it’s for a larger person.

I like doing i-cord, she said, not quite sure what I meant.

Oh right. Idiot cord–it got shortened to i-cord, it’s where the i comes from.

Didn’t know that. Learned something new!

And a great time was had by all, along with a wondering why we don’t do this more often. Maybe we will now.

CVS auto-texted that they had his meds ready to go.

They did not even have one of them on the premises yet, and told me to come back between three and four. And you know that means come at the later end of that. Rush hour. Oh fun.

Four-thirty: the lead pharmacist saw me come back in and went uh oh and directed staff towards opening boxes. One was above waist high. Finally, found it! She apologized that I’d have to wait while she filled the prescription.

No problem. Yay for the chair. I was about to start the decreases on a hat.

Problem: the second circ I’d thrown in was both a size too large and had a gouge in the wood that refused to let stitches move past it. Well that’s a bug.

Got the med finally, got out, decided to stop by Trader Joe’s to get Richard’s favorite mini ice cream cones. Except by then it was after five and the place was jammed.

There was a woman, late 70s? Eighty? She had the biggest scowl on her face and was holding a basket sideways as if to get people out of her way.

There were two young petite Asian women talking and they didn’t notice her fast enough. She rammed them with it and pretended not to have so much as seen them, much less any apology. I was horrified. Yeah, I thought, and I bet I know who you voted for for President, lady.

There was a tall Asian man at the other end of the aisle who saw her do that and was likewise horrified and he was still angry when I tried to smile at him a minute or two later because his baby of about 15 months was adorable.

Understandable.

Where the check out lines form a sort of W near the door, I got the middle line and a dad was close by in the one next to me with his toddler. Out came a finger puppet. Then the tall Asian guy appeared on the other side of me, and he was paying attention to his little one and not being mad anymore. Out came another finger puppet with another “Happy Birthday!” and the little ones could see each other with theirs and this was great.

Then a woman I hadn’t seen previously finally caught up to her husband, pushing a second cart with their older toddler.

She was with the tall Asian guy.

The clerks were slammed, mine was working as fast as she could (really fast, I was impressed) but looked like all she wanted was a place to just sit down and breathe a moment.

I found a little wooly giraffe for the woman’s little girl.

Now we had a club going. The clerk found her second wind, loving this. People farther back in the lines were all smiles. My own day was rescued.

And as the couple walked out the door with me, the woman asked, Did you make them?

I buy them from Peru, I told her. But they are handmade.

Their little girl waved goodbye as we got in our cars. Her mommy and daddy had had her say thank you but she wanted to do it of herself as well.

Summer, college town, new people moving in, always a new medical intern or two. (Being sick at a teaching hospital in July means the new ones haven’t yet had time to get a little experience, but what I saw years ago from the patient side of it is that they are very very earnest about it and trying.)

So: to welcome everybody and help them get to know people, it was announced at church that there would be a picnic in the park next week. Potluck. With a pet parade. There’ll be a softball game that anybody can come and go as they wish, any age; last time, they said, we had a four year old–and Hank!

A bunch of people laughed.

I noticed that some clearly wished they were in on whatever that was all about, so I raised my hand and said, For those who are new: Hank is 95.

A four-year-old playing ball on a great great grandpa’s team: the rest of the room laughed for sheer joy at that mental image.

And, I have no doubt, at being noticed and included, too.

It was a good start.

Clara Parkes on her Substack today asked, if you were to make a sign to welcome people in here, what would it say? A fact? Something humorous? Encouragement, wisdom, suggestions. What would it be?

It took me instantly back to a moment when I was at the point of death and in no way sure which way it would end up. But what I felt!

There was also this: that it was required of me now, that it was more important than there could ever be the words for, that every person I ever encountered after that should feel that, too.

Which was utterly beyond mortal power but I knew in my bones I had to try, while grateful to still be here to give it my best.

So my answer could only be this:

You are loved.

Almost ready for the soaring raptor, whose flight feather details are echoed in the trees. Didn’t get as much done as I wanted the last two days because…

…Oh look, the NY Times had an article about a stomach bug associated with green onions that exactly described it. (I had already decided what was left of mine looked questionable and had tossed them.) So that’s what was going on while I was bellyaching about politicians to try to ignore my own. Today was a lot better, although dinner questioned its wisdom somewhat.

My fervent thanks to the workers who delivered groceries from Costco this afternoon. Which I’m mentioning because a friend needed that recently and didn’t know they do that. Ours does, anyway.

We can see the tops of the usual fireworks from in front of our house so there’s no point in adding to the crowds and traffic jams.

Sunday there was a five-acre fire right where we were driving for our anniversary dinner the evening before, right by Richard’s old office. Statewide, a lot of places have canceled their Fourth of July shows.

What there’s been so far (9:30 pm) is what appeared to be a helicopter. Nothing went boom. It hovered several minutes, then moseyed on out.

But somehow that felt like just the right touch. We didn’t need explosions or pollution, but a bright and shining light that everybody can see on the Fourth of July going forward where it wants to go? We could use that.

(I went back inside and checked to see if they’d canceled the show over the Bay. Turns out they’re just starting a bit later than I’d expected. I keep wondering when they’ll replace the explosives with drone light shows.)

Edited to add: a small plane came and circled above the fireworks over and over and over and over, and near the end, a second plane followed it, also circling. And then a third! That one only went around twice and then was the first to leave when the show was over.

I would mutter something about Silicon Valley oligarchs, but then we knew a fellow grad student who took his light plane *through* the fireworks when we were at Purdue.

Remember how, when we were little kids, it was a big thing for kids who hadn’t taken piano lessons (yet, anyway) to sit down and play Chopsticks? Some were taught by older kids, some proudly figured it out on their own, but it was a way to show off and make the most noise in the room for attention. While the older siblings with their friends over would roll their eyes and groan at having to listen to it yet again.

I never did. I wanted to play like my big sister, not little kid stuff, and as soon as my teacher deemed me old enough I was in. Lessons!

For years and years in my knitting I didn’t know how to knit lace and I didn’t particularly want to; the word itself meant great-grandma stuff, like, y’know, antimacassars (it took me a long time to find out there was a word for those), i.e. big cotton doilies for draping over the backs of stuffed chairs.

For protecting them by absorbing the grease from–think of every picture you ever saw of George Washington and his hairdo. There you go.

For decades I knew people here and there whose one and only lace pattern was feather and fan for making afghans. Some used the occasional purl row. Some did not. They assured me it was easy, and unlike plain stockinette stitch, the edges didn’t curl.

But I thought, but if the result is everybody-makes-that and they-all-look-like-that, why bother? Where’s the learning? The new?

And then Schoolhouse Press republished Barbara Walker’s stitch treasuries from the 1970s: the bible of the knitting world, written because Walker, according to a recent piece in the New York Times, didn’t want knitting to be boring anymore. Thousands of looks that simple stitch sequences could create.

I found out what I was missing. I taught myself lace knitting by trial and error and determined hours with her first book in my lap deciphering her how-to graphics at the front.

Still it took me nearly 20 years to get over myself and knit an actual, unembellished plain old feather-and-fan into anything. (For the non-knitters: think sine waves.) It definitely has its places. I was avoiding them. I think it was the pandemic that left me thinking I had the time to finally just get to it.

I woke up this morning with the sudden clarity: Feather and Fan! It’s the Chopsticks of lace!

It starts off so simple but there are so many variations... (Have fun!)  (Bugs Bunny!)

Their church is a few blocks away and every now and then there’s a knock on the door.

It was two young women offering fliers for a convention of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Cool! I said. I’ll trade you for a copy of the Book of Mormon?

No, no, that’s okay, they smiled, turning away quickly, but as they started to walk away I told them, Thank you for being willing to share your faith publicly.

They were not expecting that. It clearly made their day, and the smiles on their faces made mine.

They were talking in church about the importance of service and asking for stories of times someone has made all the difference to you or you to them, and of course there’s the thought of, how do you sum up what all (sweeping arms wide) of life is about?

When it came to me, I said, I’m wearing socks that H made!

Which took her by surprise. She was thrilled. She tried to wave it off a little by saying it was the auction fundraiser, but hey, we were on to her. It was love, pure and simple, that got her to spend all those hours on them. All I did by donating to that camp fundraiser was to give her a direction to point it in for one moment out of many.

Went out tonight, and turns out another couple was celebrating at the table next to us. Great food, good times, Flea Street Cafe has served us more of our anniversary dinners than anywhere else for a reason.

Till he got out of the car at home and went, in complete bewilderment, Wait–where’s…(checks inside car, checks under the car) my shoe??

We called. I headed back there and found myself following another car most of the way. Walked in.

They saw my returning face and went, Oh good, here it is.

And tried to hand me a credit card that I had never seen before. That’s not mine. I’d called because my husband has neuropathy and can’t feel his feet and he had somehow lost his shoe.

The woman who’d checked us in just a little earlier ran to retrieve the well-worn singleton for me–and laughed and laughed when I thanked her but added with a grin/shrug, I was kind of hoping it was lost forever and I could finally get him to wear a new pair, he loves these. Thank you!

Meantime, the driver of the car I’d followed had come in. It was her credit card. She was also the woman who’d been sitting at the next table and was delighted to see me again. She looked at the shoe in my hands and said she and her husband had been mystified why they’d seen a shoe sitting in the parking lot near the door on their way out–well, there you go!

We chatted like old friends, the way women tend to do.

It was their anniversary, too.

Forty-six.

Fifty-six!

Alright!

Woke up to the news about new Supreme Court decisions that gave no thought to those affected and wondered about the Haitian woman whose life my son had saved by being able to speak her language and translate for the paramedics. All the people like her. Have we no compassion?

Somehow that led to… I had been curious for some time whether the church I grew up going to had been rebuilt after the fire that had caved its roof in.

And the answer is, not yet.

The fire was November 2023. Last December it was finally torn down.

Someone videoed the entire thing.

Destruction of something dear to me, but also something that I knew would be rebuilt, it just felt like the day for witnessing that. I scrolled quickly forward at first, then slowed down and watched for far longer than I’d intended to. I read the comments for explanations here and there: they can’t just smash the thing down all in a go, the force of it would damage every building in the neighborhood. Oh.

Note that a certain infamous Supreme Court member lives around there.

All. The. Rebar.

Those steps that I ran up and down so many times as a little kid: molded concrete and rebar, and clearly water had gotten in because there were rust stains as the machinery crunched it–but only on those 76-year-old outside steps.

My father-in-law and his father had helped build that building as volunteers.

It was amazing to watch the dragon’s head of the thing chew on the concrete to separate it from the metal, which went in its own dumpster. The concrete turned to dust and water spray tamped down the smoke from the force of it. I watched with the sound off; I can only imagine how loud all this was in person.

And there’s where the woman’s restroom was…

Suddenly a large industrial-looking sink appeared and I thought, They still had that ugly thing after all these years?! I didn’t like it when I was a kid, either! But then I can understand not replacing it for the sake of, literally, vanity; an ugly sink never sank a soul, that’s not what a church’s mission is about. Still. This is a ward that got admonished by the Church that even if you’re hosting Washington DC and international bigwigs, sterling service and china for –was it 100?– was not the mission of the Church, which made them sell it.

Video Part 9, one hour 48 minutes in: the elegant Relief Society room, with the viewpoint suddenly swinging to street side as you see the wall and window go. I knew the chapel roof had fallen in but the timbers in that room were black, too. They still had those purple-pink chairs. More modern style, though. (Oh well, gone now.)

Behind the side door and above that restroom were the steps where there was once a swirl around me of low voices in the crowd as someone came up–actually, a bunch of people with him–while I was going down; I found out later it was a guy running for President. George Romney.

The chandeliers: were they still in there under that fallen roof? Must have been, because the building had been deemed unsafe and no one had gone inside since the fire. I used to watch all those little crystals shimmering in the air movement and listen to them when I was bored, which pretty much means every Sunday when I was little and I still did as I got older; they were so beautiful to look at and so exquisite to listen to.

Those frequencies have been gone from my hearing since my teens.

But I have found that if I am in a very quiet place and there is a crystal chandelier and I am looking up at it, my brain knows those sounds by heart and it brings them back to me still.