It came!

No bought article of clothing has ever brought me to tears before, nor was I expecting it to.

I hadn’t been at all sure it would arrive at all; I’d thought of it more as a donation on a personal level to someone in an area of the world where–well, there was one guy there who told a reporter he’d found a phone number in the glove box and called it and confessed, I’m so sorry. I’ve stolen your car. I watched it for two hours and the key was in and my family was under fire and we had to get out and I’ve taken them to relatives in the east.

Basically, along with the profound apology it was, How do I get your car back to you now? Is it even possible? Are you okay?

The man who answered the call exclaimed, Thank G_d!  He owned four cars, he told him, he’d evacuated his own family in one and he’d filled and parked the other three in areas where it seemed people were most going to need that help to get out. He couldn’t know who they were going to be but he knew he could do something about it.

Every single car had now saved people, and in every single one, they’d found the number and had called him to let him know where his car was and to apologize.

And every one heard that same grateful response.

Good people looking out for each other.

Quite a few people in Ukraine are artists doing beautiful work.

Zelensky had pleaded with people to keep paying their taxes if at all possible so that the infrastructure, the utilities, things could be kept running for the people and be repaired after shelling.

Which is a very good reason to help a small business from abroad.

No photo can convey how beautiful this soft shirt is with its radiant viscose cross-stitched embroidery and how beautiful it instantly made me feel when I put it on. (I turned one sleeve slightly sideways so you could see the pattern better.) It deserves a far better photographer than I. Whoever Marina is out there, thank you so much, and I pray every day for you and for your country.

I knew she’d wanted to. I’m thrilled she was able to: it came!

(A side note: the address that is the name of this blog at gmail is still working. Work’s been intense for the resident geek and my main one is still on the fritz.)

Random and then suddenly it wasn’t anymore:

A friend made a comment out of the blue yesterday, and it took me straight back to when the folks were visiting when the kids were young and Dad hoped out loud that he could get to see his old Army buddy while they were in California; when he told me the town I said that was near the Monterey Bay Aquarium, about 100 minutes away, so we could make a day trip of it all. So we did.

That moment when the two of them laid eyes on each other for the first time in 30 years. Good memories. I had been wishing for several years that I could remember the guy’s name so I could let him know his old friend had passed, if he was still around himself.

So then my inbox clogs when it has no right to and I was vacuuming up old emails and tossing them to make space (and then it jammed like an antique typewriter anyway and won’t even let me do that and I’m sorry and the resident geek will work on it tomorrow) and one of those old emails…had Dad mentioning Walt.

I had his name.

I kept that email.

I went looking for an obituary. There wasn’t one. He’s still alive. Hit by a car at 95 at the start of the year and had a long recovery ahead of him at the time.

Someone had interviewed him in spring 2020 for an oral history project, by Zoom because of Covid, and it seems almost quaint now that they were hoping that by the fall this pandemic thing would be over with.

I knew Walt had done a lot of children’s theater in Carmel and some children’s cartoons back in the day.

Turns out the early Charlie Brown TV specials? The kids’ voices? Those were his kids. Till they got too old for it while new specials were being made. Turns out his were not made in Hollywood–they were made in Burlingame, ie between my favorite yarn store I went to yesterday and here. That was a surprise.

Turns out not only was he in the Army with Dad and I was nodding my head at some of the places he got assigned to–yup, yup, Dad, too. Having never made it into any actual war zone for having been too young when it all started, he re-enlisted for Korea out of a sense of duty and ended up sent to a desk in the Pentagon. Writing he was good at. Soldiering, no way to know.

And I quote:

My friend whose husband just got his PhD and they’ve been getting ready to move away…after being so careful for so long, they and their boys came down with covid last week. Thankfully they had all been vaccinated so it wasn’t as serious as it could have been–but.

I offered to bring dinner.

They are well loved; I had to wait my turn.

Y’know, I love a good split pea soup. Celery, onions, green onions, red pepper, chicken broth, halved grapes, an intensely flavored Californian EV olive oil and ham. (Theirs is THE best olive oil out there. It is like the difference between a rock-hard tasteless grocery store peach and an Andy’s Orchard peach.)

It was the first time I’d tried cooking the split peas first in an Instant Pot. There’s no rhyme nor reason to the recipes out there; one said 15 minutes’ pressure, another, 30. Hmm. Risk grit or liquid? Thirty it is. (Two boxes of broth to a 14 oz bag of the peas.) Verdict: definitely the only way to go next time.

The vegetables sautéed while that was going on and then everything into the dutch oven on the stove for an hour or so because I just couldn’t get the IP to maintain the temp I wanted for simmering.

I hauled out the hazelnut chocolate torte recipe. I have two 24-mini-cupcake pans, mostly because I’d forgotten I’d already bought one. Good thing! That recipe was the perfect amount for filling both, and it is way easier to freeze some for future breakfasts in that form.

Aubrie had reminded me that Eric was allergic to dairy, and of course we know that one well. I melted cocoa butter for the butter. Turns out it’s a very stable fat with a shelf life of 3-5 years–I checked, because mine was about a year old. Not a problem. Worked great.

Two paper plates full of those, a bar of freshly made chocolate, a box of Andy’s slab dried Blenheim apricots that they love, some cherries from the Stella–hey! Getouttamytree! I chased away the two squirrels and picked some before they could.

And some fresh juice. Because when you’re sick you have to have juice. It’s the rule.

I decided to watch a few minutes of the Depp/Heard trial yesterday and the closing arguments today by Camille Vasquez. I was agnostic on who was at fault, going in, and I wasn’t about to spend days mesmerized by the court proceedings but I do have a relative who went through a hellacious divorce from someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, as Heard has been diagnosed with, and I guess I wanted to be able to understand better what he’d been put through.

As his lawyer put it to the judge, Visualize the genders reversed: we wouldn’t be here, because he’d be in jail.

I wondered if Vasquez would eventually say something like that. She left it at “…reversed?” and let the jury fill the rest in in their minds. She didn’t have to say more, it was all right there.

I was blown away at how good a lawyer she was: she anticipated what Heard was going to say, she remembered exactly when Heard had completely contradicted that under oath, she had the photos and the recordings in the evidence right there at her fingertips point by point. She remembered who had testified when and what they had said. She did not allow Heard to talk over her.

At the last she said to the jury that the question before them was, were they going to believe Ms. Heard and her sister?

Or…

The names went on and on and on and on of people who had testified in the case supporting Johnny Depp’s version. She noted their professions: doctor. Nurse. Both his and hers. Police officer. Friends, fellow actors, the TMZ reporter Heard had strung along. People who had been there when Heard had said things had happened and they said no they didn’t–or that Heard had done it to Depp, not the other way around.

She explained Borderline Personality Disorder and how the defining characteristic is an intense fear of abandonment. Every time Depp removed himself from the room because of her behavior, she became much worse while demanding he stay right there with her. Taunting him that nobody would believe him that she’d hit him because he was a man. Vasquez played the recording again.

“I Hate You Don’t Leave Me” is a book that explains how such mentally ill people think. I read it years ago when that other case closer to home was going on. It’s not my story to tell, but I will say Heard played that part well both in court and in those recordings from when she and Depp were in private.

I’m so glad he got out, too.

I don’t usually lift other people’s pictures but I wanted to show you this one before it’s sold to show you what I’m talking about.

In the middle of the war, the Washington Post interviewed people and had an article, bless them, on the traditional embroidery and clothing of Ukraine and the women who create it. Vyshyvanka is the word but they said it carries memories of the Soviets’ efforts to erase the village-by-village patterns in order to basically de-Ukraine the country.

So President Zelenskyy simply called the traditional day of celebrating that part of their heritage National Embroidered Shirt day. Simple, to the point, and good marketing for his people.

One mention jumped out at me:

Woke up running a slight fever but got up and stayed up and didn’t mention it because it was just a slow-start morning, right? Plus I didn’t want to interrupt his meeting. So he didn’t know.

Finally, no, enough already, and at about 2:00 I went to go lie down, telling Richard, Wake me up in half an hour. Um, maybe forty.

So he tried, but nothing doing. I was not getting up yet.

At the hour, he came in and, knowing I don’t like insomnia at night after too long a daytime rest–

Okay, here’s where I explain about being toddlers and preschoolers in church together sixty years ago. Little kids need movement and song and dance is their thing.

So here’s my 6’8″ husband holding his arms over his head for a sun or a tree, take your pick, singing, Innn the leafy treeTOPS* the birds say good morning. They’re first to see the sun! They must tell everyone! Innn the leafy treeTOPS, the birds sing good morning! as he leaned to the right and stood on that foot, then clapped the other against it then leaned to the left and clapped the right foot against it in rhythm the best he could, swaying back and forth with his sun held proudly high.

You goof!

I hadn’t thought of that song and especially those movements in just forever. I was laughing as I put my hearing aids in.

And then he had to sing it again so I could hear it this time.

*(That’s the highest note so you have to sing it the loudest. It’s the rule.)

I looked at the sky at 6:00 tonight as knitfriends in a Zoom bemoaned stormy skies on the east coast that meant they wouldn’t be seeing the red total lunar eclipse tonight. I didn’t say, Blue and clear and bright as could be here. (I did tell myself, don’t be smug.)

Cue the comeuppance of the fog coming in on little cat feet...

During an eclipse, you know it’s there, you just can’t see it. Tonight, we know it’s there being not-there while it’s there, we just can’t see not seeing it.

I was looking at some old pictures: this is my oldest Anya seedling, pictured a year ago when it was finally really starting to grow its second year, and three weeks ago.

Suddenly I got why the young termite guy last week, on stepping out the sliding door, stopped right there a moment, transfixed at the changes since last July. On everything. He was delighted–and a little wistful.

I found myself so much wishing I could give him a yard big enough to grow his own fruit trees, because I knew in that moment he’d take great care of them and if he didn’t know how he’d go learn. In a heartbeat.

His moment of wonder stayed with me and finally I had to go flip through the pictures to see for myself what he’d been able to that I should have. To remember to appreciate it more.

When you see it every day it’s easy to not quite notice what the very intermittent viewer can.

So this post is a little like the fledgling finch I watched trying to land on the newest leaves of an apricot seedling today: kind of flapping its wings all over the place with its feet flailing before flitting off thataway.

Pete Buttigieg, talking sense and being reasonable on the whole Roe issue before the Court.

Last night I was going to start Gansey squares above the brim next on the requested gray hat–when all that other stuff happened. I took it to the emergency dental appointment because you just never know.

But my brain was just not doing patterns. Stockinette on auto-repeat only.

Just need to decrease at the top now.

My new Skacel olivewood needles showed up for tomorrow’s highly anticipated new start in brighter yarns and I’ve never had olive ones before. I know it’s a particularly dense wood. If you’ve tried them I’d be curious to hear what you think.

(And yesterday’s post should have been titled, Another one bites the dust. I think my brain is back.)

I took a gross picture of my face. My husband, with better lighting, took a grosser one and sent it to all the kids. Um, thanks I guess?

The new dentist called this evening to follow up to make sure things were okay. I like this guy.

You know how sometimes you think you should get something done and then life makes you?

I haven’t been to the dentist since just before the pandemic. Yeah, I ought to, but yeah, I floss religiously and they’re looking pretty good, and unnecessary exposure, so, yeah, whatever.

Turns out my dentist had back and heart surgery starting in March and his doctor basically told him, Retire. Now.

So when I went looking for any missing teeth–no, looks like they’re still attached, yay–as I picked myself slowly up off the ground, I found out I had nobody to call to ask if I needed an emergency appointment.

I’d gone straight down and bounced off my front teeth. They are loose. Not knowing what else to do, I put a note on the ward chat and six different people instantly recommended the same one and it’s actually someone I know a little and he says yes that needs to be seen and he is having me in to his office at nine pm and it’s actually quite close by. He kind of apologized that he couldn’t get out of (whatever it was) sooner, and I was a little dumbfounded that he would worry about the inconvenience to me when I’m the one who should definitely be apologizing for messing up his time.

Do your back teeth still connect when you bite? he asked over the phone.

Yes. They feel a little funny, but, yes.

He was relieved. “That’s a good sign.”

(Update: no breaks in the teeth. I lucked out.)

The knitted redwoods are ready to go.

Twenty-something years ago, we used to make the drive from the San Francisco Bay area to Salt Lake City every summer, usually for five days, after Richard’s sister who lived there was diagnosed with lymphoma. We wanted to see her and her family and that was the way we could make it happen.

A CD would get popped in in the minivan and my husband’s favorites in particular would get played again and again and again and again (with me trying not to say more than once, For the love of pete can we please play something else?! Do those have to be every single trip?)

Tom Paxton. Willy Nelson. Pete Seeger. The Dave Matthews Band picked by the kids as they got older was pretty good, though I’d have gone for some James Taylor, myself.

To his credit, Richard did occasionally fiddle with the radio dial, but there’s a whole lot of nuthin’ going through Nevada.

Those albums became imprinted on my brain as part of, we’re doing a hard drive and we’re getting past my fears of driving past those thousand-foot drop-offs and the roadstop McDonald’s that missed half our order (again! Please can we do the Arby’s next time dear) and you don’t find out till you’re a mile or two down the road and you just go forget it because you’re not doing those miles over and you let a kid have your burger so they don’t go hungry because we’re going to see Cheryl and to show her kids they’re loved and we are not getting there late.

Especially after their dad decided he was afraid of being widowed and alone and was determined not to feel that pain.

I’ve met men who later cheated on their wives but never to the degree that one did. She was so much better off after their divorce.

We came.

There were zero cures and three known cases of remission of the type she had when she was diagnosed on her 40th birthday but she was determined to see her kids grow up. (They say they can cure that type, now.)

And she did it. She did it. Eight years. She made it through her son’s wedding looking far better than I would have expected and got to see him married to the best young woman she could have hoped for, and the two of them so happy. And they still are.

J., his baby sister, was a freshman in college along with my oldest when her mother passed six weeks after.

This afghan is for J.

What I wouldn’t do to be able to give her her mom back instead. But I can offer love and she can wrap it around herself at any time forevermore and know that I’m thinking of both of them.

This new Tom Paxton song for Ukraine came courtesy of my friend Anne today and I found myself near unexpected tears.

With the sound of his voice, all those memories and associations of piling four kids in the car and making that long thirteen hour drive across mountain and desert and salt flats, driving, driving, driving, heading towards people we loved to make good memories with them while we could.

And thinking of all those families who, if they’re lucky, have piled into all those cars to drive drive drive to flee the country and friends and places they’ve loved, wondering if they’ll ever see them again.

We are with them in heart and song and we will play it over and over and over and over. For them.

There were reports of two pips spotted among the three peregrine falcon eggs on San Jose City Hall. These are the tiny holes where a baby beak begins to do its first job. White fluff was spotted on the first, video was taken, and I am told that you can hear the tiny sounds of the eyases (chicks) as they are slowly showing themselves out.

I don’t think I can–there might be something at the very edge of my hearing with everything turned full blast, possibly–but maybe you can hear it.

I read the leaked Supreme Court draft and I think I just need to take a deep breath about that for the moment. I will say that it unconstitutionally establishes by the power of the government one religious viewpoint above others. They picked and chose what historical context they wanted while pretending anything that contradicted them didn’t exist.

Meantime.

I’d found a few new spots (one of which, it turned out, was indeed termites–directly above this computer, so that one was easy to spot) and with our five year warranty the guy was here again. Just him, not the rest of the crew this time, but he noted the work that had been done on the house during the repairs since he’d been here. It looked nice and he was quite pleased about that and happy for us.

I told him there was this one corner where there had been a bag of soil leaned against the siding that none of us had thought to move and check behind–and the repair contractor had found a bit of termite damage but had assured me it was all gone when they replaced that part.

He wanted to see the spot. I took him outside to it.

He tapped on the wood here, here, here, over here, and then again just to be sure: it was solid. Everything was good.

But he pointed to tiny ants scurrying to where I’d first pointed: “Those are carpenter ants. You’ll have to call a pest control company.”

I looked at him a moment in astonished amusement, started to laugh, and then waving at him said, “I did!”

That stopped him for a millisecond as he considered it from my point of view because yes that did seem reasonable, but–and then he explained that they used to, till the state changed the code and required a different license for termites vs ants and rodents and the like, and they didn’t have that license, they just do the one job now.

He also explained how the Eichler houses with their planked ceilings are a particular target for those ants, but said spraying around the base of the house should take care of it, and cut away any trees overhanging the house.

I explained that we had after finding raccoon paw prints on the cracked plastic skylight in the master bath. Another reason why we now have frosted glass ones–I didn’t want that one coming through!

He laughed.

Inside, there were a few places where quite small spots of paint were peeled away on the ceiling. Near where a couple of those cracked skylights had been.

The ants had done that, too, he explained.

So, if you ever need incentive to organize your house, get termites. The crews need to be able to see everything. But don’t put it off.

He’ll be back for the annual inspection in July.

Today was one of the great honors of a lifetime: we got invited to attend a friend’s doctoral thesis defense today. Zoom was an option.

And so I did.

I kept my camera on during the introductory remarks and then, fearing I might in any way be a distraction, turned it off and just watched, needles and hat project in hand. I and so many others had been praying so hard while he’d been so worried and had worked so hard to be ready.

But now it was happening. Once he was actually up there facing the faculty for it, he knew his stuff, he knew what he was going to say, he knew he could answer their questions, and he just nailed it again and again and again with the confidence he had put the effort into earning.

Congratulations, Eric! filled up the chat sidebar at the end as I turned my camera back on long enough for him to see the huge smile on my face.

He did it!

I will forever wish he’d gotten a chance to meet my dad–they so much would have hit it off.

Wherever he and Aubrie and their two young sons go next, if there’s room in the car, a little Anya apricot tree will start to set down roots along with them.

And if when they get all done packing the space just isn’t reasonably there, I’ll send them some kernels from this year’s crop. They want one as a memory of California, I want to send a bit of my heart into their future, and we can make this happen.