Two more days and counting till the haircut appointment.

I had a six months’ trim appointment that never happened because Covid did.

It’s been a long time coming.

How about you all?

I mean, I always wanted to live in a repurposed pickle vat, didn’t you? I gotta say, though, they take the aluminum siding thing to a whole new level.

I actually like the kitchen, even if everything’s standing on its tippy toes.

(Oh, and, the cowl is cast off and almost dry.)

Today would have been my dad’s 95th and even though he was allergic to chocolate, he loved it and we love it, so it seemed a good day to celebrate, and, yeah. We got in the car to head to Mutari in Santa Cruz. Richard pulled up Waze on his phone just to be sure everything was cool road-wise.

Nope nopity nope. Bad accident. (Turned out later that friends of ours were stuck for three hours in that mess, and one can only pray for the people who were hit.)

Michelle turned and headed north. Dandelion here we come!

We even scored a jar of their dairy-free fresh chocolate/freshly roasted hazelnut spread that was sold out online. For that, she forgave my asking about Imagiknit a few blocks away, and so we came home with four unexpected skeins of Malabrigo Mecha, too. Make more art! Yay!

And then after we got home.

Richard’s glasses came in and he needed to go to Costco to pick them up; did I want to come?

Not overly, and I dragged my feet a little; Costco on a Saturday?

It turns out it wasn’t too bad, actually, but as I started in the door their guy called out after me.

“I’m with him,” pointing at Richard.

“No, you can’t come in without a mask.”

“Wha…Ohmygoodness, I’m sorry, I forgot, here let me grab mine” (fishing it out of my purse while the guy was offering one from the store.)

He was apologizing, saying they make him say that–and then added, “Some people, you know, they think it’s mostly a hoax.”

The way he said it made it clear he was one of those who thought they were probably right.

I found myself telling it with a keen sense of love for this good man I’d seen working there for years, so that it came out almost joyfully, “I had Covid. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. There was one day there where my oxygen was so low that I knew if I moved a single muscle I’d be out–there was just none to spare. I’m so glad I survived! I had long-hauler syndrome, and after they gave me the vaccine it was gone just like that!” snapping my fingers. (It took about a week, but a week is nothing after a year of that.)

His face was a mixture of wonderment and relief as he took all this in. Somehow the incoming crowd had thinned just then so that he had that moment to have that conversation and to consider what I’d said. On a Saturday, no less.

“It’s real?”

I nodded, answering, “I am SO glad for the vaccines!”

As I walked off I was smiling and he was really smiling, like he was finally at peace. He finally knew what to do and it was clear he’d made the decision. He was going to get his, too.

A little context on yesterday’s post: years ago I asked someone for a quote on redoing our heating system. Our house was built with radiant heating under the floors that had failed before we’d bought the place, and the previous owners had put in the cheapest possible substitute system, knowing they were about to sell. It caused us much grief.

He told me $60,000. He said he would build a new ductwork system on the inside.

I was staggered.

It took me awhile to call someone else because I was afraid of having that number reinforced, so I mentioned it to the contractor who took the small job of building our then-new awning.

I got an entirely different reaction: he did a startled double take and then laughed really, really hard. YES that number was outrageous! NO, I absolutely should not pay it!

He then explained that sometimes when a contractor really doesn’t want a job he’ll bid it stratospherically high like that, sure that you’ll walk away. But if you don’t–then hey, he’ll have to do a job he dislikes but he’ll get paid really really well for it so why not.

The new ductwork across the roof along with a new top-brand HVAC unit? Thirteen grand.

P.S. On the falcons: another “I meant to do that” moment. All four San Francisco eyases have fledged successfully and the one that disappeared from camera view for a week and was feared lost showed up again yesterday as if he’d been there all along. Which surely he had.

Still, there are moments like this. The one named after Rachel Carson of “Silent Spring” fame was reported flying and fine afterwards.

Second day, second quote.

Richard told yesterday’s guy just before he left that we had someone coming to look at it today, too, and he instantly crossed out the number he had just written on the paper he was about to hand us and replaced it with one that was 10% less.

I mentioned to contractor #2 today that there were pink chalk marks on the ceiling from yesterday’s guy marking the spots.

Instantly we had a discount on the job.

Our daughter’s reaction afterwards: Oh, so they crossed out the stupidity tax. You DID know to get more than one quote.

Last time I saw him pre-pandemic he was just starting that amazing sprouting thing that boys his age do.

Today he gave a talk in church at the pulpit. (We were still on Zoom for it due to my feeling under the weather yesterday.)

I was gobsmacked: when on earth did the short kid turn into this tall young man who had to lean down to the mic? Wow.

He told us of his dad asking him and his brother to come with him on the long drive up into the mountains to Camp Lehi: there was a need of volunteer workers in the effort to restore what had been before the CZU Complex fire last summer.(Post-fire pictures in link.) Camp Lehi was a church-owned property in constant use in the summers in particular–or was.

He said he figured this was his one chance ever to be allowed to use a chainsaw so he said okay. Power tools!

He had been there with his family on ward campouts a number of times; he knew what used to be there. Trees can only grow so fast, but on the human side there was so much to do.

What he hadn’t expected, he said, was how as he put in that hard physical labor he envisioned his efforts going towards people gathering there again. Enjoying each other’s company there again, laughing together again, seeing wildlife there again.

Making memories there again.

He felt an overwhelming sense of joy that he got to be a part of helping make that happen. He had not expected that.

The problem with only focusing on what you want, she groused silently at the scrub jay, is that you cut off what you could have had.

I had chased it out of my Stella tree on seeing it yanking away in there. It got its not-yet-dark red cherry. The rest of the cluster, pale and small and far too unripe to nourish anything yet, was left on the ground.

Sing it with me, Have a piece when he is done…

Andy: Mom and Dad can do it. I flew before anybody. I can do this, too, I know I can.

The fledgling stands on the prey with both feet, gripping it hard, preparing to take off to eat breakfast someplace more interesting than home because it’s no fun when there’s no sibling around anymore to try to grab it from you. Grip, flap, lift: an initial try at getting it up to the light fixture. Nope. Go back, grab it again (how DO the folks manage talons and wings at the same time?) get it up there, did it, great!, okay this time lift it up to the ledge.

He did it!

Then, starting at about 7:30 in the video, yelling all the way as he drags it and its drag against the concrete turns him slowly around in the little wind tunnel he’s creating and suddenly Whoops!…

Every cat who ever licked its paw in a defiant show of, I meant to do that… Yeah.

—

(P.S.) If you’ve ever gotten on your own case about not getting something done, you’re in good company: this house is like our first one, which was a split-entry where the builder only finished the upstairs and left the downstairs as framing and insulation only so that first-time owners could afford a place and put in the sweat equity themselves. We did that.

Fifty years. I’m seeing the raw plumbing for maybe a bathroom, possibly a downstairs laundry room if they once intended a separate living quarters, a bedroom, closet, and family room down there at the least. It’s a nice house.

But that insulation and lumber have been waiting a long time for someone to put up with the hammering and disruption and noise. (Can we get rid of the ivy while we’re dreaming.)

I got the new hearing aids yesterday.

I opened the door today and a siren went by, closer than the road even comes as far as I could tell and I asked where was that?! Thinking it was coming right next door.

Oh, over on X road I’m sure, was the answer.

That was two streets away. No way. But then it turned a corner and faded and clearly she was right. Huh. You mean sirens can actually sound like sirens again?

Some sounds are too bright but the brain has already adjusted somewhat.

One of the sources of improvement, though by no means the main one, was better-fitting ear molds–but I warned the audiologist beforehand that a previous new set had had to be whittled down because with my connective tissue disease, being tight against it meant it bled. And if it’s not tight, you don’t hear as well. I knew the tradeoff all too well.

So the new ones went in. She programmed them as I sat there, then had us talking for me to figure out how these were working, and did one more test where she took them out and put them back in with a wire alongside them all the way into the ear canals to test how they were actually carrying the sound.

While I was thinking, one more bit of space taken up. I can’t…

They came back out again so she could be done with the wires and I had her look at the left ear. It was already red.

So the upshot is, I do hear better with the new aids. Mostly. There is still brightness that drowns other frequencies out but that already seems to be calming down in my brain: I’ve had recruitment before and I know it goes away and it’s a sign of where the old aids were failing and not conveying sound. The brain overreacts to sounds it hasn’t heard in awhile but you just keep going till it doesn’t. Just like a new eyeglass prescription may be the correct one for your eyes but man it feels weird for the first hour and day.

She said that these molds do conform and shrink just a tiny bit with the wearing.

I’ve found I have to put them in and not touch them for anything because the slightest movement against them sets off that inflammation. Which I did today. Then I was wearing them not quite all the way in, which didn’t work. I gave up and put the old smaller-mold ones in to give my ears some time to calm down because I really want the new ones to work at their very best.

The sound is comfortable on the old ones. The fit is, too.

The difference is, now I know what I could be hearing and wasn’t with them.

I just have to work my way through that adjustment period. Carefully and bit by bit.

The mass shooting at the Valley Transit Authority yard in San Jose this morning hit far too close to home. A neighbor whose kids grew up with ours we were pretty sure used to work that shift if he doesn’t still and every few hours over the course of the day I looked to see if they had released the names of the victims. I did not want to call Ingrid and make me be one more thing she had to deal with. So not my place. If he was gone, there would be a right time to come offer a hug.

Just like they walked a few blocks over to our house and offered company and love a few weeks after I got out of the hospital in ’09.

Those names were released tonight. Her husband, a fellow Ham radio volunteer with my husband, was not on that list.  Deep breath.

But eight other families and sets of neighbors and loved ones….

We have to do better. We HAVE to do better.

I did not get my new hearing aids yesterday: they were supposed to have come in by then but they hadn’t.

I did not meet the termite guy today: when he wasn’t showing I finally called, explained that I was hearing impaired, and had I gotten the day right?

The woman checked: our appointment was for next Tuesday. I thanked her.

The hearing aids are now at the office and someone canceled an appointment so I’m in for tomorrow.

But I have not yet finished this cowl. So, as a potential option, I guess that one’s going to have to wait.

P.S. Today the youngest San Francisco peregrine, a female that had hatched four days after the others, soared gracefully off through that sky like she’d been doing this all her life. (Unlike the jump up/fall down/swim in the Bay/get rescued drama of her sister.)

While over at the San Jose nest, the first egg of the pair’s do-over attempt not only hatched early this morning, but by afternoon was begging to be fed. And was. Usually they consume the rest of the yolk and that tides them over till the next day, when they have a little more strength for holding their heads up with beaks open.

But this one just got right to it.

With thanks to Anne for the heads-up, Mark Rober, former NASA engineer and the guy made famous by putting out boxes for porch pirates that sprayed them with stink bombs and glitter while shooting videos of them from inside the box, has posted another Rube Goldbergian squirrel course in his yard. Enjoy.

Last night changing out of my long sleeves into my pj’s I noticed the veins in my hands and arms were very swollen, deep blue, and you could see them going from my hands wrapping around my arms on up to near the elbows. Puffy. I checked around. It seemed to be mostly there.

“That’s inflamed,” said Richard, with both of us aware that my lupus did this all over early on in the disease and the doctor guessed afterwards that I’d had cerebral vasculitis. That’s where my face blindness and short term memory damage originated from. I was 31.

Urgent Care was closed by then and he asked whether we should go to the ER. Insurance punishes you heavily if you go straight there ($13k bill last time), even when the doctor tells you to. We knew we would spend a very long night awake and go home near dawn beyond exhausted, which would greatly exacerbate the whole autoimmune flare thing, and chances are they would probably just dismiss it anyway; at an hour when all we wanted to do was fall into bed it seemed like the best way to treat it was to get a decent night’s sleep.

I was antsy and didn’t sleep well at all. But it was gone in the morning. Breathe.

My GI doctor said I could see her next Monday or come in and see someone else if I needed to on those Crohn’s symptoms; again, my call.

Today was not perfect but it was improved on that one, too, and I was able to eat normal meals, so for the moment Monday it is. But I will change that in a heartbeat if I need to.

So today there were more birds in the yard than I’ve seen in awhile. House finches in breeding season: you never saw such a brilliant red. A western tanager flew up close to  the house, the jasmine’s white buds promise their exquisite scent on the way, the pomegranate sent out more bright red buds, and we shared a few blueberries straight off the bush after dinner. The newest apricot seedling began a new set of leaves and after its faltering start seems to really be taking off.

It felt a good day to drink every bit of that in.

I’m going to go top the day off with a few rows of a bright blue soft wool hat and then call it a night.

I want to show you the thick Meyer lemon flowers, white on the inside, purple on the outside, quite pretty, blooming in front of a rather large lemon that was waiting for us to hurry up and finally pick it. Citrus takes about a year from early bud to ripe fruit.

But my phone is now on strike entirely and not sending any photos, even after two days. (Michelle took the orange juicing photos.)

The audiologist told me Tuesday that the new hearing aids would bluetooth directly from an iPhone. Which is a huge improvement over having to wear a gray electronic pendant from your neck that freaked out the TSA and was heavy enough to hurt with a connective tissue disease, and it flipped the phone signals from ear to ear with a rubber-ball-bouncey twang instead of going straight to both ears, so I rarely rarely used it. They had not filtered out electronic interference on the first model, as far as I could tell.

Does that depend on how old the iPhone is? I asked her, because mine’s a 6s.

She winced and said she wasn’t sure.

Like the hearing aids, it’s failing anyway and I guess I really should replace it.

Except–we now have a termite guy coming, and if anyone has any experience with such, please tell me because I have no experience and no idea.

I’d show you why I called him, but…

I’m trying out that lobster shell compost. It was black and velvety rich and finely crumbly in the hands and you could just hear the plants swooning. I mixed it in to about 60% organic bedding soil and pretended I knew what I was doing. (I only buy organic after getting soil from Costco a few years ago that was full of little green plastic beads.)

The youngest Anya seedling is the guinea pig. It’s pretty dwarfed in that 15 gallon fabric pot but given the vigor of its roots I didn’t want it to grow through my 5 gallon in a month, seeing as how it is, in fact, a tree.

On the other hand, it’s too heavy now to move it much. So it’s in a good spot because it had to be.

The fabric pots dry out fast, but the other apricot that’s in one is looking really healthy and happy. They do not like soggy roots so those are a good counterbalance to my tendency to overwater based on the fear that I can’t go out in the bright summer sun to rescue them before evening’s safer UV levels.

The bigger thing is: I finally went to the new audiologist today. It felt so strange to just go do a normal errand out in the wild like that.

She was a peach. And she was thorough. I’ve been dealing with hearing aids since I was 27 and never before has someone tested to see how well I lipread.

There was the standard man’s voice speaking words into one ear, then the other, where you try to repeat each word back. She chuckled at one guess: “Well, that’s creative.”

But then, taking her mask off from the other side of the thick glass, with the lighting not super good for it from my view, she went through what was clearly the same list of words as I sat in the anechoic chamber–and I zipped right through those with confidence. Only had two I didn’t quite get. It was absolutely revelatory to me. I had NO idea I was that good at it. I knew how much I need to see people’s faces, but…!

She examined my hearing aids and said they were eight iterations ago, and now they can do all these other things.

Cool. That’s what I was there for. My old ones sometimes turn themselves off randomly and are clearly at the end of their lifespans.

When she said Oticon would take two weeks at their end, I asked if I could pay for overnight shipping? I want to be able to hear grandkids sooner rather than later. She checked into that and, yes, they could do a rush job on the whole thing, sure.

A week from Monday my cracked ear mold will be history, I will have much better background noise cancellation, and we’ll see how it goes.

And even with that rush she charged me about $1500 less than the last time/last guy. Nice.

As she was writing things up, there was a computer screen next to me with two audiogram charts (no name visible) with five slightly wobbly lines that curved up a bit and then down again with Xs and Os marked along the way for right vs left ear, but these other lines too were marked for–tympannometry? I don’t know, and five seems odd when you’re talking ears but that’s what was there.

When she got done, I motioned towards the screen and said, “It looks like middle school band members trying to read the music.”

She glanced at it and guffawed. “You ARE creative!”