I promised myself I would use the time to knit. With the time zone difference and our morning schedule, I missed some of Dr. Ford’s testimony but what I saw was riveting and heartbreaking and as real as it gets.

Kavanaugh‘s Yale roommate said he was mean when he was drunk. Today we got to see the guy sober–and I wouldn’t want to be around him when he’s anything worse. Self-righteous, highly partisan, self-pitying, loud, angry, bombastic, rude, steamrollering, and over the top: this is the kind of man that women stay as far away from as they can.

Judy’s cowl is almost done.

I can’t change what the Senate might do tomorrow, but I can make a difference to one woman with it.

Yeah, it was time.

So I headed on over to the station that charges more. Punched Yes on the screen for Express, and no I didn’t want the super duper a la hoppity Hooper version, thanks, wax just blinds the cars behind me at certain times of the day. ’07 Priuses have no pretensions anyway.

Pulled the car over to the left, waited my turn in line.

And then couldn’t (oops) reach to enter my code without getting out of the car again; okay, no big deal. Back in quick and roll up the window and pull in as the green light blinks. I so loved it as a kid when my mom let us go through these; I remember giggling in fake-fright that those things would get us, look, here they come! Duck!

The rollers came down, the water started to spray.

And that’s when I figured out a chunk of my skirt was still on the outside of the car.

Someone sitting very near us on Sunday was sick. I was glad we’d gotten our flu shots, even if hers was just a cold (I hope, for her sake.)

Germ exposure=lupus flare=pleuritis+broken rib=a bad night=a fever+definitely sick this morning.

The day got much better as it went along, though, when it could have gone the other way entirely.

Turns out I had a face mask in my purse the whole time. Although: they scare small toddlers and at this time of year would probably make preschoolers wonder why do grownups get to wear their Halloween costumes to church? Can they wear theirs too? For a whole month?

They can’t make major noise before 8:00 a.m. but they can certainly arrive earlier and set up for it.

I love waking up in the morning and looking out the overhead windows at the big branch (not touching the power line) on the camphor tree, where there’s almost always a bird or two perched or flitting around.

At workers up there looking down in, not so much.

All that anticipation and trying to be ready for it, and when the guy said Tuesday or Wednesday it wasn’t Tuesday.

Just keep them away from the #@% skylights, that’s all I ask.

On a far more important note on this day of remembrance: Blue Man Group, with the link courtesy of Holly.

There was no prior notice. I was not yet fit for company at that hour but at least I was dressed for the unexpected door knock. Richard was just getting up.

The guy showed me his badge, which matched his clothes: he worked for the city. (I was thinking, oh, I guess it is after eight now.) Could he…gesturing to the back yard and saying a whole bunch of stuff that, whatever it was, I just had no idea. He’d caught me with my hair still wet. When your electronics run nearly nine grand and you don’t want to short them out, that detail matters.

I can’t hear you yet. I’ll get my ears and be right back. (So much for worrying about that.)

A minute later as I came back to the door, there was no sign of the guy. I looked around the side yard, I looked down the street. What had all that been about?

Just then he came around from way around the other side where he’d been assessing the camphor tree that I’d almost paid Chris’s crew to trim back last week, but hadn’t because it wasn’t over the house and we were already at a grand on what had to be done.

It is a perching tree only for the birds; no nest could be hidden in those leaves.

The city wanted to trim it–it was growing into the power lines.

(And afternoon-shading my mango, sweet cherry, and two of my peach trees this year as it’s gotten bigger.)

Coooool. That sure worked out!

The guy was a little surprised at how complete the change was in my being able to follow him. He pointed to his ear and said he wears hearing aids, too, but even looking, I didn’t see them. Some of the ones for people with less loss are really small.

Good for him. More people should.

Several hours later, after getting done with the tree across the street, he and his crew walked past the door and disappeared again around the back. Well hello.

They would be back either Tuesday or Wednesday for it.

I went outside to water my trees this evening when the sun was low enough–and saw those acanthus stalks. The ones around the camphor had been stomped down to the ground, and rightly so. Nobody should have to work through those. As flowers, they feed the hummingbirds and bees, but as dried-up husks they are, as I’ve mentioned occasionally, vicious porcupines that I use to keep critters out of my fruit. My fruit’s pretty much done, though, the figs under netting excepted. I’d been putting off dealing with them because it doesn’t matter how careful you are, you’re going to get splinters hand and foot. And there are a lot of them.

I skipped watering the trees that were around where those guys would be working–you don’t want them slipping in mud and landing on any fallen stalk parts I might have missed under the leaves. Those still upright were four to seven feet high and quite obvious. Thankfully the bottoms of the stalks tend to be smooth for just enough space to leave you a part you can grab.

There were well over a hundred of them, easily.

How the prickers got in past my shoes to stab me in so many places I don’t know, I thought I was being careful.

I looked at my big yard-waste bin stuffed as high as it would go. There were two piles more to either end of the yard for what didn’t fit in yet, but they would be well out of the mens’ way. The bin gets emptied Wednesday and then those others can go in.

I get to handle them twice. Oh goody.

But there is a huge amount of satisfaction in knowing that those workers are going to show up expecting to deal with the worst and they’ll find that someone thought of them and how it would be to take one wrong step and get stabbed through their clothes top to bottom and took care of the problem so that they could have a better day.

They’re certainly going to be improving mine. More sun for my evergreen mango this winter. A better chance for the fruit to actually ripen.

Bring on the chainsaws.

I had a favorite blouse I was going to wear to church today. It’s a cheerful reddish-plum color and I was looking forward to it.

I could not find it this morning for the life of me. Not in the closet? Not in the ironing. So strange. I searched both places multiple times wondering what on earth was wrong with me that something so obvious could somehow just not be found like that.

Eh. I gave up and wore something else. Something in a deep teal blue. (I took a photo to show you but the blog ate it.)

Something that…hey, yes, definitely matched the lapis and sterling necklace Frances Begay made me a number of years ago. I realized in surprise as I took it out that I hadn’t worn it in several months despite how very much I like it. This other blouse was the perfect thing to wear it with. Well then.

There was a new face at church, there just for the day as it turned out, a woman my age and style both in hair and clothes and we found ourselves out by the water fountain after the main meeting at the same time.

She looked at that Navajo necklace and exclaimed how much she liked it; she had a squash blossom one, herself. She reached tentatively with a “may I?” to hold it up for a closer look at the details.

The design was “Basket of Blessings,” and my daughter had commissioned the pendant for me, and I, the silver-beaded chain from the artist.

That focal point created a connection on the spot, and we two women of the turquoise generation found ourselves swapping stories and laughing together as the clock ticked on as if we’d known each other our entire lives.

She was in the middle of the stress of helping a kid move while tending to other family while being away from home.

I was so glad she’d come. She was so glad for those moments. We parted friends, even if I never heard her last name.

It hit me a little later: I was suddenly so glad I hadn’t been able to find the blouse that would never have gone near that necklace.

So after two weeks of cabin fever and after a one-mile test run to Trader Joe’s last night, I decided today was the day to set myself free.

Or maybe not–after all, by this time last year they were all gone. But this has been a longer, cooler season.

Andy’s, on the phone: Sure, we’ve got lots!

And so I drove down to Morgan Hill and bought a case of Cal Reds for me and one for my friend Catherine. I got a bag of Fairtimes and one of Rio Oso, I think the other one was? They were so big that only two peaches fit in each.

I dropped the bag of Fairtimes. At least it wasn’t the cases and at least I didn’t drop them till I was already home and it was an easy problem to fix. What you can’t see in that picture is the juice that’s already puddling on that small plate, reminding me of James Beard’s description of how to eat a good mango: in private and in a bathtub.

It would not wait until I could share it. Despite its size, it demanded to be devoured alone.

So be that way. 

Ya gotta love that purplish-pink.

The tree people, whom I thought were coming first thing in the morning (but that could have been my bad hearing), didn’t get here till the afternoon. The house across the street had people at work there, too, by then.

Which means when the plumber came the poor guy had to haul his heavy equipment down the block to get to us.

All three men were at it for several hours. When the FedEx guy couldn’t get past all those tree branches on the ground to deliver my twenty pounds of cocoa, the tree guys brought it up to my door so I wouldn’t have to lift it with that broken rib.

Bernie, fighting roots, went back to his truck to get something. The tree guys seemed to be wrapping it up. The guy I commissioned the job through (and whom I’ve worked with for years) showed up, took a look around, and told them that that big limb swinging an elbow over the roof had to go, too.

Bernie came around the corner and up the walkway just then.

Chris, in surprise: “Who are you?” It was a friendly blink.

I explained.

Chris headed out, his guys cut that limb, and one was sweeping up as the other was working the chipper.

I stepped halfway down the walk and looked up at that towering oak and said, It can’t be over the house. From that vantage point it looked like it was, although looking at it later from the street I wasn’t so sure it had been.

But the young guy wanted me to be happy with it: “I will cut it back for you.” (Photo taken afterwards. Sorry it went sideways.)

They went at it for twenty more minutes and did just that and it looked great. I met them with fresh apple cider after all that hard work, with refills.

It is going to take some time to get used to how bright the kitchen is now. You still see green leaves out the windows, but the house is no longer in shadow. It felt this evening like we’d added extra hours of daylight and gone straight back to summer.

Her first appointment was at seven across town and then she came back to get us, mine was right after we dropped Richard off at work. Her next one was at ten, my audiologist at 11:45 five cities south, and she drove drove drove to give me another day off from having to do that and to get me where I needed to go.

I waved goodbye as her ride took her off for the airport, started a load of laundry, walked in the bathroom a few minutes later at the other end of the hall–and stumbled into this reverse-direction Niagara gushing upwards out of the bottom of the toilet all the way up to the seat and flooding across the room and down that part of the hall. I had never seen anything quite like it.

Showers, faucets…everywhere else in the house was fine.

I managed to turn the washing machine and the water to the toilet off while thinking, I guess I just mopped my floor with laundry detergent. Got my money’s worth out of that load, didn’t I?

I was soaked. The towels still are. But at least all this had waited till our daughter’s weekend with us was over–and, I’d run the underwear load first and it was done. Go me.

The plumber told me to call the city, the city told me to call the plumber, the tree guy got a dial tone in edgewise to say they were coming first thing in the morning to trim away anything overhanging the house like the homeowner’s insurance demanded (I’d been hoping they could squeeze me in this week and they were making it happen), I called the agent, and then the city’s plumber showed up after all.

By this time it was about six.

His truck was blocking my car. No problem; I was pretty sure I could get around him to go pick up Richard. This time, there really was no choice but to get behind that wheel, broken rib or no broken rib.

As he watched me come up next to my–it turned out, dud of a car, I was befuddled–and then suddenly burst out laughing, laughing that was the antidote to the intensity of the day, so much so that he laughed, too. It was so unexpected, because she always, always remembers, even when I don’t.  She’s so careful about it. But she’d gotten up so early.

It’s quite my fault. After a dozen years I still have never gotten a back-up key fob for that car. They’re too expensive (something like $250 last I checked) the car’s too old to bother and I’m too cheap.

Richard Ubered home.

Hey, I can splurge all that fob money I saved on the plumber now!

I was in a discussion group Sunday where the subject was, what do you do to fight off depressive thoughts?

My rather long answer was this. (In retrospect, hey, it wasn’t even about knitting!)

When I was a teen, my aunt had twins. She complained of pain for several days afterwards and was dismissed. She said, But I’ve had children before and it was never like this.

Oh lady you’ve never had twins before.

With the end result that her appendix burst on the operating table after they were finally listening to her. It was a very near thing.

Her doctor then sat her down and told her that he’d seen too many patients with so many responsibilities–she had six kids including those newborn twins–after serious medical circumstances go spiraling downward and downward and downward and he did not want it to happen to her. He prescribed her an hour a day of exercise. Go join a gym. I don’t care how you do it, do it. You must.

Which is how my then-sixteen-year-old sister with the brand new driver’s license got flown out to California for the summer to help out. I was seventeen; I had a summer nanny job I was committed to. I tried not to be jealous, and by all accounts it sounded like Anne had the time of her life. The greatest human need is to be needed and boy was she ever.

But I never forgot that lesson. I was already in the habit of race-walking several miles a day and that cemented the idea for life: exercise isn’t just to stay in shape or control weight, it’s to help a person be in charge of how they feel about their life.

I am typing this just after getting off the treadmill that was a gift from Scrabblequeen Ruth some time ago. (Thank you, Ruth!) I’ve been experimenting: if I hold my right arm by my side will it bother my rib less?

I did put off using it for several days after the break, and rightly so, but when I finally used it again the rest of me felt so much better that it seems to me to be worth it.

We’ll see what my doctor says tomorrow. If there’s a better way to follow my aunt’s old doctor’s counsel, then I’ll do that. But I think we’re good.

There’s a new chocolate shop in Santa Cruz and we wanted to check it out. How would it compare to our old favorite? We had to go to both on the same day to know, right?

What better way to celebrate having our daughter in town?

Given that seven million people live in the San Francisco Bay area and that there are only three routes over the mountains between San Francisco and well south of San Jose and two of those are two-lane roads and what beach traffic on a holiday is like, we hit the road before nine, and only had to do a little stop-and-go. We knew it would mean we’d have time to kill when we got there, but spending that time parked on the freeway vs walking around in our favorite beach town, hey.

Downtown parking before ten, no problem.

We bought books at Bookshop Santa Cruz in thanks for their being open for us. I tried to remember exactly what it looked like before the ’89 quake destroyed the original; there’s a plaque on the building saying they’d reused the iron balconies from the old on the new to try to keep some of the history of the place. I remembered an upstairs restaurant, I think in that building, long gone….

The doors were open on the sock store across the street, too. They had a pair that pictured cats playing on stacks of books: for $8, I’d found the one thing that most describes my friend Constance. Hey. That’s a splurge I could do.

We ate an early lunch at our old favorite, which is a restaurant as well.

They did not know the competition they were in, and turns out they were definitely not having their best day. The service was good but the food and the chocolate both were surprisingly off. Sipping chocolate as grainy pudding? Michelle’s no-dairy version was problematical, too. We felt bad for them.

The second chocolate place had had a note on the door apologizing that they would have to open late today, or we would have eaten there first. Dessert and life being uncertain and all that.

That’s okay. Mutari was definitely worth the wait.

The address listed on a news article someone had linked to that had clued us in to their existence turned out to be old and wrong but we found their new place via our phones.

Having just had that other sipping chocolate, one small spoonful of Mutari’s and I gasped, Oh WOW! Wow. What chocolate! What a difference. This is seriously the best.

We tried their fruit confection. It was hard not to buy a whole lot more on the spot.

We tried their truffles.

We agreed that there was no place but this place that we would go to for chocolate in Santa Cruz from now on. These guys truly know what they’re creating.

The proprietor asked if we wanted to sample their bars, too?

We were stuffed but we weren’t going to turn that down. Curiosity had been the point of the whole expedition. Sure!

She brought out four jars of broken bits with the names of each on top and a board with matching rows of the same laid out, one of each for each of us.

Just behind us as we tasted was a long row of 50 Kg bags of cacao beans stacked on each other, the origin of each stenciled on the burlap. As they said in the store, sometimes there’s a different flavor at the top of a hill than the bottom of the hill of the same variety of cacao and they make micro batches that let you try them individually.

Some of those definitely were coming home with us.

The woman was such a delight that had the cowl project in my purse been done I would have cast off and handed it to her on the spot.

Mutari. If you can go there, go there.

A full-size Bugatti made out of Legos. No glue. Holds two. It actually runs. Frankly, in the last picture, where they’re shown side-by-side, the Lego one is a lot cooler looking; they need to paint the real one to look like that if they want to have a really hot car.

Of course this means instant inspiration and aspiration on the part of the Lego enthusiasts among the grandkids that they won’t outgrow any more than the folks who built this did. Talk about a dream job.

Trying to do my usual treadmill time for a few days after last Thursday’s fall made it increasingly clear that there was some damage that had to be looked at.

I got two tentative steps in last night and went, Nope. (Hopping off.) Too soon.

I set the thing to 1.7 mph tonight and took the tiniest, quickest little baby steps, desperate for more than the doctor’s “take it easy” and to get at least some kind of exercise while that bone’s healing. I was even fine till about five minutes in. I kept going for another two because I’m kind of stupid like that.

It was worth it.

Don’t tell on me. (Oh wait I just did.)

p.s. The fig needed one more day, so I let it have it. Tomorrow!

It is a wonderful thing to walk outside first thing in the morning, find a fig drooping from the weight of the sugar and juiciness it attained to bird-free and to bring it inside to share. There was one yesterday, too, and there will be another tomorrow.

Also yesterday: my new doctor said he didn’t think anything was broken because I didn’t react strongly enough to his prodding around for the sore spot. I told him that one thing he needed to know about me was that my ability to feel pain is diminished (which…can be nice…) and that’s why having this hurt like it does when I move the wrong way was a surprise.

Thus the x-ray.

The report came today: “Slightly displaced fracture of the right anterior ninth rib…”

He gave me a prescription for a few nights’ worth of Lidocaine patches, not enough to get me through till I see him again next week but I figured I’d gone three nights with this already on my own, so no big deal. He assured me they did not cross-react with the categories of painkillers I’m allergic to.

I’d never used them before. I put the first one on right before bed.

Blink. “How fast are these supposed to kick in?” I asked Richard. “Because, wow.”

I woke up amazed at how much of a difference a good night’s sleep makes.

I’m looking forward to that next fig in the morning.

I tried to drive Richard to work, made it one block, bailed and turned around and he later left work early to take me in. Passengering, it turned out, ie getting to sit still, was much easier.

“If it’s broken we treat it with painkillers. If it’s not broken we treat it with painkillers. Do you want the x-ray anyway?”

I flashed back to the pediatrician telling us it was going to take a year for our child’s damaged muscles to heal, and it did, and the idea of that vs. a broken rib healing in six weeks or so? Yes, definitely I’d like to know which one I was in for while it hurts to cough or breathe deep.

My doctor retired a few weeks ago and I got assigned to the new guy and life gave me a chance to–or rather, demanded that I–scope him out to see what I thought.

Young, Asian, tall, hipster with a man bun and an easygoing manner and a quick sense of humor. Okay, I think he’ll do just fine. I’m not an uncomplicated patient medically, but he struck me as someone who, if he didn’t know would happily go and find out. He went over the list of painkillers I can’t take and assured me that my history of liver lesions from the Crohn’s should not stop me from taking Tylenol.

“You gotta quit falling.” A good-natured, half-pleading, fully-understanding statement.

“Working on that,” I grinned.

(Still waiting for the reading on that x-ray.)