When my mom worked in the English department of my high school, there was an assignment of vocabulary words that the kids were to put into sentences.

Which is how on one kid’s paper a damsel in distress cried down from the tower to the knight in shining armor, Frugal me! Frugal me!

(Frugal, the dictionary said: to save. The kid hadn’t read past that.)

Um..

So. This has seen newer days.

But the cheap black leather purse I had bought at Costco for my father-in-law’s funeral (because this one just would not do), the one whose strap edges frayed badly at ten days (the price sank to $20 after reviews piled up), had one strap rip out altogether a few weeks ago.

I went back to my favorite. The one embossed with those knitted cables on that soft, substantial leather. The most awesome big purse a knitter could ever hope for. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been missing it, shabby though it had begun to look.

My longtime dry cleaner was landlorded out last month (a developer had made the owner a better offer) and I needed to find me a new one.

I deliberately chose the one next door to the shoe repair place halfway across town.

But did not go in.

Today was when the dry cleaning was to be picked up and I told myself, okay, now or never. You need to know. (I think the bigger hurdle was that I was going to have to do without it for however long.) I went in that other door.

I’m a knitter, I told the guy, putting my purse on his counter so he could see that side, and I love my old purse. I even wrote a knitting book. I’ve been using this for three years. It’s me. Can you rescue it?

He saw those cables and thought it was a really cool piece of leatherwork.

And see here? The only inner pocket it has is this plastic one and it’s broken. If I wanted to have you make it a new lining with a zippered pocket on one side and open pockets on the other, could you do that?

Now, I know this guy has a bit of a reputation for being gruff but in that moment he was anything but. Yes, he said with great pride, wanting to do this for me, he could. He would clean it and touch up the dye, too; that would be $45 and then we could talk about the other.

I think he wanted to see my reaction to that number. I was already figuring a complete reconstruction of the interior and fixing of the exterior was probably going to run me about what I’d paid for the bag in the first place, but there is no replacing it. As Richard said to me later, He’s got to charge $100 an hour in this town just to break even.

I didn’t have anything to put all my stuff in, I told him, but I would be back. And I meant it.

Sometimes you just gotta do right by an old friend.

And if you ever hear of a good leather purse with knitting designs embossed in it, please tell me. I know this one will someday go the way of all the earth after all I can do.

I had nothing ready. No portable project. My doctor appointment was in 40 minutes, c’mon, just pick something! I grabbed my one-and- only-ever cone of now-sold-out lavender Piuma and needles–no stash hoarding for you! Use it!

I got there early, signed in and cast on.

They apologized that the doctor was running 45 minutes late; I motioned towards my yarn and said, You’ve got twenty hours before I get antsy. For that matter, if someone’s appointment is after mine but they’re in a hurry they’re welcome to go ahead of me.

The guy laughed and clearly his day was suddenly a whole lot better.

I glugged two gallons of milk down the sink and threw out the fresh wild salmon. (With apologies to the fish that died for that non-meal.)

Note to self: check the fridge before bed every night to make sure that silly door didn’t bounce open again.

I got my new ear molds for my hearing aids, but driving out towards the main road afterwards, realized I’d forgotten to pick up new batteries there and I was on my last one.

I never go down to the last one. Usually.

There was no place between there and the freeway to turn around so I kept going, thinking, okay, then, this is a Costco day. Richard had something he’d wanted me to pick up anyway and those batteries are really cheap there.

While I was in Costco my left aid did the loud beep they do to tell me the battery is on its last legs. Sometimes you get one beep, sometimes you get several at several-minute intervals, the record is five over a half hour and then there’s a little melodramatic “I’m dying!” musical octave in your ear and the thing turns itself off.

I got the batteries. The second beep. A third at a red light. The rest of the groceries were way back in the trunk but I had that one package right there and I reached for the thing and quickly wrestled one of the six eight-packs out of there and grabbed a battery and tried to put it in the aid before the light turned.

Blink.

It was a 13. I use size 312. I’d gotten the wrong ones and I’d already opened the thing. Dang. Well, the cold things needed to be put away.

There were tree service guys almost blocking my driveway, and they chuckled as I took a minute to get out of my car. (Not. Finding. A loose good one in there.) They were done  and they were enjoying the break.

I said to them, You don’t know anyone who has any use for hearing aid batteries, do you?

The one guy tried to tell me Costco would still take them back.

It was my mistake and I did open it, so no, I’m not comfortable doing that.

Well, he considered: his watch does take that size. He turned to the other guy, who had no interest in them, and laughed that his watch would last forever now!

I don’t like to drive without my ears. I ended up searching an old purse and coming up with two old batteries. One worked. It was such a relief.

So, having no choice, I drove back to Costco.

“You’re back!”

I grabbed a 12-pack of Balanced Breaks. They’re little packages that have bite size squares of cheddar on one side and a mix of toasted cashews and just sweetened enough cranberries mixed together on the other side; a little fruit, a little protein, 180 calories each.

Because driving out of the parking lot that first time I’d passed a woman and two kids and she was holding up a sign and I had done nothing. With families pleading for help finding their children torn from their arms at the border and put in cages who knows where, ignoring someone in need is just a little too raw right now.

But I hadn’t planned for that and my groceries were in the trunk and there was a long line of cars behind me: fishing for something that would work for someone without refrigeration that I didn’t think I had anyway… I couldn’t make it work.

It bugged me all the way home with King Benjamin’s words in my ears. Mosiah 4:12-30:

————

12 And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.

13 And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due.

14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.

16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.

22 And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.

24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.

————

I’ve read those words many many times.

And I have plenty.

What could I get that would work for them… Wondering was immediately met with answering. I went back to that store, passing that small group on my way into the parking lot–still there–glad now that I’d goofed on that battery size. I grabbed the food first, then the 312s, and put them beside me on the front seat of the car. I figured if they left before I could reach them again, well, hey, it’s something we like, no problem. (Photo of the few we had left at home.)

I rolled the passenger window down early in anticipation.

This time, the guy in front of me stopped and handed the woman some money. Earlier, car after car had just kept on going as if they weren’t there. Including, of course, me.

She looked at me hopefully: I was looking at them. I handed her that double-set of a box, and like every mother everywhere, she gave it first to the children to eat and they were clearly glad to have it.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And to think how close I came to missing, half-knowingly missing just what that moment came to be.

Dinner and dishes were over.

I grabbed the kitchen trash on impulse (yeah Richard likes to do it but it was getting a bit heavy–see the “did you know you broke your back?” post: there was a reason it’s been giving him grief) and I headed out with it.

The young family just down the street were out with their little boys on their trikes and waved hi. The little boys pedaled over to me in great enthusiasm and once they got all the way to me realized I looked taller from here and words failed them. They looked shyly up.

They were adorable. The younger one ditched his wheels after a moment and he still wobbles a bit when he walks, but still, where did the babyhoods go?

The mom complimented me on my bright pleated maxi skirt and I laughed: I don’t usually play dress-up to take out the trash, I told her, but I dropped a gallon of milk and drenched everything and just thought, hey, that one matches my shirt, sure, why not?

I looked at the older boy’s helmet. Hey! It matches my shirt too! as I held my turquoise arm out to his turquoise head. He was very proud of his helmet.

I told his mom of the time one of my kids flipped her bike at 13, broke her helmet, and rolled with enough force still to break her shoulder and how the grandmotherly neighbor down the street we hadn’t yet met ran to her and got her phone number out of her as she lay in the street and called me. I jumped into the car, came around the corner, and–oh! Right there!

That neighbor became a great friend to my daughter ever after.

Part of me was wondering as we chatted, how on earth did I get old enough to be the grandmotherly one now?

Meantime, that milk had beaded up on my shoes and it looked like it could be rinsed away and I’m hoping that that was enough to save my felted-wool Birkenstocks with the leather buckle. I love those and they don’t make them anymore.

Good thing we still, how I don’t know, have a good cobbler in this overpriced town should it come to that–not that I need him for this, just, it’s good to know that if I had to he’s there.

Because after cleaning the fridge over two days, I had had to clean the inside of the fridge, the outside of the fridge, the shoes, the floor, and mopped the floor again for good measure and thrown my blue skirt in the wash, when I… dropped the spinach paneer across the floor.

And cleaned that up.

There was still enough food for dinner.

But that is why I grabbed that trash and hauled it out of there: I was going to clean something and by golly this time it was going to STAY clean. Because I’m the mom. And I said so.

The bag graciously did not break.

Dad had a folder he wanted to show me while I was there. I’d never seen it before.

Carefully preserved, pristine inside the plastic, were sheets of lined paper with carefully near-perfect handwriting. Just ever so slightly faded from age.

Words had to come right to where they lined up at the right, which meant that there were hyphens announcing ‘to be continued’ plunked into the strangest places within those words. But the penmanship!

It was a five (or was it six?) page report on Thanksgiving by a third grader one hundred years ago that her parents had clearly been proud of and had kept.

The budding author was my grandmother.

And on the cover of that report was a drawing of a turkey.

I did a serious double take–I thought at first Dad had saved an old drawing of mine and why was he showing me that in the context of this and it totally threw me a moment. But no, it was his mother’s.

My grandmother the avid knitter, who ran the county chapter that knitted for the troops during The War in hopes that somehow that would bring her three sons home safely and sooner. (They all made it back, though one was deafened by the sounds of the warfare the ship he’d captained in the Pacific had gone through.)

I loved to draw as a kid and I can still pick out something I drew any time I see it all these years later. The inside covers of the books that belonged to me all had to be so adorned, with enthusiasm that sometimes spilled onto other pages, too.

To be charitable, you could at least figure out what the thing was supposed to be, and judged against some of my peers I really wasn’t too bad a doodler. But there was no great talent there.

My little sister on the other hand is a gifted artist–truly, go see for yourself. Yeah. Me? Only with yarn. I have forever been in awe of what Anne can do.

But I am absolutely gobsmacked that as a kid I drew exactly like another third grader whom I knew as the sweet elderly grandmother I only got to see a few times in my life before she was gone. The proportions, the angles, picking up the pencil here and moving it there, that careful control that thickened the line while trying to make a perfect half circle at the top of the head. Even the wattle was my turkey wattle.

Twins. In childhood and, with a nod yarnward, adulthood. Sixty-one years apart.

There used to be a yarn store in San Carlos that had a sign: Unattended small children will be given a puppy and an espresso.

I thought of that as I asked a dad waiting in the airport if I could give his little boy a puppy? He looked at the finger puppet I was holding out and laughed, and there you go.

At the end of the delays (someone had checked in their luggage and then was a no-show even though the plane had given them all that extra time) and the flights, coming down an elevator just before leaving the airport there was a young family: Mom, Dad, a boy of maybe four at the most and a stroller that surely had a baby tucked under there somewhere.

The little boy had a travel pillow that somehow stayed put around his neck. It was very late and clearly his parents had hoped he would sleep some.

An orange and black tiger with whiskers is what came to hand this time as I dug down in my purse. (May I? Yes, YES!)

Suddenly every one of them went from exhausted to animated and happy.

If only I could tell those knitters in Peru how happy they make so many people.

Cariaggi Piuma cashmere from the mill blooms immensely with washing, growing into a much thicker, denser-looking knit that is actually very very light. It fills up the visual spaces with color and yet air.

I was knitting it straight from the cone. I actually almost left the project home because of that cone. (Luggage space, knitting space in an airplane seat.) But I really wanted that cowl done. It was in a neutral that I could give just about anybody and just delicious to knit with, mill oils for now and all.

My tiny elderly Asian seat mate (part of what was clearly a large tour group) coming out of Salt Lake spoke almost no English, but she watched my hands intensely and gave me a smile and an enthusiastic thumbs-up. When I returned the smile, she reached gingerly for the yarn, felt it just for a moment and gave me another big smile.

She was tired and napped and suddenly woke up distressed to realize that we others in the row were being served juice and she wasn’t getting any; I knew how long she’d been waiting in that airport before our delayed flight and that she probably really needed that water. I should have offered her mine but didn’t know how to reassure her it was only apple juice.

I helped her with the flight attendant and she got taken care of. We were definitely friends now.

She got a particularly cute finger puppet just before she left and between hand signs and head shakes and nods she got that I hadn’t actually made that one; I’d just wanted to thank her for being her. She was delighted.

So. The cowl. Since I knew what it would be like when it was finished and washed, I was using needles that made the knitting look sloppy-loose. Quite.

An agent had told me I wouldn’t miss my connecting flight despite the delay because it was actually the same plane and they might even let me stay on in between. But, she warned, they might not.

Flight #1 landed, they made announcements, most of the passengers filed out–and at that point the flight attendant had time for me to ask the question when I could hear the answer: same plane? Just to make sure. May I stay here?

The answers were yes and yes, corrected by another to “but the memo said” and they went and checked together, followed by, alright: I could stay put.

So there were some by-now familiar faces that were the first to get back on the plane and I chuckled and nodded hello in acknowledgement as they came back on.

An older woman among them surprised me with, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.” My best guess was that she had learned English with a British accent. She got in the #3 row behind me and leaned over.

Had anyone ever shown me how Germans knit?

Do you mean Continental style? I asked, and affirmed that I had.

She asked for my needles. She winced at the size of that yarnover that was right there but was trying not to mess up my work. She demonstrated, You do this. And then when you want to go the other way (she searched for the right terms in English) you do this. You don’t have to (and here she motioned in great sweeping arcs with her right arm) go like *this*.

She wanted so badly to help.

I chuckled and told her I knew my way was slower. I explained that my mom knits like she does and taught me how when I was ten. That when I was a teenager I’d wanted a sweater in one of her knitting magazines but was too much of a teen to admit I didn’t remember how, so I’d gone in my room and taught myself how to knit–my own way, it turned out.

Her face was saying, But this is not how it is done!

I said, It’s easier on my arthritis this way.

Ah. That made sense. Yes she could see that. Okay.

And we, too, parted friends at the end of the flight.

I know I forgot something, I always do…

Everybody needs an Aunt Bonnie. A wise and kind and gentle soul who never said a single negative thing about anybody and who was always the first to volunteer to do whatever you needed for whatever reason.

Who met my uncle when they played in the symphony together.

Who taught me by her patience that I could laugh off–or at least not get mad at my big brother for egging on his cousins to tease me with him.

The cook who taught me, as a child visiting from across the country on that trip that yes, I actually not only do like salmon, I love it and would never forget how the sunshine lit it up as we ate and how it made her cooking so pretty.

The woman who laughed when she remembered my first anniversary–and I didn’t, till she reminded me. (Speaking of which, next week…) It’s been an in-joke between us for 38 years.

The aunt who did this.

There will be music. There will be memories. There will be cousins. There will be love and laughter and more love and I can’t wait to see them and celebrate her life with them. We all have so many stories to share.

I suppose we could have Richard guest-write my blog while I’m away. (He worked from 8:15 am yesterday to 11 pm, dinner aside. Work is crazy right now.) Or not. It’s just an overnighter. See you all soon.

We solved people’s problems (we hope, we wish) and got a lot done and stayed late and tomorrow you hopefully get a better blog post than this.

When I was a kid, the freeway between Washington, DC and Baltimore was two lanes each way built out of, if you can believe it, concrete. Set in blocks with the gaps between giving the material room to contract and expand with the temperatures. You did not want to drive it fast: it was a loud bambambambambambambambambam jackhammering all the way. But there really wasn’t all that much traffic on it, at least.

Eventually they tore all that out and put in a real road, which now has heavy development pretty much all the way and the cars to match.

I was remembering those childhood trips to the Maryland state piano competitions at Peabody in Baltimore as we drove from here to Milpitas to Sacramento today. On a weekend, that should be a two hour drive, ideally.

The road is old and not very wide with a whole lot of traffic and they are improving it and widening it in some spots. Construction. Accidents. Cars cars cars.

Three and a half hours there, two coming home.

And yet. We were carpooling with friends and it was time well spent and I’m very glad we went.

Knitting in hand, I finally ventured to ask… The driver guffawed in disbelief at the question: “YES! I LOVE cashmere!” She told me wistfully she owned one single cashmere sweater.

I did not tell her I hadn’t made her a cashmere cowl because her husband had told me she was allergic to it. I had wondered ever since if he’d heard me right, if he’d thought I was only talking about wool because I knew he was having a hard time hearing every word. But he seemed sure enough of himself that I hadn’t pushed the idea.

She loves peach.

I have a finished one in peach.

Well then.

My gray hair is a whistle deterrent.

He was too old to do much whistling anyway.

But as I stepped into an alley to stay in the shade on my way to the annual lupus group summer get-together, the scruffy old guy by the motorcycle called out to me, “Nice outfit!” with a smile on his face that, to my surprise, conveyed a love to and for the whole wide world.

“Thank you!” It wasn’t so much the words, it was the clear generosity in his intent that had me responding in kind. He just totally made my day.

He had no way to know my earlier inner monologue of, That shirt looks frumpy. You can do better.

Well I AM frumpy.

Don’t give me that. You don’t have to look frumpy. You’ll enjoy yourself more if you look better there. You just have to get off your duff and iron something nicer.

And so, ten minutes before it was time to go, I finally turned that iron on and got the job done in a bit of a rush.

He totally made it worth it.

My iron just got its old summer job back.

A friend was throwing a Relief Society (women’s organization) potluck brunch get-together. She has a beautiful big back yard with picnic benches for a crowd, perfect for a summer day.

Her small house did not have enough space inside for her guest list. I said the June sun was the issue and I was sorry I was going to be missing it.

She talked me into coming anyway, parking close and sitting at her table just on the other side of the window from everybody.

She excused herself from the group and came and kept me company for awhile; one-0n-one is so much easier for me to hear anyway. Cool. So did several other people by turns, and it was much appreciated. I’d brought my knitting and it filled in any gaps. Meantime, her kids, teens to 21, passed by going from here to there in the house.

Plus one young woman I didn’t know. Who saw the work in my hands and on the second time by decided to stop and ask about it.

Turns out she was their niece, visiting before her move overseas Monday for her graduate studies at Oxford.

Turns out she’s a knitter.

Turns out she’d never heard of Colourmart, but now she’s hoping to visit them in person and is quite excited about it.

I told her I’d knit in high school but had had to give it up in college: I simply had had no funds for yarn (she nodded in boy-ain’t-that-the-truth agreement), and it took ten years for me to get back to it. I regret those ten years and would love to make it easier for someone else to keep going; what were her favorite colors?

Was I serious?!

That’s what yarn is for, yes.

And that is how, a year after I bought it, that huge 420-gram cone of dk cashmere I’d hanked and scoured finally got wound up and ready to go. It took…awhile this afternoon. (That big ball nearly qualifies for planethood. The bowl it’s in is platter size.) I’m not giving her all of it and I’m not sure it would fit in her suitcase if I did, so, some for my cowls project, some for her. Whichever one fits in her luggage. I want her to have something that sustains her wanting to knit.

And now it’s finally available to me to actually work with, too.

K. made me feel like I was instantly family yesterday, with such a profound sense of love that I was in awe of her.

Tonight I found out she’s on chemo.

(Say what?!)

Again. Apparently inoperable.

(But. But. But we’re just getting started!)

I think we need to get to those lace knitting sessions pronto.

Suddenly her keeping to herself like she did–I totally get it now. That profound offering of love: I get that, too.

I finally learned how to pronounce her name today.

She’s a knitter? I…I… How could I not have known this! She’s so shy and so quiet, but offering her that cowl changed everything in an instant. She crochets, too, but she’d never knitted anything like this. She was blown away.

What kind of… She looked for the right words to ask.

I got it and grabbed my purse. I pulled out a circular needle.

Yes! That! She marveled over knitting needles that were all in one piece like that. Where do you get that?

It was a 4mm/US6 and apparently a fair bit smaller than she was used to. I told her where the nearest yarn store was, or maybe Michael’s, or online?

She did not know how to do it like this, though. Could I teach her?

Be still my heart. Oh honey yes. And there’s a book out there that has lace instructions (lace. That was the word she’d been looking for. English is not her first language) both in words and pictures. I couldn’t resist adding, And I wrote it.

(With credit thoroughly owed to Donna Druchunas for those diagrams and the charting.)

I told her I was giving her a copy next week (or next time, I explained, depending on when my aunt’s memorial service gets scheduled for. Aunt Bonnie cannot leave us without her children knowing just how much their sweet mother meant to my family and me.)

If only I’d done this good woman’s cowl a long time ago. But at least I did it now. We have us some catching up to do. This is so cool.