This has nothing to do with the story, but, the pews in the building where the stake conference meetings are held always hit my back just exactly wrong. There was another meeting there this morning and this time I remembered to grab a small pillow off the couch and stuff it in my large purse.

And as I was getting dressed this morning, what I’d planned to wear simply felt wrong: it felt too fragile, too easily damaged. This made no sense whatsoever. Wear something indestructible. Why? I argued with myself, I wasn’t going camping, I was going to church. Wear the boring black polyester skirt, came the insistence yet again: can’t hurt that one. What a weird thought, I thought, but, I did.

So. The story. Somewhere in my brain, all morning church meetings start at nine and when you have some percentage of 1800 people in that stake converging on one building, however large, parking is going to be intense. If I didn’t want a long autoimmune-risking walk in the sun we were going to have to get there early, so we headed out the door at about 8:15.

Only… There was a smattering of people, maybe a dozen if even that, but certainly not the number usually gathered by the half hour before the start. Huh.

(In a small voice, oh. right. duh.)

And so we had an hour and a half to wait in. My good-natured husband said, Well, he thought that had been a little early but he wanted to get good seats and parking for me, so, *shrug*. No biggy.

I got to talk to an old friend for awhile.

My glasses were bugging me. I’d been going to clean them before leaving but had forgotten but I certainly had plenty of time to spare now, so, off I went to take care of that.

One of the things about having an ileostomy is that one has to use the facilities quite often. I was there, so, whatever.

The door refused to unlock to let me back out of the stall.

Wait. I tried again. This is not rocket science.  You just unturn it.

Not that way either. It was jammed hard. Richard later said, well, you could always have called me and I’d have sent someone in, to which I reminded him I’d left my purse with him.

There was simply nobody around. Give it an hour and there would be a steady stream of people but not right now. I gave it my best as good as my hands could do but the thing just would not budge. Likely nobody would hear me. I could stay there.

Or not.

The floor, thankfully, was clean as far as I could tell. In the utter epitome of grace I got down on my hands and knees and scrambled low underneath the door, got out, reached back under, grabbed my cane, and washed up.

Then I went looking for help. I found Randy. Randy knew everyone and he had keys to everything.

Because so very few people were there yet, we were in no one’s way as I minded the bathroom doors while he went in there and tried to fix that lock. Having gotten tools from a supply closet, he got the thing open–but he could not keep it from re-jamming and the next person was going to have the same problem. Not cool. Not when there are I think four women’s stalls in the entire building and there were about to be that many people present. He thought a moment, walked across the building while I stood guard, came back, and handed me a piece of paper and scotch tape. He handed me a thick pen.

“Door lock jams. Do not lock this door.” (I needed to be able to write it in Spanish, Samoan, Tongan, Vietnamese, and Chinese, too, but at least it was clearly going to be a warning, and most of those members did speak enough English.)

“Looks good,” he affirmed, it being what we could do for now, and waited a moment as I went around the corner past the rest-and-chair area to put it where it needed to go.

It happened when no one was around to be embarrassed. And I’m old enough not to bother to be embarrassed, it just simply was.

It didn’t happen to, say, an 85-year-old with mobility issues as the building emptied out leaving nobody to know. It didn’t happen to a small child who would then simply leave the door locked for everybody and long lines after her.

It was a small thing, and leaving the door unlocked would be a pain–but it surely also inspired multiple moments of, hey, could you hold this closed for me and then I’ll hold it for you? Acts of kindness imposed by randomness, in all locklihood.

I got home glad I’d worn that sturdy skirt, put the small pillow back on the couch on top of the old afghan I’d taken it off of…

…And only then did I finally notice that the thing seemed a tad lumpy. Huh? I pulled it back.

There, underneath, was the long-missing baby blanket I’d started for my granddaughter on the way. The white one I’d begun for her christening day. Right there at my knitting perch. The Rios yarn I ordered yesterday in replacement? That was pink and much thicker, so as to be an everyday blankie like her brothers’.

It’s all good. It’s all very good.

If you get to Kings Mountain Art Fair a half hour before they close, there’s not much sun getting past those redwoods to worry about and you can park close in. (And you’d better, because you won’t have any time at all to sit around and wait for their shuttle bus.)

And yet people were still arriving, not just me.

All weekend, Mel and Kris had wondered where I was and if I were coming.

There’s a short video on that link of Mel creating a bowl like mine. I love it and I love what they create and best of all I love them to–oh wait. To pieces is exactly not the phrase to use here, never mind.

I had long wanted a serving tray in their pottery; they had two left. I bought a few more mugs, since we had found ourselves running low or out while the kids were visiting. A bowl, a gift for a friend.

Ohmygoodness. They had toddler mugs. Almost all gone.  Oh if only. I had just seen Parker handling one of the regular mugs in person just fine. Mel and Kris had previously told me this could be so, that their boys hadn’t broken things, and I’d answered, But they were raised by potters.

Parker raised my faith in the possibilities after all.

At the last, I decided I would wait till I see Mel and Kris again at a show in November so I can pick out one set all together. I think I’d still get doubles of each because, y’know, toddlers. That means I’d need six. Let the budget breathe a moment first and besides, they didn’t have that many that late in the show.

I intend to see them at the next one early rather than late. It’ll be indoors.

Moving carefully the last few days; I did a number on my back in that twist-and-fall while planting the tree, quite mindful at the same time that I got off easy, all things considering.

I am motivated to take good care of it. Parker and Hudson won’t have to wave hi through the computer screens next week,  they’re going to be here. I cannot wait to hug my grandbabies and their parents. A big Tonka digger truck is ready next to the toy basket and Parker will tell you the type of truck that’s in it. Knitted animals by LauraN and Diana.

Theoretically we’re getting long-overdue recarpeting done before then. We really should paint that one wall first. In reality, any possibility of my helping move furniture is completely gone for now–as we wait for an upgraded quote.

There’s this long-accumulated  wisdom learned via lupus flare after lupus flare after Crohn’s flare that sometimes, it’s okay to just let things be as they are and not be too fussy over the things that don’t matter.

And sometimes we just plain need to get a move-on here, folks.

It came it came!

And I wasn’t even home. I was at a carpet store way down in San Jose and Richard was working from home so he’s the one who got to answer the doorbell; he told me he called out, “Thank you!” to the UPS driver heading back to his truck, as one does.

I got the text while comparing berber vs plush and how it would feel on a crawling baby’s knees or little boys tumbling down. I tried not to be jealous as I drove home.

I took pictures of the box. Dusk never felt so far off. Hurry, hurry! I finally had to at least see and slid it out and found it looked like a NASA experiment.

A little while later, not wanting to risk drying it out or anything…I peeked some more. Cute little kitten’s-paw leaves sneaking upwards.

At last it was 7:00, Wunderground said UV was 1 out of 12, I declared it good enough, lupus-wise–but before I went outside, I asked Richard once again if he thought I should widen the back of the hole away from that pipe.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He offered to help but since this was my baby he let me do it myself like I wanted.

Got the spade, put the tip exactly right there and gave it one good heave ho pushing down hard with my foot.

I actually don’t quite know how the next thing that came to be was that I was suddenly facing the other way, rear end to one side of the hole and the backs of my legs–well, mostly one–fully scraped and muddy down the calf, but my feet were way over up on the other side and how did they get there and all in one nice smooth motion and I have no idea how that happened. At all.

Okay, maybe not so much on the widening thing. It’s trying to tell me something there and me, I try to be a good listener. Really, I do.

I looked at the hole. I looked at the dug-up dirt to the side, which was full of now-dry clumps and gravel and it would all need to be figured out which was which: the former owners did love their (now deeply embedded, 50-60 years later) gravel path. The obvious hit me at long last–I definitely needed better soil than what I had there and I should have thought of that sooner. Dad and his rhododendrons and all that.

So I was glad I’d gotten an earlyish start and headed over to the hardware store less than a mile away. Bought two bags, organic, pasteurized chicken poop, the works. The fellow they asked to help me to my car with them looked bored and like he couldn’t wait for that work day to be over so I thought I’d lighten it up a little by sharing in brief my sense of anticipation: the commissioned truck. The Page mandarins you couldn’t get any other way. The thirty-seven years since I’d had one, and finally, “My tree came today.”

Suddenly he had this big surprised grin all over his face and he teased me that I was going to have to bring some of those mandarins back to that store for him to test out, y’know! To make sure they were good enough!

Richard got those heavy bags out of the car for me and over to the spot and I got back to it.

And…I didn’t have enough soil, clearly, from trying too hard not to spend too much money on my hobbies….  But you only get one chance to start that tree off right. I checked with him. Orchard Supply Hardware was still open. Back I go.

The guy did a doubletake as he spotted me going past his aisle again: “Back already?!”

“Yeah, needed more soil,” I said to him. “Just, don’t fall in the hole,” and I did a quick below-the-knee skirt hoist  to show him the row’d rash. He started to gasp but then since I was laughing a good one he about fell over in relieved guffaws. It WAS funny.

“You’re REALLY going to love those oranges now!” he told me.

Y’know? He was right.

We’d bought and potted those two trees in anticipation and hope of this day happening.

They planted my cherry tree today–and since it had recently been repotted by our friends, it had only barely started to grow through to the ground. Theoretically, as an ultradwarf, it shouldn’t get too much taller than this but rather more outward.

Well we’ll see. That’s good soil in that bed. I remember my dad trying to replace a broken six foot Blue Peter rhododendron a painter had fallen onto and having been told, Blue Peters don’t grow six feet!

Mine do, he told them.

I hope to take as good care of my fruit trees as Dad did his rhodos.  Although, having a backhoe in and adding six feet downward of great soil before planting–okay, Dad, you win. (That was when their house in Bethesda, MD was being built when I was three; he asked the builder to dig a little extra along the front for his future flowers.)

The surprise was the Comice: it was a mere bare root on February 14th and already it had a good taproot squeezing through one drainage hole and smaller ones through all the others. (I drilled about 20–the Costco pots had come with none.) They had a good firm grip on the ground below.

The men checked that thing out and knocked on the door for me: would it be okay with me if they cut the pot away? There seemed to be no other choice.

I want a tree, not a pot, yes please.

They made sure that where they’d prepared was where I wanted it. I thought, eh, I might have nudged it six inches thataway but that’s just way too picky–the hole was ready and it was good so it was just right. “Perfect.”

That was when one of them asked me about that sunjacket I always pulled on every time I stepped outside.

“I have lupus,” I said, sure that that would mean nothing to him–most people have no real idea.

“One of my co-workers, his wife has lupus. Sometimes she’s in a wheelchair.”

Ohmygoodness, so he did know–I winced in sympathy. I told him sometimes I’d been in one, too.

I came away hoping that it would give comfort to whoever she was out there to know one could go through whatever she was going through and still get to be older with this disease, and I wished I could introduce her to 92-year-old Rita.

They set part of the taproot in the carved-up pot for me to see. That tree had wanted to grow freely. And now it can. Pears have no rootstock options that dwarf them as much as you could an apple or a stone fruit, so we put it in the one corner where it would not shade the solar and it would not be too close to the house. It can take over there freely in the space we opened up for it. (Dying cypress, gone at last.)

And now that blank expanse of fence on the other side has some green to it, too. I love the long lush leaves of cherries. I pulled up a chair and my knitting and stared at the loveliness and the relief of having a tree in there already. It’s a great start.

Chris came to inspect the job in progress and as we spoke in the yard, movement high above caught my eye and I pointed it out to him: there he was, Coopernicus, right on cue (always the showoff.) I told Chris we’d gotten to see him courting with his mate perched on the silk oak next door through our skylights this past spring. He thought that was so cool.

Some hunting places gone, the new begun already.

Going back to last Thursday, our first full day in Georgia: Anne and Ned offered to take us to see the lookout point above Amicalola (not Multnomah, Marian, it’s that funky hearing, sorry) Falls and then a little further down, the entrance to the beginning of the Appalachian Trail.

Where we both said it had been on our life list to hike the entire Trail. Richard had done a goodly distance on it in his younger days but they would have to cure lupus before I could really get to it.

The stone arch marking the spot was behind the ranger station and gift shop. It had rows of benches to the side for people to rest on right after their very long hike, and on those benches was a group of people maybe twenty-five years younger than us. Tattoos, clothes you would definitely wear out in the woods for roughing it, big boned, strong in opinions and body, one would guess.

And here we were, Richard in his oxford shirt (I don’t think the man knows how to wear a plain tee, it’s always an oxford shirt. Preferably blue. Rebel that I am, I occasionally buy him something radical, like a green one) and I in my trademark longish full skirt to keep the sun at bay and so that I don’t hash things too badly when I take one of my frequent tumbles: could we scream city-slicker tourists any louder? Those men guffawed quietly when we walked up to the stone arch, took pictures, talked about the trail wistfully, briefly, and then turned and left without taking a single step past that arch. (I regret that. One step wouldn’t have killed me.)

They couldn’t have known that we were all trying to let us have the experience without my spending one moment longer in the sun than I absolutely had to. But they were right, it was pretty funny.

On the way home, Ned allowed as how we really needed us some lunch, given the three-hour round trip, and he pulled into a barbecue joint to show us a little local flavor here.

I have memories from age sixteen of discovering Brunswick Stew at a little barbecue joint in southern Florida and there it was on the menu. It wasn’t the same thing–everybody has their own recipe–but it definitely made its own memories for the next chef to live up to. The best food comes from the funkiest places.

And yes, this is what they smoked the pulled pork in that Anne ordered. You’ve found it. The smoking gun.

Our children were little together. And then Pam moved away.

She and her husband and teenage daughter, born since they’d moved away, were here visiting from out of state and we old-timers at church did not know they were coming.

So when Marguerite came into the last meeting a moment late, I quietly motioned with a thumb across my shoulder to make sure she wouldn’t miss Pam-of-all-people sitting next to me.

Look of confusion back at me: Huh?

I leaned back in my seat so she could see. I tell you, that moment of surprised joy in her face, the same one that had been on mine just a few minutes earlier–it was one of those universal moments where the love that is behind it all is suddenly brightly clear.

Pam later was explaining to her daughter that I was the one who’d made her shawl.

And then I was explaining to the daughter that this morning I had felt like I was going to see someone I was going to want to give something to that I’d knit. I’d gone through a few projects and picked out a scarf I liked and hoped whoever it was going to be, if I really was supposed to, would, too. (And I’d told myself to be open to whatever was going to happen; after all, this is precisely why I knit. For joy.)

And so at that she went from grateful but shy and unsure to letting me give her the soft Malabrigo wool scarf. But I had to say to Rich, her dad, that no, sorry, I hadn’t spun and dyed that one. It was hand-dyed, though.

Store-bought yarn. What’s the world coming to. Heh.

Rich told me he’s looking forward to this year’s Christmas card.

I’d better start remembering right now to do them this year.

I know how privileged my part of the world is that this is the kind of problem I have to deal with.  You know how you’re supposed to keep it short and sweet? I didn’t, and maybe that’s why I got the response I did. My note to Costco:

Got the robocall (two, actually, one for each of the past two weeks’ worth of boxes, I assume): Listeria in my peaches. Dangerous for the immunocompromised, which I am; I have both systemic lupus and Crohn’s disease, two major autoimmune diseases.

One box had gone bad quickly and we’d tossed most of those peaches and bought a second box. The recycler took the first one away this morning.

So I took the newest one back to the (I named the specific) store. The fruit wasn’t ripe yet so the box was still full. Did a little bit of shopping first while it sat in my car and asked and was told that I had to have the peaches with me and I had to take them to the membership desk.

Okay, I was prepared for that.

So I put my new groceries in my car, grabbed the peaches and went back in. And that’s where it got interesting.

There were four people at the help desk. One was processing returns and that line went all the way to the front door. There was one customer, and then none, for the other three employees to process.

The employee at the door saw me trying to balance the heavy box in one hand since I have to use a cane for balance in the other hand and told me to go straight to the service side of that desk.

Where I was told I had to go back and wait in that long line.

I wasn’t trying to butt in front of everybody else, but I explained to the young woman (new employee? Didn’t recognize her) that I cannot stand still in one place for a long time: my blood pressure falls. If I’m moving around I’m okay (sitting, I’m fine, too, I’ll add here) but just standing in one place there? For the amount of time that would take? That line was not moving. I physically simply could not do it.

She was maybe too young to be able to figure out any workaround and shrugged and turned away and went back to chatting with her colleague. And that was more productive how? If two of those standing around had taken on doing returns and left the third to handle all others that might theoretically come for other problems it would have worked, both for me and for everybody else.

I stayed there a moment, silently pleading come on, guys, the fatigue in my arm getting to me, at which her colleague glanced my way and half-shrugged apologetically but did not help either.

So lots of people continued to stand in that line while three employees continued not to help them because they weren’t processing returns and the hypothetical Service questions were more important than the actual people needing them. And I took my box of peaches that could kill me if I touched them and left with them to try again later.

Except that I had come near closing time because that is when the potential UV exposure that would trigger a lupus flare would not be a problem standing at that membership desk. Coming at a less busy time of day with the bright sunlight streaming in could put me in the hospital.

I’ve been a weekly Costco shopper for years and have spoken highly of you again and again. I like that you treat your employees well.

But they need to treat the customers well too. My experience has been that you certainly do. But these guys blew it.

One other thing? If you have it in your records that I bought two boxes of the recalled peaches from you then your requiring that I prove that I bought those peaches from you by my physically bringing them in (too late on the first box now, folks, and now I know why so many of those peaches went bad so fast), can you see how that might not go over well? Why wouldn’t you simply refund the bills of everyone who bought them?

Thank you for hearing me out. If you are who pressured the fruit packer into doing the voluntary recall and cleaning their lines, thank you for that, too. But please? Could you take a moment to refund my account fer cryin’ out loud? I did everything I could tonight to try to comply. Thank you.

——-

I hit send on this letter. The page I got in response was this:

Someone among the empty-nesters and retirees at church decided we all ought to get together and throw ourselves a mid-week pot-luck lunch just because. I didn’t know it was in the works till the invite arrived in the mail.

Hey, any reason to have a good time together is fine by me–I was looking forward to it. Hazelnut torte, anyone?

And then it turned out that one person whom I don’t know well very kindly offered to host it in her gloriously gardened back yard and to cook it all, too. She not only loves to cook, she’s actually a caterer and everything she does is exquisite. No protests about sharing the burden allowed, she was doing this was for fun. And no one would get stuck with vacuuming duty afterwards.

But when I found out the change in venue it meant I had to quietly say to the person who started all this that I wouldn’t be able to make it after all. I’m an indoor cat, shut the door. She was horrified at the exclusion but I said hey, if you don’t live with it you don’t think of it and that’s perfectly okay–it’s actually a compliment, it means they think of me as simply me, not as That Lupus Patient.

Now, I have no idea if anyone else in that group found out anything of that one-on-one conversation or if my situation (which I didn’t mention to anyone else) had anything to do with it. They didn’t say. But Sunday the husband of a third woman in that group tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a beautifully wrapped small gift. As I exclaimed in wonder and looked back at him questioningly–why?!–he simply told me it was from his wife and beat a hasty retreat.

It was a set of note cards that looked like beautiful quilts, so much so that I had to touch the one on top to make sure that it wasn’t actually a tiny one that maybe she had made?  (She’s a quilter.) There was no note, no explanation. I was completely blown away.

And of course I used the first one to write her a thank you note. (And had to put off mailing it a day because I had to ask Richard when he got home from work if he had their address in his phone–“The white house on the corner of X and Y” probably wouldn’t have done it for the post office.)

It’ll get there.

And I strongly feel we should have everyone sign another for our catering friend.

Tonight I set the treadmill faster and went longer than usual, thinking a thank you towards all of you who prayed or Thought Good Thoughts my way after yesterday’s post.

Yesterday I’d set it to super-slow and still stopped it at two minutes when my blood pressure kept relentlessly dropping rather than picking up along with the pace. Air was feeling like a rare thing. Not comforting. I knew the drill from my tilt table test: down NOW and feet up. Breathe deep.

To explain: a dozen years ago, my lupus was attacking my autonomic nervous system the first and worst time with that test confirming it in the hospital, an alarm sounding, people running. My blood pressure was at 63/21, heart rate 44. They stopped it and pulled my feet in the air.

Today was so very much better. And I got to be super-grateful all over again.

And.

My friend Karen at church had her sons and their wives in town for a family reunion and the cousins were all toddlers having a great time being cute together.

At one point at the end I saw a woman I didn’t know minding two little ones that I instantly pegged as Karen’s, clearly; the younger one in her lap wasn’t having a meltdown but he was definitely edging towards it: traveling, strange places, strange people, three hours of church, waiting for Daddy to stop talking to his old friends over there. Enough for one day! He threw his paper airplane down with all the energy he could crash-land it with.

The mom looked ready for a good dinner, too; I think it was more for her sake that I pulled out a finger puppet and asked her if he might like to have it.

It changed everything. Suddenly she had a friend to talk to. Someone who thought her kids were adorable. Seeing her. With no expectations nor requirements on her.

It was like the balloon had been increasingly under pressure and suddenly it popped and she could breathe. Her delight at that little bit of handknitting and the appreciation in her face made my day and we chatted like old friends catching up while her little boy explored that puppet with her.

And if she’d put her feet up on that couch right there in that hallway I would have cheered her on.

Tag-teaming with the lupus today. I was expecting a friend over and I wanted to spruce up a bit.

Wait, wait, not so fast there.

Can I do this. Yes. Alright, then, dishes after breakfast, done.

Can I scrub that. Not without collapsing. Okay, then, that will have to stay imperfect–how do two adults with no little kids around anymore get a floor in need of being swept again two days after the last time? But mopping, not happening. How about this? Okay, then, laundry, mostly done.  I rested and I made progress and at one point I put my feet up and cast on the next Colinette hat.

But rather than feeling growly or worried that things were flaring a little more than I’d like, I found myself mentally giving a brief nod at all the things that weren’t going wrong medically that had before and simply rejoicing at the great gift that it is to be alive. To be able to love. To have been raised by parents who love me, to have been able to turn around and give that to my children in turn, and best of all, to see the payoff in how very well my grandchildren are being parented, with much thanks to Kim’s parents and grandparents too.

Got to see some new pictures today of 15-month-old Hudson helping his cousin out by eating most of Hayes’s birthday cupcake for him. You want all that? Nah, it’s a little much, here, have some. Thanks! Um, wait, that was a lot.

Hayes. A year already! What an intense joy after all those prayers to see him growing and interacting and perfectly fine.

The friend’s day changed such that there was just no way she could make the long drive here and back up clear across San Francisco and beyond after all the traveling she’s been doing. She was so sorry.

I know fatigue. I would have loved to have seen her while she’s back in California, but I totally understood how it was, no problem. I’m just glad we got that close.

And as I knit I anticipated happy faces to come. It’s all good.

This is the before picture from a few days ago. (There were a lot more tomatoes behind those leaves.)

I had the plants in pots on top of a small table. I taped many strips of mylar bird-be-gone tape to hang from the top of it and it seemed a really good idea; the squirrels raided the neighbors’ but left mine alone.

All it was missing last night, though, was the tablecloth to yank on. One good leap and the table tilted hard into the parched ground on the far side and every single pot came crashing down.

Presumably on the critter’s head.

Oops.

With the actual tomatoes all apparently accounted for this morning as far as I could tell, clearly it didn’t get much for all that. Whether the plants will survive the abrupt depotting and smashing, one can only hope. They are definitely hanging loose.

Richard helped me separate and pick up so I could get back out of the sun faster–and he encouraged me, when I gouged myself on some rusty metal with dirt all over my hand, to go look up when my last tetanus shot was.

Scanning down the screen for the magic word… 2004. Oh. On the phone, the clinic told me not to risk a delay, so I went in after church (with mental apologies to them for my coming in on a Sunday. Everybody deserves a day off.)

The nurse was about to give me the shot when her computer beeped at her. She did a doubletake.

The tdap booster on my chart that I’d skimmed right past? 2010. That t was for tetanus. (Oh of course.) Dodged it this time.

We have a hummingbird-friendly people-unfriendly cactus-level-sharp-spined flowering don’t-know-what-it’s-called in our yard.

This evening I clipped a whole lot of those flowers, which are several feet long and spent and well past hummingbird prime, and poked the stems in towards the center of the table to do porcupine duty over my coveted heirlooms. Any raccoon jumping up now is going to get a snoutful.

I wonder how many broken pots we’ll have in the morning.

Had a must-take-it-easy day so I did. A random mention: my friend RobinM said something about cherry clafouti and I didn’t remember quite what that was and went on a hunt for a recipe and can now attest that this one is really good. (Um, and I changed it to half cream. Because someone had to use it up. And I used a lot less lemon zest because it was after the mega-dyeing thing and I was tired.)

But meantime, we loaned our Aquarium guest passes to our friends Phyl and Lee and they came back tonight with almond croissants from that Parker Lusseau bakery we’d tried to go to down there but that had been closed for the Fourth of July. So we finally got to try their famous pastries–they were worth the wait.

They got the last three almond ones so they added a plain, knowing I’d hoped for a bunch of extras for the freezer.

But the best part was having them over and listening to them talking about and showing photos not only of the Aquarium and Tahoe before that (Oh, we always see a bear *shrug* Wait, you *what?* Oh we always seem to camp next to someone who doesn’t follow the rules even with the thousand-dollar fine) but also of the hyperbaric chamber that as divers they had also wanted to go see, given that there was a tour today. Also in Monterey.

It’s for divers with the bends and for those with carbon monoxide poisoning–so you bet we were interested in what that thing looked like. I would have been airlifted to the one at Johns Hopkins years ago but for the fact that the chamber would have killed the baby I was pregnant with.

Phyl’s eyes got big when I mentioned that that’s when we found out there was no ambulance service back then in the town we lived in in New Hampshire, just a volunteer with a Suburu and hope. Gotta keep those taxes down.  At the hospital, they tested our blood levels and then turned to Richard and exclaimed, You DROVE here?!

(Carbon monoxide alarms are a good idea, folks. And the law in California now.)

I said that chamber looked like a tube-shaped ambulance interior: a bed to each side, ready to go. They described how the thing actually works. They could put up to four in there.

Let’s not. Dive safely, guys.

They do.

Phyllis really liked the deep-sea Outer Banks exhibit and I wondered how often she’d seen a view quite like that from the inside.

And a good time was had by all.

(Tomato flowers playing chainstitch.)

My lupus group meets in the nearby community hospital.

Except in the summers, when our conference room is always scheduled for something else and they have no room for us. So we go on hiatus.

Only, this year we really didn’t want to, feeling more strongly about it than in the past. So we decided to have a get-together over lunch, picking a place in Los Gatos so it would be easy for Rita to come. I for one hadn’t seen her in years.

She was one of the original members of the group and from the sound of it I might still have been in high school at that point and back then all the information they could find called the disease universally fatal. End of story.

She’s in her 90’s now and chipper as ever–I will definitely take that kind of fatal.

The woman who’d made the reservations, mindful of several hearing impairments in the group, had asked for a quiet room, and Viva gave us the quietest one of any in memory. Near the end I said by way of thanks that yes the new hearing aids are great, but, this was the first time I had heard nearly everything in a restaurant in a group this size (we were seven) since…I thought a moment…probably my 20’s.

Normalcy is such an amazing gift to get to sample.

We all got big helpings.

One woman made it there whom we weren’t sure would be able to; for all her health problems, she’s a primary caregiver herself and for several minutes there she spilled all her grief of what she and her husband were going through.

How they were doing mattered to us. We asked how they’d met, and telling her multi-continent what-were-the-chances story got her laughing and her old self, freed to simply be.

We reminisced too over the people we had loved in that group over the years.

Do you remember the woman whose wake was held at her home , I asked. I found out after years of knowing her that we’d grown up in neighboring towns–who knew. What was her name?

Yes! In Sunnyvale, right?

Yes! And here’s the funny part, I told them. There was a man there at that wake whom I knew I knew, and he knew he knew me, but we both looked at each other and went, You are wayyy out of context. Where do I know you from?

Turns out he was my kids’ math teacher. He lived across the street there. Our late friend (I want to say Carol?) had taken care of his wife when she was dying, and then when Carol died, Rick opened his door the next morning to find–Carol’s cat.

She looked up at him. She stepped over the doorway. She lived here now.

And so he had indeed taken in that sweet cat that had watched these two households taking care of each other and she knew where to find the love.

I had missed enough meetings over the years that I didn’t recognize a few names the others were remembering, people who had moved away, people who had gone on, people who had simply stopped coming. This afternoon, we all found the love all over again all the more intensely and I never wanted to miss a thing again.

Rita, tiny, mostly blind, not quite frail yet if she can help it, was getting into another friend’s car for her ride home. Did we wear you out? I asked her.

Yes! she laughed, and pronounced, And it was worth EVERY. MINUTE.

Trying not to be too glued to the election returns. The utterly incompetent judge is behind but not by enough. Etc. The few people I really badly wanted to win, it looks like they probably will, and I’ll just have to wait like everybody else to find out the rest.

And in the middle of that came an email from a church member: a seven-year-old child, vanished, this is what she was wearing, and they said what busy public area she’d disappeared suddenly out of with a fervent plea for searchers and prayers.

Every parent knows that heart-stopping brief moment and this was so much more.

It was a quick walk from our house much less via the car (turn the corner and there you are) and who would know the area better?

Seven ten pm. UV would be about 2 out of 16. My safety vs a child’s, no contest. My sweetie had an intense migraine just then and could only offer the best of intentions and prayers but I could go.

But I had promised an errand with Michelle and I stopped a moment to try to reach her and somehow, as she didn’t respond right away, it became a long five minutes later.

Enough, go!, and I stopped to check the computer for any last updates as I headed out the door–

–just as they hit send on the message that she’d been found. Safe and sound.

Our community knows how lucky we are. And that she is.