Thank you, everybody. I talked to Dharma Trading Co, purveyor of all things dyeing, and they cautioned that the chemicals that would reliably get the dye out would wreck the feel of the cashmere and, they said, miss the point of such a sweater. Their advice was wash, wash, wash, gently, and hope.

O—– said they were passing the word along and would get back to me shortly. Okay. Now that I’ve had a day to chill, reading all your notes, thank you, you really helped, even just by speaking up.

The best antidote, of course, was to finally run in the four yarn ends on a project I’d blocked–yup, dry now, it’s ready–go off to Target, buy envelopes and mailing tape, and then a little later, after checking my email for details, get out to the post office. One book (yeah, that book) sold (directly, thanks) and in the mail, and one…

And (whistle) typing that sentence is when it hits me that, oh. Right.  I forgot to photograph it. *Bad* knitblogger!

And there, in my own mailbox, was a gift of beautiful, beautiful shots of the coastline, taken by my childhood friend Scott, one of the B’s I drove to Pacific Grove to see. If I couldn’t stand in the sun admiring the surf and the fog and the steep hills rising from the water, he could and he did and he gave that tideline to me. Gorgeous. Well done, Scott, and such an antidote for petty disappointments. Such good timing!

And in the glow of that, I went off to Purlescence tonight and they had a new line in from Cascade: royal baby alpaca, which is the finest grade you can possibly buy and hard to find, mixed with cashmere and silk. Swoon.

I told Richard that when I got home.

“So how many skeins did you buy?”

I didn’t.

“You DIDN’T?!” He was genuinely stunned.

I couldn’t make up my mind. The deep blue or the wine-red: both colors were exactly my shades. I’ll have to come back.

Yeah, I think they’ll see me again. Happens.

I don’t think Kathryn at Cottage Yarns was surprised when I called.  She recognized my voice.

She thought the edges and width were fine. She was quite happy to sell me more anyway. Her Rios had just come in, the Solis darker than mine but as usual, oh so pretty.  I’ve really wanted to make a baby sweater to go with the blanket and now I can.

After over three weeks, it’s hard to just stop and put the baby blanket down and call the thing done and not be working on it anymore. It’s also over a pound; enough already.

She mentioned that another woman had come in between when I called and when I got up there and was going through the Rios, leaving Kathryn going, uh, oh. But the woman had bought a whole bag of a different color and my Solis was safe after all.

And! She had one last skein from the same bag of undyed Malabrigo Sock I’d bought there awhile ago. I’d been thinking of making a formal christening blanket too and had been wishing I had more, and now I know I can go for it in that so-soft and washable wool.

You know, after 41 years of fighting the knitting grandmother stereotype…

It was after I got home that I finished the ribbing on the Rios, and I remembered wrong yesterday, having not done such a thing in years: if you pick up the stitches from the cast on and knit down, *then* it jogs sideways a half stitch’s worth. Which is what I got at first–but it was quickly clear it was going to feel like knots across that pick-up row. I could just picture the baby doing a faceplant into that and crying. Not our baby! Only one chance to do it right. Do it right.

So I ripped that and did what I’d tried to get out of: I carefully undid that first row, unthreading the yarn woven through each stitch going that direction. And then, hey look, the loops connected beautifully. A little loose-looped along some parts of the pattern, but. I decided loose loops don’t sink WIPs.

News flash: our nephew and his wife, he being the son of Richard’s late sister, had twin baby girls yesterday, everyone healthy and well. Yay! I can just picture Cheryl giving her granddaughters one last hug before their trip down here.

The baby afghan fabric the Malabrigo Rios is turning into for our grandson, meantime, is solid, substantial and warm, exactly what I wanted. But my wrists can only do so many M1 twists at a time, so it tends to go slow.

Every now and then I stop and look at how much is actually nevertheless getting done with my one pattern repeat minimum per day and it surprises me–cool, look at that!  Getting there!

The blog has been photophobic lately but I’m hoping this old shot goes through. (It’s not a great one, but it’s better than what I’ve been able to get since.)

I brought the blanket with me Thursday to Purlescence to show it off there for the first time, and they all made my day with exclamations of Oh, that’s *pretty*!

I told Sandi, the pattern should be intuitive–but it’s not, and I pulled out a simple scarf to work on.

“Some knitting isn’t social knitting.”

True.  But oh, but that yarn and that pattern so much want to be. Just wait till they’re done.  Stitch by ongoing stitch, it’s gradually, beautifully, in spite of my impatience, all coming together.

I’m sure my daughter-in-law knows that feeling right now way more than I do.

I got in my car in my driveway and closed the door. Purlescence night.

I opened that door right back up again and grabbed my keys, spurred on by the strong feeling that no, I needed to have one with me, and unlocked the house and ran back inside. Where I grabbed a copy of my book.

At the shop, though, I left it in the car–it’s not like the thing was a novelty to anyone I expected to see.

But there I ran into someone visiting from out of town whom I’d really, really wanted to give a copy to. I had no idea she was going to be there.  What I also didn’t know, as I in great delight  signed that thing, was that it wasn’t just me imposing on her (I was afraid it would be like, See? See this cool book I did? You like it, you really like it–right? Ummm…) Actually, she had really wanted one.

And for the second time Susan surprised me with a gift of some of her yarn to go play with, and I tell you, she does gorgeous colorwork.

Some nice people. You just can never catch up to them. It was *so* good to see her!

Here’s where I’ve been: about eight years ago, during the worst of the brainstem lupus stuff, I set myself a goal to walk all the way around my block once. Without shortness of breath, without chest pains, without weakness. That was my goal for the year. And the next.  I did not make it.

And for awhile there, it was also to feel well enough again to be able to drive a car without worrying about my blood pressure getting too low. I did not make it. I chose, and will always choose, to err on the side of caution on that one, this driver‘s choices being a good reason why.

Now, back when my kids were little, I used to racewalk four to five miles every morning before my husband left for work–my much-needed time to myself in the great outdoors, time to work out, time to just be out and SEE to recharge the batteries before starting in on the day with three children four and under.

Then the fourth child arrived, the lupus hit, the no-sun issue surfaced, and all together it added up to years of wishing keenly for all sorts of things.

And one of those was to just get in the car and go see the ocean again. Not our close-by Bay but the actual ocean. It wasn’t like it was very far. (Oh yeah, sun, right.)

My younger brother Bryan was here about eight or ten years ago and we did exactly that: we got in the car, him at the wheel, and the two of us drove down to Monterey, reveling in the rare time together.

Pebble Beach. The 17-Mile Drive. Got out from time to time (took the risk, how often do I get to with him) and looked at the seascapes below. The funky Monterey cypresses, the redwoods on Highway 17, the weirdness of the sign claiming copyright on all images anyone ever might make of that one lone tree on that outcropping as belonging to… You can’t copyright a picture you didn’t take! Silly people! Hanging out. Having a day to just go be siblings again.

I so wanted to go back there. I so wanted to cruise down Highway 1 and just be free of all health-related cares and just go. I tried to ignore how confining lupus can feel.

The B’s did not know that when they booked a cottage where they did for their vacation. It was simply a good spot for the things they wanted to do.

Bryan and I had driven right down that road. You go past the sign to 17-Mile Drive and there you are.

The best part of my trip yesterday, by far, was getting to see and spend time with the B’s. With serious chronic illness for two of us and a 3000 mile distance, this is a rare and wonderful thing. I think we two were both surprised at how well the other was looking. Acknowledging, yes, but acknowledging too how things are holding together in spite of all that as we created new memories to rejoice over with the old.

On a side note: going such a distance, and down a highway that occasionally turns into a country lane, a kick back and relax in the scenery type of road with slow produce trucks hauling artichokes from the coast and ambling at their own pace, one never knows what to expect. So I’d left early with the idea of Monarch Knitting as my time buffer: I’d wanted to meet LYSO Joan there anyway, very much so, for over three years now.

There was a big knitting retreat going on back then at Asilomar (wait–not SOAR, it was June–trying to remember its name) and my friend Nina was attending. She asked for, and got from me before she left, my author’s proof pages that I’d had spiral bound.

The first day of the retreat happened to be the day that Wrapped in Comfort was released, and the conference also happened to have a show-and-tell scheduled then.

Nina, bless her, held up that book, wearing the shawl in that book (she had wanted to own the very one, not a copy, even if it meant waiting for months to get it back from the publisher, so I did that for her), pointed to the page, and she announced, “I am Nina. This is the shawl in this book. You want this book. Go buy this book!”

And thus she led a posse of 50 knitters over to Monarch, where, she and Joan both told me later, Joan was just opening a box shipped from Martingale that had six copies in it.

And everybody wanted them.

Joan took a deep breath, made a decision, and pleaded with them: please, if I do this, promise me you’ll come back tomorrow?

They did. So she did: she called Martingale, on a Friday afternoon close to quitting time, and asked them to Federal Express Weekend Overnight her those 50 copies. And they did it! They got them out in time! The next day, they all sold except the copy Joan wanted to keep for herself.

She told me the shipping fees had eaten any profit from the sales but oh what a good time they’d all had!

I thanked her for giving me a book story to brag on for life. And I do.

So, yesterday I was making good time, on my way, passing several bicyclists who were off the road talking to each other, when suddenly a cop passed me, lights and sirens. A few minutes later, another. Oookay. There was a long curve there near Moss Landing, too far away to see why traffic had by then come to a stop.

And there we sat.

It was one of those times I was glad I was in a Prius: I turned off the fan to save electricity and thereby gas. We sat. Pretty scenery… But I really hoped things would get going; I did want to stop by Monarch.

After a half hour it all started to clear up again. No tow trucks, no fire engines, no sign of anything having been out of the ordinary. Curious.

To either side of the power towers at the Landing, there were swamps and birds that I wished I could see closer up.

I did get to go to Monarch. I walked in and the first person I saw, having cheated and looked at her website, I asked in delight, “Are you Joan?”

“I am!”

“I’m Alison Hyde.”

She knew exactly who I was! Totally, totally made my little ego’s day.

I looked around with the occasional exclaiming of delight as one room unfolded to another and ooh look there’s another back here! I bought a little baby alpaca. “Souvenir yarn.” I explained about the time buffer, thanking her for her offer to wind it but gotta run.

I had no idea when I got back in that car I was going to be retracing some of my brother’s steps from there. Hey! I recognize that restaurant!

And that’s where we all had lunch together.

The B’s happened to mention having gone birding at Elkhorn Slough over by Moss Landing a bit earlier, where a large group of bicyclists had gathered and traffic had backed up for two miles behind them.

Oh my goodness! You were there! *I* was there, at the far end of that! Too funny.  I asked Scott, Did you get to see your Bewick’s wren? Knowing he’d so wanted to and never had. I have one that hops across my view every day, moving like a cartoon figure the way it bounces almost faster than the eye can keep up with.

“I did!”

Cool! I told the three of them that I was now into birds and it was all their fault. They grinned.

Joan over at Monarch had offered to take the hanks and ball the two up for me and let me pick them up on my way back later, and that was really nice of her.  But…

I thought as I came back through Pacific Grove just after her quitting time, I was right. Don’t wait up. I was having too good a time just being friends in person again to get wound up.

And I did it. I know now I can do it. I knew, but I hadn’t tested, hadn’t pushed myself, and now I have. Along with their friendship, the B’s gave me back the most incredible, the most exquisite sense of freedom reclaimed.

THEY MATCHED!!!

Ahem.

Dear Webs,

You had the much-anticipated Malabrigo Rios in before anyone I know of; my friend RobinM saw it and gave me a heads-up. She ordered some, I ordered some.

You had seven skeins of Solis left and I bought three of them, but by the time you got to filling my order (they were going fast) you had two in one dyelot and one in a different one (a lot of places wouldn’t bother to notice that; thank you!)  The Azules I wanted was on backorder; rather than just putting my order on hold, you emailed me to ask, what did I want to do?

To which I answered, if it’s not too difficult, could you just send me the two and add one more to the Azules when it comes in instead of a third Solis–but could you send the Solis now? I can wait however long for the other to come.

The woman on the phone answered, understanding, “Well, it IS Malabrigo.” It’s popular, the quality is high, the price is low, there’s only so much, and sometimes you have to wait a long time.

What neither she nor I knew was that the backorder would come in the next day (or was it two).

Which means I got my package of Azules right away.  With no Solis. With (oops)  a packing slip saying both were in there. While the website said that even with that new order in, you were now back down to, you guessed it, two skeins of Solis.

Now, I think this is mostly my fault for asking you to make two shipments out of one and not canceling the order and redoing it as two. (The skein-quantity discount made it worth paying shipping twice.)  You were trying hard to do the right thing, but someone in shipping saw something irregular and apparently thought there must be some mistake and thereby they made a mistake. Happens to the best of us.

What I’m getting to, is, out of three dyelots of Rios Solis you’ve had come in, what happened was, I’m guessing I got THE one that best matches what I already had.  The new is ever so slightly darker at one point in the blue, but, the fact that this art dealer’s daughter has to read the tags to be sure which one is from which dyelot…

Thank you thank you thank you. You filled that order perfectly.

Except for one thing: you really should have charged me the shipping on today’s package. I owe it to you.

I explained yesterday’s post to Nina and told her, So I have to choose the blackberry flavor. She laughed and allowed as how, yes, I did.

We were at (psst–Nina–what was the name of that place? Miriam’s? Marianne’s?) Makes all their own ice cream. In Santa Cruz.

Nina’s on the email list of the Golden Fleece yarn shop down there and they were having not only Malabrigo Rios in stock as of today but were putting it on sale–IF you bought ten skeins.

The hottest new yarn out there, with a lot of stores on a waiting list, and an incentive to go buy lots of the stuff? Hey. Turns out some of her customers showed up last night to see if the box had arrived yet, it just had, and they were going through it before the owner even got to see in there, picking out their favorite colorways they’d been waiting for.

Meantime, no way no how was I going to go buy ten skeins of yarn right now and I doubted the two of us together could, either. But I wanted some Nina time, and I do like seeing Malabrigo in person because the colorways have enough variation from dye lot to dye lot and you know how it goes…

(I can just see all the knitters nodding, oh yes, we know how it goes…)

Rios is the yarn I’ve been waiting for all this time that I snatched up that test-marketing skein of in April.  It is THE softest merino worsted I have ever come across.  Superwash, too.   Someone (thank you RobinM!) gave me a heads up that Webs had it now: I’ve been watching that page–they got some in on Wednesday and it is going fast. (Guilty as charged on the credit card. I did not know I was going to get an email from Nina right after I did.)

I did not need to up my supply in Santa Cruz. Really, I didn’t.

And then we got there.  I have a grandchild on the way, and new moms need good warm things for their babies *that they can throw in the washer*.  (Because at 4 am after the baby’s already gotten you up twice it’s probably going to end up in there anyway just because you’re too tired to think straight. I vividly remember a knitting grandmother I know scolding her daughter for turning the baby blanket she’d slaved over for x months into a, quote, postage stamp that way. I want my knitting gifts guilt-free.)

You see that photo in that old post?

Golden Fleece had that exact colorway.

They had it in two dyelots, and when I separated them and stepped back, it was clear they really were separate dyelots.

They had some of their sock yarn with that same Azules nametag on them, and it was markedly different. Not baby friendly, either; much darker, and where did that almost-black-in-this-light streak come from?

I have some Azules coming from Webs.

I have no real idea what it will look like till it gets here.

I want to start serious baby knitting, like, NOW.

You can see where this is going.

And so I bought the Solis green.  To match that hat I made.  And that’s it!  (Yeah right.)  I bought the Azules, to have  on hand for sure the colors that were exactly the way I wanted.  If that means an adult gets a Webs-yarn vest to match our little one, worse things have happened.

We stopped for ice cream on the way home, because it was another Santa Cruz institution Nina didn’t want me to miss, and I picked the flavorway I did in Lisa’s yarn‘s honor.

Which I now need to finish up, like, really really fast because I got me some serious Rios knitting to do.  Twist my arms.

Hey, Lisa? Your Blackbewwie  Sock! Merino is coming along nicely on that second ball–about two more days and I’ll be done. (Colorwise, mine is between her Blackbewwie and her Mulberry photos and the yarn is soft with a lot of shimmy and shine to it.)

When the first of my nieces got married years ago, my brother, parents and I flew to Seattle for the wedding and before we left, we ate at a restaurant that served me the most perfect one-person mixed berry pie, the best comfort food one could ever hope to find. There was just barely enough crisp crust to contain all that good dark fruit; it was a meal to remember all by itself.

That yarn color reminds me of that constantly as I knit.  I keep wanting to go make berry pie! I aspire to make one as good as that one was; I’ve never yet achieved it.

Or maybe I could at least zap up some berry sauce and let it start to melt a little ice cream to celebrate when I finish this project.

It looks like I will go right down to the last 25 g or so of that wool.  Small electronic scales are very useful for measuring how fast a yarn is disappearing into the fabric.

Went to Purlescence with an old friend tonight and got one whole long row done. Too much listening and laughing to get more done just then.

It was needed and it was perfect.

(Actually, I should have positioned those in an oval and captioned it, “Braaaaaaains…”)

So I had another bright-eyed idea on that same endless project, with the result that I was late for Purlescence because I ended up frogging four rows x 434 stitches, tinking that last one carefully stitch by stitch back onto the needles.  Slow way no how was I going to leave that mess in the middle, stranded.

And then I had to leave Knit Night less than an hour later because I had to pick up my husband at the airport. But in between!

I’d brought the unrepentant wool with me and I never got to it. (Funny how that was probably going to happen anyway.) I got saved by Susan, if I heard her name right, from Abstract Fiber.

She was there with samples.  There were projects made–oh, man, were they gorgeous! And she had a large bag full of sample-size skeins.

“Take some!” Gigi and Jasmin and Pamela urged.

How much are they?

“They’re free!”

Since when… okay, why? Alright, I’ll take one. And I picked out a few and tried to decide which, while they explained that they’d already chosen a whole bunch and that Abstract Fiber does not sell skeins with knots: so if they come across one, snip right there, you’re out of here. Eventually they have enough of those that they give them away as samples.

I’ll take one. I assume it’s one per customer. (That got me a lot of, Nah…!)

They kept egging me on. I kept saying, but…! Here, you, did you get to see them yet? And you over there? I want you to pick out all you’d like, I don’t want to hog all the purples or the anythings.

Jasmin dumped the whole bag out for everyone so it would be easier to see. I was assured it was not the first time that evening; I’d just come in late.

The end result was, I said I was going to choose some and put the rest back, that this mound was embarrassing–and then I turned my head for one second after boxes of regular skeins went past, to go ask about those because I really really like Artfibers yarns, and Gigi madly and gleefully stuffed miniskeins in my knitting bag behind me. (There were way more than those still left, honest.)

I was stumped when they grinned, “So what are you going to do with them all?” Uhbuhduhbuhduh. I dunno, but I’m sure going to have fun finding out!

(Burnside Bridge. I LOVE their Burnside Bridge colorway, always have. Look what followed me home too!)

I have a ton of work to do to justify all that woolly greed. And if you too love Artfibers and are in the area, Purlescence in Sunnyvale stocks them.

Oh. Yes. Hubby is home (yay!)  I managed to wait a whole half hour after we walked in the door, showing that of course my priorities are straight, why would you ever wonder, before I went and balled up that first Burnside.

And one last thing, one non sequitur to top off the evening: Michelle is madly and suddenly in need of laptop shopping. She found one with lots of features, except for one: it’s apparently put out by a videogame company with their name emblazoned across the top, and as she put it, “I have my pride!”

I offered to knit it a tattoo to cover it over.

“Nice try, Mom.”

The last two flowers out of four. So out of season, so cool to have them in bloom just because they happen to feel like it right now.

Meantime. Tonight.

(Nah, couldn’t be.) I kept knitting.  Several people in the shop had already commented on my colorway, and the woman who’d just come out of a class in the back seemed to like my shawl project. Except she kept looking at me, not just–but nah, couldn’t be.

From across the room she was going: (Nah, couldn’t be.) She was talking to Kay about learning to knit shawls. They picked one up off the back of a chair and Kay was explaining how to do its simple dropped-stitch pattern.

Then Kay mentioned my name. I didn’t hear her, but I sure saw the effect.  Suddenly, this woman is bounding over towards me and I’m exclaiming, Are you KATHY?!

Now I don’t have to tell you the hugs that followed: our kids went through school together clear back to kindergarten. Back in the day, the elementary let the older grades out I think 40 minutes after the younger grades, and when you had kids on both sides of that, you learned fast that there needed to be extra adult presence on that playground in between. And so we parents who picked up our kids would sit and chat.

Kathy reminisced over the times I would bring my spinning wheel, and how I’d spun up Cole’s samoyed’s fur. I’d made it into a hair scrunchy for his mom.

(Take a standard covered-elastic hairband. Take yarn and crochet around it until there’s no visible sign of elastic left.  Work it as big and ornate or as tiny and simple as you want.)

And now she’s learning to knit and wants to make a shawl. I think I could help her along the way with any questions, why, yes.  So for Kathy’s sake, here are a few old pictures of projects from my book.

One last thing, just because it tickled me: Richard mentioned tonight what one of his co-workers had told him today–the lady was stopped at a light and heard ducks. A little late in the season for ducklings but you never know and you have to watch out for them, you can’t run over them! Where would the water be that they’d be toddling towards…and so she was looking and looking all over. Where are the ducks! Quackquackquack.

She finally looked up. And there, perched on the wires above the intersection, were several parrots.  Speaking in Duck. (Mari and Kathryn, that’s for you.)

Hey, lady, no Peking!

I got a package in the mail on Friday from my childhood friend Karen of the Water Turtles Shawl.  It turns out Richard was in on what was a total surprise: a kilogram of fawn superfine alpaca on a cone from a place she’d stopped in while visiting her daughter in Maine–a place where local producers sell their output.  Cool!  She thought I might be able to figure out something to do with it.

And you know? I just might. (Thank you, Karen!)

Then that evening Michelle talked about some plans with some friends for the next day, and the easiest way to make it happen was to drop her off in San Francisco and then pick her up from the local train station later.

Note that I mapquested where she wanted to go to Imagiknit and only then back to home again.  My ulterior motives were cheered on by the others.

But I dislike deep-city driving enough that after she got out I decided to bag it after all and just get on the freeway and go. However, while avoiding jaywalkers I missed my street sign and ended up on Market Street and Market Street is a long straight shot west with a whole lot of No Turns signs. You have to juggle constantly between the trolley only/not trolley lanes and I can see why Mapquest dodged it–but it was actually also the most direct route towards exactly where I wanted to go. Finally allowed to turn left? Right where I wanted to.

And wonder of wonders, despite a hugely popular park nearby on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there was an actual parking place a half block up the street from the store. I was so surprised and still so ready to bail for fear of a long walk in sun exposure that I missed it and had to circle the block.

It was still open.

Well, then. Clearly it was meant to be.

I really really wanted to do baby knitting in Malabrigo softness.  And so with the help of Kurt at Imagiknit, I got to see (in person!) their superwash Sock in the Solis colorway that was on the very top shelf without even having to hold the tip of my cane while waving its curve hopefully around way up there in the air trying to snag skeins and scaring the bejeebers out of everyone around me.

There–that skein. That one’s perfect. No yellow splotches, just the greens and blues playing perfectly, that’s the one.  Malabrigo’s super soft superwash worsted-weight Rios yarn (it has a name now!) isn’t officially out till next month–the baby blanket I want to make is waiting for the day…

I talked to Karen. She won’t mind if I do a little superwash knitting first. I’ve got a good excuse.

And so I’ve got a soft Malabrigo hat going on tiny needles for my grandson (and yes, Mari, you’re right, the Saartjes booties to match it are the only way to go.)

It and he are nearly halfway here so far.

(Top picture added Sunday–one ball merino/silk/cashmere and I wish I’d bought the dark blue too. Done.)

I managed to sneak in, after a bit of family negotiations on the car/scheduling thing, a few minutes at Purlescence. Got back later than I’d wanted (the shop’s clock had stopped. I didn’t notice right away. I actually had a good excuse.)  I grabbed my purse and ran inside, grabbed the kid, jumped in the other car to run an errand with her–saving some gas mileage with the Prius rather than my doddering minivan–then she drove home so I could jump out and she could take off again: you know, the normal family your-car-my-car-goes here-goes there errand-y stuff.

She was off on her merry way for the evening before I realized that, wait: she’s got her dad’s car. And his keys.

And my car keys, accidentally left behind when I swapped seats with her.

That new 75% off Silk Road $2.50 ball of yarn from their sale with a specific intent and deadline in mind. It is sitting in my driveway, ignored and unknittable,  and I can’t do a thing about it right now.  AAA Emergency Roadside probably wouldn’t be amused.

Well, huh. I wonder if I could find some other yarn around here to play with in the meantime.

(Added later: where there’s a will, there’s a spare set. Silkroad in the key of Jo Sharp. There you go.)

The hospital project is done and blocking.

The Mooi got worked on at Purlescence tonight, where Nathania instantly knew what that yarn was just to look at it. I told her it had been a great comfort. She looked in my eyes and answered, “We take care of our people.”

And they do there. And everybody is their people.

Background shawl with thanks to Mary, who so earned it.

Every time I think I never have to take the squirrel-on-crack-effect prednisone steroid again in my life, they think up some new excuse. Short term but massive, they want now.

I argued with the nurse. *I’d had a doctor give me a bedside lecture last year that despite my reaction to topical iodine, iodine is an inert mineral that, he said, it is impossible to be allergic to. A medical myth.  The stuff they mix it with? Sure. Iodine? No.

And so (just like last year just the same) they want me to take Pred and Benedryl for a CT scan so I won’t react to this iodine I can’t be allergic to.

I got nowhere. The nurse who called me to tell me had no idea. This is just how we do it, sorry.

Yes, and walking around with 80/40 bp and the like is how I do it, do you know how I react to Benedryl? Is it in my records?  Do you really want to depress that?

You know?  I think I’ve been more stressed about this than I thought I was.

Just before my first Stanford stay last year, when I was too sick to sit up, much less knit, the community at Purlescence filled a large basket for me of newly-picked oranges from Jasmin‘s trees and yarn and handknits to cheer me on and to give me something to keep me looking forward.

One of those things was two skeins of Mooi from Nathania, Sandi, and Kaye–a blend with buffalo and cashmere that was probably one of if not the most expensive yarn in their shop. I was alive enough to realize and hang onto the idea of what a treasure they were offering me: in my intense pain and weakness, being able to anticipate specific moments of joy in an as-yet uncertain future.

How do you live up to that intensity when you’re puttering around happily back in normal life? It has been bothering me that I haven’t done that great gift justice. It kept waving other skeins ahead of it, going, no, no, you go on, wool, you’re fine, no problem.

It’s time.  I guess I can’t say I refuse to let this ongoing post-ops stuff buffalo me now.  This is lovely stuff, with a brightness to it that I didn’t see in the ball and didn’t expect as it weaves around my needles, and it didn’t even hit me till I started playing with it that those women had picked the color in their stock that matched my favorite teal-blue skirt they’d seen me in a million times.  Man am I slow on the uptake.

And now I can begin to really tell them thank you for that Mooi. At last.  It’s gorgeous stuff and it is a great comfort. Again. A CT scan? I was worried about a stinking *CT* scan, fer cryin’ out loud?! What was I *thinking*!

(Edited to add five weeks later: I talked to my radiologist brother-in-law, and he said that while one might not technically be allergic to iodine, it is very common for iodine to bind with various cells that one then makes antibodies against–causing a potentially dangerous and yes, allergic reaction.)

So it was knitting group night at Purlescence, and some people I hadn’t seen in awhile were there along with the regulars.  Having talked on end there about the antics of the falcons over at City Hall, I brought Hilary’s falcon carefully tucked away in a box for safety–not even thinking till just now as I write this that wow, just like the elevator rides for the misfledged fledglings!

A woman walked in wearing a “Not that kind of doctor” t-shirt; another stood up and they threw their arms around each other.  Something was mentioned about not having had a good conversation since 1994; they were old buddies.

I wasn’t following their conversation, not wanting to be in the way, but the one I didn’t know was working on the most incredible beaded glove in a deep sapphire blue with beads, both sparkly and plainer, and just the slightest brush of lighter shades mixed into the blue. The Milky Way?  There was fine embroidery and I thought, the Big Dipper!

Turns out I got that one right. She was an astrophysicist PhD and she was knitting the galaxies into her gloves.  Wow.  I wanted to stare at the one in her hands and study its emerging skies.  For me, the daughter of a contemporary art dealer, if I were doing a starry starry night, it would look like a Vincent Van Gogh–backgrounds are funny things.

She was visiting from Boston, if I heard right; as their conversation went on, there was a fellow, one of the regulars, who was spinning away at his wheel next to the pair.  He’s been quietly working away at that green wool roving for a goodly number of weeks.

And at some point that I missed but got told about afterwards, he interjected, Oh, you must know my mother!

His mother, it turns out, had been the woman’s thesis advisor.

Look at all those stars. Ours IS a small world!