A pre-fab Diamond brand vegan pie crust made of ground pecans and oat flour: I was intrigued when she showed it to me. Sure, I’ll try it out.

I’m sorry we did not get to it before John left, but we looked at each other tonight and knew we could not let the last of the Andy’s peaches age out of their supreme goodness, and peaches and pecans, well, the state of Georgia can tell you those two were meant to be together.

Notes to my future self: my 1952 Betty Crocker said to bake an 8″ peach pie with 3 1/3 tbl flour and 2/3 cup sugar. Also a tbl of butter, but not for the allergic and I forgot to add her Miyoko version in. It’s fine. I added a tsp cinnamon and let the peach slices sit soaking in the mixture for a few minutes.

But that 425F for 40 minutes for 8″ (measured across the top of the interior of the pan) was a bit much for it. I would decrease temp or time next time.

But there should most definitely be a next time and it will most definitely do.

The kids and I went past a clerk’s line on our way to another aisle and from there I made sure we doubled back and checked out with her, thinking, let’s see if we can help that woman feel like she’s cared about. She looked tired.

She’d had a long day and we were her last.

The kids were putting all kinds of stuff on the conveyor I don’t usually buy: resealable candied nuts, granola, flavored water (here, let me give you a Hint), cookies, jerky, roasted nut mix. Stuff that will see you through if your car has any issues along the way. (There was a friend of Richard’s and my parents in our childhoods who’d been in a plane crash in Alaska and had hiked two weeks to find help. He found a Hershey bar in the snow along the way and made a huge impression for life on us about how much energy there can be in a few ounces of chocolate. To our own children: Always always have some food with you when you travel. And take some chocolate.)

I said to that clerk, When your kid drives twelve hours to see you, you get them every fun stuff you can think of for their twelve hours home.

All the sudden our family reunion was her family reunion and it made her day to see us together and looking out for each other and with her on this very fine Labor Day of a day, and the kids had her laughing in the back-and-forth.

My youngest is going back to his own life in the morning. Which is wonderful for him and a little bit hard. The delight on that woman’s face on his behalf helped more than she could know.

The time together is so short. None of us are used to tripping over other people in the kitchen anymore. All of us are loving sitting down to share a meal together. Savoring every minute and bite.

And the surprised delight and big hugs to my kids this morning from old friends who didn’t know they were coming.

Here, taste the tip of a spoon here, see what you think of it so far.

They approved.

Then the kids drove to San Francisco to Dandelion Chocolate for some sibling time and brought home a splurge of bakery goodies and hot chocolate. Not your standard lunch. That orange sanguine entremet–wow!

As my dad loved to say, How many meals do you eat in your life? Now: how many do you remember?

Then John drove me to Kings Mountain Art Fair, with the ocean to one side on that twisty road and Silicon Valley laid out below on the other and the Fair on the spine of the ridge, where we got to see Mel and Kris. Mel knew exactly what I wanted when I broke my favorite tall mug and held the new one up in happy anticipation of my delight. Which he got. I liked it even better than the old one. Kris was there for the first time in several years, her chemo long over and looking great. I picked up one of the smaller mugs–and it had a sheep on it! (With apologies to them that my photo washes the colors out a bit.)

I knew she played with adding hummingbirds and dragonflies and honeybees…

She was delighted that I was the one who bought her first sheep.

Not long after we walked back in the door, Michelle and I ran an errand exploring a store that sold favorite pantry items she hadn’t been able to find in Boston. And because she liked going there; it was part of being home.

John cooked dinner.

We all got to FaceTime with Lillian, who wanted to show her grampa the wart on her foot in solidarity. She wanted to see his foot, too. He gently told her she wouldn’t want to.

And then at long last we turned off that goshawfulloudnoise that had been going in the kitchen for 26 hours at that point (24 is about optimal on the conching) and John and his dad worked for a couple hours more at cooling and re-warming and thus (hopefully) tempering our new batch of homemade chocolate correctly while getting some one-on-one time of their own.

I got to do the honors of pouring it out and did as messy a job as I ever do and we managed not to devour it before it had even set, probably because, really? We had a lot of cleanup to do. And we’d had a lot of chocolate today already.

And all of it was very very good.

I like days like this!

John’s home, John’s home!

And so there are fresh peaches from Andy’s, chocolate conching in the melanger, and our two younger kids being each other’s best friend and I tell you, that is the best.

Today was the cataract guy. He was thorough. I got referred to a corneal scarring specialist at Stanford to go to after all this; he says some of the bright scattered reflection problem is from that, and that it can be fixed, too.

So: a multifocal lens, or what by the sound of it is a new improved multifocal with fewer problems at night, or monofocal, and if the latter, for distance, mid, or near, with glasses for the rest?

Multifocal+ sounded good to me!

Richard cautioned that a friend of his greatly regretted making that choice. His own prescription is quite mild, so he went for mid on his so he could spend his work time and grandkid time without having to worry about glasses.

Me, I’ve worn glasses for distance since third grade and just assumed that’s what I would choose. But maybe not?

I’d love to hear anyone’s input, because I have zero experience with this.

Meantime, the person who was supposed to call back to schedule the surgery didn’t, and doctor #2 didn’t seem to be in a hurry about it, and I’m okay with that right now.

The important thing is, it’s going to happen.

Meantime, when I changed Richard’s dressing his foot looked way better. I feel like I can finally breathe easy on that one.

The question, the moment of truth, the blunt response.

I have a macular pucker and it’s been stable for several years now, with me coming in every six months to get it checked.

The retina specialist came in the room today after the routine pictures had been taken, concerned before I even said anything. He asked how I was doing.

I’m fed up with it, I told him. My husband was just in the hospital for five days and I found I couldn’t see well enough to drive home safely later than 5:00 because the late sun created blinding reflections. I needed to be with him and I couldn’t be. And I can’t read labels in the grocery store anymore.

He asked how my husband was doing, and I said no amputation so far and so far okay but the infection was not gone.

He made a decision on the spot. He told me, Don’t ask the front desk–they’ll tell you four months. Dr. M will do the cataract and then I’ll do the retina and we do joint surgeries on Mondays, sometimes Fridays. Maybe we could get you in Monday, would that be okay? Or even this Friday, let me see what I can do.The second cataract is typically done two weeks later.

Me, surprised: Sure!

I realized afterwards that Monday’s a holiday and this weekend is King’s Mountain Art Fair and I’ve already said I would pick up something my potter friends Mel and Kris were making for me.

I dearly want to see them but I do have friends who go to that. And there’s certainly always the mail.

One way or other, this is all going to work out. Finally. I know that macular pucker surgery can take 3-12 months to show improvement from–so let’s get started. It’s time. Taking out the cataracts will give me some instant gratification on seeing colors clearly again in the meantime.

That carton of cream I didn’t remember using that much of: it had somehow gotten knocked over and the bottom of the fridge was covered along with the bin sitting above it.

Not to mention the kid is home who’s allergic to dairy. Out!

It was a job.

One major fridge clean, once you’re done, is like fresh sheets on the bed straight out of the dryer on a cold winter night. So perfect.

Michelle’s home Michelle’s home!

Car keys have been borrowed. Somehow that makes it feel official.

Scene: Trader Joe’s. I was wearing a plain shirt and this gerdan.

The woman in front of me at checkout looked over at me, decided I looked friendly enough to engage in conversation, and exclaimed, I just love that!

She tried to get back to the task at hand but ended up saying it again.

I told her a woman in Ukraine had made it for me.

“I’m from Ukraine!” She asked me who I’d bought it from, but I explained that the woman had lived in Kherson and had evacuated and I didn’t know where she was now.

She asked, with some hesitation at first, if she could touch it?

Sure!

She felt the beads: yes of course glass, not plastic. Could she take a picture of it? She loved it so much!

Sure!

She did, and I wondered if she was a beading artist herself or was close to someone who was; she was texting the joy of the moment via her phone with someone whom it would mean something to, too. All artists need that spark renewed from time to time.

And everybody far from home needs to feel welcomed and a part of their new community.

The guy finished checking her out and she headed on out the door, beaming at having run into someone who knew what those were, who’d interacted with her countrywomen, who cared about her country during this war and who was making that part of her culture visible here. She was just about dancing.

And that, I said to the guy now checking me out, is why I wear these even to the grocery store. I have several of them. There are quite a few Ukrainians in the community.

He glanced out the door after her and for the first time in this long wearying Saturday rush, he was now smiling, too.

Some thoughts re Gavin Newsom’s talk about redistricting to match Texas’s sudden mid-decade redistricting to kowtow to 47’s demands. The first screaming and dishonest flier has already come to the mailbox.

We voted in a nonpartisan commission to set our boundaries. I wish we had ranked-choice, too.

But here’s the thing: in Texas, the Republicans have complete control and are ramming it through and they certainly aren’t asking the voters about it.

In California, Newsom asked the legislature to put the question on a ballot, not to rescind that commission but whether we the people want to, for a maximum of three redistrictings, change our boundaries ourselves as a statewide choice, to add five majority-Democrat seats to the House of Representatives–to ONLY take effect if Texas takes away five majority-Democrat seats there as they’ve loudly said they will.

Newsom could have redrawn ours to be eight. He didn’t. It’s not a competition nor punishment, it’s a statement and a remedy to a wrong. You break it, then on behalf of the entire country since we’re the ones who can do something about it, we balance it out. Representation continues exactly as it was, overall.

He is using democracy in an effort to save democracy and he will abide by the will of the people on the issue. Yay or nay, speak up, vote, choose to be heard! Treasure the fact that you have a choice and a voice so that you still will!

This is how you serve the people.

At the same time, given how red Texas is, the very fact that they’re playing stretchy Silly Putty with those lines gives away how afraid they are that they would otherwise surely lose.

Because after all, you just can’t vote for people who would ask the taxpayers to fund one single storm monitor to be awake during a massive flood where kids are camping, right?

In case this is of use to someone else out there: decades ago I had a doctor tell me to take 500 mg of vitamin C a day to help ward off bladder infections.

I call it my placebo of choice, and awhile ago Richard got in the habit of taking one when I did. Anti-colds, right?

The first thing the doctor at the clinic asked him was, Do you take vitamin C?

Yes…?

Stop immediately. It almost certainly is the cause of your kidney stone.

Turns out the last time he’d had one it was the type directly tied to it. The guy also told him supplements for calcium and vitamin D are the other culprits for their particular types of kidney stones.

So it could be that easy to never have to go through this again.

Savoring peaches.

Changing his bandaging.

Doing three mini puzzles.

Just being. Together.

You’re going to like this part.

His kidney stone moved to where it somehow doesn’t hurt, and the clinic’s urologist saw him and is keeping tabs on him. Cardiology set him up on a heart monitor for two weeks to get a more complete diagnosis.

And while that was getting started, I was in the next town over seeing my surgeon #2.

Who told me that surgeon #1 had called him and warned him she was sending a doozy of a case over. I got a bit of, Oh, *you’re* the one!

She had told me of potential nerve damage.

He told me it was way more than that. With no colon nor rectum in there holding things in place, things just slosh around, and–he was pleased that I knew what adhesions were–that ovary they couldn’t find on the ultrasound: it could be fused with my tailbone. Anything could be anywhere.

Finding it all and fishing it out and freeing it amongst all the adhesions risked my small intestine.

I was stunned. I’d had no idea.

I asked him how many hysterectomies he’d done on patients with colorectomies.

It was rare. He’s been practicing a long time. He held up five fingers and said–But they all had cancer. There’s a risk/life balance decision that has to be made. He went through all the testing I’d been through, and he too had tested, giving me a pap smear just to make sure and do due diligence.

And my reaction to that smear was to start bleeding on the spot, and it’s still noticeably going. But that’s not necessarily cancer.

A side note here: his nurse had come in first and while she asked questions, I said that the bleeding had started small and gradually crescendoed over the two years till it was (this much). I wrote about it while waiting for this appointment, I told her, and was quite surprised that the next day it was far less.

And then friends told me they’d put me on their prayer lists. I didn’t know–and it changed, and make of that what you will, I told her. (A thank you to all you who prayed or Thought Good Thoughts my way, which to the loving G_d I believe in fully counts. Love, as they say, is love.)

Come back in three weeks, the surgeon said, and we’ll have the results of that pap smear.

But as he said it, we both were sure we knew what it would say and what we would say and that it would wrap it all up nicely. He didn’t quite say, And tell your friends to pray again, y’know, just to make it a little easier on you.

Having told him about my husband’s hospitalization, I told him of the ones who had asked what they could do to help. And then they’d joyfully made a day trip out of it with their teenagers to make sure I didn’t miss out on my favorite peaches.

And with that I left him with the most perfect single Kit Donnell ever, with the divine scent of tree-ripened perfection. He was blown away by just the smell and sight of it and the kindness of people he didn’t even know and he wanted to know where this had come from so he could find more for his own family.

Such a good man. His patients are lucky to have him. And lucky, in my case, soon not to have to!

Ceramic makes pie crusts crisp in a way no other material does.

A few years back, I asked my friends Mel and Kris if they ever made pie pans. They said no, but then decided to go play with the idea. I happily got two of the results.

They are big, meant for baking for a crowd, not like my store-bought one.

Today Richard came home from his sixth day of treatment and fifth day in the hospital. There was one last slice of grape pie in the smaller pan from last week and, after having saved it for the breakfast he didn’t ever get to have, he finally got to taste it.

He settled into his chair in the kitchen with no desire to spend any more time on any bed during daytime, and I got to work on those peaches. I at last felt like I could. Like I could breathe again.

Boiling water, peaches in the mesh strainer, count to five, out, peel, slice, work a little orange juice through, freeze a pie’s worth. A big pie’s worth!

Four, so far. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the next box. The neighbors to either side got peaches. Proud parents sent us a photo of their toddler’s absolutely gleeful face after biting into one.

I know a family with teenagers who are going to need a surprise pie in the coming darker colder months. A big pie. To let some of their peach gallivanting to rescue a couple in pain come back to them again in thanks.