I thought it was pretty, and I could always use more fish inspiration so I ordered one.

It came smelling of Fabreze, not strongly so but when I put it right up to my face I knew there was no way.

I said to the seller, who confirmed that that’s what it was, that I’d never gotten that smell out of anything: not with detergents, not with sun exposure, and it’s a shame because I liked her mask so much.

She said she sprayed each one with a bit of it before sending it off and she’d never thought of how it might affect asthmatics; she offered to send me a second one free. I told her thank you.

This is someone who was only allowing herself a few hours’ sleep in order to sew as many as possible because people need them, they need good ones that fit comfortably and cover well and they need ones that cheer them up.

Meantime, I washed the sweet little mask a second time, letting it soak a goodly while in my unscented detergent–and that time it actually came out very nearly free of it. Close enough that I had it on when the kid putting my Milk Pail groceries in my car chose to stop a moment to compliment it.

And then the second one arrived that afternoon. No Fabreze, as promised. There was the faintest whiff of tobacco to it, which I had assumed all along was the reason why, especially given the deep-South return address, and I immediately soaked it in a soapy sink as I had the first. And it was fine.

It felt grossly unfair to her. She’d been trying to get it right and she’d chosen to do right by me.

I found my Etsy order and sent her a note: I said a little about the Fabreze one to jog her memory as to who I was with all the orders she’s been filling, said I was going to be able to use both after all and what was the best way to pay her for the second?

She, it turns out, was in a mad dash with a major storm bearing down right her way in Louisiana and misread me and apologized again for the Fabreze.

I clarified: You made this, you earned this, it’s perfect, I love it, I want to pay for it.

The response I got left me feeling like that right then was just what she’d needed: to be told how much I appreciated what she’d done well, to be noticed at this time when we’re all so cut off from each other, to feel she mattered. She in turn made me feel like I mattered to her.

Just a tiny spritz of unwanted Fabreze: who knew that that of all things could make such a difference?

And on the subject of why yes, I am still baking too much, we present…

…drumroll…

…how to use up sourdough starter when you’ve grown too much of it, a pint of blueberries, a half pint of raspberries, and the dozen or so newly ripe tart cherries off the tree. After Richard tasted one and puckered and went Wow that IS sour! I chopped the rest a bit, sprinkled on a spoonful of sugar, and let them soak it in for about ten minutes before adding to the berries.

It was a great way to use up a full cup of that starter, but since it’s all about the fruit, I would probably either double the fruit or halve the biscuit part of it next time. As is, it fit perfectly in my new deep-dish Mel and Kris pie pan. (With thanks to Anne for getting that to me from them.)

But if you ever need to make just biscuits from that recipe I’m going to say add a few spoonfuls of sugar to the dough. Here, they’re sprinkled on top.

Oh, and completely randomly but in case you missed it, the new sidewalk panels strengthening the Golden Gate have turned the bridge into, as the headline says, a giant kazoo. One that be heard across San Francisco.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the lovely, lovely, Rahul Dubey–an immigrant, one who believes strongly in the ideals of America–who threw open his doors in DC and took in dozens of peaceful protesters who were in great danger from the armed angry mob attacking them that was a mixture of police, Bureau of Prisons riot guards, National Guard, and Border patrol officers. Who tried to get in his door, too.

“Literally I can hear skulls being cracked,” Dubey said. 

I was a stranger, and ye took me in. Now who said that?

As Stephen Colbert pointed out, the government does that when they’re afraid of us. For having the moral authority of our being in the right, and being many voices together.

There was also this one-man protest Friday, a Marine standing in the heat with his sign and “I can’t breathe” taped across his mouth at Utah’s Capitol, standing, alone, at attention, saluting the dead, standing, standing, bearing witness in his dark uniform.

As his shoes melted.

I bought a sea tortoise pattern–actually a loggerhead turtle, I think, though not labeled as such–on Ravelry the other day.

Except it’s upright and I wanted mine sideways, and since knitting stitches aren’t squares on charts but rectangles I couldn’t just tilt it; I had to use their picture to try my own sketches on knitting graph paper, but at least it gave me something to work from. Also, I’m trying to shrink it down by about a third, so, following their zig zag lines but adapting where they should go.

Why did that first try bother me so bad.

It suddenly hit me.

It looked like a tick.

Sing it with me: You put the Lyme in the coconut and knit it all up you put the Lyme in the coconut (husk color).  (Who knew the Muppets did that one?!)

…Let’s fix the head on that thing, shall we? Enough of the tick talk.

Meantime, I just have to point out this crocheted aquarium I just stumbled across. Wow. Just, wow.

The city lifted what was going to be an eleven day curfew after two because the protesters have been relentlessly peaceful.

That let’s call it an anthias fish up at the top there that should have started an inch later but it wanted to be where it is and I let it boss me around like that.

My last two KitchenAid mixers did this, too: as they got old, the on-off switch stopped being reliable. You could turn the darn thing off and it would simply keep going till it ran out of steam.

I found this out with the first one years ago when I had my hand down in the bowl and it must have been just enough movement that it toggled itself on and gave my wrist a compression fracture.

This one, as always a 5 qt size because at the time that was the biggest home-kitchen one they made (and because at this point I have all these extra bowls for that size), has been at that stage for about a year now. But it still runs, and it still turns off, if reluctantly, and I can always unplug it if need be. Haven’t needed to yet. I’ve been thinking for awhile now how replacing it would be a lot of yarn money.

I am typing this carefully. It was the top of the dough hook this time below my thumb. I knew better, that’s the thing, it was sheer stupidity on my part.

I figure if it’s broken I’ll know for sure tomorrow because it will hurt more then, but right now we’re on 8:30 pm curfew for ten days, Urgent Care is closed, and the ER is just not where anybody wants to be during a pandemic even if they’re separating suspected covid cases at triage, which they are. And I seem to be able to manage.

When Richard said by way of comforting that he really enjoyed that sourdough, it helped. A lot.

Edited to add in the morning: the pain is not more localized and it’s not sharper so it’s likely just bruising. Carry on!

The Washington Post compiled quotes from people who had been on the scene in Lafayette Square when Trump, wanting to look like a tough guy in charge, had the peaceful protesters attacked. Tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls, shields hitting the unresisting disbelieving faces of people trying to get away when it wasn’t even curfew time and they had every right to be there assembling peacefully. Which is what they were doing. The article doesn’t even mention the medevac helicopter with the Red Cross insignia that buzzed them, sending tree limbs flying at them and besmirching the name of the Red Cross much less the military.

George W. Bush’s old CIA director couldn’t believe his eyes.

Note how conveniently the Reverend Fisher had been decoyed away from St. Johns so as to be unable to object and mess up that photo op.

A former Under Secretary of Defense, until today on Defense Secretary Espy’s Defense Science Board, firmly resigned effective immediately and made his letter public in order to clarify to the country what is at stake and to empower any colleagues who might be dithering to face up to the wrongs done vs our immediate, obvious, beloved, Constitutional rights.

Biden broke quarantine to get out and talk to protesters and to advocate for peacemaking–and I imagine to protect them, as well, which was sorely needed today in too many places.

In Wichita, on the other hand, the cops and the protesters held a cookout together and talked.

Me, after feeling overwhelmed at 45’s mendacities today, I think I’m going to go post the plum tree my kids planted for me. And this peach.

When a citrus tree is new and vulnerable it sends out thorns to protect itself; once it’s grown, oranges generally don’t have any.

The rootstock on my Page mandarin started taking over and sending up stabbiness and later than I should have, I cut those branches off to protect the health of my tree.

And let me tell you, they are sharp.

The peaches were getting bigger and beginning to be targets and those thorns suddenly showed me why I’d let them grow.

The backstory on the pie: my daughter was looking at the strawberries we’d gotten from Andy’s Orchard and dearly wished for rhubarb to complete them. But one only goes to the grocery store these days when it’s a necessity and we didn’t even know where to find it now that our old source is gone.

Friday night, knowing none of that, my friend Catherine said she was picking more rhubarb from her garden than her family could eat and offered it to all on the ward chat–with the one request that if you take it you eat it.

I had an order already in for the Milk Pail Saturday morning produce pick-up from their warehouse: you pull up, you roll down the window, they swing in the bag of random plantliness, no choosing, just a good price and far fewer hands between you and the farmers.

So: there, then Catherine’s.

Where I opened the back door to see for sure. It looked like chard, but no, it was indeed kale, and my sweetheart has strong opinions about kale, as in, why would anyone do that to a perfectly good meal?

Poor little unloved kale, you look good to me, and part of me almost didn’t but it felt right and I put the little foundling in its green bio-friendly bag on Catherine’s doorstep as I picked up the waiting rhubarb.

And went home and sent off an email explaining why she was going to be finding it there and that I hoped it had found a good home.

Which she didn’t see for a few hours–but she did see the kale and had no idea how it had gotten there.

What she answered is that she had found it and gone ?!!!!? She had just then been finishing the last kale in her house. She loves it, she loves that particular variety of kale the most, she eats it all the time and she was quite sorry to be out of it to the point of debating risking an unnecessary run to the store just to get more.

Just like we almost had for rhubarb.

And there it just shows up right at her door just like that.

And already there were the pictures of the rhubarb strawberry pie: we’d used it all up.

In Kansas, there was no violence nor looting. The people holding up the sign demanding End Police Brutality–were the cops.

In Santa Cruz over the mountains from here there was a peaceful demonstration that stayed peaceful. The chief of police, with no riot gear and no back up, met with the protestors and took a knee right along with them.

Meantime, my friend Catherine offered rhubarb from her garden and asked only that it actually be used. So I got it home and a few hours later teased her about my strawberry celery pie.

Note to self: mixing the flour/sugar mixture with the fruit and letting it soak in for awhile and then stirring again before putting it in the crust was absolutely the way to go. Never again just pop it straight in the oven.

Shattering.

While the news about George Floyd was everywhere, did you see the police dashcam of the young man in Midland Texas who was driving to his grandmother’s? He was accused of running stop signs–he hadn’t, but the cop behind him had–and after pulling into her driveway found himself facing drawn guns from not one but three cop cars. He raised his hands high over his head, but they ordered him to come over to them. As the guns stayed trained on him.

He wasn’t that stupid! Are you kidding me! He laid down spread-eagled on the ground while they persisted. The kid’s 90-year-old grandmother, barely walking with a cane, came out to be with her grandbaby and fell, and at that age a fall can kill a person.

The kid had done not one thing wrong but they arrested him anyway because, Texas cops.

I didn’t have to tell you what color he was, did I.

Those protests needed to happen, and they need to be peaceful to be the most effective, and most of those protesting were.

In Louisville tonight the cops aimed their rubber bullets directly at the cameras of the reporters covering the event, escalating from the Minneapolis cops’ having arrested the CNN reporter and camera crew live on air–but not the white CNN reporter in the next block.

Journalism. The Constitution. The First Amendment is first because it matters most.

We’ve spent these months quarantining against the possibility of spreading covid deaths, those of us doing it right and wearing masks to protect others agonizing over those who refuse to see, who dare the virus to try to get them. Even while 104,166 of their fellow Americans have died so far of Covid-19 but they don’t care because they don’t believe it can happen to them.

Just like they blame police brutality on its victims. Tell it to that grandmother. She grew up under Jim Crow.

I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to spend every day of your life knowing that you could be killed on impulse at any moment because of the color of your skin–but damn if the worst among racist cops aren’t trying hard to teach me. It took the nineteenth violent episode to get Chauvin off the force, much less accused? George Floyd was not the first to die at his hands.

The children of some old friends participated in the then-peaceful march in Minneapolis and I am very proud of them.

There was a large protest in San Jose today at City Hall, and when one one protester got violent–I note that he was white–the police started to be, too, then started using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd–which started to run–

–and then about twenty of them (if not more out of camera range) stopped. And turned.

And took a knee together in a line before the line of officers.

I hope that picture is on every front page tomorrow.

Ripe new cherries from Andy’s Orchard led to almonds, eggs, cherries, almond extract, and oh yeah sugar and a bit of baking powder. But it’s still healthy, right?

This time it went in the springform pan like it was supposed to, and the higher sides kept it from spilling over like it had done in the plain cake pan.

This time I know to ignore where it says to flip it over after ten minutes: let it cool first. Although, ask me if I still agree with me after it actually is cooled and I find out for sure, but right now it’s just out of the oven and smelling divine and you just can’t go wrong, really.

The third, late-sprouting apricot seedling had a root coming out of the bottom of its paper cup with the pencil hole at the bottom. Neither of the others had had that at that size. I prepared a ten gallon pot and carefully tore away the paper constricting that nice full root structure and eased the damp ball in there–once this one got going it really got going. It had earned its new digs.

But the second one, which had come up a month earlier: the little one that had sent up a few sets of leaves and then stopped, that had made me wonder if I had a natural dwarf on my hands and how good a small-yard tree that would be if it succeeded. Cool, right?

But you still have to grow at least some. And it wasn’t doing that anymore.

It couldn’t handle the 90-95F heat we’ve had this past week and day by day despite anything I could do it gradually crisped and died.

Curious, I gently pulled it out of its pot to have a look tonight.

Wait, where was the kernel?

Somewhere along the way it had gotten jostled or something but broken off from the nourishment that’s supposed to send the shoot up and the roots down; with that support missing, it had still sent up leaves, it had still harnessed the immense power of the sun to add its tiny bit of oxygen to the earth, and it even had the tiniest nubs of roots trying to make it.

A little further down, there was the kernel, plumped and good and ready to help but unable to save it.

They both did the best they could for longer than I would have thought possible.

But I still have that plant’s two healthy tree-sisters, and they will show how apricoting from a perfect fruit is done.

Is it good? Yes. So much so that I can’t wait to spend an hour and a half pitting and stirring pureed cherries over a hot stove on a hot day again? That I’m not convinced of.

Which is kind of funny, because one of the things I picked up at Andy’s Orchard today was dried tart cherries as well as fresh Black Tartarians so I wouldn’t have to use cranberries next time. But there’s still another cup of that puree, so we’re not quite done yet.

That was the first retail venue I’ve stepped inside of since the lockdown began. It was roped off and marked into in and out and one way going around, there was the plexiglass barrier for the clerk, and at the entrance a prominently-placed sign requiring masks.

Theirs were cloth with bright cherries against a black background. Will they have peach ones later? I’ll just have to come back when those come on.

Mine had bright fish. 

“A simple yet artful way to expand your sourdough is to add different purees to the dough,” says the recipe with the pumpkin and cranberries that turned out to be so very very good.

I eyed that bag of Milk Pail cherries, knowing I was getting fresh-picked ripe ones tomorrow so best to be done with those.

Huh.

Well, I wouldn’t know if I didn’t try. And so I pitted (carefully!), pureed, and cooked the whole shebang down to the texture of thick canned pumpkin, some of which Richard had with yogurt and proclaimed very good.

There was a one-term US Representative from Campbell, oh, 1990ish? or so, who held the distinction of being the only incumbent in the House to be defeated that year because he was just too out there; the incident I remember most is when Pepsi won over Coke in their bid to be the first American soda company to be allowed to market in Russia–so the guy derided it as Commie Pinko Juice and banned it from his office.

I will forever remember my mother’s surprised, loud guffaw when I told her who he was. Ernest Konyu? Earnestly Conning you?! For a politician’s name?!

What might we give if calling Pepsi outrageous names were the worst our Republicans dished out now, but meantime, in a non-rye aside, I am making commie pinko bread just for the fun of it.

I think.

Its juice did brown out a fair bit.

We’ll see tomorrow morning when it’s done.