Four, count’em four fly-bys in front of or around the patio, the last one finally snagging a snack. I didn’t ever quite see it head-on and I’m not even sure they were all the same one. But I think the one that got the finch at the fourth go-round had some brown in his upper chest. His neck was definitely a brighter white than our previous Cooper’s hawks–I’d guess those are fresh feathers.

Such a chest would make it a juvenile, and a fairly newly fledged one at this time of year. Cool!

It hunted like it, too. I watched it, thinking, nah, you gave that thing a huge head start, you’re not going to get that one. It didn’t.

It did not find the two doves I’ve been watching nesting under the eaves on the other side of the house and I’m okay with that.

Immediately after I snapped this it took off with its finch at foot. One does not eat where the ravens can see and steal from you (hoping it wasn’t the movements re the camera that scared it off, but if so it’ll learn to mostly ignore that.)

And so the new season begins.

Two in sight, for the first time! (Wikipedia on mourning doves, here.) You can only see the two of them from this angle; the smaller one disappears from view in walking around to the other side (where there isn’t anything to step higher onto.)

Meantime…

I thought the concept of the collegiality of the Senate had gone extinct in the last ten years.

But here’s Al Franken, championing that phrase and the whole idea of it, reclaiming it for our common good. In trying to explain it to Trevor Noah as a real thing, he offers an example just past the 15 minute mark of being friends to and befriended in a big way by one’s political opposites.

The wife of then-Senator Jeff Sessions, whose nomination for Attorney General Franken voted against, had knitted a baby blanket for Franken’s new grandchild. He marveled at it: a baby blanket! It was clear he got what a labor of love that was, and he held up the thought to the whole world as an example of how it could be. It had taken time, it had taken thought, it had taken work, though he didn’t quite spell that out in long form.

A baby blanket as a symbol of peace. I’m sure the doves won’t mind having company.

I came around the corner. Perfect raspberries, a few thin slices of banana, low-fat vanilla ice cream (so we don’t feel guilty), thick caramel sauce (so we do) and as I handed him his perfect Mel-and-Kris bowl made all the more so his eyes got big. He had not heard me in the kitchen.

And a bowl for me.

No camera was able to race there in time.

Tortes: two delivered and still waiting on the third.

One couple surprised me when I showed up. They’d brought me back these large wooden salad spoon and fork from a trip to Bali. (That is not a small serving bowl.) Beautiful, handcrafted, and absolutely unexpected.

Y’know, it had been bugging me for some time that I hadn’t yet gotten around to knitting anything for her, enough so that I’d already ordered what I think would be just the right yarn. And it’s here now. So let me go fix that.

(Note to self: do not snitch the random bits of cherry goodness in the middle of the pan when taking the picture unless you smooth over the evidence first.)

So in the last few days I’ve made a cherry pie–and if you don’t have one, get this. Seriously. It’s fast and they come out pretty. Never again hassle with a knife to try to pry those stones out–not to mention the little-kid satisfaction of Hulk! Smash! I don’t love throwing a bunch of dumb kitchen gadgets in every drawer but I can’t praise my cherry pitter enough.

Well maybe sort of I could. To explain: I got the four-cherry version, but six would have been even better, both the number and the fact that a year later I forgot mine only does four, not eight, that the holds-eight base is that way because it’s supposed to flip around to accommodate small vs big cherries. Thus, even though I thought I double-checked every one after I realized my mistake, I missed a pit from the back that Richard found in his first bite of pie. Oops. There are only four pitting rods. I think I will circle the 4 on the box in thick black Sharpie for next year, loudly. (Edit–done.)

And I baked four chocolate tortes and a chocolate hazelnut torte.

I tried something new and it really did work: probably not for a cheesecake, but for a torte, lining the nonstick pan with (buttered) parchment paper that has handles meant I could pull gently on the tabs, then put a (Chinet in this case) plate over the cooled torte, flip it over, peel the tabs away and then the main part and it did the job of a springform pan without the leaks and with a perfectly formed lower (now upper) edge. This parchment paper. These pans. I’ve tried them all and those are definitely the keepers on all counts.

I’d promised a torte to each friend who gave us a ride to or from the airport in the past month. All of them said I didn’t need to. None of them complained when I said I was going to anyway, and I ordered the manufacturing cream to have it ready for pick up the day we got home. (Was that really only Monday?)

Phyllis and her husband said Yes please! when I asked last night if I could drop theirs by.

Jen said she’d be by Sunday for hers.

Karen’s is in the fridge, too.

Kim…got back to me. She has a relative coming into town Sunday who was celiac; was it gluten free?

Hers is now. She assured me her visitor wouldn’t mind if they ate in front of her, but I figure I’m doing this to make people feel good, not to feel left out; after getting the okay, hazelnut (recipe in link) it was.

So suddenly I had an extra. And now I know that if you fold in the sides of the Chinet plate Kim’s first 8″ torte was on, you can slide it into a ziplock gallon size freezer bag for future reference.

Meantime, I’ve still got enough manufacturing cream for two more tortes with all the leftovers after that for summer fruits that we could ask for. Somebody else needs to be made happy here. We’re not done yet.

When did that happen!? How did I not see it?! How did I miss it! I’m…

Well, at a loss is not exactly the right phrase for it.

It was clear to me that I needed a new glasses prescription. I finally went in today. Given my history, the optometrist at the clinic had the backs of my eyes photographed, ready to refer me to the retina specialist like last time. (Or rather, since that guy just retired, whoever his replacement was.)

The retina guy had told me that I didn’t need surgery on that vitreomacular traction yet and that it would likely be awhile.

Just like my early cataracts. Just like my corneas that will someday need replacing. Are you keeping count? That’s six eye surgeries in my future, three for each eye, the first involving a needle through it.

What the VMT did was make any straight lines that are more than a few feet from my face have a funky squiggle in the middle. The letters in a road sign danced–in their proper order but at slash-mark angles leaning towards or away from each other. Did that car in front of me have a dent in the center of its bumper that made the light reflect strangely off it, or was it my eyes? Who could tell? I’d have to get up close to make it hold still. And yet overall my vision was as good as always.

I’m going to chalk it up to seeing Mathias and his parents and Alaska. After we got home from that trip I noticed that the never-ending headache I’d had since my head injury in December had finally, finally gone away.

Okay, back to the eyes. To quote the site:

“Metamorphopsia, when vision is distorted to make a grid of straight lines appear wavy or blank

Some of these symptoms can be mild and develop slowly; however, chronic tractional effects can lead to continued visual loss if left untreated. In some cases, a distortion of a visual picture could be experienced without necessarily having a reduction in sharpness of vision.”

Yup on that last bit.

Now, this part:

“Some cases of VMT may spontaneously resolve.”

Nobody, as far as I heard, had told me that was even remotely a possibility.

As I boggled, the optometrist showed me the back-of-the-eye photos from 21 months ago and today. See this? This one, though. That dip there. That’s normal.

How could….! Well, COOL!!!

Some part of my brain had been trying to get it through my thick skull but I guess it had just been too gradual a process: and now all the way home, I verified it again and again and again. Those squiggles really were gone. Had been gone. I’m crediting getting to see my newborn grandson who arrived safely after such great risk as the reason because, hey, why not? As if all that joy concentrated all of everybody’s prayers for everybody somehow. Whatever, however, I’ll take it.

Anybody who’s had a relapsing/remitting disease understands me when I say this: normal is so normal that even after the extremity we don’t notice the abnormality of the fact that the normal is actually back now. It’s just there, taken for granted like it always was before.

It still boggles me that it’s over. It still boggles me that I didn’t know that it was.

I once was blind, but now I see.

Looking over at the sour cherry tree, when, Wait–those branches shouldn’t be wiggling when the wind isn’t blowing–Hey! (A sudden scramble of black fur.) OUT!

The birdnetting tent wasn’t enough. So I leaned old metal racks around it and bird spikes, with frost covers stuffing the spaces between and then spritzed the covers in grape Koolaid solution, aiming a bit at each fruit, too, as best I could. With apologies to the birds, whose lungs are irritated by the stuff, but the squirrels don’t like it any more than they do. I don’t mind feeding songbirds. I do mind destructive rampaging that leaves the crop (such as it is on my little tree) on the ground, wrecked and spat out.

Grape and only grape works.

And at that the squirrels’ search for a way in became fruitless.

(Edited the next day to add, well, that didn’t work–those cherries were ripe and they wanted in enough in the morning. So I uncovered the whole thing in the morning and picked all that was left. A pie just came out of the oven (multi-pitter, here.)

Michelle had to fly into town for a work meeting today. She came early and spent the night here–and in the morning surprised me with the news that she had just called Mariani’s and they opened at ten: we could get her to her meeting in San Mateo on time if we hurried. We could do it. You want to go?

A mini-road trip to Andy’s with my daughter for old times’ sake? For fresh-picked cherries? Is this a trick question?!

Typing this as Richard reaches for another one…

That early stage when a project feels like it’ll never get done. When I know I just have to do one more hour’s worth of work and then it’ll totally take off. (If I could see from here who it’s to be for I would have whizzed through so fast from the get-go.)

Meantime, I wonder this every spring: I know that growing young and lactating squirrels seek out sources of calcium then.

But why are they so fixated on eating this part of this broom that they will absolutely pulse with chewy fervor as if they were digging into hardpack clay to store a nut for the winter–even in the face of my opening the door and walking towards them? They make a break for it at the very last (like this one did), reluctant to let go and clearly not wanting some other squirrel to take their place on the comeback. They have even fought over access to it, and territorial squirrel fights, not chases but actual yin-and-yang-look rolling-hairball fights, are (at least in my observations) rare and leave the vanquished marked to its peers as such by a bitten-off ear tip.

The rubber part of that push broom is looking pretty sad. So is that ear.

Pica? (Wikipedia entry.)

Richard’s sister’s daughter’s wedding was wonderful: the bride and groom were as happy as one could ever hope for and they are clearly a great match.

Turns out a lifelong friend who was more like family to the groom’s father was a second cousin of my dad’s, and there was this instant sense of belonging.

Photos: my father-in-law surrounded by all his great-grands (with two mothers holding them) except Mathias, who is too young to travel. (Maddy, Kim, Parker and Hudson are to his left.)

My Mom and Dad.

Two of my sisters have in the last year moved within an hour of the folks and we had mini reunions going on on my side as time allowed.

Nash got his stocking hand-delivered and I got to see how much it meant to him and to his mom, my cousin. To say he loved it does not begin to tell it. He just kind of glowed the whole time.

Every teenager needs someone who is not their parent who thinks the world of them–someone who doesn’t have to but just does. I remembered the people I owed much to from my own teens as we were winding through the hills towards their house.

And in between, our daily dose of baby pictures came in and got shared around.

We arrived home in the early afternoon and as I was trying to catch up on five days’ worth of email, there was a new one: after we’d left for the airport, Mom had taken a walk and had fallen, broken a tooth, loosened another and split her lip. Ouch!

Two random men in the right place happened to see her and rushed to her aid, and whoever they are they have my deep gratitude. And to Mom’s neighbor who took her in to be seen.

The note from Dad said that the urgent care folks had said Mom was not to smile nor laugh for a few days.

My mother. Not laughing. Not smiling. Good luck with that.

Parker gently took my hand, not pulling me away from the grownup discussion but more as a request.

Sure!

He took me to the next room over to where there was a couch where we could look out the window and straight down all eleven floors. (Me at age six, I would have freaked. It didn’t seem to occur to him to flinch.)

Gramma, he asked. I want to see the falcons. Show me the falcons.

I had seen a peregrine fly below on Thursday but by the time my dad had stood up to see it was gone. There are signs down the block warning drivers to be ready to brake for them.

Well, I told him, I only saw it that one time here; I don’t know when it will fly by again.

That was okay. Where do they live, what do they eat, how fast can they go. He knew they go really fast.

I wasn’t sure how he would take the news that they eat pigeons and was a bit relieved that it seemed to be an okay part of nature to him He wanted to learn everything he could about them from me and I was so glad I’d let him bring me over to where we could look for them together and where he had my undivided attention, just the two of us.

I don’t know if he’ll remember those moments, but I know I will.

I was waiting at the doctor’s while he was back in there somewhere being seen. (He’s fine.)

A woman stopped right there on her way past, looking down at the work in my hands: “That’s beautiful!”

And then she had to know: “What is the, the,” (searching for the right word) “the string?”

Me: “The yarn is” (her: Yarn! Yes!) “a combination of bamboo and pearls,” and I described the process a little. I told her it was soft and it was warm, and she clearly wanted to so I urged her to go ahead and feel how soft it was.

Suddenly she was proudly showing me pictures of her daughter and her friend who (if I got it right) taught the kid how to crochet–and the mom loved seeing her daughter creating like that and wanted in on this and wanted to knit.

I told her there’s a learning curve at the beginning (so that she wouldn’t get discouraged at that point) but you get good fast and it’s worth sticking it out.

She very much agreed with that, swooning again over that bright white cowl. Where had I gotten that yarn? Cottage Yarns in South San Francisco. When I told her the yarn was not being made anymore and they had what was left, she had me type the shop’s name and city into her phone so she would have it right and be able to find them for sure. (English wasn’t her first language, but she was very good at it.)

Whether she actually ever learns to or not I don’t know, but I do know she wants to. And she got a whole lot closer to it today–and now she knows someone out there in the world is cheering her on.

(I did not show her grandbaby pictures. I was tempted.)

One badly posed Christmas stocking because hey, I finally ran all the ends in and at long last it really is done and the hour is too late to fuss with the camera to try to get a better one.

Re the back loop: I ended up picking up stitches and knitting it in stockinette stitch with a second strand woven across the back of every stitch all the way up for strength and reinforcement. It was a good move.

I’m glad I went to the post office first thing today, because the phone rang a little after noon. It was B. She didn’t quite want to ask outright, she didn’t want to put me on the spot, so I volunteered what she wanted to know: her box? I got it to the post office. It was on its way back to the company that had sent her the wrong thing. All taken care of.

She was so relieved–and so was I that I hadn’t put it off till later in the day. It felt good to hear her happy.

And then I went and spent the rest of the day doing all the errands and all the things till I was too wiped to do anything but sit there and knit the back loops on the back loop.

Not a fan of synthetics, and this one was washable wool, but still, maybe I should make a mothproof one next time? Since such things tend to have sugary food in them and then be stored for most of a year sight unseen. What do you think?

Mathias will be a month old on Friday.

A package came to our house today, by prearrangement with a mutual friend who was going to be out of town, and tonight we took it over to B, whom she’d ordered it for.

B was the first blind female engine mechanic in WWII and is rightfully proud of that.

For the first time, she didn’t recognize my voice although she knew who Richard was. She seemed not to quite remember me. At her age, you’re allowed.

We found out that she’d lived in Alaska for awhile and that that’s why she loved taking cruises there and, as she loved to say, To see the sights! How had we never known that about her?

We talked about moose a little bit. I forgot to ask if she knew about the musk ox. Her time there would have been near when the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer was starting to get established to bring the population back from extinction in Alaska.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard her talking about her late husband before.

We didn’t stay long; twenty-three minutes per the check-in check-out sheet, but she was fading fast. She had a package of her own that needed returning and I promised her I would get it to the post office tomorrow. She was adamant that I let her reimburse me for the postage, and though I didn’t argue I was minded not to.

And yet. It occurs to me that when you’re too frail to walk and you’re in your nineties in a nursing home and nearing the end, being allowed to make a choice to do right by someone else who did you a favor is not something I should take away from her. If she remembers, I will let her.

Only a little strange. Not to mention upside down. But it would be really warm if he did.