Today’s peaches from Andy’s: they really are that big.

And that good.

I debated mentioning about the guest passes here yesterday, because you do a good thing just because the world needs more good things done to others, not to brag about it.

But I wanted a journal record of it, and, I later realized, of everything that had led up to that moment and how it had played out. It took a bit to step forward emotionally to accost complete strangers like that–especially when there were two of them (as far as I knew right then, while actually, there were five) and I knew I could only help but one. Would it be asking the girls who was the greedier or the needier? Certainly that would put them both on the spot? Would they be generous to each other? Would it work out okay? Whether they were friends or sisters I wasn’t sure.

And yet still it felt imperative to just go and do that. Not to anybody we’d passed or been passed by before that moment along that sidewalk. Them. So I did.

But what I’ll never forget was the fervent relief in the voice of the one who exclaimed, “Well YES!” as the other agreed–like I had totally come to their unexpected rescue. (Looking at the ticket prices later, it would have been $210 for that family. No small change.) And then part of the awkwardness was that she was a teenager and she had just unwittingly let show their stress on a surely sensitive subject. It was the other girl who elected to walk the short way to the member door with us after they conferred with their dad.

They could never know we’d gotten on the road 45 minutes later than we’d planned and it was all my fault. Or that Michelle had been totally cool about that. That Michelle had urged me to go to that bakery in Monterey that had been closed every time we’d come before and not chance it being closed again by the time we came out–let’s go there first, Mom, you’ve wanted to try that place a long time. So we did. (For the record, Parker Lusseau‘s almond croissants proved to be the best I have ever had. Worth the drive from the Bay Area just for that.)  That approaching the Aquarium after that, I’d suddenly pulled into the lane not going into the garage but had decided on impulse to circle the block looking for a metered spot instead (as if!! Good luck with that!) before heading back towards the city garage. I’ve never done that before because I know it’s completely pointless. And then being a block off for the one-way street and having to try again. Okay. Garage. Got it.

The timing of it all.

And then I had somehow kept on walking till there was someone near me who, turned out, weren’t members and who clearly could use that help that was so utterly painless for me to offer. It had all come together and I am in awe at the choreography.

The one who thanked us so, her face was not just grateful but radiant: as if she wanted to thank God Himself but in a pinch this stranger would do for the moment. And with that, she surprised and gifted me back.

And then we all vanished back into our anonymity and never saw each other again.

Our baker’s-dozen-months’ membership ends next week and we’d been wanting to see the new Baja exhibit. Richard is still under orders to stay off that foot, so today Michelle and I drove down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Coming up the sidewalk towards the entrance behind us were two tall teen girls and I turned and asked them if they were going to the Aquarium.

Yes. (Since I wasn’t their parent they didn’t quite roll their eyes.)

I said I had two guest passes and was using one (nodding towards my daughter) and would one of them like to go in for free?

Well YES! But I was a complete stranger making a completely unexpected offer and it flustered them as to what they were supposed to do–suddenly the dad they’d been studiously not walking with joined up with us, along with the rest of the family, and I explained. It didn’t matter which of them came with us, just, if they wanted to they were welcome to. I could only get one in, but I could do that.

 Members go in this door, people paying, that one, so that was a bit awkward, but I know how expensive those tickets are and there was just no good reason not to put mine to use.

We got a very nice thank you and then she went on to join up with her family just a bit ahead.

“Oh, you do it fancy,” said Michelle as I got out the wire basket to lower the peaches into the boiling water with; “I just use a ladle” at her house.

One one thousand two one thousand…  Sixty seconds, lift, and quick into the icewater.

And then the peels just kind of melted off. I squeezed one lemon from the tree, she added just a touch of sugar–not much–a taste test all around, just a spoonful more from the sugar container and then we food processored the heck out of those four or five pounds of perfect peaches.

Plug in and wait.

Direct side-by-side comparison between the plain pureed mixture and what came out of there and all I can say is it was magic. That electric ice cream maker is suddenly going to get used a whole lot more.

Our friends Phyl and Lee came over tonight bearing newly picked, perfectly ripe figs from their friend’s tree, sharing the bounty that had been shared with them where they would be appreciated and eaten in time. So good.

In turn, we fed them peaches picked Friday morning at Andy’s Orchard. Michelle had called ahead the day before and been told, Don’t come down today, we’re about out–wait till tomorrow, we’ll be picking first thing, and whatever all else they said was such that Michelle told me, We need to be there at eleven.

We got there at 11:05 and two people in line ahead of us already had three boxes and a bunch of people who came in after us wanted some. We were allowed three boxes, too, and a few extras because we’d called ahead, and because we were buying not just for us but for a friend with four school-age kids who’d tasted some of what Andy grows and definitely wanted us to bring her more.

But I asked around the room first: did everybody have some that wanted some and did they have as many as they wanted. I’d never seen the place so crowded and we didn’t want to be greedy. It was clear they were running out fast. We had a heat spell in the hundreds early in the summer and it sped up the ripening process so we were near the end of the season early this year and clearly, people knew it.

Those CalReds were even better than the variety we bought the week before.

That afternoon, looking at those rows of beautiful fruit, I thought, y’know…if I ever needed an excuse to stop by our neighbor’s and check in on her that’s a good one right there.

She’s been fighting cancer. Knowing how careful you have to be when you’re immunosuppressed, I told her, These have only ever been touched (to the best of my knowledge) by the picker this morning and by me.

She was surprised and happy and anticipating just what those could be like and I wondered why on earth I hadn’t done this before.

Phyl, who grew up with two peach trees herself, remarked tonight, Now *that* is a peach.

As my cousin once remarked, Adam and Eve could never have been tempted by an apple: it had to have been a peach.

That blouse I ordered last year turned out to be a little bright for me but I never sent it back, and this morning, somehow that turquoise-blue seemed just the thing. I had reasons for wearing something else but it just announced it was it and it was just plain bossier about it than I was. Eh, okay, then, no biggy. (One of those moments you notice after the fact when it all comes together.)

A few days ago, an ad in the local paper caught Michelle’s eye when I was pointing something altogether different on that page to her: she saw not the planning commission story but the small-box notice from the city that the last of the free concerts in the park for the summer was going to be Tuck and Patti. She couldn’t go, but she definitely thought we should.

And we definitely agreed. It would start almost late enough for the UV not to be an issue, too.

And then I forgot all about it.

We got home from grocery shopping and Richard asked, What time does that start? Do you still want to go?

I would have missed it entirely. I’d forgotten. We should eat dinner…

No, said he, if we want to sit somewhere decent we should run.

Okay, good thing we had ice cream at Smitten on the way home, it would have to hold us.

It was going to be closer to the Bay than we are and it always cools down a lot at night in this area anyway–I delayed us a moment while I went searching for a cowl that matched that blouse. I was sure I had one.

I did, some hand-dyed Colinette silk bought at Purlescence. Pretty stuff, if a bit bright for me; one of those yarns that leaps out at you and says it will be the most perfect thing for…someone… I always thought it would look better on someone larger and darker than me, and pulling it out of its ziploc this evening I found I’d never even woven the ends in. It had never been worn. Richard waited patiently while I did a quick job of that. (Photo of one of the snipped-off pieces.) And then while I grabbed a heavy sweater. He’s a good one.

I always come away from listening to their music wanting to be a better person and we own I think all of their albums. I’d seen them once before, when they played on the plaza at City Hall to thank the town for getting their career started, and at the end that day, when the crowd had thinned and mostly gone, Tuck asked me, clearly sure he did, Where do I know you from?

Around town, is all we could guess.

But it left me feeling a bit of a connection to the both of them.

Loved loved loved hearing them tonight. They went off the stage setup to the back at the end and I was surprised that there were some people wanting to take their picture or say hi but the crowd wasn’t entirely swamping them yet.

I’d already been thinking I needed to say it in as few words as possible so as not to hog their time. The experimental med that could have killed me on the spot, having no real choice–and yet. I had.

Seeing that I wanted to say something, those closest to me gave way and nodded me forward.

I took off that long cowl and said to Patti: “I knitted this silk. I was in the hospital thirteen years ago trying really hard not to die. Your words, ‘I won’t give up, my path is clear’ were part of my soundtrack. Thirteen years!” as we hugged each other.

She took my hands in hers and asked me, her face full of emotion, “And what was your name?”

“Alison Hyde.”

And Patti? If you see this and that’s not your favorite color combination, tell me what color you’d most like and it will come to be.

I experimented in casting off in seed stitch. With all the lacework I do, I haven’t knitted gansey-type stuff much in the last ten years and was a little rusty. I knew exactly how the edge would look if it were straight stockinette and I purled vs knitted it but I was curious to see if the knit-purl-knit-purl back-and-forth might change that effect any.

So. I was on a wrong-side row on the afghan and tried knitting into each stitch to cast off. Didn’t love it. Undid it.

Thus the photos are of the finished right side (above) and wrong side (below) after purling-to-castoff from the wrong side at the top of the seed stitch edging. I like how it formed matching half loops over the purl bumps on the wrong side and how, on the right side, that straight line made a nice clean end there.

Knitting-to-castoff got me the opposite of that. Little jumpy hopscotches across the purl bumps in front were not going to do it for me–purling for the win.

Note that if I’d been working from a right side row, knitting it would have gotten me the same as these.

Cascade Epiphany cowl for the medical resident: done! (Other than running the ends in.)

Afghan: thirteen rows–done! Three more and the cast-off to go, but after two and a half hours of seed stitch my hands are done for the night.

Life threw me one of those moments where I needed to make something for someone and it needed to be made specifically for that someone–no taking one out of the already-readies–and it needed to be done by, one could only wish, tomorrow.

Friday will do in a pinch.

I needed to start NOW. Trying to decide what yarn it should be threw me into a major stash diving, where I came up with two old partial-skeins of Cascade Epiphany in a deep royal blue. (Discontinued but I found this page for substitutions if you want.) That was so totally it. Super soft, a color that looks good on everyone, and it wouldn’t take too long.

But in sitting down and thinking cowls (while being really glad you can make one fast in a pinch) it occurred to me that the last time I’d made one in such a dark color was the black one my older sister had requested at our dad’s birthday get-together, early June. I remembered. The last two skeins of black Woolfolk that Purlescence would ever sell, a souvenir before they close next week–I knitted it up on the Alaska trip, which is fitting given that Kaye, one of the owners, is from there and my sister fell in love with the place last year as much as we did when we got to go.

Wait.

Did I ever mail that?

Not that I could remember.

Then where would it be?

Not with the finished cowls. Huh. She just broke her upper arm, and giving her something she likes that she can put on by herself would really be a good thing right now; I needed to find that.

Okay, so, I sat down and quietly started knitting a bunch of rows and as such things do, the thought I’d been looking for came right on in and pulled up a chair beside me.

Which got me out of mine: I couldn’t possibly have, could I?!

I had. I’d left it in the small carry-on bag this whole time. We’ve been home from visiting the kids in Anchorage for two months and man am I slow.

So now I have two of them to hurry and get in the mail. Carolyn’s big black blob is rinsed and shaped as I type and will be dry in the morning; the one on the needles, not so much.

And *then* I do the top edging on the afghan.

Got the heart monitor off today. After two weeks it feels strange somehow not to have it attached.

I sprinkled the white afghan with a bit of water and then more water to see how much the lace would spread out.

It didn’t. At all. The stitches settled into place nice and flat but the motifs certainly grew no bigger, much to my surprise. I really had knit it tight–but there was just no getting around the fact that that meant the piece was a little shorter than I wanted.

Two days, thirty-two rows, six and a half inches and another pattern repeat later, and this time the lacework part really is done. It had needed it. An afghan should cover your feet and go up to your chin and with a fabric so beautifully drapey, it should puddle around you a bit, too, be lavish not stingy, a little extra all around. I am so glad I did that last repeat, and one absolutely can’t complain about getting to knit cashmere and silk.

A little seed stitch in the morning, a little edging, and it’s one for the history books.

I picked up a peach this morning from last week’s box from Andy’s and put it right back down: an impressive puddle had been hidden under it–we should have eaten that one four days ago. I guess we handled it too many times trying to find the softest and ripest. There was a heartfelt thought of, oh if only…

I don’t feed the squirrels but I just couldn’t toss it. Not one of those peaches.

Maybe it would encourage them to search for food away from my ripening figs? Right? So I put it in a bowl so it wouldn’t weep across the carpeting and took it to the farthest point in the yard from my figs and the neighbors’ tomatoes over yonder and put it on a stump, the remains of one of the fence-threatening trees we cut down two years ago to make way for replanting in fruit trees.

I went out this evening to check if it might by any chance still be there, unnoticed.

As if!

You can see where more of that pink juice ran out onto that stump. It took me a moment to find the pit a yard away and yes, it really is that red.

But what is funny and intriguing and quizzical is this: a gently rounded stone with no sharp points had been placed right where I had put that peach down. It was definitely larger than the pit. It couldn’t have gotten there without that peach having been gotten out of the way first. Wherever it had come from it had not been there before and I don’t know how far they’d had to carry it and it would have been heavy in their mouths for getting it up and onto that stump.

But they did.

They left me a tip.

Random thoughts:

I googled why squirrels don’t like figs, because my friend said they don’t, and oh goodness oh yes they definitely do. I guess mine just haven’t found out what they are yet.

So, more acanthus stalks now artfully placed going up the tree trunk all around like it’s ready for some Burning Fig festival.

Funky color play with the lighting there (picture taken standing up). I really do need to block that.

Blog or knit more, blog or knit more…

Kept knitting till my hands made the decision for me. Yay icepacks. Five more rows tomorrow and then I think I’ll add the seed stitch edging across the top and call the thing done. To quote a little more Moody Blues, “What you want to be, you will be in the end.” All along it has wanted to be bigger wider longer than what I’d originally expected and it refused to let me quit any earlier, and I’m glad of that now.

But it seems incomprehensible that I won’t have that project still demanding and nagging and bossing me around–how did that happen already? Mixed with, FINALLY! I’m–well, no, I’m not done. Almost. Close!

Yeah, right, just wait, tomorrow I’ll look at it and keep right on going past that point because I have the yarn and I can.

Maybe, but I don’t think so.

I figure I’ve put easily over sixty hours into that undyed afghan at this point and tonight I realized that Cat Stevens’ song “Into White” sings in my head when I’m knitting it. Like, All. The. Time. It wasn’t the knitting I was a little bored with, it was its soundtrack. The logical thing to do would be simply to turn on the stereo and drown it out with something else, but, I didn’t. Too busy getting to the end of this row. And the next. And the next.

So I tried to come up with songs I knew that had the relevant word “white” in them, just for kicks. And presto! New earworm!

“Knights in white satin,” (so far so good) “never reaching the end….”  Oh, mannnn….

Anyone?

What they were, what they are now.

Burpee’s told me their Pilgrim butternuts start out and stay the color shown on the seed packet, so no, what I was describing was not that and that the critters must have planted mine.

I wonder if they simply had a plant that got pollinated by something they didn’t want. Either way, my six remaining squashes are gradually coming to look like what I want anyway, so, close enough, I figure.