Last night I made the spiced pecans and baked the chocolate tortes and bought the apple cider and was glad my part in Thanksgiving dinner was done.  All but the glaze on the tortes, no biggy.

Only, I hard-crack-staged the sugar syrup and those pecans were right at the edge of too caramelized. Crunchy, though, and I really liked them, but there was a bit of fussing while someone here was trying not to be unhappy but they just weren’t quite…

No problem, I can make more.

No I couldn’t. We didn’t have enough sugar. We always have sugar. (Can you make this with that grainy organic Trader Joe’s stuff? Better not experiment and mess any more with his family’s tradition.) You know what this means, don’t you? We had to go to the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving.

I toasted more pecans, but that was the easy part. We put it off and put it off and finally headed to Costco about an hour before they closed.

It was actually less crowded than a typical Saturday, to my great surprise–but even better, people were being mellow. Clearly anticipating the next day’s meal and company, and people seemed to be picking up that one last thing they’d forgotten.

There was one mom with a crying one year old and a toddler and she–the mom–absolutely melted when I pulled out a Peruvian finger puppet for each of her little ones, an orange lion with a furry mane and a vivid green octopus with a hat. Handknit as always.

So. The tortes got glazed. The pecan coating got done to the soft ball stage only, the way Richard likes it: because after I got the 1/2 c water/1 c sugar/1 tsp cinnamon boiling, there could be gadgetry involved and there is no better way to get a geek to take over than putting electronics into the process. He put a glass thermometer on the side and with the laser thermometer in his hand pointing constantly at the center of the pot he compared temps and kept up a happy running chatter and soon announced, There! It’s 238!

Already?

Okay, so I put in the vanilla (one teaspoon) and stood back as hot steam burst forth, and then–hey, you have to put in the *pecans immediately now, honey, not just admire them.

Right, right, and he dumped them in and stirred hard and it takes some doing at that point. Finally, he poured them onto the cookie sheet the pecans had been toasted on.

See? To softball stage and it comes out like this!

I grinned. He preferred his and I liked mine and Aunt Mary Lynn will be quite happy to have both. Trust me.

(Meantime, it’s 9:50 pm and 33F already and the mandarins are covered, too, tonight. It is COLD out there.)

*Fanny Farmer says two cups. I put in closer to four. Stretch that sweetness across as many nuts as possible as far as I’m concerned.

You’re going to need a second strand these next few nights, said he over Monday’s dinner.

I had gotten home 9:45 Friday night, the tree was uncovered till then, and some of the upper leaves crisped a bit.  If I’d known things were going to take that long I’d have done it before I left, but too late now. And now we had the coldest weather of the year coming–he was right, and so I wound a second strand around the mango leaves, watched them light up as I plugged them in and wondered how long my supply of bulbs was going to last. I’d already had about eight burn out last year.

Some friends called this afternoon: could they drop by with some Christmas lights? The warm, inefficient, not made anymore kind. For my tree–did it need it?

Yes please!

They showed up with buckets and boxes and more boxes on top of that, taking three trips to carry them all in, with them happy to find a good use for them and me happy to have them. Some hadn’t even been opened. Yay!

And so we chatted a bit. They asked about the birdfeeder and I mentioned the resident hawk.

Who put on a show right on cue, flying overhead. Twice. But the best part was how excited they were that they got to see it.

It’s cold out there.

She mentioned she hopes she gets to taste one of those mangoes someday. Absolutely.

It’s quite warm tonight under those frost covers.

A panic and desperate escapes away from the bird feeder this afternoon.

Nope, that apparently didn’t work.

A little later… A panic and desperate escapes away from the birdfeeder, with one dove smacking its head on the window this time going the wrong way, then careening sideways to the elephant ear leaves and at last out of sight.

Nope, apparently that didn’t work.

The third go-round, probably the same dove smacked that window only this time there was the Cooper’s hawk hot on its tail, gray zooming after gray at a speed I didn’t know a dove could do, the immediate moment of capture hidden from me by a tree’s not-yet-fallen leaves. Now there’s a little adrenaline for you.

While I tinked back a bunch of purl two together through back loops and purl two (one of them a yarnover) together stitches, oh…so…slowly. Put this stitch back behind that one that got twisted in the tbl thing, fixed the dumb mistake, reworked what I’d undone and corrected the now-twisted yarnovers.

And then at last! Nailed it!

Got a chance to talk for just a few moments to someone new at church. I can’t imagine being an American living in Russia, but she did for most of the last decade and told me just a bit about it before we were interrupted. There are so many stories waiting for when we have more time. When we make the time.

Ever since, I’ve been keenly wanting to ask not just her but everybody, just everybody, all day, what their own stories are. How they got to be where they are now, what they’ve learned from, some one thing they’ve gone through that they think might help someone else to know about, something that mattered to them.

Anyone want to share anything, please, I want to hear.

A bunch of us carpooled to a church thing in Oakland this morning, the owner of the biggest car driving a half dozen of us and then bringing us back to where we’d all parked at the local ward.

As the other cars drove off, I had this pang of, Don’t leave till we’re sure we can, too!

Which didn’t make sense until we went to turn on the Prius.

Well crud.

Owner’s manual, do we tow to the dealer, hmm. AAA time.

I texted the couple we’d just been with who lived the closest; the husband dropped by and used his keys to open the church so we could use the bathroom while we waited.

I didn’t say it was three o’clock and I hadn’t had breakfast yet. I’d tried, but it takes a few hours for my system to make friends with food and this had been one of those mornings and I’d thought, eh, we’ll be home by 1:00, 1:30, that’ll be fine.

Try 3:30. Michelle, who was in San Jose when she found out, brought us Luna bars and kept us company just before the tow truck finally showed.

The twelve-volt battery, not the hybrid battery thank goodness, had to be replaced and he did that for us.

The whole thing was a hassle, in other words, but not a big deal and definitely a first-world problem. We could have asked the friend with the key for anything and he’d have done it. For that matter, it was the annual Scouting for Food day and a semi was being loaded up in that same parking lot and the Scouts all wanted to come jump our car for us, but that’s not what it needed. The cheerful offers were what we needed, though; they made a difference.

Remember the Kermit?

A dirty off-white Tupperware lid for a cup yesterday. We Goodwilled all ours a very long time ago and never did have one that size. I found it in the back yard within a foot or two of where the Kermit ornament had shown up; it was framed by the tiniest sprigs of green grass starting to poke up out of the plain dirt after the rains, and as I leaned over to pick it up, a raven flew rather low directly over, turning its head to continue to watch me retrieving the treasure. Or just because I was watching it.

So I’ve been wondering, would it have been a tool to a corvid? To do what with? Or is it just bringing things here because this is where birds go?

In other words, a raven knows more than I do, apparently. Pretty funny, actually. I wonder what I’ll find next.

Last time I was at Purlescence I asked Kaye what was new and she showed me a suri alpaca/silk blend that looked like Kidsilk Haze, only softer. Cumulus by FyberSpates. Very nice stuff, and I love a good alpaca.

I picked out a vivid turquoise blue, telling her, Someone needs this color. I don’t know who, but it’s speaking to me: someone needs this.

That skein was the cowl I knit up during my eye doctor appointment last week. I brought it to knit night tonight to show off to Kaye (while wondering if I would find out where it was meant to go).

Cari came in and I headed over next to her to chat awhile and catch up.

She saw the cowl and exclaimed over the color as I handed it to her. I didn’t tell her, but I’d actually thought of her at first sight of the yarn but had dismissed the idea because I just didn’t think it was her color and then I’d totally forgotten about it .

But oh, it was. She held it against her neck (I didn’t know she’d been looking for something that wasn’t itchy.) Her eyes closed a moment in ooh…aah.

And then she tried to give it back to me.

Nothing doing.

“Nuh UH!” as she tried again.

An impish grin from me with a pleading, “Please?”

She crowed in delight, took off her scarf, put the cowl on and kept it there. She asked me, Where did you…? and then went over to grab a bunch more skeins to match.

And I confessed to her that that time I’d given her a cowl before? I’d made her one, but I’d hedged my bets on the color and had grabbed a second from my stash at the last second and she’d picked the second one and it wasn’t particularly soft and it had bugged me that I hadn’t given her a soft one. Now at last I had.

A few minutes later, I happened to pick up a Dream In Color skein, loved the color, and put it back. “I don’t need any more yarn.”

Next thing you know she was buying it. She was already knitting a hat in that exact same yarn, she just hadn’t brought that project tonight.

Alright, that removes temptation quite nicely, thanks, thought I as they rang her up.

And you know what happened next. My purse snaps rather than zippers shut. Yes she did. “Fair’s fair!”

An old New England dish for cold nights: chopped onions and peeled chopped tart apples, sautéed awhile with some good sausage (fat drained). Take off the heat, pour a little maple syrup over it–grade B if you can find it has more flavor than A–and that’s it.

Except that the sausage had a bit too much sage to it. It needed…something. Hmm. I have tiny frozen cubes from Trader Joe’s that are a teaspoon each of pureed basil and I let one melt into the pot, trying not to let it actually cook since that can make basil bitter.

I had no idea how it would come out–basil and Granny Smiths and maple syrup? But just a bit, and it totally made the dish and I am definitely doing that again. Writing here to remember.

And then the other discovery: Trader Joe’s small chèvre cheese logs rolled in blueberries and vanilla. I put a slice on one of their crunchy little Triple Ginger Snap cookies on impulse rather than a cracker.

Holy.

Cow.

WOW that was good.

Lots of places sell such a goat cheese in various sizes; Trader Joe’s is just the right width for those small snaps with bits of candied ginger in them.

Thanksgiving table here we come. Definitely earned its spot.

Knit my way past a roadblock in the pattern again after spending way too long looking at three different potential versions on the screen of where to go from here. Just. Go. Do. It. You can always rip back–one of the great gifts of knitting: there are no permanent mistakes unless you let them be.

I love how it’s coming out.

Meantime, one little boy at the end of the day Saturday who needed to show off his Halloween costume. You can be a super SUPER Ninja if you’re up high on your daddy’s shoulders.

A tired super super Ninja. Hudson had had a very energetic, busy day.

1. The house was freezing. Two sweaters and wool knee socks and a space heater just weren’t doing it for me.

2. Electric power is free, gas is not.

3. The furnace is gas.

4. The oven is electric.

So whaddya think I was gonna do?

And that’s why a cherry almond cake just came out of the oven, the Fannie Farmer almond cake recipe made with Milk Pail‘s fresh almond paste and an added ~half teaspoon of almond extract, pour over a layer of tart cherries in a springform pan and bake. Done.

And then have to deal with the hubby who doesn’t want to wait for it to cool–come to think of it, neither do I.

We explored the very old building where the Mormon Battalion landed in San Diego in the mid-1800s, having been commissioned to build roads and defend the territory for the US against a Mexican army they never saw. Fort Sutter happened while they were in California and some stayed while the rest went home to their families in Utah.

The boys pumped water and panned for gold. Maddie cheered.

Love. As Carole King sang about it, it’s the only thing that’s real.

More tomorrow: after an early flight, playing all day at toddler speed and flying home, we’re both kind of done in for the day.

These were the types of people so many Syrians have been fleeing from.

I am grateful beyond words for those who put their home addresses on Twitter under the porteouvert hashtag: my door is open to you. Come. Safety and comfort and a real place to go for any stranded after stumbling away from the horror as the authorities demanded that all seek shelter inside.

Thus they take in the whole world. We are all Parisians today.

Dropped Richard off went to the clinic went to pick up my new glasses prescription went to the approved pharmacy across town went to the bank got a receipt for that check and the small Martingale royalty check eight years after publishing was fun too went home hugged daughter dropping by for a moment called the audiologist got told oh oops our bad come back and we’ll fix that for you put the laundry in the dryer grabbed a bite of lunch drove to Los Gatos got the filter put back on the hearing aid that they forgot while cleaning them yesterday went to the bird center as long as I was there anyway got birdseed had them put it in the car left birdseed in the car for the weight and the recent mild back injury tried new glasses on went oh wow how far away is the floor put new glasses back in new case put old glasses on have to drive you know wished again I could settle on what to start for my next carry-around knitting project started more laundry grabbed Time magazine disappointing knitters worldwide picked up Richard from work read while waiting put laundry in dryer made dinner covered mango tree did dishes vegged out at the computer a bit

and oh right I’d better go make that bed now that the sheets are fresh. Extra covers for the mango and us at 38F already out there. Brrr. Done. G’night.

I debated the wisdom–no, actually, I thought it was an outright rather dumb idea–of taking fluffy blurry yarn to an eye doctor appointment. Those always take several hours so I knew I had to have something, and something smooth and plain on bigger needles than 4mm would have been better and I tried but in the end I just couldn’t make myself have another project going at once and so it talked its way into my knitting bag after all. Because it already had a few rows done.

It was a wispy brushed suri alpaca and silk that Fyberspates had given the perfect name of Cumulus to; a skein had grabbed me at Purlescence.

I’ve seen the retina specialist just a few times over the years, and yet he remembered me yesterday and particulars about me to my great surprise. I’d always thought he was a really nice guy; this time he just glowed.

He was also quite apologetic as he came in and I smiled, No, no, you’re fine!

Turns out he has decided to retire. He was taking his time seeing old friends, clearly, not knowing when he might get that chance again. I asked him what he would do in his retirement and he said he’d be continuing to guide residents at the medical school and to see his pediatric patients.

And I thought of all the preemies whose sight has been saved because of him, still getting to see him, and it made me so glad for him and them both. The new doctors coming up will be well served too with him still their mentor.

He was as thorough and careful as he was when my child was his young patient 22 years ago for a visit or two–and he’s the one who’d cleared his schedule despite his staff having told me no: when there was an emergency he was the one who’d taken over and made everything okay again.

He described my macula problem in detail. And then smiled and said he had that too. Way too early, no reason to risk surgery yet. Same with the cataracts, same with the corneas that will need transplanting some day. All in all, a little bit of aging but really, things do look good and should for some time.

He took great joy in that, and how could I not too?

He laughed at the end when I mentioned that somehow even blurry yarn had worked out there.

Another hour or so last night and again today and there you go, I did actually do most of it with my eyes dilated and now it’s done.

(Pattern: the lace pattern from my Water Turtles shawl in my book or, if you have the Barbara Walker treasury series (and really, if you knit, you should), it’s her Arrowhead Lace, used with permission. Knit between the asterisks, since the side edges don’t apply when you’re working in the round. I cast on multiples of ten till it went over my head easily and worked till I didn’t have enough yarn left to do another full repeat. I cast off very loosely to it would have lots of give. Not blocked yet. Cast off edge shown on bottom.)