Pulse oximeter’s lowest reading last night: 90%. Way better.

Saw a black squirrel on the fenceline just beyond our property today where the fences intersect and its behavior caught my eye. It was both relaxed, laying down there, and…not. Its legs dangled lazily in the record heat (90! In October!) while its head kept bobbing up and down.

Gauging, gauging, gauging. It stood up quickly and

“HOLY COW!”

Richard, working in the next room: “What’s holy cow?”

It had taken a massive leap to the neighbor’s tree and that tree was ten, maybe even twelve feet away from it. There was the slight arc upwards and a swiftly-sharpening arc downwards as it sank, front feet stretched far forward tail straight back. Whether it had enough momentum to manage to desperately grab on near the bottom of that big tree or not I couldn’t tell because my fence was in the way but it was sure going to be a close call if it did.

Y’know? All it had to do was amble down alongside my cherry tree and the tree it coveted would have been right there.

You just don’t have to do it the hard way.

Oxygen at 81% at night: I am not a fan.

And yet.  Got my hair washed today, got the birdfeeder filled, got a husband working from home this week taking excellent care of me while I try to take excellent care of him as best I can.

Ran a load with your socks, hon, I knew you were getting low.

Oh. I was?

Not anymore.

Tomorrow I might even put them away.

The curious thing about yesterday is that the nurse told Richard emphatically NOT to bring me in to Urgent Care at the clinic: they would just ambulance-transport me straight to Stanford ER anyway.

They either had a lot of staff out sick or were swamped with patients or both. I would much rather have gone there–given my medical history they always take me right in and get me going on that IV. Going to the ER meant over two hours (and I knew it) of sitting up in a wheelchair.

But at least I had that IV in the second hour of it and I went from utterly limp ragdoll to sitting up and opening my eyes. The power of a little fluid.

I was planning on getting my flu shot yesterday. I got the flu instead. Trying not to sound whiny as I type this, but, this is a really nasty bug–please don’t get it. Get your flu shot now.

Nurse on the phone to Richard: Take her to Stanford ER.

Me: What?! No.

Richard: I think you should go.

Me, barfing repeatedly a little later: Let’s go.

Woke up sick, y’know, the ordinary germy type. Hoping hard I wasn’t contagious Saturday. Or yesterday, for that matter.

And one more photo: Hudson found the squirt gun and ran to it.

Now, they don’t make’em like they used to, not at all–the powerful zappers from my kids’ childhoods were probably lawyered off the market. But the thing does squirt. Mildly. As in, perfect for his age group.

He intuited without being told that one sprays the water outside, not in, and when it was all empty he brought it to me for a refill–with a word and a try and almost a two-word sentence, along with lifting it towards me, it was a Here, Grandma, you’re the one who knows how to fix this.

How did he know it was mine? Indeed I do, little guy, indeed I do.

Hudson went straight for the organ.

Parker went straight to the new digger toy his Grampa had bought a few days earlier and had set free from its packaging, battery in and ready to go so it would make a nice growly rrrrrrrr rrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrr. Grampa had it set on the floor not in but in front of the toy basket: couldn’t get any closer to neon signs with PARKER!!! written all over them.

Making memories.

They only had a few minutes–there was so much family get-together stuff going on this weekend on my daughter-in-law’s side of the family, and rightfully so: you only die once.

Her Grandpa John, who’d lived maybe a mile from us, had slipped quietly away in a good old age, a life well lived. I sent off a photo from the kids’ wedding of him bent way down and a small child happily high-fiving him.

The kids were here a month ago while he was in hospice care and I told them, remembering my own childhood, It may surprise you how much Parker might remember of seeing his great-grandpa.

We got some Dr. Seuss time in, Parker and me and then Hudson climbing up so as not to miss a thing. Fox in, what else in a knitter’s house, Sox.

I had been saving two last Fuji apples, expecting they would not become overripe and they didn’t, twins growing on opposite sides of a limb, the longest any had ever been able to last critter-free in our yard. I clipped the tape on the clamshells–two layers–and as they fell, lifted Parker up so he could reach. An enthusiastic snap! Snap! and they were off! Ripe, sweet, the seeds inside brown and mature now.

Parker doesn’t love having his picture taken, but just before I sliced those up I asked him if I could take a picture of the apples. He thought that was a great idea. He held them out high so I could get a good shot.

I handed out slices, and when my son, playing the piano, didn’t get to his and hadn’t eaten one from the first apple either, Parker felt it his work and fair game and he’d waited, too. But you do not let such treasures go to waste. He pulled it off the music book on top of the piano and, with a nod and no complaint from his daddy, devoured it.

A few minutes later, he surprised me with a big hug from behind and then ran away to tease me; Hudson gave me a hug from in front, and we all walked together to the curb and waved goodbye goodbye bye bye as our son snapped them into their carseats and finally away.

And this time Hudson didn’t burst into tears when they pulled out. He’d seen this movie before. This time he knew they’d be back. (Or we’ll come, little guy, when your sister arrives, believe me, we’ll come.)

I was 31. They did tell me cerebral vasculitis. Nothing at all to compare to what this woman went through, but at the same time so many parts of her story sound so familiar.

I was someone who never forgot a face. Suddenly I wasn’t remembering them instead, even having trouble, when I was tired, recognizing my own husband’s. I suddenly couldn’t spell anymore, my short-term memory was gone, and I remember the time I ordered something over the phone and had to have the sales clerk read the numbers back to me to make sure I’d read those squiggly things correctly: Tell me the name of the item back to me, too, just to be sure. Letters were far easier. Still, I could tell which numbers they were just fine if she told me first what they were, kinda hard for her to do, y’know, so we did our best. (Online ordering didn’t exist yet.)

It helped clinch my lupus diagnosis.

Read what Christine Hyung-Oak Lee can write now. She’s amazing.

Today is my sister’s birthday, and what she wanted was a photo of the house we grew up in.

Took me a long time to find the file and then I just spent an hour emailing her the roll. (Does anyone still call a photo sequence a roll?)

Hey Marian, there’s one here I missed, of looking down the street from the house, and further down in that post, one of the back yard.

And just for fun here’s a memory of the DMV in Maryland.

The photo here is of the C&O Canal, early November ’08. I used to walk there with my friends all the time, growing up; when Richard wanted to take me there for a walk and a picnic on our second date I knew he was a keeper.

A side note. Alaska went through a 9.1 earthquake in 1964, the second highest magnitude ever recorded and that lasted about a minute. So did today’s 6.2 near Anchorage, and I’m guessing that’s a good part of why my daughter’s building at work was on rollers. She gave me a quick heads-up that everybody there was fine, even if being on the seventh floor was…entertaining?

My thanks to people who build’em right.

“It’s a little wispy here. Do you mind if I cut this?”

It looked fabulous when Gwyn was done, and, having caught up a bit–I’ve known her since she was born–we gave each other a hug and I asked her to please never ever move away.

She laughed. No immediate plans to, thanks.

No longer does my hair pin me for that nanosecond while I quickly (oh right, here you go) lean forward in the driver’s seat to release it so that I can look in my side view mirror. That’s where I tend to say okay, we’re done here: cut!

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings I was not home to do my usual watering but for just long enough to keep the pots of tomato plants going and I was off.

There was a one-plant surprise party for me Monday way across the yard over next to the cherry tree: having weeded there last Wednesday, I know it wasn’t there then.

Okay, then, squirrels do bury food for the winter, but squirrels don’t even like tomatoes–they just steal the juices out and toss the rest.

Curious little mystery. It’s a vigorous little grower, maybe we’ll even get a harvest out of it.

Meantime, thinking about yesterday’s post some more, I realized that I have no idea what time my car actually got done and my showing up to ask might have been right as they finished. In my hurry to finish the post and call it a night I neglected to mention that the mechanic had asked me for my cell number so he could tell me when it was done.

I explained the hearing impairment (I’d forgotten my bluetooth pendant to my Iphone) and that in that noisy store, I would never hear it ring; I asked if it would be possible to text instead?

He thought about that for a nanosecond and decided, with no question in his voice, a firm Yes. He added quickly that it would be from his personal phone, not the store’s (I’m sure so that I would get it despite its being an unfamiliar number.)

Now, we have a cell plan with unlimited free texting, which they don’t offer anymore; we’re grandfathered in, along with two of our kids and my parents. This guy probably pays by the text and he was willing to offer that out of his own personal pocket to a customer. He didn’t have to do that–and in the moment that he did, there was a certain joy in his face in the offering.

They’ve got a good guy there.

I got two notes back from Costco customer service this evening. The first was an automated, we don’t answer after hours but we will get back to you tomorrow.

The second, sent soon after by someone who had read it anyway and clearly had felt compelled to answer, was a note thanking me and saying they would forward my email to the manager so that Luis could get the recognition he deserved.

And now I was the one who was smiling. May that little moment he created not be buried but come to full fruition for him.

It is supposed to rain come Thursday, a whole .12 of an inch, but still, actually measurable rain as opposed to last week’s random scattered few drops that couldn’t even clean a skylight.

The first of the season in California always brings a string of accidents from all the months of accumulated oil on the roads as the surfaces all go slick in a way they will not after a good washing-away, an annual phenomenon I’d never heard of till we moved here.

It was time. The new tires went on today.

The mechanics forgot to tell me my car was done. I was in no hurry to walk outside and risk the UV exposure, so having commandeered a padded chair I found inside next to the photo lab I simply sat. And knit. And watched the reactions of passersby to the randomness of a woman knitting at Costco.

The photolab guy kind of sneered and silently but clearly wished me out of there. One woman made up for that when she stopped midstep at the sight of my needles: she looked thrilled, and almost, almost struck up a conversation. I would have myself but I let her decide at her own comfort level, wondering if there was a language barrier–but I would have told her that really, there was not. Her face lighting up like that had said what I’d needed and I wanted to tell her thank you. So I smiled greatly in return.

I knitted on. That purple scarf for my cousin I’d been meaning to really get going on? Now I have. I really like how it’s coming out, which is when a project about knits itself, y’know?

When my hands needed a break after two and a half hours I finally did get up and go back outside and in the other door to ask after that car.

Oh, right, here’s your key!

And so one sense of satisfaction at a needed job getting done became closer to two.

(Edited to add the next day: when it got past 5:00 I saw my chance at redeeming the interaction between me and the photo lab guy. I asked him what time the tire center closed up for the night, I mean, y’know, I hadn’t missed…?

He said he was pretty sure they had the same hours as the rest of the store and that everything was okay. And in that moment, he got a chance to help and he did so gladly and we both came away better off for it. Good for him.)

Saw yesterday’s cowl recipient at church and stopped her a moment, just to make sure: would she prefer some other color? Because if so I had a ton of yarn and I…

She stopped me right there: No no she LOVED the bluegreen in the one she got, it was perfect! It could *never* be better than that one.

And the enthusiasm in her voice said this: it wasn’t just about the color. It was about the moment in which she’d received the thing from my hands. Never take it away or diminish it, it was the only one with that memory and so it was the best there could possibly be. (And she truly did love that color.)

She has no idea how much she gave me. Again.

An impromptu get-together of cousins at Richard’s aunt’s this afternoon up in the redwoods in the mountains. I think that’s her cherry tree in front on the right, for perspective on size.

And then back downhill for a brief stop and then back up into the mountains going in the opposite direction to celebrate a friend’s milestone birthday.

Where we ran into friends we hadn’t seen in years, properly celebrated the birthday boy, and a grand time was had by all.

One of those, wow, we squeezed a whole lot of living into one single day and wow is it late.

Oh and: I tucked a cowl I’d knitted into my purse, having felt that I should be ready to give–someone, no idea who–something from my needles tonight. Okay, then; I was ready for whoever it should turn out to be, since I was definitely going to see a lot of people. Madeline Tosh blue/green handdyed softness, my Ft. Worth yarn bought from the MadTosh owner herself.

It just didn’t… I wondered at first and then I simply forgot about it.  Didn’t even think of it. It stayed tucked away. Which is fine, but, huh.

We had to stop at the grocery store on the way home, one last thing to do today because we’re having company over for dinner tomorrow, and there we ran into a friend. She and her family are new in the area, here on Sabbatical from one university to another; we had hit it off with them right away and they’ve borrowed a few items they didn’t have in their temporary place. You need to know what the temperature of something is, here, use our laser thermometer, glad we could help. Your son needs to weigh things by the gram for a school project, so do I because of my knitting–here, use my scale, c’mon over.

Guess who loves that shade of bluegreen?

Well then.

She was so absolutely thrilled, the kind of reaction that makes it so many many more projects will get made in happy anticipation of the next moment like that.

And a new and strange town got a little more like home.

I always thought having a hyperactive immune system with no sense of direction ought to be useful for fighting off cells that actually shouldn’t be there. Say, cancer.

Looks like I was right.