Row upon row and here I go! It feels great.

And then to have something small and portable to work on at Purlescence, I grabbed some soft Colinette wool that I’d gotten at their yarn swap meet. Monet colorway: how cool is that for the daughter of a modern-art dealer? My dad, my little sister and I spent the summer I was 16 with one of Monet’s proteges and his family, driving around the country museum-hopping. (Mom was helping my oldest sister with her first baby.)

I figured returning the gift of the yarn as a hat to go in the shop’s Halos of Hope box seemed just the thing.

We took the leaf out of the dining room table together this evening, the three of us, and it helped: shrinking it back down to normal took away the visual sting that Morgan and his daughters are no longer here at our house swapping stories, laughing over bad puns, enjoying each other’s company and making new memories to treasure. The visit was far too short.

Just one last set of sheets to run through the wash.

While I spent the day trying to remember what it’s like to be totally caught up in a knitting project, which I feel I should be doing now–it’s like I needed a day or two to, on some level, mope first.  It’s way more fun loving the people you love in person, y’know?

Oh. It’s like I almost somehow forgot: the knitting is all about the love, too. Well then!

From their beachcombing yesterday…

It took me a moment to figure out why the barnacles on the crab claw the girls found so charmed me.

Pearls. It looks like a string of little oceany pearls strung around it. (The top ones also look like Hawthorne, the crab in the Sherman’s Lagoon comic strip.)

And then I gave my brother and nieces all one last hug, the car doors closed, and they were off.

A few pictures from the Aquarium:

Making waves from plastic ocean debris, creating good out of that which one wishes were not there.

An American Avocet (I think) in the shorebirds area.

My seahorses photos didn’t take in the darkness, which I regret–turns out most of them are on exhibit only temporarily; if you’re local enough, go see them before the month is up. Did I really see that big orange one blink? Sure seemed like it. Fish? Blink?

And it took me a few tries to figure out that to snap a photo of the tuna I had to hold the camera still long enough for them to swim into the frame I wanted at the random moment the picture snapped.

A good day at church. And then after the UV rating sank to one out of sixteen on Wunderground.com near the end of the daylight, we drove out to the marshlands by the Bay and took a good walk in the park together: seagulls flying overhead, an egret posing just so for their cameras repeatedly, and I watched, too, how graciously my brother’s children interacted with each other and with us; I adore them. Great kids. Morgan’s a single dad and he’s doing a great job.

A lot of habitat restoration had happened since the last time I’d been on the trail we went down. No, sorry kids, you can’t see the Golden Gate Bridge from here, but we could keep going to that causeway over there and back around.

We all looked at each other and kinda laughed and went, uh, I think not.  A bit regretfully, though; it would take us far out and well over the water but long beyond sunset.

And then we came home to Michelle’s homemade rhubarb and strawberry pie.

It doesn’t get better than that.

We drove down in two cars, Michelle with the girls, us three parents in the other one. The Aquarium was great–and then on the way home Michelle texted from the chocolate shop she’d taken her cousins to on the way home instead of going straight home like we were doing: catch up with you later!

Good times!

My brother Morgan and three of his daughters (the other one has a summer job she couldn’t leave.)  From Colorado to Salt Lake (hi Mom and Dad) to Yosemite to here.

So good to see them!

Stocking up for tomorrow’s company.

It was going to be a long walk in the sun from the car so Richard dropped me off at the front. I grabbed a cart, got just inside the doorway for a little shade, and stopped and fumbled with my purse to find my Costco card–you’re always supposed to show it to get in.

There was a lull just then in the streams of people, so I wasn’t in anyone’s way. I was having a hard time pulling it out of its spot in my wallet.

“That’s okay,” the woman stationed as doorcheck said to me, “I believe you”–just as I pulled it out. There you go!

“Have a nice day, sir,” she beamed.

Blink.

Skirt. Purse. Recently brushed longish hair pulled to the front (so as to keep it out of my seatbelt while we were in the car.) Tee and tunic.

But then I would be the person who would think one word and have a different one come out of my mouth when I’m tired and only realize it (well I usually do) the moment I heard it myself. So I guess I had it coming.

She didn’t even realize, one way or another.  This is certainly not the South, and given her accent she may never even have heard nor known the word ma’am. How many words in English are gender specific compared to other languages? (Blond and blonde…) Sir is an  honorific where I come from and clearly from where she was coming from, so, enjoy. I laughed and went on my way.

I held off on calling because I felt Emily had enough to deal with; an email would give her whatever space and time she might need.

She did email back today, telling me she is taking life twelve hours at a time. At the end of the day she sent a note to all, overwhelmed at all the “soot covered, mask wearing bodies who flocked to my rescue” Monday and then came back Tuesday to help some more. She and her family were going off to family for a few weeks, away from the ash and the loss to catch their breath. She vowed to plant new tomato plants when they got back (and I wondered, flame? Firefighters? Foam? She did not say.)

And her favorite jacket washed out clean.

And her skirt awaits.

The best thing, by far, that I have ever read on the subject of Paula Deen is this essay, ending with an invitation to her to come cook and bake and break bread with the author. Powerful in his forgiving, his empathy, and in the opportunity he offers her. The point of my mentioning this is not Paula Deen: it is in the wisdom and the words of the wonderful human being that is Michael Twitty.

And more locally:

Last October I loaned a friend a skirt for part of her Halloween costume. It was a tall size Talbots, silk, bought off Ebay for a buck plus shipping charges that were no more than a gallon of gas–it seemed worth the risk at the time, though the color was a guess from the poor photo; I could always change that part anyway.

Vivid orangey red is the exact light frequency that sets off my head injury the most and tosses my flimsy balance away. Yow! But it was long, flattering. Elegant.

Emily absolutely loved it. She’s tall, she loved the color, it fit her perfectly, for her it was perfect, and so when she came to bring it back I offered her to keep it.

No no, it’s yours, and she refused, delighted by the gesture, though.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was cleaning up in preparation for our houseguests. They’ll be here after seeing Yosemite–I don’t think my brother’s been in California since the summer I was 10 and he turned 12–and somehow I came across that forgotten skirt. And so I found myself looking at it yesterday morning and thinking of Emily.

Well, I did already try to give it to her, time to finally go put it in that dyepot and darken the color.  A lot. No sense in having it go unworn. The lining is polyester and will likely stay what it is and resist the protein-fibers-specific Jacquard bath, but that’s okay. Seems a shame to risk it, though–it’s harder to dye finished clothes evenly than it is yarn.

But no sense in wasting it, either. I started to pick it up to start the pre-soak.

Something felt so strongly, no, that, no, and I put it back down. Huh. I looked at it again and thought of her and how much she’d loved it, and at last left it spread out on the ironing board ready to steam press or dunk but doing nothing yet.

I found myself thinking of her all day as I passed in and out of the laundry room with the neon-bright skirt front and center. The skirt was secondary; Emily seemed uppermost in my thoughts.

There was an email that came in last night.

Emily’s husband was out of town. She thought she smelled smoke. They think it was her water heater, but whatever it was it became a two-alarm fire that also damaged the apartment above her.  She and her baby got out and nobody was hurt but she was evacuated from her home.

Many, many friends responded to the mass email and helped her get her family’s belongings, what remained of them, into a storage container because I guess it all had to go. Now. Richard, who has done Red Cross volunteer work responding to house fires, says that typically it takes weeks for the fire officials to investigate causes of unknown origin–you don’t want the next apartment over doing the exact same thing shortly after, you want to find and verify and fix. And then there’s the wait for the repair work to be done before you can move back in. It can take months.

I was absolutely wiped after cleaning out the yarn room, and with that recent Crohn’s growling, I did not dare push my body further in one day.

But what I could do was to offer a beautiful, bright, cheery skirt that I knew would fit her body and soul, something new rising from the ashes.

Don’t know if her computer burned… Haven’t heard back yet.

Whether she lets me give it to her or not is almost beside the point. When she most needed support by her side, before her friends knew, the Love in the universe was right there for her trying to get through my thick head. Emily. Emily needs you.

I interpreted it in a way that made sense to me at the time, but at least at the end of her terrible day she could know there was someone who’d been thinking of her constantly from about the time the whole thing started.

And if in the fire she lost the scarf I knit her awhile ago then I will go find some fabulous, soft yarn and it will be in bright orangey red.

Spent the day getting the yarn-and-projects room sorted and emptied and vacuumed and readied for houseguests, grateful for the energy to do so–I had several days of the Crohn’s threatening a comeback last week and it was such a relief to have a good day. I think we dodged that one.

Meantime, there is nothing like a baby’s smile–or a two-year-old’s giggle, or a teenager reasoning things out, for that matter; every stage is the best stage. And yet–there’s just nothing quite like Hudson’s smile.

Meantime, you saw the bears (and don’t miss Susan’s comment); now I have to show you the shark like none I’d ever heard of. Wondering if the Monterey Bay Aquarium might ever have one…

I guess we’ll find out. We’ll be there Saturday with my brother and his family. Can’t wait!

Hudson and his new cousin Hayes! (I finally got the photo to work–took me awhile.) Hayes looks a lot older to me than not quite two weeks. Those two little boys are going to have great fun growing up together–and I am so grateful they get to.

———

I flipped through Sibley to identify the type of owl my friend Mickey had seen. A barred owl? Can it do Shakespeare quotes, then? Who, “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

“A friend is one that knows you as you are.” That sense of–something, and I looked up from the book and there was my own raptor in the deepening dusk.

The word rouse? As in rouse yourself out of bed? It comes from what a bird, specifically a hawk does after it fluffs out its feathers when it relaxes: it then gives itself a good shake to bring them all back into place just so, ready for flight.

He was perched silently on the fence, watching us watching him, taking in the evening. A finch flew to the twigs hanging by the feeder–then froze, as if that would make its presence less obvious. When the hawk’s feathers seemed to fluff out just a bit more, the little one made a break for it, knowing that that gave it as good a split-second advantage as it was going to get.

A goldfinch a few minutes later. Same thing.

Coopernicus had already eaten; he was just enjoying his people time.

He roused himself at last. “The fated sky gives us free scope.” Tarried a little longer, and having made our day better, was off.

I suddenly had a horde of squirrels a few minutes ago. The birds had eaten all the safflower, and the bit of sunflower at the bottom of the feeder for the goldfinches was not only exposed, it was all that was left and the bushytails called all their buddies to celebrate their find.

Well heck I could use the exercise anyway. To teach them not to be the swaggering city rodents they were acting like, I opened the door (yeah lady? You and what dog? You can’t fool us, they’re gone now) and I chased the two that went in the same direction back to a tree.

They yelled squirrelly expletives at me all the way up once they hit the safety of higher-than-me, still running (but they didn’t come back).

That moment was worth every bit of the silliness that brought me to it:

Wait. Chittering squirrels.

Over all the years and all the previous hearing aids, I haven’t heard that sound since I was a kid. I instantly knew what it was, it seemed a perfectly ordinary thing, and then it hit me.

WOW.

It took a flying leap.

I actually watched, in real time, a brown bear cub standing in a river, scanning constantly back and forth and finally catching a salmon at the base of a small waterfall. And then his mother, keeping a bit of a distance from him, snatched one out of the water too.  I’m not sure why it should surprise me that there was a wildlife cam set up there, especially given that I used to help run one for the San Jose peregrine falcon nest, but it’s wonderful.

Once they have that fish in their jaws they seem to consistently move to shore to eat, I imagine so that if their prey somehow slips or escapes, they can’t lose it.

As soon as one was caught the number of gulls in the vicinity seemed to go up, maybe waiting to steal a bite from the picnic basket?

And since it’s summer and they’re in Alaska, the daylight for watching them all by just goes on and on and on.

Kathleen stopped by again today for some one-on-one time before they head further south tomorrow. We shared memories, explored each other’s takes on things political and found ourselves nodding in agreement over and over (always a nice thing), laughed loud enough to be heard into the next block. We moved into the kitchen for lunch and kept going for hours more.

The birdfeeder was getting low before that point. It was quite empty and probably had been for awhile when we came out of there when Richard came home, and not to deprive her of any birdwatching time, I gave it a quick refill.

We went from nothing in sight to here comes the flock–we weren’t the only ones ready for dinner. I’d scattered some suet, too, and pointed out the Bewick’s wren.

But you know the one thing I’d really wished was to be able to show off my hawk. (“My hawk, *a* chickadee, but *my* hawk” she teased me.)

At the very moment I found the Cooper’s page in my Sibley book to show her, with the two of us standing there and Richard sitting next to us, suddenly there were two bangs at the window and Coopernicus himself did a swoop around the amaryllises in chase. I missed the first part of it, my nose in that book, and then the windows reflecting off each other from my angle got in my way a moment more, but they said he strolled under the picnic table, looking for his prey.

And there one was. And we got to see those wings wide going past the amaryllises again, only this time he had something to show for it. (The other finch that had hit eventually recovered itself and played the one that got away.)

We held still, watching him and his struggling-then-still finch, and after a moment she reached for her camera. He gathered it close and took off; as I explained, he’s fine with being watched unless he has a meal in his talons and then he gets antsy.

We might be trying to steal his prey, she affirmed.

While I thought, She got to see him!! She got to see my hawk!!

He’s a big bird, isn’t he? I asked.

He IS!

——

The other wonderful thing about today is that baby Hayes came home. The traces of chemical trauma were such that they said there was no indication nor expectation of longterm brain damage.

And he’s a beautiful, wide-eyed baby boy, looking at the insides of a car and carseat for the first time in the picture they sent us.