Katie Porter is running for Senate ’24! I’ll finally get to vote for her!

Meantime, I had to make a quick run to the post office: please keep my mail out of the rain and all that.

I pulled off the road at a small gravel turnoff by the bike path along the marsh looking over towards the Bay, because I had never seen water in most of this. See that dark wooden fence in the foreground there? (Click for a bigger view.) The bottom of it is underwater. One might not want to go birding down that trail today.

This very old bridge is scheduled to be replaced at long last and if you watch the Twitter video it’s obvious why.

I like how it looks like alligator jaws opening wide: Gotcha! (Man, that takes serious skills.)

Yesterday during my knitting group Zoom I happily announced that I had just finished the 15th repeat on my afghan, which I’d been aiming for for a long time.

But you know what? Yes it’s not blocked, yes it will stretch out, but it still was just plain too short no matter how much I didn’t want it to be and I refuse to be disappointed by the darn thing after putting multiple months into it. So today I overdid it while trying (or I told myself I was trying) not to overdo it.

Which means the 16th is now done, minus the purl row afterwards. Pass the icepacks.

Well, but, huh. You know, one more repeat there would really polish that off nicely. The recipients are taller than me.

—

p.s. We got 2.3″ rain over the last 24+ hours with .91″ to go tonight and an evacuation warning in the south end of the county, but the forecast now is in quarters and halves rather than in whole inches–each of which would normally be a lot but right now feels like quite a break. While still adding to the reservoirs.

p.p.s. For whatever it’s worth: handbeaded gerdans on the delicate side in appearance that are $13.75 as I type. Which to me sounds like a cry to the world out there for help, because the last time I saw a seller in Ukraine cut prices that drastically it was as things were falling apart around her hard, and I will forever be grateful for the gorgeous beadwork she’d already done for me and the conversations we’d had. Her shop is gone now and I have no idea how to find out if she’s alright.

Well, that’s a no-frills pruning job. (Listening to the gusts of water coming down.)

The forecast was .82″ at noon, then five hours later as it actually finally started to come down they changed it to 1.73″.

Meantime, someone had backed into a fire hydrant in Sunnyvale and an old Purlescence friend took video of the resulting geyser and flooded street.

My reaction was, the sky took one look at that and went, You think that’s something? Here–hold my water.

One of the enduring artifacts of the pandemic is how visible it made the handiwork of all the unsung hair stylists out there while so many salons were closed. All that long hair out there. The number of women, here, anyway, who’ve kept it that way since.

By the way, the DIY youtube video that says to turn your head over, brush your hair straight, put in a ponytail holder and lop the ends off below there and it will come out perfectly layered towards the bottom? Don’t do it. Just don’t. Don’t ask me how I know.

Part it down the middle front to back, pull it to the front under your chin and hold, snip across. Much better. I don’t know how well that would work on straight hair but curls are forgiving.

But I wanted it done right. My hair was going to be in pictures forevermore, and that’s incentive enough to brave the scissors of someone new. Both the distance and, as I discovered, the politics of the woman I’d previously gone to…let’s just say the distance.

I found a place about a mile away.

It was a great feeling to come out of that chair feeling like this woman had done exactly what I’d hoped for–and, given that I have some older salon stories that could curl your hair, it was such a relief.

Except for one small thing.

I don’t know what that product was, but I’d forgotten to ask for nothing scented.

He squirmed a bit. He didn’t want to say it outright. So I said it for him: It stinks.

Yes, (emphatically), it definitely does. (Heard but not said: It is entirely messing with this dinner, honey.)

Now pardon me while I go wash my hair.

I can’t imagine believing all your life that your father had never learned to read or write and only finding out ten years after his death that he most certainly did. In a system going back to the 10th century.

I remember reading a profile of Richard Nixon years ago where he justified his intense racism by saying, All those people in Africa and across all of history they never even came up with a written language? They never kept records?

But they did.

Ajami, a modified Arabic, was never taught in school by the colonialists nor acknowledged.

With help from my friend Lise, I stumbled across this very cool story from my late father’s alma mater.

An inch so far today, with two more by tomorrow night. And the wind!

Friends a few cities over have lost power. We haven’t so far, but it did have me deciding dinner was going to be some of the more expensive food in the freezer: it should be enjoyed, not worried over.

And so the stuffed chicken breasts are in the oven and the thought occurred to me that if the lights go out now, what would we do.

That little creme brûlée torch that was his favorite Christmas gift a few years ago. Can you cook chicken parts with it? Here, let’s just pry open that center there with a fork and melt that cheese… That would work. Right?

(Update 9:00 pm: It sounds like a large branch of a tree is being dragged across the roof by the wind, resting a second, gusting and dragging almost right away again. It is loud out there. And I am not used to hearing much of anything as being loud.)

Should I take the unwieldy afghan that would get on the floor of the garage?

That’s a question I can’t answer, he responded, reasonably.

So, I finally decided, I guess the boring usual, then. Lucky me, there was one skein of Mecha that was already wound up. A dark teal green.

Which got me thinking.

I don’t spend a lot of time in waiting rooms these days, but sometimes, and so somehow I did, I had three plain Malabrigo beanies sitting waiting to find out whose they were supposed to be.

I checked their website. The three of them had been running the garage since the original guy who’d opened it in 1952.

It’s not in walking distance and I had no ride so I was just going to sit and wait while they worked on the car. I could call Enterprise Car Rental if it came to that; they pick you up.

Oh–are you waiting? she asked me. (For so long they didn’t let you; now they’ll let one person under the relaxed covid protocols.)

They got right to it, then.

I pulled out my needles and cast on.

I did the nine rows of ribbing on the usual 70 stitches of Mecha.

Someone else popped in to give his key and say his car was here.

I kept knitting.

I did some of the solid area above the brim, and at about 90 minutes in the mechanic stepped into the office area, glanced over at my knitting a moment, and said my car was done.

And then he shook his head with her a moment talking about the 24 year old Buffalo Bills football player who’d dropped on the field in cardiac arrest–so young, so young. In the ICU. But it was like that basketball player, he said.

Len Bias, I piped up to his surprise.

Either there were two basketball players or he didn’t remember that name; it’s been a long time.

He went back to work on the next car.

Len Bias was in Maryland, I told her, and I’m from Maryland.

Ah, she said, and rang up my bill.

While wearing a shirt and jacket in the very colors of the feminine one of those hats. The other two were in Vaa and Solis, darker green on the gray side and the other a bit brighter. I was knitting teal green. I was wearing two layers of green sweaters. Tuesday’s for the color green, today.

Two guys back there? I asked, just to confirm.

Two guys back there, she confirmed.

Having waited for my bill to be finished so it couldn’t affect it in any way, I pulled out the three hats and thanked her very much.

She’d just seen me making one of those. She instantly knew I’d made those. Her jaw dropped, and then she hurried to go share as I waved goodbye and headed out the door without even asking if they liked green.

The guy who’d worked on my car hurried out the big garage door to catch a glimpse in time but I was on my way.

I drove off feeling like, where have I been? Man, that felt good. Do it some more. You’ve got some catching up to do, hon.

So the neighborhood didn’t blow up. Suddenly that last tomato variety’s name up there has a different twinge to it… Thank you, firefighters.

The blue lines in the forecast continue: 5.95″ still to come between now and next Wednesday and it looks like it’ll keep going after that. This Wednesday and next Monday look to be like the big day we just had. Stay home.

Shasta, the biggest reservoir, is still only at 57% of normal and 34% full. Etc. But day by day we’re getting there.

As it was pouring down today, I opened my new Burpee catalog–now that it’s had a few days to dry out so you can turn the pages, and then I ordered visions of Spring.

I always think I should plant marigolds to protect my tomatoes from the squirrels, since they hate the smell of them, but I never do. With our overhangs, I don’t have bright window space for much and then it always feels like too late for a round two of starts.

20% off? (Enter code BSC23 till 6/30/23) A new color variant that I like? Strawberry Blonde. I ordered the plants, which I never have before, and I don’t care how small the marigold seedlings turn out to be when they get here: they’ll be actual plants, not wishes. This year those tomatoes are mine!

And I bought sunflower seeds. Their new Creme Brûlée. I mean, sunflowers this year of all years, yes, not to mention that with a name and look like that how could one not. Slightly burnt-looking stamens on the back catalog cover, reminiscent of what the Ukrainians have endured, but deeply satisfying to the eye, the heart, the birds: gorgeous flowers, absolutely gorgeous.

And, yes, the squirrels will be thrilled. Let’s see if I can get them to grow on the far side of the house from the rest.

—–

Update: I just got a notification that a major tree is down and blocking one of the more problematical creeks. That’s an emergency, and the mayor of the next town (not sure if it fell to or from their side) is on it.

Anne was right, of course: it was the section of 101 that goes around the airport and just north of it that flooded, the stretch where it offers a beautiful view across the Bay, where you can see the ships lined up for the Port of Oakland–and where, two weeks ago, I was thinking as we drove that stretch that it would be the first thing to go when the waters rise in the coming years.

Meantime, I did some serious progress on the stalled afghan, and being that close to done makes me want to finish it. It feels good to have that motivation back.

Richard was out taking a walk while I was typing that and came in saying there was a massive smell of gas in the next block, he’d put in a call to the city’s utilities department, and the fire truck had arrived before he even made it up the block.

Okay, the night just got a little more exciting. (The blog timestamp’s off, it’s 10pm.) Well, huh. We’ve got a reverse-911 system here if they decide they want us all out of here, but I’m not expecting it.

As of 6:30 pm the amount of rainfall for this year for our city is 13.51″.

The amount of that rain that fell in the last 24 hours is 3.25″, as measured up in the foothills where it gets more than down here, but it all comes through town on its way to the Bay. The city said today’s amount is three times what the National Weather Service had predicted.

Should we happen to need to go to the hospital tonight for any reason (we don’t, and let’s not) we would have to go sideways and up across the foothills and around the flooding and the closed roads, hoping. (To Anne, who recently moved away from here: El Camino’s underpass just before the Stanford Mall is completely under water.)

It’s still coming down hard but is supposed to drop off by bedtime, and then Sunday is supposed to totally be a day of rest. Bright sunshine. Take a break.

And then we will start off the new year with a projected 4″ across the next eight days with about half that as a deluge on Wednesday. Don’t go anywhere Wednesday.

I am so grateful for a warm dry house (and that we finally finally after over a year on the waiting list *got the roof fixed*.)

Those reservoirs still have a long way to go to get up to normal. Keep going.

Happy New Year, everybody! We were going to do to a pot luck with some friends but it got canceled. Next year.

Rain or no rain, I drove to Fillory Yarn today. The owner’s had medical issues and the place is up for sale. I wasn’t sure it would still be there past the first of the year and I had to at least show up before they go.

K had a big order needing winding on her hands and offered to do mine for later pickup. I had her simply ring me up, thanks.

I told her about how I don’t wear nor generally knit yellow and yet I’d bought some from them and how that and Malabrigo Rios in Teal Feather had turned into matching Ukrainian flag hats for the Ukrainian Consul General in San Francisco and his American counterpart; I thanked her and the store for being part of that. I’d had no idea when I’d bought it. It had just seemed somehow the right thing to do at the time.

That was very meaningful to her to hear. They’d been able to play a part in offering that support, which Ukraine needs in every way possible.

There was no one sitting visiting at the big table and I reminisced a moment over the group that used to fill it Friday afternoons.

There’s a group on Thursdays, she quickly answered, ticking off names of people I’d want to see, and I do.

Meaning, next Thursday. Yes! And how about the next. And the next? Let’s see how far out we can take that. Anyone want to buy a popular yarn store in San Jose?

Meaning, Protector of the City.

Let me give you the link to her picture on Instagram: Miss Ukraine, competing for Miss Universe, in a costume that took four months to create under repeated power failures and missile strikes.

Beauty pageants are so not my world. But that costume is one for the history books.

I was able to match someone’s yarn and dye lot so she could finish her sweater, and could there be a better Christmas present for me than that.

I drove past marshland on my way to the post office. You could tell it was vacation week–and that it was during a break in the rain that’s projected to continue past next Friday; there was a family with young kids skipping happily near the bicyclist sculpture dedicated to the environmentalist who’d worked for decades to get the marsh habitat restored, a group of people on the other side of the southernmost pond as if on lunch break from the nearby offices, someone birdwatching towards the Bay. The green grasses were lush, the winter water was running high.

The trail was long enough to keep them all at good spaces between each other.

There was a magnificent red-tailed hawk perched on its favorite light pole over the road. It was taking in the scene and not the least bit perturbed by all the people. I had seen it there before. It was a thrill to see it again, with the suggestion, then, of territory. May it choose this place to raise the coming year’s family.

And just beyond it, farthest away from anyone else, there was a couple walking.

I’d guess early sixties. What was striking is that he looked like he was having a political or family or some kind of argument, if you can call it an argument when only one person is carrying on with it; he didn’t look angry, just emphatic, hands waving and finger jabbing towards the air away from her as he made his points, not looking threatening and a little stooped but maybe a bit bothered. She, it seemed, was putting up with it. Maybe it was all old hat to her.

But you get someone out taking a walk in nature and you might already know what they’re going to talk about but they’re also going to get some exercise and feel better when it’s done and so will you so you might as well go, right?

All these impressions of the lives of complete strangers that flashed in the few seconds on approach. And then you go past.

I almost pulled the car over. I wanted to say, Did you see it? The hawk? It’s been observing you. It’s gorgeous, look how big that thing is! Don’t miss it!

I thought, whatever he’s talking about, they won’t remember it five years from now but that sighting, if they finally looked up, they just might. Red-taileds like to soar high and that one’s so close. You could see so much detail.

But I didn’t. And neither, as far as I know, did they.

I got past the light way ahead and pulled in at the post office, mailed my small box, and again made the deliberate decision to take the longer way home rather than the freeway on the small chance that the hawk might still be there.

They were not. I’m guessing that had been their car by the bicyclist statue.

The hawk still was. Cool as the water in an incoming northern tide.

Answering Jayleen’s question: it was a small road with no cars on it but mine. Nice and straight, and the little kids on bikes, even if they were at the end of a path through the marsh and a few feet away from the road, were excuse enough to take it slow.