My good sense says knit merino in superwash only for a new mom to have to deal with. We’re talking blankets here, not outfits. (I’m listening to at least some of those instincts.)

I…was actually knitting a superwash baby blanket. I have spent the last three days looking for it. And my good packable sunproof straw hat, for that matter, that I was wearing Saturday. Both have vanished.

I’ve gone from frustration to a certain sense of freedom: I could simply start over. I could choose anything. (Did you look in–yes I did. And? Yes. And? Twice.)

If you’ve ever knit with something like Malabrigo Finito you’ll understand why my fingers want to wrap that baby in the very softest ever–or maybe cashmere from Colourmart, as long as I’m dreaming, since they’re about the same. There are those who will tell you cashmere never shrinks, and then there’s me saying that when my kids were small I bought a cashmere sweater labeled size 42 for fifty cents at a yard sale because it fit my six-year-old; someone out there had had a really, really bad day doing laundry. (We, though, totally won.)

Would you do it? Would you knit it on really-too-big needles so that when it shrinks like crazy it wouldn’t be too far off from what you intended in the first place?

This is called, okay, talk some sense into me: back away from the pretty. Put it back. Don’t do it.

But maybe?

A few years ago, my oldest gave me a set of Peter Rabbit notecards for Christmas. Parker was a baby, and she was remembering all those times I had read our much-loved Beatrix Potter set with her and her siblings.

Some time after our son’s family went home two weekends ago, Michelle found a digger truck behind her couch. I think it was smaller than this one at Amazon but it was very similar.  It was easier for me to get to the post office than her, so I brought it home and I found just the box for it.

It needed a card and I went looking. Amaryllis? There’s about to be enough pink around his house around the time of his birthday, no, birds? Nah, that’s my thing, I needed something that spoke to a little boy.

And you know what I found next. I had a few left.

Flipping through, I found *the* card. Picking apples? How perfect is that?

Dear Parker, I wrote, and explained that the digger had had a nice visit but it wanted to come home now. The mailman was letting it have a ride home. I told him I loved him, signed it, put it in the envelope and the envelope in the box and taped it up and mailed it off and drove away in happy anticipation of the look on his face. I tell you. It felt like Christmas.

And Sam had gotten it so amazingly right.

Edited to add, I said to my husband, Wasn’t that just perfect? He grinned and said, Perfect would be a digger pulling a submarine with a picture of Parker being the captain waving the (he added more to his verbal picture…) But yes. It was perfect.

And poof, just like that, woke up this morning and felt the burden of worry gone. Even if I don’t like that chimney exclusion.

By then, though, I’d figured out exactly what our new earthquake insurance costs the equivalent of: seven round-trip airfare tickets for two to San Diego every year, including airport snacks, give or take a Christmastime increase. Which certainly isn’t going to stop us from going to go meet the new baby due then.

I finally figured out that that was why the soft yarn I’d picked out for her was in a cheerful red. Well of course. And there will be bright sparkly lights in celebration everywhere come the day.

The slant of the lowering sun, just in that moment of the day, makes the shadow look so much bigger than the real thing.

And yet sometimes you just need to grab whatever pushes you to get the thing done and we wanted it done. We’d had it years before, till college tuitions and the like got in the way. Now was the time. Chris-the-agent and I exchanged emails and details Friday till well after five till I told him, hey, go have a weekend.

There was a 4.2 (oh wait, they’ve downgraded it to 4) forty miles from our kids Sunday night. The earth was antsy and so were we. Several little ones on the Hayward fault–that’s the East Bay-side faultline that all their hospitals are built within yards of and I think their water mains, too. Tell the people of the 1950’s: science. It keeps you from doing stupid things. You don’t just bulldoze the cracks and call it the cheap land.

One of our outside five gallon water storage containers got chewed through by a critter; drought, I guess, I need to recycle that one. The ironic thing is, the Napa quake seems to have upended underground water into the creeks there that so need it.

I went through the pages of forms again, writing in details like the diagonal bracing we found in the framework of the house when we remodeled years ago–cool, that was better than current code and this is a sixty-year-old house–and we both signed the papers.

Then I called ahead and drove over.

Chris was one of the first people I met in California 27 years ago but he wasn’t in today. But they all work together and the receptionist motioned me to Sandy’s office; I remembered her well.

Except that’s not the name she said.

Me, hesitating a moment: Does Sandy still work here?

She, with a look of oh, you don’t know, then…  “Sandy died. She had cancer and passed in November.”

But…but…! I just stopped there a moment, stunned. I told her I was so sorry. I told her it was taking me a moment to process, and she nodded, understanding, and added a few details so I would know.

I hadn’t known. I hadn’t done anything. And she’s… Well crum. I mean, what else can you say. Crum. I’m sorry.

Finally, into Sandy’s office, where the new-to-me guy’s young children’s pictures were on the shelf and we got down to business. Tell me, what is this about not covering masonry. That means my chimney, right? Not just stonework? (Which I don’t have.) Chimneys are what break most, aren’t they?

They do. Which is why almost nobody covers them in quake insurance anymore.

(Oh lovely.) What if it shatters my solar panels as it falls apart? (Said while suddenly glad they were at a distance from each other.)

“That’s a gray area.”

(Color me concerned.)

And yet. An aunt whose house was a half mile from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta got the full value on her $350k earthquake policy, and she needed it all. A tiny 2.9 strong enough to wake me up because it was so close? Three in a few days in that spot. What would a 6 there be like? Or a 7? I don’t want to know.

The policy didn’t quite take instant affect at signing; the guy gave me the minute of the hour of the day. Three more hours now. Wait, now that I’ve been typing this long, make that two. Less than.

I am remembering when I flew to Maryland a few months after our 7.1 and, getting off the plane, I felt like I could suddenly breathe and it surprised me. I had not realized how much I had been aware of the earth not moving, how I’d watched for light poles swinging on overpasses–and there were a lot of drivers that even then simply wouldn’t stop for a light underneath a bridge, even if it meant someone else could zip around and ahead of them. And no one ever did. Silent amity and unanimity.

But in Maryland it was just plain ordinary oblivious life again, and eventually in California it was, too.

Almost.

But if you ask someone where they were in the Loma Prieta everyone who was here has a story.

I think that I’m going to feel that sense of exhaling again after the stroke of midnight plus one.

It hasn’t been just me; it’s been him, too, and to me the fact that my unflappable husband sensed the need, to him the fact that I sensed the need, between us that made it a done deal.

Our budget just changed a lot with that first payment, but someday it will look like a bargain indeed. Right now I keep reminding myself that, compared to what could be, the premiums? They’re nothing earthshattering.

And at the other end of life…

Sitting in church, the meeting about to start: a quiet, “Would you like to hold her?” knowing of course I absolutely would.

Always wear soft clothes. You never know when you’ll get to cuddle an infant.

A slight, steady rocking, a tiny hand on my arm. I turned her to be facing towards her mommy, and instead of fussing at the space separating them, she relaxed into my arms.

After several minutes of mutual bliss she melted entirely and was asleep.

Five minutes before the end of the meeting, of her own timing, she suddenly blinked and stirred. She’s not quite old enough to sit up on her own yet but she managed to turn and look up into my face and hair, puzzling it out: you are not my mommy.

Her mommy smiled at her.

And that was enough. Sweet Janey stayed quietly happy where she was until it was time to go.

There is a gap (still) in the six foot tall fence where the neighbors have been rebuilding it after taking out the last of the damaged old part there after our tree guys got done.

The framework is in place, a few beams have gone in, but the husband wanted to do the job himself, not hire some young’un, and he’s taking his sweet time.

They were married in 1956, she told me tonight.

Her longterm memory is still sharp for the most part.

I was watering my plants and saw them at the gap and stepped over their way. Very soon it was her and me chatting away, just the two of us, swapping stories as I moved the hose from time to time and marveling at how trees, like kids, grow up and blossom and bring forth after all this time. Well, some of them; I had her step over to my side to continue the conversation as I watered the pear tree over thataway–that one was still just a baby.

I showed her where it had been pruned to when we’d bought it in February vs where it is now–it’s more than doubled its height already. And when her husband had found out that their bush was shading it part of the day, he got that bush cut back to the fencetop just because. When I thanked him tonight he shrugged off all credit with a grin and a disclaimer of, “The gardener did that.”

(Yes, the gardener had trimmed a little last week, I’d thanked them for the extra sunlight, and he’d clearly sent the guy back to do more.)

This time she was able to process my stories as well as tell her own, and the thing not forgotten yet, she could ask a question or two of me at the end. That’s not always been quite so true of late but tonight it was and we were laughing and swapping and telling the punch line to the next tale and laughing some more and if any other neighbors were outside hearing us they were wishing they were having as good a time as we were.

It’s brought out the best in her.

Half a dozen times, as she always does, never remembering that she’d already said the very same words, she told me, “You know. This is so lovely. You know what we could do? We should put a gate between our yards so we could just step across and visit anytime,” motioning with her hands from existing pole to imaginary one the width it would have to be. It wouldn’t have to be big; we could squeeze through sideways–and she laughed at that mental image every time. “Our own little Narnia door,” I said. (She drew a blank and then forgot it before she could ask, that time.)

At last she said, “Have you eaten?”

It was nearly eight and I had an hour before. She had not yet, she said, and it was getting dark and a bit chilly; time for her to go in. Said with cheerful reluctance.

I stepped back to my side of the fence. We swapped one last story each. I reiterated that she was always welcome to walk around the block via the street come the day to just knock on my door anytime.

And then she went back inside to her patient husband, whose sociable and endearing wife had been entertained for awhile while he had gotten a break.

There is no rush to finish off that fence, the last part to be repaired between our yards, none at all–not on my side, and I don’t think on theirs.

Spent a good part of the day going over insurance policies and talking to our agent.

Wait, really?! On our old one, there’s a clause for nuclear energy liability in the… No no, I have solar, not a nuclear plant, thanks, an energy surge here is a day where the fog’s burned off, not the whole city. (Really?! How on earth did that get in there? Who thinks of these things?)

But apparently the guy who was recently in the news after seeing a minivan whose driver had passed out, so he pulled his SUV up alongside and slightly ahead and gradually stopped the runaway before it could crash into a whole bunch of people at the light ahead–he’d be covered under this one policy, even though he deliberately let damage happen to his car. In the pursuit of protecting life and limb of others? This company would repair it for him.

I like that.

So, (reading on through the fine print) if the guy who broke into my house had sued me for the confrontation he had with the cops, apparently only because I had done no business with him would my old policy defend me and cover the costs of the suit. Gotcha. (Weird…)

And then I put it all down for awhile and we went out the door and met up with our niece for ice cream at Smitten. Only the best.  The backstory is hers alone to tell, but, sometimes a simple cone of ice cream together is just the thing.

And then back to the deductible-speak.

Another small Ladera quake. I was snatched awake at 3:24 am by a quick sharp jolt. That made two exactly seven hours apart. Some part of me kept waiting for the next and I never really did fall back asleep.

Fascinating how the did-you-feel-it reports have the effects skipping over part of the Peninsula and shaking hard again in pockets further up north. So did any skeins fall out of the bins at Cottage Yarns? (Probably not;  2.9 is pretty small.)

One of the first things I did after sunup was to push a chair over, stand a bit tippytoeish, and move that bubbles bottle out of that upper window. Turns out there wasn’t much left in it anyway, but hey, now I don’t have to worry about it.

We had power. We had water. I was too tired to do much but I did spend the day laundering All The Things. No Shirt Left Behind. You never know.

Him, in the kitchen: “Did you feel that? Earthquake!”

Me, in the other room: “No,” (thinking at the same time oh wait, so that was what that…) “but I heard it.” A small sharp cracking sound.

We both went straight to the USGS site, where it took a moment to show up. Yup, 8:24, right when he said it. Ladera. 2.9. Right around Kings Mountain Art Fair territory.

We like our earthquakes small and entertaining like that.

The kicker is that I was talking to an agent this afternoon about getting earthquake insurance again.

Edited to add: the art fair ended Monday, and there were quakes there Tuesday and Wednesday. All the booths that didn’t fall down, all the people who didn’t panic, all the squeezed-in parallel-parked cars that weren’t bumped into each other, all the artists who didn’t lose their stock and who got through the fair making a living without their customers tearing out of there…

If we had to have one there, you just couldn’t have asked for better timing. And not only that, people have a whole year now to get over the panic they didn’t go through.

(Ed. to add again: got woken up by the one at 3:24 this morning. Fun times.)

Up above the seven-foot doorway, ordered extra tall so that the men of (or who grew up in) this household wouldn’t have to duck to go through their own doors at home at least, we spotted it. And the resident short person who’d birthed a 6’9″er could only laugh. You guys…

Okay, well, that one’s easy for the kids to replace, the bubbles wouldn’t have passed the 3 oz limit on liquids anyway.

One can only wonder how an airplane full of people would have reacted to little airborne soap circles wafting over their heads coming from two happy toddlers. (Not while snacks are being served.)  One could hope.

I remember the newspaper story about the financial district in San Francisco completely shutting down once: it was snowing, real actual snowflakes in California right at lunch break as if by special order and all these people in business suits poured out of the skyscrapers and blocked the roads as they chased the little miracles of nature, trying to catch them on their tongues like little kids. Look! Snow! Here!

Um, maybe not so much so with the soap. Still.

(Hudson reaching for the Iphone.) I find myself torn between leaving it up there as a happy remembrance that the little boys were here–and my practical side that doesn’t want any kind of projectile right next to glass in an earthquake.

Eh. We’ll eventually get around to both of us remembering at the same time while in the same room because I sure can’t reach it. Till the day, there is a bubbles bottle all ready for Parker and Hudson to come back and play with us again.

Balls that bend and bounce against mere air, rainbows appearing and then rolling away, sudden splashes mid-air of their own: you never outgrow blowing bubbles together.

If you get to Kings Mountain Art Fair a half hour before they close, there’s not much sun getting past those redwoods to worry about and you can park close in. (And you’d better, because you won’t have any time at all to sit around and wait for their shuttle bus.)

And yet people were still arriving, not just me.

All weekend, Mel and Kris had wondered where I was and if I were coming.

There’s a short video on that link of Mel creating a bowl like mine. I love it and I love what they create and best of all I love them to–oh wait. To pieces is exactly not the phrase to use here, never mind.

I had long wanted a serving tray in their pottery; they had two left. I bought a few more mugs, since we had found ourselves running low or out while the kids were visiting. A bowl, a gift for a friend.

Ohmygoodness. They had toddler mugs. Almost all gone.  Oh if only. I had just seen Parker handling one of the regular mugs in person just fine. Mel and Kris had previously told me this could be so, that their boys hadn’t broken things, and I’d answered, But they were raised by potters.

Parker raised my faith in the possibilities after all.

At the last, I decided I would wait till I see Mel and Kris again at a show in November so I can pick out one set all together. I think I’d still get doubles of each because, y’know, toddlers. That means I’d need six. Let the budget breathe a moment first and besides, they didn’t have that many that late in the show.

I intend to see them at the next one early rather than late. It’ll be indoors.

There were a few pictures this morning that came out like this, of Parker lying down and Hudson staying close to him. Not every moment, but. We knew everybody was tired and that the little ones weren’t sleeping well in a strange place.

But it turns out it was more than that and that Hudson knew his brother needed a hug: Parker wasn’t feeling well and it became obvious on their way home from the airport.

It is amazing to me how much a little kid can run around while running a fever. And here we are after all the joy of the last three days, suddenly too far away to help snuggle him better to comfort them all. (And us.)

Breakfast was fruit and homemade lemon curd and waffles and maple syrup at Michelle’s; dinner, lasagna here.

But before any noodle anything, the important part: Parker wanted to pick an apple again. Never mind that they could use another two weeks, the Fujis are good enough now since they needed to be and so we went over to the tree.

(While the spade got put on the lowest limb of the big camphor tree–give him another year or two before he’ll be trying to climb up there. My baby Page tree needs its roots, honey.)

I didn’t have the scissors with me so it took a moment to get the tape out of the way and I managed to take a few leaves off getting that clamshell disentangled from the limb.

Parker pounced on it as it fell and examined every inch of the insides: no apple! How…?

It was still on the tree. I pointed it out and since it was, as the phrase goes, low-hanging fruit, he got to pick it all by himself.

Hudson, meantime, approved of the rocking chair.

And I can just picture some future visit when Parker is not going to get to pick an apple because it’s the wrong season. Hopefully there will then be something else ready for him, Meyer lemons if nothing else because there’s always one of those hanging around. Mind the thorns, though.

And a good day was had by all.

I dunno about them but I for one am sure going to sleep well tonight. Zzzzzzzzz…

I told our kids that I didn’t know what their luggage situation was like and whether they’d rather I mailed it home to them, but either way, if it was alright, I’d made this blanket for Hudson so he too could have a soft cushy one for doing faceplants off the couch into.

My daughter-in-law: “It’s so beautiful!”

(Thank you Malabrigo for the Rios.)

I asked Parker if it was okay to give his brother a soft blankie like his. He gave it a quick looking-over–darker green and a different pattern–and was quite fine with that.

And then it got ignored as sleepy things do while toys got played with and Parker helped me pick apples (don’t forget the scissors to cut the tape around the clamshells) and those apples got sliced and handed around and lunch got eaten and bubbles got blown as little boys danced.

Turns out Hudson had had a bad night being in a strange place and after falling asleep on the plane and having to wake up again after they’d landed and he was tired and so was his mom. She scooped him up to go set him down for a nap.

That toy in his hand just wasn’t enough in that moment. I quickly grabbed the green woolly softness and hunched down to be eye to eye with my 16-month-old grandson.

“Do you want a blankie?”

He gave me the saddest face in the whole wide world and nodded and said, “Uh HUH” and reached out to my outstretched hands, then snuggled his face into it on his mommy’s shoulder, holding it and her tight.

His first sentence to us ever. And with that it was his forever.

Amazing how moving a ton of stuff out of a room can transform that room.

The basics are now back in, post-carpet-cleaning, but it’s quite different now. And it’s staying that way for awhile. Sometimes you just need to see how it could be to get to where it should be.