While all we’ve seen on our property is possums and a skunk at the front door. Oh and the bunnies.

It does help that we’re not up in the hills.

There was a woman’s conference at church. They were holding the first half of it in the room with the worst acoustics in the building by far and I knew I wouldn’t hear a word. Everybody would be part of a shared experience except the woman in the back who doesn’t laugh or gasp or whatever sympathetic thing along with the crowd and how awkward is that for the speaker who doesn’t know. I didn’t want to go.

But when I considered the thing last night, I realized I felt kind of starved for some people time and the very fact that they were finally holding this again was like the Before Times. And that was a privilege. Besides, you can’t do anything for anybody if you don’t show up. I would wear a mask anyway, so my face wouldn’t cause much of a problem, right?

I made very sure I had some knitting with me.

And man, that room was as bad as ever.

And man, did I mess up that pattern and had to just stop about 45 minutes in and put it down; after I got home I tinked back 2/3, but never mind, I fixed it–and messed it up again and ripped it again and fixed it again and that time it actually was fixed and stayed fixed but the whole thing was not one of my more shining moments with a ball of yarn. But at least, in public, it made it look to anyone else like I could do fancy lacy things with yarn–just don’t squint.

So.

When I walked in, I was waved over and invited to a table by some very kind soul I wasn’t sure I’d ever laid eyes on. Who turned out to be a friend of my daughter’s. I started to feel rescued from myself. We found ourselves seated for a breakfast that I’d thought was going to be a lunch at the end so I’d already eaten and I don’t normally like breakfast much in the first place and looking at that lovely fruit plate, I certainly wasn’t going to explain Crohn’s to strangers. But I didn’t dare touch it.

Across from me was a young mom with a small baby, about four months old. Those right around her apparently knew her and chatted with her.

But she was struggling harder than I was to cheer up.  Sleepless nights of early babyhood are hard–or maybe it was postpartum depression, I worried. If I’d thought I was isolated these past few days with no car, remember what it’s like to be at that stage, I told myself.

I ran into a friend after that and we caught up a bit and were late heading into a classroom and tiptoed quietly in at the back.

Right behind that mom.

Her baby fussed a little. I distracted his attention. He smiled. I wiggled a finger puppet on my hand.

She offered silently, Did I want to hold him?

My face lit up. And how!

Oh I tell you. All that pent-up grandmotherhood came pouring out for that sweet little face, and the best thing you can do for the mother of a baby is to adore her child like he’s the most beautiful human being you’ve ever seen. Because he is, every one of them is. Even when they’re fussy. They just are. And so he and I made friends and she–

–she started laughing quietly. At his antics, mine, for sheer joy, and when he finally decided okay, I want my mommy now and started reaching her way I handed him right back and thanked her profusely (quietly) for the great privilege.

She walked out of there happy.

So did I.

Friends forever.

Tell me her name again? I didn’t quite catch it.

That spammer stopped calling, in fact there have been none the last day or two.

No car repair shops told me, You clicked! on their link that seemed not to do anything so I tried another one and apparently when they’re closed for the night the insurance company’s link to them doesn’t respond. But I half-expected them to know I’d tried and for the phone by the computer to ring endlessly. Nope. The silence has been lovely.

Oh that’s right.

It’s really nice when your handset stops working.

Grateful that the worst hassle of the day was filling out insurance forms together, with both of us proofreading as we went. Did we read his handwriting wrong on the other guy’s phone number? Doesn’t matter, we have the same insurance company, they’ll know who he is.

Daylight offered me a better look and I had to laugh ruefully at the curved stamped-out line of the SUV’s wheel well right above our Prius’s–you could just imagine the sign at Disney: Must be THIS big for this ride.

Well, we did used to call our old first-year model the Maus.

Higher cars are definitely more visible.

Just in case they total ours out simply for old age, (bought summer 2006, finally hit 100k miles a couple of months ago) I’ve been looking at front seat head and leg room on various offerings for what a 6’8″er might be able to fit into.

Having routinely gotten 40 to 50 mpg, we’re not going to go back to worse than that.

Toyota so far has the most safety upgrades as standard equipment for 2023. Bring on the mass-market electrics!

He actually had to go in to the office today, a goodly commute that leaves us glad that that’s a rare thing.

I smooched him goodbye at the door and said cheerfully, Drive carefully!

Somehow that second word just-perceptibly caught at us both and he stopped there a moment, looked me in the eyes, and pronounced, Yes.

I found myself musing afterwards, like, did I really feel that? as he headed down the sidewalk. Said a little prayer for him like I always do and then forgot about the whole thing.

I got the text about an hour later with the pictures of the license and face of the guy who’d sideswiped him at freeway speed at his driver’s door. He’d seen him coming at him but had had a truck right at his other side.

Both men are okay. That’s what matters.

Kidney donor Nate is awake and making jokes and his wife and kidney recipient Heather, whose operation started later and went longer, was just awake enough at last cousin check-in (with her sister reporting to the family) that now all they have to do is heal from it all.

Along with a lifetime of her being immunosuppressed now, but hey, a lifetime, now.

To all who Thought Good Thoughts their way or said prayers, I am grateful. Thank you. To life!

Scene: 60-something couple, married ‘life, the universe, and everything’ years.

Him, coming into the kitchen: What’s in the oven?

Her, from the other room: A sweater. (Like, what else do you put in an oven? Does not say that part out loud.) Oh and the last of the raspberry muffins on the counter’s for you.

Him, reaching to munch muffin: A sweater.

Her: Yes.

Him: You are so weird.

Her, beaming in the glow of the compliment: Thank you! It’s to kill the little buggies.

He pops the last of the muffin in his mouth as he walks away shaking his head but gets caught cracking that impish grin.

And scene.

An official letter was read to the congregation today: a reminder that the Church is officially neutral on all things political, but asking that members consider the words and teachings and example of Jesus Himself: to seek for those who try to live by His message of love and empathy towards all others, be that office-seeker of whatever or no religion they may.

(And then get out there and do right by your fellow citizens and VOTE.)

I will add here that, Utah notwithstanding, the actual stance of the Mormon Church on abortion is that although it is highly discouraged in cases that are not medically necessary, it is ultimately rightfully only the choice of the woman, her doctor, and her God.

We did something way better than going to San Francisco for chocolate: we visited our friend in the hospital and chatted and cheered and swapped hospital-food stories and left her and her husband with smiles on their faces–and ours, too.

I somehow left out of yesterday’s long list (I thought it was in there, but no) that our elderly friend Walt had died that morning. That I got an email from a mutual friend asking if I could help out, that when I answered, Sure, what do you need, expecting it to be about Walt’s wife in a nursing home because of course you’d expect that, the answer I got was a clear phishing expedition. “I’ll pay you back when I get back in town…” As if. He’d been hacked. On that day of all days.

I can’t hear our new widow on the phone and she can’t type to me and I don’t feel mobile enough yet to risk driving. Aargh.

Today a fake-Amazon spammer called every two or three minutes and one can only wonder if I got put on a list of suckers who’ll respond. The same recording. For hours. It makes no sense; I mean, who ever caves and believes their lie after hanging up the first twenty times?

What finally stopped it is when I let it go to the answering machine several times in a row. I should have done that sooner, except that the machine is where Richard’s working.

I just got a note: the friend who’s been in the ICU had canceled the phone number I’d been texting messages to.  That’s why she hadn’t answered. Okay, got the right one now.

And I think I found the right yarn. But it is 600m and it is not wound yet and my back said, listen, buddy, I’m working with you on this and you gotta admit I’m getting there but you have to meet me halfway and that is not it.

So it is still a hank.

I started in on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s autobiography instead.

Today was a day that refuses to stuff itself into a neat little package. There was the Jan 6 Committee, the evidence, the videos, the emotions, the finding out a friend has been in the ICU but may go home by Sunday and she was going to answer our question about visitors when her doctor walked in and that was that, the joy of another friend in her photos with her new baby after they’d been trying for years, my being able to do my full 20 minute race walking for the first time in nearly two weeks although some of it was slow walking as muscles threatened but still, I did it and I read in a book that seeds sewn by birds flying around after eating are seriously called craplings when they sprout and I didn’t get any knitting done because the yarn I’d picked just wasn’t the one and I don’t know which is and the pumpkin that’s vanished from the market because people are using it to get pills down their dogs and that’s apparently a really big thing right now and I finally found some on back order a few weeks ago and it was even actually Libby’s which is real pumpkin and not butternut like most canned stuff and I’d forgotten about it and it showed up today and then I had to get a dozen heavy cans in that box over the doorstep and I should have sliced the box open and taken them over the threshold one by one and I should simply have called Richard from the other room to help and I didn’t want to stand in the sun that long and got the whole thing lifted over the doorjamb and scooted over with my foot and my back yelled WhatdoyouthinkyoureDOING when it had been doing better than that at least and I’m icing it right now again too but I got my walk time in and I made pumpkin almond muffins and put chocolate chips in a bunch for Richard and I got everything done and nothing done at all it feels like

and it was just that kind of a day.

The Jan. 6 Committee announced a hearing today for tomorrow, Thursday, at 1:00 pm Eastern, 10:00 a.m. our time.

I am in sudden need of replenishing my brainless-knitting-project inventory.

I have a cousin with a twin sister–who looks like their oldest sister, while she herself looks like sister #2, as if there should have been two sets of identical twins but the universe got it all mixed up.

In between are their two brothers.

They’re all married with kids but out of all that family, none were a match. There was the elation of finally going on the kidney transplant list to cure her congenital disease vs the knowledge that it could take years to find one.

But they did, they found one quite quickly. And he’s offered to be a living donor. They’re a match.

It’s her husband.

The surgery is next Tuesday. Hers will be quite long because they cannot do the usual leave the old ones in and just add in the new; the old ones have to go.

Heather and Nate, and I’m praying hard from here.

Y’know, about 90% of the posts on NextDoor have me wondering why I’m still on Nextdoor. But just, just often enough you find out something that really is actually relevant to the neighborhood that you’d kind of want to know about.

Not that this was one of them, but dang did it grab the attention. Per the conversation there:

There’s a hiking path up in the hills alongside the San Andreas fault line, park land because you’re not about to build on that. (Actually, on the east side of the Bay they did exactly that in the 1950’s because it was the cheap land and every hospital on that side is within something like 100 yards if not feet of their fault. Yow.)

So. There’s a contractor who either followed his surely-infallible GPS or skimmed rather than read the map. Or entered things wrong. Maybe we could even blame autocorrect! Didn’t notice that there were two monte-something names.

It appears he did not stop when what he expected to be a road quickly became a path cut into the hillside that might have room for two joggers to pass each other if they’re careful but most certainly not his big vehicle.

There was a spot just downhill from that track where there was a depression area created by the San Andreas.

He nailed it. He rolled his company’s new big work truck right over into it, fitting neatly upside down into the spot per those who have seen it up close. The only way it can come out is to be lifted vertically, and as he’s already demonstrated, there is no room for the machinery to do that in.

The scuttlebutt was that it’s been there for several months and the county or park service has decided to make it a training exercise: dangerous rescues and all that. Although on the human level, thankfully, there’s a door that is slid open so it looks like he got out just fine.

I imagine they’re waiting for the rain so they don’t set the whole hill on fire when they do it.

But dude. That is not the way to ask your boss for a raise.

Our entire bishopric was sick or out of town today, so leaders from the stake filled in.

The one who was to lead the service was sitting in his car beforehand going through a few notes before getting out, when he saw the woman.

She was elderly, she was stooped, she wore a headscarf and walked slowly with a cane, but on crossing the small side street and coming onto the sidewalk in front of the church, she removed her scarf, bowed her head, and clasped her hands together in prayerful reverence.

And then she saw him seeing her in her quiet moment. He was afraid he’d interrupted her reverie and felt like a bit of an intruder.

She waved to him. Hail fellow well met.

He waved back, and felt in that moment like he’d found a friend. Lovely woman, and he wanted to share that moment with the rest of us: there is so much love out there in the world to be blessed by, and for us to remember to offer.

Richard and I had seen her, too, a few minutes later as we drove up, but by then someone younger had joined her and was looking out for her so as not to fall as they headed slowly and carefully in the direction of the house two doors right nearby where our son’s old soccer coach lives.

I took the man aside afterwards. I told him that that coach has taken in several families of Ukrainian refugees and that I thought she might well have been one of them.

The speaker was someone who had helped me get the Ukrainian flag hats to the Consul General and his American friend, and I knew how much that would mean to him. And it did.