Back to the afghan, made good progress yesterday. Ran out of that ball of blue and went to start the next.

Crum.

It’s a thin weight and I’ve been knitting it doubled but there was only a single ball ready, wound up who knows when. This is the problem with working from cones: you have to hank, scour the mill oils out, hang, dry, and then wind every single one. Quality+mill outlet price+cashmere=work+time.

I went looking, found the rest of the cones and there was one cone’s worth that I’d already washed and hanked. Yay. I wound it up, and then wound it again along with that first ball because, two strands, intarsia, I’ve learned not to have two separate ones rolling around tangling when you only have to have one per color or section.

Knitted a good bit of the day.

Got up this morning and this time I finally saw what had been nagging away at my subconscious that whole time: I now had three strands of that blue on that new ball. It had already been double-wound when I did all that work yesterday. That’s what I get for letting it sit there waiting for two months.

I should maybe frog yesterday’s rows. But the beaver dam is finished now, the second tree is started now, that rock in the water is started now, that foreground tree is at its uppermost branches.

I had plenty of time to think about it while I slowly, carefully, unwound that tripled ball back into single and doubled ones. With resting my shoulders and hands time, those *558 yards took me most of the day. How, when you pull two strands straight up from the floor to wind them together, do they end up needing to be constantly untwisted as you take them the other direction? It was very obvious which two had been together a long time and which had not, and yet…

I picked up the afghan and carefully examined it in sunlight, room light, and thought, nah, it’s good. Nobody could tell that part was slightly different but me.

But you know?

I think I’ll let it sit in my brain and see how I see it in the morning. Sleeping on it, it turns out, is a good thing.

—

*Half price at the time.

Amazing how restorative a chance conversation with a neighbor can feel on a day when you need it. With a cute puppy thrown in! We are so lucky to have such good ones.

And then the mail came, and a farther-away friend had chosen to be the best neighbor ever, too, and I tell you. I want to live up to all this. Thank you. To life!

And it isn’t even the first of April.

A special effects artist got an Etsy order.

A police department got a phone call .

A cop got a story to tell for life.

No that wasn’t “human remains” discovered in the a.m.p.m. convenience store–it was a teddy bear (if you can call it that) from an artist across the country who does the haunted house gig.

It was intended to be ugly, but sheesh, not call-the-cops ugly. (SJ Mercury link. Here’s the FB link, which seems to work fine if you just X where it says to sign in rather than signing in. Also, it says bus station rather than the a.m.p.m.)

“The coroner’s office gathered the evidence, and the investigation is ongoing, Rodriguez said.”

It’s. A. Doll. Put it in an oak and you can call it an eye, doll, a tree.

When you weave, the weft thread finds its pattern between the raised and lowered warp threads and then half-circles back for its next row, adding continuity and the strength and smoothness of a selvedge at the sides of the piece being created.

I signed into the big blue website to read Sean of the South’s essay of the day and to wish anybody a happy birthday that might need it before trying to escape the clutches of its algorithms…

And saw the friend suggestion with mutual friends listed.

I stared at the screen, speechless. How. On. Earth.

So I went up to this good woman today who’d moved in about a year and a half ago and asked, How do you know Jordan and Jennifer in Texas?

Stopped her right there mid-motion. Her jaw. Dropped.

JEF?! How do *you* know Jef?!

(Okay, now I really knew she knew her!)

Said in the most faux-nonchalant trying-not-to-laugh tone, I answered, I’ve been married to her brother for 45 years.

It was fun to watch her being as staggered as I’d been last night.

And then I realized I’d seen her on one of our visits to the in-laws.

Turns out my brother-in-law had helped her husband land his first post-medical-training job. She was the one who, after my father-in-law was widowed, gave my sister-in-law a break by visiting him every week with her little boy, bringing a loaf of homemade bread and getting to know this character of an old guy who loved to make you laugh.

They’d moved since then, and then again to here.

All these months we had all had not a single clue.

She asked after DadH and I said, Six years I think? Richard called him to wish him a Merry Christmas and all the sudden mid-conversation was exclaiming, Dad?? …DAD!?!!!! He called his brother, who was there and rushed him to the hospital, and then he was quietly gone.

I forgot to mention DadH’s then-98-year-old friend in their ward who’d played in a band with some of his buddies at assisted living places to help keep the old folks company. I know she knew him. How could you miss him. Next week.

It’s summer, the finches and doves are foraging for weed seeds where once there was pre-drought lawn and I’m cheering them on because those non-natives are stabby.

And then I stumble across a discussion about how a rare and huge squash is the best of all the squash, that it makes a pumpkin pie that almost doesn’t need any sugar, that it easily keeps for six months, that more gardeners should grow it to keep it from going extinct because it has the best taste and texture.

So I go from the gardening forum to the seed company and check through the comments.

There are pictures of the North Georgia Candy Roaster hanging from trees it was not planted near. One guy said it looks like kudzu, another that theirs vined twenty feet to either direction, and many many saying, you need space for this one!

And I’m looking out the window and thinking, y’know…those big leaves could shade the noxious weeds right out of existence. Sounds like it wouldn’t take very many of them. How many plants did that guy say he had for his 200 pounds of squash in his yard? Hello Second Harvest food bank?

One said his grew so fast that he was afraid to walk out there and stand still too long.

Four bucks and free shipping. Yeah, I did it. Might even plant a seed for this year to see if I can still get anything.

Now I’ll just need a machete to go with it to protect my fruit trees.

I finally finished the 90-stitch hat that has been demanding to stop being possibilities hidden within a ball of yarn this past month.

I watered all the fruit trees–a day early, but so I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll have time to get to it.

I made almond muffins with a spoonful of Nutella in each and really made my sweetie happy.

I took a pound of apricots, split them, melted some butter in a stoneware pan, swirled it around to coat it, poured the rest of the two tablespoons’ worth out into some brown sugar, and then put the apricot halves in the stoneware and a dot of the mixture in the center of each. Forgot the cinnamon. Forgot the bit of almond extract that really adds to that. Because I was running in and out between that and setting the timer for three minutes to move the hose 18 times. Oh well. 350F for 40 minutes to make one of my favorite comfort foods and they are definitely good enough.

They originally told me the surgeon was booked up FAR out, so sorry. Then they called back saying they’d had a cancellation and would next Thursday be alright.

(Did I ask for a cancellation. No, no I did not.)

Thursday it is.

Today was coping mechanisms day.

Scene: CVS. I could tell you any number of ways I would have preferred to spend my morning but there it was and there I was.

There was a mom picking up her prescription. Her son, about 13 and trying not to be bored waiting for her, picked up a pair from the spinning display of sunglasses at the end of the nearby aisle and tried them on for the mirror that was probably lower to his view than it would have been just a few months ago. You know that awkward stage where the feet grow first and then the rest starts to catch up?

I was done just then so as I walked past him I told him appreciatively, Cool shades.

His face absolutely lit up. And so so did mine as I continued on towards the door.

Kids need their villages so much.

Actually, come to think of it, we still all do, every day.

I goofed: last night I reminded Richard of my appointment today.

He reminded me that I had okayed his having been asked to meet up with someone today.

We only have the one car. He couldn’t miss his. I couldn’t miss mine, I mean, I could reschedule, but…!

And so it was that the woman who knew all of my cousins back in Boston, being a peach, drove me to the clinic. She offered to come again to take me home afterwards and I assured her I was fine with my knitting till he could come across town when he was done.

Which meant we had a little more time to get to know each other one on one on the way there and I had a rah rah go team go! cheering me on at the moment I most needed it. I felt much readier for this. She’s the best.

I told the doctor about my grandmother having had–they said it was ovarian cysts–and being treated with what was then the very latest thing: massive doses of x-rays.

Her jaw was hanging and her eyes went huge.

Which turned into a laugh when I added, And then she lived to be 96.

Well all right then but we don’t do radiation like that anymore!

Well no!

I didn’t realize till after I came out just how much I had talked myself into believing we would just continue doing what we’d been doing, ultrasounds, attempts at biopsies, keeping tabs on it.

Not so much.

Not that having a period every day till I’m the one who passes at 96 was so much the problem, it’s that it had been slowly steadily increasing. That’s not sustainable.

(I told Richard afterwards, I didn’t want our two granddaughters to think I was willing to risk major pain and surgery and possibly losing my hearing just to not have to bleed anymore when they’re going to start on all of that soon. I didn’t want them to think that that itself was the bad thing I wanted to get away from. He said, I would never have thought of that! and I said, Because you’re not a woman. I wouldn’t expect you to.)

So. The only way to get a firm diagnosis and to rule out cancer once and for all is a hysterectomy, and there was no point in leaving in the possibility of ovarian cancer–out they go, too.

She gave me two surgeons’ names, assured me they were both top-notch, and said the Da Vinci robot would do the actual surgery. It would be laparoscopic and minimally invasive and given the age and stage of those parts, it would be a lot less of a recovery than if I were younger.

Oh, said I brightly, so they can do it without needing painkillers?

She said decisively, Oh. you. will. need. painkillers.

With Tylenol being the only one that doesn’t deafen me?

And that is why “But I don’t want to!” kept ear worming in on my thoughts for the rest of the day. We have to do it. I don’t want to do it. She’s right. We have to do it.

—

Edited to add, I suddenly just remembered our friend Lance’s story long ago of being in the middle of doing surgery when the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake struck, with his unconscious patient suddenly projectile-missiling as he and the nurses grabbed him and held him and themselves to the table for dear life.

Tell you what. Let’s skip that part.

One more day one more day one more day.

It was no big deal for two weeks while it was just too far away, but the post-op is finally tomorrow when I finally get to find out what comes next.

I found a UFO cowl because my brain needed the distraction and the creativity. I finished it and it felt great.

And then I splurged on a hand-embroidered blouse from Nataliya’s shop, NeedleworkUkraine, in the face of the latest Russian attacks because it was something I could do to say they matter to the rest of us. I look forward to wearing it for many years to come.

A potluck picnic in the park.

A family that had recently moved here from Boston.

I asked the wife if by chance she knew Grant…?

YES she knew Grant!!

He’s my cousin.

Then she asked me if I knew Tina?

Yes, she’s my cousin!

We bought her house!

And then, having moved here, they’d sold that house, with the closing being today in fact. I told her that Tina and her husband had moved to take care of her dad. He quietly passed away at home at 101 last year with family by his side.

Then she asked me if I knew Julie? She adored Julie, too, and Julie’s husband had gotten his PhD at Stanford, so maybe we’d met them?

Yes, she’s my *oldest cousin’s daughter!

No way!

(*My sister corrects me: Julie’s dad is the second oldest cousin, his big sister beat him to it.)

A bare spot in the yard over here, a small stray struggling plant seeded by the birds in a corner over there in the way of the peach tree I wanted to plant: would I like him to move this over there? (Motioning across the yard.)

Sure!

And now every summer I look forward to watching the hummingbirds darting in and out among the tall mound of flowers, grateful for eyes that could see what could be that I could not.

Richard’s Uncle Bill was laid to rest today at a good old age.

Many decades ago, he really wanted to be a pilot in the Navy but was told he was too tall.

Where there’s a will…

So he had a buddy sit on his shoulders all night long to compress his spine, went in in the morning, got measured at exactly the upper limit, and he was in.

There was a Carolyn Hax chat at the Post today, and I always know I can widen my perspective and come away a little better person for reading her peacemaking.

Or she’ll tell it to you straight when you need to hear it.

A woman wrote in, an avid gardener with pollenizers here, veggies there, an herb garden on the side. They’d bought the house three years ago. Her mother had found out she was terminally ill and so dug up her own sage and thyme bushes and gifted them to her daughter for her new house before she passed.

The writer’s father-in-law hated her yard and was not shy about saying so.

And so while the couple was away on vacation, he paid someone to come over to their house, rip out the front and side yards and replace them with what he thought it ought to look like. Why plant flowers when you can have neatly edged mulch?

She was furious and he was furious at her for not being grateful, after all, he’d spent a lot of money on this.

Carolyn was furious, too. She said taking the woman’s husband up on the offer to replant her things together as much as possible would be putting her marriage first and she said if she were going to offer any advice on this that’s what it would be, but no, she most certainly did not have to apologize to her FIL!

At the end of the chat she said her responses were being slow because she had never had so many people write in in response to a question before–all in defense of that poor gardener grieving her mother and those lost plants and connections.

Former copyeditor that I am, I noticed that pollenizer and pollinator were both used in their conversation.

I had to go check that out.

Pollinator is something that conveys pollen from flower to flower. Pollenizer is a plant that offers pollen, that feeds the bees and the hummingbirds. My Stella cherry is a pollenizer for itself but not for my tart English Morello. Got it.

I mentioned the letter to my husband. My easygoing, always-look-at-both-sides husband.

MOVE, he said with emotion, surprising me. There can be no communication with someone who willfully will not hear you like that.

Move to where he cannot easily reach you to trespass like that ever again?

YES.

That had been my first thought, too.

But then (in our case it was a bad boss, not a relative) 38 years ago, we did exactly that.

Now there’s a word for your next spelling bee.

The Atlantic did a fascinating piece a few years ago that is new to me. I think it’s stuck behind a paywall, but if you can get it to work, it’s here.

They’d discovered twins who were both fraternal and identical–and different genders.

Definitely only one placenta. Definitely looked like a boy and a girl.

Normally, they explained, if two sperm make it to one egg the result has three sets of chromosomes and is nonviable. What they figured happened was that that happened and survived long enough to split into three: the girl, the boy, and a third part that could not grow.

But.

The girl is 90/10 female.

The boy is 53/47 male.

The split wasn’t evenly boy/girl down the middle and both have parts of each other’s DNA.

Biology not only doesn’t always follow the rules, sometimes it plays Calvinball for the exuberance of joy that it can. To life!

He didn’t recognize the song last night, but then, I’m not the voice on the radio singing it from way back when to give him context and I had no idea of the words beyond the chorus. It’s just one of those catchy little tunes that pops up in the brain every decade or two and wants to get you to dance.

So I went and looked it up.

The No No Song, by Ringo Starr. (Me: It IS? Ringo?!)

Pulling out the second stained glass puzzle tonight, I found myself softly singing today’s silly little ear worm.

He didn’t recognize that one, either. So, repeat pattern from *.

Back Off, Boogaloo. By–you guessed it. Ringo Starr.

Which one of his will my brain come up with tomorrow.

He wondered why Ringo was using that word and what it meant.

Okay, Merriam Webster says this, that it’s Latin-inspired 60’s music, Collins says it’s a fast dance of Afro-American origin, of couples not touching while they dance in quick jerky moves (that is definitely our generation!)  and neither one of them says a thing about the group banned by Facebook that Ringo had no way to know would steal and twist that word.

I bet they had no idea who it celebrated. The self-mockery!

But then bullies were meant to be laughed at.