A fried light switch out of a set of three outside the kitchen. A package delivery. Time to play electrician. He had as a teen done the wiring for the addition on his parents’ house, the work duly signed off on by the inspectors, so a simple light switch shouldn’t take very long.

Mutterings commenced.

That plate had a really terrible edge on the inside where nobody was supposed to ever see it: sharp and wavy. The wrong lights flashed on and off when he was sure he hadn’t even touched that wire. The insulated screwdriver hit the floor.

He looked at me and in a self-mocking tone pronounced, Tarnation.

Now there’s a Southern cuss word for you, I told him. Thinking further, I wondered if I’d ever heard a northerner Yankee type say such a thing (we lived in New Hampshire for four years.) I was pretty sure I had not.

He thought maybe yes they had.

The short, great linguistics debate of the evening (feel free to chime in–that way one of us will find out we were right.)

And now I have my kitchen lights back and everything works the way it’s supposed to and nobody can see the inside of that plate.

Meantime, my new zucchini stem had twins this morning. I have never heard of such a thing before.

At that picnic on Monday, a friend who’s an oncologist asked me point blank out of the blue, How’s your health?

I admitted I had an ultrasound coming up on Wednesday, but they’d done one previously and found nothing so the doctor didn’t think it was cancer but wanted to keep tabs on it.

He said something about his patients hating ultrasounds and I kinda shrugged it off. But not out of ignorance–rather, eh, I know what I’m in for.

Turns out it actually was easier than last year’s testing. Yay. And for getting one step closer to ending this two-year period. The hard part is the waiting to hear. I have plans for this next month of my life that I am going to do (Hi, Mom!) because I said so.

I mean, that always works, right?

(Update: I just signed in and there was the radiologist’s report. No mass seen, no abnormal thickening. Yay.)

About 15″ so far. Side edges to be added at the end. I am still at times talking myself into that white–knowing that if it bugs me I can always cut it off at the row below the one I went to take off so that I have that last one holding stitches in place to tink backwards from. Knitting downwards from there, everything would be off by a half a stitch’s width, but since it would be ribbing anyway that shouldn’t matter.

I ripped out the original attempt at roots and over-compensated for those mistakes on the do-over, trying to make the lines of roots reaching over the Cabin John trail like I remember them, so I’ve started embroidering a few extra stitches here and there to make them match the heft of the tree. There will be more of that.

I need give that box turtle an eye.

I did four rows and then switched to starting a chemo cap for my cousin. It’ll be my carry-around project tomorrow.

Having your parents divorce while you’re starting to hit puberty can’t be easy. The kid’s had a rough time of it, the parents don’t have each other there for emotional backup as their oldest starts his teens, and I’ve been trying to figure out if there was anything I could possibly do but have come up empty for months now.

Because every thirteen year old boy wants to be best friends with a sixty-six-year old woman, right? Uhhhhh…

There was a potluck picnic in the park this evening. He and his little brother were heading to where the food was being set up when suddenly, to show off, he leaped up to the picnic table and danced across it, down to the bench, and back to the ground heading past me.

I caught his eye just long enough: “I was just thinking, another week or so and you’ll be taller than me. And then you did!”

That’s the first time I’ve seen him laugh in a good long time.

My friend Anne told me her story this evening and I asked if I could share it.

She and her husband had gone out for ice cream.

In her words, after asking me to pray for the elderly gentleman:

“We were waiting for someone to take our orders, and he gave up and walked out just as someone showed up. I went and got him, and paid for his milkshake. As we were leaving, and he was heading to his car, I told him to have a nice day.

That’s when he said his wife died yesterday. To say I was gutted is an understatement. I parked, got out of the car, gave him a hug and prayed for comfort and that good memories would counteract the grief he feels.”

To which I expressed that the fact that the employee had been out of sight to the point that he had given up while they happened to be right there feels to me like the choreography of G_d: had he been immediately taken care of, there would have been no conversation, no meeting of hearts, no sharing of pain nor offering of compassion nor even the simple gift of a milkshake on a day when he so needed to feel human connection. Enough to get him out the door to go buy, what? Ice cream? I can imagine him thinking, Why? What does that matter now?

But there was. It happened. There was.

She and her husband were part of the answer to the very prayer she’d sent up on the man’s behalf.

Or just below it, actually.

This little guy got caught trying to escape upwards into the awning for awhile. I had no way to guide its way out without risking squishing it and eventually it managed to escape on its own.

My first take was a monarch–but that big white area on the downbeat suggested a different tune.

You don’t need to get an ID app, your phone has one, he said. Push the Lens button below the photo and let go.

Regal Fritillary, was the suggestion that popped up.

It was fanning its wings a lot and they glistened slightly in the noon sun as if it had just come out of its chrysalis.

It probably had.

It was gorgeous.

I’m so glad it shared its new day with me.

(Coming back to add, So that’s why I spelled it wrong the first time: Fritillaria. That’s a flower.)

Some years ago I mentioned a woman in my lupus support group whose health and mental health were spiraling downward together. She was an immigrant and at that point had no support system here other than us. We all did our best to reach out to her but it was hard to feel successful.

One month, an unusual thing happened at the meeting: only three people showed up. Her, the group leader who is a nurse as well as a patient and a very gentle, quiet soul, and me.

Listening to S, it was a wonder that she had even made it there but that seemed a sign that some part of her still wanted to live.

In the quiet of the room she opened up just enough for us to see what she had finally decided to do and said I’m sure more than she meant to of how she was going to do it.

Which she could have just gone and done already and none of us would ever have known, but she hadn’t, which said to me that she didn’t really want to, she just saw no other way out but had wanted to see us and say goodbye to us first.

We did our best to just listen, to convey that we cared.

And then I raced home and grabbed the phone I could hear on, because my cellphone in those days was not it.

Riiiing.

I know, HIPPA and all that, but can you tell me if you *don’t* have a patient named–? I explained the situation.

The first doctor’s office staff, after some checking with colleagues for guidance on the situation: We don’t have a patient by that name.

Thank you very much! (Calls second office, repeats the question.)

(Checks with colleagues, too.) We can’t tell you that.

Alright, cool, she’s with your practice, I said, I thought so. So: IF you have a patient by this name, this is who I am and my phone number, this is who the group leader is with her name and phone number and she can verify that this is what this patient told us at our support group meeting a few minutes ago.

They thanked me and got me off the phone fast and were right on it.

Five minutes later the woman herself called me. She was furious.

DID YOU CALL THEM?!

Yes. I did.

WHY DID YOU CALL THEM!

Because: I knew you would be angry with me. You. Are. Worth. That. to me. You. Are. Worth. That.

There was a sound that I could only interpret as wanting to be angry but suddenly turning into what started to be crying but she hung up fast before I could hear more.

And then we didn’t know, and we didn’t know, and we could only pray and wonder, but the two of us never told the rest of the group anything more than that we were worried about her, and that was nothing new to them because they were, too.

Eighteen months later she surprised us by showing back up. She tired easily, but there was a resilience I hadn’t seen before. She didn’t mention the suicide attempt, just that it had been hard–really hard–but that she was doing a little better now. And she had learned that when you have autoimmunity affecting the stomach, your body doesn’t process food well at all and studies have shown that that can impair your mental function and cause depression. So they’d been working on all of that.

At the end of the meeting she walked out with me and once there was no one else around to see it, threw her arms around me and thanked me.

Our group went to Zoom with the pandemic and she was part of it for awhile and then eventually she wasn’t and we’ve all wondered and hoped things had held for her. She had come so far.

Our group leader’s phone rang this week.

Our friend’s family had moved to Canada when she was a child and then she’d come to the US.

I can’t imagine how it must have been under the current regime.

It was her. She wanted to touch base and let us know: she had moved back to Canada and had bought a place with her elderly mom and things were going very well.

Our leader marveled, She sounded so, so happy! I’ve never heard her so happy, it was so wonderful!

She was home. Country, family, everything–at long last she had come home.

We have some Cherry Garcia in the freezer, he said. We need some.

Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s said in protest at a Congressional hearing yesterday, Congress kills poor children in Gaza and pays for the bombs by kicking poor children in America off MedicAid.

This good Jewish man stood up and said Congress needed to let food into Gaza for starving children. The cameras were rolling. He spoke again and again on behalf of the little ones as they zip-tied his arms behind his back, giving voice at long last to his anguish and to that of so many millions of other people, knowing that a famous rich white man and a political donor at that, they might at least pay some attention to.

He was frog marched out of there during his arrest.

Here at home: some for him, some for me. Cherry Garcia was always his favorite and definitely not mine, but in that moment it seemed like the best ice cream there ever was and I knew I wanted to never turn it down again.

“In solidarity,” Richard pronounced, raising his bowl to me and to Ben out there somewhere in thanks.

Question. Weaving or knitting? (Embiggen to see the rest.)

Answer: Yeah, pretty much.

It’s banding day and I had a tab open to watch. But it turned out banding happened nearly two hours after they said they were on the roof getting ready to rappel down and I thought I must have missed it.

Plus there was less to see: in all these years the parents have vigorously defended their young, coming in close but never making actual contact. Till today. (Screen grab courtesy San Jose City Hall.)

UC Santa Cruz professor Zeka Glucs had her GoPro camera on top of her helmet. But not for long: Hartley, the female, swooped in, talons out, and knocked it right off her head. They hope the damage is not too much and to be able to retrieve at least its initial video. One fierce peregrine mama coming right at it in 1, 2, 3…!

Imagine having a raptor that can dive at 241 mph coming right at your head.

The count is indeed three females and one male, the one that’s two days younger. Females are a third larger because they have to be able to cover all their young since they do most of the brooding and keeping the young warm before they’re old enough to thermoregulate.

The parents tend to fill the tallest beak first and from the get-go Little knew the drill and would leap up for it again and again in order to get as high as his sisters, showing how energetic and fit and survival-worthy he is and intercepting like a basketball star.

These parents bring lots of food and those young are well fed. And healthy!

(Edited to add photos retrieved from the GoPro!)

Hey look! The computer found one of the photos from Mother’s Day!

Today I found a place that still had some Holz and Stein circular needles and crochet hooks in stock, the ones made from leftover wood from making musical instruments. How they had them I don’t know; the company quit exporting to America around 2000.

They are the best knitting needles I have ever used.

I had a pair that I had knit nearly every project in my book on. I had it in my bag when I went to a booksigning by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee in Santa Rosa, about a ninety-minute drive from here.

It vanished there. I still miss them. I can only hope that whoever found that circular either used them and loved them too or found someone who would appreciate what they had.

The only thing I’ve found that comes close–and they definitely come close–are the hand carved ones by Tom Diak in Vermont. After a hand injury sidelined him for awhile, he’s gone back to making interchangeables but not the plain circs I’ve bought in the past. I keep hoping. Full confession: I have never bought interchangeables, period. I once had a tip come unglued from a cheap needle with hundreds of lace stitches smushed together on it and the idea of the tips coming off, even deliberately, just gives me the heebie-jeebies.

This vendor had the size my current afghan is being worked on. It was slippery yarn on slippery needles, which got traded a few days ago for a dinged-up old wooden pair that just hasn’t been doing much for me  either. And now! Actual, sturdy, perfect-tipped, perfectly finished Holz and Steins! I can’t wait till they get here!

The price was about what I paid thirty years ago. Which was very expensive then but they were tools for a lifetime.

As long as they don’t hop out of your knitting bag at bookstores.

What Holz and Stein pairs I have now have been mostly knit-at-homes since then. Just because.

Do you have favorite needles? Am I being silly about interchangeables?

Called my mom and we didn’t talk long because my niece (not the one she lives with) answered the phone while waiting for Mom to come to it and explained that she and I think she said her sister were whisking her off for dinner with them. A whirl of happy to hear from you’s and they were off.

We should all be so lucky at 94. Made my day. And it was great to hear from my own kids. Hope you all had a good Mother’s Day, too, whether you are one or have one.

Just for fun, here’s video of a peregrine chick in its first attempt at climbing out of the nest box.

Banding day is Tuesday, based on the hatching date of the older three. It’s supposed to be before they start being able to wander out of the box so that they don’t scare right off the low edge of the runway when this big human suddenly rappels down from the roof while the parents throw a fit.

But this big eyas, and the one that copied it a few minutes later, didn’t read the memo.

Personally, my guess is that they’re going to declare it three females and that the one that hatched two days after the others is also smaller because he’s a male. But we’ll see.

The Musicians in Residence at the local college put on a concert tonight: violin, bass, and a piano played by a dear friend of ours.

And not just a concert but a lesson on Claude Debussy. Russ gave a bit of history and a demonstration of the heptatonic scale typically used in Western music, with a picture of it on a bar of music on the screen behind him. Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music children singing Do Re Mi appeared next to demonstrate and the audience chuckled.

Then he showed the pentatonic scale (five notes in an octave instead of seven) and played it. Then the whole note scale, no sharps or flats. Neither of them sounded like much with so many sounds missing.

But then he started playing some familiar gorgeous Debussy piece whose name I didn’t catch, and then another, using those scales. The fun begins when you mix them up between the two hands or instruments.

See! He said, bounding enthusiastically up from the piano bench and waving his arms at the audience. You can try this at home!

The next screen: You TOO can convert classical music to Impressionism! You just need six things:

1. You have to say it in French!
2. Pentatonic scale.
3. Use the sustaining pedal a lot.
4. Whole note scale.
5. Unusual rhythm.
6. I had a hard time seeing the last thing through the tall head of the guy in front of me and Richard doesn’t remember so I can’t tell you and
7. I’m not actually typing the numbers 6 or 7 but this computer program is expecting me to because I typed that you need six things so it is bound and determined to put a numbered list of six things here and won’t let me type anything without auto-adding those numbers and won’t let me delete the numbers after I do. It’s creating an Impression of what I’m trying to say. Russ would laugh and laugh at that.
8. And then, 8, after I said that and hit Save Draft there was no sign of any of the numbers on my Preview page, including the ones I actually typed and the 8. it put before any of the rest of this sentence.
9. So we’ll just have to see how this blog post plays out. (Still indented, too!)

The news today was horrific, again and again and again.

The new pope was the one great and shining beam of hope. A good moral leader calling on the best in ourselves towards one another is exactly what the world needs right now, badly.

I made myself walk away and pick up my knitting. I will still have nightmares over what people caught on camera being done by our own government on our dime and in our name to innocent people and without so much as a warrant.

But I talked a little to my sister and then I knit for her and tried to be a good voice in the world and found I felt just a little better because I had.

Slippery yarn on slippery needles: I ditched that circ at long last and was surprised at what a difference it made in how I feel about working on this. I’m not having to death-grip them every moment for fear of constantly losing stitches, like the 50 off one end while the other end dropped just a few.

My father grew up in Nevada. Ain’t a whole lot of freely growing lush green around there, and he took so much delight in what grew spontaneously in our yard in Maryland: *wild violets! The tiny wild strawberries, the buttercups, (hey, look! Science!) and under the tree canopy, the mountain laurel and the dogwoods. He played suburban dad with the lawnmower and the grass and all that but he and Mom taught us to love what was there. To blow on a dandelion seedhead and watch how it all floated on the breeze rather than freak out at the weed. To know a chickadee from a titmouse. To notice how the grackles were shimmery purple in the sunlight and black in the shade in disguise.

*That link is to an Etsy shop because all the good pictures I could find were from sites that were either telling you how to kill them off or else selling them.