Don loaned me his copy of Stones Into Schools, by Greg Mortenson, one of the most important books I’ve read in my life. Mortenson writes well and lives well: the man loves deeply.  And by that love’s work he is changing the world.

I’ve been savoring it slowly, a chapter or two a night–and then today couldn’t stand the wait and simply read through it all. I didn’t want to put any of those living characters down.  I wanted to support their cause of hiring the local population to build and staff good schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan and requiring that girls make up half the student population, both by my attention and financially.

I immediately ordered a copy of Three Cups of Tea.

I cannot begin to say how important it is that this man, and those who work with him, are alive in this world and that they are doing what they are doing (and how glad I am that our soldiers are being told to read Three Cups).  We are the ones being educated, too, by Mortenson’s showing who these people are and what their lives are like.  They respond to being cared about, just like we all do.

I did not know that the custom was, before one goes to war, the elders properly sit down with the opposing elders to discuss whether they can afford the costs: the winning side is to take on the solemn obligation to support the widows and children left behind.

My thanks to all who supported Mortenson’s cause by their donations long before I opened the book and let myself see beyond just the titles of two bestsellers.  There are students at 145 new built-t0-code schools and counting who will always know who, along with the dedicated labor of their families and neighbors, made it so they could learn to read and see the world through what others too may write.

It’s amazing how much good a little wool on one’s head can do.

A year and a half ago a big and much appreciated get-well basket was left on our doorstep, full of scrumptious yarns and handknits like the cashmere fingerless gloves from Jasmin–who, when Purlescence was having a sale on that cashmere awhile earlier, had let me have the black that she’d already picked out for herself when I oohed and aahed over it. Just because she’s nice like that.

That black cashmere became my first surgeon’s shawl.

She kept the light aqua blue for herself, and then gave that to me too, in that basket, all knitted up. I was blown away.

But there was one thing in there that came with no name, no tag, no way of knowing who it was from for me to say thank you.

Stephanie was blogging today about it being cold and her daughter putting on a hat and Stephanie’s sudden need to start knitting one.

It’s cold here too this evening. I was reading that and thought, that’s what I need! A hat! And I reached over for that gray and purple one and felt warmed all over again by the thoughtfulness of someone out there. Thank you…

It has been a very useful hat. Last winter, did I steal all the blankets at night? No, I reached over my head into the headboard and fumbled that thing on in my half-sleep.

Although, you can tell I’m married to a computer nerd. He has been working on a long stubborn software problem, working on the laptop right up till bedtime the last few evenings.

Tuesday morning I was startled abruptly awake at a cold something and looked over–my snoozing husband was running his wireless mouse on my arm in his sleep, I guess because to his subconscious I can solve all his problems because I love him.

If you give a mouse a cookie…

The mouse (which, to be fair, he didn’t know was there) has been banished. Even though, theoretically, I could put Jasmin’s long gloves on to ward off its chill.

Uh no. Let’s keep it at hat.

(Hubs wants it mentioned that I still steal the blankets.)

It’s a cold, tool world.

——-

Ed. to add: okay, just picture it–he’s solved the problem, the patent attorneys have gotten involved, and now they’ve billed a better mouse traipse.

A quiet day.

A brisk mile’s worth walked.

A little baby-blanket knitting.

A lot of looking forward to the next great escape!

Here’s where I’ve been: about eight years ago, during the worst of the brainstem lupus stuff, I set myself a goal to walk all the way around my block once. Without shortness of breath, without chest pains, without weakness. That was my goal for the year. And the next.  I did not make it.

And for awhile there, it was also to feel well enough again to be able to drive a car without worrying about my blood pressure getting too low. I did not make it. I chose, and will always choose, to err on the side of caution on that one, this driver‘s choices being a good reason why.

Now, back when my kids were little, I used to racewalk four to five miles every morning before my husband left for work–my much-needed time to myself in the great outdoors, time to work out, time to just be out and SEE to recharge the batteries before starting in on the day with three children four and under.

Then the fourth child arrived, the lupus hit, the no-sun issue surfaced, and all together it added up to years of wishing keenly for all sorts of things.

And one of those was to just get in the car and go see the ocean again. Not our close-by Bay but the actual ocean. It wasn’t like it was very far. (Oh yeah, sun, right.)

My younger brother Bryan was here about eight or ten years ago and we did exactly that: we got in the car, him at the wheel, and the two of us drove down to Monterey, reveling in the rare time together.

Pebble Beach. The 17-Mile Drive. Got out from time to time (took the risk, how often do I get to with him) and looked at the seascapes below. The funky Monterey cypresses, the redwoods on Highway 17, the weirdness of the sign claiming copyright on all images anyone ever might make of that one lone tree on that outcropping as belonging to… You can’t copyright a picture you didn’t take! Silly people! Hanging out. Having a day to just go be siblings again.

I so wanted to go back there. I so wanted to cruise down Highway 1 and just be free of all health-related cares and just go. I tried to ignore how confining lupus can feel.

The B’s did not know that when they booked a cottage where they did for their vacation. It was simply a good spot for the things they wanted to do.

Bryan and I had driven right down that road. You go past the sign to 17-Mile Drive and there you are.

The best part of my trip yesterday, by far, was getting to see and spend time with the B’s. With serious chronic illness for two of us and a 3000 mile distance, this is a rare and wonderful thing. I think we two were both surprised at how well the other was looking. Acknowledging, yes, but acknowledging too how things are holding together in spite of all that as we created new memories to rejoice over with the old.

On a side note: going such a distance, and down a highway that occasionally turns into a country lane, a kick back and relax in the scenery type of road with slow produce trucks hauling artichokes from the coast and ambling at their own pace, one never knows what to expect. So I’d left early with the idea of Monarch Knitting as my time buffer: I’d wanted to meet LYSO Joan there anyway, very much so, for over three years now.

There was a big knitting retreat going on back then at Asilomar (wait–not SOAR, it was June–trying to remember its name) and my friend Nina was attending. She asked for, and got from me before she left, my author’s proof pages that I’d had spiral bound.

The first day of the retreat happened to be the day that Wrapped in Comfort was released, and the conference also happened to have a show-and-tell scheduled then.

Nina, bless her, held up that book, wearing the shawl in that book (she had wanted to own the very one, not a copy, even if it meant waiting for months to get it back from the publisher, so I did that for her), pointed to the page, and she announced, “I am Nina. This is the shawl in this book. You want this book. Go buy this book!”

And thus she led a posse of 50 knitters over to Monarch, where, she and Joan both told me later, Joan was just opening a box shipped from Martingale that had six copies in it.

And everybody wanted them.

Joan took a deep breath, made a decision, and pleaded with them: please, if I do this, promise me you’ll come back tomorrow?

They did. So she did: she called Martingale, on a Friday afternoon close to quitting time, and asked them to Federal Express Weekend Overnight her those 50 copies. And they did it! They got them out in time! The next day, they all sold except the copy Joan wanted to keep for herself.

She told me the shipping fees had eaten any profit from the sales but oh what a good time they’d all had!

I thanked her for giving me a book story to brag on for life. And I do.

So, yesterday I was making good time, on my way, passing several bicyclists who were off the road talking to each other, when suddenly a cop passed me, lights and sirens. A few minutes later, another. Oookay. There was a long curve there near Moss Landing, too far away to see why traffic had by then come to a stop.

And there we sat.

It was one of those times I was glad I was in a Prius: I turned off the fan to save electricity and thereby gas. We sat. Pretty scenery… But I really hoped things would get going; I did want to stop by Monarch.

After a half hour it all started to clear up again. No tow trucks, no fire engines, no sign of anything having been out of the ordinary. Curious.

To either side of the power towers at the Landing, there were swamps and birds that I wished I could see closer up.

I did get to go to Monarch. I walked in and the first person I saw, having cheated and looked at her website, I asked in delight, “Are you Joan?”

“I am!”

“I’m Alison Hyde.”

She knew exactly who I was! Totally, totally made my little ego’s day.

I looked around with the occasional exclaiming of delight as one room unfolded to another and ooh look there’s another back here! I bought a little baby alpaca. “Souvenir yarn.” I explained about the time buffer, thanking her for her offer to wind it but gotta run.

I had no idea when I got back in that car I was going to be retracing some of my brother’s steps from there. Hey! I recognize that restaurant!

And that’s where we all had lunch together.

The B’s happened to mention having gone birding at Elkhorn Slough over by Moss Landing a bit earlier, where a large group of bicyclists had gathered and traffic had backed up for two miles behind them.

Oh my goodness! You were there! *I* was there, at the far end of that! Too funny.  I asked Scott, Did you get to see your Bewick’s wren? Knowing he’d so wanted to and never had. I have one that hops across my view every day, moving like a cartoon figure the way it bounces almost faster than the eye can keep up with.

“I did!”

Cool! I told the three of them that I was now into birds and it was all their fault. They grinned.

Joan over at Monarch had offered to take the hanks and ball the two up for me and let me pick them up on my way back later, and that was really nice of her.  But…

I thought as I came back through Pacific Grove just after her quitting time, I was right. Don’t wait up. I was having too good a time just being friends in person again to get wound up.

And I did it. I know now I can do it. I knew, but I hadn’t tested, hadn’t pushed myself, and now I have. Along with their friendship, the B’s gave me back the most incredible, the most exquisite sense of freedom reclaimed.

I did it!

I didn’t see any of the monarch butterflies that make Pacific Grove famous, although there were three deer ignoring me when I parked in front of them near Asilomar.  And several old trees that were tall trunks only now with woodpeckers installing new windows in them, remodeling the places.

So much to say.

I drove down there to see dear friends on their last day of vacation before they flew home to Maryland.  They brought the regards of a mutual high school teacher; they’d seen him the day before.

There was only one way for me to get to see them, so I swapped my gas hog for the husband’s Prius for the day and went.

And I would tell you more about how wonderful it was, but anyone who’s seen people they hold dear after a long time away already knows all about that sort of thing.

I got in that Prius to drive home, wishing I somehow didn’t have to yet, and turned on (I thought) the lights. Spraying the windshield instead.  As always on that car, always.

And laughed.

One other thought: at the end, they surprised me by offering to drive me home while following in theirs to make sure I got home safely. Folks, we are talking very nearly two hours each way and then they’d have to go back to that hotel room.  I didn’t take them up on the offer, but the caring, the generosity, the thoughtfulness behind it, and my deep gratitude at knowing such good people and having them in my life, I tell you, it carried me all the way home.  Energized! Just by making that offer… they did exactly that.

All I can say is, thank you. Safe travels to you too tomorrow.

I’ll try to get a picture when it’s dry and in the daylight.  This is just so gorgeous!

I had some Kid Seta that I kept trying to use but that kept telling me no. I even started the first few rows of a shawl–but the no just got louder and I put it away for the right time.

Today, I broke off those few rows and tossed that little bit. (Frogging mohair…)

At Purlescence Thursday night, Sandi, Nathania, and Kaye had just opened a shipment from Manos del Uruguay and were tagging the new skeins.

I was so not going to buy any yarn…

Just one skein.  It took me awhile to decide which colorway of their baby alpaca/silk/cashmere “Lace” yarn (imaginative name, that). No two were exactly alike, which helped reduce temptation.

And then, seeing what I’d picked out, Sandi happened to think out loud that it would go really well with that Kid Seta over there.

Which I just so happened to already have some of.

I walked over and got one to put it with the Manos to see.

Sandi swooned. I swooned. Oh, perfect!  Splashes of silky light and, softened by the solid Seta fuzz, the Manos colors nestled down in and made themselves completely at home.

If you ever knit two laceweights together, I’ve learned, they both have to be fairly grabby yarns so one strand doesn’t snag and pull way out while the other one doesn’t–it makes for a beast of a repair job if one is slippery.

These were perfect.

And now  I’ve finished.

I will have to find out who the project is for: all I know yet is the keen sense of anticipation and delight that barely let me put those needles down the last two days.  Come tomorrow morning, it’s ready when life is!

Do I tell this one?

I was in Costco today. Nope, not a fingerpuppet story. I saw someone familiar and it took me a moment to place her–it had been awhile–but then I told her,  “Oh–HI! You’re from the Red Cross!”

She was clueless. I identified myself as the wife of…, one of their longtime volunteers.

She was speechless. She looked at me, stepping back ever so slightly to check me out top to bottom, foot to head. (While I mentally raced to think when the last time we’d seen each other had been–ah yes that would explain it.)

“You look WELL!”

I was standing up. That’s the first thing that had thrown her.  I wasn’t in a wheelchair. I wasn’t dead yet. Well yes, given how I was that last time, I see where you’re coming from but honey, the times, they are a-changin’. I mean that. Don’t make me go back there, I’m done with all that.

“You look, !!!, WONDERFUL!”

“Why, thank you!” (And since you are yea verily a little old lady I will refrain from saying the same thing back at you in quite the same way. Volunteering clearly is good for all that ages.)

It was good to see her; I waved hi over at her husband patiently waiting for her to finish up.  I told her our son and his wife were expecting our first grandchild, and she was thrilled for us. I know she can’t wait to congratulate Richard at the next Red Cross event.  Really really congratulate him.

I guess if I had to make people hold their breath for so long I have to put up with the outcome of being well now, huh? I think I can handle it.

How to get lots of knitting done:

The phone rings, giving you a time estimate so you can’t leave. Then the workers show near the end of that period, with no idea how long it will take them, so you can’t leave. Knitting kept me from constantly getting in their way and asking questions. (At that hourly rate, this is a good thing.)

It was the plumbers.   Having come here often enough by now, this time they sent a camera down the line to figure out just what was going on in there.

The guy who put in our addition put in a bend that ought not to be bent, and didn’t put in an outtake but it ought to have had an outtake. He also installed the water heater in such a way as to cause carbon monoxide poisoning, if not for the wallboard between it and our bedroom.

The inspector caught none of that. We got that water heater taken care of on our own. The pipes, well, they’re being taken care of.  Frequently.  Expensively.

Well, hey, I had some knitting I really wanted to get done.  I got in five hours straight. Ice my hands, the thing is blocking now, my shawl is done!

Old friends came by today: chocolate torte was shared, old stories swapped, all of it far too short but I didn’t want to take too much of the time the two sisters had while the older one was briefly in town.

Gwynn grew up with my youngest. Her big sister used to babysit my kids. I’m not sure why it should feel odd that time passes, but in the presence of good friends it matters not.

Amy reminded me that my wedding present to her had been two 8″ springform pans and the non-perishable makings for her own pairs of chocolate tortes, along with the hand-written recipe, as personal a gift as I could think of given how much she loved those.

Had she made her own since?

Oh, yes!

Cool.  It’s true, then.  Raise up a child in the way she should go, and when she is older she will not de-torte from it.

We’re in the middle of a serious heat wave. I’ve been being careful to keep the water outside filled up for the wildlife, amused and gratified at the finches’ tiny feet gripping the edges of the clear cup as they play bobblehead dolls, leaning way over to sip.

There’s nothing quite like making a small thing comfortable. They’ve been drinking a lot with the temps so high.

Last night, cooking dinner, I was surprised to see my favorite black squirrel with the red belly: usually he’s busy running around in the back yard. Just then, though, he had found me.  In the kitchen.  On the other side of the house.  He was doing the monorail act, lying on the fence just outside the window there, legs splayed two to a side, tail stretched out casually with just a bit of a lilt near the end, trying to increase his surface space to cool down, I’d guess.

He’d found the perfect place to relax and people watch on a hot feels-like-summer evening.

I looked up, startled at first to see him right there right outside the window. What are you doing here?

Watching you cook dinner, was the answer: as I went back and forth from counter to drawer to other counter to fridge, chop cook rinse clean, he lifted his head and turned this way and that, that way and this again, steadily watching, watching as I went about my work, while the rest of him stayed splatted out, completely relaxed. Just hangin’ with my peeps.

I laughed.

He leaped up! Oh good! I made her laugh–that means I get a cashew! And he raced over the house to the backyard to where he knew I would put one out for him, his favorite, as a reward.

How could I resist that?

Today, I was driving past the block that Milk Pail is cornered in and decided to try again: I was about out of bourbon vanilla, and I’ve found (insert big name brand here) to be watered down compared to theirs. You never know when the next big chocolate-torte-baking binge is going to happen; got to be prepared.

And lo and behold. A parking spot right in front.

The place was crowded as always and there was not a shopping cart nor basket in sight. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, it’s a mostly-outdoors market, and the warmth on their strawberries carried an intense freshly-picked berry smell throughout the place.

With a cane in one hand, that meant I ran out of other hands real fast because honey no way was I going home without some of those.

This was getting difficult. Which increased my incentive.  I looked some more and finally found a cart over that-a-way, but as I shopped there was a young man walking around, I’m guessing Middle Eastern, with his arms full like mine had just been and looking like all he wanted was for this to be over with. He looked tired.

So, let’s see, I got my strawberries, I got my vanilla extract, I got a few extras just because, with a cart handy, I could. (Shelf-stable coconut cream for dairy-free tortes.  Amaretto cookies, 200g, two bucks–yummm.) I glanced over at checkout and saw that by then he’d found a cart too; oh good. His face still looked like he was having a long hard day.

Sign that slip, I’m out of here.

But there were two little boys playing around the bushes and cars in front of the store, including around mine, laughing, running, teasing, being normal bouncy little kids with a parent shopping around in there somewhere, one hopes. I was concerned.

I hesitated. I looked. It seemed clear, but I know how kids can dart.  I got in my big blind minivan and–just then that man came out with his bags, and I rolled down the passenger window and explained and asked if he might check for me.

He not only looked and assured me, he stayed there, waving me back, double-checking constantly, looking out for those kids and me too, staying there till I was moving forward and on my way out.

It was such a small thing. And yet. He looked as if some of whatever it was in his day had suddenly been lifted. I was so glad he’d done that; glad for his sake. He’d earned that.

The greatest human need, I am convinced, is to be needed.

I went home and finished Don‘s chocolate torte–finishing off the last of that cream.

And Don, in turn, inspired by Friday night’s bidding war on that other torte, made a donation to Central Asia Institute, founded by Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, to help fund building schools for girls as well as boys in the most remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where most NGOs refuse to risk going. CAI funds the materials and the teachers; the locals do the building (up to code, too) and the teaching, making the schools theirs, not outsiders’.

Mortenson writes that his nine-year-old daughter asked him, after the major earthquake that devastated Afghanistan, what the children who’d survived all that did to play? To cope, they needed to play, what kind of equipment did they have?

He hadn’t ever thought of that.

She told him to start off with jump ropes but that they needed to have playgrounds. And so, through the wisdom of a child, the schools he was building started having playgrounds for the children.

A group of Taliban elders approached one of them after that, saw the seesaw and the slide and the swings, put down their automatic weapons, and played on the equipment! And then said, everything’s cool, carry on.

A small donation. A chocolate torte in thanks.

Another man willing to direct the traffic of one woman’s car so that someone else’s little boys would be safe.

It all comes together, in ways only God knows the extent of, when we look out for each other.

I’ve been scarfing down the Malabrigo Sock.

Now, I’ve often said that if you have a project you’re stalled out on and want to get going, put on an outfit that matches it: it’s really hard to stare for long periods at clashing colors. Happy combinations on the other hand practically knit themselves.

I got some work done on the baby blanket but found myself feeling restless and putting it down. I looked around my stash, and my Malabrigo Sock in Archangel (which matched the shirt I was wearing a lot better) leaped onto my needles and refused to leave.

Several hours’ worth of work later, it suddenly hit me: it wasn’t just the shirt.  I’d been knitting dinner. The very last homegrown tomato, a diced purple onion, the small bits of late-season peach, the dash of olive oil that I’d simmered together before throwing in a splash of good balsamic vinegar and the leftover chicken–those vegetables, right there, in that project, preserving that so-long-tended tomato on into the winter season.

Well, that’s a first!

Okay, so here’s what’s been going on in the background:

Richard came home from work sick the other day. Thursday, I was afraid I was catching it and not wanting to expose more people, stayed home from Knit Night.  Friday, he was better and I was fine other than that I was still very very tired.

That night the Boy Scouts were having a fundraiser spaghetti dinner. There was to be an auction of desserts at the end.

Anyone who knows me knows that means one of my chocolate tortes had to be there.

And so I pulled myself together enough to get out the door to buy manufacturing cream, one of the key ingredients, at Milk Pail. It’s 40% butterfat, no additives, and it has a short shelf life.

Now, that place is a good one for locavores, good produce and cheeses, and it is very popular. It’s also in a badly-designed lot with minimal parking unless you’re willing to walk a ways (and climb through bushes and walk through a blind intersection and never mind).

Willing is one thing.

I went. The lot was as full as if Thanksgiving were coming.  But there was one spot, right in front, right there–and their employees had commandeered it for the moment.

I had nowhere else I could safely go, sunwise, and I just barely had the oomph anyway, so I put on my turn signal and figured they’d finish up shortly.

Every single car that encountered mine after that as I waited had some totally stressed-out person for whom I was just the last straw.  Pounding their steering wheel. Yelling. Losing it.

I had done not a thing wrong. I’m still trying to understand it.  I wasn’t even close to blocking anything.  Maybe they were all trying to run a quick errand on their last bit of energy and couldn’t find a spot except for the one already spoken for?

The last woman’s behavior was such that I was afraid of her screaming at me in the store. Bag this–I went home.

Where I put a note on the ward chat list, not mentioning the screamers, just saying I hadn’t been able to park at all and I’d really really wanted to make a chocolate torte for the Scouts; if anyone else more hale and hearty had the time to try for me, I would so happily make them a torte too as a thank you.

And then I put myself on timeout and took a quick nap, realizing that if I were complaining to my whole church about the disappointment over such a small thing, I was having a meltdown and needed a nap.  Bring me my blankie.

I got up a short while later, much refreshed, checked my messages, googled, and found out that hey! Smart and Final carries manufacturing cream too–who knew?

So I sent out a second message saying thanks, all’s cool, I’m getting some after all.

I got my usual pair baked but with not the time left to cool them. I improvised: I put the cakes on a metal baking sheet to conduct the heat away, moving them to another baking sheet as that one heated up. It did help some.

Ten minutes before we were supposed to be there, I started the glaze. I tried too hard; I zapped the chocolate and cream too long. I wrecked the top of this one; I decided, oh well, I’ll have to take that one–the one that lost a piece to the side because I took it out of the pan before it was cooled.

It still hadn’t entirely cooled. It melted the top even more.

You’ve seen those lava cakes? I had a volcano in full flow with the side of the mountain given way for it to pour down.

We got there late.  By the time they got to the auction, it had set–looking like that, but at least it had set.

I noticed the scouts picking up all the desserts but my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree one and leaving it quietly behind. I grabbed a scout (whom I didn’t know) and told him, Tell them it’s Alison Hyde’s chocolate torte. They’ll know what it is.

Okay, lady.

It was one of the last ones, then, and some of the crowd had taken their little kids home to bed by then.

Dave, bless him, held it up high and asked, What am I bid for Alison Hyde’s world-famous CHOCOLATE TORTE!

My friend Phyl started it at $20. That quickly went to $40.

And I thought, Thanks, you guys, but–did you SEE that thing?!

Phyllis was having company Saturday night and told me later, I didn’t care, I knew what it tasted like!  But Jessica outbid her and got it with great glee.

Earlier in the day, Mary, bless her, had seen my first email and had immediately jumped in her car to go get that fancy cream for me.  But for all that, Milk Pail, alas, was out by then.

Tyler, bless him too, emailed me to say he would go in a flash if he could, if it weren’t for being at work, even before he saw the offer part of my email.

Those messages (there was another, too, but I’m not done yet) completely and totally made my day on a day I so much needed that. Just their acknowledging me made it all feel better; the fact that Mary ran immediately to go help meant the world.

Now.  A half gallon of manufacturing cream is a lot of cream.  Eight tortes’ worth.

I went back to Trader Joe’s: I stocked up on their bittersweet 500g Pound Plus bars. Baked, cleaned pans, baked.  And then I started calling/emailing/knocking.

Phyllis’s guests stopped me today to tell me how good that torte had been.

When I offered to bring Mary one, she and her husband instead came here and picked it up.

Ditto Tyler and his wife.

Jessica got a prettier one, two for the bid of one.

I’m not done yet!

What a cool way to use books rescued from a fire–just don’t check out the ones at the bottom of the librarian’s desk there. (I’m noticing the titles are turned in out of sight just in case.)

I wonder who first thought that books would make not only great bricks, but a mushroom farm–there’s this one in Quebec.

Creativity rocks!

THEY MATCHED!!!

Ahem.

Dear Webs,

You had the much-anticipated Malabrigo Rios in before anyone I know of; my friend RobinM saw it and gave me a heads-up. She ordered some, I ordered some.

You had seven skeins of Solis left and I bought three of them, but by the time you got to filling my order (they were going fast) you had two in one dyelot and one in a different one (a lot of places wouldn’t bother to notice that; thank you!)  The Azules I wanted was on backorder; rather than just putting my order on hold, you emailed me to ask, what did I want to do?

To which I answered, if it’s not too difficult, could you just send me the two and add one more to the Azules when it comes in instead of a third Solis–but could you send the Solis now? I can wait however long for the other to come.

The woman on the phone answered, understanding, “Well, it IS Malabrigo.” It’s popular, the quality is high, the price is low, there’s only so much, and sometimes you have to wait a long time.

What neither she nor I knew was that the backorder would come in the next day (or was it two).

Which means I got my package of Azules right away.  With no Solis. With (oops)  a packing slip saying both were in there. While the website said that even with that new order in, you were now back down to, you guessed it, two skeins of Solis.

Now, I think this is mostly my fault for asking you to make two shipments out of one and not canceling the order and redoing it as two. (The skein-quantity discount made it worth paying shipping twice.)  You were trying hard to do the right thing, but someone in shipping saw something irregular and apparently thought there must be some mistake and thereby they made a mistake. Happens to the best of us.

What I’m getting to, is, out of three dyelots of Rios Solis you’ve had come in, what happened was, I’m guessing I got THE one that best matches what I already had.  The new is ever so slightly darker at one point in the blue, but, the fact that this art dealer’s daughter has to read the tags to be sure which one is from which dyelot…

Thank you thank you thank you. You filled that order perfectly.

Except for one thing: you really should have charged me the shipping on today’s package. I owe it to you.