My prayers go out to those on San Bruno Mountain. (I’m not sure what that link will look like by morning; it’s being updated constantly.)

My Monterey shawl? The first one was knit for my friend Michelle, who knows and loves the living things that are along the edges of the tides.

Her husband is a firefighter and he is probably up on that mountain.  I am saying prayers for him and for so many others.  I am holding my breath.

The current report is that a 24-inch gas main blew up in a residential neighborhood this evening and spread to ten acres so far.

So this guy  calls himself a pastor.  He’s broke and on the verge of losing his property.  So he comes up with a way to scare up major notoriety and grab attention from all over the world and to get his hands in the pockets of people who are creeps like himself.

He’s not quite Westboro yet, but he’s definitely working on it.

I have this deeply-felt wish: that the good people of Florida go to where Jones plans to hold his Koran burning on 9/11.  That they race to protect those Korans from the flames unharmed as we want to be able to practice our own religions–or lack thereof–unharmed.  That they manifest the honor of our country, our cherished belief in religious freedom, and our goodwill towards our fellow men. Everywhere.

(Ed. to add: Half an hour after I posted this, the Washington Post published a report that Jones has agreed to cancel his bookburning.  He is now painting himself as a good person urging others not to burn Korans.  I think we have a new definition of chutzpah.)

Update–Afton, ask and ye shall receive: the yarn photo. My hanks came with mill oils that had to be washed out in hot water and clear laundry detergent.

(Don’t miss the bird caption.)

Last week, I had this road trip coming up; fine yarn on small needles wasn’t going to do it for knitting in the car (bouncy bounce!), I needed something bigger than that.  I went looking for–I wasn’t quite sure what.

That 70/30 mink/cashmere that had been waiting for the perfect design leaped out at me. (Mine is in English Lavender, not listed at the moment.) Size 5mm needles in lace. Yes.

I wanted to at last just see what it felt like to work with; you don’t know a yarn till you’ve knit it, no matter what it feels like in the skein, and I wanted to know if it was something I’d want more of as the new company comes out with more colors. (Note: the mink are treated humanely and sheared, not slaughtered. The guy flew to China to see and verify that for himself.) I wanted to justify its purchase; I wanted to justify coveting more, because I certainly do.

I cast on. I got a few rows done.

I did a few more the next day–and wondered what on earth about it was defying me.

And so I by-then dragged it along with me to Ruth’s, where, with mistakes, grumbling, ripping and redoing while looking out the window, I got a grand total of one 198-stitch row done after an hour and put it down and didn’t pick it up again. I wanted to see the road. I wanted to see the scenery change.  I didn’t want to miss a thing. Knitting could wait.

I again pushed myself at it yesterday, finally got it far enough along to spread it out to see…  And saw.  The screamingly obvious goof my brain had been trying to tell me about all along.  Too many stitches done too plain at the edges=stockinette=curling. A total beginner’s mistake, even in a limp yarn.  How on earth could I have thought I could let that slide…?! With a yarn that expensive, you do it and you do it right.

I frogged it to zero.

It is now happily almost knitting itself, humming along, the yarn perfect and the design is too now and it was hard to put it down long enough to come over here and blog about it.  I now know that it adds just the slightest, just ever so slightest, most demure peachfuzz effect that totally heightens the joy of the project when you frog this yarn. It’s gorgeous.  You should knit a whole shawl, rip it out, and knit it up again. Really. You should. You’ll love it.  Honest.

(Seriously: this is nice stuff.)

They must have seen me coming: there’s a pull-out section in the road to the post office with room for a few cars to park and take pictures of the birds in the Baylands sanctuary there.   But they already had the cones set up to block that.

So no, there was no place to stop and take pictures of the herd of goats (so little! So cute!) chomping on the dry brush at the edges there, bringing down the fire hazard, and having been by there a few days earlier, my goodness can those things eat! A few were resting in the cattails, curling up with a good baaaa-k. It was certainly not my everyday sight.

On my way home again, just to top off the trip, there was a car in front of me that made me laugh in sheer delight.

It was a Cadillac El Dorado.  Not a new one by any means (said the woman with the ’99 minivan). But whoever owns it clearly loves that comfortable car. It was as new looking as its first tenth of a mile, polished with pride, with that Cadillac emblem done up in shiny gold and thin, orange pinstripes going down the sides just so, the car itself a lovely, vivid purple. Not a scratch in sight.

With one of those metal fish emblems on the back, one with “Jesus” written in the center just to make it very clear who meant a lot to that owner.

He’d dressed his car in purple and had it carrying the Name in the Bible.

Whoever that African-American man was driving that car, I so wished I could have told him about that good Samaritan he reminded me of.   He would have loved it.

Remember when I said I was researching treadmills? Ruth, whom I usually only get to see at Stitches every February, blew me away by offering hers.

Today, then, was the day.  Having gotten the master cylinder crisis already over with and the car okayed by my mechanic, my husband took the back seats out, mine being the car that was big enough, and we drove it to a place Far, Far Away.  (Shrek-and-see Deutsch?)

Where Ruth picked out a shawl and got a chocolate torte (frozen beforehand to be safe) and made us lunch and her son helped load the thing up for us. Hardly a fair trade.

“We have to take pictures for Chan.”

You’re right, we do.

She wanted me to model her shawl. Well, okay, blues with blue.

Never hand the husband the camera while teasing him.

Dear, wait–okay, could you take another one?  I think you got me at a bad moment. (As in, I *know* you did.)

“But the battery’s almost dead!”

I should have said, And we would need that battery for… what?…before we got home?

Oh. Right. Got to show those Central Valley tomato trucks, where you wonder about the ones at the bottom of that mound–now *there’s* a store-bought tomato for you! We tried to get closer, but there was a traffic jam and just no way to pass nor ketchup to it.

In Heinz-sight, it was probably for the jest, though.

(And yes, we did crank up that treadmill fast enough to flip me off the back, just to see if we could. But I’m ketchingup quickly.)

Thank you, Ruth!!!

He spoke in church today. He’s a young doctor who had just gotten back from a medical mission to Africa, and I know his wife was anxiously waiting his return. I asked if I could share his story here, and he told me warmly, Yes.

It was Sunday and he was in a city. He asked at his hotel whether there might perhaps be a Mormon church nearby?

The familiar in a strange place, the chance to worship with others where the Sacramental prayers are the same, no matter the language, all over the world.

Oh yes; just take a cab to the subway, get out at this stop, turn and go up the hill, you’ll see it, it’s right there.

He got off at that subway stop to find himself in a place where he, a white man dressed in a tie, felt suddenly very conspicuous. It was not a good end of town. And he clearly was not from there.  He was Other.  There was no sign of that church whatsoever, no safe haven.

In those moments, another man stepped off the subway. “He was wearing a purple shirt and carrying a Bible.”  That man was on his way to church too, and when asked for directions stopped and spent twenty minutes going out of his way to walk the stranger to where he was trying so hard to get to, befriending him and, by his actions, proclaiming the love of God in the world. By living that love.

And then he headed off to his own church.

The language is universal: when we choose not to be strangers, we are, I said to him and his wife, each other’s angels.

Funky computer glitch. Many thanks to the resident geek who saved the day-ta daah, and it is quarter to midnight.  So this is it for tonight.

I cast this on on Monday night. It is yet another open-at-the-front circular shawl, done on size 5.5mm needles, 23″ long lying flat and will lengthen out from its weight a bit the moment I pick it up–in other words, it is Friday night and it is now done and blocking.

Now, to get that much done that fast, I iced my hands at the first twinge, several times a day as needed. I wore the splints at night that I have for years, custom-fitted by a physical therapist to keep my hands from curling and tensing up in my sleep.  (Being allergic to aspirin, this is a necessity for me.)  I took frequent breaks, consciously putting the needles down at the end of every row or two whether I felt like I needed to or not.

Had I not, I would still be recovering just from Tuesday’s knitting for several weeks’ worth of inflammation. But I did just fine, and I can’t wait to dive into the next project with that intensity. (Why, yes, my nest did empty Monday. Funny you should mention. Overcompensating? Me?)

BlueIce ice packs are a great invention.

Last night at Purlescence, I did express some reservations about the yarn being very soft but a bit thicker than I’d have preferred. It’s Zegna Baruffa, which I think is the softest merino laceweight out there, multi-plied into a heavier yarn for Colourmart.

Yeah well. Just add water and there you go. I love it. It’s perfect.

We were told today by one of our kids off at school that maybe the “old people’s noise ordinance” here wasn’t so bad an idea after all.

Yeah… There used to be a musician in our immediate neighborhood who did some of his growing up in this town and stayed (when he wasn’t on the road).

I used to see this guy out taking a walk sometimes, which I noticed because I did too, (y’know, wave slightly at the neighbor or nod a simple hi in passing if you’re on the same side of the street) and man did he look familiar. But I didn’t have a clue who he was.

There used to be another neighbor of ours down our street whom we knew pretty well, the retired chief of police, who complained to Richard about this hippy neighbor of his just across the fence from him playing his music loud with his buddies but always staying *just* inside the noise ordinance; Ski was used to calling the shots, given the position he’d had, but he couldn’t touch the guy and he knew it.  Bugged the heck out of him.

His neighbor went on to design psychedelic ties.

And he went on to have a Ben and Jerry’s flavor named after him.

Which happens to be Richard’s favorite.

(I can just picture him and Ski, the Ungrateful Dude–all those free concerts he was treated to!–now that they’re both up there, with Ski going,  So, Jerry…  Teach me how to jam on that guitar of yours?)

As long as I keep knitting my hands aren’t getting the ice cream out of the freezer.

Nor the raspberry sorbet that would go so well with that vanilla.

Just another row.

Go ice my hands.

Yeah I hear you guys yes I could use the calories but he shouldn’t. No I won’t sneak it past him; if I get some, he gets some. Fair’s fair.

Put icepack back. Ignore pleading freezer contents.

Do another row.

Raspberries are healthyyy.

I’m not *listening*!

Calcium is healthyyyyyy. Makes you grow big and–oh wait.  You’re right.  6’8″ might be enough.

Just another row.

Just another half a row while they thaw enough to serve–if I’m going to do anything painful on the hands it is not going to be serving up rigid calories. It can wait. *Sssssh, you guys.* This project can’t.

Another row just because I’m an addict that way.

Eat (and share).  Gotta build up my strength for these knitting marathons, y’know.

There was one other thing about Saturday night at that clubhouse: one person actually DID see me.

A young mom with two very small children, one of them barely old enough to walk. They were doing the charming wobbly meandering exploring of the great outside world that people of that size love to do, and she was keeping a bored but careful eye on them while letting them roam a bit.  The little boys stayed together, pretty much. I’m sure she was making sure they didn’t get too near that pool back there.

Which meant she was standing in the walkway between the gate I was stuck behind and across from that open door I was so fervently wanting to reach.  She was in.  I was out.  She saw me, then carefully turned and did the I’m-not-seeing-you pretense, glancing my way occasionally without quite making eye contact again.

If that gate was locked in my face it was obviously because I didn’t belong there.  Well then.

Now picture it, a potluck party going on in that clubhouse, and me, dressed in a skirt and silk blouse and what I think is one of the most elegant shawls I’ve knit, a chocolate torte held up in one hand and my artsy hand-carved sassafras wood cane in the other hand, justifying my wavering balance.  The Birkenstocks.

Quite the scary stranger stereotype.

I called out Evet’s name as Evet walked past that doorway. Waved that torte. The cane.

I wonder if, feeling guilty later, the young woman perhaps ventured to check whose name the clubhouse was reserved in for the evening.

All I needed her to have done was to step five steps sideways to poke a head in the door and ask, Is there an Evet here? Someone’s trying to get your attention.

To be fair, yes, small children change direction and speed fast and unexpectedly; she would have had to shepherd them in the same direction to keep them in her direct line of sight.

It was easier to just keep to her own business and pretend she didn’t know I was there.  And I, openly dissed, could not make myself ask her to do for me what she did not want to do for me. Because if she refused even that–I’m a mom too. I would not want one of my children to feel so much worse the way that making that choice would cause her to feel later.

I have often thought how true the words are of one of Rachel Remen’s cancer patients, who told Dr. Remen, I have found there are two kinds of people: those who love. And those who fear.

When we close down and deny the humanity in those we don’t know, we deny our own.

I’m looking at this from the standpoint of middle age, remembering the boredom and the hassles and the interrupted-sleep nights of when my children were little.  Of some of the things I might have done differently had I had enough rest and some time to myself to just sit and think.  Which, come to think of it, is why I took up handicrafts–sewing, then smocking, then went back to my love of knitting–when my children were small. It stayed done. It gave me a sense of creative accomplishment.

And it gave me time to center myself and think.

I like to think I left that woman with a life lesson she won’t forget.  I like to think she’ll choose differently next time, never again wanting to feel the sting of that regret.  Opening the gate for me, or asking the others first to make sure and then letting someone else there take the responsibility of doing so–it would have been so easy. I would have been so very grateful.  Hey, she’d have been invited in with her little boys for celebratory chocolate torte with the rest of us, first piece!

There are many ways to learn not to choose fear.

There’s still some leftover torte.

At 1 am, not sleeping, I got up and walked towards the light brightening up the room from under the door. Hey you–what else can I do to help?

She sent me to bed. An hour later, she went too.

We all got up at dark o’clock for Oakland Airport across the Bay and the upper edge of the sun just started to appear over the eastern ridges a little before we got to our exit.

One very tired Michelle threw her arms around me with a fervent “I love you, Mom!” as I got out at the curb a moment for that.  It was so early.  The place was not crowded; Richard had pulled in at the end of the airline’s lineup, a bit of a distance from the skycaps, and as a matter of fact it looked like it was the only airline gathering passengers at that hour.

Michelle in her fatigue tried to get her three rolling suitcases going towards those skycaps. The littlest kept flipping on her.  Maybe she could stack them. Then she had twice the flipping.  This just isn’t working!  I said to Richard as I got back out again, You may have to circle around; he, affirming my choice, said, Sure.

The traffic control guy nodded his approval at my helping her in her struggle, I was told afterwards, and together we rolled those suitcases to where she needed them to go.  I turned, expecting to see the Prius gone, but no; there he was still.

She and we had been silently wished Godspeed on our way by a man wearing bright traffic stripes who knew travel.

Lisa, bless her, picked her up at the other end.

We got home in time to take a nap before that early meeting of his.

What I said to LauraN after her daughter’s comment was, beats serpent-dip-it-thusly finding new uses for a fondue pot.

And on that quick note, I’ll go back to helping Michelle with her last-minute packing. Like covering up her lemon bars, finding her another shipping box, wrapping her cinnamon rolls carefully for eating on the way to the airport, finding another box, putting away her leftover baby bok choy tomato soup, helping her finish her homemade dark-chocolate nutella she wants me to have, making sure she has cocoa for her hot chocolate and don’t forget your mug, and picking and eating the first homegrown tomato (which needed another day or two but it was share it now or never), a little Durkees sauce on our three carefully carved pieces.

Go Blue! It’s going to be very, very quiet after tomorrow.  She made sure we wouldn’t starve.

The guy in south San Jose tried my car this morning and it seemed peachy fine. Huh. So he took it out on a short road test and suddenly all four brakes completely locked down and those wheels turned not at all. He had to manually disconnect them and get that car back to his bay. The man is definitely braver than I.

I am all the more amazed they turned–just enough–for me when I desperately needed them to.

He commented that the brakes were new; yes, they were. That smoke I saw? Turns out it was a puff rising up from the tires coming off the freeway with the brakes in full blast yesterday.  The master cylinder was toast.

My regular mechanic is closed weekends.  Couldn’t ask him for advice.

This guy was open Saturdays.

The dealer is closed on weekends.

This guy couldn’t get a new master cylinder from the dealer till Monday. Would I like a rebuilt one, then?

I asked for an estimate while quietly googling ’99 Chrysler Town and Country ones: list price was over $1500 just for the part.  That was about the Blue Book right there.

The rebuilt cylinder? With tax and labor, it rang up at $377.  Amazing how cheap that looked by then.

They finished it at closing time, we got way back down there to pick it up, and I got to go off at last to a long-anticipated party of peregrine volunteers.  I had my car and I would get to go after all! Good and late, but verily, them’s the brakes.

It was held at a condo clubhouse.

The gate (there being a pool behind it) was on autolock.

The door to the clubhouse was open and no farther away from me than the length of my living room, and I could see two people I knew in there through the glass walls.

I called out.  Nada.  I waved my cane above the gate. Nada.  I held up the chocolate torte I’d brought for it. Nada.  They were right there! I was right here! If just one person would glance up!  I tried calling them on my cellphone and found I didn’t have their numbers in it.  I stood there for ten minutes, sure that someone surely must…c’mon, guys!… And then, as I got back in my very own car (yay!) going back to my own home, I reminded myself how good it was that I could do that again.

I laughed at the sudden thought of, me, I may be fairly invisible, but good European dark chocolate?

Ah, well, tonight was just trying to make tomorrow look good, right?

(I got profuse apologies, but there was absolutely nothing to apologize for. They’d had it propped open and the prop-er had fallen.  Sometimes life just does what it does and you go on to the next.)

I’ve got my car back! And a little extra chocolate on the side. I’m sure I can find something to do with it.

So I had all these things I was going to do today, and one was a trek to the outlets in Gilroy an hour+ away to look for warmer clothes for the daughter about to need them.  On a whim, I threw a small knitting project in my purse, feeling a little silly but you never know.  On another whim, I said I’d drive  and Michelle went, Oh! I thought I was going to. Sure, and how about I do it on the way back?

Sure!

Which is why a more experienced driver was at the wheel and the other driver got to learn new things without having to make any decisions in the moment.

Heavy traffic, lots of braking ahead, I was slowing down–when suddenly the brakes felt dead. Boom just like that.  My car is old but well maintained but oh well.  I was sure I was going to slam into the guy up there ahead of me, but no, the brakes actually worked even if they didn’t feel like it while I was pushing as hard as I could. Thank heavens!

I was in the next-to-left lane and there was an exit just ahead. I managed to get over several lanes and the traffic just opened up for me when I turned on my signal, how in that mess, I don’t know, thank you everybody and somehow it worked without all the things that could have happened happening.

Off. I got far enough down the ramp to where there was, for whatever reason, a stretch of suddenly cleared-off pavement in the margin, not much longer than one car’s length. I took it.   Before and after that point, the breakdown lane was all covered in dry tinderbrush that believe me you do not want to touch with a hot car in a California summer.

And that’s when I saw the smoke.  Just a little, then pouring out from under the hood on the right.  Please don’t blow up on us.  Just please don’t blow up on us.  (I flashbacked: I once saw a car with its engine on fire shooting massive flames fifteen feet high and it was three blocks from my house: the driver had pulled over right under a very dried-out olive tree. In front of a gas station.  I thought, flashback, you are not helping me here.  Shut up. It shut up.)

Meantime, behind us, people were speeding and cutting over the line on the offramp, seeing us and veering back into their lane and I was glad for every inch away from them we had–and very glad to be off that freeway!

Where, while we waited for the tow, grateful for cellphones, we saw a fire truck and then an ambulance making their way forward as the traffic started to back up past that point.  Someone was having a way worse day than we were. Gratitude check there.

AAA towed us to the nearest AAA-approved garage.  While I gave the owner our contact information, the tow driver quietly said to Michelle, This is NOT a good end of town.  Would you like me to drop you two off at Denny’s to wait for your ride home?

I almost hugged the guy. I did hug Richard later.

A shout out to KatherineL, who offered to rescue us when we couldn’t reach Richard at first. Thank you *so* much.

Coming home, trying not to feel weird about leaving my car to an unknown fate in the hands of strangers, Richard had a doctor’s appointment he was only going to make to on time now if he could go in the carpool lane.  We swung by home, let Michelle mercifully out, and I went with him.  He told me I didn’t have to, he could risk it if I wanted to get out too; I told him, You rescued me; I rescue you. It’s only fair.

And I was so glad I had that little knitting project.  My coming grandson’s little hat finally got all but the decreasing done while I waited. I think I really needed that.

And yet–Michelle and I were talking afterwards and we were both saying, You know? For all that that could have been, that was as pleasant as it could possibly have been under the circumstances. The tow truck driver was a sweetheart, the garage owner seemed a decent type, KatherineL was ready to run right there, Richard enjoyed the pumpkin pie piece I bought him to go while waiting at Denny’s. It could all have been so much worse.  We got off easy, we really did.

At least someone’s going to be warmer because of that trip!