On a different note: fifty Bavarian sheep got distracted by acorns and then, they believe, someone carrying a bag in.

A feedbag! Thus suddenly they were checking out the inside of a grocery store. I imagine automatic doors were involved. Lettuce? Nah, go for the drinks.

Meanwhile, the shepherd in the middle of moving 450 other sheep didn’t realize he’d lost a tithing of his flock.

The grocery chain, rather than going after the shepherd for cleanup and replacement expenses, knew a priceless ad campaign when they saw the viral video, laughed, and said they would sponsor those 50 sheep’s feed for a year.

Loving, laughing, forgiving. Thanking.

Man, doesn’t it feel great.

I heard from two more Minnesota friends today. Love Thy Neighbor is what this whole resistance thing is about.

One of the former owners of Purlescence, my favorite yarn store during its ten years, lives in the Minneapolis area now, as does her ex. He teaches at one of the local schools.

He posted that he is riding the afternoon school bus to the end of its route now in order to make sure every child on it makes it home. He said it’s not just fear that something could happen, it’s reality–kids have been snatched there by ICE between the bus and their front doors and as a white man and a teacher and just plain a decent human being he felt heavily the responsibility to do whatever he can to protect those kids and to spare their parents the horror of them disappearing for the color of their skin.

DHS is circulating a memo to its agents falsely stating that ICE have absolute immunity and that anyone who interferes with them in any way is committing a felony. Who decides what is interfering? They do. Ergo, you’re a felon and going to jail. American or not.

The NY Times broke down that claim: ICE are not cops and immunity was always qualified.

One agent was so horrified at Renee Good’s murder that they leaked the names and info on several thousand agents to an Irish relative living in the Netherlands. Who is not rushing to immediately publicize them but rather is checking each one out: do they still work for ICE? In what capacity? Nurses, daycare workers–leave them alone. Beating people up on the street? They want to verify that first.

Because good people have ethics.

The town paper says about 500 people showed up at that plaza last night. On less than 24 hours’ notice. Yay!

The phone rang tonight. It was our new House Rep offering a conference call to his constituents. Ask his staff to put you in the queue (so it isn’t bedlam), then when you’re on you ask him your question and we all get to hear how the guy responds on his feet. He started off by honoring the Hatch Act and made a point of not politicking, not advocating, just truthfully answering questions to the best of his ability.

People dropped in and out of the call as it went on and there were some repetitions.

Several asked, how do we get 47 out of there? The frank answer was, we can’t right now. He didn’t say Ro Khanna and I… that would be politicking… Just, We don’t have the votes. And then he told what measures he’s voted for, what bills he’s helped with, bills that would put limits and stops (to things that are illegal and unConstitutional and we all knew it.)

So, Congress. Who else wants to be able to be proud to tell their future grandkids what they did during this time in this country when it so needed their help?

We found out this morning that there was to be a protest tonight at the plaza in front of City Hall. We both wanted to go. Neither of us felt up to it this evening.

But we were there in our hearts and to you who did show up, here or elsewhere, you have my profound gratitude.

I found myself in the back yard yesterday looking at two Anya apricot seedlings to the right: they were small, but only because the pots they were in weren’t very big. There was a third one in a big pot to the left and it’s twice the height even though the same age. Those littler roots need some space!

Someone would love one if they only knew.

I found myself saying a prayer, going, If there’s someone who would really want one, please help me find them. Please make it so obvious that I won’t second-guess myself over it–because with Andy’s closing there aren’t going to be any do-overs after this year.

The phone rang today. It was Dave. We’ve known him since he was a teenager in our ward in New Hampshire; his kids are teens now. He was thinking he’d like to stop by and catch up a bit? See how we were doing? (He knows about Richard’s foot.)

Absolutely!

He was at one point asking questions about taking care of his young pluot tree.

I asked him if he liked apricots.

Dave, with intensity: I LOVE apricots!

He was certainly not expecting what happened next. To carry home an apricot tree, much less a specialty one–but he was very very glad to. Cool! Given a choice between little and easily carried or big he chose little. It’ll make up the difference quickly once it’s in the ground.

Just like that. Done.

And, selfishly, I’m delighted that I’ll get to see that tree growing up and becoming all that it’s meant to be.

Bill Gold was a columnist at the Washington Post whom I read when I was a kid, probably because they put him next to the comics, and he started an annual competition for the best funny word: one where you change or add a single letter in a given word to play off the original and offer a definition for your new one. My memory is that the contest ended when he passed, but apparently the Post’s readers insisted they bring it back.

(He also had another wordplay contest that I still remember one entry to: “I dropped the toothpaste,” he said Crestfallenly.)

Here, go have some fun.

I made myself take a good hard look at it. It wasn’t doing it for me, and spending more time on it was just going to make me avoid wasting more time on it in an endless loop of not getting it done. Out!

Doing that much had clarified what I didn’t want and what I did.

Thus the new baby afghan is 3″ long and I’m really happy with it this time. And just in time: next thing you know, I got a text.

There is another new baby on the way.

My father had an aunt who married late and had time for one pregnancy and got identical twins whom I still couldn’t tell apart when they were in their 80’s, but in this case it will just be the one. Long longed for and at long last, and she’ll have the best parents one could possibly hope for. I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am for them.

I had an OB years ago who had a poster in his office with a caption that read, A baby is G_d’s opinion that the world should go on.

The news. My stars. But I feel I owe it to my country to know what is being done in our name on our dime and to speak up.

I decided to go look at something else.

The recent rains did their winter magic: there is green sprouting across the yard and, walking off to the right, the Meyer lemons are ripe and vivid yellow against the deep green leaves and perfect. When have they looked like that! Wow!

Oh wait. The cataract surgery: I can see them as they appear–for the first time in years. At a time when the other trees are standing there bare, look how gorgeous the colors of that lemon are! Cool!

Heading back towards the door, I saw the pot.

I figure critters prefer planting things in pots than in the ground because the soil is a lot easier to dig into, but why do they always go for the edges? Never ever the center. Okay, scrub jays, they perch on the rims and lean over towards their feet, but what’s a squirrel’s excuse?

About the width of a cherry tomato away from this seedling was a cluster of six or seven all sprouting together.

In January. Outside. I love California.

I’ve learned that newly sprouted tomato plants don’t thrive if you pull them out to replant them no matter how gently you do it, nor would that competitive cluster fighting each other’s roots come to much, so they’re gone now and the one that was growing by itself has the whole pot to itself. I will soak it to help hold the soil closely together around it when I move the lot of it into something bigger and then keep it as I found it, frost-free under the awning and close to the warm house for now.

It’s definitely got a head start on the brand new year. I can’t yet know if its fruit will offer the sweetness of what I planted last year but it’s veggies and it’ll be nourishing and I’m willing to put in the effort to find out. Spring offering itself in early January, how could I not.

He’s somehow three now. He needed to show me his dinosaur.

I told him, Look! It has a great big smile just like you do!

It’s put your bins at the curb night and I had stepped outside to throw one last thing in there when, it turned out, daddy and toddler were out taking a meander.

So now I know that the baby on the way is a boy. Since I haven’t gone very far with the plain generic white yet, let me think whether that changes anything.

He worked at Trader Joe’s. He’s a little bit shy and yet has the most outgoing heart. He had a kid in college when we had kids in college and we occasionally talked parenting when the store was quiet. He liked connecting with people and asking their stories and went out of his way to make clear he was glad you were there, not some store-policy fixed smile but his genuine own. He might not start a conversation, but he’d be glad you did.

Then I didn’t see John for a long time. When I finally did again he explained and I exclaimed and I was so glad he was back.

His heart had nearly done him in. I’m not sure he’d even hit 50 yet. He’d been out for months. He was moving a little slowly and carefully now but he was back and working again.

Carefully.

There were some slower times when I’d see people huff and get in a different line and I wanted to tell them what they were missing. Their loss.

My times and his have somehow not overlapped for awhile now, which is a shame because he’s the biggest draw for that particular store. I figured his health had finally required retirement.

There were errands to run today and I really wanted to get them done because that rain was promising to get bad. (No flooding yet. Yay.) Pharmacy, grocery… Logically, it made sense to go to the Whole Foods with the underground parking and stay dry.

Something in me strongly urged me not to. Huh. Okay, whatever. I headed to TJ’S instead.

Look who was there!

Been a long time, he nodded with a warm smile as he started to check my stuff out. Old times all over again, man, it was great as we caught up a bit. Where’s your other? he asked.

Working. At home, I said, which answered any question about Richard’s retiring yet for him and his being there answered that question for me about him so we were even.

The next line over went faster but the guy behind me was in no hurry; his wife made a sudden appearance, put something new in his cart, and went off to find something else. He watched her go.

Then, seeing a lull in our conversation, he spoke up and said something to John and made him laugh. Watching them, it was clear they felt a longtime kinship, too, so I said to John, You make friends wherever you go!

He looked a little bashful and as if trying to explain to himself how that could be he smiled and said, in a tone of wonderment, I just show up.

That you do, I told him. Thank you.

And pulled my cart out the door and into the rain that looked a lot sunnier than a few minutes before.

Our daughter’s flying home tonight. She picked up a bug on the incoming and spent the week wearing a mask to avoid infecting us and a lot of time asleep, but started to pick up again yesterday.

The baby blanket is at long last done and I found the yarn in the stash that I think the next one will probably be made out of. Let me do some more sketches first. Starfish in gansey stitches, what other tidal creatures would work with that idea.

The doctor that the nurse took that hat to on Wednesday?

Fastest thank you note ever. Turns out his mom was a knitter. “She used to make me socks,” and he told me how much he loved his new beanie and that it was hand knit.

Used to.

There was so much love and loss wrapped up in those few words and my heart went out to him. I am so glad he got that hat.

If you’re going to be bewildered, at least have it be by something that doesn’t matter in the slightest, right?

I wanted silver. I settled for gold because I finally had my new post-op prescription in hand and I wanted my new, clearer eyesight and I wanted it now.

Oh Costco. Rose gold? With pink temples? That is not what I saw in the store. How did that happen.

I picked them up Wednesday night and waited till Thursday morning to start wearing them because the lenses were so different; I could have New Year’s Day to get used to them.

Today I saw more. Wait.

Who–seriously, who???–thought that a pair of women’s bifocals needed the joints where the temples meet the frame to be covered by–

I mean seriously–

metal teddy bear faces??? (I held them out to Richard and said, Please tell me at least those aren’t cats, no aspersion on cats but on stereotypes.)

No, those are teddy bears, you’re right.

I am dying to know who thought that that was the best possible idea to do to sell their product. It feels like a UC Berkeley prank in Stanford country: Go bears! Go Tree!

So, (whistling innocently) what are their cat’s-eye frames doing for their side hustle?

Eight more rows of seed stitch to go.

It was past time to decide what the next baby blanket is going to be because there’s another baby due about the same time and I need to get to it.

When you can make anything at all, how do you narrow it down to a single idea?

(Say the obvious all together with me now: Ravelry!)

Under Patterns, search: baby blanket.

Fifteen thousand six hundred fifteen matches.

I got through fifty pages of results, and I definitely got some inspiration and no I still don’t know what I’m going to make, but it left me wanting to ask–waving a sweeping arm out there–why? Why was there an elephant pattern on just about every page for the first thirty or so, till they finally started to peter out? Two rhinos, one giraffe, (hey, giraffes are a big thing with babies too!) and elephant elephant elephant elephant elephant elephant elephant elephant.

Scroll…scroll… You know you’re getting into the category of only one or two people besides the artist have actually made this one when the raccoons start showing up. (Nods to self, Bought that one awhile ago, maybe I finally will.)

I mean, I get the metaphor: babies are tiny yet before you can begin to comprehend it they’re all grown up and probably towering over you, and certainly over their original sizes. Yes babies and elephant motifs are a longstanding thing.

But I’d be an a** not to consider how it might be interpreted in today’s political climate.

I look forward to the day when things can be normal again and a cute baby blanket is just a cute baby blanket and can comfortably look like anything it wants.

Yesterday. Doctor appointment. Routine stuff. Done. We took a brief moment and caught up a little on each other’s kids; he told me with a worried sigh that one son had been laid off from his tech job right before Christmas. He has little kids….

I’m so sorry.

He appreciated that. Then said, Oh well. Back to work, and headed out the door.

I picked up my purse to leave–and thought, WAIT!

Already out of sight.

I stood in the hallway unsure of myself or what to do.

A nurse leaned her head out from around the corner, maybe at the sound of the exam room door closing behind me? And briskly walked over to see what she could do to help.

I pulled out the 1×1 ribbed beanie in Rios merino and told her I’d forgotten to give it to Dr. H and could she for me?

Her face totally lit up. YES! Of course! But as I was turning to go she exclaimed, Wait! What name do I give him??

(Oh. Yeah. Right. It’s knitted and he knows which patient always has needles going, but okay) so I told her, and off she happily went to go play a late Santa’s elf on a day when I knew and she probably did too that that very good man could definitely use that.