Well. I had a blog post all planned yesterday: I often tell people in colder climates that I miss snow, to please throw a snowball for sheer glee for me if they would. Granted, it’s easy to miss the stuff when you don’t have to shovel it, I know–I was having to toss shovelfulls higher than the top of the garage just before we moved away from Merrimack.

What prompted all that is that I checked the weather forecast a few days ago: snow showers coming in Provo.  SNOW? *NOW*?

So I was wondering how on earth I was going to… I mean, my shoes are of the open-heel Birkenstock clog type good for Californian weather, definitely.  Can you just picture it? With each step, the snow would go flip, flip up the backs of my legs. I’d be throwing my own little snowballs. At me.

I checked again last night, though, and the forecast had changed. If it does anything, now, they say, it’ll  rain.  Well. That’s better, but it killed my anticipated blog post.  Heh. And then Phyll and Lee showed up to surprise Richard for his late-birthday and I quit worrying about it.

Five years ago, our Sam graduated from college and I bought plane tickets to go: nontransferrable, nonrefundable, yadda yadda. Two days before the flight, I started to have a Crohn’s flare. Oy vey. I hoped it would let up. It did not.

So I called Southwest Airlines and explained my situation.  They were wonderful and let me transfer my ticket into Richard’s name in spite of the restrictions, and he went instead of me on that trip.

We have two kids graduating this weekend.  My colon is gone, so it can’t even think of throwing any Crohn’s at me; it’s my turn. Tie a snip of thick bright yarn on my suitcase to help mark it as mine at baggage claim–I get to go.

And if it does snow, I will scoop some up and throw my own real snowball, and it’ll be gleeful. After these last few months?  Oh you betcha.

(Ed. to add: happy Earth Day to all.)

Friends dropped by. Raspberry brownies (yum!) that they brought for Richard’s birthday (a day late, but they came out of the oven at 11 pm last night) were happily consumed, the conversation was a treat as well, and that’s about as far as I could get for a blog post for tonight.  It was wonderful.

So much to say. I can’t do justice to any of it.

I want to say how my friend Lisa, 20 years ago, decided she and I should go visit John at Children’s, that we did once a week while he was in there and how we got to have the joy of watching him coming back.  How the day Highway 880 was on almost total shut-down from an accident, the one day John’s mother Nanci couldn’t get through–Lisa had previously been a cop in Hayward and knew all the back roads.  She and I got our visit in, not knowing his mom was still stuck back there on the freeway.  It helped her later to find out he hadn’t been left alone after all.

Our time and sense of purpose together during that is what deepened our friendship to where, when I was diagnosed with lupus a year later, she was willing to volunteer to take my preschoolers every morning so I could go do swim therapy. She asked if I would then watch hers while she worked out.  Tara’s Redwood Burl shawl story in my book?  We’re talking about that Lisa.

I want to say how stunned I was to sign today for a package from Canada and find another afghan!!! and then, not only that, it was not one but TWO afghans made from squares people had started knitting in January via a Ravelry group to try to wish me back to good health.  Thank you, everybody, and especially Anne for putting all of those together.  (And for chocolate!)  All the well wishes, and arriving on the day I saw my surgeon, whom I adore, for a follow-up… Wow. What can I say? Wow.  How could anyone be anything but well after that?

And it was kind of funny, because for a moment there when I gave my surgeon her black cashmere shawl as I’d waited so long to be able to do, it was almost as if she might protest something silly like I am not worthy!

And now here I sit feeling myself precisely in her shoes. Wow. What I haven’t said on the blog, is, I had that allergic reaction but also a staph infection on top of it and we’re still fighting it.  The afghans are a great comfort–this little bit of illness now is nothing.  I WILL get over this.

I’ve only begun to look at that Ravelry site. I want to savor it, I want to take it in, I want to soak up each post.  But for just this moment I can’t give it what it so much deserves, because I’ve got so much to do because I need to bake a cake and go to the grocery store and and and…

I want to say happy birthday to my Richard!  Maybe that’s why there were two afghans  in there?  Wow.  (You see? I can’t possibly do justice to all these subjects at once.)

And especially because.  (Wishing her amaryllises from afar.) Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting just lost her husband after a brief illness, someone far too young to go.  (But. But. NO. *I* got better, so everybody else should too!)  I am so sorry for her loss and her children’s.

Love your dear ones.  Life is so terribly short sometimes.

And thank you all for loving me so dearly and so knitterly and so well.  I am utterly gobsmacked. Again.

So much to say…

In church today, the women’s group was having a discussion about the value of service.

One friend, probably prompted by a wedding invitation that had just arrived in the mail, brought up the memory of John T’s accident.  Of all the things people had done to rally around his family.  Of how much of a difference it had made to everybody to be actively involved in praying and in reaching out to try to make the burden easier on the parents, who were driving to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, 70 minutes each way across the worst of Bay Area traffic,  every day for three months.  (This is before they added Lucile Packard Children’s onto Stanford.)  Of how close everybody felt to everybody.

I looked around and realized how few of the people in the room had lived here long enough to carry memories of that terrible time.  John had been 12, crossing a busy street near his home one afternoon on the green (his brother was with him) and they had been hit by an older woman who was too drunk to know she’d hit them, much less that her light had been red.

His brother had a broken leg, but John…  Somehow, he was still alive, at least, but there was no medical expectation that he would ever be anything more than that again.

But he was one of the lucky few who beat the odds. He woke up from his coma after six weeks, not remembering even his family. He had to relearn everything.

They said he wouldn’t walk, they said he wouldn’t talk, but he did.  Twenty years later, he still has a slight limp and it frustrates him that he’s a little slow at times, but he’s a good, kind soul, the kind who, when you meet, you instantly know you are in the presence of a friend.

There was intense joy when he was able to go off to college, and now those invitations showing up are happily announcing his coming wedding.

The woman teaching today’s lesson, someone younger who hadn’t been here back in the day, thought she was going to change the subject now. But I raised my hand and told a part of the story the others didn’t know:

About ten or twelve years afterwards, I was stopped in the dark on that same road within a block of where John had been hit.  It was a drunk driver checkpoint, and cops were checking out each car one by one.  There was quite a backup.

I thought about it. It took me a few days. But the feeling would not let go of me, and I finally sat down and wrote a letter and put it in the mailbox to the police department in town, telling them thank you for that checkpoint and telling them  it was so important to me that they do that. I knew they got a lot of flack for those, and I wanted to be a voice of support.

And then I said why.  I ended it by saying John had beaten the odds and was in college now.

I got a letter back. It was from the then-chief of police. He told me this:

I am the cop who had to go knock on that child’s door and tell his parents what had happened to him.

And I never knew how it all came out.

Thank you.

There was a photo in the paper yesterday of tree pieces being cut up and removed from the roadway after a heavy windstorm the other day.  My outside amaryllises, however, being used to a bit of breeze out there, somehow did just fine.  It did help that they had an awning overhead and two outside walls of the house for shelter, but still.  Not such a fragile plant after all, if you give it a little experience with the elements of life.  These, even though they had buds starting to open that would easily catch like a sail the wider they got, gave way in the wind just enough to still stay upright and no more.  I know–I was watching them nervously and debating bringing them in.  But they seemed okay.

And then there was a green hummingbird at my tall one today! I was afraid to move, then finally reached for my camera, at which point it of course skittered away.

So I tried to get a picture to at least show you the flower it had gone to.  At first, standing on my tiptoes with my arms held high over my head, I got this, which gave me a pretty good hummingbird’s-eye view as it zeroed in.

And then, looking up from ground level, this:

Well, okay, but I really wanted a good shot of that flower, so I tried standing on a chair.

We’re getting there.

Oh, and: my surgeon’s shawl is blocked, yarn ends run in and trimmed, and ready to go. The cashmere seems so fragile to me! I keep telling myself that all knitted up into a fabric like it is now is much different from testing a strand held taut to break it; the finished shawl has a greater strength and resilience than how the yarn alone immediately seems.

Jack came home from Children’s Hospital today. I know because his mother rang my doorbell just before it got dark tonight to come tell me thank you for the koala, the flowers, and for being the friend and neighbor she’d needed.

I reminded her that Susan had made the  koala, and she knew; she said her husband had brought it to the hospital to cheer their son up with last night after I gave it to him.

I made the offer to bring friends from church to help with the packing.  It turns out their moving company, for insurance reasons, requires that they do all of that, but she appreciated the offer.

Her taking the time to think of me and come over, baby in arms, meant the world to me.  His smile did too, most definitely, especially after what he’d just gone through.  I just wish they weren’t moving away!

Susan’s koala bear that I mentioned the other day came through the mail uncommonly fast .  But I was starting to fight a cold and hesitated to touch it or take it across the street quite yet, and gave it a few days–that, and, their cars just seemed not to be around.

The mom’s wasn’t when I took the amaryllis flower over there, either, come to think of it.

Yesterday I looked at their empty driveway and thought, did they already move back to Ireland? But it was supposed to be the end of the month!  So when the dad’s car showed up, I decided I’d better get that bear to him while I knew I could. My sniffles were better, thank goodness.

He loved it. I told him it was from a thrilled new grandma whose love was spilling over and she wanted to share it with them.  The young dad, so far from home, was touched and grateful and thought it was so cute.

And then he opened up at last and told me his son was in the hospital with kidney problems and vomiting and had had a 105 degree fever.

Oh goodness. I told him my Sam had once had a 105.2 and it was terrifying; I so hoped his son would heal quickly.  And then I went home and prayed for little Jack. I’ve been thinking since then that I need to offer to help feed the dog and to offer to gather up volunteers from church to help  do their packing for them if they need it.  Anything to support them at such a painful time.

Wow.  The timing.  Susan, your knitted koala was not only a cute toy, it became the means by which that family had neighbors present for them to care about them and their son in a moment they needed it badly.

There are no small acts of kindness. Sometimes life shows you just how powerful a little gesture really is. THANK you, Susan!!

To answer Birdy–here’s my been there done that:

My kids once got into not the food coloring but the fabric paint.  Whichever child it was never got caught. But nothing I could do could clean the green (Lorelei would be so proud) fingerpainted smears off the front of the white bathroom cabinet.

I threw all the tubes out after that–I didn’t ever use the stuff anyway and it clearly wasn’t worth the hazard to my house.  Replacing that cabinet when we remodeled was simply the only way we found to clean up that mess that worked.

So. One of Sam’s first-grade friends was moving away and gave her a box of stuff including, you guessed it, a tube of fabric paint.  In bright red.   I said no, and tossed it straight in the trash.

The trashmen somehow dropped it out of there while going about their job. I found this out when I pulled into my driveway later that day, and–picture this.  With my deafness. Inside my car. With the motor still on.  And the windows up. I HEARD that four ounce tube explode when the tire hit it!

Bright red, and splattered in tiny droplets all across the front of the house; Jackson Pollack would be so proud.

I was wearing a brand new outfit I very much liked. Oh well. I ran into the house at top speed for a wet towel, knowing I didn’t have time to change, and then scrubbed as fast as I could, hoping hard not to have to have my entire house repainted.

My outfit was toast.  Paint from the towel had swiped onto it, Cat-in-the-Hat style, but that was small potatoes to the could-have-beens.  One last drop was left on the house, dried hard before I could get to it, but it was tiny. There were a few red spots on the otherwise-berryless male holly bush.

I got off easy that time.

(Suddenly thinking, as the daughter of a modern art dealer, gee, I could set off a whole artistic trend with this post, couldn’t I?)

A new day, two doctor appointments, making progress.  After I posted yesterday,  LynnH reminded me, “Alison–you’re ALIVE!”   She was right, and she even got me to laugh over a glitch in the TurboTax software. (When one is trying to enter copyright royalties, do not give the author or artist a screen about rental properties as the next logical step. I’m just sayin’.) Anybody who can make me chuckle over taxes…

…Speaking of which.

Two years after we got married, we knew we had to finish ours early because life was about to get very busy.  Richard was preparing to defend his master’s thesis; that was one thing.

When they told him when he was scheduled to do it, he pleaded for an extra month, which they granted him–because Sam was supposed to show up that week. That was the other little thing.

Sam arrived on a snowy April 15 and started teaching us what this parenthood thing was all about.  Never was there a baby so perfectly adorable.

My grandmother had been a concert pianist and had taught music at the University of Utah (before women were even allowed to vote!) Our Sam, at four months old, lay in her baby carrier at Gram’s, waving her arms and legs in perfect time to the piano being played. That’s our girl.

I learned what ipecac is when, at 13 months, she scrambled up a chair when my back was turned and snarfed the tomato plant I had in the window; Poison Control recommended I give her the stuff. I’d never heard of it.  In that case, they said, hie thee to the ER, fast.

A week later, I learned how awful it is as a parent to hear your 13-month-old screaming in a room where the parents weren’t allowed in as they x-rayed her fractured skull after she’d climbed up again.  She’d fallen backwards onto the concrete floor of our apartment as I’d raced to grab her to get her down.  No. You do not climb up on the furniture.

Yes I do, she thought, just watch me.

She was our crash course in handling this stuff.

She taught us we could be wise: she ducked her head suddenly into the tub during a bath one day and came up terrified and screaming.  Water was not her friend. That bathtub was her enemy. She fought it with everything she had–till the day,  a couple of weeks later, that her daddy put her favorite toys in the tub. And then her.

She screamed and she fought, as we expected, and then–she stopped.

There was no water in the tub.

Oh, okay. That’s cool!  And so she played with her toys while I did everything I could to make it the Most Fun Time Ever.  After that she had no fear of the tub or water again.  Done with that, moved on.

She grew up to be a kid who could handle pretty much anything.

And one who (ask Anya here) makes better hot chocolate, out of melted chocolate barely diluted, than even Coupa Cafe.  We got spoiled daily when we visited her and her husband last November.

About a year and a half ago, they decided they wanted a cat, and went to their local no-kill rescue center.  They fell in love with the cute black kitten; they got asked if they would take this other one also, since they were attached to each other? More on the cats here.

Sam often jokes about what her cats would do if only they had opposable thumbs; opening the can opener would just be the start.  Me, I’m thinking I’d teach my grandcats to knit. Anya, though–she’s fast and she’s smart.  Give her the taxes to do: the IRS forms would make as much sense to her as anyone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAM!

When my folks were raising us six kids, there was a day when Mom hauled my brother to the emergency room–Washington, DC is not a small town–and the receptionist looked up and smiled, “Oh hello, Mrs. Jeppson. What is it this time?”

I heard that story from Mom when I called her 26 years ago wailing, “Do kids survive childhood!” after my baby, my first, 13 months old and a determined climber, had ended up in the ER two Fridays in a row.

Mom laughed and reminded me of all the things I’d done that had helped lead up to that receptionist’s question.

But I dunno. When you call the hospital (this was today) and the person who answers recognizes your voice…

Two and a half months ago, after my surgery, they told me that some ileostomy patients eventually become allergic to the standard skin protectant they were using.  Hopefully I wouldn’t be one of them.

And I thought, my stars, have you ever met my feral immune system? It is NOT housebroken!

Two and a half months.  The fungal and yeast tests came back negative, the allergy patch flaming. That stoma paste is SO busted.  There’s an expensive alternative, and my insurance is just going to have to take it.  (I know,  I know, given January, we’ll all weep for them.)

You guys out there in the industry, creating Eakins and the like, you’d better keep researching and inventing fast, because at this rate I’m just plain hosed.

I think I’ll go wrap me up in a blanket for which I am exceedingly grateful to my friends and knit. Something complicated that will require a lot of focus.

Reader Susan to the rescue: she sent a knitted koala for the neighbors whose baby got locked in the car. Big enough to be safe for a little one, soft, cute, easy to hold and cuddly.  What Susan probably didn’t know is, remember my tiger? (He’s in this post too.)  My sister got a koala at the same time, so, koalas bring back happy childhood memories for me; I wish she could have seen the smile on my face as I opened the box up. (Wow, that came fast!)

And now Jack will have a little bit of America to take home to Ireland that is small enough to easily go in a suitcase or be tucked down the side of his carseat onboard. Cool. Thank you, Susan!

That red amaryllis yesterday? That photo was taken right before I cut it. The young mom and her family across the street are about to move home to Ireland, and it seemed to me that a large, bright flower to help cheer them while they pack and get ready and that won’t take up any suitcase space seemed just the thing.

Meantime, these will offer a wave hi at them from our side of the street.

Happy Easter!

(Ed. to add, in the proper tradition of the season, we can’t forget the Peeps, with apologies for the ad at the beginning. #30, of the Metro subway in DC, is my personal favorite.)

Amanda, I totally guessed it: the nurse I expected picked out the scarf from the yarn you gifted me with in Vermont. The colors were just right.

I had an appointment at Stanford’s outpatient ostomy unit yesterday, and you know what I showed up with in my knitting bag, hoping again to get to see some more of my old nurses.  And I did.

The whole time I was knitting Amanda’s Huarache yarn I kept thinking how good it would look on A.  And now it does.  Cool.

Two other nurses chose their favorites, and the bright green still waits for P; they told me she’ll be in next week.

But what most delighted them was simply getting to see me walking in there and looking well.  It was fun watching the doubletakes, followed by the hugs in intense delight.  Seeing me well validates what their work is all about.  Seeing me coming back to show them I am well now validates who they personally are and how they go about their day as they do what they do.  They care. It shows.  In return, their patients really do care about them too.

So I’ve been picturing them wearing their scarves the rest of their shifts yesterday. Maybe someone asked them where those suddenly came from in the middle of the day. Maybe another patient decided that they might come back later to say thank you too, seeing how happy it was making their nurse.

Maybe. I don’t know. But, knitting as love made just a little more visible: I can hope.

To tell the rest of the story:

I think, re the car rental company, it was just one clueless twit who happened to be the one that answered the phone there.  Can you just see the newspaper headline telling what he’d done?  Can you imagine corporate headquarter’s reaction?

My first draft of yesterday’s post was indignant for a different reason, though: the tow truck driver had decided to come after all, had roared up fast behind the parked firetruck, and the guy had leaped out and run to the other side of the car with his own tool while the firemen were working at opening the passenger-side door, standing closer to the mom.  The tow guy beat the fireman by less than a minute.

I noticed the fireman kept going at it till he too succeeded–he’d started the job for that woman and he was going to finish it.

The tow driver came over and whispered a hint at the fireman after both sides were open–the driver’s side works better and faster. Okay.

And then the tow guy waited till the firemen and I had left, which to me later meant so the young mom wouldn’t have the emotional support of the rest of us telling him he was out of line, because I saw him then approaching her door with a clipboard: his bill for her to sign.

When he had previously told a distraught mom he couldn’t help her, and when she was so obviously already being helped when he’d raced in.

So yes, the firemen opened the door without breaking the window.  And they were wonderful to the mom and the baby.

The tow guy seemed embarrassed by her show of emotions, weeping as she at last reached for her crying son and held him close. Or maybe he was embarrassed at himself.

I was pretty indignant. But my husband came home just as I was typing up the original post and calmed me down by trying to present it from the tow truck driver’s point of view: he might have been tied up. And then he got this call. The mom was upset. A baby was locked in a car.  That’s something he could do something about.  He finished what he had going on as fast as he could and came running to help, sorry he’d said he wouldn’t, and the firemen weren’t succeeding so he stepped in and helped.

And if I were really kind (and a little more naive than I am), I’d believe that it was indeed all selflessness on his part rather than hoping not to be thwarted in grabbing a quick buck.  Yeah, I wish… But I was grateful to Richard for reminding me not to judge and to look for the good in others. I thought that was my job!

Yeah right.  Dang. The guy’s actions still annoy me. Maybe they shouldn’t. Eh.

But I was right when I sat down and wrote about how wonderful the firemen  and firewoman were to the mom and her baby boy–that’s the real story. That’s the part that matters.  They helped not only with the mechanics of the door lock, but to comfort two people who so much needed what they had to offer.

I was on the phone on hold. On holdonholdonholdonholdyourcallisnotreallyimportanttousorwewouldanswerit borrrrrrringgggggg…

I have got to come up with a way to hold a phone close enough to my ears so I can hear on it while being able to knit. I already always have it on speakerphone as I hold it up.  There’s got to be a way.

I glanced out my window; the young mom across the street was standing looking in the window of her new car. That was a bit odd.

And still was a few minutes later.  (Still on hold.)

And still was a few minutes later. (Still on hold.)

I hung up on the voicelessmail and went over there to see if I could help. I’d guessed right; her baby was locked in there. Her own car, you couldn’t do that, but this was a rental and you could.

She’d called the rental company.  They told her it would be at least an hour and were not the least bit moved by a crying small baby locked in a car.  Could a friend go and pick up a spare key from them? No.  She called a tow truck; he said he couldn’t get to her anytime soon either.  Bag that. She called 911, and the firemen and a firewoman were wonderful and came straightaway.  They had the equipment to hopefully unlock the door, but said they would break a window if need be. The mom said fine. They agreed with her that her baby was all that mattered; he was pretty distraught in there.

I was impressed at how gentle they were with the mom.  The older of the men told her he’d done that too once back in the day with his own baby.  The firewoman smiled at the baby and told the mom how cute he was.  They not only helped her with her car, they helped her feel supported in a situation that was very hard on her.

Good folks.  I was impressed.

And the knitter in me is wondering what to make her small son to help her feel better…