While I look for that one last piece of paper so I can mail the forms off…

A note from someone sparked this memory. That and the fact that one of our kids was born April 15 and I am hunting for that stray piece of paper.

My husband and I had a small infant, our first, when we were invited to a wedding reception.  His friend getting married had grown up near Richard’s grandmother, who lived in a tiny town up in the mountains above Salt Lake City.  You remember the buffalo and the fence story? When I suddenly learned how fast and how high I could jump?  Yes, that friend.  Zane.  So.

We asked Grandma if she’d be willing to take her great-grandchild for an hour or two for us; as a very new mom, it was hard to be away from my baby for any longer than that.  We’d be close by if there were a problem. She said sure.

Velcro was still a pretty new thing back then. There was a woman in the town we were living in who these days would be on Etsy, who sewed up her creations for the local baby-goods store: cotton diapers shaped to fit a baby and that closed up with velcro.

I made a point of having those diapers on Sam so that it would be easy on Grandma. No fine-fingered maneuvers for elderly hands to have to worry about, just press together and go, although, I was hoping we’d be gone a short enough time that changing the baby wouldn’t be an issue anyway. I made a point of showing Grandma the velcro and explaining it to her, just to make sure she was familiar with it. She nodded, yes, yes, got it, okay.

Or maybe not so okay.  We had a grand time at the wedding, picked up our baby for the drive home, and thanked Grandma profusely.

She seemed less than pleased.  I asked if the baby had behaved well for her?  Yes…

It wasn’t till some time later that I found out that she was not happy with us at all. How could we have left her with a baby to take care of–and no diaper pins! She’d had to search and SEARCH and search till she’d found the diaper pins she’d used on HER babies.

I found there were these huge pins going right through the thick velcro. It must have taken her quite a bit of effort to push them through it.

And as I look for that silly (why is this one necessary!) paper to keep the IRS happy, I picture my late grandmother-in-law looking and looking for those pins…

Thank you everybody for all the kind words and support re my aunt’s passing.  It has been much appreciated.

Today: a doctor’s appointment.  The Casbah scarf was done.  So many projects needing doing all at once, all of them important to me, so many people to knit for, how to choose…  One particular someone in mind, it was a mystery to me what color she’d like best–but she’s a knitter, so I looked up her favorite colors on her Ravelry profile. (I know. That’s cheating. Heh.)

I dithered some more anyway and balled up hanks so they’d be ready to cast on with whenever the mood might strike. This one. That one. Love merino/silk by Blue Moon: would the Silkie stand up to the constant laundering a new mother would do? Would it survive being a baby’s favorite blanket?  Depends on how dedicated the mother is to a handknit–I didn’t know.  But I do know what kids can do. Maybe a shawl for the mom out of it… Maybe.   I flipped the rolled ball back in the bag.

The clock kept ticking and I just grabbed whatever felt right right then and went.

I knitted and waited for the (new) nurse to call my name–and got a few extra stitches in before I realized that “Hiddee” (she’s lucky I heard that) meant “Hyde.” Oh.  Right.  Hiddee/Us.

It was amazing to me how, once it was apart from the rest of the stash, the yarn in my hands there, which I’d debated and debated over,  once I was actually working with it, it was like, well yes: what else could I possibly have chosen?  Clearly.  This is it!

Sing it with me: love the yarn you’re with.

My Aunt Rosemary passed away this afternoon after a long fight with cancer.  My mother flew home last week and went to her older sister’s house right away and had a good visit with her, telling us afterwards that she was surprised at how energetic Rosemary was.

And I thought, yes.  Been there.  When you are very ill and then someone shows up who loves you, it is a very strengthening thing, both physically and emotionally.

Two days later, Rosemary had a stroke and was unable to speak, so we’re very glad Mom got that time with her when she did and the chance to create the memories she now shares of that day with two of Rosemary’s daughters.

The world will be a quieter place without Rosemary’s storytelling. She will be missed.

(Background to the left: Robert’s medicine blanket.  Here’s a shot that does a little more justice to the colors of my afghan.)

As for the black shawl.  I weighed my yarn carefully after my pattern repeats, wanting to make sure I didn’t launch into more than I could finish. It was so close; if I continue in pattern to do one more repeat, with the yarn at hand I should be able to get through about a third of the cast-off row.  Um.  That doesn’t work. I could add a different edging with fewer rows.  But it would break up the visual effect.  Jasmin offered to help me out, dye lot match and all, but I’ve been thinking the shawl is probably (hopefully) long enough now anyway.  But I wasn’t sure.

So while I was dithering, hey, what’s the best way to think a problem out?  Every knitter reading this is laughing that I should even ask.  Right.  So.

While I was at Stanford earlier this week, the charge nurse chose the dark teal Casbah scarf. I had enough left on the skein to make a second, and it leaped onto my needles this afternoon in a simple pattern–the one from the body of the Michelle pattern in my book, with an extra stitch knit plain each side, cast on 27–simple patterns making it easier to let the mind wander and figure out other problems. Like how to finish off the black shawl.

It’s so good to be back into knitting. And I mean really knitting. Finally!

It was time to get a knit on!

(I wondered if I could get a good picture of the colors and the deep black in the same photo. The answer is not yet.)

I knitted scarves for all those nurses, and meantime, the larger project I’d started had been put aside.  Black laceweight in a fairly fragile cashmere (fragile as compared to, say, the tensile strength of baby alpaca, the fiber I knit with the most often) is a bit of a challenge to work with. If you remember this you’ll know I am perfectly capable of dropping stitches in dark colors and not seeing till I go to block the thing.  This project would be far harder to repair and take far more hours if I had to frog and redo.  So the knitting on the black shawl for my surgeon was going very carefully. Very slowly. And for about a week there, not at all.

But with my new get-well afghan in my lap, how could I not be inspired?  Given how very thrilled I am at being on the receiving end of it, my desire to create that same thrill at being thought about and cared about like that has given me the push I needed to really get going.  I’ve done a huge amount of work on this shawl the past two days.

Meantime, the block in one corner has LynnH‘s handdyed yarn with a tiny heart and a sock appliqued on the square, and inside the sock, a note-in-a-bottle effect in ocean-colored yarn.

Haven’t figured out how to do that in the shawl. I guess I’ll just have to leave it plain.

A few weeks ago, a customer at Purlescence asked me how I liked the afghan.

Afghan?

Apparently, uh, oops.

And then a few people on KnitTalk started mentioning it: Elizabeth had been gathering knitted squares from folks who wanted to wish me well and a speedy recovery, starting back in January when things were so very bad.  Elizabeth told me last week the result was now finally on its way.

I promised not to peek at her blog.

(Did you peek?)  That was really hard! (I didn’t, though.)

Today, the mailman went past. No box. Just like yesterday.  Just like the day before.  The UPS guy let me be disappointed just long enough, and then, tadaaah!

Wow.

And just, wow.

Sitting on top inside was a large ball of silk yarn from purlsyarnemporium.com, a lavendar pillow, and, wrapped in gray silk, a stack of cards and notes offering hopes for my return to good health and expressing a great deal of love, over and over, as I opened the envelopes.

There are ninety squares in this afghan.  Some knitters wrote; some let their stitches state plainly and clearly what they were feeling.   Some squares came with stories, some of them were the stories.

All the yarns are soft.  They match up beautifully together, and if you’ve ever tried to knit squares of different yarns to the same size, even just one knitter working alone, you know how hard it is to get the sizes to match. And yet, in Elizabeth’s hands and everybody else’s, these all came together just so.

Elizabeth’s mother did a square that I’m sorry to say the post office has yet to find.  The afghan came up one short. Elizabeth’s husband knitted his first item to make the last square. I don’t need to tell her this, but he’s a keeper.

This last photo is a shout-out to Robinfre, who’s been signing her emails with these words for all the years I’ve known her: she gave me my best laugh of the day!

And now I’m off to Purlescense for Knit Night–and where 37 of the 90 squares were knitted and contributed when I wasn’t looking.

(p.s. Ed. to add: Jasmin and Gigi with their Knitmore Girls podcast got the word out for the squares being collected at Purlescence.  Thank you!)

Russ was one of two musicians playing in the Bing Concert Series at Stanford Hospital this afternoon.  A good excuse to go back to visit. I got there a little early.

(I brought my camera but forgot to use it; this is an old picture.)  Before Russ arrived, a doctor I knew came down those long stairs with some others; I called out his name and he did a doubletake. In great excitement he dropped everything and sat down next to me and asked how things were going and exclaimed over how good I look now. He couldn’t get over it.

He’d been my hospitalist six years ago when he was very new in the job, and again in January and February.  He’d seen me very, very ill, twice. He’d never seen me well.  It totally made his day.

Then a few minutes later, after Dr. D left, again, two doctors were walking by, coming from the other direction this time and towards the stairs, and I recognized one of them.  My face lit up and I did a small wave hi as he glanced towards me.

And then I laughed to my friend Mary sitting there as he glanced back away, “He doesn’t recognize me when I’m healthy!” At that, hearing my voice, Dr. C suddenly got it. He, too, stopped, left the other doctor, came over, and wanted to know how I was doing and wanted to exclaim over how well I looked.  “You had that surgery, didn’t you?”  Well, yes.  He was one of the ones who’d listened to me saying I wanted to give the Humira time to work, that I was so sure it would.  Well, hey.  It didn’t. And look at me now.

Waiting for Russ, the violinist came over to me and said, “You look familiar.” It took me a moment, so it wasn’t till after the concert was over that I got a chance to say to him, simply, “Marguerite’s celebration of life.”

“THAT’S it!”

And all of ours too that day, I thought. All of ours too.

Then it was time to go try to visit my nurses.  They either weren’t on duty today, or I just didn’t find them.  At one nurse’s station, the woman there looked me up one side and then deliberately down the other and pronounced that no, she could not tell me what day P might be on duty for me to come back to say hi.

Well, that was interesting.  I could just imagine P’s reaction to that.

Then, since I’d been a patient in three different departments, I tried the next one.  I had much better luck there; while I was asking, the charge nurse, who’d never had direct care of me while I was in, nevertheless recognized me, came up behind me and said, “I know you!” And to the woman at the nurse’s station, “This lady wrote a book!  She knits all these lovely things!” (I was wearing a Constance shawl, tied in front.)

Which is how she got first choice of ten lace scarves, only, not the bright green, it was promised to P. She took the Casbah dark teal in great delight; “For ME?!”  You betcha.  I wasn’t going to tell her that the lady downstairs kind of sealed it for her: you’re glad I’m here, I’m glad I have something that it turns out I’d knit just for you.  Thank you for making my day and remembering me.  Good for you.

She told me where to find C, the one nurse I already knitted for while I was still in the hospital. C was with a patient; I waited at the station awhile, then went over and stood outside the patient’s room, telling myself I didn’t want to get in the way while getting more in the way.

C glanced out the door. She saw me.  She did a doubletake as I smiled a yes, you! at her.  Her eyes got big and she came out and we threw our arms around each other.

I almost said, Wait. You’re supposed to be about a foot taller. I was always looking way up at you!  We were both laughing for sheer joy.

She said it was so wonderful when patients come back to say hi.  I imagine so: it validates everything she, as a nurse, goes through day by day.  It would remind someone working in the blood, sweat, and tears of a hospital why they do what they do.

To make people well again. To help them become whole.

It was good to be back.

Mom was wondering how stuff had magically appeared on her cosmetics travel bag in the bathroom.

Her first earthquake. And we didn’t even feel it, although Richard did at work. Granted, we much prefer quakes when they only reach entertainment level, and this one had created a mystery for her: where did this old contact case come from? How did this small packet get here? Why would her daughter have put them there?

A Goldilocks quake:  this one was just right.

The other California experience I wanted Mom to have before she flies home tomorrow was a trip downtown to Coupa Cafe.

So I took her there last week.   I wanted her to have the best hot chocolate anywhere ever.   I had all these associations with the place, so many positive memories: of Sam bringing the wondrous stuff home to surprise me with while out with her friends, of Richard and me enjoying a good tall mug’s worth on a cold evening in that beautiful old building.  Of the incredible Coupa dessert he and Sam bought me that was so rich it took me two days to eat it.  The photograph of a lush hilly greenness going across the wall of the rainforest farm where the owners’ beans come from.

When Mom and I walked in, the first person we saw was Sam’s old high school French teacher, who immediately asked me how she was doing these days.  I love this town.

Mom confirmed that that hot chocolate was really quite good.  But I got the distinct impression she could just as happily have been sipping away anywhere else as well; what she was enjoying was how much I was enjoying taking her there.  And being with me.

For a moment I felt just slightly let down, and then I inwardly guffawed at myself: well, of COURSE!  She’s your MOTHER!  What did you *expect*?  Or want, fer cryin’ out loud, woman.

I’m half tempted to try out her suggestion that we could create a similar mug’s worth if we were willing to put straight half-and-half in our morning cocoa.

But watch out for the aftershocks and keep away from the scales in the bathroom if you do.

(Taken through the skylight.)

I haven’t mentioned the outcome before over here, but back in September–you know, back when the economy seemed okay, back when we didn’t have thousands in medical bills and co-pays, etc–we decided to go for an old and very large dream of ours: we signed the papers. We were going solar.  Bigtime.  (Now if the car companies would only fall in line so we can charge a car from the house.  Can’t afford a Tesla…)

And then we had to wait for our panels to be manufactured.  Others who had tax breaks elsewhere with a January 1 deadline got theirs ahead of us, and we were okay with that.  But finally we got word that our panels were ready to be delivered and installed.

…The week I got home after nearly three weeks in the hospital with my total-colectomy surgery.  With all those skylights, dead center in one bathroom and above the sink of the other (but with a strategic door at least). Oh joy. Hi guys.

The owner of the company, who knew, told each of his workers they had to knock on the door and ask permission each day before doing anything or making any noise up there, that they were not to interfere in my recovering.  I was quite surprised.  And each day, they got told thank you for asking, and hey, go right ahead.  Work progressed nicely.  (I wanted it OVER with!)

It was worth every moment.

My cousin Dan and his family who came over last night–turns out they got the same panels a year ahead of ours.   Cool.

Now, this being California in a drought, if only we could do the same produce-your-own with water.  Suppose we could build a pipeline and help out those folks in Fargo?

My second Dancing Queen of the season has opened up.

Company coming.  My cousin and his family. The chocolate torte is ready (recipe in the comments.)   Happy Sunday!

Yarn: Lisa Souza‘s Mardi Gras in merino, a gift from my Purlescence friends’ gift basket when I was so ill in January. Now I finally get to play with it.  My Carlsbad Scarf is a good pattern for showing off a busy colorway.

Thursday evening I ran off by myself to the once-a-month South Bay Knitters’ meeting at Green Planet Yarn down in Campbell.

Where half the room burst into clapping when I walked in, and the other half had no idea why I hadn’t been there since October.  I explained.  I got quite a few hugs, and Beth, the store owner, couldn’t get over how good I looked–the best she’d ever seen me, she said.

But I didn’t buy her rosewood needles over there that were calling to me.  I was trying to be frugal. (We won’t mention that silk cashmere  that did come home.)

Now, the last time that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was in northern California, Jasmin and (formerly) no-blog Rachel (go see her new dress!) and I road-tripped together to see her. I took my knitting project and a backup, just in case; it was going to be a long day.

The bag with that backup had in it my pair of Holz and Stein rosewood size 5.5 mm (US 9) I’d used for all the size 9 projects in my book.  It was a particularly beautiful pair of needles, made from the leftover wood from making musical instruments,  a needle not sold in the US anymore, and that particular pair had been much loved for many years.

And I never saw it again.

It still hurts.

There was a pair of Destiny rosewood size 8s from Vietnam at Green Planet.  They had a beautiful grain, but the tips and joins weren’t quite what I’m used to.  And they just weren’t Holz and Stein.  As if I could ever replace that one pair anyway.  I passed on the idea.

Coming home, it having been a long and very busy day, I found myself suddenly almost doubling over in pain and nausea–only for about ten seconds, but it was a complete throwback that told me to definitely take it easy.

So of course today, feeling well and having an hour to myself, because I could and in reaction to that episode, WHILE I could, (after all, you never know), I ran back to that shop to buy those needles.  I did like the grain.  I’m going to at least give them a try.

Where Beth again couldn’t get over just how very well I looked.  And you know?  I realized on my way home, it’s a comfort to be told that.  Her delight may have been the biggest reason of all why I decided to try out her needles and made the trip back down there.  Because now I will always associate them with her caring.

It’s pretty much a tie.

The one inside is an Appleblossom amaryllis.  Behind the outdoor one is a Dancing Queen getting ready for her Ginger Rogers number.

Meantime, as an experiment today, I threw a microfiber cleaning cloth in the laundry with a pair of wool socks I once bought: they were supposedly machine washable, but I found that every bit of available lint in the load glued onto those socks like burrs from the first time through.

I wondered if that small cloth would do anything.   Worth a try.

The socks came out nearly free of all that had plagued them, aside from a few leftover pills.  The difference was pretty incredible.  So now having experimented with commercial socks first, I know it’s okay to put those cloths in with the handknit ones, and since it was so successful, I thought I’d mention the idea.  Most sock yarns wouldn’t need it, but I did once knit a pair of socks that had the same problem. (Okay, I’m waiting for Don to come up with some variation of his “Squaw burr-y Shortcake” pun.)

Meantime, the view out an upper window. It snowed a foot yesterday where my brother lives in Colorado; here, we’re snowing Bradford Pear petals.

It’s a race, and the outside amaryllis is winning by about half a day.

But the azalea laughed and opened this afternoon and beat them both.

The first picture is of a money plant, so called for how the seedpods look like a silver dollar; I sowed some inside that planter box 15 years ago, never again, and to this day there are a few upstarts. This year they’re growing on the outside of the box, just to be cute. I guess I got my money compounded with being interesting over the years.

Meantime.  Someone my husband works with stopped by last night, and I was all prepared: I’d found the perfect one.  Plastic pot–no ring of white growing on clay.  Needed watering–no damp spots on the floor of his car.  The stalk just starting–no top-heavy tipping over while he would be taking it home.

We showed him the huge dark red amaryllis in the kitchen so he could see what this plant in this pot I was offering him was all about. Then the Hercules amaryllis in the living room. I told him I thought his was red but I wasn’t sure; it should bloom in about two weeks.

“I’ll stop by your house more often!” he grinned.  And he took it home in great delight, eager to show his family.

Translation from yesterday for the hearing-impaired-impaired: “Would you like that warmed up with a little sour cream?”

Wombat was more fun.  Here’s a good link to lots of information about these down-to-earth koala relatives.  They are marsupials, but have the characteristic of rodents in that their teeth grow all their lives.