I was in Trader Joe’s yesterday, and picked up a bag of a type of apple I’d never heard of before, a Jazz apple. Huh. Well, always curious to try a new type, sure.

I ate one in the evening and immediately wanted a lifetime supply on hand. This was *good*! Where do I get me a tree of these to put in the backyard!? Longtime readers will remember my mourning the lack of Spencers in California, but oh my goodness these were what an apple is supposed to be like! Googling the name, I came up with this link.

One tangent danced me straight to another. To remembering Tim, one of the best teachers my kids ever had in school, who taught them to love to play music and to love jazz and to love one another. He taught jazz at both the middle and high schools. His older band participated in a national high school competition at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and did so well that his kids were invited to come back for the main Festival and play as professionals in the fall! Our kids aspired to be in that second band.

So we drove the family to Monterey to hear the juniors and seniors play at that competition. One of the pieces they placed with was written by one of the kids in that group. Another was Bedtime for Bigfoot. I LOVE that piece. And I loved watching those kids having the time of their lives. Tim, bless him, started them on the downbeat, and then, with a huge smile on his face and a nod to his kids, walked off the stage: this was their shining moment, they knew how to do it, and he wanted the glory to all go to them, not him. Bigfoot never had such a good time as they did that day. I can still picture them. Rock on!

They performed it again later in the year at the high school, and an hour after that concert was over, I asked my then-11-year-old son to sing me the first note of that piece. He nailed it dead on. And that’s when I absolutely knew that that child had perfect pitch too, a musician like his mom. More than, definitely–he totally outshines me now, which is a lot of fun. You know the “hum a few bars and I’ll play it?” Outrageously well? That’s him.

Tim left to pursue a doctorate and left a deep gap behind him. We still hear from him from time to time, to our great delight when he checks in. He got married last summer, and I knitted up something new: one of my circular shawls in a laceweight rather than fingering weight, designed just for them, in white, fine enough to go through a wedding ring except for being snug at those reinforced neck stitches. Better make it a man’s size wedding ring.

Bedtime for Bigfoot. As I eat my Jazz apple.

And suddenly–what, three years after I knitted and named the first one?–it hits me. Why I named my feather-and-fan-variant shawl in my book what I did. Yeah, because it’s an expansion of the Rabbit Tracks pattern, but…

Bigfoot.

And just before Tim moved away, I bought the CD of those kids playing. I play my CDs while I’m sitting knitting. Bedtime for Bigfoot. I just never, ever put it together before.

I want me more of those apples.

And let me know she did. With great delight on her part, and mine as well. The Blue Sky Alpacas scarf is blocked, bagged, mailed, and on its way to where it rightfully belongs.

And I got to see this

And this

And missed the shot of the pelican flapping its great wings and the snowy egret near it in the marsh, but I can at least give you the context of where I see them on my way to the post office.

I got passed by a late-model black Maserati utterly impatient with the speed limit, flooring it around me when he got to the dotted line in the road. I looked at his rapidly receding car and thought, you take your riches, hon. I’ve got mine. I win.

But gimme my birds back.

Eh. Next time. I’ll be back.

A couple of days ago, I followed a link to a link to a link when I was trying to rest my hands from knitting for a bit but avoiding picking up a book because then I’d never put it down, and I stumbled across a blog that spoke to me. The writer was a nurse whose house was falling apart and it felt to her like everything else was too. That day’s post was a cri de coeur. The blog was private, and I felt like an intruder for reading it.

Now, nurses hold a close spot in my heart to begin with. I owe a lot to quite a few of them. I could tell you story after story after story of moments they’ve made all the difference in the world to this patient. And so I did what I do, wishing I could help–I went through my stash, thinking, what do you knit for a total stranger you’ve never laid eyes on before? If she’ll let me? White’s pretty safe. Boring to knit after awhile, perhaps, but safe. And I had the best white yarn I know of, that Blue Sky stuff, leftover from the Wanda’s Shawl I knitted my sister for Christmas. (I always buy more than I need, even on my own pattern. You can always use leftovers. You can never replace the hours you spent knitting a project that turned out not to have enough yarn to finish. It’s almost a religion for me. Buy extra.)

I have had just a few times when I’ve been motivated to knit something and then circumstances became such that the person who sparked it (who never knew) never got it; someone else needed it more. I plan, but in the end I just go with the flow of what feels right.

So I sat down and knitted that scarf through the day till it was done. I know who I definitely want it to go to. I posted it yesterday in the context of Louisiana memories, thinking that if that nurse reads it, she’ll understand why. I put a comment on her blog, and if she wants to follow it, she’ll find this, and she’ll have my email address (I think–if not, it’s in my sidebar here.) If not, then, into the FO stash it goes, waiting its turn for serendipity to show up.

But I’m really hoping she reads this. I read her post with memories of when we remodelled 11 years ago, when our previously old-but-sound roof now had 17 buckets and bowls under it after the contractor left. Rain coming through an electric socket over here and a light socket over there–fried that overhead light, too–that was scary, and the contractor did, at least, take responsibility for and fix those. In the end, we had to replace our roof, and since the water, gas, and electrical lines ran across the roof now (the house was built with them under the concrete slab–bad idea in earthquake country), we had to rip them out and have a do-over. At least we could. We were lucky, financially, and we knew it.

A scarf isn’t going to hold the rain off her head–it’s kind of laughable. But…it’s what I know how to do from here. It’s a gesture of we’re all in this life thing together.

And maybe I’ll hear from her so I can send it. I hope so. More importantly, maybe she’ll know that others are pulling for her, whether she lets me know who she is or not.

Technical stuff first: in “Wrapped in Comfort,” I give the stitch counts in the stitch patterns so that you can downsize and make a scarf out of any of the shawls; cast on so many repeats and go. This is one repeat of Nina’s Ann Arbor Shawl pattern with an extra stitch at each side, so, cast on 23 and knit till you’re done. This isn’t blocked yet, and even when I do, it will stay fluid and drapey in this yarn. This is one skein of Blue Sky Alpacas’ AlpacaSilk yarn, some of the very best baby alpaca out there: silky, shimmery, gorgeous, and durable enough that I couldn’t break the strand with my hands when I was done, I had to go get a pair of scissors.

I named Nina’s shawl for where she went to school at the University of Michigan, as I wrote in the book. But the look of it also reminds me of the climbing bougainvillea that was blooming freely here when we moved to California, in vivid, cheerful colors that were startling compared to the gray/white aging-winter snowscape we were leaving behind.

The first time I remember seeing bougainvillea blooming was on the trip to New Orleans when I was a teenager. We ate at the Commodore Inn, a beautiful old place that Katrina later wiped out (I don’t know if it’s been brought back; my attempts at googling it would suggest it has not, but I’d love to hear differently.) The bougainvillea climbed to the second-story balcony like Romeo impatient to see Juliet, deep green leaves and bright fuschia flowers spilling freely over the balustrade, a grand bouquet tossed at the eyes of the diners below. Gorgeous.

(Update: I thought I’d add in a photo of the current state of my amaryllis crop.  The really tall one waiting to open up?  That’s Lene’s.)

Totally stealing the concept from Stephanie and Lene. From William Carlos Williams, a pediatrician whose poetry was my favorite in college, written, if I remember correctly, about a six-year-old oncology patient of his:

The Red Wheelbarrow

Trying not to violate copyright, I offer the link. I used to think of this poem when my children, especially when they were little, would fixate on some one particular thing and how important it became to them for a passing time. My youngest, at about 18 months, was given a little red plastic hammer by a friend of mine that for ten days afterwards was in his hands round the clock, asleep or awake. If you tried to remove it from his sleeping clutch, he would wake up. “Mine!” and he would groggily reach for it back and roll over with it tucked safely half under him. With three older siblings, he learned that word early on.

When he was awake, he was constantly, constantly tap-tapping it on every surface he toddled past, listening to the sound that that one would make. Now that one. The wall. The fridge. Mom’s leg. Assessing the interaction between it and everything he could reach. Same hammer, but such different effects. It completely absorbed his world day after day, and I liked to think he was training his ear for future musicianship.

I think he did.

“so much depends

upon

the red wheel

barrow… “

Him. I’ve got me a good one.

Meantime. I just dropped a package off at the post office, and as usual drove to the one at Bayshore: there are always shore birds to see along the way there, so much more peaceful of a drive than through city streets to the one in the opposite direction. I took my camera along, though I knew that was probably wishful thinking.

There were four snowy egrets in the marshlands, but off a bit in the distance: too far from anywhere I could reasonably pull over just then to try to get a closer shot. I continued on.

On my way back, coming over a rise in the road, there, suddenly, was one right there. A snowy egret. On the sidewalk. Strolling along like a long-legged model on a catwalk, right there in all its glorious white plumage and black stockings. A couple of office workers from a nearby building were walking towards it on their break, deep in conversation and seemingly oblivious to what was walking away from them just ahead, going at about the same pace. People are funny. So was the egret: it turned its head and followed me with one bright eye as I drove past it, with me knowing that by the time I’d be able to get to where I might park the car, those walkers would probably have scared it off into the sky. My camera didn’t get to see it–but I did.

There was one time I went to the post office in the opposite direction from home for whatever reason. Now, I am by no means a tall person, but I’m married to one, and our kids take after their father much more than me in that department. So I’ve heard all the lame comments time after time, the “do you play basketball,” the “how’s the weather up there.”

Standing in line for a clerk that day, a man came in behind me. I glanced up, then tried to give him his space, knowing he didn’t need to hear one more stranger chiming in on the obvious. But after a few moments, I couldn’t help but chuckle slightly, and to my quiet delight, he started gradually chuckling too, as if he were in on the joke. Which I think he was.

Then two sentences were spoken out loud:

“My son’s 6’9″.”

“That IS tall!” he affirmed, from about half a foot higher up than that.

I did not ask him how on earth he found a car he could fit into, or buy clothes, or all these things that we’ve found hard enough to do*. It was enough. Someone was in on the secret world of very tall people, even someone who once went looking for a copy of Randy Newman’s “Short people got no reason to live” song for her husband–Happy Valentine’s Day, honey.

And I think of that man for a moment with a smile, every now and then, as I turn the car the other direction, letting the tall snowy egrets and the petite redwing blackbirds vie for my inner attention, along with the occasional pelican.

————-

(*A Prius. The new ones, anyway; the first one we got, a 2001, the hubby eventually cracked the dashboard by being scrunched up so tight in it, even though it fit him better than most of the cars on the market at the time. The new one fits him much better.)

I’ve heard a few people say they were afraid my shawls wouldn’t work for plus-size types. My friend Diana’s reaction to that was to play model for me at Purlescence’s knit night tonight.

First,

she wanted to show off her blue Bigfoot shawl. Well done! I knitted Bigfoot a few months ago in Alpaca With A Twist’s “Fino,” which is a baby alpaca/silk laceweight, much lighter than the weight she used here; she tried that one on then, she loved it, and she started in on this one.  Beautiful.

When she saw the shawl I just finished, she tried it on for me, too. (I snagged a stitch badly and wrecked the blocking on one side today while fixing it. A rounded hem works fine too.) Note that this is the version of the Julia shawl with the smaller stitch count.

Thank you, Diana!

The Julia shawl blocking, the faster version with fewer stitches on larger needles because I only had the one skein of Wagtail kid mohair to try to stretch as far as it would go. Length 23″ lying flat, width somewhat scrunched up right now for the blocking process–it’ll be more of a circle than it looks here.

The closer I got, the more I wanted to finish this tonight, after having gone through the stash Monday night looking for this yarn to wind up and get started with. The ends can get woven in tomorrow, I’m turning in after I finish icing my hands. (Got a pack on right now; it does make for awkward typing.)

The thrilled gratitude on that nurse’s face gave me my knitting enthusiasm back by reminding me how much I love doing this. That it’s not all about the work aspect of it. It’s about seeing someone else becoming happy. I owe him.

(It’s not quite that late, the clock on this blog is an hour ahead of me.  Pardon me while I go adjust those wires and sharpen those points.)

One other thing about Monday: I put a small Nordstrom’s bag (it was what I could find, and hey, the one at Stanford Mall sells the best chocolate truffles in town–go to the top floor to their refrigerator case, over near Customer Service. Oh. Okay. Back to the narrative) inside my knitting bag with the three scarves inside it and went off to my doctor’s appointment, intending to stop by Urgent Care afterwards.

On my way out, a woman about my age passed me. A few moments later, as I waited for the elevator, she was approaching me again, coming from the opposite hallway, reading signs, and it caught my attention–I thought, how did you get past me? So I asked her, “You look lost. Can I help you?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Do you know where Urgent Care is?”

I pointed out the window next to us, “It’s on the ground floor right there.”

Oh, okay. So she got in the elevator with me, and when it opened on the ground floor, she didn’t get out. I prompted her, “This is the floor. Would you like me to walk you there?”

No, no, that was okay, she could find it now, thanks.

And I merrily got in my car and drove out of the parking structure. And then it hit me. DUH!!! *I* was supposed to go to Urgent Care! How had I forgotten those scarves! All those cues from talking to that woman and I didn’t remember. Dumb dumb dumb. So I pulled the car back around, went back down again, parked the car again, got back out again, went upstairs again, and walked over to Urgent Care at last myself, feeling more than a little bit silly.

It wasn’t till I was writing the post about the very elderly woman I encountered there that it hit me: if I had gone directly as I had planned, if I hadn’t forgotten, I would definitely have been out of there by the time she showed up. I’m so glad it didn’t happen that way.
And when I asked her if she would like an arm, and she answered with delight, “Why, yes!” in that instant it became no longer a heart problem so much as a joyful way for two people to unexpectedly get to meet each other and come together in the moment. There was so much love radiating from her. And so many people in that room who simply didn’t see, as I chuckled inwardly that it was a good thing that I used my cane on the left and she did on the right, so that we matched up together okay without tripping over each other’s canes as I helped her to her seat.

I don’t know whose great-grandmother she is, but they are very lucky to have her.

No dishes. No vacuuming. No laundry. No taxes. Nothing to do, after Nancy kidnapped me and took me to Creative Hands in Belmont, but sit there, enjoy the company of other knitters, and knit. The phone rang: major accident on 101? Traffic stopped? We’ll just have to knit here a bit longer.

Having learned, via the Orenberg skein a few weeks ago that ran 250 yards short, that I can still knit a well-fitting shawlette project with the Julia pattern out of a smaller amount of yarn, I started this with a single 410 yard/100g skein of Wagtail Yarn’s kid mohair. I can’t wait to show it off at this year’s Stitches convention to the fellow who raises the animals it came from.

(The former post title didn’t quite do it, I decided to change it.)

I did stop by Urgent Care, and I told the receptionist there what I was up to. I was a little hesitant to just leave the things when I didn’t know the name of the nurse I’d knitted for and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d gotten the X-ray technician’s name right. I’m sure the other people that work there are perfectly wonderful, but I wanted them to go to the people I’d made them for. So I explained. About Dr. Rachel Remen’s writing that another doctor had told her that if they make a difference to the patients, “The patients never tell you,” so I had decided, well, I’m going to! Bring out the knitting needles!

The receptionist was totally thrilled for them. It was fun to watch her. She checked the records to see whom it had been three weeks ago, told me that that nurse was there on duty right then, and called for him in quite a bit of excitement.

Meantime, a very elderly and very tiny woman came up, alone, while I was standing there waiting, and started talking to her. She didn’t want to be a bother or be out of turn… And the receptionist asked her, “You’re having chest pains? I’ll get you a nurse right away.”

I thought, oh good, he’s probably already about on his way out. But I watched her face cloud over for just a moment at the question of chest pains, and I instantly understood where she was coming from: how wonderful it felt to be around happy people, seeing that big smile that had already been on the receptionist’s face. But how much she needed to be taken care of NOW, while not wanting to complain. I looked at her, knowing in my bones, You need a wheelchair!

I offered her my arm to help her to a seat. She gladly took it. (I thought emphatically at myself, bod, don’t stumble on me now. It behaved.) She was trying to go to the main waiting area, which was pretty full with no seats open nearby; I steered her gently to the little alcove next to it that had a chair right there. As I helped her settle down into it, I smiled and told her, “They’ll take good care of you here. I’ve been a cardiac patient here. They do a good job here.”

She smiled warmly and thanked me gratefully. She reminded me so much of my grandmother when she was in her 90’s.

And I was glad to know which nurse was on duty this afternoon.

I did get a chance to give him his scarf in person. He was surprised and thrilled and finally asked me, “Now, what was your name again?…” Three weeks ago, he did such a good job of being there for me. It felt wonderful to be able to be there for him, too.

And the unexpected gift, for me, of being able to bring a moment of comfort to that elderly woman so that she wouldn’t be alone either. We’re all in this life thing together.

(for the nurse)

And a two

(for the X-ray technician)

And a three

(for the doctor)

reasons to go back to Urgent Care when there’s no medical need to. The men’s are Misti Baby Alpaca Royale, the doctor’s Handmaiden’s Camelspin 70/30 silk/baby camel, handdyed.

Close-up on the nurse’s needle–being baby alpaca rather than wool, which would have had much more spring to it, the motif relaxed out a lot when I rinsed it and laid it out to dry, so it’s less obvious what it is.  Which is fine with me.  That nurse’s needle was essential to my current well-being, and I wanted to design him something that conveyed his work in his scarf.

I separated the X’s for the technician’s by four rows of garter to give each X separate prominence, but it nevertheless all flowed together in a cohesive whole. I quite like that. It fits.

The doctor’s was the leftover yarn, done in as open a pattern as possible to try to stretch those 26 g as far as they would go, from the project I made my son’s fiancee for Christmas. Camelspin is really nice yarn, and when I saw that small leftover ball, it was one of those moments of, yes! That’s the right yarn! Purlescence didn’t have more in stock of that colorway just then, so I had to make do.

Off for a routine appointment today; I’m going to stop by Urgent Care on my way out and try not to get in their way. Wish me luck.

(Photo: my Bigfoot pattern, done as a scarf with three repeats across of the stitch pattern given in “Wrapped in Comfort,” Kidsilk Haze, size 4.5 mm needles.)

Such a weird reaction to a common cold. Autoimmunity is always an interesting variety show, and so, I found myself in sudden pain last night and in the eye doctor’s this morning. Lupus inflammation leading to a tear in the cornea, drops for three weeks.

I had never seen that doctor before. She was gentle, she was thorough, she asked questions, she gave me lots of details and she asked for any questions from me after giving me enough information so that I had some idea of what to ask. This is the eye that went blind on the left half for three weeks a few years ago; I don’t trust it to behave. (Stomp my feet, demand, “But I’m too DEAF to go blind!”) But in her competent hands, I came away with a sense of grateful relief. It’ll be okay? I see.

It’s not just the technical competence of a good doctor, although that’s essential, it’s the caring that conveys the strength I need to let all this stuff just be background noise so that I can tune it out.

Back to my merino wool and 4mm needles. I can already see it more clearly than I could last night.

I almost didn’t go to my once-a-month knit night at Commuknity last night; it’s a big group, there’s always an exposure risk, and it’s a bit soon since my big bug. But I needed to see my friends–I had no idea what was coming–and I’m so glad I went!

There was someone new there, Becky, sitting behind me, who’d brought my book and was working from it. When it was her turn to show off, she said she was doing a shawl from “Wrapped in Comfort.” One guess as to who everybody pointed at. Oh! She said she’d looked at me, she’d looked at the picture in the back of the book, she’d looked at me… It WAS me!

They had decided to hold a “show your Alison” night: Diana, Lisa, Susan, Jocelyn, Julie, Lyn, Vera, Nancy, Margaret, Candace, Cris, Fae, and Chris had all made or were making shawls from my book. Catie wasn’t able to show up, but sent word that she was working on one, too. At the point a few years ago when I didn’t even have a publisher yet, Catie tried on my Kathy shawl and told me emphatically to hurry up and get it out there because she wanted my patterns! She gave me her thoroughly quotable reason for vastly preferring the circular shaping on my shawls vs. the more typical triangle ones: “I don’t need an arrow pointing at my butt.” Her much-needed vote of confidence helped keep me going re trying to get published, and I loved that it looked great on her: it showed me how well those shawls could fit a variety of body shapes.

Susan had been one of my test knitters. She signed a page of the Kathy’s Clover Shawl, which she’d knitted. Susan is about to move away, and my heart about broke with love and aching when I read what she’d written. You can’t tell a friend Please Don’t Go, you can only wish them the best on their journey. (Hey. Susan. Please Don’t Go.)

Chris surprised me with socks she’d made using Cat Bordhi’s new book. Which happened to match what I was wearing and fit perfectly–actually, even though I avoid knitting socks, I have some handdyed sock yarn that has stubbornly refused to be knit into anything else, which means it’s just been sitting there. I wanted socks in those colors. It’s really close to Chris’s yarn choice. She’d nailed it.

You know, I could get a little too spoiled. Thank you, everybody!

A curiosity of mine: in American English, the word “gray” is spelled “gray” except in reference to the soldiers of the Civil War, in which case we generally take on the British spelling of “grey.”

We got a letter last week with a handwritten note added at the top, promising that this was going to be the last Christmas letter of the year. My husband gleefully reacted, “No it’s not! My sister hasn’t sent hers out yet!”

My friend Nanci was talking about her 92-year-old mother-in-law, mentioning her son’s speculation that Bashie was probably the last living person whose father rode in the Pony Express. You heard that right. And he fought in the Civil War! He was 75 and his wife was 45 when they had her. Now imagine this: if his father had been that old when he had been conceived, his father would have been a teenager during the Constitutional Convention.

And that would then be his granddaughter who is alive right now. We’re a young country!

I asked Nanci if I could post this, and she said sure and added more to the story. Here’s her note:

“Of course, we’d be flattered for you to say something in your blog about Darryl’s grandfather, Joseph A. Fisher. He actually was serving in the Civil War and a pony express rider concurrently. There was a big problem with the Indians raiding the mail, so President Lincoln asked Brigham Young for 100 men from Utah to help with the war effort in the special assignment of being riders, and he was one of those 100 young men. (It might have been 1861.) He was actually hit by an arrow and left for dead, but miraculously was found, the arrow was pulled out, and Bashie’s brother remembers a big hole in his back that as a boy would like to put pennies in where the arrow had been. He served for 9 months. ”

Try going through airport security with that.