Tony and I couldn’t talk politics at all, but we could definitely talk fruit trees with enthusiasm.

I’m pretty sure he would have loved watching one of my apricot seedlings grow up, knowing he was nourishing something both rare and the best to be found. He loved to cook, and he would have done really great things with those in a few years.

But it was not to be. Last night our Italian friend peacefully passed on at a ripe old age as his beloved garden was starting its new season of blossoms and green and fruit and growth for his wife and daughter to hold him close by.

The check engine light came back.

I made an early appointment so they could get right to it. The guy had an idea what else it would be if that battery cable he’d tightened wasn’t the whole problem. They’re not open Fridays so I didn’t want it to become longer than a one-day job.

I got a call a little later: the code coming up was to part of the drive chain and that should be covered under warranty–I’d want to take that to the dealer. No point in having him charge me if they would do it for free.

So in the one small bit of time that the others could spare I got driven back over there to pick up my car to take it to Toyota.

Where they ran the code and got the diagnosis but also looked up the date we’d bought the Prius from them. Fifteen years or 150,000 miles’ warranty on the hybrid drivetrain by law in California, and we were at 100,000 miles.

And 186 months, not 180. No warranty. But they could give me the estimate on the spot: $4261.

I…wow. Thanked them, took it home (having previously been assured it was okay to drive for now), and called my mechanic again and told their admin woman that number.

She was as staggered as I was.

When the guy had said that to me, I was standing there holding her company’s estimate in my hands and he knew that. $660 for the same job. Which suddenly didn’t sound so bad, not bad at all.

And this. It’s not the only reason, but, this is why I try to keep the little guys in business.

Went in to the ENT today, got my ears roto-rootered–it’s like they’re constantly trying to push those foreign objects out that I put in every morning and they don’t need to be any deafer than they have to be–and then the doctor asked if I had anything else I wanted to ask him about.

Yes.

He sat up straight to hear it.

I told him how I’d had Meniere’s as a teen with episodes of the room spinning around fast, and how this was nothing like that. But: since about late January, if I tilted my head backward, I’d get a sudden attack of dizziness. Relatively mild compared, but still, and I got it when putting eye drops in my left eye but not so much my right. If I did back exercises, knees up, roll slowly to the side, right side, no problem, left side, bam! But only the first time. Lie down at night, wait to the count of, oh, about five, and bam! Dizzy, and definitely not from standing up too fast, not a blood pressure problem.

Yes, he explained: it’s particles in your inner ear. You lie down, and they slowly settle down. I have it, my wife has it, my parents have it. You’re being a snow globe.

Is it permanent?

Often not.

Okay, then! In the grand scheme of things that sounds like about the most benign malady one could possibly hope for. Cool. I reminded him that I’d been in a year previous for testing for an acoustic neuroma on the left so I’d just wanted to make sure nothing had snuck in past us.

Oh no, no, nothing like that, no worries.

We chuckled at the whole Santa-in-a-glass-bubble image and we were done.

But I thought I’d pass the word along in case anyone else is going through that.

My sister-in-law from Texas.

Our niece, daughter of Richard’s late oldest sibling.

Our daughter.

Take out.

The fortune cookie that said, A gathering of friends brings you lots of luck this evening. And it did, for sure. But not quite enough to finish that James Christensen puzzle together before they called it a night for the aunt who’s on Eastern time.

I wasn’t as much of a help as I might have been on that; I tried, but finally told them (having been to the doctor this afternoon with everybody at the clinic wearing face masks so, no lipreading possible) I solve puzzles aurally all day long, do you mind if I knit?

Not at all.

And then, since the niece was wearing her cashmere cowl I’d given her as her experiment to see if that was the one animal fiber she could tolerate, and turns out she loved it, I confessed that the 50/50 cashmere/cotton afghan I was working on was–for her. I didn’t quite say, and now that I know it’ll be comfortable for you I can really dive in and stop hesitating.

Thirteen inches and it is on its way. Man, that feels good.

It has the usual ribbing at the bottom but I tried it on like this and instantly loved it.

I’m debating whether to create a sunflower to tack onto the blue or whether just to go make another one and do it to that one.

(Yarn: Malabrigo Rios, left over from my ocean afghan.)

So, being curious after last night’s post, I googled Arlo Guthrie today.

Turns out the word “massacree” is actually a word, not just Arlo playing verbal Dr. Seuss.

From Vox: ‘A massacree is a series of absurd events, so the Alice’s Restaurant Movement is against absurdity and in favor of reason. It is against arresting someone for littering and in favor of ending wars.’

Meantime, I’d told my Zoom knitting group last week that I was working on a yellow and blue hat, and everybody thoroughly approved. Then I spent the week feeling like no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn’t knit, between being glued to the news updates and the message from my sister-in-law that she was flying to California in three days to visit a childhood friend who was quite ill and could she come see us?

It wasn’t till the next Zoom meeting tonight that I got back to it. That’s right, I was up to the blue part already, oh good. Knitknitknitknitknit.

At the end, they asked if anyone wanted to show off their work.

It just needed the top decreases. I brought it out from below the camera’s view and onto my head needles and all.

The entire group gasped, it sounded like.

We have all felt like Ukrainians these past two weeks. We can make our support visible to those in our communities who are. I know there are a lot of them in this area.

I imagine there will be more hats like that made in the coming week.

I suddenly realized yesterday that I have a silicone cake pan that I’d wondered a year ago why I’d bought it (BakeDeco was the source.) I mean, it’s nice, but I hadn’t needed another pan, given how much I love my yarn-ball one from the same company.

Wait. It is.

It’s a mold in the shape of a sunflower.

Yesterday, Mathias, who will unfathomably somehow be five next month, found this song outrageous–that’s not how you do language! So his mommy and daddy sat down with him and his little sister to have fun playing them some Arlo Guthrie: I don’t want a pickle, I just want to ride on my motor sickle… And IIIIIIII don’t want to diiiiiiiie, I just want to ride on my motor cyyyyyyyy….. cle.

Which I’m sure is why I instantly thought of that song when social media shared the story today of a woman who decided that, you know what? She didn’t need a pickle so much either.

A Ukrainian woman. She saw a Russian drone, went out on her balcony, and beaned it out of the sky with a jar of cucumbers. Nailed it.

It was in the 50s today, chilly for new seedlings, but here it is. I get such a kick out of baby trees, and rare ones especially.

I pointed the camera at the other one whose small Root Riot plug had been planted inside a paper cup to give its first root some room: I couldn’t really see anything, but maybe the camera could.

There it is. On its way.

Note that the ones in the paper cups are the two that had been attacked by green mold or fungus or whatever it was, of which there is no sign whatsoever now. The direct sunlight really did cure them. All the seedlings I lost to rot the last few years and that’s apparently all I’d needed to do.

But I had to know to, which is why I’ve been making a bit of a point about it in case someone happens to stumble across a single one of these posts at random.

Cleaning up in the kitchen, I came across a few not terribly old chocolate bars but they’d become untempered and in the wrong crystalline structure, some had begun to crumble. Nothing wrong with the taste but definitely wrong on the texture. Another just looked funny with the cocoa fat blooming on the surface. Oh, and the very last of a batch of homemade.

One of the things about coconut cream is that you can have it on hand in the pantry, and I did, but since those others were commercially made bars and the wrappers were lost there was no guaranteeing they were dairy free (sorry). Even so, coconut and chocolate are not a bad pair.

I broke them up and covered them freely with the coconut cream, stirring to get every piece submerged at least once to keep the chocolate from seizing, then microwaved just enough to melt the chocolate. Wire whisked. Meantime, I mixed a cup of flour with a scant teaspoon of baking powder, a bit of salt, I mean, we’re just winging it here, and set two eggs to whip till nice and frothy. Then a quarter cup of sugar, then another nearly quarter cup into the eggs: most of that chocolate had been unsweetened and we’re talking baked goods here.

I went to put the flour mixture in, hesitated about halfway in thinking, that’s too much, and then poured the rest anyway.

I was right, it was a bit too much and the cake’s a bit dry. But Richard loved it, even though it was still not all that sweet, and that’s what mattered.

I’m thinking that, though quite small in height, it fits James Beard’s description of what day-old angel food cake is for: it makes a great toast.

Thin slices baked to crispness, cooled, and spread with Nutella for breakfast: I have plans.

(Skein of yarn silicone pan link here. The trick is to let the cake cool completely, then put it in the fridge and set a timer for ten minutes. I put it in just before it was completely cool so it came out of the mold almost but not quite perfect.)

My sister’s got an Anya seedling! On its first true leaves! Go little apricot go! (I forgot to ask if I could show off her picture.) Ed. to add: Thanks, Marian, here it is!

Meantime, a large glossy postcard arrived at our house for Larry: it offered a chance to do good for future patients, it offered a large bonus for signing on, and they really really wanted someone with his expertise to come be a psychologist working for them. And they’re right, there are a lot of people who could use a good therapist right now like no other time I’ve ever seen.

But there’s one problem with that.

Larry sold this house to us 35 years ago when he retired and moved to Hawaii.

I don’t think he’s going to be taking them up on that offer.

The beginning of the season, of new life, nature taking first breath to offer oxygen to us.

Pictures taken yesterday and today. You can see the sprout forming to the right and the white root of a root that was not there Monday, newly anchoring, sustaining, becoming.

Just a little more soil right there to make sure it doesn’t dry out overnight.

I wanted it done in a day but that didn’t quite happen.

Meantime, Thursday, Richard was driving home from across the Bay when the Check Engine light came on. Nothing seemed wrong with the car otherwise as far as he could tell so he drove it home.

Which is how we found out our mechanic isn’t open on Fridays. We spent three days hoping hard that this would not be the time we would have to be trying to replace the ’07 Prius–not this year.

The cable to the battery was loose. They tightened it. They couldn’t find anything else and that did the job, and sent me off with, If it does it again bring it right back in here.

Somehow, the phrase ‘dodged a bullet’ came to mind and immediately got stomped on hard. No. No we didn’t. Come on.

Speaking of which, if you’d like to support Ukrainian knit designers without their having to ship you anything physically, this site lists several and I just bought several patterns. (I’d tried Ravelry’s ‘Advanced Search by country’ feature and had not found Ukraine listed, though it may well be now.) That gray hat that is the first thing that shows up in Blackbunny Fiber’s link stretches out on the head across its top into a sunflower per the Ravelry pictures. Perfect.

I’ve spent the last two days wishing I had some yellow yarn, but since I never wear yellow I don’t buy it either.

I was thinking about that again this evening as a purple beanie went slowly round and round in my hands during my Zoom knitting meeting as people were talking about the attack on Ukraine: where we could donate. Where we could hope to do the most good from so far away.

Wait.

Moments after it ended, I suddenly remembered back when I bought way more than I used and what a mistake and a waste I’d thought it was at the time (and I gave some of it away) but… I went running to look.

I did still. There you go. The octopus leftovers. That blue, a bit darker in a different dye lot, for the sky, a yellow with a slight peach to it for the sunflower national flower. Superwash merino. I can dive right in after all.

You know if I walk around with their flag on my head a lot of people are going to ask for one.

Let me just finish off the top of that other beanie to get it off my needles and out of the way.

Picture taken before all that vegan butter and sugar were added.

In case you ever needed to know, if you use one of those cheapo little $10 (it was then, anyway) battery-powered apple peelers and start right at the top on a big Granny Smith, yes you can, in fact, get a continuous length of apple peel long enough to be able to go play jump rope with.

“Mom, what are you *doing*!”

You might consider washing your sweater after you try it out, though. But it didn’t break!

This made a good metaphor for the moment–sometimes you *do* have to push the bear away that’s threatening your loved ones, even when it has claws and you don’t. (BBCnews link.)

Meantime, Pres. Biden’s Supreme Court pick for the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is married to a man whose twin is married to the sister of former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s wife. Ryan praised her intellect, her character, and her integrity (his description) today.

We’re going to have a great Justice on the Court.

Such a strong, strange-feeling mixture in the headlines this week.