Our guests were back here in time for dinner. They’re leaving around 5 a.m. for their cross-country flight home and I will miss them so much.

Heading out, the burning question is, will those Reine Claude Green Gage plums from Andy’s grow in Maine?

I told her Trees of Antiquity not only sells them but considers that variety the best tasting stone fruit they have. They’d be a good one to ask–and I reminded her that our Sam grew a Meyer lemon in Vermont because she wanted to enough. Go for it.

Her glasses are bright pink with sparkles and they fit her gregariousness perfectly. You would want to be her patient. She’s a nurse.

The lace cowls: I had handspun lime-ish green silk with sparkles. I had a solid vivid red silk from a tubular yarn. I had handpainted merino in a heathery bright turquoise, the yarn bought from Serendipidye at Kings Mountain Art Fair last year.

I lined them up flat in a ziplock and pulled it out of my purse today and asked her to pick one.

She loved them all, she assured me, but that red! Definitely the red.

I quietly remembered knitting it a few months ago thinking, someone out there is going to love this color so much and I have to knit it right now and not put off weaving in the ends. It has to be ready for them.

I had not at that point actually met her yet.

Today it was the most perfect thing.

So is she.

My friend who took me to Kings Mountain? I took her to Andy’s Orchard today. It was only fair.

Meantime, how is it that never in my life did anyone tell me that young zebras are brown with black stripes? This picture a few days ago made me do a double take and eventually sent me looking for more.

There’s an extinct type called a quagga that, after sequencing its DNA from a museum specimen and finding out how closely related it was to a particular subgroup, researchers are trying to bring back through breeding and luck. They’ve got a small herd going that looks pretty close.

The stripes cool the animal against the heat. Quaggas were the southernmost type, living in cooler temps. They protect against biting flies. There were fewer of those flies there. And thus of stripes.

People were still talking in the 1800s about trying to domesticate that most gentle of zebras when they found out they couldn’t. They wouldn’t breed in zoos. They’d been hunted by colonizers. Animals that are less afraid are easier to catch.

There weren’t any left.

And now, or close to it at least, there are beginning to be some again.

On a side note, I kept trying to figure out why the name made me think of clams. The answer is, there’s a Ukrainian quagga mussel whose fading stripes are such that it was actually named after that zebra.

How on earth did I ever hear of a type of mussel in a river in Ukraine. Oh. That’s the invasive one they’re fighting in the Great Lakes.

Rabbit hole, I tell you. But fun to learn a little bit more about the world.

So much laughing. Such a good time.

It was the daughter of my high school best friend and the daughter’s husband, doing a long driving trip of a lifetime to see sights never seen before, with our house as a crash landing spot mid-California.

Amy and I each took a turn at generational double taking: she said they were going next to see her aunt, her father’s sister.

I started to say, I didn’t know he had a sister–and stopped and realized I meant her mother’s father, and of course she meant her dad and he did and silly me.

Just before they left this morning, I told her she reminded me of her grandmother: she was a sweetheart.

There was this flicker of confusion and she was trying to figure out what I meant. The only grandmother she ever knew was a step; her grandfather had been widowed around the time she’d been born and had remarried to someone who’d never had children, to whom Amy had been her only grandchild.

Your mom’s mom, I said gently. The one you never knew. I did.

She took a deep breath inhaling the essence of that thought and held me in a long, long hug.

I know what it’s like to grow up missing a grandfather lost to an early death. I know that wondering and I feel that strong wistfulness.

At long last, at least for her, I knew I could do something about it. The connection is real.

I sent them off with Andy’s peaches to share with her aunt and they will be back here Sunday before turning in the rental and flying home across the country. I cannot wait to see them again.

You know house guests are coming when you finally, finally head to Home Despot to get a new toilet seat via prepay and pick up.

My phone is old and the battery’s on its way out. I know that other people just wave their magic wands, but…

The clerk at Pickup looked about 20.

I’m old, I told her with a grin as I handed her the paper, I printed it out.

She laughed.

And the car? The mechanic got me in at 10:00, checked the code, reset it, and sent me on my way no charge after saying that the check engine light on the Prius is an emissions monitor only: if it comes on and stays on, keep driving. (I’d already told him I’d unscrewed the gas cap, screwed it back on, and clicked it three times like Dorothy’s ruby red slippers so he knew he didn’t have to tell me that part. Thank you to DebbieR’s husband for what to try.)

If it comes on and flickers, he said, get the car in here.

And that is why we’re now the proud owners of a new slow-close no-slam no-slip etc etc. Are we excited yet.

Tomorrow, though, for that I can’t wait!

This is a long shot, I wrote to the church’s chat list, but my check engine light… If anyone happens to want to go to the Kings Mountain Art Fair on Monday…

And that is how I ended up spending the afternoon catching up with an old friend so that I could catch up with more old friends. Sometimes people just need to know what they can do that would help. She found a wedding present for her son at a neighboring booth; I found the time I had hoped for of visiting with Mel and his son Korey.

I bought some of their gorgeous work and surprised them with soft Mecha hats. Korey was amazed at how well his was going to go with his favorite sweatshirt.

As I was leaving he picked up this beautiful little bowl and said, looking me in the eyes, I made this. He wrapped it quickly in paper and added it to the bag on my arm, knowing how much I would treasure the gift.

I now have something much prettier than that old plastic case to put my hearing aids in at night.

And all of them got peaches from Andy’s, because of course.

Sabrina always, always addresses the congregation starting with an enthusiastic, Aloha!

Booger, wrote the closed caption.

And this is why I try not to randomly laugh in church at the wrong moments.

I had peaches and plans. I was going to Kings Mountain Art Fair, the one time all year I get to see my old friends. Mel had messaged me that Kris hadn’t been well enough to make the trip but their son had and they were hoping and looking forward to seeing me.

I was almost to the freeway when I saw it and pulled off the road and called Richard.

Who said the obvious: do not drive the car with the check engine light on except to come home till we can get it looked at. Yeah they just looked at it last week. Still.

(Did the mice come back to the engine compartment and do more damage. Sounds like a definite maybe.)

I thought, I’ll stop by Trader Joe’s…no don’t. Tomorrow we’ll… no you won’t. Monday we can… No you can’t. All afternoon I kept reminding myself that things were abruptly different and we weren’t going anywhere. Not unless we can rent a car on a holiday. We might try.

I moped a little while and then thought, if I can’t go then I’m at least going to get the house a little more ready for guests so I can feel good about that.

We both did. It felt good. And yeah, there’s yet another blanket from the soakstorm being washed as I type.

Great to be over the 10-day bug and the fall and mobile again.

We were going through serious peach withdrawal: it’s the last few days of August, the season is short, we knew they’d all be gone soon.

One of Andy’s employees was new (to me, at least) this year and started off seeming down. I made a point of being a friendly face. And you know what comes next. Maybe.

Only, the last two times I went in I didn’t see her and wondered if she still worked there.

Today answered that question nicely. She got two flats from the back for me, one Cal Red, one Angelus.

I waited till I was rung up and then pulled two soft Malabrigo hats out of my purse and asked her to pick a color.

Okay, this was a first for me: she laughed–I’d never heard her laugh before, she hedged on accepting one, and finally explained, I have so many hats. My mom’s a knitter!

My turn to laugh: I’m not going to compete with your mom!

I totally made her day, she totally made mine, the hats came home with me but the love they convey was completely present.

I almost typed ‘his’ all those times.

I bet she still gets that a lot.

Remember the Southwest meltdown because their software was twenty years old?

I just spent an hour fighting with a bug in Alaska Air’s system demanding a pin for a transaction that their system said didn’t require one. Was there a help desk? No. I looked at Southwest–yow! Since when do they gouge?!

I finally closed the Alaska tab, took a deep breath, started over doing exactly the same things exactly the same way and it all sailed right on through. And good thing, because my Companion Code was about to expire for the year.

And none of that matters at all: what does is what we get to do because of all that. We’ve got some celebrating to do together.

Cleaning blankets. The guest room. That antsy sense of can’t-hold-still when you’re preparing for guests.

After dinner, the puzzle: he told me too late that his puzzle enthusiast mother had always stuck to 250 pieces or fewer because otherwise they take too long.

Dang. Yes. Yes they do. I’d been too much a newbie to realize what 1000 pieces was going to be like.

That one piece of rutted driveway had been missing for a week, and the last few days we were not admitting to ourselves that we’d lost interest in finishing the darn thing given that we could never finish the darn thing.

The vacuum unearthed it near the back door this evening. Somehow it had tried to follow me out to go water the plants and been stuck in the carpet. Yay!

We got right to it and didn’t stop till it was done and it’s pretty and all those sky pieces drove me nuts and we never have to do it again.

And then since organization mode had totally taken over the day I pulled out all the small-project FOs. Hats, ends run in, those go here. Cowls, ends run in, here. Anything with the ends not run in all go in here for some day when I have a strong need to Finish All The Things.

Then there was the one I labeled Favorites. The scarf I made for his mother’s funeral. The silk one, just because. The red cashmere one I wear with a particular Ukrainian blouse that I love but whose neckline I do not. Easy fix. Plus one that’s going to a particular recipient and the Favorites label fits her (also because there’s no more room in the ends-already-run-in bag.)

It’s okay to keep some, he said, making sure I knew that.

Cooler weather is coming and people are going to need a little bit of human warmth. I think I’m ready.

Today went far better than I had any reason to expect. Yay icepacks and prayers.

Or, as they teach us at church, do like it’s all up to you, because it is, and pray like it’s all up to God, because it is.

Meantime, I finally allowed myself to realize something today as I spread blanket after blanket out for their turns in the sun–some of which were salvageable, some of which were not.

Which is that I finally had a good reason to toss the ones that I’d never liked much anyway.

Meantime, there was a wool kingsize blanket in a dusty light lavender. After hot water and full agitation (deliberately–I figured it was a lost cause, but it cleaned surprisingly well) it is now a throw with ruffly edges. It would make a great boiled-wool something: a jacket? Maybe vest as you cut around that center part where the folded edge had been affected? Maybe a dog or cat bed for Pets In Need.

Maybe placemats. They’d be pretty water resistant, now. And they’d go with my Mel and Krises.

Knit a row, get ready for houseguests, knit a row, get ready for houseguests, knit a row, give the hands another break so it’s not too much all at once. Of either. Got the moose body finished, the head done, a third of the antlers, and was going to do more tonight.

We once hosted my sister and BIL and their six boys overnight and eight extra people is a lot of pillows and blankets to have to scrounge up.

Besides, this being earthquake country, you never know whom you might have to take in. (Been there did that.)

So the guest room has a large stack of blankets along the wall and all the extra pillows go from the bed to that wall. When we have a pair of actual guests on that queen bed, that’s way too much and the herd needed to be thinned. I reached for one.

It was damp.

There is absolutely zero anything to do with water whatsoever in that room. None. Nor has there been. As I told him, yes I use that bed for blocking but I haven’t even done that in awhile and I certainly don’t pour water over it.

Fourteen damp blankets, including the quilt on the bed where it touched the others. Only one pillow definitely needs to be tossed so far.

I pulled them all out and started running the washer. Four handmade quilts were laid outside in what was left of the sunlight. SusanH, yours was in active use and not in there, thank goodness.

But one that Richard’s grandmother had made us as a wedding present. One that she’d made for Richard’s mother. A crocheted afghan my grandmother’s friend had made her who knows how long ago. Ooh, man, that one, at least it was the cheap Chinese one from a thrift store that took it the hardest.

If I ever wondered if I’d had covid at some point that interfered with my sense of smell (the first bout of it did not), that answered it: I could see the black spots but it wasn’t till I started pulling everything out of there that I got any whiff of it and he hasn’t smelled it yet. But I could enough to tell how bad it must be to someone else.

The wall. Well, it was bone dry on the outside, at least.

My childhood friend Karen helped set up a tie quilt at her house when we were 18 and put it together with me at a summer in my life when I was so down and so needed that time and that help. Her daughter and husband are the ones arriving from Maine in a few days–that quilt had dibs on the washer. (Also because I knew it could handle it.)

Meantime, our covid tests arrived at long last after dinner and we decided to do me for now. Did it, set the timer for the results, went outside to spread out another quilt to dry.

Richard has the lights in the family room set to blink from wherever he is in the house for when I don’t hear something I need to. The lights were blinking. I know that timer is obnoxiously loud for him, and I had my garden shoes on that I didn’t want to track across not just the house but anywhere near that hall lineup of stinky blankets that didn’t need one more thing happening to them. A moment late because I hadn’t thought of it fast enough, I kicked them off.

While turning and rushing.

One clog caught on my foot and twisted sideways and then so did I.

It was a few minutes before I could let him help me carefully up. Part of me thought, this is where I get to be glad I usually can’t feel much of the pain after five or ten minutes. Hopefully this time too?

And that is how I am typing this. The shoulder/upper arm hit hardest and we’ll see what tomorrow says, but I can lift it now (Demo’ing to prove it to myself after typing that and going, oh. Maybe don’t do that again soon.) The hip I landed on is just bruised. I think.

I think that’s definitely it on the knitting for the day.

Oh, and the covid test? It was negative.

From the late Gracie Larsen, then head of the Lacey Knitters guild, founder of the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale, friend and mentor whom I simply lucked into as a member of my local knitting group.

And instigator of my lace shawls book. When I didn’t believe in it she sure did and pushed me forward. After Martingale published it, at the next Stitches West Gracie surprised me with this exquisitely fine lace leaf in a sandwich bag with a tag offering congratulations in tiny writing. So that I would have a piece of her to remember her by forever.

And oh I do.

People moved away, the group fizzled to nothing, and it was a treat to see her like clockwork at Stitches every year manning her guild’s booth where anyone who wanted to learn any kind of lace was offered guidance on the spot. Tatting, knit, crochet, you name it.

I had almost forgotten this leaf. It had been so carefully tucked away.

So this time Richard did the Saturday Trader Joe’s run.

He wanted to reach over for something and found himself saying, Excuse me, ma’am.

She looked up at him. And asked, Are you a ___ high school parent?

I am!

She said, Are you a ___ elementary school parent?

I am! Or was.

And… Is your wife that sweet little thing?

He laughed telling me this part and said he’d answered, She is!

And does she still knit?

She does!

He came home and told me he’d given her this address and I said, I’d better write something good tonight then if Penny’s going to be reading it! I’m so sorry I missed her!

Back when the Barbara Walker books of my childhood were republished in the late ’90’s (I used to pore through Mom’s copy of the first one in high school), I taught myself lace knitting from them, and when I started, I was only using lace weight and tiny needles. I made wedding ring shawls, ie ones so fine you could pull them through a ring. I was quite proud of them.

I also made a few people a smaller scarf or stole on those size threes. But I had to really love and admire you. I was new at giving away my knitting, much less making anything like that.

Penny was not my kids’ teacher, but she was one of the teachers at that elementary school when my kids were there and she got one of those. Only a handful of people ever did.

Hi Penny!!