While we’re talking about art, my dad, who wrote, “The Fabulous Frauds: Fascinating Tales of Great Art Forgeries” would have fallen over laughing if he’d read this guy’s sales pitch. Napolean’s Talisman? That suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and with a story like that? Yeah, right, dude.

(Dad got sued by one of the forgers and the man’s story and a few others got dropped from a later edition, so, should you be interested, only buy the earlier Weybright and Talley edition of the book, as linked to. Chapter 13 I believe. Him.)

You put those two paragraphs together and I am my father’s daughter, aren’t I. (As I hit ‘Publish.’) Hey, all publicity is good publicity, right?

I have questions.

I got in the habit in my teens of walking several miles a day, and so there were a few times where I really stretched my legs and walked past whatever house used to be where this one is now. If memory serves, my older siblings’ friend Frances’s father was the original developer. (Or was that the next block up.)

So who…thought this was how they wanted it to be now?

Ten thousand-plus square feet, but only half of them finished. You can’t have a garage. The wallpaper in one bathroom is peeling away and the print on it is oak grain painted pink. I know, that was a thing when I was a kid, but it’s been years since I’ve seen the like.

A mansion built in 1985 and it had Formica? Are those cabinets Ikea? A lucite towel rack from the late ’60s when that was a hot new thing?

On the other hand, picture #15 has an excellent yarn storage system in place, bar none.

It says the flooring is carpet, hardwood, and marble, and a lot of it surely is, but honey I recognize that by-the-roll vinyl pattern in the kitchen because I saw it in the showroom in ’95 and didn’t want it in mine.

But what really threw me? Was picture #5. On the left.

I’ve seen that before.

I had to walk into the other room to look at mine to compare. Surely that’s an Anne painting. My sister. From the tour of Europe with our art dealer dad where she came home and painted so many of the cityscapes she’d seen. That’s how Dad liked to frame them, too, and her work was some of his most popular. There are several more shown less clearly that could be as well.

So that explains the mystery of the rest of the house: they’d spent their money where it mattered.

The sunlight only had a few minutes left and I excused myself from my knitting group Zoom a moment to step outside to cover the mango tree to hold in the warmth from the incandescent Christmas lights; it was 34F this morning, and since I had had it professionally pruned on Friday, I could only assume the cuts would make it a little more vulnerable right now. If it freezes it dies.

I always try to do that really carefully because those covers are big, it’s an awkward process, and it’s easy to trip on them. Not to mention I have no sense of balance.

I was not remembering that I must never be distracted nor in a hurry at this.

I found where my shoe had ended up as I took the measure of the outcome. Nothing seemed broken. Fingers unhappy. The rest will let me know (and it’s starting to.) I found myself unexpectedly a bit dizzy. Having fallen four days ago tripping over a box at the front door, one big toe was going, Are you kidding me. Again?

I came back inside and found myself suddenly short of breath as I was turning the camera back on to my friends. I didn’t say anything to them and in fact kept knitting the plain beanie I was working on thank you left hand but I did confess to my family after it was over.

I got me a loving but stern talking-to from both of them. I got lectured on the value of me vs the tree. I got told to be careful. (I know, I know.)

Tonight’s the coldest night in the forecast for the next ten days, and things should be warming up from there so hopefully we’re done dealing with this for the season.

And then.

I got a wonderful note back from my niece re the afghan I’d just finished for her daughter whom she’d given my name as her middle name: she is thrilled, it is gorgeous, and by airplane or mail, by whatever means they will all be very very happy when it comes.

She, hesitating and unsure in the asking, had one request, though: I had once knit her a hat and she had loved it very much. She didn’t quite want to say it but her mom/my sister had encouraged her and said she should, and–would it be possible I could knit her another one like that? Because it had been just so perfect and it had meant a lot to her. She had checked the Lost and Founds everywhere. It was distinctive, but no, they hadn’t seen it.

Her email yanked me right out of my self-pity and straight into happy anticipation at such an easy way to make her world right again. I’d needed that. The afghan needs the security of arrival by air by me after Omicron gets out of here, but seventy stitches’ and about fifty rows’ worth of a hat: that, I’d be willing to trust the post office with.

My left hand might want to wait a day or two to start.

But not if I have any say in it.

I got a heads-up from a dairy-allergic friend two days ago: Mutari Chocolate‘s building is being torn down and they were being forced to move, without a place to land yet. Go, she said. Valentine’s is their last day.

NO! Oh, man…

And so the three of us headed over the hills to Santa Cruz to support Michelle’s favorite chocolate maker. Their stuff is pricey–but extremely good. And safe for her to just simply go and eat out like a normal person, which has been such a gift for her.

I feel like I’m out of practice after these past two years, but I wanted to thank them and support them and encourage them in whatever may come next. So I grabbed four Malabrigo Mecha hats knit of many a Sunday Zoom session and managed, from the back seat, to thread a yarn needle and run the ends in on the three that needed it, despite the steep twists and curves of Highway 17 through the mountains.

We knew it might well be our last chance. We knew we were going to splurge.

That turned out to be a definite understatement.

The chocolate machinery in that place, the music, and of course the masks are all not conducive to my hearing much at all in there and I’ve always just been the pleasant but deaf mom picking out what I want and letting the others have their conversations. But this time the familiar face of one woman lit up when she saw me–and not only did it mean the world to me, in that moment I felt how much having to let go of this place and our coming at this time meant to her.

And that answered my inner question right there. Yes.

And so the purse was opened and I asked her to pick a color. She exclaimed and chose the one in soft purples and browns that could be cacao pods by the colors. Perfect. I suddenly wished I had more of those to offer.

The woman behind her picked a bright blues and greens mix.

Did I see someone working in the back? I asked.

Yes. And so the first woman picked one out for that woman, too, and walked over to that room to share it.

It was my Don’t Go parting gift. My pleading of Please Make It Back Here. Even though Santa Cruz rent is crazy.

They are going to tour some of the farms around the world that grow their cacao beans and then come back here and start searching for a new spot.

They do, in fact, have a second location: in Watsonville, so their website will remain up and running during what is hopefully just an interim.

I was so glad I had a way to say thank you for all the chocolate and the welcoming and the allergen conscientiousness that’s been so freeing for our daughter.

Who, as she drove us back north, said with both wishing and hesitation, Watsonville. That’s…quite a drive.

Yes, but note that at least your cousin does live near there.

Morning light somehow captures the color best so far.

For my own notes: two strands of dk Cashwool in Mulberry (sold out) from Colourmart, two 900 gram cones with 208 and 162g remaining but that includes 32 grams for the plastic cones they’re wound onto, size 8 needles, 239 stitches per row and could have been wider but with lots of sideways stretch it will definitely do.

Definitely.

The recycled cashmere sweater bought with LLBean Bucks came yesterday and I’ve been wearing it today.

So here goes.

The fit is quite generous, allowing for shrinkage I’m guessing; I would have bought a small rather than a medium had I tried them on in a store, except that the sleeves are inexplicably on the short side. Long enough to work out okay for me personally, though, since my arms are slightly short, too, but it made me not return it to exchange sizes.

I took a close look at the distribution of blue vs white in the heathered yarn: both front and back have slightly more white at upper left. Go figure. Not that anyone’s likely to notice it, though, it’s definitely not much of a difference. Overall, I would say the color distribution is surprisingly good considering the likely randomness the fibers took in getting to that point.

It’s garter stitch, and I’m trying to figure out if that’s why the fabric seems–I want to say more floppy than the usual. I’m not sure how strong the yarn would be if I were knitting it and I’m guessing less so than one straight from the goat.

But it will do. It will definitely do. I like it. I mean, it’s cashmere and the shade of blue turned out to be just what I wanted.

But if I were given a choice between recycled yarn and not (and they generally seem to be close in price on Colourmart) I’m definitely going with the not.

My folks had an original Eames chair when I was growing up, and out of curiosity I looked them up.

Turns out you can still buy them from Herman Miller, although at least right now not our rocker version.

And then I saw this.

Every kid on the planet would want one of these. Every parent on the planet would be keeping an eye out for what they would spin out into. Every autistic kid really needs one. Heck, I want one (as if we could afford that price!) and I don’t even have any sense of balance and you know I’d totally go flying.

But it still looks like a ton of fun the moment people figure out just what the heck they’re supposed to DO with that weird thing.

And also like a pottery project where the artist got interrupted halfway and called to dinner.

Finally, finally, and with some reluctance, I finished the last pattern row tonight. All that’s left is the ribbing across the top.

On November 23, I opened my yellow Barbara Walker charted treasury copy wide enough to photocopy page 146 to start this afghan. I only made one copy. Given the stress on the paperback’s binding and how I didn’t want to do that again, that was dumb.

So in all that time I’ve been keeping pairs of post-it notes to underline which row I was working from to keep my eyes and brain from skittering all over the page and losing their place from stitch to individual stitch. The stickum wears off, you put on two more side by side to cover the width of the written row, repeat, repeat, later join Wordle (yesterday!) and use the used-up ones for sketching quick notes on.

As for the pattern, that piece of paper is looking pretty ratty at this point. But better it than my book.

The brightness of nighttime lighting reflecting off the whiteness of the page made it hard to see the stitches and I was forever pushing it up a bit out of the way and having it slide back down to my lap. I was so close to not needing it–but with the complexity of that piece and the parts that are counter-intuitive I didn’t dare risk it.

Ribbing. It really only needs that ribbing. It’s kind of hard to believe.

Finally, finally, the thing let me get a better picture of the color as a going-away present.

And in all that time I never realized till I went to look up the page number for this post just now (since it didn’t print out on the xerox) that it was supposed to be garter stitch separating the undulating waves. I’d done all of that purl-side out. All of it. All that time I’d stared at all those little dots and x’s and slanting lines and the like, easily a hundred hours, I’d had no idea I was being a rebel.

Well, good, then, because I like it better this way.

I think the scrub jay chased the rabbit across the yard just because it could boss it around like that so it was fun. It’s a corvid thing.

Re less fun things: sometimes it’s just easier to hire someone else to do it. And so two men showed up today to spray my peach trees against leaf curl disease and another crew from the same company will be pruning everything shortly.

I noted one of them stopping first in apparent surprise and not moving from the spot, so I opened the door and called over to him, Yes–that’s a mango tree.

He told me, marveling, that the other guy had instantly recognized that it was. He looked like he was trying to memorize it–the long leaves, the tropically curving branches.

I answered the question he hadn’t quite asked yet by saying it had been under a plastic greenhouse when it was younger. What I didn’t say was, we’ve had the warmest winter since it was planted and I haven’t so much as had to cover it at night with frost covers but half a dozen times this whole season.

Including, as it would later turn out, tonight, just to be on the safe side.

After they left one of the rabbits tried to dig under the bird netting around the base protecting the mango from their teeth–they’ve always avoided it before–and the jay would have been proud of my wing flapping as I ran out there to chase the little fuzzbutt back across the yard.

Applesauce Honey cake at Spruce Eats is the winner so far. Cocoa in boiling water substituted for the coffee.

The afghan: if I stop at the last row of the pattern, #40, then the top and the bottom won’t mirror. As written, it starts with pairs of cables and ends just before the cabling, because of course when you’re repeating over and over, but not so much when you’re coming to a stop. So I’m thinking I’ll end after a pair of cables and half a motif, meaning, row #32. Or #12 on a ninth repeat, which I have just enough yarn for.

My niece and her husband are both tall. Right now it’s 64″ unblocked with 5.5″ to go if I stop at #32 once you factor in the ribbing.

Which I really really want to do right now, but having gotten this far, if I need to go on I’ll go on and my rule of thumb is to match the person’s height so it can cover their feet. No skimping. Plus it came out a little narrower than I wanted at 48″, but with a lot of sideways stretch so no problem–except that that pulls the length downwards quite a bit.

And on a side note: it occurred to me today that I could go into the local paint store, buy a paint chip that matches it, and send that off to ask if they all like the color without giving away what’s up.

Because they would never, ever suspect me of knitting. Right?

A cup of honey? Let’s try that one.

The 30 minutes totally didn’t do it–it was in there for 45 before the top tested done and turned that nice golden brown (and the darn thing stopped shaking like jello.)

A half hour later it looked like this. Still pretty good, right?

And then we cut into it. And it was.

But the bottom was definitely overdone. The top was definitely underdone.

And that’s when I learned something new: my daughter said that the standard size for loaf pans has changed over the years to being wider and lower so things bake faster and more evenly. My pans are old and narrow and high.

It was still good enough to eat, and we definitely did; it was kind of like angel food cake gone orange–it had no fat whatsoever and was a bit dry. (Note that I added a bit of salt where none was called for.)

While I was waiting for it to come out of the oven, DebbieR found two recipes for Alton Brown’s Aunt Verna’s Honey Cake. I’d made the version from The Food Network. But the one from his site–has salt. And butter. And orange juice. And sugar. Half the eggs, but still that cup of honey, and I want to ask, Honey, what does your Aunt Verna think of the discrepancies?

I’ve got to try that second one.

His loaf is wider and lower. There you go.

Maybe mine fell because I opened the oven three times while testing and expecting 30 minutes to have been enough when the second recipe (albeit with more ingredients) said 60. But it also says time to make is 35 minutes, so, huh. Y’know, I worked as a copyeditor a thousand years ago in case y’all need to hire one over there…

I have me more testing to do.

Suddenly all my jars of remaindered honey amounts don’t look like quite so much after all. I just have to finish de-crystallizing them all.

Mom, do you know how many jars of honey you have?!

She’d just pulled them all out of the cabinet in disbelief.

I started the afghan Nov. 23d. It’s gorgeous, it’s a quarter of the way through the eighth and last long repeat, it’s almost done.

So why has it slowed down so much? I’ve been trying to figure it out. Is it because I just enjoy too much having this thing draped down past my feet as I work while it sweet-talks my ego? Because there are a whole lot more useful things it could be doing once done and I could be doing by now, like, getting on to the next blanket for the recipient after that.

Silly person. Now get back to work. (Actually, two months isn’t too bad.)

10,307 stitches to go. Not that I’m counting.

An elderly person dear to me got hacked yesterday.

And today, another elderly friend, chatting like she does and asking after my family, told me happily about the quarter million dollar check that had arrived by FedEx from Publisher’s Clearing House and how nice it was that they look out for the elderly and disabled like that and had I signed up for that, too?

I advised caution.

No, no, she’d taken it to her bank and they’d accepted it.

I reminded her of a mutual widowed friend who, at about 90, was swindled out of the house she’d owned free and clear for decades and had found herself thrown out on the street in utter bewilderment.

There was no unconvincing her.

I linked to Publisher Clearing House’s own website where they warned against frauds being committed in their name and say that even banks have been fooled into thinking the checks are real–until they find out they are not.

I asked if she’d called PCH to make sure it was real. She hesitated, then said she had, and I thought, if you did, did you look it up online or did you call the scammer’s number? Because there is nothing legitimate about this.

So since she was a friend from church I got off Facebook and mentioned it to those in a better position to step in and help; she sure wasn’t listening to me.

To which one of them said, could that have been a fake? Basically, (she didn’t quite say outright) was the person they were trying to scam–you?

It was indeed a duplicate of her profile. Reported now.

I guess I learned a little humility myself on the gullibility index today.

Chocolate almond torte cupcakes, I’d call them. Chocolate teacakes to them. Celiac friendly. Not overly sweet.

Those of us who bake are familiar with the instructions to separate eggs and beat the whites at the last till they’re nice and frothy, put a little of them into the rest of the mixed ingredients, and fold the rest in carefully so you don’t smush the air out and then get that thing in the oven just as fast as you can.

What I had never encountered before were the instructions to do so–and then leave the whole thing alone for an hour and not only that but before you spoon it out into the pan.

Ottolenghi said, Trust us. Don’t skip this step–you need the almond flour to soak in the moisture of the other ingredients for the sake of the texture of the cupcakes to come.

(I used cocoa and boiling water for the instant coffee granules and boiling water called for because I’m Mormon like that.)

And they were right. I was surprised at what a difference it made, and wondered why it hadn’t said this on their other almond flour-based recipe I’d tried earlier.

It said it made 18. Who has an 18-muffin pan? The classic metal 12-pan took 24 minutes and the silicone 6-pan was quite done in 20. Curious.