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!!

I got a pro tip I never would have thought of: pop your hood every now and then. Let the sunshine in.

When we had the shed cleaned out, the men pointed out where mice had nested after seeing them leaping away.

All that area is open and empty now and I wondered where they’d gone off to.

Some Japanese cars use soy in the covering on their wiring. Richard told me, Oh, yeah, we had one guy who had to replace all the wiring on his new car three times–and it happened while it was parked at work.

Sounds to me like the coyote often seen trotting around that building (sighted often, even I saw it) wasn’t doing its job.

So. My car didn’t immediately respond to the accerator three times in a row between here and the pharmacy but was fine after that. The garage said intermittent problems are the hardest to track down but come on over and we’ll see what codes come up.

The codes were fine.

The mouse nest in the engine compartment that they cleaned out, judging by the look on the guy’s face as he returned my keys, not so much.

We’ve had that car 17 years and we’ve never had that happen before. I can just picture them skittering out across his garage floor, and close to closing time at that when their doors were about to come down and seal them inside their shop. Unless they tracked down every one and succeeded at getting them out. Not that they said that out loud.

I am SO sorry! I said, horrified.

Oh, said the woman at the counter, trying to be nice, we see a lot of that.

Yes, but…!!

Seventeen-year-old Gus Walz, tears streaming down his face, leaping to his feet and pointing to his father on the stage and proclaiming proudly, That’s my dad! as he put his hand to his heart and later ran to throw his arms around him, showed America how every child should feel about every parent and every parent should feel about their child. Nothing, and certainly not politics, should ever be allowed in the way of that.

The Walzes say Gus’s learning and social impediments are his superpower. After reading stories of men saying they needed to go reconcile with their adult children after watching that moment, Tim and Gwen are clearly right. Gus showed all of us how to be.

And how we want our leaders to feel about their families.

Got halfway across a row and knitted the rest on a different circular needle so I could lay it out flat to have a good look. Sometimes staring for awhile is the only way to really see it. It is 12″ or 15″ long, depending on which measurement you believe (I could definitely stretch it to be more.)

Oh hey I could… I wasn’t planning on… But yeah. I like that idea. Blame the puzzle we’ve been working on for that one, but yes, I think I’m going to do that after the next planned thing.

It’s a bit too wide again. 60″. Nice and snuggly, though.

Y’know, it’s still at the point where I could top the afghan off with seed stitch, call it a scarf, and walk away from the whole thing.

Nahhh. I want to see what it wants to be when it grows up.

Glad I wore a mask yesterday. Woke up this morning hoping I hadn’t infected anyone. There was a luncheon after the service but I didn’t stay for it; I’d been exposed to someone with what was hopefully just a mild cold–but you never know, and the utilities sampling says current incidence is very high here. I couldn’t risk the elderly folks by taking it off.

Awfully glad today I’d kept it on.

Got out the covid testing kit and found it had expired two years ago, so we’ll just see what tomorrow brings.

It was a good day to knit.

We were the parents of three, soon to be four. We had just moved across the country where we knew nobody and had more than doubled our mortgage payments. Things were quite tight.

Monajo simply randomly decided that it would be a great day to go visit the new young couple, and with a call and a would-it-be-alright, she stopped by. The surprise was that it was with beautiful homegrown veggies from her garden.

And what a garden. I had no idea. In this city of postage-stamp lots, she had at least an acre with a creek at the back looping in a half circle near the very old bay tree that had grown multiple trunks into what she loved to call her fairy circle, with a very large hammock suspended at the center.

She was a master gardener and loved making arrangements. One day she donated a large number of her flowers in order to teach a flower arranging class on a Saturday at church.

However you place them, visually, you want things to be in sets of three, she told us. Upper, middle, lower, is the traditional Japanese way, or…

I got there late–kids’ schedules and stuff–and there were very few left to choose from, and this was not my field of expertise whatsoever but I tried, I really tried.

She came over to see how mine had come out and helpfully said, Let’s get you started.

I looked at her.

Well, actually, I thought mine was done… (Thinking, and I will never be as good as you at it but that’s okay because we have you and you are a treasure.)

She was the original instigator of our December Birthday Club. She would have turned ninety at this year’s.

When I saw her infant great grandchildren I understood why the delay; those babies had needed to arrive before their mothers got on planes.

The flowers at her memorial service today were glorious, as you knew they had to be and where they had come from. Her children have their mother’s master’s touch.

And there were these tiny seed packets with a note for every person who came: explaining that sweet peas had been Monajo’s favorite flower. She had passed while they were in full, glorious bloom. These were the seeds from those flowers, and she was inviting us into her garden one last time and forevermore.

Conversation with a couple after church who remind me of us when we moved here with young kids. They’ve lived here about three years. Nice folks, quite fond of them.

A quick mention in passing and the guy did a double take: “I had no idea you were deaf!”

Me: “Thank you!”

I explained that that’s why I always hold my phone in church–for the captions.

Ohhh, his face said. He got it now.

And then the skein from Imagiknit arrived, Coco in Rios, and it too was perfect, depending on whether I wanted a dark morph moose or lighter.

So I googled moose pictures. They come in all black, dark brown, dark legs, lighter lower legs, dark antlers, medium antlers. That’s what I thought.

So basically I could take my two skeins and give it a lighter belly and lower legs and antlers. Works for me. We’ll see when I get there, though; after laying the work down on two long circular needles to see what I’ve got so far as a non-scrunched-up whole, I’m doing another round of pines first.

Knitting charts are emphatically not my strong point, but I’d found a moose (Ravelry link) that actually looked like a moose and I went to start adding it in today.

And stopped halfway across the row, feeling silly.

It was backwards. I knew that.

This is where being married to a computer scientist comes in handy so I thought I’d pass this on.

Go to your pdf. Go to pdfux.com and scroll down to find what you want your pdf to do. There it is: flip. Click that, drag your pdf where they say, and there you go.

We had eaten the last peach, and I needed a skein of brown that was not the ones that I had.

It would be a fast dash into the LYS; you don’t leave Andy’s ripe fruit in a hot car any longer than you have to.

Which is how I stopped by Fillory Yarn on the way home.

I’d been told months ago that there was now a Thursday afternoon knitting group there; I hadn’t been thinking about it at all but yes there was. I had wondered from time to time if any of my old group had started coming again post-covid, but I didn’t recognize a single face.

One woman at the table said, Oh sorry, and leaned over to move her purse so I could stoop down to check out the Rios in browns near floor level.

I picked up two slightly different colorways from two different bins and, looking up at her, asked, Which one would you pick for a moose? I need a moose in my landscape.

She wasn’t expecting that and laughed a little.

I told her about the moose in Alaska that had stood at the hood of our car and looked in at us inquisitively like, What ARE you?!

She told me about a moose she’d seen and how cool it was. She was quite definite: That one.

I’d actually been leaning towards the other–but as I mentally pictured it with Cian I knew she was right and was glad I had asked.

Wait, though. I found a third skein in its bin that had less variation to it. Yes! And I wouldn’t have found it if she hadn’t been so sure, helping me see what I needed to see. I owe her one, whoever she is.

A little bit of conversation and then I had to run rescue my peaches and nectarines and Green Gage plums from the heat. But I came away feeling like, it’s been four and a half years since I had an in-person knitting group. I think I’ve finally found it.

So now I just have to knit that moose before next Thursday so she can see what she helped make happen.

Got in to the ENT rather early this morning to get my ear canals unclogged. Badly needed.

I was a bit early, he was actually surprisingly late, but I figured I had about four hours left on that skein. No rush. I do need more cowls in my FO pile, hats don’t do it for everyone.

Lovely man, got it done so carefully. I turned to thank him for my extra hearing.

And found myself looking him in the eyes and asking gently, Are you okay?

His whole body exhaled as he said, I just put my son on a plane to New York.

I debated asking which university but simply said, Monday I put my Boston daughter on a plane, too.

Parent to parent in that moment, we knew.

He walked out of that exam room with a warm smile on his tired face.

A chance encounter at the curb before they leave in the next day or two and all of us grateful for it. Messages sent are a help but eye to eye is so much better.

We’re not using our second recyclables bin this week, I said; do you guys need the extra space?

Oh thank you yes we really do.

What they put in my bins last week could have gotten them rejected: that would be considered trash, that one could have been too heavy, but now they knew what the stricter rules are with the city’s new contractor.

It was not going to be a problem, and I knew they were good for it.

The issues of last week were irrelevant anyway, as long as you sort right: tomorrow’s the big Clean Up day where you can even set furniture out and they’ll take it. Slap a Reuse label on good stuff and it’ll get donated to charity instead of being landfilled.

I apologized for any stress I might in any way have added to all that they’ve been going through and thanked them for their realtor who introduced me to her contractor who cleaned out our shed for us for a good price.

At the last, the sister wondered what on earth to do with the big Rubbermaid bins her mom had labeled Block Party: where should all that go? Paper plates, bowls, cups, it was all still perfectly good.

I’ve been trying to get the annual block party going again, I told her; I’d be glad to take it.

I didn’t say, I got zero feedback from the neighbors on my initial query on the subject–but if I were to say that in her parents’ loved names and with their party stuff let’s do this and celebrate our late neighbors who brought us all together in the first place and kept us going for years and years, making so many connections and memories, and now we have six new sets of neighbors to welcome in in this square block since the pandemic–

–I think for that, yes absolutely a good number of them would come. With her parents’ help we were halfway there already.

Watsonville farmland, 247 acres of broccoli, beets, and lettuce by the ocean that flooded out last year and this.

With lots of private, state, and Federal funding, 65 acres of Beach Ranch is being turned back into the tidal wetlands it once was, offering a buffer and protection for the other coastal areas and leaving room to retreat further if need be into the other acres that will be rented out for farming as long as possible. Migratory birds will still have their estuary as the slough downstream gives way. Other farms will have greater protection as the area calms the sea and absorbs winter storm runoffs.

Sometimes money can buy common sense.