These two squares were knitted on the same pair of size 8 circulars, out of the same yarn – and they are not even close to the same size.

They are, obviously, different patterns – the red and white is a double-garter bias knit, and the blue and white is Ilga Leja’s Shadow Boxes pattern (with an error or two of my own design), and that affects the final gauge. Also, I realized when I finished the red and white that the white yarn is just a teensy bit thicker than the red (or blue) – it’s got a sparkly thread in it that adds a bit of bulk.

Still, I swear I measured them both at about 8 inches early in the knitting. Now one of them’s a little over, and one of them’s a little under. And that’s one of the things I love about knitting – that unpredictability. It’s maddening, yes, but it means that each and every piece is truly an original.

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NovySan jumped. I jumped. Our tiny visitor jumped. Off the table, onto the chest freezer, and from there onto the child gate we use to keep Schokie out of the living room. When it jumped, we saw the tiny “wings.”

It was a flying squirrel. In our kitchen.

It let me take some pictures, then we discussed our next move. I offered it a piece of freshly-baked banana-walnut cake (plus blueberries, minus the caramel, and with the walnuts mixed in). It seemed interested, but wary. I remembered the day a hummingbird stumbled into my study, and our former housemate John captured it with a towel. “That seems appropriate,” I thought, “given that it’s Towel Day.” I tried, but the towel slipped off, and our squirrel (soon to be christened Fidget) gave me such a dose of the big sad eyes that I didn’t dare try again. I picked up the banana cake, which I’d set on the floor, and held it up very near Fidget’s twitchy little nose. After a moment, he set a delicate black paw on the edge of the plate, and used his new leverage to launch himself into the darkness of the living room. I realized he was headed for the front door.

“Oh, good,” I said, and picked my way across the room to open the front door and screen, praying I wouldn’t step on him. I needn’t have worried. He’d scaled the WaterRower – the tallest object in the room. A moment later, he launched himself toward the front door, and I realized he’d seen his escape route.

“Oh, clever baby,” I said, just as he scrambled up the inside of the door and crawled through the little security window. I peeked at the outside of the door. Little Fidget was clinging to the outside of the door, considering his next move. I closed the window carefully, and then the door. When I opened it a moment later, I heard him scrambling through the jasmine on the front porch.

Goodnight, Fidget. And good luck.

***UPDATE*** NovySan’s friend Jen said Fidget’s not a squirrel – he’s a sugar glider. Which means he’s was definitely someone’s pet, and an illegal alien, too, since you’re not allowed to keep gliders in California.

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Of course I could. I’ll never turn down a trip to La Cabana.

Since NovySan was parked behind me, we had to take his car. Like me, NovySan drives a classic Bug, and like mine, it’s got its little quirks. For instance, the only way to adjust the driver’s seat is to slide it forward, then fix it in place with a screwdriver. Well, it doesn’t have to be a screwdriver – but there’s a screwdriver in the map pocket that works very well for the purpose. It can be tricky in the dark, even using your husband’s cell phone as a flashlight (via the excellent TorchButton app), especially when said husband’s sunglasses keep falling out of the map pocket he keeps the screwdriver in. I got it done, though, released the park brake (maybe some other time I’ll talk about the day I didn’t do that, and drove 10 miles with the damned thing on), put the car in reverse, and started to back out of the driveway.

***CRUNCH***

“What was that?” NovySan asked.

“Your fucking sunglasses,” I replied. I could feel the tears starting. “I swear I put them back in the map pocket.”

“I hope they weren’t my favorite ones,” he said.

“I’m sure they were.”

I was right. They were his favorites. But they weren’t the ones from the map pocket. I had gotten those put away. And so now I don’t know if there’d been two sets of sunglasses in the map pocket, and I didn’t notice when the first pair fell out, or if they’d been next to the seat and fallen out when I opened the door. Either way, they were smashed, and I owe him a new pair of shades.

Edit: I should note that NovySan wasn’t that upset about his sunglasses. In fact, I was so upset about the sunglasses (because I do get frustrated with myself when I do stupid shit, like running over my husband’s sunglasses) that he had to go to some trouble to tell me that he wasn’t. “It’s okay,” he said. “The sunglasses don’t matter, because I was just sodomized by the Buddha, and so I’ve reached enlightenment.” That was just the beginning. There was more. By the end of it, I was laughing so hard I almost had to pull over. And dinner was excellent, as well.

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I was on my way back, walking west down Melrose, when a black sports car made a fast right onto Wilcox, without signaling. There was a bicyclist coming toward me, as well, riding on the sidewalk, and although he hadn’t been in any real danger, it was dicey enough to annoy me.

“Of course you don’t need a turn signal,” I muttered. “And never mind that you almost hit someone,” I added.

The bicyclist also made the right onto Wilcox, and I crossed the street and hit the Walk button on the other side. A moment later, I heard a voice. A loud, angry voice. I looked around, and saw the same bicyclist, stopped in the crosswalk on the other side of the street, and staring right at me.

“You better watch your fuckin’ mouth!” he said, “you motherfuckin’ asshole fucker!”

It didn’t register at first. I couldn’t make sense of the stream of profanity. Then he said, “That’s right, fucker,” and it clicked. He’s really angry with someone. “I said you better fuckin’ watch it!”

I looked around. The only other person in sight, who wasn’t in a car, was a gardener with a leaf blower about half a block away, in the direction the bicyclist had come from. It occurred to me that maybe he’d blown leaf litter into his chain, but when I looked back, he was still staring at me, through his black-rimmed shades. “You wanna fuckin’ talk to me,” he said, “you go ahead.”

“I didn’t say anything to you.” This was true. I hadn’t. But he wasn’t buying it.

“You fuckin’ got a problem with me, you come talk to me, you fuck.”

Now, it’s not the first time I’ve been threatened by a crazy person. But it is the first time I’ve been threatened by a crazy person who was so well put together. Twenty-something, muscular, wearing crisp khaki shorts, a nice windbreaker, a clean nylon backpack and a bicycle helmet. Somehow, it was the bicycle helmet that threw me – it’s just such a thoroughly normal accessory.

And so, because he was so normally accessorized, I tried one more time to engage with him in a normal manner. “I didn’t say anything to you,” I repeated.

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with!” he replied. “You wanna come over here and talk to me? Yeah? That’s what I thought!”

And with that, he was gone, pedaling east on Melrose and leaving me to stand on the corner gaping after him, so stunned I missed my Walk signal and had to wait through another long light change. During the mental replay, I realized he must have thought my (really fairly muted) expression of disgust for the driver of the black sports car was meant for him. Leaving aside the questions that raises about him (“How self-absorbed are you? Seriously, you did nothing wrong, and he almost ran you over, and you think I was being rude to you?”), it did prompt me to make a mental note. “Do try to squelch your urge to comment on the things you see around you.”

Of course, I won’t really be able to do that. I can just try to keep myself from doing it out loud.

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I cracked open the normally-very-reliable Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads,
and selected a recipe for honey starter. Warm water – check. All-purpose flour – check. Yeast – check. Two tablespoons honey – check. Pour into a one quart jar with a tight-fitting lid? Hmm… Yes, there’s a jar – an old honey jar, in fact. Size? 48 ounces – more than a quart. Hmm… That seems very full, but that’s what the book says… Now, lid. Well, this one’s not exactly airtight, but it should do. (And do I want it really tight? Won’t there be gases from the fermentation? How will those escape?) Now, leave it somewhere warm… Aha, I’ll put it in this stockpot, next to the slow cooker – that’ll keep it cozy.

Half an hour later, I heard a sound. A sort of yeasty, moisty, burbly kind of sound.

I went to investigate.

And this is what I found.

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