Yellow Boat

As often happens, I put aside my pillow project yesterday when I was taking out more stitches  than I was putting in. Also as often happens, I had a new idea sometime in the wee hours and couldn't wait to test it out. However, first I had to do the laundry, walk the dog, stand at the bottom of the driveway talking with a very chatty neighbor about our evacuation experiences and the general state of things in California.

She reminded me of our friends from India who lived near us in Berkeley and felt they were working too hard just to survive and support their two daughters, and ultimately went back to India. My neighbor said her two sons are no longer living with them, their house is too big, it's too stressful to worry about fires, power shutoffs, earthquakes and evacuations, and so expensive that she and her husband both work and don't have time to admire the beautiful place in which they live.

I wrote a couple of long deferred letters. Yes, I still write letters, but only to those who I know appreciate hand written letters and take the trouble to write back. One of them is a historian who told me many years ago the importance of keeping a metal box of letters I had found in the attic. They were about everyday life....the health of the people involved, travels, and sales of property,  made all the more fascinating by the fact that they were written by my great grandmother and great grandfather. They were a fascinating record of a way of life that is known to us, but barely recognizable when compared to the lives we lead today. They are a snapshot in time...a time that will never return....and therefore precious.

I had a nice walk around Spring Lake with another friend and her German shorthair pointer, Ziggy. The power never went out at their house, probably because they are near the fairgrounds which is always the command center for CalFire and must have power. They had had plans to go to Yosemite for months but weren't informed until they were on their way that the power had been turned off in Yosemite! There were generators for the public spaces and restaurants and they were given $2 flashlights but there were  but no showers. They came home a day early...

I  had about an hour to work on the second pillow after I ate lunch and before Dana came over to help us move the porch furniture in expectation of the arrival of the roofers in the morning.

I didn't get much done....