I can hear the whistle of a train.

This shouldn’t be especially noteworthy — I only live three miles from train tracks, after all, and sound carries, especially at night. However, since June we’ve had fans and/or the air conditioner running and I haven’t heard the late night train in months.

But there’s been a change in the air this week, and today I turned everything off and opened the window.

It’s nice to be reacquainted with the night again.

(Feel free to remind me of this when someone lights up a joint on the sidewalk outside our apartment.)

I had a laid-back weekend. Friday night we spent time up at the park, reading and enjoying the bats zooming inches over the grass and then soaring high into the air after their prey. We came home to eat supper and I found the Washington Mystics playing on tv. As a Connecticut girl, I’m a big fan of women’s basketball, and D.C.’s and Dallas’ teams put on a good show that went into overtime. We concluded the evening with homemade chocolate chip ice cream.

Yesterday, I did indeed get to sleep in. I also stopped by the local yarn shop just to browse for the first time since February (okay, I may have bought a new set of dpns made out of driftwood and some Soak, because one can always use more). I then headed down to the garden, where I put in a couple hours of weeding, yanking out the vines that had made the jump from the adjacent woods and pulling out some not-yet-budding milkweed (yes, monarchs… but weed is in the name and it grows like it; trust me, there’s still plenty left!) that was overshadowing plants I wanted to produce food for me. I then picked some figs from the tree by the garden and then did some grocery shopping, the combination thereof (grocery shopping itself is small potatoes compared to hauling three full bags all home by myself) I’m pretty sure justified eating as much pizza and ice cream as I wanted, which I did while watching the Chuck Brown Day anniversary concert, which was being livestreamed on YouTube.

Today, I went to the farmers market (no boxes of tomatoes this week, but plenty of other goodies), then had a pleasant brunch with Corey in the bedroom in front of the fan while listening to the Nationals game on the radio. I did a few chores around the house and then head over to Arlington to return the overdue book I had from their library. I celebrated finding my way to the library (Roads in Arlington move like staircases at Hogwarts. It’s best if you just don’t fight the concept.) by getting a cup of tea at a local coffeehouse and then taking a less circuitous route back to D.C. After a stop to water the garden and pick basil for our supper, I hightailed it for the park, where Rudi and I stayed until the sun turned in for the night.

It was a good weekend. How was yours?

Walking back from the garden, we were greeted by this sight. It was nearly 8 p.m., so the sun was just too low to get the full half-circle. But it was still a most lovely way to end the day.

Rudi and I tackled some chores today that took us close to suppertime, so I suggested to him that we get some takeout from our local fish & chip place, which just reopened, and take it up to the park.

With cases spiking around the country, I’m not ready to eat in an area of close proximity to other people, but takeaway works just fine from my perspective. We haven’t taken supper to the park this summer, but lots of people do each evening, so it made sense for us to join the trend.

We each had fish and chips and we split an order of fried pickles (and ranch dressing). And Rudi got a Boddington’s with its funny little ping pong inside the can to make it extra frothy.

The evening’s weather was absolutely perfect in the city. We could see a single rain cloud off in the distance (it looked like a waterfall), but it simply put on a show and then went on its way. The Nationals were playing, so we brought our speaker and listened to the radio broadcast of the game. While there were some defensive issues for both teams, the Nationals bats were on fire, and we trounced the Yankees to make up for the shortened home opener called for rain the other night. I opted to read my book instead of knitting, and we stayed until the seventh inning stretch, which was when even the sidewalk lights weren’t bright enough to read by any longer.

We came home and watched the last couple innings of the game on tv while eating homemade ice cream. It was really the best way to celebrate crossing chores off our lists and a beautiful summer night, pandemic or no.

It was a beautiful night at the park.