Today was a really nice day even if it did begin at 6:30 and just seems to be wrapping up now at 1:30. That would be a.m. on both sides. Ouch.

We arose at the same time as the sun so we could finish cleaning before our 7:45 a.m. meeting. At this point, finish cleaning equated roughly with making it passable enough that we weren’t ashamed of having people inside.

Giving up on the dream of making the meeting on time, we called to say we’d catch up with the group at its next destination, about an hour later and pulled ourselves together. (The extra time helped — when we walked in the door later on, we marveled at how nice the Burrow seemed when it was clean(er)).

On the morning’s agenda was Hands On D.C., a public service project where citizens help paint and clean and improve the city’s schools. We ended up at the middle school near our house and spent several hours painting hallways. We didn’t do a lot, but it was something.

In the afternoon, I stopped at the used bookstore by our house. Its owners are moving to L.A. and closed the store earlier this week. Today, though, they were giving away the rest of the stock they didn’t feel like moving across the country. I came home with a couple of books to give to others, as well as a few for me.

Then I headed down to the Mall to catch up with Eri, who is in town on vacation. We pedaled down to Hain’s Point to see the giant and then to the Mall, where we hung out for a while at the D.C. WWI Memorial (where else do you get to have a marble monument in the woods pretty much to yourself?). We moseyed back north to the Burrow, caught up with John, and headed down U Street for some Ethiopian food at Dukem.

We ended up with some tasty food after a few entertaining mishaps involving the word “No.” Rudi enjoyed the Ethiopian honey wine John introduced him to and Eri will probably never forget her introduction to a new cuisine. On the way back home we stopped at Love Café. Eri and Rudi went for cupcakes (hers German chocolate, his chocolate with strawberry frosting). I had a slice of chocolate raspberry torte that was the size of my head. (I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!) And John won dessert of the night with his raspberry cheesecake. It was amazing.

Eri biked back to her hotel about half an hour ago. We’ll catch up again tomorrow to visit the farmers’ market and the zoo and to watch The West Wing.

All in all a really great day!

For each of us, there is a breaking point, a point after which no more can be borne.

I have finally reached mine.

Serious cleaning and sorting has actually commenced.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Today as Rudi and I were walking along the C&O Canal at lunchtime, we paused to watch some fish from the shade afforded by a pedestrian bridge. Then what should paddle into view under us but a tiny, little turtle! Make a circle with your index finger and your thumb. That was how big the turtle was. Isn’t that so cool?

2. Tuesday was free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s. I joined the line at Dupont after work and had to wait about 15 minutes or so. The afternoon was nice, giving me the chance to listen to some podcasts while I waited. When I got to the front of the line, I opted for The Last Straw, which was a mild strawberry ice cream with chocolate truffle swirls and huge chocolate chips. It was delicious and I felt like my donation went to a worthy charity.

3. Saturday we went to Woolwinders in Rockville, which was having a sale. I’d never been there before, but I’d been getting their emails for a while and it looked like they might have some yarn I was looking for. They did not have what I went for, but I did not leave empty-handed. I came home with some silk-cotton tweed to make a tank top with, sock yarn for Rudi and for me, and a circular needle in size 17 so I can start work on the shawl that requires casting on 140 stitches. The owners were friendly and the staff tremendously helpful — preventing me from buying 100% cotton to make Rudi socks because they’d just end up sagging. And to top it all off, yesterday they emailed me coupons to use every month between May and August. They are a bit too far away to become my day-to-day local yarn shop, but I’ll definitely be taking the Red Line to the Shady Grove stop to visit them again.

You haven’t had photos in a while. Let’s remedy that.

Update: Nevermind. The digital card ate my photos. So you’ll just have to trust me that the Canada goose family was very cute. And that many turtles were out on the canal on Sunday. Posey perched on my knees is re-capturable.

But what I’m most disappointed about is that the loss of the photos of the two trees along the Potomac filled with what I believe were dozens of Great Cormorants. It was so amazing, and no one else on the path even seemed to notice these huge birds populating the tree like ripe apples.

It’s going to be awfully quiet around the Burrow this week.

Rudi and I play in the same fantasy baseball league, which generally is fun because we talk strategy (neither of us does well) and whine about how we made the wrong player picks for the day or how our players do not seem to work well under our management styles. And we watch out for each other’s teams, alerting one another about injuries or days off or roster changes.

On the other hand, three or four times a season, we have to play each other.

And so for those weeks, we don’t talk baseball. Or it stays polite in a cocktail party kind of sense: “The Mets seem to be hitting well…” “Too bad for the Sox that Papi got hurt…” “Soriano actually seems to have stopped whining and started playing for the Nats…”

This will be one of those weeks. Rudi is less than ten games back from me and I’m sure he’d like to make up those stats based on my pitching. He has the advantage because he’s coming off a winning week. I have three straight weeks of losses (even if the first two losses were just by one apiece).

So think good thoughts for harmony in the Burrow. We’ll try to avoid watching sports on tv.

I know it wasn’t me.

Instead of cleaning today, I went to the farmers’ market where I visited with our friend John and chatted with some of the farmers before coming home with ramps, strawberries, asparagus, morels, lettuce, eggs, milk, grape tomatoes, blueberry scones, pink lady apples, and lilacs. I also lazily read the paper and listened to a new cd. I took a brief nap. I read some of my book. I knitted a few (a very few rows) on my sock. I cuddled cats. I took a leisurely two-hour bike ride along the C&O Canal Path, where I took some wildlife shots. I ate a yummy morel omelet Rudi made. I watched The West Wing and a sappy Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.

No, the Burrow is not clean. But tomorrow my soul will remember that I spent the weekend doing frivolous and frolicksome things and that will make a mundane Monday much more manageable.

After I two-step the vacuum around the living room, I’m off to bed. Good night!

Oh, right. Cleaning.

Well, let’s pretend I did that today.

No? You don’t believe me? Well, you’re right.

Instead, I slept in, watched a vegetarian cooking show, bought yarn at a cool shop in Rockville, Maryland, and bought some more storage containers at Ikea.

Tonight? We’re heading to see Thank You for Smoking with Susan and Phillip as soon as we’ve eaten our pasta.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a tidier day.

With the D.C. Film Fest having snuck up on me, I thought I’d better make plans now for Screen on the Green, D.C.’s free movies on the Mall.

I’ve never seen any of the movies they’re showing this year: The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Band Wagon, Bullitt, To Have and Have Not, and Rocky. (No, I’ve never seen Rocky.)

While I probably won’t be home for The Band Wagon (which is disappointing, since I do enjoy a good musical), some of the others do seem to have potential, particularly Bogie and Bacall in To Have and Have Not.

No one else seems to have their summer movies scheduled yet.

It’s hard not to find beautiful things when it’s spring. So today I share three of the ones I’ve stumbled over in the last few days:

1. Jason and Essia are visiting his folks this week and came into D.C. yesterday to take care of some paperwork at the Algerian embassy. Afterwards they came down to Dupont and met Rudi and me for lunch. When we arrived, they, Nina, and Lylia were already camped out at one of our favorite restaurants waiting. Nina has grown up and is tall and thin, her curly blonde tresses of babydom now brown and straighter. If I were going to cast Ramona Quimby, I would pick her. Lylia is now talking, although she remains understandably shy around people she last saw on her first birthday. Although more little girl than when we last saw her, she is still decidedly a chubby toddler, chasing after her older sister to copy exactly what Nina does. Rudi was in charge of the office and had to get back quickly, but I had told my boss I was taking a long lunch and did, stretching my hour to 2 3/4. We went to the park and they climbed on statues and slid down plaques. Essia and Jason and I caught up and reveled in a beautiful afternoon outside.

2. I remembered to take my library book back to the library before it was due this week and took along my list of three books I was hoping to find: Bernard-Henri Lévy’s American Vertigo (which I’ve been hearing rumblings about for months), Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (which comes highly recommended by Dianna), and Geraldine Brooks’ March (which tells the story of The Little Women‘s father, Mr. March, during the Civil War and which just won a Pulitzer). Wicked and American Vertigo weren’t at the main branch, but I did manage to come home with March, as well as Julia Child’s My Life in France, a knitting book, and a decorating on a budget book. Now let’s just cross our fingers that I don’t amass too many late fines by keeping them past their due dates!

3. Today was the first Thursday market I’ve had a chance to get to since it opened for the season and I came away with a cherry muffin, the first asparagus of the season, and a bunch of lilacs. Lilacs and lilies of the valley and vanilla are my favorite scents in the world, and I walked back to the office awash in its heady scent. I parceled out the stems, keeping half for me and sharing the others amongst coworkers.

Why is it that in order to make a home tidier, it is necessary to totally mess it up first?