When you live and work in a city, you begin to thirst for things you take for granted when you live out in the suburbs — easy parking, cheap groceries, and nature.

This shot, taken while out on a bike ride with Rudi early in the month, exemplifies the little things that I like to look for along the C&O Canal and is my May submission for 007: Snap a Dozen Days.

On that same trip, we saw turtles, cormorants, and a night heron (that I originally mistook for a penguin escaped from the zoo). It was too early for ducklings, but three different goose families were out taking advantage of the nice weather. The goslings would paddle, paddle, paddle as hard as their little legs would go and Mama and Papa every once in a while would move a leg to keep up their coasting along the surface of the water. If a gosling strayed too far, Mama would hum a little growl at them to get back in line and make for safer waters.

Earlier shots in the 007 series: April, March, February, and January.

It was with great relief I realized this morning that it was Thursday. Not just because that signals the weekend (I’ve been a bit scatter-brained this weekend, nearly going to work in my slippers on Tuesday and spending 15 minutes looking for the sunglasses I’d already slipped over my shirt this morning, so apparently I could use a bit of extra sleep.), but also because it brings with it a chance to tell you about Three Beautiful Things from the past week:

1. The smell of wood smoke that lingers on your sweater from sitting next to the fire the previous night.

2. When I headed to the garden last Thursday, they were filling the community pool that’s adjacent to our plot. I can’t wait for this weekend to cool off after some weeding, particularly since the cool water was taunting me yesterday from behind its closed gates. (The pool is open only on the weekends until school lets out.)

3. Kickball teams abound in D.C. (No, I didn’t realize it was still played formally after elementary school either until I moved down here.) Yesterday, as I puttered in the garden, three games were being held in the field next to me. A (male) outfielder in the game closest to me yelled to his “pitcher,” “Make it nice and bouncy — just like my hair!”

We returned shortly before sunrise this morning from a trip to Connecticut for the long weekend. It was lovely.

The only thing on the agenda for was a wedding. My next-oldest cousin, Tim, married Sharon on Saturday, in a ceremony/reception that seemed to suit them. Tim, Sharon, and my aunt Dort all seemed very happy with the way things fell out and I’m pleased we were able to make the trip north to be there. I got to wear clothes from my closet — a cute red dress with polka dots and white high-heeled sandals — that I’d bought for that perfect occasion that had yet to arrive.

Otherwise, the weekend was very laid back. We ate pizza, scones, and barbecue and drank daiquiris and iced tea. Rudi took a long bike ride. I read and knit and visited with Gramma and my folks. We sat in the sun and I got eaten by bugs. (I’ve counted 40 bites or so to date.) We watched a cute Welsh movie. We sat around the outdoor fireplace and played Jarts and croquet.

It was utterly relaxing and totally wonderful. Even the roads were relatively traffic-free! I could have lived without the bug bites, but even that seemed small payment for a weekend as laid-back as this one was.

We’re heading north this evening to see my folks and to attend my cousin’s wedding. Posting will be limited, but hopefully you’ll all be away doing fun things, too, so you won’t notice.

Have a great weekend!

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. My brother was in town for a day-and-a-half this week. He had lots to do, but we still managed to squeeze in lunch for just the two of us and dinner with him and his college friends/hosts on Tuesday.

2. Tuesday morning, the flowers I bought at the farmers’ market were in full bloom and utterly perfect. In my blue vase, I had placed a single pink peony and a stem of blue baptisia as well as a couple of stems of baptisia leaves. I forgot to take a photo, but I won’t forget its beauty.

3. On Monday when I arrived in the bowels of the Dupont Circle Metro station all alone on the opposite platform sat a dolly with a load of billboards. The billboard that was up was one for an art exhibition. The one showing on the dolly read, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” Then a man came by, did up the strap on the dolly, and rode away with the billboards on the next train.

I was going to rant about a lack of working fire hydrants (here in D.C. and in other large cities), but then I read Sweetpea’s post today and that seemed like a much more sane idea. I know, I know. Two memes in a week… What can I say? I’m not feeling overly inspired this week.

Just start your iPod, iTunes, or whatever music player you use, and write down the first ten tracks that come up. No cheating and skipping around until you get the cool songs.

(As a note, if my iPod comes up with podcasts, audio book segments, or Christmas songs, I’m hitting fast forward. As long as I declare it ahead of the game, it doesn’t count as cheating, right? Just as home rule advantage…)

1. Justin Guarini’s “Route 66″ from American Idol
2. Pink Martini’s “Dansez-Vous” from Hang on Little Tomato
3. Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer’s “Happytown (All Right with Me)” from Tanglewood Tree
4. The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” from The Pet Sounds Sessions
5. Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” from Millennium 2
6. Nine Inch Nails’ “The Frail (Version)” from Things Falling Apart (I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song before. Did I pull it from your collection, Rudi, or was it a podcast download?)
7. Odetta’s “House of the Rising Sun” from Best of the Vanguard Years (Odetta’s melancholy blues version kicks the ass of any rock version of the song.)
8. The Ditty Bops’ “In the Meantime” from Moon over the Freeway
9. Kristen Hersh’s “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” from Uncut: Instant Karma 2002
10. Sugarbabes’ “Come Together” from Q: Lennon Covered #2 (They do a pretty good cover, actually.)

Frankly, I’m surprised that only one sort of modern folky tune ended up on this list, although Christine Lavin and Crooked Still did immediately follow these ten. If you’d asked me, I would have told you that’s what I listen to the most of, but perhaps the reality doesn’t back the perception in this instance. Or maybe my iPod just wants me to seem cooler than I really am (although I’m not sure anyone with Justin Guarini on their iPod can claim to be cool…).

Want to play along? Grab the meme for your blog or leave your list in the coments.

Paula tagged me with a meme:

The rules
1: Each player states 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2: People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3: At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4: Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

1. I do not like soggy cereal. Because of this, I’ve eaten my cereal dry since kindergarten.
2. I have a running dialogue going through my head almost all the time. Rudi says he can tell when I’m writing things I find amusing because I smile as I type. I also hold fights in my head, which I’ve been told is unfair to the other person participating in them.
3. I once went to a WIC office pretending to be a new single mom to do research for a paper. I once went to the mall pretending to be deaf just to gauge people’s reactions.
4. I do not like the taste of mint candy, gum, or toothpaste, but I like it paired with chocolate, particularly in my grandmother’s mint sticks and in mint chocolate chip ice cream.
5. I learned to whistle from listening to the wind blow through the trees at my grandparents’ house.
6. It wasn’t until college that I could tell my right hand from my left without instinctively having to raise one over my heart as if to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
7. I don’t like the taste of alcohol, so don’t drink it.
8. My senior year of high school, during a visit to the D.C. area, I was approached in a suburban mall by a man who asked if I wanted to star in “adult movies.”

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you’d like to play along, I invite you to do so either on your own blog or in the comments.

I did this

and this

and this.

Oh, and I went to the farmers’ market, played wiffle ball, gardened, baked bread and muffins, knit, read, cleaned, and did laundry. But the picnic was definitely the most fun part.

I’m ready for the weekend so it’s great to have it be Thursday already. To celebrate, let’s look back at three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Last night, we saw the cow-colored dogs I’ve mentioned before coming up the street. Rudi suggested we loiter outdoors until they passed, so we got to meet them and their owner. They are two waist-high Great Danes named Leo and Babe.

2. Sunday, after the ball game, we headed to the garden. Rudi did the back-breaking digging to put in the plants we’d bought, and I pulled up all the grass seeds that had come up from the horse manure we spread on the garden earlier in the season. By sunset we had empty pots and a weed-free plot.

3. Saturday night, we had a thunderstorm in which it poured sheets of rain. They’d been predicting rain for days, so it was a relief when it finally showed up and put on such a lovely show for us.

Rudi and I have known each other since we were sophomores in college — more than a third of our lifetimes now — and I’m more in love with him now than when we first started dating our senior year.

He loves to bike and ski and excels at both. I frankly think he’s crazy to want to strap boards to his feet and hurtle down a hillside at 30 miles an hour or to ride a bike up any sort of incline for excruciating distances, but I’m delighted that he finds such joy in it. I know Rudi wishes I would share his love of these activities, so he’s always happy when I suggest he accompany me on a ride, even when he knows that he will have to ride backwards and with only one leg in order to keep up with my slow pace and tendency toward “Sunday riding.”

To relax, he likes to cook and I am the lucky and eager taste-tester for dishes he whips up in the kitchen. He is gifted in that he can taste (and identify) individual flavors and can often reconstruct dishes I’ve enjoyed in restaurants just by playing around in the kitchen. He loves almost all types of food (except untoasted marshmallow) and I know that he limits his culinary scope by omitting the meats that I don’t eat.

He loves music. Rudi’s tastes are eclectic and he enjoys lots of different types of music, although the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and (to a lesser extent) Pink Floyd remain favorites. He loves concerts and would attend as many as his budget allowed if he had the time. His cd collection is extensive (and his digital download archive is growing), and he’s happy to recommend new artists you might like or even to lend you his cds to take home. He was an early proponent of the iPod, buying us a pair to celebrate our both finally being employed here in D.C., to the envy of all my new coworkers.

Rudi also loves politics. He likes watching talking heads, reading tracts, and dissecting theories. He’s not afraid to argue with anyone and, indeed, is really now the political one in the family. (Stop laughing, guys. I’m serious!) It’s been fascinating to watch his interest in international affairs turn toward domestic policy over the last decade.

He laughs with gusto and his amusement is apparent to anyone who shares a comedy with us at the movie theater. It makes my soul skip with joy whenever I say something witty enough to make him chortle.

Kind and loving and sweet, Rudi’s a loyal friend (even when exasperated by behavior he doesn’t understand). He’s far from perfect, but he is wonderful and I’m lucky to have him in my life.

Happy birthday, dear. I hope you have lots of fun today on your day off. May the hills come easily and may the tunes truly rock.

(Birthday salutations can be left at his blog. I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear from you.)