No, it’s not Thursday. But I’m just not feeling up to a post that requires paragraphs. Instead you get three beautiful things from my trip to Annapolis today where I went seeking a large body of water:

1. The Chesapeake Bay is one of the winter homes to tundra swans. At the waterfront playground where I eventually ended up, a bevy (yes, that’s really the right word) of them were swimming nearby, mingling with mallards and gulls. Their trumpeting was impressive, but not as much as the crackling sound their wings made as they took off from the water.

2. It was clear today for the first time in ages, giving me a perfect view of the sun, a glowing neon red orb in the ice blue sky, setting over the horizon.

3. My car is now 17 years old and is feeling its age a bit, but its original, factory-installed stereo still works well enough that when I turned the volume up to sing along at the top of my lungs with John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” I could drown myself out. The radio didn’t conk out the entire trip, letting me get through both of my favorite sing-along playlists and partway through the cd Dad made me last year.

What was beautiful in your weekend?