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.

How is it the last weekend of July already? Wasn’t it just March?

This workweek was so much better than last week in terms of stress and work-life balance, but I still seem to be fighting off exhaustion. So I’m going to try to take this weekend easy again:

• Buy cherries. Sours are already gone and I hear this is the last weekend for sweets.
• Find quarters. Did you know we’re having a nationwide coin shortage? So many businesses had already switched to a cash-free model during the pandemic and now I’m having a really hard time finding places where I can get quarters for laundry. A friend reminded me the Metro machines used to be a reliable source, so I’m going to give that a shot. I welcome any other ideas you may have, commenters.
• Do some online shopping. Maybe check out. Maybe just browser window shop.
• Finish my Smock Madness socks.
• Listen to baseball.
• Read.
• Make more ice cream. Maybe chocolate chip this time.
• Plant some more potatoes and beans. (I found another bag with sprouting potatoes in it when we cleaned the kitchen.)
• Send some mail.
• Back up my phone. (I don’t think I’ve done that this year.)
• Catch up on sleep.

What are you hoping your weekend will include?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. When I went down to the garden Sunday evening, the field was full of dragonflies glittering and glinting in the late day sun.

2. We have had several spectacular thunderstorms in the region this week. Some have been far enough away that we were simply able to keep an eye on the light show from afar, while others flashed and boomed and poured rain down on our neighborhood.

3. We took our lawn chairs, store-brand Cracker Jack, and shelled peanuts up to the park to listen to as much of the game as the Nationals and Yankees were able to cram in before the rain on Opening Day. I forget in the off-season how much knitting one can get done while listening to games on the radio! (I have mixed feelings about the decision to hold professional sport events, but apparently not enough to boycott them, at least at this stage.)

What about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Look! I finished my Smock Madness gusset, so now I just have to knit a foot! Simple! It’s practically a full sock! (Well, maybe not. I wear size 11 shoes, so the foot is just as long as the leg. But still! More than halfway on the second sock!)

I shared with you last night my audiobooks, so tonight I figured I’d show you what I’m reading in print: Virginia Kantra’s Meg & Jo, a modern retelling of Little Women.

In this version, Marmee runs a goat farm in North Carolina. Mr. March is a former army chaplain who now runs support groups for returning soldiers. Meg is a former bank loan manager who now stays home with her toddlers, Daisy and D.J., while her husband John works at a car dealership for the Laurences.

Jo is in New York City, where she’s anonymously writing a food blog and making ends meet with a job as a prep cook in Chef Bhaer’s restaurant after having been downsized from her newspaper job.

But when Marmee gets sick, her two eldest children are going to have to take hard looks at what’s most important to them.

I’m halfway through and really enjoying it so far. All the key scenes are there, but altered, but our heroes remain themselves even though they communicate via text instead of post box in the hedge. But as we all know, the first half of Little Women is the easy part, so I’m steeling myself for a weepy weekend ahead.

Want to see what others are reading and crafting? Head over to As Kat Knits for her weekly Unraveled roundup.

I finished an audiobook last night, which means a new one was started while I was doing the dishes tonight. I’ve ended up with too many out at once, all of which expire in less than a week. I decided I’d start several of them to get a sense of which ones I like enough to want to keep going with, rather than either letting them expire untried or just requesting them again in the hopes of more opportune timing.

Tonight’s audiobook sample came from Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith, who specializes in y.a. romances told from both perspectives.

Also checked out to me in audio format are The Bride Test by Helen Hoang (which had reached a cringey moment the last time I had it out), Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (which Rudi and I are listening to intermittently after having enjoyed the small screen adaptation), Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (a British romance I was enjoying that expired before I could listen to the last several chapters), How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (which I should probably just give up on in audio format in favor of print, since that tends to be my preferred way of processing non-memoir nonfiction), and The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi (which will be what I sample during tomorrow night’s chores).

What are you listening to these days?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the top ten book events or festivals we’d love to attend someday.

Who knew back when Jana set this topic that we’d all still be wishing to go anywhere?

Anyway, mine are all real:

1. BookExpo (I used to take part in a virtual version — Armchair BEA.)
2. Hay Festival (I have been to Hay on Wye on a normal day; I can’t begin to imagine it during a festival.)
3. Edinburgh International Book Festival (Scotland is on my list of places to visit, and this event coincides with the Edinburgh Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival.)
4. The Fforde Fiesta (The intermittent festival celebrating Jasper Fforde’s works held in Swindon, the real-world home of the fictitious Thursday Next.)
5. Shakespeare in the Park (this seems the easiest one to cross off my list once we’re allowed to gather in groups again)
6. YallFest/YallWest (I partook of YallStayHomeFest this spring and loved it.)
7. International Quidditch World Cup (Because don’t you just wonder…?)
8. Utah Shakespeare Festival (Oregon’s would also be great.)
9. Miami Book Fair (It’s the oldest book festival in the U.S. apparently. Who knew?)
10. The Youth Media Awards (Presented annually at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting, this breakfast is where you hear who’s won the biggest and most prestigious prizes in children’s and young adult literature. I went to several Midwinter meetings, but never managed to get to the YMA breakfast.)

How about you? Are there real-world or fictitious book events you’d like to be able to visit?