Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Did you hear the Nationals won the World Series?

2. The volleyball friend who lives closest to me and I walked home together after our game on Tuesday and both decided it was too beautiful to go inside for the night, so instead we stopped for an impromptu supper at our local watering hole.

3. Five minutes before we were closing up our candy-dispensing operation, our largest crowd of small costumed characters — including a lion, The Stig and a scientist — arrived at our doorstep, ending our Halloween on an up note.

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

It’s been great being a Washington Nationals season ticket-holder since they moved to town.

This year, they have played a season of scrappy, heart-filled baseball that has been a joy to watch, both in person and on tv.

Tonight, they culminated their impressive season with a World Series win.

Congratulations, team! You deserve this!

My favorite Halloween song is probably “Zombie Jamboree,” popularized when I was growing up by Rockapella. It wouldn’t be for another couple decades before I learned that they were simply covering the song, written in the early 1950s by Winston O’Conner (who performed as Lord Intruder and debuted the song as “Jumbie Jamberie”) and popularized on the folk circuit by the Kingston Trio.

The Williams Street Mix, an a capella group at my college, made this one of their most popular tunes. This is a slightly more traditional version of the song than Rockapella usually performed.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post from That Artsy Reader Girl is Halloween-themed, so I thought I’d share some suggestions for Halloween costumes you could do based on literary characters. I have only used some of them personally:

1. Pippi Longstocking:
   
2. Phryne Fisher (the tv show demonstrates how many amazing outfits you could pick from)
3. Raggedy Ann:
   
4. Sherlock Holmes (it helps if you own a deerstalker hat)
5. Anne of Green Gables (I’ve noticed puffed sleeves are in right now)
6. Anyone from Harry Potter:
   
7. Any of the ragtag group from the Oz books (if you pick the literary version of Dorothy, your shoes will not be red and fewer people will recognize you; conversely, you could go as the tornado, although I would make it a two funnel-tornado in order to be able to walk)
8. Go classic with Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (for the latter, you would need to divide your costume down the middle)
9. Little Red Riding Hood:
   
10. Paddington

Have you ever dressed up as a favorite bookish character?

This weekend included:

Hot drinks.

A Halloween festival at my local park.

Pumpkin buying at the farmers market.

Cheering on lots of runners at the marathon early this morning.

A nap.

Several baseball games that didn’t quite work out.

How was your weekend?

Ride #2: Saturday, Oct. 26, afternoon
Kung Fu Tea (1529 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., 2nd Floor)

Today’s coffeeneuring ride was not quite what I had planned, but it let me try something new, so worked out fine.

This week’s adventure started out with a bus ride to Cleveland Park, because I started a little later than I planned. I ran a few errands, including a trip to the library, a couple of fruitless shopping stops, and a stop in at an Italian deli/pizza shop for pizza dough and a slice for a late lunch.

Then I hopped on a bikeshare and pedaled uphill to get across to Wisconsin Avenue, which I took down to Georgetown. It was a pleasant afternoon for a bike ride — less humid than I’d expected — and I passed people out raking and many Halloween decorations in the upper-middle-class neighborhood I rode through.

Because the nearest dock to where I wanted to go was at Safeway, I stopped to buy cat food and litter. Apparently my unofficial theme for this year’s coffeeneuring is carrying heavy bags of groceries with me. For the record, this is a terrible theme.

Groceries in hand, I walked the block to the French bakery I wanted to stop at because I heard they had a seasonal pumpkin croissant I wanted to try. Unfortunately, they were sold out of said item, and I decided to carry on down the hill on foot.

Next I stopped at a new Italian pastry shop that opened up where a gelato shop used to be (the French bakery used to be a fro-yo shop), but they only had coffee-flavored drinks, which would have been appropriate to the task, but disgusting, so I pressed on another half block to a drink shop I’d been curious about for some time: Kung Fu Tea.

Focusing on bubble tea, Kung Fu Tea is on the second floor over a Korean restaurant. The girl at the counter was very helpful when I explained that I had never had milk tea and asked for her recommendation for a hot variety. She pointed me to the Kung Fu Milk, and I opted to skip the tapioca bubbles this time.

It seems obvious that the restaurant, one in an international chain of bubble tea shops, is aimed at Georgetown students. There was a dearth of furniture and only three food items on the menu, suggesting its clientele tends to be transient and in search of beverages, rather than sustenance. Decor was minimal with only a couple of cases honoring Bruce Lee, a couple of stylized pendant lights, and some cheerful corporate graphics on the wall.

But the tea was warm and sweet, and I enjoyed it as the light faded away. I walked the last couple blocks to the nearest bikeshare dock (Wisconsin and O) and headed home for the night.

Should you ride your own bike there, know the sidewalks are narrow and there is not a lot of room to lock your bike to road signs. You will have better luck locking on one of the cross streets and walking over.

Total mileage: 3.15 miles