Rudi and I got caught out in the rain this afternoon. Since we were already wet, we strolled leisurely through the nearby neighborhoods, stopping to admire row house gardens and flowering bushes.

This rose was the prettiest we saw all day, but it didn’t have a particularly rosy scent, so it cannot take home the best-in-show blue ribbon.

But it certainly was stunning to look at.

It’s supposed to rain off and on all weekend, with more on than off. Regardless, here are some things I’m hoping to accomplish:

• Call my mom and Rudi’s.
• Visit a couple European embassies. I think I’m down to only four I haven’t stopped by at one point or another — Netherlands (and even then, I’m pretty sure we caught them one year when they were renovating and hosting events in another building), Ireland, Malta, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. We’ll see if I can cross any of them off tomorrow.
• Watch the Funk Parade. Don’t you wish your town had a parade dedicated to fun dance music?
• Get the plants I bought last Sunday in the ground. The garden is going to be awfully muddy, though, so this one just might not happen.
• Buy strawberries at the farmers market. Optimistically the rain could keep people away and I could get a great deal on a bulk buy. More likely is that it’s Mother’s Day and there will be no strawberries left by 9:15.
• Send out some resumes.
• Mull over buying a new suit for interviews. First, dig out my most recent suits and see if either of them fit. Since I bought them more than a decade ago, I’m not optimistic.
• Switch out my winter and summer wardrobes. I’ve started to do this a couple times, which realistically just means I currently have piles of all sorts of clothes all over the apartment.
• Make strawberry shortcake.
• See if I can fix my beloved bike helmet. (Part of the adjuster dial popped off the back band.) At the very least I think I should be able to make it a set size (which will then only mean I can’t wear a high ponytail or a hat under it). If not, see if the helmet that Rudi says is too big for him will fit me. It gave me a headache when I tried it on, but that could just have been all the strap tugging. If none of those things work, order the new helmet I found.
• Spend time with Rudi.
• Paint my nails.

What are you hoping your weekend includes?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The woman from my volleyball team and I finally got together for coffee this week. Then we went out for beers (full disclosure, I drink neither beer nor coffee) after our game tonight and our partners joined us.

2. One of the coffeehouses I like to frequent has Arnold Palmers on their menu and I decided to order one this week. They use frozen lemonade, so the drink was delightfully slushy.

3. My second movie screening this week worked out far better than the first. Poms was a charming look at female friendship and persevering when it would be easier to give up. It’s not a great film — it asks a few bigger questions (about multigenerational families and about adult children parenting their parents), yet never bothers to answer them, and most of the characters aren’t fully three-dimensional — but it was an enjoyable way to pass a couple hours and most of the audience (predominantly older women themselves) seemed to agree.

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

I’ll have a couple FOs to show you as soon as the sun comes back out. In the meantime, here’s the next sock pair I’ll be working on, which you may remember from March when I knit them in Sock Madness. I just need to finish that toe and I’ll be able to move on to sock #2.

On the reading front, I also finished several things last week, which means I have new things to show you this week. Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff is a graphic novel set in 1807 in the Middle East and focuses on a swashbuckling adventurer with a flying boat and a former palace guard who brews an excellent pot of tea. I think it will be part Tintin, part Indiana Jones, and part Black Widow.

Girl Squads by Sam Maggs is a nonfiction collection of essays about female friendship around the world and through history. I’ve only read the first essay thus far, which focuses on a society of free divers on an island off the coast of South Korea. So far, it’s fascinating, but I’m not loving the author’s tone, which is a little breezier than I’d prefer.

Jenny Han’s P.S., I Still Love You is the sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and like the first book in the y.a. romance trilogy, I’m listening to it. I wanted to check it off before the movie adaptation hits Netflix (although I don’t know when that’ll be). It’s cute.

I’ve got several other books sort of in progress, but those are the three I’m actively reading today.

Want to learn more about what folks are reading and knitting? Head to As Kat Knits.

We ended up not getting in to a sneak preview last night, so we instead took ourselves to our favorite pizza restaurant for supper, where we sat on their patio, soaking up the beautiful spring weather and looking at campy pictures from the Met Gala on my phone. Afterwards, as we were walking to Tenleytown to catch the metro, we spied the delicate sliver of a moon above the remnants of the evening’s sunset, highlighting the transition from day to night.

I’ve lived in D.C. for 16 years now, and you would think that I’ve been everywhere already, but to my continued surprise, that’s not actually true. Since the weather has become pleasant and since this is a good spot to record things I aspire toward, here are some of those places I’d like to cross off my District Bucket List:

• The National Arboretum: I should go soon, since they are especially noted for their azaleas, which are currently in bloom.
• Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens: Technically, I biked through part of this during the fall, but not the actual garden part. I want to see the water lilies and lotus flowers, which typically flower in July.
• Anacostia Community, Sackler, Freer, and African Art Museums: All run by the Smithsonian, these are the four local museums of the system I have yet to visit. The last three are all on the Mall, and I’d like to cross them off my list on the late-night Solstice event planned for next month. The Anacostia Community Museum is a cultural institution dedicated to the diversity and social dynamics of the local community. I’ve been to the grounds of the museum, but not inside. It’s currently closed until fall, but after the renovations are complete seems like a good time to check it out.
• Library of Congress’ Reading Room: I’ve seen it from the tour loft, but the advantage of having a (free) reader’s card is that you can totally go and hang out and ask them to bring you materials.
• Theodore Roosevelt Island: Weirdly, although this small island in the Potomac River is accessible from land only via a footbridge in Arlington, Virginia, it’s technically part of Washington, D.C. You can see it from the Georgetown waterfront, and I’ve been meaning to go over there forever.
• Bellevue, Parklands-Turner, Deanwood, Francis Gregory, and Capitol View Neighborhood Libraries: These are the last of the 27 branches of the D.C. Public Library I have yet to visit. I’d also like to get back to the Anacostia Neighborhood Library, which has been renovated since I last visited. I had plans to visit them last fall, but then life happened (and that aforementioned trip to Kenilworth that ended up including a major missed turn), and I now get to cross them off in 2019 instead.
• Lincoln’s Cottage: Did you know that when President Lincoln (and Presidents Buchanan, Hayes, and Arthur, too) wanted to get away from things at the White House during the heat of the summer, he headed toward the northern edges of the city to a cottage on the grounds of the U. S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home. This is where he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.
• The National Archives: Probably more important now than ever to refamiliarize myself with the foundational documents of our nation.
• Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument: The D.C. home of the national women’s equality movement, it includes mementos like Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s desk chair and Susan B. Anthony’s desk.
• Frederick Douglass National Historic Site: This is where the Abolitionist lived during the final 18 years of his life and is apparently a beautiful hilltop location.

Are there places near where you live that you’ve always meant to visit, but haven’t yet?