Ha!

I’m not sure where people get the idea that the country is so much quieter than the city.

There are two owls — one down my folks’ driveway and one somewhere further down the hill — chatting about potential meal options.

Something or maybe some things (Deer? A bear? Smaller nighttime critters trying to stay out of someone’s supper plans? The dog in the house up above sometimes hears it too. ) keep traveling through the brush uphill, stepping on downed branches and sending loose debris tumbling down the bank.

And that doesn’t take into account the crickets and peepers.

So, nope, not quiet here at all…

Again, I need to hit publish before ai turn off my phone…

It’s been a relaxing day. It’s not what I’d hoped for (may we soon retire the concept of “out of an abundance of caution”), but it was quiet and allowed me to take a pre-supper nap, spend time with my folks, knit, and stuff myself with pizza.

Tomorrow we’re goong to hunt down cider doughnuts. I can’t wait.

Rudi said, what happened to that post you typed in bed last night? Apparently I onlt hit publish in my mind…

We kicked off a long weekend by driving up to Connecticut to celebrate my dad’s birthday, our first in-person family birthday in 20 months.

Tomorrow, I’m goong to sleep in, but I also told my mom that we might need to find some cider doughnuts.

Sunday, Rudi is going for a bike ride, so it will just be my folks and me.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi was finally able to fix my computer, which died a month ago. (It was a bad ribbon cable.) I’m so happy to have it back.

2. Rudi’s friend, Jay, has agreed to cat sit for us both while we’re away in Connecticut and while we’re in Utah.

3. I get to have drinks with my former colleague, who’s gotten her dream job and is moving across the country.

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

We’re into the final mosaic chart of the shawl. There’s still a final ribbing section before the bind-off row, so that could take a month, because apparently I hate two-color ribbing. But I’d like to think that I’m about a week away from wrapping this thing up, which will still give me weeks before it’s actually cool enough to want to wear woolen neckwear. (Bring on the highs in the 60s!)

It’s been a quiet week reading-wise. I read a chapter of Beth & Amy, which was actually the sample chapter they included at the end of Meg & Jo, but that’s okay. And I have listened to more of Michelle Obama’s Becoming, which has now gotten past the 2008 Iowa Caucus. I suspect Rudi won’t mind listening to some of that on our drive north this weekend, but I also have Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens for us to return to now that it’s been a few months since we watched the show. I’ll probably save finishing off Farah Heron’s Accidentally Engaged for my flight to Salt Lake next week, since that’s also come back to me on audio.

We passed 700,000 dead from COVID over the weekend. And “In America: Remember,” an art installation on the Mall from Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg recorded each one with a white flag.

I visited twice: once while they were setting up and then Saturday night. You can see in the daytime shots the expanse of space that was still needed to be filled.

Each time I was struck by the sheer waste.

It didn’t have to be like this. No, we probably couldn’t have saved everyone. But just this volume. This many people.

Those who’d lost loved ones to COVID were invited to personalize a flag in their memory. Because each one of these flags represents a person who had a life — friends and family, pets, jobs … Holes in the fabric of our country.

If you haven’t been to D.C. recently, it’s hard to impress on you the sheer size of this installation. It takes up at least two square city blocks. It’s enormous.

It’s devastating.

And more than 30,000 dead in just the two weeks the exhibition was open.