No post yesterday. I was running around like a madwoman all day trying to get uncooperative pages to magically turn into pamphlets to take with me to focus groups in Pittsburgh this coming week.

Today marks the first day civil unions are legal in Connecticut. Congratulations to all those who are becoming legally united after prolonged periods of waiting. I wish you the best (and when I say best, I mean that I hope eventually that stupid politicians get off their butts and realize that their relationships are no more or less valid than yours and that your relationship, therefore, deserves equal protection under the law, not just different protection, which is what they have offered you now, as you well know).

Today is also our friend Mike’s birthday. I do not have Mike’s email address, or I would say this to him in an e-card. But as I don’t, his wife Shelley (who sometimes reads this blog) will just have to pass along our best wishes for a jam-filled, headache-free birthday weekend.

My plans for today center around relaxing. I have failed the first step — sleeping in. I don’t guarantee that I won’t return to bed, but that’s not really the same thing.

• I will shop — both at the Crafty Bastards arts and crafts fair up the road, where I hope to buy some Christmas presents, and at a grocery store, where I hope in exchange for some money they will give me something to outfit my larder. It’s been looking a bit Mother Hubbardish since we returned from England.
• I will walk. DC’s cultural office is offering a number of cool-sounding historical tours today that sound like they could be fun and informative. If I weren’t sick and in the middle of a frantic crafts project and between two plane flights, I might be adventurous and explore a neighborhood not my own, but as it stands, I think I’ll pick one of the offerings that stays nearby (Georgetown, Embassy Row, Eleanor Roosevelt’s DC life…).
• I will knit. I will knit a lot. This cold/flu/whatever has severely hampered my progress at a critical time. I still harbor delusions of finishing in time for next week’s deadline (thoughts enabled by knitting and non-knitting friends who have seen me beat innumerable deadlines in the past in just the nick of time), but I am rapidly running out of days (and people seem not to understand that I should knit instead of work this week).
• I will watch baseball. It is the final weekend of the regular season, and, while my team is out of contention (although they did admirably well and will end the season with a better-than-.500 record for the first time in a couple of years), Rudi’s team is not. The Sox and the Yankees face off to determine the supremacy of the AL East and whether they can continue to thumb their noses at each other in the post-season. If the Sox lose, I won’t take it personally. I grew up in Connecticut and have no disagreements with the Yankees, except when they play the Mets.

I think that sounds like a busy day, so I’m not going to do anything else (or, at least, plan to do anything else). Posting may be a bit haphazard this week, as I’ll have to do it at Kinko’s in Pittsburgh…

We now return to your regularly scheduled Three Beautiful Things Thursdays:

1. We returned home to find the local pyracanthas had gone to berry. These shrubs develop whole hordes of bright orange berries at the tips of their branches, making it look like they’ve painted their fingernails for Halloween.

2. I do not eat McDonald’s at home. Outright refuse, because they cook their french fries in animal fat — an unnecessary step, in my mind — and don’t make that abundantly clear at their establishments. McDonald’s in other countries, however, are fair game, because the worldwide population that does not eat beef requires McDonald’s to be more careful and more resourceful. So while in the U.K., I stopped at a McDonald’s to pick up one of my favorite childhood fast foods — the fried apple pie. Yes, I know they’re terrible for you. But they are so much tastier than the baked version our franchises switched to about 15 years ago.

3. We went to the Mets-Nationals game on Sunday — the final game of the final series my two favorite teams would play this year. I also wanted to see All-Star catcher Mike Piazza one last time in a Mets uniform (although Dad remains optimistic I’m mistaken on Mike’s move to a new team in the off-season). So we had two good reasons to hit RFK so soon upon our return to the States. And apparently Mike could see how many Mets fans had come out to support him because he answered our adoration with not one, but two, home runs, as well as two walks. David Wright and Mike Jacobs also hit long balls, giving the Mets a 6-5 victory over the Nats.

1. Posey, Della, and Jeremiah (Because they’re lovey and cuddly and wonderful.)
2. Sleeping in (Our trip has us headed all over the place, so I can’t imagine we’ll be getting a whole lot of rest.)
3. The National Book Festival (Last year was a ton of fun — I got to meet Mr. McFeeley from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and Maria from Sesame Street!)
4. The first game of the final Mets-Nationals series (to which we had tickets)
5. The beginning of the season and series tv premieres (I like to see what’s worth watching and what’s not.)

This weekend I went crazy.

I decided yesterday to follow up sit-ups and push-ups with Dance Dance Revolution and a bike ride. And then a walk to and from the Kennedy Center. And I did all but the Kennedy Center walks on Saturday, too.

This morning my muscles are arguing this was not a good way to spend a long weekend. They suggest a day spent lounging in the sun, reading, knitting, and eating the last of the summer raspberries. They permitted me to make some bread and they may allow a leisurely walk to a bookstore or a café.

But under no circumstances should I consider strenuous movement. That, they tell me, is absolutely forbidden until tomorrow.

I am not meant to be a cyclist.

I do not like bugs in my eyes or my teeth.

I do not like riding down hills without having my brakes on.

I do not like riding up hills. Period.

I do not like sharing space with joggers wearing headphones who remain oblivious to my horn tooting and “On your left” shouting.

But it is a feeling of accomplishment to have exceeded 20 mph for the first time while actually pedaling (down a hill, but in control) and to have gone out more than 10 miles and to have kept up a speed of 11.3ish mph. (I could have given you a more accurate figure if I’d remembered to look at my speedometer before I carried the bike down the stairs to the Burrow. The speedometer likes to believe we are going 75.9 mph when we do that so always tacks on a mile or so to my rides after the fact.)

So I suppose that while I wasn’t meant to be a cyclist, I really enjoy doing it just a little on the side.

(But, shhhh! don’t tell Rudi. He’ll want to take me on more hills!)

I hope the Yankees appreciate me. I sat starting pitcher Al Leiter down this morning before his scheduled start against the Toronto Blue Jays and explained that I had faith in him, but that he needed to dig deep and come up with a good game.

You can ask Rudi. I did. I looked right at his name on my fantasy baseball lineup and spoke aloud to him through the computer screen.

(Maybe it’s good that I don’t live in the town that houses Connecticut’s mental asylum anymore…)

Al must have heard me, though (or read the pre-game reports that said this would be his last shot). But I think it was me.

You see, I explained to him that I had once had the Toronto pitcher on my team but that his performance hadn’t been up to snuff and I had been forced to drop him. I added that my fondness for Al had kept him on my team all through the troubles in Florida and New York and even during that time when he was in limbo on waivers and was absolutely no good to my lineup. Because, you see, we have a history together. All those years together with the Mets. And while the Mets management (and Florida’s) may have forsaken him, I hadn’t. So, please, for all those games we’d had together, would he please pitch his best ball today? I had faith, you see. I just knew he could do it.

And all that faith and loyalty paid off today:

Al scattered four hits over the 5.2 shut-out innings he pitched. The Yankees went on to win the game 6-2.

And I couldn’t be prouder.