Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Ninety minutes of playing volleyball.

2. A text from a friend whose kids are away at camp.

3. Snuggling back under the covers because I don’t have to get up yet.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We have dinner with friends we haven’t seen since before the pandemic began.

2. The laundry machine company fixes the washing machine before I run out of clean clothes.

3. While the reason for it isn’t beautiful (particulate matter from the wildfires across the country), the neon red of the sunset on Monday was stunning.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Dozens of dragonflies and damselflies fill the park, glinting in the evening sun. They do acrobatics and catch the breeze and check out what the other park users are up to. It strikes me this could have been the inspiration for the flying key scene in The Chamber of Secrets.

2. Both Black Widow and Leverage: Redemption have offered me the opportunity to revisit characters I’ve enjoyed spending time with over the years.

3. Our volleyball team goes out after the game. It’s good to have time to hang out with together and to get to know some of the new folks.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The Bier Baron (formerly the Brickskeller, for those of you with a historic familiarity with D.C.) has reopened. It joins the Fireplace as the most local bars that shuttered completely during the pandemic to resume service in the past month. While I once would have been irritated to walk through the clouds of tobacco and pot smoke outside them both, at this point I greet their crowds like old friends (in my head).

2. My volleyball teammate, Katie, gave me a ride home after our game in rather plothering weather. As I’d biked down and had planned to metro home and I was soaked to the skin, it was a remarkably generous offer. And I was home in half the time either of the other modes of transit would have allowed.

3. A colleague offers me kind words when I need them most this week.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I can tell it has poured by the rivers of water running between the escalators at the foot of my metro stop’s exit, but the storm was nearly entirely contained to the amount of time it took to ride back across town.

2. The attendants working the beer stand by where Sarah and I are watching the baseball game (our seats were in the full sun) hand us each a free pretzel as they’re shutting down after the seventh inning stretch.

3. D.C. has long hosted a number of outdoor film series, but they’ve been a little slow coming back from the pandemic. The Building Museum has taken over hosting the one dedicated to movies containing martial arts movies, so we head over to watch Solo. That’s when we find out that the team that hosts it also invites a local dj collective rescoring the film with hip hop songs. It’s a fun interpretation, even if I need the songs to be as obvious as “The Theme from Shaft” playing when Lando Calrissian first appears on the screen.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The Strawberry Full Moon stands out vibrantly against the evening sky.

2. Fireflies hit critical mass, and you can see them sending each other coded messages from every hedgerow, front garden, and field. One even finds its way into the apartment, much to the fascination of Corey.

3. Our basket of blueberries from last Friday’s pick-your-own adventure sits out on the counter, allowing us to grab a handful every time we walk past and encouraging their addition to everything from pancakes to salads to yogurts. It’s been a delicious week.

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