Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We’ve been able to return to indoor volleyball finally. I have missed my volleyball sneakers, which got less than six months of games before the world shut down. (I could wear them for grass court volleyball, but opt not to in order to keep them nice for as long as possible.) Also, the new permutation of the team seems nice, and I’m not saying that just because they opted to keep me as captain.

2. I got to spend the last hours the outdoor pools were open to the public for the year floating in the deep end. In contrast to the penultimate day, a cool afternoon that threatened to drip, Monday was sunny and warm, and the pool was packed with everyone who hadn’t left town for the long weekend.

3. D.C. is full of triangle parks, caused by intersections between our streets on a grid and state-named streets, which are at a diagonal. They’re clever reclamations of “wasted” space, sometimes holding statues, like the ones near my house, dog parks, or tables and chairs, like the one by the pizzeria, where I took my to-go supper after the staff told me they’d already closed the patio.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The washing machine has been fixed. The technician wasn’t sure he’d figured out what was wrong, so he programmed both the washer and dryer to give me a free load to test it out.

2. Thunderstorms rumbled through the wee hours of a night earlier this week as the remnants of Hurricane Ida pushed her way past us. While this kept others awake for hours, Corey and I were happy to note it didn’t sound like we were personally under attack and easily went back to sleep.

3. The upside to water dripping through our light fixture is that our landlord decided it was simpler just to buy a new one rather than trust that this one wouldn’t set the building ablaze. The new one doesn’t flicker and crackle (the light bulbs on the old one lasted decades, but made you wish that they hadn’t) and gives off a nice, bright light. Overall, an improvement.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A nearly full orange moon rises behind the stage of the last outdoor pink show of the summer. (I’ll add a photo to the post once my computer stops updating.)

2. My former boss and I meet up for ice cream sandwiches and spend hours catching up.

3. Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson, is really enjoyable. Hudson does an amazing job with the role and the songs, but it is only fitting that the final scene goes to footage of the Queen of Soul herself in what I think was her final public performance. Rudi and I are both glad we dragged ourselves out to the theater after a long day.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I decide not to let a little rain keep me from going to the Fort Reno punk show. While I missed the first band, I arrived in time to catch a string sextet playing Brahms and a tribute band (for a Peruvian proto-punk group) featuring the septuagenarian bassist and singer of the original group performing the songs he made famous back in the mid-’60s.

2. I’m sitting in a lawn chair, when a short, fluffy puppy starts tearing around the park, eventually barreling straight toward me, putting the breaks on at the last minute, and then standing on its rear legs to tag my knees with its front paws. Later in the week, I am at a different park, sitting at a picnic table, when a small, elderly dog hops up on the bench and then climbs into my lap.

3. I buy a paper box full of tomatoes from a farmer at the market. Rudi has made (and frozen) sauce and soup so far and we still have about a third of the tomatoes left to finish.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Work gave us Friday off as a staff appreciation day. I’m going to appreciate starting my long weekend by sleeping in tomorrow.

2. I participated in a gift exchange last month, but my Santa fell through. It happens sometimes, and I try not to take it personally. But the swap organizer emailed today to say I shouldn’t despair; she and some other participants were taking over as elves.

3. One of our summer interns wrapped up her time with us this week. Her last act was to send me an email telling me how much she’d learned and enjoyed her internship and how much my hands-on approach to mentoring had been something she’d really appreciated.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A few fireflies still blink under a tree in the park.

2. A teammate shows up for our playoff game after telling us he’d have to miss because he still unexpectedly had family in town.

3. While putting up supports for some beans, I accidentally pull out one of the vines. I use my trowel to move some dirt to re-cover its roots and unearth several potatoes. After digging around a bit further, I’ve collected a quart’s worth.

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