1. A greyhound emerges from a building for a late-night walk wearing a matching jacket and pants. It is way more put together than I am.
2. I am walking down the block behind a man and his dog. Suddenly the dog stops, turns toward a house, and displays significant interest in something in the front yard. I had expected it to be a squirrel, a rat, or a cat in a window. Instead it is a stone statue of a nesting swan on the ledge next to the sidewalk, which the dog jumps at hoping to startle it into flying away.
3. A lawyer’s misadventures with video call filters and his need to clarify his true identity spread across the world like wildfire, providing everyone (except maybe him and his assistant) with some much needed levity.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
Category: three beautiful things. There is/are Comments Off on ensemble, thwarted, and ‘i am not a cat’.
1. Rudi arrived home just after I returned from my snowy walk, so I didn’t have to do any of the shoveling.
2. Because the Capitol grounds are now behind razor wire and because it’s been two years since our last snowstorm, the P Street “Beach” was packed with sledders.
3. My warm weather walk on Saturday included stops at two bookstores — the new cookbook shop, where I picked up Snacking Cakes, and the used Adams Morgan shop that changed hands last year, and which has added new titles to its stock. I came away with a middle-grade fantasy novel blurbed by Madeleine L’Engle, a pamphlet on identifying trees in the wintertime, and the aforementioned poetry collection.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
Category: three beautiful things. There is/are Comments Off on timing, the beach, and impulses.
Three beautiful things from my past Thursday (which, let’s be honest, was the most beautiful day many of us have had in a while):
1. National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman knocked it out of the park with her recitation of “The Hill We Climb.” There was not a single syllable that she uttered without thought, from the honorifics to the word play, and I anticipate a long career for the 22-year-old.
2. I have yet to talk to a single woman who came away from yesterday dry-eyed, with the installation of Kamala Harris as the first female vice president of the United States.
3. The Mall being closed to everyone had the single benefit of it allowing the most remarkable fireworks show in D.C.’s recent history.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
1. Two missing Christmas cards from Connecticut reached me today, and my package with my parents’ gifts arrived there on Monday.
2. The third and final To All the Boys movie will be released on Netflix next month the weekend of my birthday — and I didn’t even know it had been filmed!
3. Karen and I get a chance to talk on the phone late Sunday night. It’s a lovely way to end the weekend.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
1. Despite the horrible things that went on across our country yesterday, the Democrats did win both Georgia Senate seats and the electoral college results were certified.
2. Spending down my flex spending account for 2020 involved several steps, including a trip to the eye doctor, which resulted in my getting a new contact prescription for bifocal contacts. It’s really exciting to be able to not wear my glasses out to be fogged up by my mask and to still be able to read on my outing. I expect this to be a game-changer on nicer weekend days.
3. I didn’t do a great job baking during my holiday break, but I did make a batch of Spritz cookies on Sunday evening. If you were to ask me what Christmas cookies are, I’d probably point you to Spritz, so it did feel like a win to get them made (even though doing them mostly alone is way less enjoyable than making them with my folks as usual). For someone who hasn’t made them on her own in two decades, I was surprisingly well prepared to do so, with a never-before-used cookie press tucked under a shelf and a pleasingly deep collection of sprinkles.
What’s been beautiful in your world this stressful week?
