So often I’m surprised when Thursday shows up. This week, not so much. It’s been a slow week and I’m glad the weekend is only waiting for one more workday to arrive. But it can’t come before we look back at three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Rudi and I attend a fundraiser at a local hotel that gives us tastings of homemade ice cream. The caramel tastes of butter and burnt sugar. And the mint chocolate chip, made with herbs grown on their back patio, combines a nice mint flavor with bits of shaved chocolate. I refrain from licking out my cups — but only just.

2. The National League won the All-Star Game for the first time since 1996 and the one player representing the Nationals, Matt Capps, got the win after striking out Big Papi. The Mets’ David Wright went 2 for 2 with a stolen base. And for one night, I felt something like appreciation for the Braves and their players.

3. Over the weekend, as I mentioned earlier, we had the good fortune to attend the wedding reception of two good friends. As Phillip got up to give a speech thanking everyone for attending and sharing what good fortune he had to be able to share his life with Susan, his face was alight with love for his new bride. And Susan, sitting at the table next to him, also shone with peace and contentment. It was just one of those moments when everything — and everyone — clicks into the right spot in life and is just where they ought to be.

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

A short week which means that I am a bit behind on the correct day of the week. It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Last night there was a weird thunk in the window well, which we assumed was a neighborhood rat. This morning, when screeching awoke us, come to find out that it was a fledgling blue jay who might have left the nest a day or two early. After Rudi’s attempts to lift it up to street level were met with vicious attacks by blue jay parents, we spent the day worrying about the baby’s fate. And this evening, when we returned to find it still alive, if a bit groggy, we tried to figure out a way to get it out of the window well without starring in our own version of The Birds. But, come to find out, fledglings often spend quite a bit of time on the ground before they learn to fly. And the Internets suggest that we just leave it be and it will eventually fly out on its own. Yay for learning things — and for education literally in front of our noses!

2. The Fourth of July in the U.S. means fireworks. We took ours with a serving of national monuments and patriotic music. This year’s display was the best we’ve seen in the seven years we’ve been here and Rudi has the photos to prove it.

3. We caught the final hours of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on Monday afternoon, where the highlight of the three exhibits was definitely Mexico. We learned about tequila. We watched a craftsman casually insert tiny inlays of cedar along the body of a guitar he’d built, hardly even needing to look at what he was doing. And, at the end of the day, we watched four men climb to the top of a hundred foot pole. One of them stood atop the pole, playing his flute, dancing, and jumping to pay respect to the four cardinal directions and then the four, with their festive pink plumed headgear, attached themselves to ropes and spiralled down to the ground in the Danza del Bixom Tíiw, the Dance of the Hawk, which honors the Lord of the Corn. Hillary got photos of the ceremony earlier in the day. The Smithsonian has a video.

It’s the Thursday before a long weekend, which is beautiful in its own right. But let’s be a bit more specific, shall we? Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. After dropping by a fundraiser in Northeast, I head a few doors down to a relatively new restaurant — Dangerously Delicious Pies. [Jenn, I just heard you squeal from 400 miles away!] At a friend’s recommendation, I have the last slice (or hunk, as my grandfather would have said) of the Baltimore Bomb, a delicious concoction that combines a cookie crust covered with chocolate and filled with a vanilla chess custard. And did I mention that they warm it up before serving it?

2. Twenty (or so) soon-to-be-published books to read (and review). Totally makes working through the weekend worth it.

3. On Monday afternoon, we finish packing the booth up by 4 and head home early. There is enough time in my evening to knit at Teaism while sipping a mango juice and then come home for a pre-dinner nap with Rudi.

What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

This morning I deliberately and flagrantly walked under a ladder. Do you think that’s related to the three subsequent wardrobe malfunctions I had? But instead of listing those, instead let’s list three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Along our walk home Friday night, our ultra-serious conversation about politics and values and discrimination takes a more lighthearted turn and we end up talking about ear worms, those songs that just get stuck in your head and refuse to budge. John shares his remedy — the theme song from Pinky and the Brain. When I reply that I’m not familiar enough with the show to know the song and that he and Rudi would just have to sing it for me, they do, right there in Dupont Circle. [Apologies to those of you who now have that song stuck in your head.]

2. The first stone fruit of the season arrive at the farmers’ market. I sit at my desk with a rosy, golden nectarine and fragrant juice runs down my arms.

3. A local mother is getting ready to head out with her baby. The stroller is turned from us, but we both admire the one chubby foot we can see.

It’s a good week when you have trouble narrowing your selections down to three, don’t you think?

How about you? Share something beautiful from your week in the comments.

How? How is it already Thursday? Time is speeding past. I mean, we’re nearly at the Summer Solstice. I’ve got to ratchet up my summer plans before I’m trying to hold a barbecue at Thanksgiving.

Luckily, we can always count on Thursdays to let us slow down, take a deep breath, and recollect three beautiful things from the past week (or in this post’s case, today):

1. We happen on the playing fields just at dusk. Fireflies ascend from the carpet of grass like embers from a fire. (To give credit where it’s due, that’s Rudi’s beautiful — and apt — simile.)

2. General Henry Thomas must have had quite a grueling ride last night because as I bike around Thomas Circle, a man on a cherry picker is toweling off the horse’s bronze hindquarters.

3. The lights on 17th Street conspire so that I am biking home past Farragut Square just as strains of “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” waft past me. The K Street light turns red, which cements it; I turn into the square, deploy the kickstand, and enjoy the final three songs of this week’s Golden Triangle Summer Concert Series. The band this week is the Lloyd Dobler Effect — and they are fantastically fun. They remind me a bit of early Vertical Horizon, back before they sold their soul for a major label record deal.

The D.C.-based band has a cd (which I’ll be buying) and several shows coming up in the area this summer. I hope to catch at least one.

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

Honestly, I feel like time is whooshing past me at a ridiculous pace. How is it already Thursday? And, yet, time is inching along. How is it only Thursday?

But the important thing is it is Thursday. Time for three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Rudi and I happened to have baseball tickets for the night that rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg was set to make his major league debut. The kid was only drafted last year and is barely old enough to have celebratory champagne dumped over his head. I admit that I fully expected the weight of an entire region and the rush to bring him up from the minors to cause him to self-destruct part way into the first inning, but I was wrong in my misgivings. Instead, while he started out throwing a fair number of balls and although he did give up a two-run homer, he set a new club record for strikeouts in a game (14), gave up nary a walk, and clinched a win in front of a raucous crowd of 40,000+. And all in less than 2 1/2 hours!

2. Rudi and I are dragging a bit, so we spend the evening coloring.

3. Friends invite me to join them for a weekday morning outing. I’m delighted to accompany them in their mischief-making.

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