Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. As Rudi and I were cycling home last week along the C&O Canal Towpath, trying to beat the dusk, I begged a breather. While we were stopped, a couple passed us, headed in the opposite direction. “Nice legs!” the girl shouted to Rudi. And she’s right.

2. As I take my first sip of tea in the morning or late at night, I can feel the warmth and relaxation spreading through me as the hot liquid pours down my throat. It’s one of the nicest sensations.

3. The dam on the Potomac was our turnaround point on Sunday’s bike ride. We had paused to watch a heron standing in the middle of the river when a bald eagle swooped down for a drink. He was impressive if a little far off. The next day, while we were paddling in the pool, two bald eagles soared over us. Who would have thought they’d just fly over the city that way? It really was amazing!

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. A tourist family walks past me one morning. The mother, hugging her pre-teen daughter to her hip, beams down at her proudly. The girl looks delighted. This strikes me as an Our Town moment, so I’m preserving it in history for the two of them here.

2. A trio of babies came into my world this week. One, Audrey, is six months old and belongs to Dini, a video journalist friend from the last political campaign. We hadn’t seen her since her son was a baby (maybe three years ago?) until we ran into them Sunday afternoon on our walk home from the farmers’ market. Two others were born this week: Derek to a college friend, Lunesse, and Jack to a colleague of mine, Angelique.

3. Not wanting to miss the early-morning lunar eclipse this week, Rudi and I set our alarms for 5:30 a.m. We rise silently and dress and head outdoors. Not surprisingly, we cannot see the area of the sky necessary from our corner, so we zig-zag down the road to a clearing. Low clouds have rolled in along the horizon, obscuring the pre-dawn sky. “It definitely looks darker than usual over there,” I say hopefully, pointing toward the west. Rudi agrees but also suggests we will probably not see much more than that darkness and that we should return home to bed. We stumble back to the Burrow and are asleep almost immediately.

I’m still feeling snuffly and a bit cotton-headed, so I’m going to give you three more beautiful things as I mull over other things I’m supposed to be working on and sip my tea:

1. As I walk into the coffee shop by the office, their radio starts to play a song and I immediately think of Grey Kitten. At first I think it’s a song from Aladdin, but then I realize it’s “Somewhere Out There,” which is from An American Tale. Now that we live 2,693 miles apart (give or take), we don’t get to see movies together very often, but when we were both teenagers we used to see them regularly — sometimes every week — so I have a number of songs that make me think of him.

2. I am alone for lunch today, so I go down to the corner park and sit at an outside table with my iPod and my knitting. A fluffy little sparrow, hoping for a handout, perches on the chair opposite mine and eyes my lunch greedily, and I contemplate for a moment asking him to dine with me. Instead, the woman at the table flirts with him by throwing him bread crumbs.

3. Because I’ve been knitting only socks and baby items recently, I’ve been used to plodding along on US2 or 3 needles. My current (secret) project is worked on US8s and I find that it is flying off the needles. In the heat, I don’t want a big project that will sit on my lap, but this week has been cooler so I don’t have to resort to tiny objects. When the temperatures soar towards 100 on Saturday, I won’t be working on the big project, but it’s nice to think it’s waiting here for me as September comes around the corner.

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. On our walk home from the farmers’ market this Sunday we passed a bulldog on a leash. He had to have been the happiest bulldog I’ve ever seen, with a jaunty step and and a smile on his face (really!). He buh-dum-buh-dum’ed past us on the sidewalk, delighted at a lovely morning walk.

2. I was showing Mum and Dad the garden plot on Saturday when the community pool opened next door. There was a dash by 30 or so people to the deck chairs lined up on the shallow side of the pool and it sort of felt like a bit of a feeding frenzy.

3. My pillow grows warm very quickly and I am feverish. I flip the pillow over and the second side is refreshingly cool against my head.

It was a rainy morning here in D.C. and I’m totally grateful. It seems like we’ve had so little rain this summer with the storms petering out over the ‘burbs. We could really use a good dousing; we’re experiencing a severe drought and the area is showing the strain. To celebrate the rain, let’s think of Three Beautiful Things from the last week. Here are mine; what are yours?

1. There have been intermittent moments of cooler weather this last week, affording me the opportunity to lunch outside, to leave the window open during the day, to walk home in the evening, and to read at the local Starbucks with a lemonade-passion tea on a weekend afternoon. After an interminably hot July and beginning of August, these blessed moments offer hope that fall will, in fact, arrive someday.

2. As Amani, Sarah, and I left the theater following last evening’s Becoming Jane showing, a lone saxman played a mournful tune. It just seemed an appropriate mood setter following an Austen biopic.

3. Rudi’s and my favorite new act to come out of Falcon Ridge this year were the Lovell Sisters. Saturday evening, they played a free show at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. The event was packed and the girls looked like they were having a terrific time. (I can’t link it directly, but you can see the same show we did by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.)

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Descending into the depths of the Dupont Circle Metro station, which is air-conditioned, from the outside, which is not.

2. Picking up a chocolate croissant for breakfast early at the farmers’ market on Sunday. By the time I finish my shopping and return home, the chocolate inside is all melted and warm and perfect.

3. The velvet fuzz on a young buck’s antlers and the velvety-looking fur of Suzanne and Grant’s new kitten.