Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Towards the end of the festival, Daschel is looking for someone to play with. A teenager teaches him to play hackysack for a little while. Rudi takes him for a piggyback ride and lets him wear his sunglasses and hat. A woman further up the hill plays catch with him. Finally some children his own age arrive and he’s able to join in their games.

2. En route to the festival, we spend the night just north of NYC. We take the train into the city to have dinner with erik and then sit in a twilight-filled Union Square watching people and dogs go by. The next afternoon, we stop at Eri’s. She rustles up an old bike for me to borrow and we pedal leisurely into town for lunch at a cafe.

3. Mum calls mid-afternoon on Sunday to check if we’ll want supper when we arrive there after the festival ends. Rudi, having ridden 100 miles earlier in the day, enthusiastically endorses the idea. I expect that she’ll just have leftovers for us to reheat when we arrive, but the whole family has waited for us to dine amidst the candles outside. In addition to Mum making my favorite potatoes, Gramma has baked a blueberry-peach pie.

Three beautiful things from the camping trip/music festival:

1. The blueberry pancakes Mike makes for breakfast on the campstove griddle.

2. Having my sunburnt skin misted with cool water by two small children.

3. Shelley and I intend to stay down at the music on Friday night when the guys return to camp. Instead, it begins to sprinkle and we decide to head up early. The sprinkles don’t turn into actual rain, so after sending the kids and the guys to bed, we decide to mosey back down to the midway for a late night cup of hot chocolate. Just as we arrive, the skies open up and the rain pours down. By the time we walk back to the campsite, we are thoroughly soaked. (My sneakers only just dried today.)

I’m away on vacation. In my absence I leave you some random posts. Today’s offers you Three Beautiful Things about Harry Potter:

1. I pull the sixth book out of my bag while waiting for the train late one evening and settle in to read. A man in his twenties approaches. “Excuse me. You don’t know me, but are you rereading all the books before the seventh one comes out on Friday? … You are? Me too! I’m so glad I’m not the only one. … And this isn’t just the second time you’ve read them right? … Aren’t they great?”

2. Saturday afternoon, we head outside to read at the local Starbucks (they have an expansive area of outdoor seating). Two guys are reading the books, as is a girl nearby and another girl at the restaurant next door. We see several copies walk by. Blog posts from around the world talk about the book. Almost all of my friends are reading the book. Was this what they meant at Conn when they talked about the global community? Maybe if we had more books like these, there would be fewer wars…

3. A teen sits outside a café, sleeping, his head cushioned on his closed copy of The Deathly Hallows.

Just because I’m away on vacation doesn’t mean the fun has to stop. Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. The surprise of things having grown in your garden. Like broccoli. And peppers. And beans. And squash. And tomatoes. Sure, I planted them all. I just didn’t expect anything to come of it, particularly with my lackadaisical watering and weeding!

2. A last-minute dinner party held in Michael’s (and Julia’s) front yard.

3. I headed out to the shore to see Karen last Thursday. We had a lovely lunch (with excellent fries and free mugs) and returned back to the cottage to take a walk. We were half a mile from shelter when the skies opened up, soaking us through and through. We went back, dried off, put on our bathing suits (which were dry, as opposed to our clothes), and went back out for another walk. We hunted for fossilized shark teeth and saw a turtle, a heron, a bald eagle, and a school of rays that I thought were sand sharks. It was a lovely day.

Before I head off to the shore, three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Shelley’s MCAT scores come through and she has kicked serious ass. Shell’s been very studious between classwork and test prep for the last several years, so I’m terribly proud of her achievement.

2. Rudi points out the moon to me as we sit at Starbucks reading HP6. It’s the barest of slivers, the Cheshire Cat just about to disappear.

3. The house is mostly dark as I sit at the computer catching up on old emails. A loud thud comes from the bathroom, followed by caterwauling. Jeremiah is enjoying the acoustics and invites the girls and me to come play with him in the tub.

and a bonus beautiful thing this week:

4. John, who has been a “code monkey” in the tech business for a number of years now, has a new job he starts next week. He’s moving into the project management end of things and is excited about the prospects opening up before him (as well as the ridiculously shortened commute to work).

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Running through a downpour to get back to the office for lunch. I laugh as I go.

2. The skies suddenly open as if someone has slit the clouds. We, however, are mosty-toasty inside the Burrow.

3. A man in drab neutral colors is surrounded by his wife and four daughters, all dressed in vibrant hues — orange and pink and lime and turquoise.