Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. I decided at the last minute that I really did want to see the fireworks from up close so we hopped on our bikes to ride down to the Kennedy Center for a better vantage point. A block into our journey, sparks illuminated the sky. We rode down to the waterfront with bursts of pink and green and white lighting our way.

2. On the way from my event to the airport last Saturday, I stopped in Squirrel Hill to pick up some packing tape to seal up the boxes I was FedExing home. Across the street was a cupcake shop, so I picked out four to accompany me home: Vanilla vanilla (with Independence Day-themed decorations), chocolate cherry (a vegan option), East End Chocolate Stout, and Cosmo. All were delicious.

3. In an era where hotels charge you just for opening the refrigerator, let alone taking something out, Wyndham stands apart from the rest. If you join their free club, they will leave you complimentary snacks and drinks of your choosing. I arrived earlier than they’d expected on Friday, so when I returned to the room after running errands around the city, it was with great joy that I found they’d left me bottled water, Coke, and M&Ms.

I didn’t relax much while traveling Friday or Saturday, but I do enjoy spending time in Pittsburgh more than I thought I would the first time I went there. As such, three beautiful things about Pittsburgh:

1. After walking out of the Eagle Giant in Southside, I noticed a sky so deeply, intensely purple and magenta that I said, “Wow! Look at that!” quite aloud. A woman turned to gaze with me.

2. After three short visits to Pittsburgh, I already have a favorite radio station there, 91.3, WYEP. When I picked up my rental car, they were about to start an in-studio performance/interview with Ruthie Foster. Another time I started the car, it was to the refrains of the Kennedys’ “Life Is Large.”

3. At the end of my workday on Saturday, I was trying to push free food on everyone I encountered. A little girl sitting in a tree behind me came up to eat some vegetables and immediately took to me and started hawking the joie de vivre of eating healthy to anyone who passed us by. She took the last of my veggies home because “it’s a waste something that someone might want.” And when she asked me why some people smoke (I have no idea why she asked, but we’d had an anti-smoking group with us earlier in the day, so that might have been why.), I gave her the answer that sometimes people think it looks cool and sometimes people are intimidated by telling their friends they don’t want to try it. This third grader looked me in the eye and told me that was silly and provided me with several lines to answer that kind of scenario. She also told me she wanted to be a lawyer and to have a vet place for homeless animals in her backyard and to be America’s Next Top Model and to be a cheerleader. What a sweetie.

Three beautiful things from the end of June:

1. Grateful to have me home, Della sleeps on my arm and Jeremiah curls up on my pillow above my head.

2. The first day of the conference, I go to lunch at Warehouse Cafe (which is closing because of the increase in their property taxes, so this is also a sad thing). Not only do they have a yummy vegetarian option, but they also understand that a panini machine is meant to cook the sandwich instead of just to create lines on the bread. A rarity in these parts.

3. When Bill, Jana, and I go out to eat Monday night, Bill identifies the scent in the restaurant hallway as that of Pez. Unusual, but strangely comforting, as well.

I’m home. I’m tired. I forgot to eat dinner (but I’m waiting to pick up a pizza now). The cats are clingy. Rudi is still in Utah (as planned, since I have to work the next two weekends). Tomorrow is going to be a sucky day at work. But even despite all this, there were definitely moments of beauty over the last week. Here are just three of them:

1. Coming across boxes of photos of Rudi and his mother from when they were children.

2. Eating fresh strawberries, raspberries, cherries, and boysenberries from Jenny’s garden.

3. I was supposed to have the middle seat for the non-stop flight from Utah to Maryland today. But whoever was supposed to use the aisle seat didn’t show up, so I got to have some elbow room instead.

Rudi’s mom is having surgery this morning to replace a bum hip. Please keep her in your thoughts while you enjoy these three beautiful things from my week:

1. Rudi was eager to set up the corner of the living room by the window to be a nook for me. He put little feet on my bookshelf over the weekend so I could put all my knitting books over by my rocking chair and the jelly cabinet that contains my yarn. I shifted other books over as well and hung up a picture. I haven’t knit there yet, but after Rudi went to bed late Saturday night, I turned off all the big lights in the living room and was able to read perfectly well just by my happy lamp, which now sits on the top shelf.

2. Two friends called me recently. Rebs and I got to talk for a rare hour about their adoption of a dear baby from Guatemala and how life has been for her and her husband recently. And my former student, Jason, phoned after a year out of touch with great news — he’d been accepted to grad school and is moving to North Carolina.

3. Twelve-story buildings block my view of all but a small swath of sky as I hurry from the metro stop to my office. An overwhelming rumble fills the air and I look up to check whether the President is flying away. I see nothing but blue above until I glimpse the chopper hovering not far above the building to my right in the glassy reflection of the building on my left.

Three more beautiful things from the past week:

1. Sometimes I read as I walk the two-and-a-half miles home from work. As I got close to home earlier this week, a girl approaching me from the opposite direction thoughtfully warned me of something on the sidewalk I wouldn’t have wanted to step on.

2. Last night, because I was heading to a meeting instead of home after work, I took a walking route I’d never used before. It was filled with wonders, like a fat cat poised on front steps, a well-tended Victorian home tucked between two ten-story apartment buildings, a Sharpei (not a Sharpie, as I originally typed) peeking out from behind a shop-to-be’s newspapered window, a man pulling seven-foot-high weeds out of his front yard, and a British telephone box in a backyard. The people were all very friendly along the route, too, calling out greetings to my smiles, despite my headphones.

3. We brought a four-foot-high bookshelf back with us from Connecticut last week and have stationed it next to the window. It needs to have little footie things put on it before I can fill it up with books and such, so it remains empty at the moment. Jeremiah thinks it’s wonderful we’ve brought him a new jungle gym and revels in seeing which shelf he can jump onto from a sprint, tormenting anyone who climbs onto a different shelf while he’s there, and chasing his tail — both in circles and by draping himself over the shelf to grab at his tail draped down between the shelf and the wall. I find him endlessly fascinating and will be sorry to curtail his antics by filling the shelves.