Three beautiful things from our time on the road last week:

1. I took knitting on vacation with me. (This is not surprising; I take knitting everywhere, almost.) I packed Rudi’s sock, which I didn’t work on much because damp or sweaty hands do not encourage the easy flow of narrow-guage yarn, and I packed some cotton my friend Cynthia had sent me to make dishcloths with. Dasch and Reesie watched me knit for a while, and then Reesie asked if she could try. “Sure,” I said. “You work the yarn and I’ll hold the needles.” And sure enough we knit a whole row together like that. Then Dasch asked if he could try. And he did, but then he got bored and wanted us to switch and for him to work the needles and me to work the yarn. “Okay.” I showed him how and off we went. But then there were marshmallows to roast and s’mores to make and yarn was abandoned for loftier pursuits (by me as well as them). Next year, though, I’m breaking the yarn and needles out early.

2. There is nothing like having little kids sidle up to you and want to sit on your lap or snuggle with you on a blanket. Dasch, Reesie, and their new friend Aveeva all wanted some lap time over the weekend. And a couple of times I ended up on the blanket late at night with a sleepy child dozing off in my lap. There’s no nicer feeling in the whole wide world.

3. We arrived at Turkey Ridge after the folk festival ended to discover two new residents had moved into the family homestead. Callie and Chloe are two pint-sized, nine-week-old fluff balls. They’re a little skittish around people yet, as they’ve only been part of the family for a week. They run and jump and play nonstop until they crawl under something to sleep for 10 hours, causing mild alarm and panic about where they’ve disappeared to. They’re still at that age when their purrers are more developed than their tiny, palm-sized selves and when they consent to sit with you for a few minutes, their motors run full-speed.

I am heading to upstate New York from just outside the City right now to join friends in our annual folk festival camping trip (where I hope to experience many more than three beautiful things). In the meantime, I leave you with three beautiful things from the past week (written a bit early):

1. Saturday was Western Market’s late market of the summer, staying open until 10. Rudi and I went around sunset to avoid the heat, but found little that piqued our fancy. (Lots of chunky jewelry.) But Woolarina was there with some cute project mini tote bags she’d stenciled. When I bought one that declares “She’s crafty!” Paula (the D.C. half of Woolarina) got very excited, which made me even happier with my purchase.

2. Sweet cherries are too sweet for my grandmother’s cherry cobbler recipe we discovered accidentally a few weeks ago. In the meantime, I bought some sour cherries at the farmers’ market, and they worked just great. Three nights of yummy dessert!

3. A group of my coworkers and I went out to lunch Tuesday to celebrate two recent birthdays. The birthday girls chose a local sports bar, where we sat at a tall table and gabbed. All of a sudden I realized that a Peter, Paul, and Mary song was playing over the speakers. Then some other oldies. I began to bop in my seat and hum and warned everyone that by the time we left, I could be belting the songs aloud. Sarah started singing under her breath. Then Cee-Cee. And Amani was keeping time. It was very funny but also very fun.

Three beautiful pieces of baby news from the last week (no, none of them are mine):

1. My college friend Rebs and her husband Rick are in the final throes of the paperwork that will allow them to be put on the waiting list to adopt a baby boy from Guatemala. I have already bought Joey a present. I hope he likes it. Since he doesn’t yet exist in this realm, I will have to wait a while to find out.

2. My D.C. friend Grace found out that the baby she and her husband Brad are expecting in November is going to be “a little dude.” Sarah saw Grace earlier this week and says she looks absolutely adorable as a mom-to-be.

3. Friends Pat and Heidi’s twin-watch drew to a close last night. Thomas Ward and Erin Elizabeth, welcome to the world. Your big brother Jack will now have some competition as D.C.’s Cutest Child. And you will find that you’ve got some terrific folks. (As a side note, these are the babies to whom the mouse booties belong. Luckily, they’re kind of small right now, because none of us — not even brand new babies who don’t know any better — want to be wearing a cotton-wool blend during a heat wave.)

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Two blocks from home, I chanced to look up. A neighbor has a bright yellow flowering hibiscus on their roof.

2. I have been spending money on eBay recently and between that and the news clippings Erik sends me, I have had a pleasant amount of real mail recently. (It feels very good, which should remind me that others like to have similar experiences…)

3. I have a tendency to procrastinate. (Those who know me in real life are now assuming shocked looks and whispering, “No! Really?” to the computer screen.) Sometimes this can be problematic. But last weekend it turned out to be a blessing when I got to see attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in lovely sunny weather featuring temperatures in the low 80s with low humidity instead of the hazy, hot, and humid conditions of the other days I’d intended to go but hadn’t. This year’s featured sub-cultures were the music of Chicago Latinos (a great background to the rest of the festival), Native American basketweaving (it’s impressive how basketry varied depending where in the country people are), and Alberta, Canada. There was a woman who created artwork from fish scales, bones, and vertebrae, horse and moose hair, and porcupine quills. There was a flyfishing demonstration (where they were catching hula hoops). There was the biggest truck I have ever seen. And there was a ranching demonstration featuring cowboys, cattle, and horses. (Oh, and really tasty food, which is always a highlight.)

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Rudi and I are going to see a baseball game this afternoon, so I took today off from work. I intended this morning to be spent ultra-productively with knitting, a bike ride, shopping, cleaning, and perhaps some baking. My body, on the other hand, seems to have had other ideas, and I slept until 11. With the game starting at 1, it seems much more reasonable in retrospect to spend the intervening time lounging. Maybe I’ll fit some more productive work in between the game and the movie tonight.

2. In the last week, I’ve been to the library once and bookstores twice. I’ve come home with some books for me and some for others. I do love books — and so do my friends.

3. Summer fruit has arrived with a vengeance! In addition to the raspberries I picked while on the bike ride Saturday morning, we also brought home a big haul from the market. The market basket overfloweth with blueberries, gooseberries, black currants, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and methany plums. On Tuesday, I cut up three pints of cherries that had been sitting in the fridge from before the California trip and hope to make a cobbler as soon as I get to the store to buy sugar.

Today is a vacation day for many (although not for Rudi nor me). In that spirit, I offer you three beautiful things from my life:

Della thinks you might have forgotten her after looking at the kittens (who, at four, should rightly no longer be called kittens). She asks that you end with her.