Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We caught a sneak preview of Dear Evan Hansen this week. While we haven’t seen the stage show, Rudi and I thought the movie was really well done.

2. I manage to organize some of our volleyball team into getting together for drinks before our doubleheader.

3. The Q Street Barbie Pond has a 9 to 5 theme going on. (I’d suggest you click through the above photo so you can zoom in on Flickr.)

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

Three more beautiful things from my past week, because we’re in a week that demands I find the positives in life:

1. Last week was Doggie Day Swim, or, as Rudi and I call it, Pups in the Pool. Every year, after they close the pool to people, they give dog owners a chance to bring their pooches over to use it. There were about two dozen dogs, most of whom were running around the pool, rather than playing in it, but still.

2. Dancers were out practicing their waltzing at one of the nearby triangle parks one afternoon. I assume it was the social dancing group that meets at the nearby church.

3. The windshield of the car has brown leaves all over it. Fall is nearly here!

How about you? Anything beautiful in your world lately you feel like sharing?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Orange and yellow daisy-type flowers continue to sprout along the verge alongside the escalator at Dupont Circle. They should be installing the glass over that escalator this fall, so this may be the last summer we get to enjoy them, the results of a guerilla gardener several years back.

2. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was an enjoyable addition to the Marvel franchise. I will tune in for almost anything that includes Awkwafina in the cast, and she did not disappoint. And we got to check out a new-to-us movie theater in D.C. at the same time.

3. I take the day off Wednesday and Rudi and I head to the ballpark for a rare weekday game. The game includes walking in two runs, at least one extremely well executed catch of a foul pop by a fan, and a loss for the home team, but who can argue with watching baseball instead of working?

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We’ve been able to return to indoor volleyball finally. I have missed my volleyball sneakers, which got less than six months of games before the world shut down. (I could wear them for grass court volleyball, but opt not to in order to keep them nice for as long as possible.) Also, the new permutation of the team seems nice, and I’m not saying that just because they opted to keep me as captain.

2. I got to spend the last hours the outdoor pools were open to the public for the year floating in the deep end. In contrast to the penultimate day, a cool afternoon that threatened to drip, Monday was sunny and warm, and the pool was packed with everyone who hadn’t left town for the long weekend.

3. D.C. is full of triangle parks, caused by intersections between our streets on a grid and state-named streets, which are at a diagonal. They’re clever reclamations of “wasted” space, sometimes holding statues, like the ones near my house, dog parks, or tables and chairs, like the one by the pizzeria, where I took my to-go supper after the staff told me they’d already closed the patio.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The washing machine has been fixed. The technician wasn’t sure he’d figured out what was wrong, so he programmed both the washer and dryer to give me a free load to test it out.

2. Thunderstorms rumbled through the wee hours of a night earlier this week as the remnants of Hurricane Ida pushed her way past us. While this kept others awake for hours, Corey and I were happy to note it didn’t sound like we were personally under attack and easily went back to sleep.

3. The upside to water dripping through our light fixture is that our landlord decided it was simpler just to buy a new one rather than trust that this one wouldn’t set the building ablaze. The new one doesn’t flicker and crackle (the light bulbs on the old one lasted decades, but made you wish that they hadn’t) and gives off a nice, bright light. Overall, an improvement.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A nearly full orange moon rises behind the stage of the last outdoor pink show of the summer. (I’ll add a photo to the post once my computer stops updating.)

2. My former boss and I meet up for ice cream sandwiches and spend hours catching up.

3. Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson, is really enjoyable. Hudson does an amazing job with the role and the songs, but it is only fitting that the final scene goes to footage of the Queen of Soul herself in what I think was her final public performance. Rudi and I are both glad we dragged ourselves out to the theater after a long day.

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