Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi and I were at the ballpark on Tuesday for a glorious evening of baseball. As with most sporting events these days, the Nationals employ staff to do routine schtick with attendees between innings, such as opening a box while wearing baseball gloves or identifying songs. Between the 6th and 7th innings, the host running the trivia game asked a guy for the nickname of our third-baseman, which he answered correctly. The host congratulated him and then asked if he’d be willing to answer a bonus question, at which point the man’s boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed. While I know public proposals are risky and put a lot of pressure on the person being asked, it seemed like this proposal had been well-thought out, especially since it included a custom engagement ring engraved to resemble the stitching of a baseball. Oh, and Teddy said yes.

2. Our library’s Fab Lab maker space held a free jewelry repair class today, and although I couldn’t find what I’d bought to fix the necklace that Rudi had commissioned for me by a friend, the librarian running the session had supplies (including some new spacer beads, since one of the original beads had a piece of the waxed cord stuck in it that I couldn’t get out) that worked well enough to make it wearable once again.

3. The afternoons have been very comfortable this week, which has enabled me to spend a lot of time outdoors.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I bought a flat of strawberries on Sunday and got them all cut up and dealt with, which is a task, much like writing book reviews, that I prefer completed rather than in progress.

2. I was really impressed with how effortlessly fast this young woman was in the pool … until I realized she was twins.

3. A friend texted this week to say that she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer, but didn’t have anything other than an initial diagnosis. She followed up after her visit with the surgeon to say that it was early-stage cancer and that some more tests would be necessary before a final course of action could be determined, but that overall the news was very optimistic. As she is not the only friend I’ve had with breast cancer, I’m so grateful that we live in a time when treatments are so successful.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I knew there were afternoon thundershowers expected around the time I was getting out of my volunteer shift, but I’d hoped to beat the storm home. I was still a dozen blocks away when I realized that the wind gusts were making cycling too dangerous to continue, so I docked my bike by the library and ran inside, a little damp from the first drops of rain, but ahead of the deluge that followed moments later — and the tornado warning that came on its heels. I parked myself at a table and read until the warning lifted.

2. Author Kevin Kwan appeared at the Library of Congress yesterday and they showed a screening of Crazy Rich Asians beforehand. I don’t tend to love interview-style author events (although I do understand why some authors might find them more enjoyable than having to get up on stage and riff for half an hour), but Kwan was affable to both his interviewer and to the audience members who asked questions, offering up a pleasant way to pass an evening. (They’re filming the second and third movies at the same time next year, and he’s currently working on two tv series and at least two novels.)

3. Because I have the ability to use my phone as a hotspot, I sometimes take my laptop up to the park on beautiful days and hang out at a picnic table for several hours. On Monday, I headed up in the late afternoon, was still there in the early evening when Rudi stopped by on his way out with friends, and finally closed things up after dark (I wasn’t the only one still there on such a beautiful night), when he texted he was on his way home from the film.

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

Today was Rudi’s birthday, which he wanted to spend doing karaoke, since one of his bikey friends runs a couple such events around town, including one on the rooftop of a hotel downtown.

Here are three other beautiful things from my past week:

1. At the Funk Parade on Saturday, the parade and other free activities were supposed to wrap up with an hour-long performance by the Chuck Brown Band. (Chuck Brown was the Godfather of Go-Go, a type of funk, and D.C.’s favorite musician before he died a couple years back. His band has continued to perform under his moniker and in his honor.) The skies opened up toward the end of the parade (you felt for dancers doing splits in puddles and the beauty queens in their spangled bikinis mincing through the chilly mist) and by the time their set began, a steady drizzle was coming down. They only made it into their second song before a loud CRACKLE! punctuated the music and the mics went dead. They paused, realized they’d completely lost electricity and then went on to perform every jam and call-and-response song in their repertoire, as the crowd boogied under a rainbow of umbrellas. We cheered through The Woody Woodpecker theme song and riffs from other popular soundtracks and then went wild and sang along for Chuck’s biggest hit, “Bustin’ Loose.” It was understandably a short set, but one everyone in the park will remember.

2. My attention is captured by the colorful disco lights flashing in a living room window. Happy-looking couples are slow dancing on a Thursday.

3. As we’re riding home along the Rock Creek bike path, we notice a great blue heron flying by. Then I spy three more hanging out in the creek itself, along with a night heron. Obviously, it’s a party.

What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The woman from my volleyball team and I finally got together for coffee this week. Then we went out for beers (full disclosure, I drink neither beer nor coffee) after our game tonight and our partners joined us.

2. One of the coffeehouses I like to frequent has Arnold Palmers on their menu and I decided to order one this week. They use frozen lemonade, so the drink was delightfully slushy.

3. My second movie screening this week worked out far better than the first. Poms was a charming look at female friendship and persevering when it would be easier to give up. It’s not a great film — it asks a few bigger questions (about multigenerational families and about adult children parenting their parents), yet never bothers to answer them, and most of the characters aren’t fully three-dimensional — but it was an enjoyable way to pass a couple hours and most of the audience (predominantly older women themselves) seemed to agree.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A resolution to the conflict between the Parks department and the local Friends group of my local park that my volleyball league found itself in the middle of has been reached, at least as it affects our games. We’re moving to another nearby park, which means I’ll be able to continue going to mine without fear of angry looks from all my neighbors. Now, if we could just find a solution to game-time thunderstorms…

2. I took my laptop to a local coffeehouse for a sunny afternoon sitting at their picnic tables bookmarking job openings, including one I’d particularly like to fill.

3. When I stopped by the garden yesterday to drop off some seedlings (dusk was approaching too rapidly to plant them), I noticed the Parks department was doing their first test-fill of the pool. The cover had come off in April, so I knew we had to be reaching this point, but it was nice to have confirmation. They’ll use this fill to make sure there are no problems with the pipes or cracks that need fixing and then will drain the pool completely to do whatever maintenance they deem necessary and clean it one final time before doing a last fill before the Memorial Day opening weekend.

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