It’s late, so we’ll mostly skip the preamble. Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We have dinner with two high school friends of Rudi’s and their spouses. The friend who cooks dinner has two little girls, precocious and adorable. The older of the two girls, who’s seven, overhears us discussing the science of science fiction and asks for an explanation of tractor beams. When her mother is able to walk her through an admirable model that involved a tricycle, a jump rope, and a dump truck, I’m impressed. But when I remember Heather is a minister and chaplain at a local high school, I figure explaining Star Trek technology to a first-grader might be easy by comparison.

2. Rain is plinking down at bedtime a couple nights this week.

3. Jeans and long sleeves and knee highs and wool socks have made this week one filled with clothes I haven’t seen in a while.

What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

I’ve spent the last week preparing for, experiencing, and winding down from a visit from Grey Kitten and his husband, David. It’s been an exhausting whirlwind of a week. Here are merely three beautiful things from a whole laundry list from which I could have chosen:

1. On Saturday morning, Grey Kitten and I get an hour to ourselves. While we’re good in a crowd (there’s no point in reincarnating a chicken without an audience, after all), it’s the moments we spend one-on-one that have always been my favorites. We just sit and talk, but it doesn’t really matter.

2. Rudi and Grey Kitten spend several hours playing Rock Band on Sunday night. They’re two of the most important men in my life and seeing them having fun together made me happy. It also makes me understand why both of them have fit into my life so well.

3. Intending to spend a couple hours at the National Gallery of Art on Sunday afternoon, the four of us get off the Metro at Judiciary Square. Intrigued by the National Building Museum directly in front of us, David suggests we head there instead. Rudi and I have never been inside and are charmed by the vastness of the atrium, the indoor fountain, the children sprawled about playing, and the permanent display on D.C.’s urban planning and history. (There’s a Lego exhibition that goes on for another year that I think he and I will have to go back to.) After the museum closes, we cross the street to the National Law Enforcement Memorial with its lion sculptures and spend a few minutes sitting by the fountain.

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

Fall cleaning is underway, but won’t be complete in time for the friends who come to town tomorrow. I hope they won’t mind…

But before they get here (or we’re buried under a pile of cds), let’s look back at three beautiful things from the week:

1. Andy and Jamie get married on Saturday. They seem to have a blast. I’ve now been to enough weddings to know how rare and wonderful it is to find newlyweds who actually appear to be enjoying their special day (rather than just being happy to be married or to know that the busyness that has tied them in knots for weeks is coming to an end). I wish them a lifetime of such moments.

2. Amani returns from her two-week honeymoon. Her pre-wedding request to Marcus had been that he handle all the details and surprise her, adding that she’d love to leave the country. She reveals via IM that he took her to England and France. Well done!

3. Leaving the stadium after a late afternoon baseball game, we see through the twilight a full, pale pink moon perched on the eastern horizon. By the time we pedal the length of the Mall and reach Constitution Gardens, the moon has crested the surrounding buildings behind us. We pause on a bench by the pond to admire the Harvest Moon and Jupiter posed perfectly over the Washington Monument.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your life this week?

Thursday again, eh? I’m not quite sure how that keeps happening, but I can hear echoes of Zero Mostel going through my head.

Here are three beautiful things from my last week:

1. When we arrived at the beach late Sunday afternoon, it was practically deserted, leaving it empty for Rudi and me to splash in the warm water, dance in the sand, and watch the sandpipers.

2. For the final jazz concert of the summer, Susan came down to join Rudi, John, and me. I arrived early enough to snag a blanket-sized space next to a nice guy who offered me a swig from his hip flask.

3. My coworker Sarah returned today from two weeks in Australia. She brought chocolates — mine have honeycomb in them.

What’s been beautiful in your life lately?

Two long busy days at the office leave me ready for the weekend. But first, it’s time to share three beautiful things from the last week:

1. The kitten lies on my lap with his head resting on my arm. As we drive home, I pet his head and can feel him get heavy in the same way a baby does when it falls asleep.

2. Sarah, John, Rudi, and I head out to a pick-your-own farm to celebrate Labor Day and the coming of fall. Rudi and I come home with a heap of apples and 11 pounds of tomatoes, most of which are currently in the oven turning into sauce.

3. Amani and Marcus have seemed like such a good couple since they started dating at our annual conference four years ago. And on Sunday night, they looked so … content … to solemnize their relationship and to finally begin their life together.

What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Any week that includes time spent with my family up in Connecticut is sure to be packed with beautiful things. Here are three of them:

1. My trip is bookended by darkness. My train trip to the airport offers glorious pink hued skies which later are reflected on the Atlantic below the plane. On the flight back, we fly through haze that eventually clears just at the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I can see down south to the coast, and cotton candy clouds reflect the sunset on the other side of the plane.

2. My parents’ house is surrounded by gardens and trees and they work hard to make it an attractive place for the local fauna, being especially successful this year with goldfinches and hummingbirds and butterflies. One evening, as I sit on the back deck, chatting with Rudi on my cell phone, a little brown hummingbird whirs around my head and peeps at me before flying off over the roof.

3. My parents have a hammock along the side of the house, tied between two shady trees, within easy reach of a handy table where you can put a drink or a book or a knitting project. I lie there in the afternoon for a nap, rocking gently in the breeze, and wake feeling utterly refreshed.

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