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.

The last week has held so much beauty that it may warrant a second set of beautiful things over the weekend. In the meantime, my list of beach-themed beautiful things:

1. The water at the Coronado beach was filled with flecks of golden sand. When the sun shone on the water, it looked as if pixies had spilled bags of glitter into the ocean.

2. Pelicans are fascinating enough creatures when you just see them sitting around on perches or at the zoo. But when you see them flying, they’re incredible. A flock of them flew in precise military formation just inches over the water. And when the hunt, they circle lazily over the water until they spot their prey. Then they go into a sudden nose-dive and sploosh! into the water head first. Eventually they pop back up duck-like and then take off to start the process over again.

3. Coming in from the water, I am sopping wet and chilly. I drop onto the towel and think warming, huddling thoughts and hope that the heat from the sand will penetrate through my towel and skin. Eventually, though, the sun dries my skin and my bathing suit and all is once again well with the world.

We’re on a plane right now headed out west for a wedding and some family and friend visiting. So next week’s beautiful things may have a left-coast-tinged viewpoint. But in the meantime, here are several beautiful things from the home front from the last week:

1. English peas at the farm market this week. When I was little I hated cooked peas, but straight from the garden they were a whole different story. I can take cooked peas or leave them nowadays but eating them out of the pod is still delectable.

2. Sunday was an August-like day. Hazy, hot, and humid. I decided to celebrate it by a trip to Eastern Market to look for a wedding present and to the local yarn shop to see if they had anything that I needed to buy during their sale. Then I had to run a few more errands. By the time I got back to the house, I was pink (from the heat, not from the sun) and dripping — totally disgusting. But then I got to take a nice tepid shower and I felt reborn and renewed (at least until I headed back outside).

3. On my way home on the Metro tonight, I passed a family sitting on a bench waiting for their train. The little girl had on a pink t-shirt and had pink, sparkly wings festooning her back. She looked just like a fairy — and maybe she was.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Our friends Sam and Alexis are coming to visit this weekend. Rudi was under the impression that they arrived tonight, but they aren’t in fact coming until tomorrow. This gives us an extra day to clean. (Not getting to spend Thursday evening with them is not, however, a beautiful thing.)

2. While on my Sunday bike ride along the C&O Canal, I saw a Baltimore Oriole fly by. He had the brightest plumage and just looked so jolly.

3. I won passes to see The Heart of the Game, which is a documentary about a Seattle high school basketball team, at a local movie theater last week and invited Amani to go with me. She and I are the only two people I know in town who played high school basketball, so I figured we both might see something in it that those who hadn’t played the sport would. (I think that was true, but anyone who loves women’s basketball, sports in general, seeing kids triumph over their personal situations, or an underdog story would enjoy it as well.) Amani gave me a ride home and we chattered most of the way about playing basketball, high school vs. college teams, Division I vs. Division III teams, and boys’ vs. girls’ games, as well as societal implications brought up by the film. I had forgotten how much fun seeing a movie just with a girl friend could be and I fear Rudi may get ditched a bit more often in favor of such outings.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. One of the houses that adjoins the back of ours has a cat they let out into the backyard periodically. The cat enjoys coming over and peering in our bedroom window. Jeremiah and Della took affront at this when it first started happening, but Della has grown bored with the whole thing. Jeremiah still likes to defend our honor, but in a non-bushy kind of way. He stands on the inside window sill, Neighbor Cat stands on the outside window sill, and they box back and forth as if they could actually reach one another. Jer looks just like he does when he’s rassling with Posey in real time. I think he won this morning’s bout because he looked very proud of himself when he eventually abandoned his post by the window.

2. Pericles was an enjoyable romp in the woods Saturday night. It was obvious that the National Shakespeare Theatre enjoyed putting it on, particularly when you saw a pirate character emerge dressed like Captain Hook from Peter Pan.

3. When I was out on the C&O Canal path this weekend, I kept my eyes open for ducklings because I hadn’t seen any yet this season. I did eventually see some on the way home — two little yellow fellows swimming by themselves as well as a wood duck family with three tiny babies (about the size of a Peep, but not as easily melted). I also saw some Canada Geese families, or maybe daycare centers. One pair had 14 young’uns; the other had 17! They were all swimming in lines, just like you see little kids in on field trips. They were utterly adorable.

Bonus beautiful thing: Our favorite Ben’s Chili Bowl counter man, David, was back at work when we stopped in last night. We hadn’t seen him in months and were afraid that he’d left Ben’s without saying good-bye. But instead he’d just gone home for 2 1/2 months for a visit, so it was good news all around.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Karen took me bra shopping on Friday (this how good a friend she is; she didn’t force me to stand under fluorescent lights in my underwear by myself). I came home with three new pieces of support garmenture, two of which even have little ribbon roses on them, which will stay as long as they don’t show through my t-shirts. It’s okay if I know they are there, but I’m not particularly interested in having strangers on the street notice them.

2. I admit it: I like words. I know an awful lot of them and enjoy using them. I enjoyed Spell Bound and Akeelah and the Bee a great deal. If I could only take one book with me to a desert island, it would be a (good) dictionary. So tonight it was with great anticipation that I turned on ABC to watch this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee. I was blown away. These are elementary- and middle-school children spelling multi-syllabic words that I’ve never heard of — and spelling them right, often, to boot. So I have to admit that even though I was competing against children twenty years my junior, it was with great pride that I knew two of the words of the final 25: koine and weltschmerz. Koine refers to a local dialect that becomes the main language of a larger area. (It is also the name of our Conn yearbook.) And weltschmerz literally translates to “world pain,” referring to a profound sadness about the shape the world is in.

3. There are five kittens living at the house at the opposite end of the block. Rudi had seen them the other day and when we went out for cone (mmmm…. cone!) last night, we spent some time playing with them from the other side of the fence. And tonight I got a chance to see two of them nursing, lying practically on top of each other. There are three little gray tiger kittens (who look like their mother) and two black ones, including an imp who was using a low-lying shrub branch as a trampoline.