Sorry if you’ve been looking for the blog the last few days. Our server host sent an email at the beginning of the week to say they had to perform emergency upgrades and that they needed to take us offline, hopefully only for a limited time. That continued off and on for the last several days, culminating with Rudi needing to do maintenance work to get the blogs reestablished in the public domain. Irksome, but hopefully now behind us.

Here are three beautiful things from the past week:

1. With the return to standard time, buildings are now lit up at the end of the day. As I’m about to head out, I glance across the street and notice, four stories below, a fellow practicing the violin alone by his office window, fingers flying and bow flourishing.

2. The leaves are finally dropping here in greater quantities. I crunch through yellowed gingko leaves atop the brick sidewalk down the block and, closer to the metro station, kick planetree leaves the size of plates down the street like a rock.

3. A late game start means only five players on our volleyball team show up. After we beat our opponent, we opt to remain in the gym to scrimmage among ourselves, three against two. The final serve of the night is called, the group opposite us sets up their biggest hitter, and I time my jump perfectly to block his spike back down onto their side. It is a remarkably satisfying way to end the workout.

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

Happy Halloween! I hope you had a nice holiday. We did, spending the evening out with friends along U and 14th streets, which are among the hotbeds of adult costume sightings in D.C., and their side streets, where children roamed and decorations galore reigned.

Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I made a mistake by wearing my cute, but painful-after-several-hours 3″-high Mary Janes to work. Switching into my heavy-duty sneakers for volleyball has never felt so good.

2. The food-packing coordinator at Food & Friends, a local charity that feeds people suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses where some colleagues and I volunteered one morning this week, was a steady, upbeat (but not peppy) fellow, bellowing out instructions and making our efforts feel like a grade-school game. We got a lot accomplished as three hours sped past, allowing everyone to feel the day had been a success.

3. I was frustrated last night by my there-to-fore inability to come up with a good, not-yet-worn Halloween costumes and that feeling carried over through holiday Oreos, a World Series victory, jack o’lantern carving, and sleep. While I was getting ready for my shower this morning, I had just resigned myself to a repeat costume when an idea hit me:

Can you guess what I am?

If you need a hint, the umbrella is tucked into my bag in that shot.

(Many thanks to Amanda and Kindred Magazine, whose mailer provided me the raw materials, for allowing my rack to serve as the costume’s pièce de résistance.)

How about you? What was beautiful in your world this week?

A paco-vicuna at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival

This week marked the conclusion of vacation and re-entry into the workaday life. Mostly painfree, but I admit that I’m looking forward to the weekend something fierce.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. As we were driving home from vacation, we could see a jeep approaching us with a cow skull tied to its grate. Unusual in Maryland, but nothing special, right? How about when it passed us and we found to our delight that the passenger seat contained a skeleton, so enjoying the ride that it had its hand hanging onto the rollbar?

2. Despite being in New England for Conn’s fall weekend, we opt not to go. Instead, we spend a Sunday afternoon filled with pumpkins, wool, hot cider doughnuts, bicycling, reminiscing, and laughter with Eri and Eric.

3. After our last night of camping, Rudi and I packed up the car and then he got a head-start on our trip to Keene’s Pumpkin Festival on his bike. Figuring I had most of an hour to myself, I pulled the car into the day lot and took my thermos of tea and my notebook to a sunny picnic table for uninterrupted writing time.

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

We’re on vacation, so you get three beautiful things from New England!

The view from the top of Mt. Monadnock

1. We have been fortunate to camp at a time where the moon was waxing over clear skies. It’s so bright at midnight that although I take a lantern to the bath house to wash up, it’s only so anyone coming up the road sees me. And today, when we misjudged the length of time we had for our hike up to the peak of Mount Monadnock, the rising full moon escorted us the rest of the way down the trail to the road.

2. My folks built us fires to enjoy last weekend in their living room and Rudi and I have kept the tradition going at our campsite the last couple nights. Rudi gets them started and I, having learned well from my mother, burn them down to embers hours later with a well-appointed poking stick that we found by the fire pit. (And, of course, there have been nightly s’mores and toasted marshmallows.)

3. I bake a batch of Gramma cookies for Dad for his birthday and he lets everyone indulge in a couple while they’re warm from the oven.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The sea oats in the bouquets on my desk sway and clatter slightly in the breeze when my window is open or when, catlike, I reach out to bat at them. The sound reminds me of the shore.

2. It’s been a long spell since we’ve had a storm. It spatters against the leaves that have fallen into the window well and drips off the tree above.

3. The scent of dry leaves wafts up from beneath my feet. It is the smell of fall.

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

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I am not a fan of coleslaw, but the slaw that accompanied my lunch from the Cirque Cuisine truck was delicious — cabbage, celeriac, pumpkin seeds, and cilantro topped with a maple-cider vinaigrette.

2. [Reaching into his bag]: “I picked you up something today.” [Hopefully]: “Is it sugar?” [Proudly]: “It is sugar!” [Delighted]: “Yay!”

3. Our friend Sam was in town for a conference. We got to try a new restaurant just the three of us on Friday and then on Tuesday, we joined a couple of his other college friends at another restaurant, where we sat on their homey backyard patio for hours. And tonight we had one final dinner and ice cream with dear friends Amani and Marcus before they move across country.

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