Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. There is nothing better than coming home from a trip. Walking in the door and being met by three cats who absolutely adore you is incomparable. They want nothing more than to sit on you to prevent you from ever leaving again (unless it’s to buy them some more cat food, of course).

2. The Mets have been playing remarkably well this year. Right now they have the best record in baseball and last night they became the first team to reach 90 wins for the season. It used to be that I’d go places wearing my Mets cap and people would greet me with sympathetic looks. This year, I’m greeted with, “How about those Mets?” Even in Salt Lake! It’s a nice feeling to be at the top for once.

3. Washington, D.C., is a Democratic city. 74% of registered voters are signed up as Democrats. We’re so Democratic, it’s a law that the City Council has to have two members of a “non-majority” party just so that it’s fair. So when the primary rolls around, essentially you’re electing the person who is going to assume power. This year we had two major positions open up — mayor and city council chairperson. Adrian Fenty, who is only a few years older than I, won the Democratic nod for mayor. He has a vision for where the city should go from here that many people think is exciting. And Vince Gray, formerly the executive director of Covenant House, won the primary for council chair, offering hope that the next iteration of the council will consider ways to attract businesses and to provide services to low-income families simultaneously. I didn’t vote for either of the two winners, but I am excited that they bring fresh blood and enthusiasm to their positions. May they help to keep D.C. a nice place to live.

I’ll be away through the weekend and since Rudi’s mom doesn’t have a computer or Internet access, postings will be sporadic and dependent on finding public kiosks and spare time.

In the meantime, I leave you with three beautiful things from the last week:

1. The rain broke the heat and the weather has been beautiful. Today dawned sunny, with weather in the 70s.

2. Rudi has class on Wednesdays this fall, so I went to a political meeting alone last night. But because I was there by myself, our friend John offered me a ride home in his two-seater convertible.

3. Sunday night after Rudi went to bed, I picked up one of the library books I’d borrowed Saturday and started reading. At 4 a.m., I forced myself to put the book down and go to bed. Once I woke up (just shy of noon!), I started reading again. A bike ride to the zoo interrupted the reading for a while, but I came home and finished the book off before supper. It’s been a while since I found a book so compelling it required finishing in one fell swoop. (The book, you ask? The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. It really did live up to the hype.)

With this morning’s unsettling news about O’Rourke’s, I thought it might be hard to switch gears and think about positive things. Luckily, as sad as I am about the (hopefully temporary) loss of a favorite restaurant, I am sufficiently removed from the devastation to be able to see there are still good things in the world. I offer you three from the last week:

1. Yesterday, it drizzled — just a bit — as I was heading home. It hasn’t rained here practically since June (when, you may remember, it rained so much our apartment flooded). While it wasn’t the gorgeous thunderstorm I was hoping for, it felt utterly delicious. Today’s weather was lovely and cool, and more rain is predicted for the weekend. The worst of summer might finally be over!

2. Today was a marathon day at work, with me arriving home just before 9. Waiting for me were two lovely skeins of yarn from The Dye Pot: sock yarn in a purple colorway called “Carmichael” and bulky yarn for this cute purse in a multi-hued colorway called “Wave.” The yarn was on sale, so it was even better.

3. Rudi just suggested that “rapscallion” should be the third beautiful thing for alliteration’s sake. How can you not love that?

Sickness has a way of making you appreciate the small things in life, because you’re just incapable of achieving big things. So in that frame of mind, I offer several beautiful things from my sick days:

1. All I wanted yesterday was a popsicle. Really. My throat hurt so much, I was miserable. Needing tp for the apartment and not wanting to trek all the way up to Rite Aid, I stopped at CVS when I got off the Metro. Not only did they have tp, as well as nice soft applesauce and mandarin oranges, but they also sold Edy’s fruit bars. I don’t think I’ve tasted anything so nice as that sweet stream of strawberriness as it melted down my throat (and my arm) on the walk home.

2. Rudi attended a fundraiser last night and stopped home to bring me a bunch of balloons before going out with some friends for a late dinner. They were a very sweet gesture, rustling over my head and freaking Jeremiah out with their pinging against one another. (I’m pretty sure he vaulted through the window in our bedroom in a single bound. I admit it; I laughed.) They were even funnier around 4:30 this morning, when they deflated a little, floated out of the bedroom, and caught their ribbons in the clamp that holds the fan’s screen on (not actually in the fan’s blades). There they were doing balloon boxing when I awoke. Della was looking on from the cat perch with utter delight. You could just hear her thinking, “More! More!”

3. I went to work on Tuesday because, as I have noted, I have an encroaching deadline that has me remarkably stressed out (and because I thought the flu was waning. If I’d known that it was strep and that it just a breather before the major bout, I might have handled things differently). Nonetheless, there I was on Tuesday, so I went up to our weekly lunchtime knitting group. I had knit a bit on the sock over the weekend — enough to know that I need to pull it out (again!) and knit it on smaller needles. (It does occur to me that I should perhaps let these socks rest for a little while and try a different pair…) So I decided to knit a gauge swatch for the baby sweater from the yarn I bought on Saturday. (For those who don’t knit, you knit a gauge swatch — a little 4″x4″ square — to avoid problems like I had with the sock where you find out that you and the person who wrote the pattern differ so dramatically in your choice of yarn or how tightly you knit that you end up with a different sized garment from what you’re expecting. This is not a problem in a scarf or a bag. It is a much bigger problem in something like a sweater and something you really ought to do if you’re giving said sweater as a gift to a friend.) And I’m on gauge! So I don’t need to mess with different sized needles and can cast on for the sweater as soon as I’m feeling a little more lively. (Don’t want to give any strep germs as a bonus baby gift…)

Three bonus beautiful things:

4. Moms: My own is a wonderful caretaker and is sending me emails several times a day to check on my recovery. There’s no one I’ve ever wanted around more when I was sick, and I’m grateful for the virtual nursing. Rudi’s mom is a doctor and is supervising my recovery from 2,500 miles away. And my boss’s motherly instincts kicked in yesterday to send me home as soon as she saw me. Even if I couldn’t see that it wasn’t essential for me to be in the office for things to get done, she could see that I needed some additional recovery time.

5. Increments: I am feeling better today. Not well, but well enough to work from home. I expect to feel even better tomorrow. And the day after that. The miracles of penicillin…

6. You: Thank you for all the well wishes. I don’t even know some of you! All suggestions were taken, and it gave me a little boost each time I got up and someone else had left a note. I’m sure today’s progress is, in part, due to all of you.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. The potato knishes at RFK aren’t as good as the ones you’d find in New York, but they are well-seasoned and surprisingly tasty — and a welcome vegetarian option at the stadium.

2. I pulled out the PS2 and (literally) dusted off the dance pad to put on Dance Dance Revolution the other night. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I didn’t have to re-learn the whole game and, in fact, managed a new personal best (in light game mode).

3. Five-week-old Erin and Tommy are adorable and cuddly and soft. Pat and Heidi invited us to dinner tonight so we could hang out with them and meet the twins, which was terribly sweet of them. We each got to hold them and to play with Jack, not quite two, who thought the wrapping paper and ribbon for the present we brought him was delightful. I love little kids.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Having finished the socks, I get to pick the next project to work on. This involved looking through a bunch of books and magazines and then opening up the pie safe to look over all my yarn. It’s so tantalizing to choose to the last summer project — and to think ahead to days when I’ll want to sit outside with wool in my lap once again!

2. Tuesday night, just after work ended, my cell phone rang. It was BW, who caught me up on all the news of her summer. Then Erik IM’d me and we got to talk about what’s coming up in his life. I miss my friends from up north and it always brings bright rays of sunshine and rainbows into my life when I hear from them.

3. I made ambrosia this week. It’s very simple — just combine marshmallows, sour cream, mandarin oranges, pineapple, and coconut — but a remarkably unhealthy way to eat fruit. So instead of making it regularly, I only eat it once or twice a summer these days. Man, is it a tasty dessert!