This weekend went by faster than I wanted and less satisfactorily than I expected. I suspect that the former will remain true through the end of the year, although I am hopeful the latter was merely an off mood.

Friday evening began pleasantly. I met Rudi and Shawn for dinner prior to their James Bond movie. I like Bond in small doses and only for free, so I came home, napped, and finished a book.

Saturday arrived with drizzle and damp, so Rudi and I responded by staying in pj’s all day and stringing up a new strand of colored lights around the periphery of the living room. We listened to Hamilton and, later, a webcast of a travel talk about France. We reminisced about our trip seven years ago this week, trying to recall certain details, like what we ate, and thinking fondly about our favorite stops. We improved leftover soup cooked earlier in the week and ate some of the quince I poached last weekend. I knit on my shawl while Rudi’s favorite college football team played on national tv and read some (me, not the football team; that would have been weird).

I overslept the morning, not rising until noon today. A short jaunt to the farmers market proved others had not done similarly, as neither baked goods for breakfast nor milk for the week were available. The sun had peeked out, though, so after returning home to eat something and do a load of laundry, I made plans to head out on my bike. Rudi came home from his bike ride, so he joined me for a jaunt to the garden and then a trip to Georgetown, where we purchased snacks and hot drinks. We spent a pleasant hour or so down by the river before the sun disappeared into Virginia. I’ll have to make sure to get out on the early side for lunches this week to soak up some more Vitamin D, because the early sunset is discouraging and certainly doesn’t improve my outlook. I’m finishing tonight with a chapter of the final Harry Potter book, where Harry, Ron, and Hermione are carting around the cursed necklace and generally having a miserable time of things. It’s comforting: I might be having an uninspired, unproductive weekend, but at least I’m not fleeing from the world’s worst criminal. Perspective: it’s good to have.

This weekend was not especially full, but seemed exhausting. This may have been due to listening to three World Series games, only one of which we won. There’s always next year.

I finished my Halloween socks — on Halloween morning. (More on those later this week.)

I came up with a Halloween costume — on Halloween afternoon.

I may have chased down some trick-or-treaters who needed to take some of my candy. (Their parents were very excited by my 100 Grand bars.)

Rudi and I slept in on Saturday. I repeated this feat on Sunday.

We went out for tacos and hot drinks (two different restaurants).

We admired the trees or, rather, the leaves of a pocket park.

I went to the farmers market and bought lots of fall’ish foods: white turnips and dried beans and a pie pumpkin and sweet potatoes and broccoli, among other things.

I resumed, but didn’t finish my Robert Galbraith book, but did finish a collection of poetry.

I rode my bike to Georgetown to the library, to a cafe, and to the riverfront.

I dealt with late-inning baseball stress by poaching quince and cleaning the fridge.

I cuddled cats.

I missed the rain.

Weekending along with Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise.

This was my thought process for this year’s Halloween costume:

I’ve been a bit uninspired about Halloween this year, and since it was happening over the weekend, there was no real pressure to get dressed up for work. But that also meant that as of Friday night, I was still mulling over what I could be and coming up empty.

So when I got up yesterday, I thought, I’m not going to bother dressing up right now. Maybe I’ll figure out something in time for trick-or-treaters. But for now, I’ll just put on my Halloween socks and the one shirt I have that has someone in disguise:

[Camouflage, from Threadless.]

However, then I thought, wait, I could do that. I do not have a bee costume. But I could totally be someone pretending, badly, to be a bee! A surprisingly meta idea, for me!

So, to my shirt, I added dark leggings, my yellow petticoat, my yellow sneakers, and Rudi’s yellow & black armwarmers.

It was a good start, but insects have antennae and wings, neither of which I had a quick fix for.

You would think deely boppers would be the sort of thing I would own, but somehow I am lacking any. (In retrospect this may because they are often attached to plastic headbands made for people with normal-sized heads and my desire for one does not outweigh my desire not to have a headache.) I did have a headband, though, and figured I could probably fashion something out of straws or the like. But, then, when I was hunting for a black headband, I opened a box and discovered dowels that had come in a pair of shoes. So I tucked those into my hair and used the bottom of the headband to keep them in place.

What to do about the wings, though? I contemplated a quick cut-out of paper, but thought they’d be too floppy. Then I mulled cutting apart a padded mailer. That thought led me to the roll of air pillows that had come in a package a few weeks back. (It was a gift sent via Amazon, of course, who couldn’t fit something into an appropriately sized box if that was the only one available.) With some help from Rudi, a piece of Scotch tape, and an extra-large binder clip, I had some make-shift wings. (Yes, with a little more planning, I could totally have created a sleeve for the pillows to hide their ugly branding. But I wasn’t trying to be a bee, but just a “bee,” so it was okay for it not to be perfect!) As a bonus, they fluttered very nicely in the breeze!

So there you have it: A last-minute Halloween costume taken from my closet and random bits of stuff I hadn’t thrown away. And a lot of joy from seeing people’s reactions to my costume (and for not having bailed on coming up with something).

Do you have any honey?

This past weekend was a pleasant one. On Saturday, knowing I’d need to rise early the next day, I slept in. When I woke up, I made some tea and toast and moved to the couch to begin reading the new Robert Galbraith detective story, Career of Evil. It’s a creepy novel, appropriate for the season, I suppose. Eventually, though, I decided some activity (and sunshine) was in order and changed into my bike togs.

As you may remember, the past couple falls I’ve done the Coffeeneuring challenge, the seasonal pairing of cycling and hot drinks. I like trying new places as part of participating, so when, during the week, I read about a place called The Pretzel Bakery across the city, I decided that would be one of my destinations. After making a few exchanges at the library, I biked down to the river, across the Mall, and over to Capitol Hill. The bakery is a walk-up adjacent to a ball field in the Barney Circle neighborhood, clearly a boon to business. I sampled each of their wares, as well as a hot Nutella drink with marshmallows before pedaling home, racing the setting sun.

On Sunday, a friend’s husband was running the marathon, so we rose early (for me) and went down to Rock Creek Park to cheer him on. (Marcus is very fast, so you can’t linger in bed if you want to catch him at the part of the course we live near.) I won’t lie; I was practically asleep still, and it was probably only the chilly rainwater seeping in the hole in my sneaker that kept me upright for the half hour this entailed.

We hit the farmers market, put in several hours at the garden for our fall cleanup day, and dozed with a cat for a bit (that may have just been me), before rallying late in the afternoon. A chai bar moved into the neighborhood last year and, despite being intrigued I’d never managed to make it over there (they close early in the evening). Rudi and I decided to go check it out. The shop, which also sells Indian spices, makes their various chais in front of you, so we sat at the beautiful counter and sipped our spicy beverages.

We finished the night by meeting up with our marathon-running pal, who still needed to replenish several hundred more calories, for ice cream at our local shop. It was nice to catch up on how he and his wife have been and was a perfect ending to the weekend.

Weekending along with Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise.

This weekend was a holiday one for me, so we headed north to see family and friends and …

1. Left the beaten path: We ended up leaving on Saturday morning rather than Friday night, so the trip allowed for an alternate route when road signs warned us of impending traffic snarls. We took to back roads for a while, which sent us through Newtown, Conn., and past this creamery. When you see an ice cream stand on a beautiful October Saturday, there’s really not even a question about whether or not you should stop. My cone is cinnamon and Oh Snap! (pumpkin with gingersnaps). Yum!
   
2. Enjoyed fires in the fireplace.
3. Made scones with my dad.
4. Chatted with my folks.
5. Met Karen for lunch.
6. Read Scarlett Uncovered, which Dad found at his local library for me.
7. Helped with some chores.
8. Slept.
9. Knit on my Halloween socks.
10. Admired New England foliage.
    

Blogging along with Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise and Carole at Carole Knits.

This weekend included:

• The final Friday night concert/picnic at Yards Park for the season.
• The first rain in what feels like forever.
• Three street festivals: 17th Street, Adams Morgan, and the D.C. State Fair. A diverse assortment of activities that ranged from drag queen performances to pot growing tips to a women’s drum group.
• New plants into the garden: a Brussels sprout, some choy, and a new-to-me salad green, plus a couple seedlings Rudi found in the donation pile. Several more tomato plants came out; we’re down to just a couple left now.
• Finishing one audiobook and starting another.
• A scone from a newish food truck.
• Laundry and vacuuming.
• Ripping out what I’d knit on my new socks last weekend and re-casting on with the correct number of stitches. Better to lose five inches of knitting than to make a beautiful sock too small to wear.
• A trip to the farmers market. We’re getting to the end of heirloom tomatoes, corn, and peaches.
• The members’ sale at Politics & Prose. I picked up a couple gifts, as well as a copy of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen for me to own.
• Capreses and corn on the cob for Sunday supper. When the tomato, corn, and basil seasons end, so will our typical summer weekend-concluding meal.
• Cool, clear weather.
• Sitting at a cafe with a mug of chai, watching the sun set.