May I please have another?

I admit that sometimes I squander my weekends away. I mean, I appreciate them greatly — each and every time — but sometimes I do that from a prone and unconscious position. And sometimes from in front of the computer.

But this weekend, I promise, I used it wisely.

I started it by heading to Teaism with my knitting and enjoying a lassi and chocolate salty oat cookie in the lovely summer evening. Then I joined Rudi, Sarah, and Julia for a 3D showing of Toy Story 3. I laughed. I cried. I’m not sure that it was better than Cats or even than cats. But it was quite good. And then we went out for pizza and stayed out late just chatting.

Saturday, I slept in a smidge. I did some laundry. I ate tuna fish sandwiches with Rudi. I finished a book. We drank lassis. (Not lassies. That would be weird.) We watched the blue jay baby figure out how to get up to the air conditioner. I got my toenails painted a sparkly purple. We went to the Washington Club where we and others celebrated our friends Susan and Phillip’s recent wedding. It was lovely. The food was terrific. They had the loudest string group I’ve ever encountered, which helped add to the festive atmosphere. They had a whole table devoted to desserts. And, most importantly, Susan and Phillip just looked so utterly happy and in love. We all finished the night at the bar next door.

Today, we watched the Tour de France. We watched the World Cup final. I went to the farmers’ market. I ate a very tasty French pastry and drank strong tea. We went to the pool. We went to the garden and watered and weeded and planted. We dined on blueberries and corn on the cob and chicken and zucchini. We watched an episode of The Mentalist and the last of the latest batch of Miss Marples. I played with the cats. We admired how much the baby blue jay has grown and changed in the four days we’ve known him. We chatted with our families. I finished the next clue of the sock I’m test knitting and encountered no snags.

And yet … yet … I want more time. I want to read another book. I don’t want to clean, but I want to achieve some semblance of tidiness. I want to listen to a baseball game on the radio. I want to go berry picking. I want to go on a bike ride. I want to call up friends and chat with them about what they’ve been up to lately. I want to barbecue. I want to picnic. I want to get up early and doze on a blanket in the early morning sunshine.

I admit it. I’m greedy. I just want more.

It’s good to have plans for the weekend:

Saturday: Lie in the hammock. Read. Knit. Go to Mets-Nationals game.

Sunday: Go to farmers’ market. Eat yummy breakfast. Read. Go to pool. Water garden. Make daiquiris. Watch fireworks.

Monday: Sleep late. Read. Go to Folklife Festival. Catch a movie.

Got plans this weekend?

Must go to bed. More tomorrow…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………

Tonight’s dinner — fresh from local fields (and dairies and bakeries):

• Corn on the cob
• Slices of baguette with tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella
• Yogurt with apricots, golden raspberries, blueberries, sour cherries, and honey (with store-bought almond slices, coconut, and nearly useless in yogurt granola)

Yum!

I’m not even going to attempt to make connections between these random bits of brain natterings:

• This was one of the few weekends during the year that I had to work. It wasn’t too bad because a) the people in charge work just as hard as the people who report to them, b) I got to knit during the downtime, and c) I procured a pile of free books.
• Unfortunately, it does mean that I feel a little resentful that tomorrow is Monday and I haven’t had any time off.
• Gardens need to be watered. Sometimes Mother Nature gives you a helping hand and waters your plants for you. When she doesn’t, you need to step into the gap. When you don’t — and when the temperatures hover in the mid-90s for a week — you should not be surprised to return to your plot to discover your pea vines have turned yellow and your bean crop is small.
• Someone did fill the water barrels in the garden back up, though, so we were able to give the garden a good soaking tonight.
• As part of the unofficial kiddie lit readalong that Mikaiya and I are doing, I am re-reading the first Harry Potter novel. I’m just about to turn the page when Harry wakes up on his first Christmas morning at Hogwarts, and I’m so excited for him.
• I would be hard-pressed to tell you whether I have now re-read The Sorcerer’s Stone or Little Women more times.
• First corn of the season this evening. Delicious and sweet — it’s clearly summer now!
• Also, mango lassis are especially nice on a sultry night.
• A friend gave (!!) me a Wii Fit last month and it has been sitting unopened in our living room for weeks now. Last night I broke it out and got it started up.
• So far I am best at the hula-hooping game.
• I am currently working on three socks and reading three books. It’s odd for it to be so parallel.
• I need to go wash the dinner dishes and put away some produce so I can go to bed.

G’night!

I’m hoping this weekend won’t be too busy. Tomorrow I have the annual Sock Knitters’ Anonymous photo scavenger hunt to take part in. The past two years I have puttered around waiting for Rudi to get home to help me with the picture-taking part of it, but this year I hope to get some of the shots while he’s out on his bike ride on Sky Line Drive.

I’ll have to go over to the garden and water and pick peas and beans and probably the last of the strawberries. We ate our first bean crop last night and our first pod of peas. And our lettuce has featured in salads and tacos.

There might be the first trip of the season to the local pool. And maybe I’ll make granola. I also plan to do a bit of cleaning to capitalize on the tidying Rudi and I did earlier in the week. But otherwise I have a very quiet weekend planned curled up with books and sock test knitting.

Luckily, the weekend has already started off well, although I admit to being a little nervous after spending nearly an hour sitting by myself at a jam-packed Sculpture Garden jazz concert waiting for Rudi or John to join me. Luckily, the weather was beautiful, the music was pleasant, the three girls I approached kindly shifted enough for me to squeeze our blanket down, and I had knitting. I should have eaten something while I waited, though, because it took me a while to stop being cranky after Rudi and John arrived.

Since this week is the Summer Solstice, we found ourselves being kicked out of the garden while it was still light and back in Dupont Circle while the night was still young. The three of us, arguing the whole walk uptown about … politics, cars, immigration, and perceptions … decided to keep the evening going and headed to Locolat, where the conversation grew steadily lighter as our topics switched to movies, superheroes, and film projecting. It was a nice way to mark the start of the weekend.

How about you? Do you have plans for this longest weekend of the year?