Friday evening, Rudi and I headed up to the Cleveland Park neighborhood for an author event with Markus Zusak, who wrote The Book Thief, which I loved. He’s in the U.S. promoting his new book, Bridge of Clay, which sounds interesting. I opted to forego the signing and will read a library copy instead. Rudi and I considered eating at one of the many restaurants up there, but instead decided to pick up some pizza dough at an Italian shop and eat at home. Yum!

On Saturday, I spent an hour at the garden, where I pulled out dead tomato vines, harvested peppers, ground cherries, cherry tomatoes, and the basil we suspected wouldn’t appreciate this week’s chilly weather, and sprinkled some seeds underneath the remaining vines in the hopes we might still get some greens before the end of the season.

Check out what I found at the garden!

I stopped at the library to return a large pile of books and at the H Street Festival, where I visited Solid State Books and got a warm beverage to drink while I perused the books.

Rudi and I got Thai food takeout and watched the first episode of the new Doctor Who and Saturday Night Live.

This morning, I got up early so I could fly to Connecticut at literally the crack of dawn. My dad is having surgery tomorrow — nothing too major, but still — so if if you could think good thoughts, we’d all appreciate it.

How was your weekend?

I already get to cross something off my to-do list because Rudi and I started our weekend at an author event at the library, which is an excellent way to begin a couple days off.

Other things I’d like to do this weekend:

• Do some laundry.
• Take in some of the H Street Festival, D.C.’s biggest neighborhood festival.
• Check out the permanent storefront of D.C.’s newest bookstore, Solid State Books (They were still at their pop-up location when I visited in the spring.)
• Knit.
• Read.
• Watch a movie.
• Go to the library.
• Spend a little time at the garden.
• Snuggle with my cats and Rudi. (It’s finally cool enough to want to do that again!)
• Fly to Connecticut. (I’m heading back up for a week for some family stuff.)

How about you? What are you hoping to do this weekend?

Today was a special day. Happy birthday, Dad! I’m glad we got to celebrate it together, and I’m especially glad one of your cats gave you the present of telling you where to find the snake alive and well, so we don’t have to wonder if it will suddenly slither out and curl up with us in the middle of the night.

Today I managed to let a garter snake into my parents’ house through their front door. (They live in the woods. This has happened more often than you’d think.) I panicked. The snake panicked. The dog got very excited. The snake slithered over the first door mat, under the second door mat, and down into the air vent along the baseboard. And disappeared.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

As I was driving back to my folks’ place this evening, I saw this hot air balloon coming in for a landing near the town of Pomfret.

My weekend began with a trip to the garden, where I spent time pulling out plants and trying to reestablish some order. The epazote is gone, along with at least one tomato plant that it had been providing support to. The crazy seven-foot-long tomatillo is gone, and I unearthed my first potato of the season in the process of yanking it out. The Sweet 100 tomatoes I grew from seed are still going strong and there are still more peppers to come. I need to get some greens in the ground soon or they won’t take hold until the spring and I should really harvest the basil soon, but the last big harvest I did went to waste, so I’d rather wait until I have time to make pesto.

I spent the afternoon in Georgetown, stopping by the library to exchange one book for another, and spending some time sitting in the sun before doing a little shopping. I bought work shoes (which I’m not fully convinced about yet), a pair of jeans (which Rudi tells me look good, but he might just have been trying to get me to leave the house without a second wardrobe change), and another bra (my third in a week).

Last night, Rudi and I went up to the Tenleytown neighborhood for their Art All Night celebration. We ate bibimbop (the restaurant was one of the stops), did the Time Warp with a band, and bought a painting of a D.C. bookshop.

My pumpkin mug full of tea and a slice of pumpkin spice kringle we bought at Trader Joe’s Friday night

Today included the farmers market, cleaning, two cultural street festivals (Turkish and Latinx), an hour’s worth of work, and the premiere of the tv show God Friended Me, which Rudi and I both enjoyed. I should have spent more time cleaning (my apartment has looked like it exploded thanks to all the recent floods and our moving stuff away from the problem area) or at least painted my nails so they’d dry while I read, but I didn’t. But my hot chocolate was tasty and the book — by an author whose work I’ve loved, but which didn’t appeal to me through the first few chapters — has finally picked up some steam.

A Turkish shadow puppet theater was one of the highlights of the festivals this afternoon. Known as Karagöz and Hacivat (after the two main characters), the tradition dates back 600 years and is passed on from puppet masters to apprentices. The puppeteer was not mic’ed, so he was really hard to hear over the music spilling over from the main stage, but as best as I could tell, this guy, Karagöz, came across this plant, drank from it, kept getting poked by invisible somethings, got pissed off and cut off all its leaves and them tried to yank the rest of it out. He’s currently sleeping off all the exercise. The bird, who, earlier flew off with a plant of its own (maybe the same plant), is annoyed by this and pecks at Karagöz before going off and complaining to a dragon who then summons some other flying creature who turns Karagöz into a goat. Hacivat shows up, also gets turned into a goat, gets turned back into a man, and then gets Karagöz turned back into a man. I’m glad I saw this after I did all the gardening…

October — filled as it is with birthdays and anniversaries (none of them mine), cider doughnuts, and fall foliage — awaits. I look forward to the beautiful things it holds.