I haven’t yet received the official word from the captain of the softball team-that-isn’t, but it looks like the double-header we were supposed to play tomorrow has been cancelled due to yesterday‘s rain.

Just doesn’t seem like this team can catch a break…

I know, I know. I did three beautiful things yesterday. But after I published it, I thought of several other things that I’d meant to put on the list instead of what appeared. Just too much beauty in the last week to contain in one post.

1. My folks, Rudi and I walked down to the reflecting pool from Dupont Circle to see the fireworks on the Fourth. Generally, they were nice (my favorite is always the screaming tadpole one), but the standout was when they set off more than a dozen of the weeping willow tree fireworks at the same time, creating a humungous celestial tree of life.

2. Yesterday, I planned on being lazy. It was supposed to rain, but I wanted to bike in anyway. So I figured I’d just wear my bike jersey and flip flops all day and just substiute a skirt for the bike shorts. And so that’s pretty much how I packed my bag before I left. And, of course, what should I remember halfway through the ride? That I had an off-site meeting less than an hour from then. Oops! I knew I had a spare pair of good shoes in the office, but I figured I was just going to have to go to the meeting in the jersey and sports bra. But when I arrived at work, I realized I’d changed shirts before going to the game Wednesday night and had the shirt folded in my desk drawer. It wasn’t perfect (particularly over the sports bra), but it looked a heck of a lot more professional than the jersey would have.

3. Having finally figured out a safe-ish place for a mini garden, Rudi and I bought a basil plant and two more tomato plants (to encourage the first one to bloom) at Sunday’s farmers’ market. They are currently awaiting pots to move into, but in the meantime are living on the shower caddy (where Della can’t chew on them) in the seedling pots they came home in. The Cherokee Purple tomato had one tiny green tomato when it came home with us; it now has three (the largest is the size of a cherry). It must think we will provide a suitable home.

I am lucky because in addition to having a caring family and a loving partner, I also have wonderful friends. One of them, who rises above the generic label of friend into some nebulous description no one has quite succeeded in defining, is Danny.

I have known Danny for 14 years since we both attended summer camp/school at a prep school in Connecticut the summer before our senior year of high school. In the same program, we ate dinner together with a bunch of our classmates one night when the dining hall served chicken. The chicken was a little undercooked, so Danny and I took the lead in trying to reincarnate the birds, figuring they were closer to living than to dead. You can see how that would cement any friendship.

We spent a lot of time together during those six weeks. He dragged me on an amusement park ride I didn’t want to go on at Riverside. I got both of us in trouble at The Met in New York.

We kept in touch through first letters and then phone calls senior year (my mother probably really wished I’d made good friends with someone in the local calling area), and then it became de rigueur for me to drive up there on Saturdays. We saw a lot of movies and spent a lot of time at the mall, hanging out in the inadequate bookstore and watching snippets of videos at the Disney store.

We adopted a cat together, which we then had to give up (he, because his grandparents wouldn’t let him keep it, and I, because I was too chicken to ask my folks, although the kitten did come home with me for the night, much to my own cat’s dismay).

We invented a rule of absolutes that would suffice as a universal law for why things had to happen the way I said they did. This came in handy with math proofs. (It does not come in handy with Rudi, who refuses to believe that I should be endowed with such power.)

Danny and Karen gave me my nickname, soe, although they are amongst the few friends who do not use it.

We made a pact that neither of us is allowed to die, regardless of whatever stupid things we do or that happen to us. (This rule makes some other people feel left out; it is not meant to. It also is meant as more of a fail-safe than as carte-blanche to test its boundaries.)

Our friendship has survived late night phone calls, hurtful emails, four years of college, self-destructive behavior, secrets, revelations, a cross-country move, a vacation, two car breakdowns, my senior prom, and family woes.

We have a bond that is unlike any other I have — one that is bound through time and space and lifetimes. We are lucky to have found relationships that are accepting of and unthreatened by this bond, but I suppose that’s part of why we picked the men we did — because they could respect such a powerful love.

So, Danny, I wish you a happy birthday today. It’s been a wonderful friendship so far. And luckily we have the rest of eternity for it to continue in.

Somehow we’re already at Thursday afternoon. I’m glad — I need a weekend to come soon. I’m just feeling a step out of time, I suppose because of the travel and the holiday weekend and all that. But I’m looking forward to the weekend to getting back on track.

The beautiful things from the last week:

1. The Mets took 3 of 4 games they played here in town against the Nats this week. I was lucky enough to get to see two of the wins (and the loss) and appreciate the fact that I can now see my two favorite teams play on a regular basis. Today’s win puts the Mets back over .500; hopefully they’ll keep up the momentum heading into the All-Star Break and come out strong for the second half of the season.

2. In preparation for my folks’ visit this past weekend, we did some cleaning. And the exciting thing about that is that you can currently see all three of the mismatched rugs we have in the living room — a fact the cats find utterly delightful.

3. I’m working on a huge knitting project and finally reached a point where I felt like I was making progress. I enjoy knitting, but it takes a while for a project to reach the point where you can actually see the object you aspire to complete. I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I can now actually see myself reaching that point.

You may have noticed that periodically my inherent lit geekiness comes through. This is one of those times.

But this fun tool can might help you decide which great classic work of literature to pick up next:

Handicapping the Great 20th Century Novels

Interestingly, the way I ultimately handicapped them all put The Sound and the Fury at the top of the list. I started reading TSatF in grad school, but ultimately ran out time to finish it. But I really liked the part of it I read and meant to get back to it. Now if too many people aren’t reading it for Oprah’s book club (and, thus, using all the library copies), maybe I’ll finally get back to it.

(Via Bookslut.)

In mid-September, Rudi and I head to Bristol, England, for my cousin’s wedding. We are contemplating staying pretty much to the area south and west of London (including the city itself) in order to concentrate our traveling.

We went over four years ago, in the wake of September 11. We spent a week roaming around London, where we caught the highlights of the British Museum, the Beatles tour, and the British Library, as well as the Tate Modern, the booksellers under the bridge, and the London Eye (and King’s Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4).

Heading west, we relied upon the kindness of my cousin’s parents, who ferried us out to Bath (where we saw the baths and the cathedral) and Cheddar (before we arrived back at their house to hear the news of a plane crash in New York).

Then we hit Tintern Abbey and headed north from there, ignoring the rest of the south and west.

My folks have suggested we should see Stonehenge (and I’d like to see the stones at Avesbury, as well). And they also recommended visiting Southsea (at least I think that was it) and skipping Land’s End. We did not heed their warning when we went to Liverpool; we will be smarter this time.

We may try to squeeze a trip to Swindon in because the Fforde Ffestival will be going on the weekend of my cousin’s wedding, as I noted this spring.

If a trip to Hay on Wye happens to fit in this time, I can’t say I’d skip it. I mean, a whole town devoted to books. Sounds like paradise!

And I’d love to spend some time in Oxford, especially since we only got to get stuck in traffic in it last time, running out of time before we had to get the rental car back.

Anyone else have suggestions for things to see/do (or avoid) in the southwest/south-central part of England or the southern part of Wales? See or skip Cardiff? Seek out the ponies in the national park? Nice people at a particular B&B? We’re open to info…