On Thursdays, we note three beautiful things from the last week:

1. On my walk to the Metro in the morning there is a bush with tiny, pink, lilac-like flowers that is in bloom. This week, the flowers started to drop and have filled the crevices in the sidewalk, leaving the walk outlined in a rosy hue.

2. On Sunday, we went out to Wolf Trap for a concert by Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris. We had lawn seats along with seven of our friends and we made a picnic of it. I couldn’t help but contrast it with the Sting show we saw at the Meadows in Connecticut a few years back. We also went with friends to that one, but the Meadows doesn’t encourage you to bring your own food and they outright ban alcohol from being brought in. Sting was okay, but pretty much seemed to be going through the motions. There was no interaction with the audience, no changing up the songs, no emotion — plus it was an exact duplicate of the show we’d seen the fall before. We were unimpressed. Sunday’s concert, on the other hand, started with a picnic (complete with wine, hard cider, and a thermos of iced tea). When the show began, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to enjoy it because Elvis just launched into the first couple of songs. But then he started giving the stories behind some of the songs and telling anecdotes, and he and Emmylou and the band really seemed to want to be exactly where they were, doing precisely what they were doing. It was an entirely different atmosphere from two concerts that had very similar ingredients to them, and I came home pleased.

3. For Sunday’s picnic, I decided to make hummus. Back in June I won a copy of Diana Abu-Jaber’s The Language of Baklava from Amy at Bay Area Bites. Since then, I’ve been reading it in bits and bats on the Metro and during lunch hours at work. And it inspired me to try my hand at some Middle Eastern cooking. So early Sunday afternoon, that’s just what I did. Of course, drama follows me whenever I enter the kitchen. We all remember the trifle woes of last month. My mother can tell you about the time she came home one afternoon when I was in high school and found me sitting in the living room and talking on the phone as a burning smell wafted in from the oven in the next room over. And Rudi and Jason can tell you about the time that I burned the rice I was making as part of supper for the three of us. So, it was no surprise when the hummus did not start out quite so easily as it should have: Although I looked at our mini food processor and thought, will there be enough room in that, my head’s answer was “sure!” Let me tell you, my head clearly knows nothing about cooking. Because there wasn’t. The first chickpeas went into the mixture and all the liquid started pouring out the sides and underneath and everywhich way. Rudi helped me mop up the mess, but the only things to do were 1) laugh heartily for the next 10 minutes, 2) ladle out about half the mixture and do it in batches, and 3) keep plowing through. Luckily, although my head knows nothing about cooking, my stomach does know about eating and I made a mean batch of hummus for my first go.

There are ten steps from the sidewalk down to the Burrow. The top seven or so are uncovered; the bottom three are nestled under the overhang of the steps heading into the upstairs portion of our building. Our door is immediately to the left at the bottom.

Today’s post was supposed to be one with photos and cute taglines talking all about the new sofa we bought Tuesday.

Unfortunately, our 10-step program is not serving us well.

The overhang jutted out just enough that the moving guys couldn’t get the sofa upright at the bottom of the steps in order to pivot it into the door.

So I’m afraid my joyful post will have to wait while Rudi and I consider our options. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Rudi and I saw our tenth Nationals game tonight.

I have to admit: I’ve been feeling a little guilty. You see, as a baseball fan, my allegiances are divided and I remain more a Mets fan than I am a Nats fan. So when the Mets came to town at the beginning of July, I cheered them on over the home team. And the Mets went on to win the series.

And that was the end of the Nationals’ winning streak. They have not won a series since then. I ruined it for them.

So I was eager to get to tonight’s game and reassure them that I still liked them quite a bit and that I would be pleased if they started winning again. Because while I still hold hopes that the Mets will get their act together and move up in the rankings, I would be almost as happy if the Nationals clinched the NL East, particularly if it came at the cost of the Braves. (Sorry, was that my outside voice?)

And clearly they needed to hear that. Because they won 3-1 tonight off home runs from left fielder Preston Wilson (son of former Met Mookie Wilson) and first baseman Nick Johnson.

And just in case it didn’t fully process, I’d like them to understand that I expect them to win again tomorrow.

The night was warm — the flags atop the stadium wall hardly fluttered until the eighth inning — and the fans and players seemed a little lethargic during the first few innings.

I had mixed results on the food front — the anti-drunk-driving folks gave me two free soda tickets, but the veggie dog/pizza stand had run out of the appropriate cups (as they seem to at every game). I don’t understand why each stand isn’t just given more cups than they expect to use — they wouldn’t think of short-changing them on the mega-sized cups.

Matt and Marsha were our seatmates for the night. They opted to spend their ninth anniversary with us and the Nats. We appreciated their company, and I think the Nats were putting on a good show for them in lieu of a card.

So, congratulations, Nationals, on notching your latest win, and congratulations, too, to Matt and Marsha on nine years of marriage.

I am lucky to have many wonderful friends in my life. I think of them regularly, even when I don’t get to see them frequently. Unfortunately, I have trouble getting well-wishes out in a timely fashion. I used to think it was just getting things into the mail. But email proved me wrong about that and the blog has reinforced it.

But the wishes are always sincere, even if their timing leaves something to be desired.

Rebs and Rick celebrated their fifth anniversary last week. I’ve known Rebs for years now and am very happy that she and her soul mate were able to spend their anniversary at the same place they went on their honeymoon. I hope they had a lovely time and are feeling rested and relaxed.

Happy anniversary, Rebs and Rick. May your love continue to grow as your lives expand over the next half-decade and into the future.

and

ECN is the youngest of my college foursome known to ourselves as The Cwm. He deserves the credit of finding the Welsh word after a discussion about whether the letter “w” could be used as a vowel and deciding that it could apply to us.

I don’t remember how we met. Through mutual friends, clearly — Evers, perhaps? But I do know that ECN and I stayed up one memorable night and talked about any number of things and watched the sun rise and then ate breakfast on trays on the floor of the Conn dining hall. And that was the start of a friendship that has spanned moves, trips to the beach, scavenger hunts, and favors (including when he went and picked Rudi up at the train station for me when I couldn’t find our Falcon Ridge tickets and was running ridiculously late) over the last 11 years.

The most creative of the cwm, ECN crammed his rooms full of things that other people might have deemed junk (AOL cds that came in the mail, ), but that he could see the purpose for — and that gained cohesiveness through his fondness for them. It comes as no surprise, then, that he is about to start an MFA program at Yale. He’s moved to New Haven and is embarking upon new adventures, all of which I hope are indelible.

Happy birthday, ECN!

I went out for a bike ride tonight after work and found myself down by the Mall around sunset. The weather had finally cooled down, so people were out playing volleyball and softball and wandering around and generally enjoying life. As I left the D.C. World War Memorial to head home, you could see the orangish-red ball just peeking out from behind the Lincoln Memorial. Riding back up the bike path toward Georgetown, the sun had disappeared, but the Potomac glowed like rose-colored glass.

If you could view the world through a perpetual sunset, do you think life would always be beautiful?

Robert Frost published this old standby on Aug. 1, 1915:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I never hear Frost without thinking of Dad. And while “The Road Not Taken” is good, I much prefer this other Frost poem:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.