Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. I decided at the last minute that I really did want to see the fireworks from up close so we hopped on our bikes to ride down to the Kennedy Center for a better vantage point. A block into our journey, sparks illuminated the sky. We rode down to the waterfront with bursts of pink and green and white lighting our way.

2. On the way from my event to the airport last Saturday, I stopped in Squirrel Hill to pick up some packing tape to seal up the boxes I was FedExing home. Across the street was a cupcake shop, so I picked out four to accompany me home: Vanilla vanilla (with Independence Day-themed decorations), chocolate cherry (a vegan option), East End Chocolate Stout, and Cosmo. All were delicious.

3. In an era where hotels charge you just for opening the refrigerator, let alone taking something out, Wyndham stands apart from the rest. If you join their free club, they will leave you complimentary snacks and drinks of your choosing. I arrived earlier than they’d expected on Friday, so when I returned to the room after running errands around the city, it was with great joy that I found they’d left me bottled water, Coke, and M&Ms.

My reading mojo had been missing for the last six months, but it seems finally to have returned with a vengeance. This month I finished eight books, the most since last year at this time. (I wonder if that’s just a coincidence or if June has always been a reading high-point for me?) (more…)

After sleeping almost all of yesterday, I’m finally feeling alive again. Rudi and I ran full sprint almost all of June between work and Utah, and yesterday was our first true day of decompression in nearly a month. It felt awesome.

I’m behind on a number of things (blogging, work, correspondence, a cd swap (ack!), cleaning, knitting), but I really think that I will get caught up soon. The worst is definitely behind me, and it’s all blue skies ahead!

I didn’t relax much while traveling Friday or Saturday, but I do enjoy spending time in Pittsburgh more than I thought I would the first time I went there. As such, three beautiful things about Pittsburgh:

1. After walking out of the Eagle Giant in Southside, I noticed a sky so deeply, intensely purple and magenta that I said, “Wow! Look at that!” quite aloud. A woman turned to gaze with me.

2. After three short visits to Pittsburgh, I already have a favorite radio station there, 91.3, WYEP. When I picked up my rental car, they were about to start an in-studio performance/interview with Ruthie Foster. Another time I started the car, it was to the refrains of the Kennedys’ “Life Is Large.”

3. At the end of my workday on Saturday, I was trying to push free food on everyone I encountered. A little girl sitting in a tree behind me came up to eat some vegetables and immediately took to me and started hawking the joie de vivre of eating healthy to anyone who passed us by. She took the last of my veggies home because “it’s a waste something that someone might want.” And when she asked me why some people smoke (I have no idea why she asked, but we’d had an anti-smoking group with us earlier in the day, so that might have been why.), I gave her the answer that sometimes people think it looks cool and sometimes people are intimidated by telling their friends they don’t want to try it. This third grader looked me in the eye and told me that was silly and provided me with several lines to answer that kind of scenario. She also told me she wanted to be a lawyer and to have a vet place for homeless animals in her backyard and to be America’s Next Top Model and to be a cheerleader. What a sweetie.