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.