The House of Sweden, the über-cool Scandinavian embassy, is located near where the C&O Canal and the Potomac River meet in Georgetown. From their roof, I could see a family of ducks, but the towpath doesn’t extend that far so I couldn’t get close enough to the ducklings to get pictures. So I borrowed a bikeshare and rode a bit along the towpath, hoping to see some further along. Because they’re doing construction to the canal and canal boats, they’ve let the bed go wild between some of the locks. (That green space in the shot below is the canal.) Too marshy to see ducklings (but, one hopes, just marshy enough to allow for good nesting), but I did see quite a few red-winged blackbirds, a turtle, and a pair of cardinals. And quite a few lovely buttercups.

I’ll take my own bike out for a spin later in the week and go further north along the canal to where there’s water again. I hope to have photos of baby animals soon!

Rudi’s and my mothers don’t live in town, so unfortunately we won’t have the chance to see them in person this weekend and will have to make do with phone calls. But the thing about reaching middle age is that you become highly aware just how lucky you are that you’re able to make do in that way.

Other things I’m hoping to be lucky enough to do this weekend:

• Like last weekend, this Saturday features open houses. This week’s are the members of the EU. I’ve got my eye on four of them — Sweden, the Netherlands (I’ve visited them before, but not in their current embassy), Ireland, and the Czech Republic — but they’re in different areas of town, so I may not hit them all.
• The Funk Parade is tomorrow, as well. I went a couple years ago and had a good time. It’s going to be in the 90s, though, and it overlaps with the embassies, so it may not all work out.
• Rudi’s heading to a show tomorrow night, so I may take myself out to eat.
• One of the farmers said last week that they should have morels this Sunday, so I’ll be up early Sunday to get there before they run out.
• The garden is Sunday’s top priority, since I bought a dozen plants or so last weekend that need to go into the ground. I have more things growing than usual this year, so I admit I’m not totally sure how I’m going to squeeze them all in.
• I need to run over to the library to return an overdue DVD. If I finish either of the two books I’m reading, they’re overdue, as well.
• The Timeless season (hopefully not series) finale airs Sunday, so you’ll find us in front of the tv at that point. We don’t get PBS in over the air, so Little Women has to wait for streaming on Monday.
• I’d like to make strawberry shortcake. Anyone have a shortcake recipe they’re particularly fond of? I grew up with the Bisquick recipe, so that’s what I like best. (You must be able to approximate Bisquick from scratch, right?)
• I’m making good progress on my sock, so there’s a possibility that I might finish it.
• Cleaning. I don’t want to do it, but it’s overdue, so I really need to deal with some of it.

How about you? What do you hope your weekend includes?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It began dripping as I left the library earlier tonight, but didn’t ever turn into a full-on rain. It was enough, though, to give me a few of a faint rainbow off to the east.

2. I don’t know if these folks are dressed for Free Comic Book Day or Embassy Day or just Wear an Unusual Outfit Day, but here they are walking down Mass Ave. in Dupont Circle:

3. I got the heel turned okay on my socks, which, after the trouble I had with my Posey socks, did have me worried. Luckily, my formula for three-color striped socks holds fine (as opposed to the four colors of Posey) and I’m heading down the foot.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Last Saturday was the Around the World Embassy Tour of many non-EU nations (their open houses are this coming Saturday). This is one of my favorite D.C. events every spring and convenient, since I live in the same neighborhood where many of the embassies are located. As I mentioned, I had a plan to hit five of the embassies I haven’t visited in the past, and I managed to squeeze in all five before the event concluded.

These are out of order from how I visited them, but likely in order of how many photos I’m going to show you. (more…)

I’m up to the heel on my cheery In the Wildwood socks, which I should be able to put a good dent in during a meeting tomorrow. Should that go fine (with the striping), it will have been a good decision to move to these socks. If not, they will join a list of projects that I need to deal with. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

As for the reading, it’s been Killers of the Flower Moon and Little Fires Everywhere, which is now the second “literary book with surprise twist” that everyone’s been talking about that I’m pretty sure I have figured out from near the get-go. I don’t know if this comes from a background of reading mysteries or if literary writers just really aren’t that good at writing plot twists. Or maybe Celeste Ng is and I will be totally shocked that what I think has happened in the past didn’t actually happen.

I’ve also been listening to The Bear and the Nightingale, but that’s expiring tomorrow without my having finished it, so I’ll have to wait for my turn to come around again. Hopefully it won’t be terribly long, but luckily it’s YA Sync season, so I have new audiobook downloads to listen to every week for free and Norse Mythology came back around for download tonight.

Head over to As Kat Knits for more books and knitting.

… also bring May flowers.

I passed this gorgeously vibrant vine of clematis as I was walking to the second comic book shop on Saturday. (I’m spoiled; I know.) The picture does not do it justice in terms of how vivid that purple is in real life. It nearly glowed in the gray gloom of an impending shower that chased would-be patio sitters at the coffeehouse indoors.