D.C. has been a stressful place to live for the past couple weeks. As the calendar flipped over from July to August, locals suddenly realized that today’s date was awfully close. We’d all known for a couple months that the bigots and bullies who’d protested in Charlottesville last year and who killed a young woman there in an act of terrorism had requested and been granted a permit to protest here. We knew there were counter protests planned. But somehow as August arrived, the stress of that knowledge ratcheted up a hundredfold.

Last weekend, I mulled what my own plans were. D.C. has a very large Black population, among others, and I worried that Nazis would target them in some way. I couldn’t stop the Nazis from coming, I figured; that was their protected First Amendment right. But I figured I could be there to make sure they understood they were unwelcome and to make my neighbors know that their human rights were not superseded by what’s written in our Constitution.

I’m not going to lie. I was nervous. Everyone was nervous. Last weekend’s rallies in Portland did little to allay our fears. It didn’t sound like it had been handled particularly well.

Many locals fled the city, like they would on a long weekend when tourists are likely to annoy. Others declared they weren’t going to go anywhere near downtown in an effort to stay clear of both the protestors and the counter-protestors. There were protests on the Mall and adjacent to the White House, which is where the white supremacists would be in.

Rudi and I opted to join the group who would be by the White House, wanting to make it clear to the Nazis that they were not welcome in our city. And apparently the Nazis got the memo, because only two dozen of them ended up showing up, while thousands of us came out to meet them, to say that their hate would be given no quarter in our city.

I did not have to find out today if I would be brave enough to step between a Nazi and another person, and I am glad. But I showed up believing that might be expected of me, and that was enough this time.

I will sleep well tonight.

The garden has become a jungle, as it often does at this time of year.

My tomatillo is about seven feet tall and way too big for the small tomato cage it’s in; it’s fallen over into the dill.

The tomatoes are equally unruly, well over six feet tall, and sprawled over the main section of the garden. I keep picking anything that has a hint of color so that we get the tomatoes, rather than the squirrels, because, honestly, squirrels are jerks and would take a single bite out of every ripe tomato in your garden if they could.

Even my chard is approaching several feet in height.

I have a few flowers on the squash plant, but I’m not positive they’ll turn into anything. I picked the yard-long beans when they were only a foot long and I fear no more will grow this year.

The peppers are slow to perform, but at least one of them finally has fruit on it. The one in the back of the garden is being blocked by whatever pollinator bush I planted a couple years back. I should pull some of it out, but there is a yellow jacket colony in the back part of the garden and I’m a little nervous about messing around too much back there.

This also is preventing me from getting to any herbs other than my basil. I harvested several handfuls of the biggest leaves off my regular basil today — which also has benefited from the sun and rain and is now about four feet tall — and will pull some of the purple basil next time. The popsicle shop near me makes a purple lemonade with opal basil, which is an intriguing thing to consider…

In the next few weeks I’ll need to start considering some fall plantings, but right now there’s nowhere to put anything. I could probably sow some lettuce seeds in between the tomato plants and see if anything comes of them later in the autumn once the tomatoes are done.

July was a good reading month, but not a good month for checking books off my book bingo card. The latest additions are in red.

I’m working through several books that qualify as we speak, so hopefully I’ll finish the month strong and with at least one bingo. But if not, we’ll chalk it up to my contrary nature and still consider a summer’s worth of reading a success.

It’s Thursday, so that means it’s time to reflect back on three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I pass by a bulldog puppy on a leash who is occupying itself while its owner chats with friends. The puppy is sprawled in a tree box full of mulch and has found a bigger piece of wood to carry around.

2. We haven’t been to Wolf Trap, the outdoor performance amphitheater, in years, but decide to head out at the last minute to see Angélique Kidjo and Femi Kuti perform. We run into Michael, Julia, and Shawn (and Shawn’s boyfriend) when looking for a spot to park our blanket, so get to watch an amazing, high-energy concert with friends. (If you get the chance to see either artist perform, I highly recommend that you take advantage of it. You won’t regret it!)

3. We take a holiday for a day baseball game (on which it does not pour midday, although there are occasionally clouds that provide respite from the ongoing heatwave and humidity). I win the designated driver contest for the first time in more than ten years of entering, and the Nationals win the ballgame. Oh, and we happen upon a half-off clearance sale of All-Star Game merchandise, so come home with commemorative caps, too.

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

I took my shawl with me to knit during the concert last night, but after volleyball tonight I dug out the two pairs of socks I’d like to finish this month and carried the Into the Wild Wood pair with me to the coffeehouse for some late evening outdoor time. (Because, you know, a volleyball game in the park isn’t enough…)

After my adventure with Joe Biden and Barack Obama, I’m back hanging out with plucky orphan Audacity Jones in 1910 D.C. She’s about to embark upon the mission she was brought here for, but it’s not what she’s been told. Luckily, she has a local boy and his grandfather and her stowaway cat to help her out of any scrapes…

I’m still listening to Murder Games. We’ve finally met Julian, whom I was worried would turn out to be a concoction of the tv show. He has lost his beard for Hollywood, and I’m not convinced certain characters on paper are going to hook up like they have on the small screen, but we’ll see… Either way, it’s been entertaining and I’d listen to another one.

You can see more reading/crafting combos at As Kat Knits.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic didn’t particularly interest me, so I decided to come up with my own.

Here are ten of the books I have listed as currently reading in Goodreads that aren’t the books I’m actually dipping into this week:

1. Meet Cute, edited by Jennifer Amentrout (short stories; spreading them out)
2. There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, by Morgan Parker (poetry; ditto)
3. A Dash of Trouble, by Anna Meriano (not sure why)
4. Kidnapped! Abductions in Time, Space, and Fantasy, by Danny Atwood et al (more short stories; stuck at one I don’t want to read)
5. Down and Across, by Arvin Ahmadi (annoyed me with a local description I felt was inaccurate (but which maybe isn’t technically wrong))
6. A Conspiracy in Belgravia, by Sherry Thomas (Overdrive expired; on wait list to continue)
7. We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (essays; spreading them out)
8. The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, by Walter Moers (reads like short stories; spreading them out)
9. The Room, by Jonas Karlsson (main character is a jerk; waiting to decide if I’ll bother continuing to see if he grows out of it)
10. A Tyranny of Petticoats, edited by Jessica Spotswood (short stories; spacing them out)

As you can see, things that aren’t novels — poetry/essay/short story collections — tend to get put aside in favor for books that are, although those also aren’t immune from being put down temporarily for one reason or another. (Occasionally it seems like bad things are about to happen in a novel and I don’t want them to, so I put the book down — sometimes forever.)

How about you? Do put down books mid-read and come back to them later?