Rudi and I were a block from home on our bikes this afternoon, when we encountered a car abandoned in the middle of the busy intersection.

It was on fire.

People at the crosswalks all had their phones out and were filming this interesting new addition to their day. Cars were still boldly driving right past, which felt like a stupid choice. Some of them also had phoneccvbc recordingcc.

911 had been called.

But at that point it was still a manageable fire. And no one was doing anything about it but watching.

So I threw down the kickstand on my bike and left it with Rudi while I hurried over to a local restaurant to demand a fire extinguisher. Another middle-aged woman came in right on my heels with the same request.

Kudos to the restaurant worker who immediately knew where their front-of-house fire extinguisher was and handed it to us without missing a beat. Neither of us had used one before, but we were game to try.

But when we came out, it was clear those extra 30 seconds had been too long. The car was engulfed. There was really no way for us to do anything at that point.

The fire trucks showed up a minute later, and I assume they quickly got the situation under control, because I didn’t hear an explosion after we got back on our bikes and pedaled away.

It’s the weekend (and the last one we’ll spend in town for a while)! What am I hoping it includes?

• We’ve got tickets to the penultimate Nationals game of the year tomorrow evening. Our friend Sarah has the other two seats and is bringing one of her best college friends, whom I’m looking forward to meeting.
• There are a couple neighborhood street festivals and a concert in the park that could be fun to check out.
• I haven’t been to the garden in nearly a week, so I’d better go pick some tomatoes and peppers.
• I have a bag of apples I picked last weekend that would love to be baked.
• Mount Laundry threatens our very existence while we sleep. I should probably strive to turn it into a mere hill.
• A friend of Rudi’s is going to cat sit for us this month, which means that someone besides our handyman on an emergency basis is going to come into the apartment for the first time since before the pandemic. We have to do some cleaning.
• Sunday morning means the farmers market, even if I don’t really need anything.
• I’d like to put birthday cards for three friends into the mail. (I also need to get one of their most recent addresses.)
• I need to buy a plane ticket to Salt Lake. I should have bought it today at the latest.
• Doesn’t reading and knitting at a cafe in the autumn sun sound idyllic?

How about you? Do you have a relaxing weekend planned or one full of activity?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Suppers most nights containing ingredients from the garden

2. I haven’t been great at getting out before the sun sets this week, but I have made it outside before work at least twice this week.

3. A fellow gardener and I cross paths for the first time since the spring. We sit at picnic tables in the park and catch each other up on how our summers have been.

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

The good news is that I touched all three of these today. The bad news is that none of them are moving fast. But tomorrow is another day.

I have nine days to get through until I have a four-day weekend.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl is a freebie, so I thought I’d do a quick rundown of the first ten books I read in 2021 and see how far into the year that gets me:

1. In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren: A cute holiday romance about three families, their grown children (and grandchildren), and the holiday cabin they visit every year. What happens when the adult daughter of one couple falls for the adult son of another? And what happens if they relive this one vacation over and over again? Groundhog Day meets Hallmark holiday movie.
2. Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore: I don’t remember how this one came onto my radar, but it’s set in Victorian times and features a young woman who gets the chance to attend university and who takes up with the suffragette movement. One of their hopes for an upcoming swing vote is a young duke, who’s been commissioned by the queen to quash the movement. A solid historic romance.
3. One Day in December by Josie Silver: A girl on a bus and a guy at a bus stop see each other one day in December and fall instantaneously in love. But the next time they cross paths it’s when her roommate introduces her to the guy she’s been dating, whom she thinks could be the one. Of course it’s him! And so it goes for years. Fans of Cecilia Ahern will enjoy this one.
4. Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev: In a tribute to the Jane Austen classic, the second in this interlocking series of four stories about an Indian-American family focuses on Ashna, a chef, who is paired in a celebrity cooking contest with Rico Silva, a soccer star, who just happens to have been her secret high school boy friend — and the boy her father sent away because he wasn’t good enough for her. I love this series and recommend it to everyone.
5. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig: A young woman attempts suicide only to find that she’s been transported to a purgatory where she’s allowed to try out the different stories she might have lived if she’d made different choices through the years. The idea was an interesting one, but its execution didn’t live up to the premise.
6. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez: A cute middle-grade story about a boy, who in his grief at losing his mother a couple years earlier, accidentally found a way to access the multiverse. When he starts at a new school, a girl with an eye for details figures out what’s happening, and they set out on a series of adventures that just might destroy the world.
7. An Unexpected Peril by Deanna Raybourn: The latest in the Veronica Speedwell mystery series, it this time focuses on a  nation caught in the pre-WWI European machinations, its princess (who just so happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to our plucky lepidopterist), and a female climber who died while attempting to summit its highest peak. When the princess goes missing prior to a retrospective of the climber’s life that Veronica and Stoker are mounting, her envoys request Veronica’s assistance with some diplomatic subterfuge to save a treaty. Always a fun series.
8. The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jiminez: A woman is on her way to her fiance’s grave on the one-year anniversary of his death when a dog jumps through her open sunroof. Turns out the pup belongs to a guy who’s currently in Australia, and she agrees to take care of the dog until he returns. But they start to fall in love through texts and cell phone calls and emails — until he returns and she finds out that he’s both exactly who he says he is … and also so much more. A romance that looks at what happens when one half of the couple has experienced the ultimate loss.
9. Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas: The latest in the Lady Sherlock series, this Christmassy story sees Charlotte, Mrs. Watson, and Lord Ingram having to solve a murder that Inspector Treadles has been accused of. I adore this series and highly recommend it.
10. The Bounty by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton: The latest in the Fox and O’Hare series focuses on FBI agent Kate and master burglar Nick, their respective fathers, and a heist that leads back to Nazi Germany. It’s better than the last book in the series, but lacks the joy of the books co-authored by Lee Goldberg.

And with that, we’re caught up through my April reads.