Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The woman from my volleyball team and I finally got together for coffee this week. Then we went out for beers (full disclosure, I drink neither beer nor coffee) after our game tonight and our partners joined us.

2. One of the coffeehouses I like to frequent has Arnold Palmers on their menu and I decided to order one this week. They use frozen lemonade, so the drink was delightfully slushy.

3. My second movie screening this week worked out far better than the first. Poms was a charming look at female friendship and persevering when it would be easier to give up. It’s not a great film — it asks a few bigger questions (about multigenerational families and about adult children parenting their parents), yet never bothers to answer them, and most of the characters aren’t fully three-dimensional — but it was an enjoyable way to pass a couple hours and most of the audience (predominantly older women themselves) seemed to agree.

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

I’ll have a couple FOs to show you as soon as the sun comes back out. In the meantime, here’s the next sock pair I’ll be working on, which you may remember from March when I knit them in Sock Madness. I just need to finish that toe and I’ll be able to move on to sock #2.

On the reading front, I also finished several things last week, which means I have new things to show you this week. Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff is a graphic novel set in 1807 in the Middle East and focuses on a swashbuckling adventurer with a flying boat and a former palace guard who brews an excellent pot of tea. I think it will be part Tintin, part Indiana Jones, and part Black Widow.

Girl Squads by Sam Maggs is a nonfiction collection of essays about female friendship around the world and through history. I’ve only read the first essay thus far, which focuses on a society of free divers on an island off the coast of South Korea. So far, it’s fascinating, but I’m not loving the author’s tone, which is a little breezier than I’d prefer.

Jenny Han’s P.S., I Still Love You is the sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and like the first book in the y.a. romance trilogy, I’m listening to it. I wanted to check it off before the movie adaptation hits Netflix (although I don’t know when that’ll be). It’s cute.

I’ve got several other books sort of in progress, but those are the three I’m actively reading today.

Want to learn more about what folks are reading and knitting? Head to As Kat Knits.

We ended up not getting in to a sneak preview last night, so we instead took ourselves to our favorite pizza restaurant for supper, where we sat on their patio, soaking up the beautiful spring weather and looking at campy pictures from the Met Gala on my phone. Afterwards, as we were walking to Tenleytown to catch the metro, we spied the delicate sliver of a moon above the remnants of the evening’s sunset, highlighting the transition from day to night.

I’ve lived in D.C. for 16 years now, and you would think that I’ve been everywhere already, but to my continued surprise, that’s not actually true. Since the weather has become pleasant and since this is a good spot to record things I aspire toward, here are some of those places I’d like to cross off my District Bucket List:

• The National Arboretum: I should go soon, since they are especially noted for their azaleas, which are currently in bloom.
• Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens: Technically, I biked through part of this during the fall, but not the actual garden part. I want to see the water lilies and lotus flowers, which typically flower in July.
• Anacostia Community, Sackler, Freer, and African Art Museums: All run by the Smithsonian, these are the four local museums of the system I have yet to visit. The last three are all on the Mall, and I’d like to cross them off my list on the late-night Solstice event planned for next month. The Anacostia Community Museum is a cultural institution dedicated to the diversity and social dynamics of the local community. I’ve been to the grounds of the museum, but not inside. It’s currently closed until fall, but after the renovations are complete seems like a good time to check it out.
• Library of Congress’ Reading Room: I’ve seen it from the tour loft, but the advantage of having a (free) reader’s card is that you can totally go and hang out and ask them to bring you materials.
• Theodore Roosevelt Island: Weirdly, although this small island in the Potomac River is accessible from land only via a footbridge in Arlington, Virginia, it’s technically part of Washington, D.C. You can see it from the Georgetown waterfront, and I’ve been meaning to go over there forever.
• Bellevue, Parklands-Turner, Deanwood, Francis Gregory, and Capitol View Neighborhood Libraries: These are the last of the 27 branches of the D.C. Public Library I have yet to visit. I’d also like to get back to the Anacostia Neighborhood Library, which has been renovated since I last visited. I had plans to visit them last fall, but then life happened (and that aforementioned trip to Kenilworth that ended up including a major missed turn), and I now get to cross them off in 2019 instead.
• Lincoln’s Cottage: Did you know that when President Lincoln (and Presidents Buchanan, Hayes, and Arthur, too) wanted to get away from things at the White House during the heat of the summer, he headed toward the northern edges of the city to a cottage on the grounds of the U. S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home. This is where he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.
• The National Archives: Probably more important now than ever to refamiliarize myself with the foundational documents of our nation.
• Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument: The D.C. home of the national women’s equality movement, it includes mementos like Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s desk chair and Susan B. Anthony’s desk.
• Frederick Douglass National Historic Site: This is where the Abolitionist lived during the final 18 years of his life and is apparently a beautiful hilltop location.

Are there places near where you live that you’ve always meant to visit, but haven’t yet?

This weekend was the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and, as I mentioned earlier, because Rudi needed to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a ski coaching meeting, we got a rental car for the weekend. Rudi had a party to go to, so I hit the festival on my own.

While yesterday was remarkably pleasant, rain moved in last night and stayed all day, which gave the grassy areas of the festival grounds the consistency of chocolate pudding. But I and some intrepid few turned up today to take in both sheep and wool.

Here are some of the sheep I ran into:

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I caught three of the embassies holding open houses today:

India:

2019 marks the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth and the Indian embassy had a nice exhibition focusing on his importance to their nation — and to the world. They also had performers, sari and turban wrapping, henna, and chai.

Kenya:

Each embassy does things a little differently. While India kept us all doing a tight loop of their first floor space, Kenya decided just to keep us out in the yard. They turned their backyard into a marketplace, had henna in front of the building, and had dancing and food, including mahambri, their delicious version of fried bread, in the courtyard.

and Haiti:

Haiti led us through their gorgeous back courtyard and across two floors of their mansion. They’ve decorated with gorgeously colorful artwork and have profiled the contributions of Haitian Americans throughout the first floor. They also featured djs and performers, wine samples, and native collage artists.b

Embassy weekends are always a lot of fun. EU Nations are open next weekend, and I hope to cross off a few more from my list then.