I should probably have paid attention when Flickr announced they were going to be down for maintenance, because it didn’t occur to me that they meant for 12 hours. And I just don’t have it in me to upload the photo another way right now, so until Flickr comes back online, assume that this paragraph is a shot consisting of a pot of tea, a biscuit, a half skein of yarn that had not yet been cast on for a second sock, and a book on a table outside. It looked not dissimilar from last week’s shot.

The second of my Smock Madness pair was cast on this evening. It’s nice to think that pair could be finished in a couple weeks.

I had Murder in G Major with me again today, so that’s the book that was included in the picture. Gethsemane has survived a poisoning, performed some tunes in the local bar, and convinced a ghost to write her a concerto, so life is looking up a bit for her. Elsewhere, I’m listening to The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss, which starts off at the newly constructed outpost of the Nearly Silent Monastery (they have a vocabulary of eight words and practice listening) here in Washington, D.C., where a small girl has wandered in with no information about where she came from. And I also started Death Prefers Blondes, a y.a. novel about a rich girl who runs a crew of teen drag queens in performing elaborate heists around the L.A. area.

Want to hear about what other folks are reading and crafting (many of them have photos!)? Head over to As Kat Knits to catch the roundup.

Today was my final Tuesday volleyball game for a while, which means I’m likely able to take advantage of $5 movie night again. This turned my thoughts to what might be playing this summer that I’d like to see:

1. Spiderman: Far From Home (I didn’t love Avengers: End Game, but I do love this iteration of Peter Parker.)
2. Rocketman (obviously the soundtrack will be great)
3. Late Night (Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson? Yes, please!)
4. Men in Black International (aka Asgardians in Suits)
5. Yesterday (What if you were suddenly the only person who knew The Beatles’ repertoire?)
6. The Farewell (I’ve loved Awkwafina in everything I’ve seen her in thus far, including that phone/pedicure commercial currently on tv, and will definitely want to see this — with a box of tissues.)
7. Blinded by the Light (Rudi and I just saw a trailer for this film — about a 1980s British Indian teen boy who falls in love with the music of The Boss — last week, and it looks awesome!)
8. Booksmart (Because I probably should have had a couple wild adventures back in the day…)
9. Shaft (I have never seen any of the previous iterations, but this could be fun.)
10. The Spy Behind Home Plate (I missed The Catcher Is Also a Spy last year, so I might do a double-header of this documentary with that biopic.)

Between these and the free outdoor film screenings that started up tonight, I should catch up on a ton of movies this summer. How about you? What would you like to catch at the theater this summer?

A stab toward getting back on track. Here are the three books I finished back in March:

Geekerella, by Ashley Poston

A retelling of Cinderella, this novel is set in modern South Carolina and features geek girl Elle, a hard-working orphan who blogs lovingly about a cheesy sci-fi tv show from the 1980s (the first to feature a lead by an Asian-American actor), and teen soap heartthrob Darien, who’s just been hired to play the hero in a modern reboot movie. As chapters alternate between the two, we learn that Elle, whose parents met at a Starfield signing line and who went on to found a convention in its honor, is spending the summer working in a vegan food truck called the Magic Pumpkin, much to the shame of her stepmother and two stepsisters. Darien, on the other hand, has just discovered that his manager (also his father, but he’s not allowed to call him Dad) has signed him up to appear at a fan convention after shooting wraps at the end of the summer. He has a hard and fast rule about not appearing at Cons, since his ex-friend betrayed him publicly at one several years ago. Hoping to take his destiny back into his own hands, he finds the Con’s website and texts a phone number he finds associated with it. Guess who’s at the other end of that number… (more…)

I’ve spent two evenings at the garden this week, pulling it back into shape after all the rain we’ve had and planting the seedlings I purchased at the beginning of the month.

When I arrived on Wednesday, I was greeted with bolted sorrel, as tall as I was.

By the time I left tonight, it looked a little better.

I’m growing at least three types of peas (I planted nine varieties, I think…).

There are purple and green pods:

And then there are these pea plants, which are short and stocky and have what look like they should be black-eyed pea flowers:

These are, it turns out, the fava beans I planted. Cool, eh?

My chard seeds are doing well, as are some of the other greens I planted from seed, although they’re way shorter.

I harvested four types of greens today that were turned into tonight’s salads. There’s definitely romaine, arugula, and mizuna, all of which I planted from seedling, and one other that has jumped up from seeds I planted — upland cress, I think.

The rest of my spring plants are doing well, too. As you can see, my spring onions have flourished, to such a degree that I’m going to have a little bit of a challenge getting my potatoes in. My mint, oregano, lavender, rosemary, and bronze fennel (which reseeded itself) are also doing well. I put hay (stolen from the garden’s decorative banana plant’s winter bedding) under my strawberry plants this spring, and it has so far had the benefit of keeping the slugs from devouring all my strawberries before I get to partake of them. I’ve gotten about a dozen berries out of the garden so far and hope to have several dozen more as the season goes on.

We started off the weekend nicely, with a beautiful evening for a ballgame, although it turned into a bit of the rout of the local team, with the Cubs picking run after run off the Nationals’ pitchers for a painful four-plus hours.

Rudi has to work both days (the perils of working in the cycling industry during Bike Month), but I still hope to get in a few fun things amidst my chores:

• I’m behind on my job-hunting this week, so that has to take top billing.
• I also need to get my remaining tomatoes and peppers into the ground. I only got two-thirds in on Wednesday evening before I ran out of daylight.
• We tore the apartment apart last night a bit, so I need to do some cleaning/organizing.
• I’d like to finally make strawberry shortcake.
• And eat some vegetables. I have lettuce from the garden that I should turn into a salad.
• A trip to the library is in order because apparently the holds were out of order the other day and I didn’t pick up the one that’s expiring tomorrow. An extra trip to the library is rarely a bad thing, though.
• On Sunday, Porchfest, a series of concerts that takes over the front stoops of a given neighborhood, will be across the river in Southeast. The weather will be warm, but depending on how ambitious I’m feeling, I might give it a shot.
• The Giro is currently underway, so we will watch a little cycling at some point.
• I also need to catch up on my correspondence.
• The snow fence is finally down in the park after months of a renovation project, so I might just spend hours lounging and reading and knitting.
• I did not paint my nails last weekend, but the pool opens next weekend, so now would be a good time to do it.
• There’s a Hawaiian Cultural Festival at the American Indian Museum, so that could be fun to check out.

What are you hoping to tackle this weekend?