Every year I try to plant new things as an experiment, in addition to past favorites. Sometimes it fails. The single carrot (a seedling from a friend of Rudi’s) and several beet seedlings I put in the potato patch last year disappeared ridiculously fast. But late-season squash finally grew for me, as did those crazy femur-sized cucumbers that showed up weekly in the height of summer. I’ve learned that you can’t plant just one tomatillo plant, even if you think you would only like one plant’s fruits; they require cross-fertilization and having another a few plots away isn’t close enough to cut it. In previous years, radishes didn’t work; peanuts did. I’ve planted broccoli and rabe on several occasions and grown lovely golden beetles each time.

This year, our first experiment is celery. I gave one to a neighbor gardener, but I have five more tucked amidst garlic and yellow onions in a patch I cleared out. So far so good, but they have to make it all the way to the fall.

Anything that’s going to require micromanagement, daily watering in the heat of summer, or pest management other than my flinging beetles away won’t cut it. If it thrive under benign neglect (see all those bunching onions and the sorrel I planted my first year as a gardener), that would be ideal.

Got any suggestions for this year’s experiments?

Things I’m looking forward to after my immunity fully kicks in post-vaccine four weeks from today:

• Visiting my parents
• Hugging my friends
• Browsing the stacks at the library
• Going to museums (one opened in my city dedicated to the written word and I haven’t felt comfortable going yet)
• Eating outside at restaurants (I jumped the gun on this once and won’t do it again until next month)
• Traveling
• Browsing in big box stores
• Seeing my coworkers not through a screen
• Swimming at the pool (and lounging on the deck with a book)
• Attending concerts inside (definitely not immediately)

How about you? What are you looking forward to after you’re fully vaccinated?

I got in the car this afternoon, intending to drive out to the library in Arlington. While I did reach Arlington, I did not make it to the library, instead finding my way to an entirely different county.

I have long argued that the highways in Virginia behave rather like some of the staircases in the Harry Potter series. You may get on a road that you’ve taken to the library any number of times, but that doesn’t mean it’s where it leads today. Tomorrow I could take that same route past the old bike shop and it will deposit me at the library without issue. But today, it chose not to. Sometimes it happens on the way back from the airport, which is in an entirely different section of Arlington. If I come back from the nearby farms with Sarah (which would be the only reason I’d take that route), if I am driving, it will send us further into Virginia, rather than back over the river to D.C. where we were headed.

It’s inconvenient, but no longer surprising. I mean to me, of course. Other people routinely seem surprised that I can’t get the four miles down a road and over a river without an unplanned detour after living in the same place for nearly two decades, but they seem to believe this remains in my control.

I’ve just learned to recognize when I have bypassed where I needed to go and look for the next place to reroute the car. I can always get either where I wanted to go or to someplace I recognize; sometimes it just takes a bit.

Yes, I know there are such things as phones and apps and gps. And if it’s super important to reach a destination in a timely fashion, I will employ such muggle technologies (or direct another party to drive). Otherwise, it’s best just to embrace the ride.

The cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin get all the glory, but for beauty themselves, I actually prefer the Kwanzan cherry trees.

They bloom a little later than their Yoshino cousins, which also means you are way more likely to get a chance to see them without having to duck crowds.

The pink ones are part of a grove on Hains Point, near where I showed you the shot a few weeks ago. The white ones were next to the Potomac.

I have a couple things on the agenda this weekend:

I won a drawing for being among the people who visited the farmers market every week this winter. (Adhering to COVID travel restrictions meant I was here, and I’m not really deterred by crummy weather — or, apparently, threats of insurgents.) I have to go pick up the gift card (to a vegetarian sausage maker) at a new-to-me farmers market Saturday morning.

Sarah and I are going to head to the Wharf in the afternoon for an in-person event put on by the Quebecois government where they’re going to be giving away samples of maple snow candy. We are both big proponents of maple syrup and it would be unneighborly not to sample Canada’s if they want to share with us.

If it’s not raining, I may suggest to Rudi that we go the Rock Creek Kings show at one of the local parks in the evening, but he has a charity bike ride the next morning, so he may want to spend some time inside.

Sunday, I may try to get across the river to the library there to pick up a hold that’s ready for me, and, if I’m lucky, some of my spring greens should be ready to harvest from the garden. I don’t know that I have enough for two salads, but we’ll see.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Sarah turned 50 last week, and we opted to celebrate in person.

2. I got the first dose of a COVID vaccine, which means I will be able to start seeing more people in real life again soon. It was super easy, and except that virtual strangers now feel entitled to inquire about what brand of medicine I’m taking, I’m glad it’s done.

3. Tuesdays, I often get a longer break between meetings in the mid-afternoon, so Rudi and I scooted over to the bagel shop to grab lunch and eat outside in the sun.

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