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?

Today was Rudi’s birthday, which he wanted to spend doing karaoke, since one of his bikey friends runs a couple such events around town, including one on the rooftop of a hotel downtown.

Here are three other beautiful things from my past week:

1. At the Funk Parade on Saturday, the parade and other free activities were supposed to wrap up with an hour-long performance by the Chuck Brown Band. (Chuck Brown was the Godfather of Go-Go, a type of funk, and D.C.’s favorite musician before he died a couple years back. His band has continued to perform under his moniker and in his honor.) The skies opened up toward the end of the parade (you felt for dancers doing splits in puddles and the beauty queens in their spangled bikinis mincing through the chilly mist) and by the time their set began, a steady drizzle was coming down. They only made it into their second song before a loud CRACKLE! punctuated the music and the mics went dead. They paused, realized they’d completely lost electricity and then went on to perform every jam and call-and-response song in their repertoire, as the crowd boogied under a rainbow of umbrellas. We cheered through The Woody Woodpecker theme song and riffs from other popular soundtracks and then went wild and sang along for Chuck’s biggest hit, “Bustin’ Loose.” It was understandably a short set, but one everyone in the park will remember.

2. My attention is captured by the colorful disco lights flashing in a living room window. Happy-looking couples are slow dancing on a Thursday.

3. As we’re riding home along the Rock Creek bike path, we notice a great blue heron flying by. Then I spy three more hanging out in the creek itself, along with a night heron. Obviously, it’s a party.

What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

We had sun and warmth for the first time in ages this afternoon, so I stopped by Big Bear Cafe on my way back from my library book group to sit and read the book I picked up afterwards.

The book, Alexia Gordon’s Murder in G Major, was recommended to me on Monday when I remarked to the Bout of Books Twitter chat that I was really hankering after cozies with non-white main characters. While I’m grateful that this mystery features a Black woman conductor and musician as its lead, and I like an Irish cottage as a setting, I’m not loving the book so far. I’m hoping it gets more comfortable with itself once it’s not introducing characters anymore.

I’m still listening to P.S. I Still Love You and also have picked Kelly Yang’s middle-grade novel Front Desk, about family of Chinese immigrants who run a hotel run by a not-such-a-nice guy.

I didn’t knit on my Smock Madness socks at all last week, so these look exactly like they did then. I found the pattern and I resumed my toe decreases while at the cafe this afternoon. However, I didn’t have a chibi with me, so the second sock had to wait for another day.

Head over to As Kat Knits if you want to read more posts about books and crafting.

Saturday afternoon, Rudi and I headed out to take advantage of the European Union Open House and managed to fit in three embassies:

Malta

The Maltese Embassy is nearby and opened its doors to the public. Its emphasis was on the role Malta played in 1945, when they played host to Churchill and Roosevelt as they planned the final stages of World War II, as well as on the rescue of the SS Ohio, a tanker under the British flag carrying oil to Malta for anti-Axis activities.

The Czech Republic

Next we headed uptown to the Czech Republic’s embassy, located in rolling forestland along Rock Creek Park. They were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which marked the end of Communism in the nation.

We went inside the chancery and got to experience augmented/virtual reality exhibits on the Communist gulags, which was very cool. We picked up some jam from a Czech baker and an English translation of Viktor Dyk’s classic folk adaptation of the story of the Pied Piper, The Ratcatcher, before heading outside so Rudi could enjoy a pilsner. We then headed up the hill to the ambassador’s grand stone residence, nestled amongst the trees.

The ambassador was busy chatting with some Czech-Americans, so we didn’t get a chance to say hello, but we did get to peer around the first floor and admire some of the treasures and artwork and old maps. Some of the most beautiful were the Bohemian crystal chandeliers and sconces, each of which was commissioned for the residence.

Hungary

Unfortunately, because we were so enjoying ourselves in the Czech Republic, we did not leave ourselves enough time to get over to the Dutch embassy before the event concluded. We were feeling slightly peckish, though, and I recalled that the Hungarian embassy, which we visited in 2013, had at that time featured snacks. Since it was just across the street, we wandered over and they confirmed their event would continue on an extra half hour. So we walked out back, where they were selling a variety of Hungarian snacks, including kurtosh kalach, a type of cake cooked using a spit.

The dough is rolled thin and then wound around a wooden cylinder attached to a long handle. It’s allowed to rise for a few minutes and then is put into an oven for ten minutes or so. When it comes out, it’s rolled in cinnamon or sugar or walnuts before it’s taken off its spit. It’s then allowed to cool slightly and you can fill it with a spread.

I opted for cinnamon flavored with maple cream spread inside, while Rudi opted for plain filled with imported Nutella. Both were delicious!

While we were waiting, we got to enjoy watching Hungarian folk musicians and dancers perform. This guy, in particular, was excellent! It was a great way to conclude our 2019 tour of embassies!