Last week, I shared a picture of my echinacea because it was finally starting to show some color.

Take a look at it now:

The flowers start out kind of brownish and end up sort of brownish and I kind of forgot how amazing they are for that week or two where they aren’t remotely brown. (I should write garden catalogue copy, shouldn’t I?)

I’m really glad I realized what they were when I started to yank them up earlier this spring.

Happy Summer, everyone! I hope your solstice was as beautiful as ours was. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer June day!

Now that an official summer weekend has arrived, here’s what I’m hoping to do with it:

• Get some late night culture. The Smithsonians are all open until midnight on Saturday as a special once-a-year treat. Also, the By the People Festival wraps up this Sunday, and I didn’t get to any of the events last weekend…
• Watch Shakespeare in the park (or, at least, the front yard of a church). I only wish it weren’t The Taming of the Shrew, but beggars can’t be choosers and this is the only outdoor Shakespeare in the District anymore.
• Weed. So much rain=so many uninvited plants in my garden.
• Apply for some jobs.
• Make iced tea. I’ve already washed out a gallon-sized milk jug to make it in.
• Bake something with cherries. Perhaps a pie.
• Buy raspberries. I have yet to see any at farmers markets, but I have faith.
• Catch up on Endeavour. PBS doesn’t come in over the air for us (unless it’s raining), so we have to watch online and we haven’t had a chance to see the season premiere yet.
• Rip back the part of the shawl where the yarn is noticeably weird so I can finish it next week.
• Spend as much time outside as humanly possible, since the heat and humidity are lurking around the corner, ready to leap out as soon as the weekend is over.

How about you? What’s on tap for your weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Our toilet seat broke overnight, which was inconvenient (no one wants their facilities to engage in butt pinching!) until I could get to Target to buy a new one today. The enamel on the toilet seat had worn and gotten more and more dingy over time, and I’d previously given thought, but not energy, to proactively replacing it. Rudi installed it tonight and it makes our bathroom look so much nicer.

2. I found a new stand at the ballpark, which sells pupusas, tamales, and enchiladas. My cheese and bean pupusas came with a side of tangy curtido, which I spooned into my pupusas, before folding them over it and eating it like a taco. I’m not sure if that’s how Salvadorans eat them, or if it’s just my take, but it was hot and delicious and exactly what I wanted for supper on a rainy night where the 3-hour rain delay eventually turned into a postponement.

3. We went to see Rocketman at the Uptown on Tuesday (their discount night) and it was phenomenal. Taron Egerton did a great job embodying Reginald Dwight (aka Elton John), and I adored Jamie Bell as lyricist Bernie Taupin. It’s clear that the two actors had great chemistry as would befit one of the magic pairings of rock and roll. Taron does all the singing in the movie, which is impressive; the soundtrack is produced by Giles Martin (George Martin’s equally talented son); and the costuming and staging are as theatrical as one would want for our most theatrical pop star. Catch this larger-than-life story before it leaves theaters for maximum advantage.

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

I am in a knitting funk. I don’t want to finish up old projects, so I thought maybe I’d try carrying around the equipment for something new. But the both skeins of stripey sock yarn remains untouched and the needle remains stitch-free.

I would like to get the lightning shawl finished before this year’s Tour de France, though, so that gives me just over two weeks.

I started reading Sonali Dev’s Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors today while on the metro to the station nearest my library book club. I stopped at the cafe for lunch and some outdoor reading time on my bike ride home and can now say the start is rather slow. Also, Dev notes in her acknowledgements that this is an inspired by, rather than derived from, kind of story. The main characters are Indian-American Tricia, a neurosurgeon, and European-Indian caterer D.J. The start is a little slow, but I’VE heard it gets better, so I shall stick with it.

Head to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

I read five books back in April. Let’s get to them:

A Dangerous Collaboration, by Deanna Raybourn

The fourth book in the Veronica Speedwell series was the weakest so far in my mind. While the Victorian setting was fascinating — a castle on a remote island off the coast of Cornwall with a poison garden on the estate — it felt like scientist and detective Veronica seemed a little off her game. Asked by her partner Stoker’s older brother, Tiberius, to accompany him to the island to collect some rare butterflies for her museum (and under the pretense of his fiancee), Veronica finds herself tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to the bride of the manor who disappeared three years earlier on her wedding day — and who now seems to be haunting the castle. The problem? Everyone present seems to have had a reason to wish her ill — including Tiberius. Will Veronica be able to solve the mystery before she (and Stoker, who follows his brother and the woman we all know he loves) suffers a similar fate?

Of all the gender-bending Sherlock variations I read, Veronica and Stoker come closest to being a true partnership of equal skill and intellect. That aside, though, the reason I read them is because the woman takes the backseat to no one. Does Sherlock need Watson? Absolutely! Is Watson more capable than Sherlock at solving a mystery? Absolutely not! So it rankled a bit that in this mystery the advantage at solving the mystery seemed to favor Stoker. And I get that that may be necessary for overall character development for Stoker to get to take the lead in order for Veronica to truly see him as her equal (and therefore someone she should be willing to enter into a romantic partnership with), but it was irritating that in order for Stoker to get to take the lead in this, Veronica had to be willing to consider the fact that the castle was truly being haunted by a spirit. The author may have cloaked it as scientific open-mindedness, but it felt decidedly out of character for Veronica and led to a disappointing three-star review. Raybourn has announced that the Veronica contract has been extended to include at least another two books, so I’m hopeful they will right the ship. (The next one should focus on Jack the Ripper, since his murder spree was alluded to in this book.)

Pages: 323. Library copy. (more…)

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader Girl is one of my semi-annual favorites: looking forward to the books to be published over the next six months. Specifically, what are our most anticipated titles?

1. The Starless Sea by Erin Morganstern: November (I loved The Night Circus (like wrote a fan email the minute I closed the book kind of love) and have been waiting for Morganstern to publish literally anything else since then.
2. Rainbow Rowell’s Pumpkinheads: August (A YA graphic novel set in a pumpkin patch in October. I have been looking forward to this since the day years ago that she announced she and Faith Erin Hicks would be collaborating on it.)
3. The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas: October (The latest in the Lady Sherlock series, which is one of my all-time favorites.)
4. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell: September (A surprise sequel to Carry On, which I should re-read before this comes out.)
5. The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas: September (The author of my favorite mystery series takes on the teenaged Woman Warrior of ancient China.)
6. Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Party: July (I haven’t read any of her other books yet, but I’m on the waitlist for the audiobook.)
7. Mackenzi Lee’s Loki: Where Mischief Lies: September (Teenage troublemaker? Yes, please!)
8. Summerlings by Lisa Howorth: August (Set in Washington, D.C., in 1959)
9. Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer: July (The second in the Obama-Biden crime-fighting bromance series)
10. The Tea Dragon Festival by Katie O’Neill: September (A prequel to the adorable Tea Dragon Society)

How about you? What new releases are you looking forward to coming out in the latter half of 2019?