Amy came to DC this morning, with a cake and presents for an early birthday mini-celebration. We met up with my uncle, aunt, and a distant niece, then passed by Beekman, the townhouse compound on Meridian Hill which was my Washington pied-a-terre on my arrival last year.

As my uncle and aunt saw to some business, Amy and I wandered over to a nearby yard sale, where she found a fireplace duster and a little round jar, and I got a large magnifying glass and two CDs: Nathan Milstein’s 1946 LOC recital and Welsh Male Voice Choirs. All for under $8.

After a spicy lunch at Bua, the whole group sauntered over to the FBC parking lot to check out the Fall Festival, where, o joy of joys, the church library was sponsoring a giant book sale. Long after my uncle, aunt, and distant niece had left, Amy and I were scouring the tables — especially the one labeled “Free Books,” which was laden with decades-old almanacs, old National Geographic atlas inserts, and bibles and devotionals with hip 1960s covers. We went home with The First Man in Rome, The Wind in the Willows, and an encyclopedic 1971 Almanac.

Amy and I dropped off these treasures at my apartment, then walked across the Mall (I love my location!) to Air and Space to view the newly opened Wright Brothers exhibit. When we had had enough of the early days of flight, we walked back out, spread our jackets out on the grass of the Capitol Lawn near the Summer House, and watched tourists go by while we talked.

Then we had cake and tea.

It was a good day.