Yesterday at choir we practiced “Thou O Jehovah Abideth Forever” from the Four Motets of Aaron Copland. Personally, I have a hard enough time just listening to Copland, so I expected the singing of his work, with all its atonal post-romantic dissonance, to be musical torture. And at first, it was. But it was kind of fun, too.

After church and practice were done, it was another one of those achingly pretty days when the sun is out and the sky is blue and the temperature is exactly 72.5°F, so I went running around the National Mall for a bit, after which I sat on the grass in front of Air and Space and had a hotdog.