Thursdays seem to be coming awfully quickly this fall. Three Beautiful Things are upon us again:

1. Sam and Alexis got married on Monday and it was clearly the best thing in the world that they did. They’re very much in love (but not in that sickening way that sometimes love can materialize as) and they complement each other well. They knew it, their families knew it, and their friends knew it. Their celebration became a celebration for all of us present — an embodiment of what love could offer to the world.

2. Sam and Rudi and I have known each other for a long time now — 11+ years since Sam first walked into the College Relations office at Conn and thought I was a grown up (a mistake he has never since made). In that time, we’ve spent a great deal of time together, particularly with his mother’s extended family. His grandparents, Mac and Irv, lived about half an hour from where I grew up and we would drop Sam off to visit and he would invite us down to celebrate Christmas Eve with them. As such, I got to know his extended family in ways I haven’t with many friends. So attending his wedding was like going to my own family’s wedding in a way — a chance to catch up with aunts and cousins whom I hadn’t seen in a while. And a nice visit with Mac, who is a dear, and Sam’s immediate family — Charlotte, Terry, and Alan.

3. I don’t care if Eddie from Ohio believes that the “prettiest October in all the 50 states” can be found in Virginia. I come from New England and I will forever believe that it has the best foliage in the fall. Pink, scarlet, yellow, orange, brown, and various greens. The colors were muted because the trees had only just started to change when the storms came through, but it didn’t matter. It just made it look like someone had caught in watercolor the moment when you should start paying attention. Another week, and by the time you noticed, it might have been too late. But this gave you a chance to actually see the colors arrive.

My brother, Josh, has decided to do the 10K Los Angeles AIDS Walk this coming Sunday. To my knowledge, he’s never done this sort of thing before, and I’d like to help him reach his fundraising goal. If you’d like to join me in making a donation, please click here to visit his fundraising site.

Funds raised benefit the AIDS Project Los Angeles and 16 other southern California HIV/AIDS organizations.

HIV is no longer a “sexy” disease here in the U.S., where our AIDS death tolls have faded from the highs in the ’80s and pale in comparison to the ravages of the disease in places like South Africa and India.

But the problem does remain in the U.S., too — nearly a million Americans have contracted HIV since it was first diagnosed in 1981. The problem is a growing one for straight African-American women, in particular, and remains a problem for young urban men. AIDS is the leading cause of death for African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.

The good news, however, is that prevention, treatment, and survival rates are on the increase. Preventative vaccines are in the clinical trial stage. Among infants who are born to HIV+ mothers, those who are delivered by C section and who are given drugs from birth are likely to not develop the disease themselves. People who do contract the disease who receive drug cocktails (and who follow their treatment plan) can expect to live at least 10 years after their diagnoses. Drugs are in development that work better and with fewer side effects than ever before.

In other words, your money does actually help and does have results.

So even if you can’t (or don’t want to) support Josh this week, please consider supporting those raising funds in your local community throughout the year. I’m sure they and their coffers would appreciate it.

And if you can support Josh this week, I’d be grateful, as would he.

We returned home last night to an apartment that had suffered groundwater seepage and mildew that had grown. Lucky us…

I’ll post more later, but right now I have to go work on cleaning out my living room.

We’re spending tonight and tomorrow night in Leominster, Mass., the town close to where our friends Sam and Alexis are getting married tomorrow evening. It feels strange to lie here in the hotel room without anything pressing to do because I have spent the last six months not having spare time.

Every time I sat down, there was a knitting project to work on. And more often than not, I did. I diligently knit away for six months.

193 days (give or take).
2040 rows.
106,080 stitches.

And I’m done.

Thanks to Gramma, Rudi, Mum, Dad, the folks at Stitch DC and WEB, Karen, Shelley, Jenny, and the women of my knitting group (Sarah, Suzanne, Tracy, Marty, Heather, and Chickona) for all their moral and physical support as I worked on this project.

Photos and more information will follow after I’ve actually given the present to Sam and Alexis.

Today also is my Great-Aunt Maude’s birthday. She said that when my dad was born she thought he was a birthday present for her. I think that’s such a nice way to look at things. So many others would have resented sharing their own special day with someone else. But that’s why Aunt Maude is so special — because she does genuinely feel that way.

Aunt Maude and I haven’t actually met, but she periodically sends me emails and keeps me in the loop on what’s going on in her life. I, sadly, am less faithful in my correspondence, but whenever I do write she seems so delighted to hear from me that I mean to write more (even if I fail with frustrating regularity to follow through).

So, please send a thought down the Carolina way to my Aunt Maude and wish her a truly happy birthday.

Today is my dad’s birthday.

Dad is a great guy — and I miss seeing him now that I’m in D.C. and he’s up in Connecticut. It’s funny, but we actually saw more of each other when we lived here and my folks lived there. And we still saw lots of each other when we were both down there. But now it’s just a few times a year and I miss our lunchtime chats and our Sunday rides to get the newspaper.

He brings such a reassuring way of looking at the world to the table — optimistic and open-minded and upbeat all at once, but not in an annoying way. He’s also a little bit of the old fashioned dad — wise and a bit protective, but willing to let you make your own mistakes, á la Judge Hardy.

Dad’s birthday has gotten pushed to the side a bit this year as I frantically run around trying to finish a wedding present and as Rudi writes a best man speech.

I didn’t get a chance to make him Gramma cookies the way I like to. I know he understands (and that he’s probably just fine with an IOU), but I don’t want him to think that he’s less important to me than my friends. He’s not — and it’s because of things like him being cool about the cookies.

So, happy birthday, Dad. I love you.