Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. The potato knishes at RFK aren’t as good as the ones you’d find in New York, but they are well-seasoned and surprisingly tasty — and a welcome vegetarian option at the stadium.

2. I pulled out the PS2 and (literally) dusted off the dance pad to put on Dance Dance Revolution the other night. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I didn’t have to re-learn the whole game and, in fact, managed a new personal best (in light game mode).

3. Five-week-old Erin and Tommy are adorable and cuddly and soft. Pat and Heidi invited us to dinner tonight so we could hang out with them and meet the twins, which was terribly sweet of them. We each got to hold them and to play with Jack, not quite two, who thought the wrapping paper and ribbon for the present we brought him was delightful. I love little kids.

A while ago now, Erik and I were IMing about some of the court setbacks that gay marriage and civil unions have faced in the last few months.

I once again suggested that we change the concept of marriage altogether in the future. A civil union, open to any two unrelated adults, should confer all legal and governmental benefits — Social Security, shared custody of children, inheritance rights, hospital visitation, etc. — that are currently offered to married people. Marriage proper could be a religious ceremony, offered to certain (or all) people depending on the tenets of the church.

Erik, I believe, (Correct me if I’m misrepresenting your views here) agrees with this idea in theory. But he argues that “civil union” as a term seems very bland and businessy and second-class when compared with “marriage.” And what would one use as a verb? “Unionized” has a very different connotation. “Partnered” has platonic definitions that lends itself to confusion.

So we thought we’d open the discussion up to you. Is there a better term that we could start to use to connote all the romantic feelings that ought to accompany such a union while simultaneously and unambiguously explaining what sort of relationship one is entering into?

Since I have no new reading progress to report today, I instead will share the new (to me) book I bought Saturday.

In an effort to spend some daylight sunshiny time outside, we ventured northeast one neighborhood to Adams Morgan. I stopped at Western Market for some sorbet (very few vendors had showed up) and continued north on 18th Street. Rudi wandered over to the bike shop and I hunkered down at Idle Time Books to see what the owner had added recently to her stock.

I always browse the kiddie lit section of used bookstores first. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but I often find books I’ve meant to read or that I read long ago that ask to come home with me.

At Idle Time, the children’s section is buffered by cookbooks and travel books. I found nothing amongst the kid’s books or the travel lit, but nestled amidst the other cookbooks, I did find a treasure — a Moosewood cookbook.

My experiences with Moosewood vegetarian cookbooks have been limited. I was introduced to them by Rebs and have had some recipes out of them over the years, but I’ve never owned one. And they’re very hard to find used, leading me to believe that once someone owns one, it is too well-used and well-loved to make its way to the used bookstore.

My book is Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant: Ethnic and Regional Recipes from the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant. Aside from the chutzpah it takes to call your own restaurant legendary (however true it might be), the book is filled with exciting recipes I can’t wait to try. From West African Peanut Soup to Sweet Potato Bread to Shepherd’s Pie, it all sounds great — and edible for those who try not to include a lot of meat in their diet. What a treat!

The weekend was fun, as hoped for, and it was nice to see Mum and Dad. I miss living nearby.

The Mets didn’t manage to win the game on Friday, but I suppose I can’t ask for everything. The game offered up a pitching duel and had I been less sleepy, I probably would have enjoyed the art of it more. As it was, I had a hard time keeping my eyes open during the middle three innings or so.

The concert last night was terrific. The weather was lovely — a bit cool, but clear, with a yellow moon that rose late in the show through the trees. Peter, Paul, and Mary are definitely getting older and they started off a bit shaky, but they seemed to gain steam as they went along. They sang some songs that i wasn’t familiar with (although I think Mum sang along with them all) and they sang others that I could warble along with. Peter and Paul were definitely being protective of Mary, who is recovering from bone marrow cancer and seemed physically fragile (although she did move a chair around stage). Over the course of the show, her voice grew stronger and the trio ended as loud and harmonic as they must have been 45 years ago. The concert was political (as you would expect with PPM), but the overall feeling was one of optimism — that there was nothing that was too awful to fix if only we’d start now — and the crowd appreciated it. Especially me.

This afternoon I went for a bike ride. Rudi had re-inflated my tires to their proper and intended pressure, so I was utterly miserable as I felt every bump and rock I rode over. (In Rudi’s defense, my tires held less than half the pressure they were supposed to and probably would have popped when I rode over one of those many rocks in the trail. I would have been very grumpy if I’d had to walk the bike home 8 miles.) The highlight of the ride was spying an osprey eating a fish in a tree. The other cyclist who noticed it identified it for me and told me that osprey are rarely seen that close to a populated area. It was a huge bird and I’m glad that I got to see it.

This week holds a lot of activity. In addition to crunch time at work, I have lots of things planned for the evenings. Wednesday night we have another ball game (this time against the Braves). Thursday night we have been invited to Pat and Heidi’s for dinner so we can meet the twins. Friday we’re contemplating a WNBA game, since the Mystics take on the Connecticut Sun in their first post-season game of the year. Rudi is lobbying to fit Restaurant Week in there tomorrow night, but I’m not convinced that would be a good idea. I do have to fit some sleep in there someplace!

My folks are in town and a fun weekend has been planned.

Tonight, we’re heading to RFK to watch our beloved (and National League-leading) Mets play the Nationals. No, I don’t feel guilty about rooting against the hometown team. I grew up with the Mets, and while I like the Nats, they can’t begin to fill the space in my heart that belongs to the team of my childhood. (When the Mets aren’t playing the Nationals, I am more than happy to root for the Nats to do well.)

Tomorrow we’ll be heading out to Virginia to Wolf Trap to see Peter, Paul, and Mary perform. Mum and Dad have seen PPM perform recently, but Rudi and I haven’t seen them since before Mary was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. We last saw them perform shortly after we moved to D.C. It was the eve of the war in Iraq, and they sang from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial awash in candlelight. It was a magical, moving performance and I don’t expect this weekend’s concert to compare. But I do expect that it will be a lot of fun — and the weather looks likely to cooperate with our lawn seats, so that makes me even happier.

I’m not sure what else we’ll be up to (although Rudi and I, at least, will fit in a trip to the farmers’ market on Sunday morning), but it’s bound to be a good time.

What a fun project:Knit A River.

Sponsored by a London yarn shop, the goal of the project is to raise awareness with WaterAid about the lack of clean water for 1.1 billion people around the world. They are gathering 6″x6″ knit squares of blue that some blessed souls at the store will sew together to create a yarn river.

They’ll be accepting squares of any pattern or fiber into January. A nice way to use up any extra blue yarn from Christmas projects…

Finished squares can be sent to: I Knit, Knit A River, 7 Courthope House, Hartington Road, London, SW8 2HS.

If you are not a knitter, but would still like to help, please consider making a donation to WaterAid.