Sunday happiness.

I woke up to pale sunlight and a breakfast of cold sliced steak and toast made from the olive bread bought yesterday. I made tea, English Breakfast from Mariage Fréres, and sat back to eat my breakfast and watch the Food Network. Then I remembered that it was the last day of an exhibition at the Asian Art Museum, at the north end of Capitol Hill. It was a beautiful day; I could walk. But first, some ice cream at Molly Moon, which opened to, apparently, a line that wrapped around the block yesterday. This could be dangerous, having a Molly Moon a mere four or five blocks from my apartment. I headed down, and arrived too early. The door was open, but I was greeted with a frown and a "we don't open until noon." Whoops. I come back ten minutes later, and at last am admitted into the airy, wood-lined space.

I taste the baby beet sorbet, cool and sweet, and order a scoop of honey lavender, in a waffle cone. It makes me think of A., who thinks lavender-flavored things taste like soap, and it is delicious. I head past the playfield, towards the museum, over a mile away. The neighborhood is a spring wonderland of beautiful old houses and blooming gardens; I walk beneath cascades of cherry blossoms that line the streets, eating my ice cream, and in what seems like no time at all I find myself at Volunteer Park, which contains the Seattle Asian Art Museum, crammed with people anxious to catch the exhibition before it closes tonight. The paintings, gouache on paper, are intricate and delicate, curiously flat and extraordinarily detailed.

Heading back, I have things to pick up at Trader Joe's, frozen appetizers and baking chocolate. The cashier raises an eyebrow at my two gigantic bars (500 grams each) of chocolate and asks what the heck am I planning to do with them? Cupcakes, I tell him. I stagger home after my three-mile loop, and collapse in the living room. I have dinner to think about, though, and drag myself up to clean up the kitchen a bit so I actually have space to debone chicken thighs and slice up a head or two of broccoli. But first some brown rice goes in the cooker to steam before I get to all that. Very quickly, dinner is ready, and I sit down with my full plate and A Room With a View, which has the distinction of being both my favorite book and my favorite movie. The perfect end to a beautiful day.