The world became a cuter place for a minute as a family of ducks crossed K Street this afternoon—in the crosswalk.

Breaking, incredibly important Friday afternoon news from the National Zoo: the Zoo’s adorable ferret kit has now been named Rosebud.

Oh, National Zoo, we knew you wouldn’t let us go for long without offering an offering of squee to help us get through these quickly-turning-brisk days.

The results are in, and these little fiery balls of fur are now to be known as Pili — which means “clap of thunder” in Chinese — and Damini — the Nepalese word for “lightning.”

It’s (almost) officially the middle of the week. And while the weather may be lovely outside, you’re probably stuck inside, in some kind of office purgatory. The absolute least we could do is provide you with a little pleasant distraction. Cheetah cubs, to the rescue!

“Do you want to post a video of baby geese growing up?” Yes. Yes, I do.

As you well know, we’re suckers for adorable animal imagery. So choosing AWard Tour‘s shot of a
puppeh on a slide was pretty much a no-brainer.

Why, you ask? Just ’cause, that’s why.

Come on, admit it: this photo just made everything a little bit better, didn’t it?

When perusing the DCist Flickr pool, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the adorableness of these blonde ducklings that philliefan99 caught testing out the waters with their mom. I felt it my duty to share these squee-worthy ducklings with you, dear DCist readers.