Three Beautiful Things 02-21-2025: I Face Facts, Cagey Grocery Pick Up, I'll Attend Harold Lannom's Memorial

1. A pretty decent rule of thumb to follow: face the facts.

What fact did I finally face?

If I don't go to the Fitness Center in the morning, chances are good I won't go in the afternoon.

I've avoided mornings since my surgery as a way to avoid being with larger numbers of people, but today I I decided to see how spread out people working out were in the Fitness Center at around 10:15 or so. 

It was pretty good.

In addition, during my last post-transplant check up, PA-C Natasha Barauskas clarified for me that while if the gym were crowded, masking up would be a good idea, what I really needed to be sure to do was sanitize the machines I work out on, keep my hands clean, and avoid physical contact with others. 

So, today, with the number of fellow exercisers fairly small, I diligently sanitized machines, kept my hands clean, and didn't shake anyone's hand, slap any one on the back, or hug anyone. 

I exercised for an hour, huffing and puffing my way toward my goal today of burning 300 calories. 

It felt great.

2. Before going to the gym, I was sly and had the Walmart order I made for groceries be ready between 9-10, guaranteeing I'd get out of the house before working out. I picked them up, brought them home and put them away, yakked a bit with Debbie, and zoomed back to Smelterville to the Fitness Center. 

3. Back home, I decided, after some internal debate,  that I would travel to Oregon next week and, on Saturday, attend the memorial service for Harold Lannom, a great friend and fellow parishioner at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Harold lived to be 100. He lived in Corvallis the last years of his life and his memorial will be at The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis on Saturday, March 1st at 2:00. 

I'll spend the time I'm not in Corvallis in Eugene and start back to Kellogg on Tuesday morning. 

It will be a whirlwind visit --I hope I can get around and see as many friends as possible.  

Three Beautiful Things 02-20-2025: *Hush* Continues, Baked Curried Chicken Thighs, Jazz to Cook By

1. I returned to Leah Sottile's podcast, Rush, which tells the story of Jesse Johnson, a Salem, OR man who was wrongly convicted of murder, sentenced to death, and lived on death row for over twenty years. In 2021, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned his conviction and two (long) years later prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case and the State released Jesse Johnson from incarceration. 

I listened to Episode 4 today, "Patti". The episode title refers to Patricia Hubbard. She lived across the street from the murder victim, Harriet Thompson, and was smoking a cigarette on her porch when she heard a commotion across the street, heard screams, and saw a white man she'd seen come and go from the victim's residence in the past leap off the porch and speed away. 

Police investigators ignored her story. Jesse Johnson's defense attorneys never looked into it. Attorneys for the Innocence Project deposed Patti Hubbard in 2013, she told her story, and the fact that the court never heard this testimony helped lead to Jesse Johnson's eventual acquittal and release from prison. 

Leah Sottile is not done with this story after four episodes.

I have five more episodes of Hush let to listen to as Leah Sottile further investigates the investigation of Harriet Thompson's murder and why the police didn't explore possibilities other than their conclusion that Jesse Johnson was the perpetrator.

Here's a link to this podcast:  https://www.opb.org/show/hush/

2. As Debbie slipped out the door to go to work this morning, she asked me to do something with chicken thighs for dinner. 

Gladly.

I thawed a pack of three thighs.

I wanted spicy chicken for dinner.

After some thought, I decided I'd make red curry sauce with diced carrots, onions, and potatoes.

I did that. 

I also cooked a double batch of brown rice.

I decided to roast some potatoes and carrots, seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning. 

Once the rice was cooked and after I sprayed Pam on the bottom of a baking pan, I created a bed of rice, placed the chicken thighs on the rice, and poured curry sauce over the chicken and the rice. 

I thought the chicken would take about 50 minutes or so to bake, so I set the timer for 25 minutes and when the timer chimed, I put the pan of carrots and potatoes to roast in the oven beside the chicken.

At the fifty minute mark, I determined the carrots and potatoes needed another five minutes and that that would work for the chicken as well.

Then it was all ready to eat. 

I didn't use all the sauce I cooked when I poured it over the chicken, so we had curry sauce to use as we wanted -- we could pour more on the chicken and rice, cover the roasted vegetables with it, or eat boiled rice that was available covered with curry sauce. 

Over the course of our dinner, I think we exercised all those options. 

It was a most satisfying meal and I had a lot of fun cooking it. 

3. Listening to the Spotify playlist, "Post Bop Essentials", featuring jazz artists like McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, and others made my time in the kitchen even more enjoyable and relaxing. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-19-2025: Cashing In, Saving Up, Peaceful Evening

1. I make three wagers a year at the Spokane Tribal Casino's Caesar's Sportsbook: the Super Bowl, the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and the World Series. 

This year Ed, Buff, Darren, and I all wagered on the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. Our bets were successful and today we hustled over to Airway Heights and cashed in our winning tickets. 

2. I had a plan. I would protect myself with a mask and vinyl gloves and play machines for a while with my winnings and come home with half of what I won having bet on the Eagles. That ungambled money would go in the envelope of cash I am saving for our April trip to Pendelton. 

Well, as it turned out, I returned home and put all but five dollars of my Eagles' win into my Pendleton envelope. I had some decently good luck spinning reels and now have a modestly more bountiful envelope of savings than I thought I would when I left the house this morning. 

3. Debbie and I quietly retreated into the evening. We yakked for a while about life at Pinehurst Elementary School where there's rarely a dull moment and then left each other to our solitude. I started the Thursday NYTimes Crossword and Debbie relaxed with some videos on the World Wide Web.  Ah! Another peaceful evening for us. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-18-2025: Membrane Falls Off, Coma Nap, Control Knobs

1. A membrane protecting the site of my Jan 14 tooth extraction was due to be removed on March 11th. It fell off last night.  I trotted down to the dentist's office today to have the site looked at and to determine if the membrane's early exit was a problem. As of now, the site looks good. I need to continue not eating with that side of my mouth and continue to rinse with salt water every time I eat or drink anything except water. I hope the site will continue to thrive, but if complications arise, I have an open invitation to trot back to the dentist's office for help and possible intervention. 

2. Even brief visits to the dentist wipe me out. I returned home from today's five minute visit and fell into a coma nap. Seemed kind of weird, but felt so right. When returning home from the dentist, 🎵if sleepin' on it is wrong, I don't wanna be right🎵. 

3. It took some help from the World Wide Web, but I think I figured out the right knobs to order to replace our old ones on our kitchen stove and oven. I'll find out Friday when the order arrives!  

Three Beautiful Things 02-17-2025: Heavier Snow, *Oldmanhood*, Leah Sottile Will Be in Spokane

1. The snow shoveling this morning took a little more out of me than usual -- but I was fine. The snow was a bit deeper and heavier -- no powder today. I finished and thought I might have to go for a second round, but before long the snow let up and the temperature went up a bit and the sidewalks were bare and wet. Awesome. 

2. Bill Davie sent Debbie and me his most recent book of poetry, Oldmanhood: a journal in poetry and it arrived at least a week, maybe two weeks ago. Time flies. Debbie and I were in the midst of rearranging our living room and I was trying to get the Vizio room straightened out and his book temporarily got buried in a pile of magazines, mailings, and other books. 

I found Oldmanhood over the weekend, thumped my forehead, and briefly scolded myself for losing track of it. 

Tonight I started reading it and immediately realized that I will not be able to read straight through this book. 

I read the introduction and five poems and stopped to let Bill's prose and poetry sink in, let the many memories his words were firing in my mind play themselves out, and contemplate, along with Bill, what I'm experiencing in oldmanhood. 

I'll go back soon and reread what I've read and push forward another five poems or so and let Bill's eloquence, insight, and the stew of word music, pain, and joy in these poems take hold. 

3. I already knew Leah Sottile was giving her first reading and discussion of her new book, Blazing Eye Sees All, at Powell's in Portland on March 27th. 

I had been dreaming about, almost planning on, going. 

But, I thought, if Leah Sottile is going to do a reading/discussion in Spokane, I won't drive to Portland. 

Today, in her Substack newsletter, Leah Sottile announced that she will be presenting in Spokane on Wednesday, April 2 at the Steam Plant Rooftop. 

Great news! 

Three Beautiful Things 02-16-2025: Deep Sleep, Turning Tedium Into Meditation, Confidential Conversation

1. Snow falling fast, oh fast, promises me nights of deep sleep thanks to the exercise I get shoveling. I've enjoyed restful, peaceful nights all through this storm.

2.  I remember back over thirty years ago when Rita Hennessy and I were team teaching, I read a book, possibly by Thich Nhat Hanh, that described turning tedious tasks into meditative time. I did that today. I meditatively returned to my files project, thinning papers I don't need out of folders while relaxing, breathing evenly, and meditating. (It might have resulted in a tangible reward. My evening blood pressure was 119/73. Golden.)

3. Even though I sometimes wish I had record of conversations Debbie and I have about our lives, growing old, our kids, the world we live in, and why we haven't made popcorn for such a long time, ultimately, I prefer to keep them confidential. We spontaneously fell into one of those conversations this evening, puzzled over where our lives might be headed, decided we needed to get popcorn in the house, and then both dug into the bean salad Debbie made earlier in the day. After a bit,  I returned to working word puzzles, enjoying Copper's company, and feeling happy and relieved that my blood pressure has been so stable and so good. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-15-2025: Nostalgia: Iain Matthews and Anne Sexton and More, *South Your Mouth*, Top Notch Family Dinner

1. It had been a long time since I last read poetry by Anne Sexton.

It had been a long time since I listened to Iain Matthews' album from about thirty-five years ago, Pure and Crooked. 

It was today that I realized that on Pure and Crooked, Iain Matthews covers Peter Gabriel's song "Mercy Street" (from his So album) and today I learned that Anne Sexton's poem "45 Mercy Street" inspired Peter Gabriel's composing of "Mercy Street".

Having all of this come together for me today took me back to days late in the 1980s and early in the 1990s when acoustic folk and singer/songwriting music dominated my music listening life and Jane, my wife at the time, and I went to live concerts all the time. 

I don't remember quite how we (or Jane) learned about the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, but we subscribed and when we did, Dirty Linen rewarded us with a complimentary copy of Iain Matthews' cd Pure and Crooked. 

It became one of my favorite albums and Dirty Linen, which had been a Richard Thompson/Fairport Convention fanzine (if I remember correctly), opened the way for. me to become a nearly obsessive listener of Richard Thompson, Richard and Linda Thompson, and the many musicians who performed at one time or another with Fairport Convention or were influenced by Fairport's ground breaking folk rock sound. 

Warm memories of that scintillating time of listening to so much acoustic music and so many singer/songwriters came flooding back to me today, thanks to a playlist of random songs playing on Spotify which happened to include Peter Gabriel performing "Mercy Street" and sent me looking more deeply into the song and its connection to Anne Sexton. I listened again to Pure and Crooked. I read about Anne Sexton's troubled life, which meant much more to me at age 71 than it did when I first learned about her at age 19. I read more of her poems. 

It was a most welcome and intense couple of hours this afternoon. 

2. When we lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, I kicked my cooking efforts up a few notches and via Pinterest, I discovered Mandy Rivers who publishes recipes under the title South Your Mouth.

Christy planned and hosted today's family dinner and assigned Debbie and me the task of bringing a rice or grain dish.

As it turned out, Mandy Rivers had published a recipe for exactly the dish I wanted to make, a dish I thought would go really well with the pork loin and cherry sauce I knew Christy was serving. 

I wanted to make an almond rice dish and found Mandy Rivers' recipe for Classic Rice Almandine.

All I had to do was sauté onions and basmati rice in butter, add garlic and then white wine to the rice, cook this up and then spoon the rice into a saucepan of heated chicken broth. Once the rice was tender, I added the lightly salted roasted almonds I had slivered. I let the cooked rice sit in the covered saucepan until just before we went to Christy's and then I transferred it into a serving bowl and topped the dish with whole almonds and chopped cilantro. 

3. Our dinner, enjoyed by Christy, Carol, Paul, Molly, and me, was among our finest tonight. Christy's cherry sauce for the pork loin was delicate, tart, not at all overly sweet, and deliciously complimented the pork loin she prepared. In addition, Paul made a great salad mixing greens, sliced apples, blue cheese, and dried cherries. We had started the evening with a cherry (goat?) cheese that we could spread onto pieces of bread. I didn't quite master what the cocktail was, but I enjoyed my sparkling water while the others enjoyed their drinks. 

Carol baked a Cherry Chip cake for dessert. If it wasn't a Valentine's Day cake, it was sure in the spirit of Valentine's Day and was so good that it even touched my Grinchy heart! 

We had a lot to talk about tonight. 

The best thing, in my opinion, to come out of our discussion was our pledge to one another that as we age, and knowing that with aging comes increased uncertainty about a wide range of things, that we are committed to one another's welfare, whatever that comes to mean. We also expressed confidence that the younger members of our family also share this commitment and assured each other that we remain committed to the well-being of the younger generation. At this moment, we are happy and relieved that our family's youth are getting along very well in their various situations. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-14-2025: Six Minutes of Valentine's Day, Puzzle Day, Chicken and Rice in the Wok

1. Have I mentioned that on our first date back in August of 1997, somehow, at a Eugene Emeralds baseball game, the subject of Valentine's Day came up and Debbie and I learned neither of us enjoyed it? We might have said we hated it. 

WOW! 

When we got married on Christmas Eve that year, one of the first things I thought about as we strode out of the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel in CdA was that as long as Debbie and I were together I could no longer blow it on Valentine's Day, never again suffer the consequences of never being moved or inspired by the Valentine's Day spirit. 

Debbie always put out chocolate or other nice things for the kids on Valentine's Day, but she and I never did anything for each other: no cards, no hearts, no candy, no stuffed animals, no balloons, no flowers, ah!, nothing. 

And so it was today. Debbie was home all day. Our day was normal.

But, Christy did temporarily knock down our Valentine's Day wall! 

Christy loves Valentine's Day and she gave us a bag with chocolates, cherry frosted sugar cookies, and a jar of tomato sauce she recently made. 

We ate the cookies.

We ate almost all the chocolate. 

We'll put the sauce to good use. 

So, I guess you could say that we acknowledged Valentine's Day for about six minutes! 😏 

2. I haven't started reading a new book just yet, but today I did return to word puzzles. In the evening, I completed the Saturday NYTimes puzzle and went online and solved three or four acrostics. My puzzle solving routine each day has grown: no I work on Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, Connections, and Strands in the morning and since the NYTimes makes its daily crossword available the evening before, I've been working those before going to bed. 

3. Debbie asked me to make chicken tenders and rice for dinner and since last night I forgot to add broccoli and green beans to our stir fry, I added those tonight. 

It was another great night cooking with the wok, made even more enjoyable by having a selection of Trader Joe's sauces to choose from -- next time, though, I think I'll mix up homemade sauce. We love what I whip up so we don't always have to rely on Trader Joe's. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-13-2025: Sibling Outing to DOMA Coffee Lab, Next Stop: DOMA Cafe, Back to the Wok at Home

1.  Thanks to Paul driving Carol and me to the Shoshone Medical Center clinic in Smelterville, we met Christy, piled into her Sube, and our February sibling outing began. 

Christy was in charge of our February outing and she planned a DOMA day -- that is, a visit, first to the DOMA Coffee Lab and then lunch at the DOMA Cafe.

DOMA is a coffee business founded by Kellogg High School graduate Terry Patano and his wife, Rebecca. Recently, he sold the business, but the aesthetics, ethics, and devotion to quality coffee drinks and, now, food that he established lives on. 

I found the setting and atmosphere at the DOMA Coffee Lab relaxing and especially enjoyed that DOMA features house music played on vinyl records. 

I honestly don't remember the last time I went to a coffee shop that served its drinks in ceramic cups rather than paper ones. I enjoyed the traditional Macchiato I ordered Monday at the Sacred Heart hospital Thomas Hammer coffee bar, but when I made the same order today, I loved having my single shot of espresso topped with a thin layer of foam come to me in a tiny ceramic handleless cup with a tiny spoon to stir it up if I wanted to (I didn't).

2. The DOMA Cafe turned out to be another handsome spot, located very near the Centennial Trail and close to the Spokane River. At this spot, I ordered a cappuccino and, once again, I felt a jolt of pleasure when it came to the counter in a ceramic, handleless cup. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the turkey sandwich I ordered, especially the bread. It was crusty white bread. Its texture was perfect and it deliciously complimented the ingredients in the sandwich itself which I cannot recite as I write this. 

We sat at a counter looking out windows on to the river. 

A studious looking young man sat a little ways down from us. 

He had two books: a novel by Cormac McCarthy (I didn't see the title) and a book I didn't know existed entitled The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing. 

I thought, yeah, if I lived in or closer to CdA, I'd come to either of the DOMA locations to read and enjoy a coffee drink or two while enjoying my book. Chances would be good that I could do so anonymously since I don't know many people in CdA. 

No one approached this guy. He was laser focused on something on his laptop, had two great looking books, and seemed to be enjoying his coffee.

I liked that. 

3. Back in Kellogg, after a fairly quick shopping trip with Christy and Carol to Trader Joe's, I went to work almost immediately on preparing dinner. 

I took a block of tofu out of the fridge, diced it, and wrapped the tofu in paper towels to draw water out of it. 

A bit later, I baked the tofu for a while and, at the same time, sliced or chopped white onion, zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, cabbage, and cilantro. I also prepared sugar peas and got out fresh spinach. 

I cooked a pot of basmati rice and got out the wok and stir fried the tofu and the vegetables and before long our stir fried dinner was ready to eat and I put out three different sauces to try out on our food. 

I didn't put any of the Peanut Satay or Green Dragon Hot Sauce on mine, but tried out the General Tsao Stir Fry Sauce and liked it a lot. 

So did Debbie. 

What a great coffee and food day! Much of it with my sisters!  It was great on the road and was great back at home! 

Three Beautiful Things 02-12-2025: (A Blogging Milestone Yesterday), Fun with Cardboard, Fun with Espresso Coffee Drinks, Fun with Pinwheel Salmon

I just noticed that my 3BTs for Feb 11th was my 6700th post on kelloggbloggin. 

I'm about four months into my 19th year of keeping this blog. 

1. It never gets old. The feeling never changes. I feel significant relief and a peculiar happiness when I clear the cardboard boxes out of our garage. Today, I determined it was time to load up the Sube and take the cardboard to the transfer station and throw boxes into the cardboard.recycling bin. 

Good lord. 

That felt really good. 

2. Nurse Jenn responded to my note telling her that as a way to cut back on calcium that I would be cutting  back on drinking so many lattes. Nurse Jenn is a jolly and positive minded advocate for transplant patients returning to living a normal life as soon as possible. She told me not to quit doing something I enjoyed so much.  I appreciated her note a lot. At the same time, I had to face the fact that I was drinking as many as three, four, sometimes five 16 oz lattes a day. 

So I'll obey Nurse Jenn. I won't stop drinking my homemade lattes. I will, however,  moderate my consumption. 

In fact, I've started fixing myself strong cups of Americano coffee with a small amount of half and half. This coffee drink is more bitter and coming to enjoy these more bitter Americano drinks mug by mug reminds me of how I came to enjoy, as I drank them pint by pint, the bitter qualities of India Pale Ale and other hoppier ales back in my glorious craft beer heyday. 

3. Yes, I buy some practical products at Trader Joe's like plain sparkling water and Thai Wheat Noodles and chicken tenders and cheese. 

At the same time, I have a blast being guided by one simple principle: if it looks fun, buy it. 

Well, Monday, for the first time, I finally noticed that Trader Joe's sells these Mediterranean Salmon Pinwheels. It features a long strip of salmon with feta cheese and spinach rolled in the fish. It looks like a pink and green and white cinnamon roll. 

They come two in a pack and I bought a pack.

Tonight I baked the pinwheels and served them with two sides: Trader Joe's Greek chickpeas with parsley and cumin (a can of these looked fun to me) and a warmed up packet of brown rice and lentils. 

Unreal. 

Sometimes buying fun looking food turns out to be delicious and nutritious along with being fun. 

What a fun day:  fun with cardboard recycling, fun with making espresso coffee drinks at home, and fun with Mediterranean salmon pinwheels.

Sometimes being easy to please is, indeed, everything I crack it up to be!