Three Beautiful Things 05-01-2025: Spokane Emerges, I Get Organized, A Box for Copper

1. It was fun and engrossing today to read about Spokane's remarkable growth around the turn of the century and to learn how impressed others outside the immediate area were with Spokane as a city, both for its industry and its beauty.

2. My paper life sorely needed organizing and after weeks and weeks of procrastination, I did it today.

3. Copper is very happy I took care of this paper organizing project. I emptied a shallow box that he fits into perfectly, put it on the bed, and he has contentedly been lying in that box about 95% of the time since I put it out for him. 

This suddenly available box is making him very very happy. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-30-2025: The Machine and the River/Falls, Spokane's Industrial Expo of 1890, Debbie Transforms the Casserole BONUS: Stu Writes a Batman Day Limerick

1. The angle that J. William T. Youngs takes in writing the history of Spokane, with special emphasis on Expo '74, is the crucial importance of the falls. You can see this in the book's title: The Fair and the Falls: Spokane's Expo '74, Transforming an American Environment. 

The first non-native people who settled in the area we now call Spokane found the falls mesmerizing.

By about the 1870's though, being mesmerized by the fall's natural beauty and power gave way to the idea that the river and the falls could be harnessed, could be a source of power for operating sawmills, flour mills, and, later, for generating electricity. 

The beauty and grandeur of the falls gave way to developing capital and I'm fairly sure this will be a thread running throughout this book, especially because Expo '74's theme was environmental and in order to create a space for such an exposition, the river and the falls had to be transformed from being a railroad yard, essentially, to being a park. 

2. It's probably needless to say that as Spokane, then known as Spokane Falls, began to grow as a center for commerce, preserving the original and natural beauty of the falls and river was hardly a priority and the river suffered what, at least from my point of view, were all kinds of indignities: sewage, sawmill waste, animal remains, and other sources of pollution were dumped into it and to accommodate the commercial needs for power, the course of the river and its original landscape were altered, not for aesthetic reasons, but to serve commercial interests. 

In other words, Spokane was a microcosm of the entire USA as this tension between development and the worth of the natural world's original beauty developed, whether in forests, waterways, or other natural sites. 

And now I've learned from this book that in October of 1890, just over a year after the great fire of 1889 reduced downtown Spokane to ashes and rubble, Spokane (Falls) hosted what amounted to a modest world's fair, the Northwestern Industrial Exposition. 

Builders worked feverishly to erect a huge exposition hall at what is now the spot downtown where W. Sprague comes to an end and Riverside takes over and Cedar intersects, just east of Maple and Walnut Streets. 

In contrast to Expo '74, this exposition did not have an environmental theme at all, but was a showcase of technological advances and of Spokane's mighty potential as a commercial center. 

It also featured cultural demonstrations and entertainments. 

It attracted thousands of people to this recovering and ambitious new city.

I find this chapter of Spokane's history especially fascinating having recently read The Devil in the White City. 

3. Debbie repurposed the great enchilada casserole we had on Sunday into what I'd call a bracing sauce, adding more ground beef and other ingredients. She also made a pot of brown rice and the whole transformation was awesome, especially when I topped my bowl of transformed casserole over brown rice with generous splashes of Franks's Hot Sauce. 

****

I'm publishing this blog post on May 1st. 

Until Stu sent me this limerick, I had no idea that May 1st was Batman Day. 

Stu commemorated this big day with the following verse: 

The Penguin and Joker are Wild. 

The Riddler’s strange riddles beguiled. 

But a “Biff” and a “Sock”, 

Made their heads start to rock. 

When the world of this hero they riled.

Three Beautiful Things 04-29-2025: Spokane History, Friends Comment About Aging, Popcorn Comeback?

1. Today I returned to reading J. William T. Youngs' book, The Fair and the Falls, his epic history of Spokane, beginning with how it became established as a settlement and grew into a city. The physical shape of the recently published paperback edition of this book, the one I recently purchased, is wide and it takes me longer than usual to read across a page. I'm reading the book slowly anyway because I want to take in the details of this story. They are largely unfamiliar to me. I don't mind reading slowly. It's a good thing because the book's content and its physical shape are slowing me down. It's a very readable history, by the way. Youngs' writing style is not slowing me down. 

Oh! I'm also being slowed down by my frequent consultation of maps, especially online, to make sure it's clear to me where in the Spokane area certain events Youngs described took place. 

Slow. Informative. Unnerving. Fascinating. 

It might take me at least a month to work my way through this superb book. 

2. On the one hand, I know that for many of us aging means dealing more frequently with physical maladies, increased visits to the clinic and blood draw laboratories, dental problems, and, among other things, more different medicines in our pill boxes. 

On the other hand, aging also mellows us. A couple of my friends took the time to reflect on this in their Facebook comments on my post yesterday and I deeply appreciate their insights and the knowledge that many of us are thinking about the many dimensions of aging, not just the slow downs, aches, pains, and embarrassments. 

3. If you've read this blog with any regularity over, say, the last ten years, you know that when Debbie and I lived in Maryland we enjoyed both popcorn dinners and popcorn evenings and enjoyed having David and Olivia, our grandchildren, over to spend the night and have popcorn parties. 

For no good reason, we fell off the popcorn train when we moved to Kellogg.

It wasn't a decision. 

It just slipped away.

Debbie is staying home ill this week and tonight she hankered for popcorn. 

I sprang into action, fixed us each a small bowl, and who knows? Maybe popcorn will make a comeback in our life together again! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-28-2025: Anxiety Grip Disappears, Mike Says, "Keep it as a gift", Medicinal Red Curry

1. I think it pretty much ended when I retired or maybe earlier when all of a sudden, in 2009, I inexplicably stopped plunging into black holes of overwhelming depression. What ended? Gripping anxiety pain in the pit of my stomach. When I used to be gripped by this anxiety, I usually knew what the source of it was -- money, work, a troublesome student, something I felt deeply insecure about, and other causes. 

It's been so long since anxiety pain gripped me that I thought I was finished with it. 

But, as ESPN's Lee Corso loves to say: "Not so fast, my friend."

Early Tuesday morning, that anxiety pain returned. 

I suppressed the coughing and gagging that used to accompany this sensation and I was baffled by why I felt it again. It was, as far as I could tell, not connected to anything. There must be a phrase in psychology for this experience that includes the word "displaced". Displace malaise? Displaced anxiety? 

I don't know. 

The good news is that I went back to sleep and when I woke up for good Tuesday morning that gripping anxiety sensation in the pit of my stomach was gone and hasn't returned. 

All I was left with were memories of confused, testy, insecure, and frightened times (break ups, academic failures, all kinds of screw ups, money worries, losses, fears of messing up at work) in my life when, sometimes, I lived with that sensation for days -- even weeks -- on end. 

But not today. And aside from early this morning, not for a few years. 

2. When Ed, Mike, Terry, Jake, and I were at the Wildhorse Resort, Mike handed me a slim book,  written and illustrated ostensibly for children entitled, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse written by Charlie Mackesy. 

Today I read the book and enjoyed its whimsy and its focus on the beauty of kindness, love, acceptance, and care for others. 

The book also transported me back to when I first taught a course called "The Literature of Comedy" (or something like that) and in those early days of teaching it, in the late 1990s, I focused on how the genre of comedy often focused on the idea of homecoming, of having lost or departed from one's home and then returned again; the idea was of home as a spiritual center, a place of shelter, clarity, acceptance, fulfillment, and peace. 

The first time I taught the course, on the first day of class we watched The Wizard of Oz. 

"There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

I texted Mike a thank you for the book and told him I'd be returning it. 

In the book's spirit of kindness and generosity, Mike texted me back and said that no, I should keep the book as a gift and do what he'd done: share it with others. 

That's my plan. 

3. Debbie left school as soon as she could today plagued by a sore throat, cough, and congestion. She arranged for a sub and will stay home Tuesday.

I texted Debbie before she left school and wondered if I could get her or fix her anything. 

She requested spicy red curry, emphasizing that she was hungry for onion. 

So I went to work, after a quick shopping trip to Yoke's, and combined red curry paste, coconut milk, soy sauce, brown sugar, and fish sauce into a curry sauce and added dice potatoes to it. I brought the sauce to a boil, lowered the heat, and cooked the potatoes. 

In the wok, I cooked frozen chicken tenders until they thawed and almost cooked through, removed them, and stir fried vegetables: white onion, red pepper, frozen cauliflower, broccoli, and green beans, and mushrooms. I cut up the nearly cooked through tenders, returned the pieces to a space I cleared in the wok, and cooked them through. 

I pushed everything up to the sides of the wok and heated up the lime rice left over from dinner last night and then pushed the rice off the wok's bottom and heated up a single package of Thai wheat noodles. 

I poured the red curry sauce into a larger pot and added all the vegetables and the chicken to the sauce and made sure the noodles and the rice were ready to have curry sauce poured over them. 

This dinner didn't cure Debbie's illness, but it did draw out of her my favorite word to hear after I've cooked her a meal.

"Perfect."

Three Beautiful Things 04-27-2025: Family Dinner, Debbie's Travel Plans, A Link to the Story of Ranjani Srinivasan

1. Debbie and I hosted family dinner. With Christy, Carol, and Paul's approval, we served dinner at three o'clock. 

Over the winter, Debbie had made pans of enchilada casserole and we served the last one today. Carol and Paul brought tortilla chips and sour cream and salsa, Christy brought sparkling water, I made a pot of lime rice, and Debbie rounded out our meal with a vegetable plate, a cabbage salad, and frozen lime juice bars for dessert. 

2. We talked about a lot of subjects, including Debbie's news that she'll be going to New York and Virginia for three weeks, leaving mid-June, to see Adrienne's family and then Molly's. She'll also look after our grandchildren in both places while Josh and Adrienne are at work and when Molly and Hiram go away for a couple of nights to celebrate Hiram's birthday. 

I will happily tend to things here in Kellogg and keep Copper and Gibbs company. Ha! I guess they'll keep me company, too! 

3. I mentioned in my blog post yesterday that I fell asleep before the segment of the March 28th episode of This American Life entitled, "The Museum of Now" ended. I finished listening to the segment after dinner. In it, a thirty-seven year old PhD student at Columbia from India tells the story of having her visa suddenly revoked and of repeated visits ICE made to her apartment and what she did in response to these sudden and bewildering developments over a five day period, including being dropped as a student, losing her teaching job, and losing her university housing. 

Her name is Ranjani Srinivasan. 

If you'd like to hear her story, as she and her roommate tell it to This American Life, here's a link:  https://www.thisamericanlife.org/857/museum-of-now/exhibit-two-10

If you put her name in a search engine, you can read what other outlets have reported. 

I'm posting this information because one reader of my blog asked for it. 

I came across this story accidentally when it woke me up while sleeping Saturday night. I had yearned to    listen to This American Life again after not having tuned in for years. I went to Spotify, clicked play, and episodes just started playing. I fell asleep, woke up periodically to listen to bits and pieces of the podcast as it moved from one episode to another. But, I stayed awake for much of the episode about Ranjan Srinivasan, but fell asleep before the story ended. Her story unsettled and intrigued me and I finished listening to it today. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-26-2025: My Wandering Mind, My Return to Folk Rock Music, My Return to *This American Life*

 1. I find that setting alarms on my phone, making lists and attaching them to my pill box, and writing occasional notes to myself helps my wandering mind remember my medications as well as Copper's and other things -- like I have a load of laundry sitting in the drier.  

As I age day to day, I try to stay mindful of the fact that my mind sometimes just wanders off -- obscure memories return, things that happened over forty years ago that embarrass me, sometimes haunt me.  I lose track of what's happening right now. It's ghostly. 

It's not really a problem when this wandering happens at home -- I do, after all, set alarms and write stuff down, but I'd like to reign in this mental wandering when I'm driving, especially when I drive alone. I'd like to learn to catch my mind drifting off as it starts to do so, not when I'm several minutes into having thoughts, remembrances, and dreams. The mental activity is good, in and of itself, but not when I'm driving or when the drifting distracts me from things that need taken care of. 

2. Jeff's Deadish show dedicated to British folk rock music will be on the KEPW-FM archive until either Wednesday or Thursday. His shows stay archived for two weeks. Today, while I worked puzzles, I went back to this April 17th show and jumped ahead to hour number two so I could listen again to Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and Pentangle -- and maybe other ensembles from 55-60 years ago. I especially enjoy the vocals of Sandy Denny and Maddie Prior and the way these innovative groups worked electric guitar and other rock influences into their explorations of traditional British folk music tunes, whether traditional songs they rework or original songs they composed themselves in traditional styles. 

3. I'm hungry for mental stimulation. I honestly wish I could do multiple of these stimulating things simultaneously. I know this is foolish, but it's my blog and this is where I can write foolishness! 

I wish I could read several books at the same time. I wish I could read, listen to music, and watch movies at the same time. 

Tonight, as I retired for the night, one of my hankerings I enjoy came back to me and I knew I wouldn't be reading, watching movies, or listening to music, let alone taking in a sporting event, because I wanted to listen to voices, radio voices or podcast voices. What should I tune into? At first I thought I'd listen to Radiolab, but then a flash of memory pushed me a different direction -- it had been a long time since I tuned in to This American Life. I don't even remember the episode I put on as I fell asleep, but every so often I woke up and listened to bits and pieces of whatever was playing. At one point, I caught a segment, but didn't finish it before falling asleep again, about a grad student from India being harassed by U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 

This American Life presented this segment as five days of diary entries and I stayed awake to hear about an email the student received, her refusal to open her apartment door when agents came pounding on it, her hiding out  in a friend's apartment, her frantic attempts to work with the University and the government to figure out what was going on, and her shock when suddenly Columbia University unenrolled her, canceled her housing, and terminated her grad student teaching position. 

I've got to return to this episode and this segment to see how it concluded. 

But as it played tonight, I simply couldn't stay awake. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-25-2025: Driving and Spinning and Clipping in Montana, Oh Man! Not the Side Mirror Again!, The Wonders of Jeff and *Deadish*

1. It's had been a week of dental work, concern about Copper, a dermatology exam, and getting the sprinkler system running and I decided I'd like some time to drive by myself to Montana. 

So, once I finished my morning routine of medication for me and Copper, scooping the litter pan, putting cream on my feet, eating some breakfast, blogging, and doing five puzzles (!), I piled myself into the Camry and headed east. 

As I came down Lookout Pass, coming out of a work zone, I misjudged the distance between the Camry and one of those looper tube traffic cones (picture below) as I came out of the work site and I clipped it. I didn't realize at first that I clipped it with the sideview mirror. I thought I'd done so with the bumper. 

In Saltese, I stopped in at the Montana Bar and Grill and played my favorite of all gaming machines, Wolf Moon (not available in Pendleton, Spokane, or Worley, to the best of my knowledge), got crushed, shrugged, and enjoyed a burger, fries, and a bottle of Bud Zero. 

2. I hit the road again and stopped in at Winki's Diner for a small ice cream cone, sat at a table outside, and noticed that the sideview mirror was collapsed, the cover was gone, and part of its workings was dangling below the mirror. 

I'd viewed this scene before -- one day I clipped the entry into our garage and damaged the mirror in similar fashion. 

I decided against continuing my Montana travels and I headed home. I tested the mirror -- I could adjust if from inside the car. The blinker light was working, but that blinking light was under the mirror, dangling. 

I wanted to return to Kellogg without the dangling part of the mirror falling off and succeeded. 

I stopped in at the local body shop to have it looked at, but it was closed. 

I'll try again Monday. 

I'm really glad the mirror and its operation are intact, but I want to get that dangling piece back in place and I want to replace the back cover that is now littering the roadside on the east side of Lookout Pass. 

3.  On this trip, until I left Winki's, I was able to use my phone and the car's bluetooth to listen to Jeff's April 17th Deadish program. 

I don't know why the connection that worked from Kellogg to Saltese and Saltese to St. Regis quit working as I headed west, but I didn't sweat it. I would finish listening to the program at home in Kellogg. 

Jeff replayed a program he had aired back in September of 2022 and for two and half hours he featured heavenly and fascinating music from the British Folk Rock Days, music recorded between about 1965 and 1970. 

He played, among others, Davey Graham, Trees, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, and more. 

This combining of rock and British traditional folk and other sources of folk music strikes a very sweet spot in me and I loved it. 

As a bonus, in his After Show, Jeff played a beautiful album I'd never heard before: Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day. 

I then did some easy digging into the World Wide Web to learn more about Vashti Bunyan and maybe figure out why I didn't know her name or her music. 

Hers is a great story of wandering, disappointment, abandonment, discovery, appreciation, and revival. 

After I fixed Debbie and me some baked sesame seed, lime/chili, garlic, salt, and pepper chicken drumsticks to enjoy with Debbie's superb bean salad, I opened up Saturday's NYTimes crossword online and listened to Jeff's April 24th Deadish program while working the puzzle. 

The Grateful Dead played on April 24th in both 1971 and 1972 in Durham, NC and Dusseldorf, West Germany. In the first hour, Jeff played a couple of Peter Rowan songs performed by the Jerry Garcia Band and then played selections from the Durham show. In the following hour and a half, Jeff played Dusseldorf selections, including a wondrous "Dark Star" and when I heard the unmistakable sound of Keith Godchaux's piano playing I suddenly realized that at this time Pigpen and Keith and Donna Godchaux were all in the band at the same time. 

How did I not know that? 

It's because of such gaps in my knowledge of the band, and for other reasons, that while I've been listening to the Grateful Dead since I went to my first show on 12/31/1988 and attended about six more shows after that, I cannot accept the moniker of Deadhead. 

I love the music, but in too many ways when it comes to the Grateful Dead, I'm just out of it. 

And that's fine. I yam who I yam. 

The Deadheads I know are not, when it comes to history, names of songs, song writers, knowledge about specific shows, and other things, I repeat, they are not out of it! 

I am.

But I keep trying to be with it! 🌹🌹🧸🧸🧸💀💀💀🤣🤣🤣🤣

********

As promised, here's the picture. 

Until today, I didn't know these things were called looper tube traffic cones!

Three Beautiful Things 04-24-2025: Sprinkler System Running, Laundry Day, Salad Dinner

 1. Keith swung by and now our sprinkling system is up and running and he made the very small repair that it needed. 

2. I welcomed my first day this week without any appointments, whether with the dermatologist or the dentist or the veterinarian. So I did laundry much of the day! 

3. I very much enjoyed the green salad I fixed myself for dinner and the hard boiled egg I sliced and put on top. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-23-2025: Copper Visits the Vet, I Return to the Dentist, We Try Venison

1. First thing this morning, I loaded Copper into his crate and headed over to the vet for blood work a month after he'd started taking thyroid medicine. Good news: no troubling effects of the medicine. Copper's liver and kidney numbers are good. One mystery result, but not in the blood. Commonly, a cat that has been dropping weight will start gaining it back once on this medication. Copper, however, lost a pound. Dr. Cook cut his medication dosage in half. I'll go back in another month or month and a half. We'll do blood work again, but only to screen his thyroid numbers and we'll see if he's regained weight. 

I'll make a record of Copper's food intake. That might help.

To me, the really good news is that Copper is content, happy, loved, and doing the usual things Copper does. 

And he's getting old. 

I've seen more signs of his aging over the last several months and I accept that he could be moving into the beginnings of his last stage of life. One never really knows, but it's undeniable that Copper is getting up there in years and I will do my best to make his days comfortable and easy. 

2. I trudged back to the dentist's office today for a cleaning.

It went beautifully and I had a good conversation with Kathy and with the doc about caring for the area where the doc did work on Tuesday. 

I understand what to do, plan to be diligent, and will check back in next week, on Tuesday, for a post-procedure check up.

3. For many years now, Debbie and I have enjoyed dinners of ground beef and vegetables cooked in the electric frying pan. Monday, Debbie bought some ground venison, so tonight we had one of these potpourris with the venison and we were both very happy with the result. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-22-2025: Dental Work Continues, Gibbs Fails to Intimidate a Visiting Cat, Salmon and Asparagus

1. Luckily, my afternoon was free. This morning I went to the dentist. The doctor executed the next stage in the process of replacing my extracted tooth with an implant. It didn't take long, and thanks to anesthesia, wasn't painful, but I needed rest, sleep, and pain relief in the afternoon and evening. I experienced dull minor pain in the area he worked on and, as the dentist promised me (!), I had a headache all day and through the night. 

(As I write this, I feel about 95% recovered and pain free 👏👏👏.)  

2. What I would call a tortoiseshell cat, a cat I've never seen before, plopped itself and relaxed on a tree round that is taller than the fence in the northwest corner of our yard and Gibbs went nuts barking at the cat. Gibbs' barking bored the cat. The cat continued to relax and when I went out to check on things gave me a look that seemed to say, "Can you get this hyper mutt to shut up so I can continue to sun myself and relax in peace?"

Eventually, I persuaded Gibbs to leave the cat alone and, with the help of a shredded cheese lure, he came back into the house. 

About thirty minutes later, I checked on the cat -- no longer there -- the cat had moved on and I have no idea if the cat lives with someone nearby or is cat without a home. 

I'll keep a casual lookout for the cat and see if I can figure anything out. 

The cat is welcome here any time, as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm not sure Gibbs shares my sentiment! 

3. I rallied myself late in the afternoon and fixed Debbie and me a fun dinner of roasted asparagus spears and baked salmon accompanied by Jasmine rice. 

For how simple it was to make, this dinner delivered a lot of pleasure.