Three Beautiful Things 07-13-2025: Preparing Food for Family Dinner, Christy's River Tale, Sweet Memories from 2014-17

1. Today was a very busy day for Carol and Paul -- church, Paul preaching, a church meeting, a matinee performance at the Sixth Street Melodrama and Theater, and family dinner. 

Aware of all of this, Christy, tonight's dinner host, asked me to prepare two offerings for dinner and asked Carol and Paul to bring wine. 

Simple enough.  

Christy assigned me to bring an appetizer and a rice dish and told me she was making a citrus chicken dish and hoped what I brought would go well with the chicken. 

I had quite a bit of celery on hand, so I took out a bowl and mixed together whipped cream cheese, sour cream, bacon pieces, shredded cheddar cheese, green onion, and Everything but the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend, filled each celery stalk with this mixture, and then sprinkled more Everything blend on top of them. 

For my rice dish, I dreamed up a dish rather than using a recipe, for the most part. 

I used a recipe to make creamed spinach.

To meet Christy's request, I didn't technically make a rice dish, but, to me, couscous can act like rice even though it's a unique kind of pasta. 

So, I made a white sauce, wilted a bag of spinach, combined the sauce and the spinach and then I cooked u all the couscous I had on hand. 

I layered the creamed spinach and the couscous and I was very happy with how it turned out and I think it was a good compliment to Christy's chicken dish. 

2. Christy reported on the river float several of her classmates took on Friday on the CdA River and shared the good news that one of the floaters made a mistake and found himself separated from the rest of the group. 

After a period of anxiety, things worked out and he rejoined the Classs of 73ers. 

Christy didn't float (I wouldn't have either! I'll never float again!), but she and others who stayed on dry land joined with the floaters for a fun potluck in the afternoon. 

3. As we talked more over dinner, the subject of Baltimore came up and suddenly a rush of stirring memories swamped my mind. Some of them involved Baltimore, but, overall, I was reliving those great three years of living in Maryland, exploring Washington, DC,  New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Virginia, and I thought and talked a bit about some things I didn't do, feeling some regret, but knowing there was no way I'd be able to do everything I could have done. 

So I focused more on the fun and energizing things I did do, mostly within myself. Those thoughts included things as simple as going to senior water aerobics, walking to the Greenbelt library, and having many fun meals with Molly, Hiram, and family. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-12-2025: Life with Gibbs, *Lonesome Dove* and Self-Examination, Tofu is Back

1.  I attribute Gibbs' readiness to bark at people walking by, delivery people coming to our porch,  Copper on the other side of the pet gate, neighborhood dogs on the other sides of our back yard, and sometimes just at a breeze bending grass not to a character flaw, but to a virtue. He's earnest. In his own Maltese-Shih Tzu way, he's acting as a service dog, barking warnings. 

I do my best to as soon as I can to discourage Gibbs from barking too long in the back yard.

Recently, he's been remarkably cooperative with my efforts. 

I never yell at Gibbs and if I stand on the porch and, in a conversational voice, call his name, lately he's been really good about coming to me.

It helps that I'm also offering him Swiss cheese. 

I've been on a Swiss cheese jag for a few weeks.

Gibbs has joined me. 

Lately, he'd rather eat a few small pieces of Swiss cheese in the kitchen than bark his brains out in the back yard. 

2. One thing I'm experiencing while reading Lonesome Dove relates to Socrates' dictum that "the unexamined life is not worth living." 

This novel is moving me to self-examination in an unexpected way, through the observations and thoughts of Lorena Wood, who, for much of the Part I of this book, has been the prostitute at the Dry Bean Saloon.

Lorena is very perceptive, especially when it comes to the character weaknesses of men in general, but of one man in particular, Jake Spoon. 

Her observations have little to do with sex, but much more to do with immaturity, dependence, broken promises, flattery, manipulation through deception, and other similar qualities that Jake Spoon manifests, but so do other men in this story. 

Lorena has moved me to examine similar qualities in myself, especially as I reflect on my past and what I've done as I've aged to at least try to mature, be more independent, keep my word, eschew manipulation, and, generally be a more balanced and consistently kinder and more reliable person. 

When I started reading this book, I wasn't expecting to be putting it down as often as I do to have quiet periods of self-examination, but that's one of the very welcome effects Lonesome Dove is having on me. 

3. For the first time in months, tonight the stir fry I fixed in the wok included tofu. I've been enjoying tofu for about forty years now and I really don't know why I'd gone so long without having purchased and cooked it before tonight -- especially because it's really good for me and my kidney health. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-11-2025: Morning Walk, Return to the Lounge, The Soul of a Poet

1. After a day off on Thursday, I was was up walking this morning around six o'clock and enjoyed being in deep shade and cool air as I went up to the high school and back home via Jacobs Gulch Road. My hope at this point is to walk at least a mile on my walking days and my Fitbit told me at the end of the day that I walked just over a mile and half today. I'm happy with that. 

2. Have I written about why I try to avoid being in places where people smoke cigarettes? And why it is that I wear a mask if I go to a casino with smoking areas?

The concern is that if a smoker happens to be carrying something contagious, exhaling cigarette smoke broadcasts the contagion out widely. 

This afternoon, Ed called me and wondered if I'd like to go up to the Lounge with him for a beer. 

(For me, "for a beer" means drinking a non-alcoholic one so as not to compromise my anti-rejection medications.)

I did and I had a great time yakkin' with Ed, Cas, Fitz, and Brett F. 

I was a little bit anxious because about four or five people were smoking, but I decided to take my chances, hoping none of them were sick -- or, if they were, that I have enough horsepower in my immune system to fight it off.

I hope I'll be all right physically, because it was uplifting for my spirits to be with the guys I yakked with today and to be back in the Lounge again.

3.  So far, Lonesome Dove features one black character/cowboy. His name is Deets. 

I loved a passage featuring Deets that I read today. He and another character/cowboy, Dish, are guarding a pen full of horses. It's an all night job. After a while, Dish leaves his post, leaves Deets, having grown so restless with sexual desire that he has to go to the Dry Bean, the local saloon, hoping to satisfy himself with his favorite prostitute, Lorena. How that works out is another story altogether. 

So Deets is alone with the horses.

And the moon. 

As Deets admires the moon, Larry McMurtry gives us a listen to Deets' inner voice. We've learned earlier that Deets doesn't read or write, but in this passage of the novel, within himself, Deets expresses himself poetically and romantically as he muses upon his lifelong love of the moon, its mystical qualities, its eternal state of inconstancy and flux. 

If we were, as we read this novel, to experience Deets only in terms of his external appearance and by the words he speaks out loud, we'd hardly know that his is the soul of a poet. 

Along with being a superb story teller, it's this kind of deep and often surprising exploration of his characters that is helping me see what makes McMurtry such a highly respected novelist. 

I didn't expect to be moved by a tiny part of this huge novel dealing with one cowboy's horniness and another cowboy's willingness to guard horses alone through the night under the light of the moon. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-10-2025: Stable Labs, My Pill Schedule, One Day On -- One Off For Now

1. Nurse Jenn messaged me today and reported that this week's labs looked stable and that Dr. Murad would like to continue to increase the levels of Tacrolimus in my blood. So he raised my dosage one half of a mg. 

2. After my exchange with Nurse Jenn, I realized my pill box was empty and so I filled it for the next week and made the change she instructed me to make. 

I realized, as I filled my box, that I'm the only person, say, in our family, who knows what medications I'm taking and the dosage. 

I'm going to figure out a way to create a list of the various medicines and over counter pills and the dosage I take each day that I can carry with me -- in my wallet, I guess.

But today I decided that Christy and Carol should have this list and should know the numbers to call if I have problems or something happens and I can't call the transplant clinic myself.

With Debbie staying in New York indefinitely, I realized I would need my sisters' help.

So, this evening, I typed out a chart showing what pills I take in the morning, at noon, and in the evening and sent both Christy and Carol a copy with an email outlining some other information. 

That eased my mind. 

3. I actually hope this changes before long, but right now I'm on a one day on, one day off morning walking schedule. After my jaunt on Wednesday at the Medimont Trailhead and after accumulating some more steps at the casino and Trader Joe's, I woke up today with rubbery legs and I rested them. I'm hoping that by next week I'll feel fit enough to walk about a mile or so daily. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 07-09-2025: Walking Near Cave Lake, Breakfast and a Little Luck, Eating Like It's 1982-3

1. I spent a couple of hours or so until about 7:30 this morning tidying up the kitchen, taking care of Gibbs and Copper, and getting ready to head out the door. 

I'd read in a review from a biking business that the Medimont Trailhead on the Trail of the CdAs featured a stretch of shady trail as well as great views of Cave Lake. 

Because of my general intolerance of direct sunshine and heat, I perk right up whenever I read about shady trails.

To beat the heat, I left the house early-ish (my household jobs took longer than I planned) and when I arrived at the trailhead, it was, indeed, cool and shady and so, limited by the after effects of the slump I was in, I walked about 3000 or so steps out on the trail and back to the car again. Today I walked in an easterly direction and next time I go down, I'll try westerly.

2. Carol and Paul asked me to pick up a couple of boxes of theater programs at the Fed Ex office in CdA today, so to get there I decided to once again drive to St. Maries, go through Heyburn State Park to Plummer, and head north on Hiway 95. 

I hadn't eaten anything yet, so I stopped at the CdA Resort and Casino and refreshed myself with breakfast at the Red Tail Bar and Grill. 

After I ate, I played just three machines, won a little money which I will add to my Pendleton fund, and returned to the Camry and blasted north to CdA where I picked up Carol and Paul's theater order and stopped in to buy produce and rice and some tuna at Trader Joe's.

3. God only knows why what I'm about to write has stuck with me for over forty years, but here goes.

Back at Whitworth, I remember Bill Davie talking about what he fixed himself for meals as a student living in an apartment and how much he enjoyed making a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and folding in a can of tuna.

This evening, I didn't have any boxes of mac and cheese in the house, but I had some twisty pasta, shredded cheddar cheese, shredded parmesan cheese, butter, and Frank's hot sauce. 

So, I boiled the pasta, poured the cheeses over it, added in a chunk of butter and as it melted, I folded in a can of tuna. To give this inspired-by-1982-3-Bill Davie dish a kick, I splashed hot sauce over the top. 

If I'd had a can of black beans on hand, I would have added some beans to this dish, but I'm happy to say that, as it was, this little creation of mine brought back fun memories of apartment living in N. Spokane (Bill and I lived across N. Colfax Rd from each other) and, moreover,

it worked! 

  

Three Beautiful Things 07-08-2025: "You're Just Chill", My Reward, Couscous Stir Fry

1. For some reason, one that I can't explain, but that is a huge relief, having needles inserted into my skin and veins doesn't bother me at all.

I couldn't begin to say how many times I've had blood drawn in the last ten years. Since 2015, every month I was active on the transplant list, I had blood drawn at least once a month and, since the transplant, I've never gone more than two weeks before it was time for another blood draw. 

Right now, I'm on a weekly schedule. 

I bring this up because twice in the last three weeks, the person poking me had trouble getting the vein they chose to cooperate. 

The first time was when I got my first steroid infusion.

The second time was today. 

Today the guy at Kootenai made two unsuccessful stabs, one in each arm, and then he did the right thing.

He found the woman who drew my blood a week ago. She remembered exactly where she'd poked me last week, repeated that poke, and PRESTO! my blood flowed generously out into the vials. 

I've had this same experience in Eugene, Springfield, Greenbelt, Kellogg, Spokane, and now Coeur d' Alene. 

Each time the first (or second or third) attempt didn't work, I was unruffled, patient, trusting, and calm -- and, as I believed would happen, each time things worked out fine.

The woman who succeeded today apologized for my trouble when she was done. 

I responded, "It's no problem."

I liked it when she then said, "You're just chill, aren't you?"

"I guess so."

2. I had one more deposit to provide for the lab.

I succeeded. 

Ah! 

Then I purchased my modest reward.

I strolled just outside Lab Services to Big Blue Coffee. 

I hadn't eaten for nearly thirteen hours and I didn't drink any black coffee before I hit the road this morning. 

So I was primed to snack on a chocolate croissant and sip a 16 oz latte.

They made me very happy.

3. Back home, inspired by today's successful phlebotomist, I chilled. 

My most ambitious accomplishments were reading some more Lonesome Dove and fixing another terrific stir fry in the wok, this time combining shrimp, broccoli, onion, yellow pepper, green beans, and couscous. 

I filled a bowl and topped my creation with a combination of Hoison sauce and Soy sauce. 

It worked. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-07-2025: Revisiting a Daily Childhood Walk, Breaking Out of a Reading Slump, The Wok Rocks

1.  After the biopsy on my kidney and then during subsequent two days of infusions of steroids and a few days after that of increased Prednisone dosage, my sleeping patterns got out of whack and I experienced a temporary loss of energy -- a slump. Fortunately, this slump was physical. I wasn't experiencing depression, thank goodness. 

Recently, I've felt myself getting back in whack again. 

Along with having energy and motivation return, I also have felt a most welcome urge to get my body moving again. 

We are in the grip of longer days, more sunshine, and warmer weather and when I go out to walk, I need to be not in the sun and out of the heat. 

So, this morning, shortly after 5:30 a.m., I walked the route on Riverside Ave that I used to stroll to get from home to what used to be Sunnyside Elementary School and then returned home on Cameron Ave. 

For most of the 40 minutes I was out, the sun hadn't come out and the air was cool.

It was a very satisfying stroll.

2. That slump I was in also repressed my desire to read.

Today, I returned to Lonesome Dave and as some of the characters rounded up a herd of horses in Mexico in the dark of night and moved them north back to Lonesome Dove near the bottom of Texas, I read passages describing opposite qualities co-exisiting in one particular character and read another passage describing the chaos when a herd of horses heading into Mexico come into conflict with the herd leaving Mexico. 

Both passages struck me as Shakespearean. 

The deeper I move into this novel, the more I am experiencing Larry McMurtry's genius and depth.

3. I cooked both breakfast and dinner in the wok today. For breakfast, I heated up the oil, cooked up sliced mushrooms and a handful of fresh spinach leaves. I also heated up a lump of left over jasmine rice. I turned down the heat and folded two broken eggs into the rice, mushrooms, and spinach and, as the eggs got solid, I put a slice of Swiss cheese over the mixture and, once it melted, I took it out of the wok and enjoyed my meal.

For dinner, I thawed a couple of chicken tenders, chopped them up, and then combined the chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and celery in the wok and once they were nearly done I added left over jasmine rice from last night. I put this mixture in a bowl, splashed soy sauce over it, and began to think that I could see myself doing most of my cooking day to day in this wok -- and wondering why I haven't! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-06-2025: I Stayed Home, Rest and Refreshment, Satisfying Meal Out of the Wok

1. I gave serious thought to taking a drive this afternoon, but then I decided I would rather not be a part of the busy holiday weekend traffic -- why should I add my vehicle to the high volume of activity on the roads and to the congestion on I-90 when I didn't really have any where I needed to be.

So I stayed home. 

2. It turned out that staying home was a solid move. Our family activities on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were all good, happy occasions. At the same time, well, they left me in need of rest and refreshment!

3. I added to my refreshment by cooking up a very satisfying dinner in the wok: shrimp, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow pepper, and celery served with jasmine rice. I was in the mood for soy sauce and a few splashes enhanced this bowl of simple and very delicious food.  

Three Beautiful Things 07-05-2025: Bucky's Dedication (Baptism), Lunching on Leftovers, Quiet and Sleepy Saturday

1. With a threat of rain hanging over the morning, Paul decided that rather than dedicate (that is, baptize) Buchanan in the Roberts' back yard, that Paul, Carol, Cosette, Taylor, Saphire, Christy, Zoe, Buchanan, and I would meet at the Mountain View church and that Paul would conduct the rite indoors and in the  space so familiar to our family, the space where Taylor and Cosette were married. 

That continuity worked. 

Zoe was the morning's camera operator. 

Paul handed us each a passage from the Bible to read, all tied together by the theme of raising a child in the embrace of God. 

Paul gave a short talk and he pressed water to Bucky's forehead and connected his mom, dad, and sister together with Bucky by pressing water on their foreheads as well. 

2. This was our third day in a row of family celebration: Carol's birthday, Independence Day, and now Bucky's dedication.

We had a generous spread of food left over from Thursday and Friday and we enjoyed lunching on it at Carol and Paul's house after the service. 

3. I returned home, settled into a quiet day of acrostic puzzles and I completed the Sunday NY Times puzzle (it was available at 3 this afternoon) and grabbed a few quick naps here and there. 

Copper and Gibbs joined me as they, too, had quiet days and grabbed a few naps themselves. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 07-04-2025: Holiday Racket, Family Barbecue, Memories of October 2010

1. I never really know from one kaboom, pop, kabang, whistle, crack holiday to the next if the current one will be the one in which Gibbs or Copper or both of them cross over from oblivious and unbothered by all the noise into a zone of high anxiety. I spent hours on a bed behind a closed door with the Corgis, holding and petting them while they shook nervously at the sound of firecrackers, fireworks, and God only knows what other sources of booms, crashes, and thrumming. 

I always wonder if the next holiday of din will be the one that finally pushes our pets over the edge. 

The crossover didn't happen tonight.

Gibbs only barked when every once in a while a person walked in front of the house. 

Otherwise, he just peered out the east living room window and occasionally glanced over at me. I might be projecting, but I think his face was asking me, "What is all this senseless noise?"

Copper chilled. 

He didn't respond once to the racket. 

2. Paul barbecued brats and corn on the cob. Christy brought potato salad. I brought beans. The table also featured chips and a fruit salad. We had leftover pie and cake from Carol's birthday and Zoe made a delicious batch of homemade ice cream. 

We enjoyed our holiday meal on the Roberts' patio.

3. During our conversations tonight, I found myself suddenly trying to piece together the very difficult time Debbie and I experienced, especially in 2009, but that carried over on into 2010 and beyond. We got through it and so did family members who had rough times, but pinpointing when specific things happened was, at the dinner table for me, impossible.  

One thing that came up: Carol said something about WHEN Olivia and Molly visited Kellogg not long after Olivia had started walking. 

What? 

I was stumped. 

I had no memory whatsoever of Molly and Olivia coming to Kellogg. Carol said it was in the fall -- so it would have had to have been in the fall of 2010.

So, later, I consulted my trusty blog.

Ah! 

Right!

October, 2010. 

Debbie, Molly, and Olivia made a weekend trip to Kellogg. 

I stayed behind in Eugene. 

Then I read in my blog that on their way home, Debbie, Molly, and Olivia picked up Charly, who had been living for I don't remember how long in New York, at the Portland Airport. 

So, not only was this the weekend when Olivia got to meet Mom and the rest of the family in Kellogg, it was the weekend we were reunited with good old Charly. 

I'm really glad I had a written record of all that!