Three Beautiful Things 02-18-2026: Early Morning Snow -- Should We Stay or Should We Go?, Easy Drive to Airway Heights, Spinning Reels and Eating Lunch

1. Big day today. 

Ed, Jake, and I all laid modest wagers on the Seahawks and our plan was to go to the Spokane Tribe Casino today and pick up our winnings. 

Then play. 

When I woke up around 7:00 this morning, nearly the first thing I did was check if anyone had posted on the Facebook group called 4th of July Pass Info/Discussion. 

At this hour today, people who'd been on the pass strongly recommended other drivers to stay home.

They reported jack-knifed semis and blocked lanes. One guy described it as a sh*t show. I texted Ed and then he called me to say Jake wanted to keep our plans, 

Ed agreed. 

He thought things would improve soon. 

I trust their experience and knowledge and had no problem agreeing that, yes, we would go. 

2. Before talking with Ed, I checked the sidewalks in front Christy's house and mine. 

I decided I wanted to shovel them, so I told Ed that I'd arrive at his place once I shoveled our sidewalks and I knew I also needed to take care of Gibbs and Copper and remember to take my morning pills.

I got everything done, arrived at Ed's shortly before 9:00, and we piled into his pickup and drove to Rose Lake Junction where Jake awaited us at the gas station on down Highway 3. 

Indeed, by now, the freeway was free of snow. 

Any semis that had been jack-knifed were no longer in sight. 

We had an easy drive to the casino.

3. We arrived and immediately cashed in our winning tickets. 

I beelined straight to the coffee stand for a big latte and a thick slice of banana bread with nuts. 

I then hopscotched around the casino floor, masked and wearing vinyl gloves, and enjoyed playing games that were new to me and revisiting old favorites. I enjoyed the suspense, the ups and downs of winning and losing I almost always experience. 

Around 1:00 the three of us met in the sports bar area and, like the last time we visited this place, I enjoyed a smashburger with Swiss cheese and a salad's worth of tomato, lettuce, and onion piled on it. I also enjoyed my fries. 

We messed around for about a half an hour after lunch. 

I had fun childhood memories wash over me as I played the Casper the Friendly Ghost machine and even managed to hit a wheel spinning bonus. 

Fun time. 

Easy drive back to Rose Lake and on to the Silver Valley.

None of us had big winnings to brag about, but no one came out of the casino wearing a barrel either. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-17-2026: Torn: On the One Hand and On the Other, Comforting Shrimp Stir Fry

1. I was torn between two things today: I wanted to drive to Whitworth University and hear Kelly Packer talk about her paintings of Butte, see the paintings, and read the poems accompanying the paintings, written by her husband, Adrian Kien. Christy, Carol, and I will go see this exhibit on Feb 24 and I thought hearing Kelly Packer's 5:30 talk would be illuminating and something I could share with my sisters. 

2. On the other hand, I was tired. 

I'd be going to Spokane with Ed and Jake Wednesday morning. 

I didn't know if I really wanted to drive from Spokane to Kellogg again in the dark. 

I stayed home. 

I rested. I started a kitchen cleaning job. I enjoyed Gibbs on my lap. I created a list of places Christy, Carol, and I might go for breakfast on Feb 24 and sent out that list. Copper and I listened to the beginning of a lecture on Beethoven. 

I went to bed early, disappointed not to hear Kelly Packer, but glad not only for the rest, but for the fact that our February Sibling Outing next week will include a visit to this exhibit. 

3. I also comforted myself with a delicious shrimp stir fry that included onion, celery, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, chicken gyoza potstickers, and basmati rice. 

Such warming and delicious food took some of the edge off of my disappointment. 

I'm sure glad the occasional Thursday symphony lectures I enjoy take place at noon. 

I know if Kelly Packer's talk could have been earlier in the day, my energy would have been better and I would have gone for sure. 

It's all good. 

I could, but I simply don't push myself to do everything I want to. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-16-2026: Worship in London, Lab Results Look Promising, Anniversary Family Dinner

1. It filled me with joy to learn that Adrienne and Jack worshiped at Westminster Abbey on Sunday. 

2. Unless I'm forgetting something, I think all of my lab results from Friday are in and I'll be heading to my appointment with Dr. Bieber on Thursday optimistic that he'll tell me that the results show both stability and some improvement. 

3. We celebrated Taylor and Cosette's second wedding anniversary this evening. It was a special family dinner. Christy organized it around sirloin steaks that Paul cooked and in addition to the steaks, we started with shrimp cocktail and, for the dinner itself, I contributed a green salad, Carol fixed a very good potato dish, and, for dessert, Christy brought a strawberry swirl cheesecake. 

Bucky seemed grateful that his mom and dad got married and joined in the celebration by demonstrating that he can walk and by eating the different food items placed on his highchair tray. 

It was a fun evening full of conversation about a wide array of topics, both serious and jolly. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-15-2026: Christy's Flavor Packed Granola, Leonard Oakland Played Marches, Enhancing Saturday's Soup

1.  The granola Christy made at home and put in my Valentine's Day gift bag was loaded with flavor. I especially enjoyed the raisins, dried fruit, and walnuts. 

2. I listened to Leonard Oakland's classical music program on Spokane Public Radio at ten o'clock and the rousing conclusion of his show featuring "I Love a Parade", "Col. Bogey March", and "Strike Up the Band" came as a rousing surprise, not what I thought I'd hear after two hours of Beethoven, Baroque music, and other, to me, more expected classical pieces. 

3. I thought I'd see what it would be like to add Trader Joe's Chicken Gyoza Potstickers to the Chicken Thai Noodle soup I made yesterday and they were an awesome addition. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-14-2026: Gibbs Joins the Spokane String Quartet, About This Blog, Chicken Vegetable Noodle Soup

 1. I met the appointment I had at noon today to listen to Spokane Public Radio's program "Concert of the Week". This show features recordings of local and regional live concerts. 

Today, the featured concert was from Sunday, February 8th when the Spokane String Quartet played at the Fox Theater. 

The quartet opened with Haydn's String Quartet No. 66 in G Major and then played Bartok's String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor. The spirit and emotional content of these two pieces stood in contrast to each other, with the Bartok quartet being a much more solemn and melancholy piece.

The concert closed with Robert Schumann's String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor. 

Soon after this composition got underway, the quartet became a quintet: the fifth member was Gibbs, adding his protective barking to the more melodious sounds of the two violins, viola, and cello. 

Gibbs was protecting me from Christy who was delivering a bag of Valentine's Day sweets to me and next door neighbor Jane and, I think, Jane and Christy conversed for a while and Gibbs had to protect the house from the potential danger of spoken human conversation. 

Gibbs seemed under rehearsed. 

He also seemed to want to pull Schumann into the 20th century when composers experimented more and more with dissonance and irregular rhythms and tempos. 

But, the string quartet wasn't in the mood for Gibbs' avant garde contributions and I think that very dirty look from the cellist might have shut Gibbs up. 

2. Fellow Whitworth alum and forever friend Deborah and I texted back and forth today about posterity. She has written two books via Storyworth about her life, values, family, interests, pet peeves, travel, hopes. She had a set bound for each of her grandson's, hoping that at some point in their lives they would be curious what their grandmother thought, valued, and experienced. 

She asked me if I had considered doing something similar with my blog. 

I haven't. 

But her question got me thinking about what this blog has become to me. 

kellogg bloggin' and I will celebrate our 20th anniversary in October. 

I'd say that even though I've never come right out and said so, that this blog has been about what I was doing day to day while struggling with mental health problems until they miraculously vanished in mid-2009; it's been about my day to day life while living with Chronic Kidney Disease and then being listed for a transplant; in 2020 and on into 2021 it became a COVID blog, documenting how I kept my life meaningful and fulfilling while living very cautiously, mostly indoors, especially during the worst of the pandemic; more recently, I've hoped readers would see that I'm documenting how I've been living with a kidney transplant and all that come with it; and, finally, since 2018, when Debbie took a long term sub job in Eugene and then for months long stretches when Debbie has been helping family back east, this has been a blog about living alone for months at a time. I've been determined all this time, even when alone and quarantined (my choice), to make the most (or close to the most!) out each day and write about it. 

I have come ardently to believe that this positive writing, whatever its quality and whether or not it's interesting to others, has contributed mightily to the success I've had living on an even keel and enjoying so many things in my life, especially over the last, oh, eight years. 

By the way, one of the sources of great pleasure and happiness in my life from about 2011 until the transplant in May 2024 was drinking a wide array of craft beers in a most enjoyable variety of places. 

I miss that. 

But, thank goodness, hard as it might be to believe, there's more to life than beer! 🍻🍻🍻

3. After all, there's soup.

Last night, I had fun making a chicken and Thai wheat noodle soup.

I began with bacon. Once it had fried in the Dutch oven, I pushed it up the side of the pot and cooked chopped onion, celery, red pepper, chopped carrot, and a few chicken tenders. Later I added chopped zucchini and sliced mushrooms and when these ingredients had cooked up to my satisfaction, I added a quart of chicken broth, two packages of Thai wheat noodles, and frozen chopped spinach. 

I salted the soup, let it cook very slowly for a half an hour or so and ladled it into a bowl and added a few shakes of liquid amino. 

The vegetables and noodles worked great. The soup's warmth was a great comfort, as was the chicken. 

Christy gave me a bag of peppermint-y cookies, along with granola and a sweet chex mix, and the cookie was a perfect dessert. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-13-2026: Blood Draw and Stable Numbers, Will Vincent Van Gogh Help Me Keep Track of My Checkbook?, Burgers at the Elks

1. Unlike yesterday morning, today I unfolded myself slowly to a sitting position on the edge of the bed at 6:45 a.m. and gave myself a little pep talk, creaked liked the rusted Tin Man to my feet, brushed my teeth, ran a brush through my hopeless hair, and talked myself into getting on the ball and driving to CdA for labs. 

I let Gibbs out, put food in his dish and Copper's, filled a water bottle, gathered up the other things I needed and at just after 7:30 I blasted down Cameron Ave, merged onto I-90, and continued to wake up as I drove over the 4th of July Pass, into Coeur d'Alene, and eased into a parking spot at the lab. 

I'd been fasting for twelve hours and once I was in the waiting room, I could see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: soon after the blood draw and peeing in a cup, I'd be seated at a window, having made my order at the titanic Big Blue Coffee Co., and I'd be eating a heavenly chocolate chip croissant and drinking a velvety 16 oz latte. 

All that happened but the really gratifying payoff was still to come. 

A couple hours or so later, my lab results started parachuting into my phone and I am thrilled to say that from my non-professional, amateur nephrologist point of view, the numbers looked solid and stable. I rode the wave of joy I felt receiving that news on through the rest of the day. 

2. I didn't leave Cd'A right away. I had a few things to do: I fueled the Camry at Costco; I made some delicious purchases at Trader Joe's; I went through the car wash at Squeaky's; I drove home. 

I discovered yesterday that I have either misplaced my checkbook in the house or else it fell into the wastebasket near where I write out checks and is now in a plastic garbage bag deep in landfill somewhere. 

I had no problem determining what checks were unwritten in the book of checks I can't find and called the credit union and put a stop payment on those checks just to be on the safe side. 

Soon after that, a small parcel arrived on the porch. 

It was my new checkbook cover. 

My checks will now be in a cover decorated with Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night. 

My hope is that Van Gogh's bold colors and shapes will make my checkbook stand out in the midst of all the other mundane colors and shapes in the area where I pay bills and make it less likely that I won't be able to find it. 

3. Nancy, Ed, and I met at the Kellogg Elks tonight for burgers. It was a relaxing and fun time. We saw some longtime friends. We had superb conversations. And, the real topper? The burgers were awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed the fries. We strode across the street after dinner to The Lounge and had more fun. I saw Becky for the first time in ages. We had fun yakkin' with Bob. Men flew at high speeds on a tiny sled down a steep, curvy ice course on the television. 

Oh! And, by the way, after I returned home from CdA, Debbie called and we got to spend some time yakkin' and not figuring anything out. It's good we're both used to not having things figured out and can move forward not knowing what we're doing. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-12-2026: No Blood Draw Today, Updates from Debbie and *People* Interviews Our Niece, Tofu is Faithful and Came Through Again Today

 1. It's blood draw time again. I have an appointment with Dr. Bieber a week from today and, ideally, I would have gone to Coeur d'Alene this morning and had it done. 

I need to be finished with these blood draws by no later than about 9:00 a.m. because I can't take my 8:00 meds until the blood draw is completed. 

Haven't I explained this in other blog posts?

Starting in about July of 2025, I began waking up every morning with a mild headache and most mornings I was unsteady on my feet and my mind was foggy. These symptoms always diminished as the day progressed and didn't keep me from doing the things I needed to do: cook, feed Copper and Gibbs, shop, drive to CdA for blood draws and Spokane for appointments and specialty blood draws there, nor did these symptoms stop me from having fun on Winning Wednesdays! 

I did, however, discover at some point, that everything went better if I slept a little longer in the morning than usual.

For quite a while, it was my habit to be up and an 'em around six in the morning, sometimes a little later. 

That wasn't working any longer and it has helped me a lot to sleep until 8 o'clock or so.  

This morning I woke up around 7. It would have been a great time to get up, take care of Gibbs and Copper, and head to CdA.

I knew, however, I needed more sleep and I didn't get up until about 8:30 or so -- too late for labs. 

Therefore, I'll go to CdA tomorrow, no matter what! 

2. My need for more sleep turned out to be fortuitous.

Just as I was sitting on the edge of the bed, petting Copper, and clearing the cobwebs out of my head, Debbie called. 

She updated me on what's going on in her world, which I always appreciate learning, and I let her know that I was dong much better than I had been over the weekend. 

Adrienne and Jack will be away, starting Saturday, so for the following week she'll be taking care of Elloise and the dog and two cats of the house. 

Later in the day, I discovered, just as Debbie texted me about it, that our niece Allison is featured in a People online story. She just gave birth to her second baby and she had posted a video on Tik Tok about her postpartum meal prep -- 72 hours' worth of food. 

Someone at People saw the video. People reached out to her and the article is up. It's right here. 

If you follow this link, keep scrolling down. You'll see the video, a handful of pictures, and the story, about twenty paragraphs long. 

3. I hadn't had the wok out for a while. Today, I took a break from fixing soups and because I had tofu in the fridge, I fixed a vegetarian stir fry.

I tried something a little different in making this stir fry. 

I fried the tofu first and once it was lightly golden, I went to work on the white onion, celery, sugar snap peas, green beans, mushrooms, and yellow pepper. I also cooked a batch of basmati rice. 

Eating this stir fry, it made me very happy to know that my forty-two year relationship with tofu is secure and that tofu always comes through for me, even if I am neglectful and forget for months at time to buy some and bring it home. 

Tofu is faithful. 

Tofu is always in my corner. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-11-2026: Getting Out Again, Lunch and Reels, Dream Pop Group Luna Takes Me Back to LCC

 1. Driving to Spokane yesterday, navigating the night driving just fine, and feeling so much better being out and about than I had felt at home inspired me, on the spur of the moment, early this afternoon, to drive to the Coeur d'Alene Casino and enjoy lunch and spin some reels for an hour or so and drive back home. I felt great the whole time. 

2. I ate a simple and very satisfying lunch: beef stew, garlic bread, and a half a garden salad. I then had a fun time playing a variety of machines (low stakes, as always) and managed to come home with a little more money in my wallet than I left with. I did what I can to protect myself and others against illness. I masked up and wore vinyl gloves while on the casino floor. 

It was all very relaxing and I had an easy drive home. 

3. With some intensity, I've been listening to classical music daily, usually for hours at a time, and I've been listening to a lecture series, doing my best to learn how to listen to and understand this magnificent music. 

Today, I took a day off. 

I returned to a LoFi subgenre sometimes called Dream Pop and listened to one of my favorite albums, Luna's Bewitched. The subjects of several of the songs are low energy slackers. They actually remind me of some of the guys I got to know, especially at LCC, in the classes I taught starting 35+ years ago. Nice guys. Mellow.  Non-committal. Wanting to get along, enjoy music, play hacky sack, toss frisbees, smoke weed, eat shrooms, go to shows, play around a little with ideas in class, but, all in all, pretty much coasting. They were chill. Those with dogs treated them very well. 

Sometimes some of these guys would drop out and then reappear again and, in many cases, something clicked. They'd become hungry for something more than chillin' and slackin' and started to add some seriousness to their lives.  

They taught me a lot, without knowing they did, about being young, male, and a bit at bay -- cagey enough to find ways to get by -- get food, fuel, weed, digs, cds, cassettes, into shows -- and I found myself not wanting to set them straight with proclamations about "when I was your age", but actually you know, I envied them a little bit. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-10-2026: Marshalling Energy, Unexpectedly Superb Conversations, The Concert

 1. Today, for about eight hours, I fervently hoped that I would feel energetic and well enough to drive to Gonzaga University to attend this evening's Gonzaga Symphony. I ate a huge breakfast. I rested. I napped. I did all I could to charge my inward batteries.

I succeeded. 

By about 4:00 or so I felt a surge of confidence that I could make the drive, be awake enough to enjoy the concert, and return home safely. 

My confidence was warranted and I arrived plenty early to the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, purchased a snack, drank a bottle of water, and found the seat I had purchased for this concert. 

2. My good fortune increased when the woman whose seat was next to mine asked me if I was connected to anyone playing in the Gonzaga Symphony.

I replied, "No. I just love music. How about you?"

She replied, "No. I play violin in the Spokane Symphony."

It was about ten or fifteen minutes before the concert began, and we had a superb conversation about the Spokane Symphony's program on Jan 31, books, theater, Shakespeare, music, movies, Slings and Arrows, and other stimulating and fascinating topics until the conductor strode to the podium. 

We visited more at the intermission, making this a most unexpectedly satisfying evening. I thoroughly enjoyed these two conversations completely focused on the arts and nothing else. 

We didn't learn a single thing about each other on a personal level, aside from learning about books we'd read, music we'd listened to, movies we'd seen, and a little bit about our professional lives -- mine as an instructor, hers as a musician. 

So rare. 

3. I loved the concert. 

The orchestra was, at least to me, huge, and most of the musicians were students, joined by some professional musicians to help fill out sections that needed them. 

I enjoyed the youth of this orchestra and enjoyed their verve and spiritedness as they played Mozart, Mussorgsky, and Saint-Saens. All three compositions, The Overture to Don Giovanni, Night on Bald Mountain, and Danse Bachanale, were energetic, fun to listen to (and must have been fun to play), and made the first half of the concert full of vitality and energy. 

The second half of the concert delivered not only profound vitality, but exquisite virtuosity. 

It featured one of the world's very finest violinists, Gil Shaham, as the violin soloist in Brahms' gorgeous Violin Concerto in D Major. 

I'd love to be able to describe Gil Shaham's command of the violin and his enthusiastic playing of Brahms' masterpiece, but I don't have words. 

All I can really say is this: over the week or so preceding this concert, I listened repeatedly to this concerto on Spotify. I wanted to gain some familiarity with it -- I'd never listened to it before -- and those many listenings paid off as I was able to follow the concerto fairly well and anticipate a bit of what lay ahead as the piece progressed. 

I felt especially profound job being in a concert hall, hearing this concerto live. 

I shook inside hearing Brahms' concerto filling the concert hall. The live orchestra in support of Gil Shaham's masterful performance made the whole experience rich, full, and gorgeous and I simply did not want this concerto to end. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-09-2026: I Live With a Mild Common Cold x 3

 Debbie read in my blog that I was living with a low level common cold and asked how I was doing. 

I answered:

1. No coughing. 

2. Infrequent sneezing and nose blowing. Breathing passages almost 100% clear.

3. Low energy. 

So, the most ambitious thing I did today was unload and load the dishwasher about three times, taking care of the dishes I used to prep food for the Super Bowl. 

Otherwise, I fed my cold, took a few naps, listened to music, worked puzzles, and read some articles. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-07-2026: Fatigue, Fixing Food for the Super Bowl, Seattle Wins and So Do I!

 1.I'm tired. I'm going to keep this one short. I've been living with a minor common cold the last couple of days: Some coughing, sneezing off and on, never quite reached sore throat level, but mostly I've been wanting to rest and sleep. 

2.I did my best to marshal enough energy to make a Greek Salad Layered Dip and chicken wings, both buffalo and naked, to take to our Super Bowl family dinner. I struggled in the kitchen with mismeasurements, dropped utensils, and a tired back, but I completed my assignments and Paul, Carol, and Christy all said they enjoyed what I made. I was anxious since I seemed to be sleepwalking while I cooked. 

3. I enjoyed what the others made: flourless crackers, spinach artichoke dip, buffalo chicken dip, vegetable plate, deviled eggs, and whatever else I've forgotten. 

It's been ten years since I've watched a Super Bowl. It, too, was a family gathering. Debbie and I watched Denver defeat Carolina with Molly and Hiram. 

So, even though I've lost interest in football, it was fun being with Christy, Paul, and Carol. I've always enjoyed strong defensive efforts by teams, and today, Seattle certainly scratched that itch. 

I also enjoyed winning the wager I laid down Wednesday and look forward to returning to Spokane Tribe Casino to pick up my $143.50! 

Three Beautiful Things 02-07-2026: Spokane Public Radio Appointment Listening, Preparing to Cook Tomorrow, A Sustaining Soup Tonight

1, On the weekends now, when I can, I have two appointment radio listening times, both on Spokane Public Radio's classical music station. 

On Saturday at noon, the station airs a program called "Concert of the Week" featuring a recorded version of a local classical performance from the previous week. 

Today, the featured concert was the symphony performance I attended a week ago at the Fox Theater.

Listening to it today moved me again. I enjoyed taking all of the music more deeply into myself. 

I also appreciated the power of having heard the concert live, in person. 

The music itself resonated in the Fox Theater powerfully, at times making me feel like I was in a cathedral. That particular experience couldn't, nor would I expect it to, be duplicated in our living room with the music coming over mediocre speakers. 

The other appointment listening for me comes on at 10:00 Sunday morning. It's Leonard Oakland's two  hour program called. "Morning Classical with Leonard Oakland". 

I was a student of Leonard's at Whitworth and during the two years I taught full time at Whitworth (nearly forty-four years ago) he was the chair of the English Dept and an important mentor to me. 

We were also friends. 

So, yes, I thoroughly enjoy Leonard's choices of music and enjoy his poetry moment. 

I also enjoy hearing his voice, experiencing his mind at work again, and having the double pleasure of enjoying him in the moment and being transported to my days in his company  at Whitworth decades ago. 

2.  I lost interest in football about ten years ago or so. I enjoy making an ah what the heck wager on the Super Bowl like I did on Wednesday, but each year I no longer plan on watching the game. 

But, Carol is in charge of Super Bowl Sunday's family dinner and she decided to assign us all Super Bowl snack food to bring and we'll have the game on with the option of watching it or not while we nosh away.  

She assigned me to bring chicken wings and a Greek dip, so I spent some time today making sure I have party wings on hand (I do) and then filling out an order at Walmart to include items I need to make the dip. 

It will be an easy food prep day tomorrow and I look forward to enjoying our food and seeing how I respond to being in the presence of a football game again. It's been quite a while! 

3. When I was checking out our party wing supply in the basement freezer, I looked at quarts of turkey stock/broth Debbie had made and decided I would make a soup with one of the quarts tonight. 

I decided that the broth would be the only meat in the soup and that I'd like the vegetables to be in larger chunks than I usually fix.

So, I thawed the turkey broth. I cooked chopped white onion and celery together and then added sliced mushrooms and before long I added the broth/stock, chopped russet potatoes, and pretty good sized chunks of carrots. 

I salt and peppered the soup, let it cook until the vegetables were tender, ladled myself a bowl, and decided I'd like the soy goodness of Bragg's Liquid Aminos as another seasoning. 

That worked. 

The soup worked. 

It warmed me as I live with a low grade cold. 

I've been eating a lot of soup lately and it's definitely feeding my body and my soul. 

That works, too.