Three Beautiful Things 06-08-2026: Coconut and Pineapple and Shrimp Slaw, Copper's Vet Visit, Tonight's Family Dinner

 1. For some unknown reason, I've fallen away from consulting cookbooks to prepare meals. As a possible first step toward getting back to doing some recipe cooking again, I got out America's Test Kitchen's book, The Complete Small Plates Cookbook. 

I was the host of this evening's family dinner and assigned dishes from this book (more on this in #3). 

I assigned myself a recipe entitled, "Shrimp Tostadas with Coconut and Pineapple Slaw". 

The ingredients of this recipe piqued my interest, but I didn't want to serve tostadas. 

My original idea for an alternative was to make shrimp and slaw rice bowls, but once I made the slaw and cooked the shrimp, I didn't see any need to serve them with rice and so I served this tostada topping as a salad. 

All I had to do was combine lime zest, lime juice, and coconut milk and add it, along with pineapple pieces, to a coleslaw mix I bought at the store. I strayed away from the recipe and added feta cheese crumbles to the coleslaw. I then cooked a pan of shrimp in coconut milk and lime juice, let the shrimp cool, added it to the slaw, and, once again, strayed from the recipe by topping the slaw with cilantro. 

The recipe called for jalapeno peppers, but our family is a house divided when it comes to heat in our dishes, so I put out a jar of pickled jalapeno slices for those of us who wanted heat to add to the slaw. 

My creation worked! 

2. Today was Copper's routine wellness exam with Dr. Cook. As I very well knew, Copper is losing weight and his weight loss has accelerated over the last few months. 

He's eating. And he's losing weight. He's down to 11 pounds now and just a couple of years ago he weighted as much as 19 or 20 pounds. 

Otherwise, Copper is doing well -- his heart sounded good, he is able to jump up on my bed, and as Dr. Cook examined his eyes and ears and felt his stomach, no problems jumped out at him. 

I asked Dr. Cook to give me an estimate of how long Copper might have before he passes away. 

Dr. Cook cautiously answered me by saying that if the weight loss continues, he might not last more than 6-10 months but was quick to say that we never really know. 

We are uncertain about Copper's age, but figure he's around seventeen years old, give or take. 

I decided not to have Dr. Cook do deeper investigation into what might be causing the weight loss.

I decided Copper and I will ride out this last stage of his life together and that I won't disturb his peaceful life with poking and probing and other interventions. 

3. We gathered for family dinner this evening at chez Woolum/Diedrich at 5:00. To start, I put out mixed nuts and Christy and Paul enjoyed an orange vodka and tonic cocktail and after some conversation about gardening and other topics, we dove into our small plates dinner. 

I assigned Carol to make a traditional Greek salad loaded with tomatoes, cucumber, feta cheese, onions, and more called Horiatiki Salata and Christy made the small plates cookbook's version of Texas Caviar, known also as Cowboy Caviar around here. 

We enjoyed these dishes and everyone also seemed pleased with my decision to serve Ginger Molasses cookies from Beach Bum Bakery complimented with vanilla ice cream for dessert. 

We started doing a new thing a couple of weeks ago. The family dinner host not only assigns what food each of us is to bring, the host also gives an assignment that leads each of us to bring something to read to the others and these readings give us a source of conversation and discussion. 

I gave this assignment for today: read a passage of prose that has the properties of poetry and that you consider poetic. 

Carol read a wonderful passage from a Barbara Kingsolver essay, "Memory Place". You can find this essay in Kingsolver's book, High Tide in Tuscon. 

Paul read a fun and fascinating article from the book Success with Words on the etymology and social background of the word rub, focusing to some degree on what Hamlet means when he says, "ay, there's the rub!"

Christy read a passage from a meditation by Kate Bowler entitled, "On Anti-Blessings" (did she read the entire meditation? I'm not sure.). Bowler's piece appears in a book that Suleika Jaouad wrote that includes her own reflections and those of 100 other voices, focusing on memory, fear, love, and rebuilding entitled The Book of Alchemy. As an added bonus, because the book emphasizes the value of keeping a journal, each short essay ends with a prompt meant to spark self-discovery through journal writing. 

I reached back to the spring quarter of 1986 when I taught the Survey of British Literature at the University of Oregon and read a passage from Mary Lavin's haunting and poetic short story entitled, "The Green Grave and the Black Grave".

Debbie initiated this idea of bringing passages or poems to read to family dinner and it's been awesome. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-07-2026: All Day Reading, Introspection, The Summer of 1992

 1. With breaks now and then, I spent almost the entire day reading Lonesome Dove and am increasingly gob smacked by how adroitly Larry McMurtry expands this story, introducing new characters, intersecting story lines, and creating fresh conflicts and frightening dangers. All the while, he keeps moving us deeper and deeper into the inner life of these characters, unfolding their memories, doubts, sources of trauma, guilt, regrets, pleasures, and more. 

2. One of Lonesome Dove's prominent characters, ex-Texas Ranger Captain Woodrow F. Call, is introspective. He often separates himself from the rest of the cattle drive crew in the evening and finds a quiet place to be alone and contemplate things. 

In the part of the book I read today, Call can't keep back his memories and regrets and disappointment in himself as he thinks about Maggie, a prostitute who was strongly attracted to Call and Call did not respond to her feelings, nor has he owned up to the strong possibility that he fathered Maggie's son, Newt, now seventeen years old and a part of the book's epic cattle drive. 

I stopped reading and meditated quite a while upon this sentence from Call's inner thoughts: "[Call] wondered if all men felt such disappointment when thinking of themselves."

3. Having a nearly all-day reading session like today transported me back to the summer of 1992. I had that summer to myself and for one stretch I read books almost non-stop. I was especially enthralled by Robertson Davies' brilliant Deptford Trilogy and read it with such vigor that I barely ate. I also read Brideshead Revisited, introduced myself to the hilarious stories of P. G. Wodehouse, and read more, but the titles escape me these thirty-four years later. 

My reading spell was broken when I took off from Eugene in August and drove to Kellogg the long way around via Eastern Oregon, Boise, Sun Valley, Stanley, Salmon, and on into western Montana where I visited Wisdom, Butte, and other towns that were settings for Richard Hugo poems. I accidentally discovered upon arriving in Bozeman that Leo Kottke and David Lindley had a concert that night and it was among the best shows I've ever been to. 

As I drove, I listened to the entirety of Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell entitled, The Power of Myth. Mile after mile I was blown away and then, starting in 1993, these lectures became a central part of the classes Rita Hennessy and I taught together as a team for about three and half school years. 

I arrived in Kellogg for the KHS Class of 1972 20-year reunion, one of the very best parties I've ever been to and drew the summer to a close in September by spending eight days in Cambridge, MA, staying with Craig and Jill Thomas, and, among other things, seeing a baseball game in Fenway Park. 

What a summer that was! 

I'll keep reading, as best I can, as if it's July 1992 again. I doubt I'll do a Richard Hugo road trip this summer, but we'll see. And I know, in August, I'll enjoy another reunion with members of the Class of 1972 as we celebrate that this year the members of the Class of '72 have or will turn 72 years old. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-06-2026: Party for Beverly Jacobs, Cockroach Castle Reunion Planned, I Finished *The Horse*

 1. When Al Callahan eulogized Beverly Jacobs at the Kellogg Elks Lodge this afternoon, he made it clear that today's gathering was not a memorial, not a funeral, not even a celebration of life: it was a PARTY!

The room was packed with family, relatives, and friends and, indeed, the mood was upbeat and those attendance enjoyed the socializing, drinks from the bar, and the buffet table. 

As the party wound down, I popped over to The Lounge to lament our respective fantasy baseball woes with Cas and joined a table of friends who had come over from Beverly's party. The good cheer and upbeat vibes that began at the Elks Lodge carried over to the way people enjoyed each other at The Lounge. 

2. Liz, Jane, and I were great friends at North Idaho College and spent many lively and fun hours with Robert and Bacco (sp?) at their apartment in what became the cultural center of our lives, the Cockroach Castle. 

I haven't seen Liz since 1973 or 74. I have seen Jane as recently as about four years ago. 

But, this evening, we made a plan to have a reunion in July, along with Jane's twin sister Joan, at the Daft Badger for lunch.  It promises to be a joyous occasion! 

3. I returned home from The Lounge and immediately resumed reading Willy Vlautin's book, The Horse. 

This novel is about the tribulations, terrible decisions, and acts of love over the course of Al Ward's life.

In many ways, it's a study of the ravages of alcoholism and the terrible weight that isolation presses upon the human spirit. 

Al Ward is a guitarist and a respected and sought after songwriter who plays with a long string of ultimately doomed bands, some of whom play the casino lounge and bar circuit and some who tour well outside the confines of the Reno area. 

When Al Ward's great uncle Mel dies, he bequeaths a mine holding to Al in a remote location about four hours out of Reno. In his sixties, Al moves to the mine and lives in a rundown assay shack, writing songs, drinking tequila and beer, eating cans of Campbell's soup, and taking a daily walk. 

Out of nowhere one day, an old, blind, and scarred horse arrives, stands near the assay shack, and doesn't move, no matter the weather or anything else. 

The novel moves back and forth between, on the one hand, Al Ward reliving painful memories of suffering he endured at many stages of his life, of his long-standing addiction to alcohol, the handful of music successes he enjoyed as well as the many times bands disintegrated, the love he experienced at times, and the scores and scores of songs he composed over the past fifty years, and, on the other hand, his struggles as to what to do about this aged horse who came into his life. 

I spent the rest of Saturday, after the party, finishing Willy Vlautin's book, with occasional breaks to eat crackers, popcorn, and ramen and to work in spurts on the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-05-2026: Took It Easy Today, An Hour at The Lounge, A Bagel Dinner

1. Even though the visit was short and the news good, my visit with Dr. Bieber left me worn out. 

Yes, I did go uptown to pay bills and I did buy bagels and a Sunshine Muffin at Beach Bum Bakery, and yes, I did pick up a few items at Yoke's.

Then I napped on and off in the afternoon.

2. 3:30 rolled around and I blasted to The Lounge where Ed and I enjoyed a couple of beers and yakked about this and that. I saw Butch and Brian Moore. Cas and I did a quick rundown on our fantasy baseball fortunes. After an hour and a couple Bud Zeros, Ed and I both headed home. 

3. I sure enjoy toasting an everything bagel, spreading a layer of cream cheese on each half, topping the cream cheese with Olive Tapenade, and topping it all with hot pickled Jalapeño peppers. Just that one bagel prepared this way made a most satisfying dinner tonight and I accidentally drank a non-alcoholic IPA, Elysian's Easy Dust. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-04-2026: A Welcome Break Over the Summer, Chance Encounters, Debbie's Having a Good Visit

1. On my way to the clinic in Smelterville, I figured when Dr. Bieber walked into the examination room that he'd be in a cheery mood. 

And that he was.

As I reported last week in this blog, my labs looked solid to me and, thank goodness, to Dr. Bieber, too. 

My parathyroid number was a little high and Dr. Bieber told me to take a Vitamin D pill a couple times a week and we'll see if that brings down the number. 

Otherwise, it's clear that after two years, this new kidney is functioning very well, is at home in my abdomen, and things are going very well. 

Dr. Bieber wants to see me in three months and for the first time in at least two years, I get to enjoy a three month stretch with no blood work, no dental visits, no dermatology visits, no appointments at all (well, Copper has a check up at the vet on Monday, June 8th).

Every appointment I've had over the last two years or so has been a positive experience. 

My blood draws have been, too. 

Every professional I've seen has been easy to talk with, attentive to my questions, and consistently encouraging. 

All the same, I look forward to this break. 

2.  As I moved past page 300 today in Lonesome Dove, all of the traveling characters experienced chance encounters. Roscoe meets a feisty woman living alone as a farmer; Joe and July meet an insect expert turned evangelist; the cattle drive encounters water moccasin snakes; Elmira gets to know more about one of the men on the whiskey boat she's boarded as her means of escape from her life in Fort Smith.

All of these chance meetings deepen the story, unfold more about the characters, and have me increasingly absorbed in this epic novel. 

3. Debbie sent pictures from Cincinnati that uplifted me. Patrick, Meagan, and Debbie dined at a French restaurant and she sent a couple more pictures of views from the hills of Cincinnati looking at the moon and capturing a tender moment Patrick and Meagan shared. 

It not only makes me very happy to see Debbie enjoying her visit, I'm also very happy that Patrick and Meagan's decision to leave Portland and move to Cincinnati is working out so well. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-03-2026: Dental Cleaning, I Called Debbie, Reading Update

 1. I took a one block leisurely stroll to the dentist's office today and left with clean teeth and no problems to concern me. 

2. I called Debbie upon my return. She filled me in on Saturday's party in Roscoe, Illinois and about the relaxing time she's having in the Queen City (Cincinnati) with Patrick and Meagan. It's good to know her trip is going smoothly and that I could report that things are peachy here at the homestead. 

3. Right now, my main reading focus is back on Lonesome Dove in the daytime and once I finish the next day's NYTimes crossword puzzle in the evening.  I'm thoroughly enjoying how Larry McMurtry plots this novel as he moves between different places to develop the storylines of different characters, stories which are all happening simultaneously. I've kind of lost track. Right now I think it's a quadruple decker story, but maybe I'm shortchanging the number of stories he's got running at the same time. As the plots develop, the characters deepen, and the book, engrossing from the start, becomes more so. 

I read Willy Vlauten's The Horse when I go to bed. It's fascinating story about Al Ward, a man in his sixties, who is living in an old assay shack in a remote locale in Nevada (much like Rhys Kinnick did in Jess Walter's So Far Gone). Al looks back on his past life as a country music guitar player in various small casino and bar bands and song writer (he continues to write songs in his hermitage) and the sketchy encounters he had with different characters in the underworld of Reno. 

The novel includes a horse. This part of the book is a mystery to me right now and I'm curious to see how it shapes up. 

Our next book club selection is Our Moon and it's calling out to me to get started reading it. I just might see how it works to have three books going at once, but I might wait until I finish The Horse which is under 200 pages. I might finish it in the next day or two. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-02-2026: Paintings at the MAC, Lunch and a Surprise at Indaba, Book Group Discusses *The Mosquito*

 1. I decided to make an afternoon of it over in Spokane before our Science/Nature book group met at 6:00. My first stop was the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture where I wanted to see a new exhibit of European paintings from 1500-1900 called An Eye for Detail. I enjoyed this exhibit, especially the eyes of the subjects of the portraits and some of the humor in the different paintings. 

Most of all I enjoyed the contrast in style between the paintings in this exhibit and those in a larger room of James Lavadour's paintings in his show called Land of Origin. The European paintings were of recognizable subjects, painted in a more naturalistic style. Yes, some of the European paintings exaggerated their subjects by distorting faces and other features, but the scenes and portraits closely approximate what we would see if were at the different places or saw the person portrayed in the picture. 

By contrast, Lavadour's paintings do not represent what our eyes see when we look out over an Eastern Oregon landscape. Rather, the paintings are emotional renderings of these landscapes, focused much more on how the landscape might make us feel or on the emotional and mythological histories of these places. 

The European paintings give us the pleasure of seeing perspectives of scenes and persons familiar to us. (I can tell that's a brothel. I can tell that's Venice. I can tell that's a classroom. That's a man. That's a woman.) 

Lavadour's paintings invite us to feel danger, awe, reverence, and other subjective experiences, to think of landscapes as sources of emotion, not necessarily as sites of external beauty. 

2. I cruised N. Monroe. I'll go to Chowderhead another time once I've nailed down the relationship between apps on my cell phone and parking places! Zozo's was closed. So I returned to Kindred for a Korean beefsteak sandwich and a house garden salad. 

I headed south on Monroe to Indaba Coffee to review parts of The Mosquito in preparation for tonight's book group meeting. I enjoyed a latte and it turned out that a guy seated a few yards from me was someone I first met at Whitworth about fifty years ago when I was a senior and he was a freshman. It was Bruce Hafferkamp. I had seen Bruce in Spokane at a Shadle Park basketball game in 2017 and again in Kennewick at a Shadle baseball game in 2019 (he was the athletic director at Shadle Park High) and it was terrific to see him again and have a quick and solid conversation and an exchange of phone numbers. 

3. Members of the book group seemed to agree that The Mosquito was much more of a history book than a science or nature book. Pretty much everyone appreciated the history, but members wished he'd delved more deeply at certain junctures into the scientific aspects of the mosquito itself and other related topics that Winegard mentioned but left underdeveloped or unexplained. 

I saw the points these group members made and agreed. 

I didn't say anything about how I thought this was a fascinating nature book, especially since I think of human beings as part of nature, not outside it. In The Mosquito, we learn how mosquitos seriously and fatally affected humans who came into the mosquito's domains, but we also learned how humans affected mosquitos -- humans transport mosquitos and create breeding grounds for mosquitos by clearing land, compacting soil (creating standing water after it rains), collecting water in barrels and other containers, and in other ways. By trying to eradicate mosquitoes with insecticides (like DDT), humans also contribute to the resilience of mosquitoes as they develop resistance to these poisons. 

After attending this group for three discussions of three different books, my imagination and understanding has been most deepened by each book's examination of the relationship between humans and the soil, water, plants, animals, and insects of the non-human world of nature.

And, yet, we humans act as if we live apart from and are superior to the soil, water, plants, animals, insects, live as if they are not us, and we tend to value them for how we can use them, manage them, and/or control them, whether it's salmon, wolves, beavers, wetlands, apples, tulips, potatoes, cannabis, whales, eels, mountain lions, and more, all of which I've read books about, books which all deal in one way or another with human hubris and mercantile ambition. 

I'm left with questions, lots of questions, about human behavior and motivation, not only in humans in general, but my own behavior and motivations regarding nature, too. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 06-01-2026: Debbie is in The Queen City, *Lonesome Dove* Thickens, I'm Reading *The Horse* During *Dove* Breaks

 1. Debbie, Patrick, and Meagan arrived in Cincinnati. Patrick and Meagan's apartment has a balcony that overlooks the Ohio River and northern Kentucky and Debbie sent Christy, Carol, and me a short video and a couple of photos of the remarkable view.

By the way, it's always good news when a road trip is successful. 

2. I'm moving more deeply into Lonesome Dove and more characters, more conflicts, and more possibilities for storylines to cross are developing. I'm enjoying how McMurtry has plotted his novel so far. 

3. I've decided that I want to read a thick book at the same time I'm reading a shorter one. Last night, I started the smaller book that I will read alongside Lonesome Dove. After hearing Jess Walter interview Will Vlauen at a Northwest Passages evening a month or so ago, we bought Vlauen's latest book, The Left and the Lucky, but right now I'm reading another book we also bought, his novel The Horse. I'm a few pages in and I'm hooked. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-31-2026: The Control of Nature, A Whopper of a Family Dinner, We Understood the Assignment

1. With a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, I finished The Mosquito this evening. I'm not quite sure I can sum up what I learned from this book or what affected me most strongly -- which is to say I learned a lot and was rattled by much of what I learned about the mosquito, disease, evolution, genetics, world history, and the persistent effort of humans to control nature and how these efforts can seem successful and then often turn out to be futile or to have harmful unintended consequences. (I'm thinking at the moment of how DDT seemed to be the answer to eradicating mosquitoes, but the mosquitos adapted, the DDT became impotent, and the aggressive use of DDT turned out to have terrible consequences. as Rachel Carson examined in her transformative book, Silent Spring). 

I'll go to Auntie's Bookstore on June 2 and see what the members of the Science and Nature book group have to say about The Mosquito. 

2.  This morning before doing much else, I made a rice salad for this evening's family dinner. I already had a batch of rice in a container in the fridge and I decided I had enough good ingredients on hand that I didn't have to go to the store for anything else. So I put the rice in a salad bowl and added raw almonds, dried apricots, dried cranberries, red pepper, cucumber, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, tomato, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and olive oil.  It worked. 

I walked into Christy's house not really knowing what we were having for dinner, only that I completed my assignment to bring a salad. 

The dinner was terrific, built around a theme of spring flavors or, put another way, spring tonic foods. 

We started off with the perfectly delicious appetizer Zoe prepared: baked prosciutto-wrapped asparagus. 

Christy fixed a very tasty main dish: baked chicken breast with spring vegetables -- what spring vegetables, you might ask, did Christy bake? Radishes! Green onions! Pea pods! Cucumbers! Green beans! She made this potpourri of items zesty with lemon juice and dill. 

Carol added more zest to our meal with a side dish called Vibrant Greek Lemon Rice. That's a good name for it! It was vibrant! 

Using rhubarb snagged from our back yard, Christy made a very delicious baked rhubarb crisp and coupled it with a scoop of Oregon strawberry ice cream. 

3. Following Carol and Debbie's lead from a week ago, Christy gave us an assignment for tonight: we understood the assignment and each brought and read a favorite poem. 

Paul read two poems by e e cummings: "pity this monster, manunkind" and "next to of course god america i". 

Carol presented an Advent poem by Madeline L'Engle: "Love Incarnate Birth". 

I read a Lisel Mueller poem: "Brendel Playing Schubert".

Christy loves Judith Viorst's writing and read a poem of hers in honor of the life she lived with Everett: "The Pleasures of Ordinary Life". 

Zoe didn't bring a poem, so Paul read a sonnet he'd written to/about her several years ago. 

These poems ignited a lot of discussion and stories about all kinds of things philosophical, personal, educational, financial, theological, historical, biblical, and more. 

I left dinner stimulated and beginning to wonder if I'll come up with an assignment when I host family dinner next week . . .  stay tuned. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-30-2026: SURPRISE!!, Post-Party at The Lounge, Ah! So It's the Mosquitoes

1. The miracle to me -- and many others -- was that the secret never got out to Nancy, despite this party being planned and publicized starting five months ago! 

But, Nancy Hanson and her daughter arrived at the Elks Lodge around 3:00 and the many people gathered there erupted with a hearty SURPRISE! and Nancy had to step outside, gather herself, and walk back in as the celebration got underway in full force. 

It was a great social occasion. For those of us from the KHS Class of '72, it was a welcome opportunity to see one another.  

Partiers dove into the food laid out on tables near the kitchen and everyone had fun visiting and just feeling the good vibes of celebrating Nancy's 70th birthday. 

2. I wandered across the street to The Lounge and yakked with Cas for a while and before long Jake, Carol Lee, Tim, and Cindy strolled in we all shot the breeze at a table and after a while Ed and Nancy and an entourage of family and friends arrived, sat at another table, and the post-party party was on. 

The celebration vibes continued to build! 

3. Earlier in the day, I read another chapter of The Mosquito and I'll just say that thanks to microbiologists like Louis Pasteur, the development of the microscope, and other advances in science in the 19th century, scientists discovered that malaria and yellow fever were caused not by swamp air, but were transmitted by certain species of the mosquito. 

This was a huge breakthrough. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-29-2026: Enjoying Spokane, Loved the Palouse Highway, Birthday Shopping at the CdA Casino

1. I drove Debbie to the airport and then dilly dallied around Spokane a bit. 

I had gotten the idea in my head that Spokane's Maxwell House served breakfast and when I strolled in about an hour before opening time, a very friendly and eager to help guy behind the bar told me they open at 11:00 and don't serve breakfast. He gave me some very good suggestions for places to go (Swinging Doors, Bruncheonette, Elliot's). I thanked him and decided to go to the Wall Street Diner where I had last dined about fifty years ago when it was the Wall Street Cafe. 

I finished my Fiesta Scramble and headed down to the MAC where about nineteen European paintings I want to see are on exhibit, but today was also the first day of the museum's Artfest and I decided I didn't want to navigate the festival to get to the museum or go in search of a parking place. I'll go back on Tuesday in the afternoon before 6:00 book club and view the paintings then. 

I drove downtown to Auntie's Bookstore. I've been thinking about buying War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamozov in hardback, but I examined the paperback copies at Auntie's and decided to buy them. I could only get the hardback copies online and decided not to mess with that and buy the books right there in front of me at Auntie's. 

2.  I had an errand to take care of at the Coeur d'Alene Casino and decided to go there on a route I thought would work but I wasn't sure. I stubbornly decided not to accept the always available help of my Maps app. Instead, I drove up Grand Blvd, turned west on 29th, and then right on Southwest Blvd. Southwest ended at Regal and I headed south, hoping I'd come to an intersection with the Palouse Highway. 

I did! 

I turned in a westerly direction on the Palouse Highway, stayed relaxed, and lo and behold what I thought would be true was! The Palouse Highway took me eventually to Highway 27 and I headed south and west, through Freeman and Rockford and coasted into the parking lot of the casino. 

That drive along the Palouse Highway and on to Rockford and the casino was a gorgeous combination of evergreen trees and farmland covering rolling hills. It made me very happy not only that I tried this route, but that I succeeded in getting to my destination relying on my memory of having looked at hard copy maps and didn't solicit the help of my map. 

3. I've delayed posting this entry on my blog because it involves the gift I purchased at the CdA Casino for Nancy Hanson in celebration of her surprise 70th birthday party on May 30th and I'm hoping she's opened her card from Debbie and me -- it has the gift in it -- by the time she gets to this post. But, if this post gives the gift away before she opens it, so it goes. I tried to delay long enough! 

At the casino, I spun reels for a while and left the casino with the same amount of money I went in with -- so I played all that time for free! I also went to the Red Tail Bar and Grill and enjoyed a bowl of beef stew with a half a garden salad and ordered a chocolate sundae for dessert. I was on Cloud 9. 

On my way out of the casino I took care of the errand I mentioned earlier.  For her 70th birthday I bought Nancy Hanson a seventy dollar gaming ticket, hoping that when she puts it in a machine that she'll turn those 70 birthday dollars into 700 or 7,000 dollars of winnings! 

Wouldn't that make her 70th birthday unforgettable! 

Three Beautiful Things 05-28-2026: Morning Blood Draw, A Trader Joe's Run, *So Far Gone* Covers A Lot of Ground

1. Yes, the lab I go to for blood draws at Kootenai Health was under heavy demand from a small horde of geriatric patients like me ready to get poked and surrender urine samples. The staff in that lab, though, are peerless in their efficiency. They also exhibit grace and kindness under pressure. None of us had to wait long (I happen not to mind waiting) which made me happy primarily because I was eager make my deposits, take my pills, and dash to the coffee stand to break my fast with a latte and chocolate croissant. 

Oh! I thought the results looked as good as the tests I had done about a month ago. 

2. I really like many of Trader Joe's dips, spreads, and dressings and bought several largely in preparation for Debbie's departure on Friday. I also bought oatmeal. peanut butter, ground turkey, hamburger buns, nuts, dried fruit, and other staples for when I'm living alone to supplement the meals I cook for myself. 

3. I stayed up past midnight and finished Jess Walter's So Far Gone. 

It's not a long book, but it has a lot going on in it. It examines the impact of going off the grid on the inward life of one character; it explores family, relationships within the family, the rifts that develop, and explores the messy and confusing nature of familial love and the ways family members hurt one another and raises question about whether familial pain can ever be overcome; I think it's a book about different expressions of masculinity, and in one storyline, explores how something like cowboy/militia masculinity coupled with Biblical literalism and the idea that we are in the midst of spiritual warfare can be a volatile and violent combination. 

This might be the first novel I've read that I thought could be called a Covid novel. Characters in this book carry non-medical and ongoing effects of the pandemic:  disillusionment, grievances, scars, and more that shape their lives. 

It's also very often a funny book, making it a rich blend of humor, violence, suffering, vengeance, loyalty, and courage.