Three Beautiful Things 04-04-2026: Basketball Wagers, Nature as Resource and Spiritual Source, We Continue to Move Into Our House

 1. Early in this college basketball season when Michigan creamed Gonzaga, I said to someone (or maybe just to myself!), "I ought to drive over to Spokane Tribe Casino and use some of my stupid money that I keep in my stupid money envelope and bet right now on Michigan to win the whole tournament." 

Of course, I didn't do it. 

And there's no guarantee that Michigan will defeat UConn to win the title Monday night. 

But, it's fun to imagine what might have happened had I turned my musing into action. 

By the way, once the brackets were set, I did make one bet on the men's tournament. Ha! I wagered that Arizona would win it all. 

Oh, well. 

(Again. Ha! My one other wager was on the UConn women's team.)

2. As I read further into A Natural History of  Empty Lots, author Christopher Brown continues to explore the enduring questions, questions in play since the Puritans settled in New England: is undeveloped wilderness land really wasted land? Or does undeveloped land have an intrinsic spiritual value? 

I've struggled within myself with this question for nearly sixty years. 

3. We moved into the house we live in back in October, 2017. 

We are not done moving in yet -- which makes me wonder if anyone ever really finishes this job! 

Debbie and I are rethinking the front bedroom (Vizio Room) and we are considering a couple of improvements to our patio. Debbie put up new curtains today in the living room. The basement is always unsettled. Is it time to switch beds between the main floor bedroom and the upstairs one? 

We'll never settle things permanently in this house, just like we never did in the other two places we lived! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-03-2026: Book Club at The Lounge, Relationships Between Books, Red Curry for Dinner

1. Debbie and I are both reading A Natural History of Empty Lots. We are both having a great experience. Debbie joined me at The Lounge shortly before five this afternoon. Ed and I had had a great hour or so yakkin' about all kinds of stuff before Debbie arrived. Debbie and I launched into a discussion of Empty Lots, as far as we've read.  The book is taking us out of our usual way of experiencing the world and challenging us to be more attentive, take charge of how we employ our senses, to be open to surprise, and to resist habitual ways of thinking and doing things as well as to resist the ways entities, especially money making ones, provide us with prefabricated responses to the world around us and how we think about it. 

2. A fun aspect of our discussion while seated at the bar was how this book calls up memories of other books we've read. For Debbie, the book connects to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I keep going back in my mind to Bill McKibben's book The End of Nature and Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist. 

I'll just say that I'm fascinated much more by the disorder, not the order, of the natural world and the biological aspects of the human world. Miller's book explores this. In addition, when I first read McKibben's book in 1989 it accelerated my interest in and curiosity about the relationship between human beings and the natural world and I've read a lot of books and articles about this subject since then.  

3. Before heading up to The Lounge around 3:30, I baked a block of tofu cubed and I made a red curry sauce. Once back home, I cooked a variety of vegetables in the red curry sauce and added in the tofu along with some kaffir lime leaves. 

I prepared a pot of basmati rice, too, and once the vegetables were tender, Debbie and I prepared ourselves delicious bowls of medium spicy red curry sauce over the vegetables and rice. 

We then balanced out having eaten spicy food with small bowls of Extra Triple Fudge Brownie ice cream. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-02-2026: Urban Walking, Urban Fossils and Shark Teeth, Debbie Fixes Chicken Dinner

 1. It could be called anarchy walking. I prefer "anarchy walking" to its more high-minded name, "psychogeography". Basically, this idea challenges us, when in an urban environment, to resist walking the ways the city (legitimately) lays out for us, to resist the streets and routes that, by design, lead us to where money is transacted (shops, banks, restaurants, etc.) and seek out other routes where non-commercial surprises exist, like small swaths of wild vegetative growth, birds and animals we might not think of as city dwellers, micro-ecosystems existing in the midst of discarded concrete chunks, abandoned cars, and other examples of urban blight. We might follow Christopher Brown's lead and explore empty lots in urban areas. (As a reminder, I'm reading Christopher Brown's book, A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places.)

The aim of this kind of walking is to widen one's range of observation and to marvel at the wildness that exists and survives in unexpected places. 

2. Christopher Brown's bushwhacking in creek beds and peering closely at areas on the edges of Austin, TX that were once at the bottom of a a pre-historic sea results in him finding fossils, shark teeth, and other evidence of prehistoric animal and marine life in amongst tires, soda bottles, beer cans, concrete chunks, and other 21st century trash heedlessly cast to the ground or in the water. 

3. Christy joined Debbie and me for a delicious dinner of baked chicken, baked yams, and steamed kale. I joked and asked what kind of ice cream we'd have for dessert and Debbie laughed, bemoaned that even though she'd thought of ice cream while at Yoke's today, she didn't buy any.

Suddenly she rose up, grabbed her keys, and dashed to the Camry, barreled to Yoke's, and before Christy and I knew it, she arrived back with a half-gallon of Extra Triple Fudge Brownie ice cream, served us each a small bowl, and my evening and its culinary pleasures were now complete. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-01-2026: What Makes Marriage Fun For Me

 I'm not an April Fool's guy, so these 3BTs are all straight, no pranking. 

1. Here's what makes marriage fun for me.  

I've been going to Spokane the last couple of months to hear classical music concerts -- the Gonzaga Symphony, the Spokane String Quartet, and the Spokane Symphony and I've been attending lectures about the Spokane Symphony concerts presented at the Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane and an hour before each concert. 

Until Sunday, because Debbie was in either New York or Virginia, she wasn't with me at any of these events. 

Together again, we attended the lectures and Sunday's concert together. I initiated this outing. 

As I wrote earlier this week, after Sunday's concert, Debbie suggested that I be in charge of choosing cultural things for us to do and she'd take charge of travel. 

I happily agreed. 

Two days ago, Debbie was on the Auntie's Bookstore (in Spokane) website and saw that the bookstore supports several book clubs, including one that meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. It's the Science and Nature Book Club. 

Debbie muscled in 🤣🤣 on my gig as the Minister of Culture and suggested we participate in this club on April 7th. 

"That sounds great!" I responded and I could feel that my world was about to expand. 

2. A few years ago, I went on a glorious bender reading books about animals: whales, salmon, beavers, cougars, the octopus, eels, and other more general books about animals. From time to time back in my teaching days I assigned books and readings about the relationship between human beings and nature including Into the Wild and Into Thin Air by John Krakauer and Dan O'Brien's Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch.  These are all science and nature books. 

I'm stoked for Tuesday. 

The Science and Nature Book Club will be discussing A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places by Christopher Brown. 

3. My copy arrived today and I dove right in. Christopher Brown is a keen observer of animals, birds, reptiles, plants, trees, and, well, in short, the natural world and now has written this book about natural wildlife in crummy neglected empty lots and other places in Austin, TX you wouldn't think of as sites to marvel at nature.  He built a house on one of these empty lots near an industrial park and began to observe all the wildlife activity around him in urban areas one might call wastelands or urban edgelands. 

I'm not even a hundred pages in and I've learned more about feral parakeets, mesquite trees, coyotes, hawks, egrets, herons, an array of wildflowers, the history of empty lots, and more than I had ever known before. And that's just for starters. 

My world has, indeed, expanded in invigorating and unexpected ways. 

I hope what you see in this post is that without me, Debbie never would have heard the symphony lectures we attended nor the Sunday concert and without Debbie, I would never have considered this book club nor this book. 

It makes marriage fun. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-31-2026: Winter Tires Off, Spring Clean Up of Our Yards, I Stir Fry Our Dinner

 1. It's a fairly quick job I look forward to having completed every year around this time: today the guys at Silver Valley Tire removed the Camry's snow tires and put the other ones back on. I lifted the winter tires up to the storage loft in our garage and now I won't have to do another swap until about November. 

2. Today was also the first day of 2026 of having the crew who takes care of yard visit. They did a comprehensive spring cleaning, mowed, bagged up cuttings and other debris, and applied fertilizer. They worked for quite a while and both our front and back yard look really good. 

3. If I'm not mistaken, tonight I fixed dinner for Debbie and me for the first time since her return. 

It felt great to put the wok back into action. I prepared Thai wheat noodles and stir fried chicken tenders, potstickers, zucchini, yellow squash, celery, green beans. red pepper, and mushrooms and fixed a stir fry sauce to pour over this food. 

It's been almost six months since I've cooked for the two of us and it made me very happy that Debbie thoroughly enjoyed dinner -- and I liked it too!                                                                                                                                                                                          

Three Beautiful Things 03-30-2026: My World Expands, Copper Wants My Company, A Refreshing and Delicious Family Dinner

 1. When Debbie goes away, whether on short trips or longer stays, I get along at home just fine. I'm self-driven to cook, read, learn new things, maintain stimulating exchanges with friends online, explore the arts at home and in Spokane, and I have relaxing times at The Lounge and when I go spin reels and eat bar and grill food I enjoy at one of the casinos. I enjoy Sibling Outings with Christy and Carol and our weekly family dinners. And, it goes without saying, I always have the warm and reliable companionship of Copper and Gibbs.

But when Debbie returns home, my world expands. She's read books I don't know about, She has ideas regarding things to do together I haven't thought of. I often fall into cooking ruts (enjoyable ones, but ruts all the same) and Debbie brings welcomed and different ways of cooking and does things in the kitchen she's learned while away. 

It was that way today. We have extended and healthy periods of silence when we retreat into our own worlds at home and have little to say to each other. But then something pops up. Debbie tells me about a book written by a man who became obsessed with empty urban lots of land in Austin, TX. I think of something from the music we enjoyed Sunday and I tell her what's on my mind. Debbie comes home from Walmart where she's run into a friend, comforted a neighbor, and talked to former students. She tells me good stories. So, yeah, I try to expand my experience in and knowledge of the world daily. I do a decent job of it when I'm living alone. 

But with Debbie back home, with the meeting of our minds, my world becomes much more expanded. 

2. As Copper ages, he seems to want my company more and more. He never has been an affectionate cat and that remains true. But, as I write this, lying on my back on the bed, he purrs, resting about six inches away from me, careful not to make contact with me from my waist to the top of my head. When I get under the covers and lie on my back, Copper will press himself against one of my lower legs, but he won't press against me in any other way. 

He does, however, like it a lot when I pet him or rest a hand on his back, side, or belly. 

So, today, he meowed quite a bit and decided he was beseeching me to come into the bedroom with him. I assumed the prone position on the bed and rested my hand under his chin and he relaxed and closed his eyes, looking like he'd just eaten a package of catnip. 

He was quiet, at peace, and content.

He fell asleep.

I stayed with him for about an hour or so and Copper's body language conveyed to me that I'd done just what he wanted. 

We were both very happy. 

3. Christy expanded my world this evening. She hosted family dinner and assigned Debbie and me to bring halved hard boiled eggs, steamed asparagus, and sliced tomatoes as contributions to a Roasted Salmon Nicoise Platter. With the platter's salmon, asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce, cold cooked potato slices, capers, and a vinaigrette spread out before us, we each made our own salad. Carol baked bread to accompany our meal. 

I'd never had this exact meal before. 

Before we served ourselves from the Nicoise spread, we enjoyed pickled vegetables, cheese, crackers, and cheese spread for an appetizer. Christy baked brownies for dessert and I accepted her offer of vanilla ice cream to accompany it. I never got around, darn it, to munching a few Easter M&Ms Christy also made available. 

This was a fun and refreshing dinner. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-29-2026: Pre-Concert Lecture, Debbie and I Enjoy Classical Music with Our Eyes and Ears, We Agreed to Each Have a Ministry in Our Marriage

 1. Debbie and I piled into the Camry early this afternoon and zoomed to the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox to attend today's performance by the Spokane Symphony.  We arrived in plenty of time to park, stroll to 1st and Monroe and enter the northside door, pick up our tickets at will call, and find a seat close to the stage for the pre-concert lecture. 

Today's soloist was the Spokane Symphony's concertmaster, Mateusz Wolski. He and Conductor James Lowe opened the lecture with Lowe interviewing Wolski about what he enjoys about Edouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, Op 21 the concerto that would feature him. Wolski explained how Lalo's piece veers between different emotional poles and how it is infused with the energy Spain and the vitality of its culture. 

The program also featured Fannie Mendelssohn-Hensel's only published orchestral composition, Overture in C Major and James Lowe lamented how prevailing ideas about women sabotaged Mendelssohn-Hensel's career as a composer. He helped us see how the overture moves from tentative and searching to exuberant and confident by the end. This overture is not often performed and I was very happy to get to hear it today. 

Fannie Mendelssohn-Hensel's younger brother, the wildly famous Felix Mendelssohn, had his masterpiece, Symphony No 3 in A Major, the "Italian", end the program. James Lowe explained how each movement of this symphony represents a different Italian city (Venice, Rome, Florence, and Naples) and a different facet of Italian identity (boundless energy, spirituality, cultural refinement, gritty and chaotic energy). 

2. Debbie and I always give anything like a concert, play, movie, art gallery, or museum that we experience together time to sink in, time to take hold in us before we talk about it. 

Once we arrived home, we talked.  We discovered that both of us loved hearing this music played live and that we both were as absorbed by watching the musicians, using our eyes and our ears together to figure out where certain sounds were coming from, and were, in some ways, as fascinated by musicians who did very little during some pieces, but then were called into action (after a long wait) whether they played a triangle, a snare drum, or a piccolo. 

Until today, I never knew Debbie watched orchestral concerts as well as listened to them and I had a blast going back and forth with Debbie, telling each other our visual observations and what we found pleasing to our ears, too. 

3. Not long after returning to the Camry, we made an agreement. From now on, for the most part, Debbie will be the travel planner of our marriage and I will be in charge of cultural outings.

Both of us are stoked to carry out the missions of our ministries. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 03-28-2026: Book Donation Project, Right! I Bought that Movie!, Poppers and Salad

1. It's been fun remembering my pleasure when I read the books I'm packing up to donate to Better World Books -- a Certified B Corporation that advances the causes of sustainability and literacy globally through its sales of mostly donated used books and other materials. I've been a customer of Better World Books for about fifteen years and always been very happy with their selections and the condition of the used books I've purchased from them. 

2. As I worked my way through the bookshelves, I'd forgotten about a few items I had in my possession. One example connects with the presence of Leonard Oakland in my life lately, mainly through his Sunday morning radio program. 

I'd forgotten that a few years ago I bought a DVD of the movie A Thousand Clowns, a movie Leonard was very excited about.  On a movie night in Cowles Auditorium at Whitworth about fifty years ago, Leonard introduced this movie with great passion and insight and then not only did the movie live up to his enthusiasm, it became one of my favorite movies of all time. 

I was thrilled today to remember I'd purchased it and that this project I'm working on resulted in me unearthing it. I played the opening ot the movie and WOW! can I ever hardly wait to watch the whole thing again. 

3. We had a fun snack-y dinner tonight. On a whim, Debbie bought a package of jalapeno poppers that the meat department at Yoke's puts together. I enjoyed the heat, cheese, and bacon. I continue to work my way through the vegetables Debbie cut up the other day to make salads with. Cool salad. Spicy poppers. Everything in balance! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-27-2026: Donating Books, Ed and I Meet at The Lounge, Debbie Arrives a Little Later

 1. I made progress today in deciding which books to pack up and ship as donations to Better World Books. I'm beginning to fill some boxes. 

2. Ed and I met at The Lounge around 3:45 this afternoon. He's had concerns about the stability of two large trees on his property and today a crew came out and took them down, a huge relief for Ed. He admired the crew's workmanship and showed Cas and me videos of the work being done. Impressive. 

3. Ed left after a couple of beers and I stayed at The Lounge, knowing Debbie was going to walk up from the Beanery where she went to relax, possibly knit, possibly read a book, possibly have conversations. 

She arrived and it was fun to watch her continue her reentry into life in Kellogg. She's already reconnected with friends, attended Christy's book club, shopped at Walmart (where she ran into people she knows from Pinehurst Elementary), and she visited The Lounge last Saturday. 

Today she joined a table to talk with some regulars at The Lounge, like Candy and Gloria, and Harley came up to the bar and we got in a good session of yakking about all kinds of things: transporting cars, the food pantry at the Elks, the opening of the bar in the basement of the Elks, surprises created by revelations provided by  services like ancestry.com, and other subjects, all including stories, questions, and thoughtful reflection. 

I was at The Lounge for nearly four hours -- my longest stay in a long time and I walked out and drove home cold sober thanks to the wondrous non-alcohol content of Bud Zero. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-26-2026: So Many Uplifting Connections!, Return to Great Harvest Bread Company, The Scoop Again -- Why Not?

1. I'm going to reflect for a few sentences on how things in life can serendipitously connect and bring about joy. 

The series of connections I'm thinking about began when I had kidney transplant surgery in May, 2024.

This surgery required frequent follow up visits to Providence Sacred Heart for bloodwork and appointments with the transplant team. Later on, I had the labs drawn at Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene. 

At some point in 2025, I decided while making these frequent trips to Coeur d' Alene and Spokane that I would listen to the Symphony Hall channel on Sirius XM in the car. 

I not only enjoyed the music, I also very much enjoyed the work of the morning host, Colleen Wheelahan and began to listen to her routinely on Sirius XM in the mornings at home.  Soon I discovered she also hosts a classical music program on Louisville Public Radio that starts at 3:00 p.m. PST and I began tuning into it as well. 

My days began to be taken up with reading from books and listening to lectures about classical music. 

In the meantime, in April of 2025, Carol planned our month's sibling outing to take place at the Museum of Art and Culture in Spokane. 

Deeply impressed that day, I became a member of the museum. 

Joining the museum meant that the museum sent me a monthly newsletter and back in January I noticed something in the newsletter I hadn't seen before.

On Thursdays at noon, when there are upcoming weekend performances by the Spokane Symphony, the conductor, James Lowe, gives a lecture at the museum about the upcoming symphony program. 

In mid-January I went to his lecture, even though I couldn't go to that weekend's symphony, and I was blown away.

So, today, thanks to a kidney transplant, frequent follow up trips out of town, the Symphony Hall channel, Carol planning an impressive visit to Spokane's Museum of Arts and Culture, joining the museum, reading their newsletter,  the magic of audible.com and the Great Courses, reading material, and thanks to having been so impressed with two other James Lowe lectures, today I drove to Spokane to hear his lecture on this weekend's symphony program. Upon returning home, I bought Debbie and me tickets to hear this weekend's program on Sunday afternoon at the Fox Theater. 

2. I can add one other piece to this uplifting bunch of connections. 

Time after time after time that I drove to Providence Sacred Heart for follow up labs and appointments, I then drove to Great Harvest Bread Company for coffee and a treat, most often a muffin. If my visits to Sacred Heart ended later in the day, I dropped into Great Harvest for a sandwich. 

After today's invigorating lecture ended, I headed straight up to E 29th and S. Southeast Blvd to Great Harvest. I purchased a loaf of Farmhouse Bread for Debbie and me and ordered a turkey sandwich on Dakota bread and polished it off with a soft, sweet, and salty Salted Caramel cookie. 

It was an awesome lunch and the many warm feelings I have about this place and how much I enjoyed it after all those appointments returned. 

3. In the spirit of everything's connected, thanks to this week's Wednesday sibling outing and our visit to The Scoop, I returned there today and enjoyed a scoop of chocolate-y Eat the Billionaires and a scoop of Vegan Oatmilk Oatmeal Cookie ice cream, a perfect match. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-25-2026: Sibling Outing to St. John's Cathedral, Cannon Hill Park, Beef Noodles

All this happened on Wednesday. 

 1. First, a quick reminder. 

Our 2026 Sibling Outings focus on visits to Spokane. 

Today, Carol was in charge of our outing and led us on a foray into the Cliff Cannon neighborhood. We started with breakfast at Little Euro, just a block or so away from what was, for me, the heart and soul of our outing, St. John's Cathedral where we worshipped at the 12:00 Rite II Eucharist service. 

Once inside this Gothic Revival building for a while, we learned that the 12:00 Eucharist would be held in the Guild Room. The usual worship spaces were closed. They were being spiffed up in advance of Holy Week and Easter Day. 

So, about a dozen of us sat around a rectangular table and the Dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev. Heather VanDeventer, guided us through a Rite II Eucharist and, lo and behold, Carol volunteered to read the Epistle, a passage from Hebrews, and I volunteered to read the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah. 

I've been out of touch with Episcopalian life and with the worldwide Anglican Communion for just about six years. I was very protective of myself during the pandemic, fell out of the habit of driving to CdA to worship at St. Luke's, and I haven't pushed myself back into that routine again. 

So, I didn't know that today was a momentous day in the Church of England and Anglicanism globally. 

First of all, today was the Feast Day of the Annunciation, celebrating the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would conceive Jesus. 

The celebration of this momentous day in the history of the church was, appropriately, also chosen as the day when the first ever woman, Bishop Sarah Mullally, was installed as the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Click on this link to read more about the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.)

Dean Heather VanDeventer gave a terrific homily today that paralleled the call to service Mary received on this day and the call the (now) Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally also received on this day. Most of all, I enjoyed learning that central to Archbishop Mullally's vocation is her devotion to the understanding that all of us are pilgrims in our faith, journeying together in our walk of faith, equals in the eyes of God, sharing the experience of not having arrived, but being on a road to understanding and service. 

2. We drove a short distance from the cathedral to Cannon Hill Park. 

I'd never been to this handsome, elegant park before. 

Its most attractive feature for me was its pond. I could have walked around the park, but ever since leaving Eugene, OR and Greenbelt, MD, I've yearned for a pond I could travel to easily and yearned to sit and watch ducks and geese and whatever waterfowl might also pop in for a visit.

So, that's what I did. 

I sat still.

Quiet. 

And I watched the birds and dreamed a bit about how fun it would be to live near this spot and walk the circumference of the pond and enjoy the water, trees, and the birds. 

We left the park and went to The Scoop ice cream parlor on W. 25th and Monroe, thus wrapping up our outing with delicious and refreshing ice cream. 

3. Back home, Debbie slow cooked a chuck roast on the stove top which she then turned into a superb beef and egg noodle dish. 

This delicious bowl of my favorite cut of beef, some vegetables, noodles, and a savory broth, brought this significant and fulfilling day to a close.