Sunday jazz: I read that Columbia University's student-run FM station WKCR was playing a Charlie Parker retrospective to commemorate his 100th birthday, so I tuned in and filled the Vizio room with jazz played at the speed of Bebop.
1. To my way of thinking, one of the great unwritten, mutually understood principles in Kellogg, Idaho is that a great party at night is best followed up with a hearty breakfast the following morning.
I was the happy host for this morning's breakfast. Everyone arrived at my house at 8 a.m., so I got up around 7:15 and got a mess of fried potatoes going. Soon the fellas arrived and they brought with them bread, eggs, orange juice, sausage, and bacon.
I got right down to business. I brewed cups of coffee for Ed and Don. I finished frying the potatoes and put them in the oven to stay warm. I got bacon and sausage going on the stove and started making toast, warming it in the oven, also. Once the meat was cooked, I put it in the dish with the potatoes in the oven to stay warm warm and fried us each a couple of eggs.
We all picked up where we left off the night before, yakkin', telling stories, laughing, bringing each other up to date on our lives these days, and, before long, we headed out on the back deck and enjoyed our breakfast.
We left the deck and came back in the house to escape the sun and, before long, we all said goodbye to each other and brought our awesome weekend of eating, drinking, yakkin', and entertaining each other to an end.
2. My scintillating weekend enjoying friends I've known since the Fall of Rome continued this afternoon online. Bill, Diane, Val, and I jumped on the ZOOM machine for a couple of hours of stimulating conversation. This was Val's birthday weekend. Bill, Diane, and Val wore party hats for the occasion and Bill and Diane joyfully blasted their Happy Birthday noise makers. The best I could do was raise my short pour of single malt scotch in celebration. Val's husband, Mike, was preparing her a gourmet birthday dinner, she had friends visiting, and Val visited us in the Zoom Room for about an hour before it was time for her to put her day into Happy Birthday overdrive.
We had great conversation about movies, old friends, marriage, family, loss, and other things. We are all eager to listen to one another's experiences and how we have come to understand them and what we are experiencing in the present. Val signed off and Bill, Diane, and I talked at some length about our experiences in high school and college, especially with literature and, specifically, poetry. I had fun recalling my experiences at North Idaho College that sparked my fire for poetry and other literature, enjoyed learning what Bill and Diane experienced as students, and marveled at how, for all three of us, certain teachers have had such a lasting impact, how they helped us not only love poems and stories, but set in motion a love that has lasted our entire adult lives.
3. Needless to say, after spending so much time in so much conversation, when I left the ZOOM conversation, I was worn out in the sweetest way. Fortunately, I had left over rice and curry from earlier in the week, so fixing dinner was a breeze. After dinner, I took a coma nap and after doing this and that around the house, went to bed and listened to Fresh Air broadcasts, fell asleep, had some dreams narrated by Terry Gross, was awakened by some of the talking, and finally took the earbuds out and fell into a sweet sleep for the night.
Here's a limerick by Stu:
You can think of days skipping a stone.
‘Cross the water before you were grown.
And remember party’s and games,
And, all teacher’s names.
But, where the heck are your keys and your phone?
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