1. Christy and Everett's nurses work together to manage Everett's pain. They've rearranged Everett's care and pain medication schedule in such a way that Everett is awake and alert more often in the early part of the day, less so in the afternoon and evening. Today, one of Everett's daughters and one his granddaughters got to see Everett. Christy also spent a lot of time with him. Christy came over to see me when her day of visiting Everett ended and discussed a variety of things related to this difficult time.
2. Early in the afternoon, I took off for about a half an hour walk on the trail to the high school and then down the Jacobs Gulch road and back home again. I listened to the third episode of the podcast, 1619, and it was, by far, the least brutal episode of this podcast and fit in nicely with my everlasting quest to understand the history of American music better and how much it's been influenced by African-Americans, from the beginning. The host of this podcast, Nikole Hannah-Jones, turned this entire episode over to Wesley Morris, a podcaster, writer, and social/music critic/historian I have read and listened to quite a bit over the years. His review of American popular music from minstrelsy to the present in this episode was awesome.
I loved how he started his survey by telling a story about being at home with a friend, chopping vegetables, preparing dinner, and his friend asked him to put the Yacht Rock station on Pandora. The friend had an errand to run. As Morris, alone in his kitchen, listened to the station featuring music by Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, Toto, and others, he realized how much Yacht Rock, which is a subgenre of primarily white artists, is indebted to Black music, to the blues, jazz, gospel, and other influences.
It was a brilliant way to kick off his jam-packed history lesson and it fit perfectly with other documentaries I've watched and podcasts I've listened to about American music in a fascinating way.
It made my walk very enjoyable.
If you'd like to check out this episode, just click here.
3. As dinner time approached, I stood in front of the opened refrigerator and imagined just what I might fix myself. I looked at the container of left over couscous and I thought, hmmm, salad. I put the couscous in a bowl, added raisins, chopped up a cucumber, and chopped up an apple - this was becoming promising. I took out my plain yogurt, put some in a bowl, and made a dressing by adding cumin, honey, and cayenne pepper to the yogurt. I confess, I overdid the honey a bit, but no big deal, the yogurt dressing was great with the couscous, raisins, cucumber, and apple. I'll keep experimenting with this -- maybe get some help from recipes. I love rice salads and couscous salads so I'm very happy with the prospects that lie ahead.
As with so many aspects of life during the pandemic, college basketball is in some turmoil with different teams having to pull out of games because players or staff have test positive for Covid-19. Sometimes teams don't know who'll they'll play next until a day or two before the game happens.
It's kind of like the way things work in the NCAA tournament.
For example, Villanova is in the bubble that's been created at the Mohegan Sun Casino Complex in Connecticut. They played games on Wednesday and Thursday and suddenly got offered a chance to play again on Saturday against Virginia Tech because their scheduled opponent, Temple, had to pull out.
Villanova entered the game ranked third in the nation. Virginia Tech entered the game unranked.
Villanova seemed off their game, but they went up 52-40 with just under nine minutes to play. I thought Villanova would do what they often do, methodically and competently stretch this lead, but they didn't.
Virginia Tech chipped away. Late in the game Villanova missed crucial free throws and it looked like the Hokies had the game won until a freak play after the Hokies accidentally made a free throw resulted in a foul against VT. Justin Moore buried two free throws and game went into overtime.
Virginia Tech outscored the Wildcats 17-9 in OT, securing the upset.
I switched gears after this game ended. I was watching a trailer of the movie, Serpico. In the trailer, a bit of Rod Stewart's version of the song "(I Know) I'm Losing You" was played and I immediately headed to YouTube and listened to a live extended version of the song played by the Faces, featuring Rod Stewart, Ronnie Woods, and others. Then I listened to Stewart's album version from Every Picture Tells a Story.
I hadn't had enough. I love Rare Earth. I knew they played unreal extended versions of "(I Know) I'm Losing You" and I listened to one of them. All three versions were great and transported me back to how I used to play this song in my head over and over again while pulling cathodes, stripping zinc, and stacking zinc back in the Zinc Plant cell room. It was, I guess, a way of helping me endure the toxic work I was doing.
Here's a limerick by Stu:
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