1. I know, I mean I KNOW, that I do not have the kind of analytical mind required to look at an NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket and make intelligent choices regarding winners and losers of each game.
I know it.
Nonetheless, I am going to enter a pool administered by Sharann and Doug. I'm not going to pretend to be able to predict much of anything, so I'm going to, when faced with what I think is a tossup, pick the team I want to win.
This does present a slight problem regarding the overall bracket. I would love to see Gonzaga win this tournament, but I would also love to see the Oregon Ducks win it. Back in 2017, the Zags and Ducks both advanced to the Final Four, but Oregon lost in the semi-finals, so the Ducks didn't play the Zags, saving me a difficult dilemma. Maybe I've written about this before -- I can't remember -- but I think I'm on record as saying that if they played each other, I would probably lean toward the Ducks. I'm an alum. I lived in Track City for about thirty-five years. I developed an attachment. But, once the game got underway, I might be surprised. I might discover that being born and raised in the Inland Empire, having great memories of the days when the Zags were in the Big Sky Conference, and living now in Zag Country might move me to root for them.
My guess is -- and I don't actually think they'll meet in this tournament -- I would take joy in the outcome and be happy for either team's success.
2. Today, Bill, Diane, Val, and I had a, to understate it, stimulating couple of hours of conversation on Zoom. Bill, Diane, and I were the first ones on and had a lot of fun talking about Kenneth Branagh movies from about thirty years ago, paying special attention to Much Ado About Nothing and Dead Again and the Patrick Doyle soundtracks. We also talked about the Zoom chat Bill and Diane recently had with documentary movie maker Haydn Reiss and this led us to talking about Robert Bly, the death of Tony Hoagland, and why interviews with Lawrence Ferlinghetti (weird mood) and Galway Kinnell (dementia) were not in Reece's movie about Robert Bly. The mention of Galway Kinnell reminded me that I had read an anthologized version of his poem, "After Making Love, We Hear Footsteps" and I thought it was missing a line about the mental capacity of baseball players. Bill got out the poem as it originally appeared in Mortal Acts, Mortal Words and, sure enough, the original had the line, but Kinnell edited it out in versions of the poem published later. I felt a small amount of pleasure that I'd noticed this change!
Val joined us and updated us on her grad school application process -- it's going very well -- and we got to talking about life in the USA and Bill put up the Jeep ad about meeting in the middle featuring Bruce Springsteen and we discussed it, largely as an ahistorical message that was meant to enhance Jeep's brand and that was grounded in the archetypes of flag, country church, the cowboy, and the cross. Our discussion was vigorous and was further enhanced by Diane reading aloud an essay her brother had written about the ad. I had avoided the ad, until today, because I so enjoy Bruce Springsteen as a singer, songwriter, and performer that I didn't want to experience him as an ad man. I relented, though, and enjoyed the conversation and Diane's brother's essay very much.
Our conversation turned to chronic pain, a subject, I'm sorry to say, that is a daily source of suffering for Bill and Val. Bill and Val opened up about what they experience, the things they do day to day to try to alleviate their pain, and shared their expertise, not only with each other, but with Diane and me, too. This topic led us to contemplate the reality of uncertainty and the illusion of control in our lives. I talked a bit about all that I don't know -- when will I see Debbie and Gibbs again? What's going on with the pandemic? With ill friends? I've kept myself on a somewhat even keel by doing my best to accept the uncertainty, not fight it, and live the best life I can while not knowing what's next. Suffering and agitation and outrage about things way out of my control makes me miserable. So does wishing things were different. They aren't different. For the most part, they can't be. Knowing that, I do my best to find sources of vitality in my limited life (seeking, in Marlowe's words, "Infinite riches in a little room") and enjoy them. I am very fortunate that while I am chronically ill with a long-term slowly advancing kidney disease, I'm not in chronic pain. I left today's conversation with great admiration for how Bill and Val live as they fully as they can, as fully as they do, day to day, while never being fully free of pain.
3. I was in charge of family dinner tonight and I envisioned a simple meal. I had made two soups, a fish chowder and a chicken stew. I asked Christy and Carol to team up and lay out some combination of sliced meat, bread, pickles, olives, cheeses, bread, and maybe crackers. I asked for a bottle of chilled white wine. Christy volunteered to make us each an Irish Kiss, a cocktail combining sparkling wine and a melon liqueur, garnished with a lime slice and served in a glass with the rim sugared. (I may not have described this 100% accurately -- I hope it's close.) We had a lemon fluff for dessert.
We had quite a bit of spirited conversation (not arguments) tonight about all sorts of things, ranging from the upcoming NCAA men's basketball tournament to our experiences living in other places where our work and our social life and, for me, my church life meant we got to be close to people who are culturally, ethnically, and racially different than ourselves -- whether in Glendive, Inchelium, Eugene, Spokane, Greenbelt, the Tri-Cities, WA, or right here in Kellogg -- whether teaching or working for a community college on Indian reservations, working in an alternative high school, teaching where we have, or living in Maryland and spending time out and about in the Washington, D. C. area. I talked about Debbie's teaching experiences, hoping I was accurate, wishing she were in the living room to speak for herself. The experiences we talked about have and continue to enrich us and have broadened and deepened our view of things. I'm glad we can talk with each other so well about all these things.
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