Three Beautiful Things 02-11-2022: I Finished *The Underworld*, Walking with "Hello Stranger", Homemade Thai Curry

1. I finished Kevin Canty's Silver Valley set novel, The Underworld, today. It's a fictional exploration of an historic event, the Sunshine Mine Fire of 1972, and its impact on three fictional characters. While Canty gives over a portion of his novel to the mine fire and to two miners underground, much of his story focuses on his characters' lives leading up to the fire, during it, and especially in the mine fire's aftermath. These characters are Kevin Canty's creation and through them he explores the uncertainty, grief, and other emotions these characters and the mining community at large experienced after having lost family members and friends to the fire. 

2. I went out for a walk this afternoon. I continued to work my way from the present backward though the archive of Dan Mackay's brilliant podcast episodes of Hard Rain and Slow Trains: Bob Dylan and Fellow Travelers. Today, some brilliant musicians and thinkers accompanied me as I listened to the first episode of 2022 entitled, "Hello Stranger".  Daniel focused his show on songs and bits of writing dealing with strangers. He played great Bob Dylan selections. I don't have a set list, but I especially enjoyed hearing "Mississippi", "Red River Shore" and "Rank Strangers to Me" and "A Wayfaring Stranger". It was also fun to walk on Riverside Avenue here in Kellogg with Leon Russell ("Stranger in a Strange World") and The Doors ("People are Strange"). I enjoyed hearing Bob Dylan give a mini-lesson on Albert Camus and existentialism and I enjoyed Dan quoting from works by James Baldwin and Maya Angelou. 

I can't help but be grateful that just about a month ago I went over to Jeff Harrison's house for an awesome veggie scramble, toast, and coffee. I had wanted to meet that day with Margaret and Michael, too, but neither of them were free that day, so Jeff and I met on our own. As we savored Jeff's superb egg dish, Jeff  recommended that I tune in on Thursday nights to Dan's Bob Dylan show and his show, Deadish, on Thursday evening at kepw.org. He recommended this to me back in May 2019 when I stayed at his house and we went to see Neil Young together in Eugene. But, something happened. I tried to access kepw.org one evening and ran into some difficulties and I never tried again (I was stupid). But now I'm on board. Blissful Thursday is underway. And now that I've learned how to download episodes of Dan's show, I can make up for all the shows I missed over the last three years. 

That was a mighty breakfast Jeff and I shared on Jan. 15th with splendid consequences!

3. Tonight I returned to preparing a longtime favorite meal for Debbie and me. With plenty of coconut milk on hand, I heated up some Thai red curry paste in coconut oil, added a can of coconut milk, and a tablespoon each of brown sugar, fish sauce, and soy sauce to the milk and paste and dropped in a couple of  lime kaffir leaves. I fixed a batch of jasmine rice. In the sauce, I boiled potatoes, red and orange pepper, and onion. Debbie and I were really happy to be eating homemade Thai curry again.