Three Beautiful Things 10-30-2022: Bob Dylan and the Longing for Union, Visiting Jane, Oh Man -- The Band

1. Mercifully, because I was worn out (in a good way) from all time I spent with friends yesterday, The Grove's checkout time was 12:00 and I didn't have to rush to gather myself and get out the door. So, I took my time, enjoyed a couple of toasted sesame bagels with butter and coffee, packed up, gassed up at a nearby Costco, and hit the road.

While driving south on I-5, I listened to part 2 of Dan Mackay's two part episode exploring Bob Dylan's album Time Out of Mind on his brilliant weekly show, Hard Rains and Slow Trains. 

I'm slowly serving my apprenticeship as a listener of Bob Dylan. I look to Dan, Jeff, Michael, Cas, Pete, Mark, and others as my mentors. I'm not sure I'll ever be a Dylan journeyman. The canon is so huge, my start is so late in life, but I don't need to be anything other than what I am: curious, interested, and open to learn and enjoy.

Okay. 

That said, I'm most drawn to Dylan as a writer of love songs: lost love, desired love, longing for a love, and others. I think of Bob Dylan's face when he and Joan Baez talk at a bar in Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue. Now, granted, I don't know anything about Bob Dylan and Joan Baez's history. What I see in Bob Dylan's face, though, is regret, the look of having lost a love, maybe even the look of love sickness. He concludes their conversation with, "you see, it's heart, it's not head". 

So, today,  I listened to Dan play three versions of Mississippi that Dylan recorded while making Time Out of Mind. The song, however, appeared on a later album, Love and Theft. 

I was drawn to the wistful words of this song, the longing the persona telling the story has for Rosie, how he dreams of things that Rosie said, how he dreams to be in Rosie's bed. Later he says (and this might be about Rosie) that he crossed that river just to be with her. I hear regret in the words "Only one thing I did wrong/I stayed in Mississippi a day too long". Did that day too long cost him his love? Well, I don't really know in my head, but in my heart those are words of love regret.

Dan closed his show with Dylan's beloved song "Make You Feel My Love". The song, to me, expands upon a sentiment Dylan returns to from time to time having to do with all that the persona of the song would do for his beloved. In "Mississippi" the persona crossed the Mississippi River just to be with his beloved. Later tonight, I listened to Dylan and The Band perform "Baby, Let me Follow You Down". In this song, well, maybe the persona would cross the Mississippi follow this "baby" down, I don't know. What I do know is that Dylan writes that he would do anything in this God Almighty world just to follow this baby down. He'd buy her a wedding gown. He'd buy her a diamond ring. Anything. 

Well, in "Make You Feel My Love", he expands upon this same "I'd do anything" idea in order for the beloved to feel his love. I won't list all the things here, but we get a pretty good idea of what comprises "anything in this God Almighty world" he sang about when he was much younger: now it includes going hungry, going black and blue, crawling down the avenue, even going to the ends of the Earth for you. Anything, man. Anything in this God Almighty world. 

It might be particular to me, but I experience these "I'd do anythings" through my experience of having read Rumi. 

At the core of the human being, of the human experience is the longing for union.

It's strong. We feel like we'd do anything in this God Almighty world to know it. 

Bob Dylan doesn't express this longing or desire for union or this willingness to do what it takes to experience it every song.

But he sure does from time to time. 

2. The last time I saw Jane (Eischen) Hansen was when she drove to Eugene in July of 2017 to join me in the audience to hear Babes with Axes play their second reunion show (there hasn't been a third one yet).

So, today, we met up in a credit union parking lot and we caravanned out to her and Jim's wondrous rural home. Jim has been sculpting metal and making other tactile art for decades. Several of his works are on display in the huge stretch of lawn that extends from their house. Many others are in Jim's studio.

Jim is now in his late nineties. He's no longer sculpting, but just recently panels he made for a building in Vancouver sixty years ago were moved from their original building to near the waterfront and Jim and Jane attended the dedication of these panels having been moved and installed.

Jane and I settled into a great conversation about our families and some of the latest news in our lives. Both of us have quite recently become cat owners. Jane rescued two cats and I took in Copper and Luna after Kathy fell ill. It was fun talking about cats and seeing the two handsome cats Jane now cares for and enjoys.

We ended our time with a tour of Jim's studio and I saw all the work Jane has done to organize it and to inventory Jim's work. 

It's mighty impressive not only to see all that Jim has produced but to see the beauty and power of his work. 

So that I might reach the airbnb where I'm staying before dark, after I'd been at Jane and Jim's for about an hour, Jane once again drove the pilot pick up and led me safely back to I-5. 

I am very grateful for our visit and for her help leading me to and back from their house.

3. I saved the leftovers from dinner at La Rustica and was I ever glad I did. 

I arrived at the tiny house I booked in SE Portland tuckered out, gloriously tuckered out, from the great visits I had with friends and from driving and walking so much.

In other words, I didn't have to go out for dinner.

Along with the Italian food, I had some Trader Joe's snacks.

I ate, put on my nightwear, and went on line and watched videos of The Band, including their performance of "Baby, Let me Follow You Down", from the movie The Last Waltz.

The Band really got to me. 

I could hardly bear knowing that Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Levon Helm have died. I mourned. I marveled at their youth and energy. My eyes were wet. I love The Band more and more as I grow older and older. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-29-2022: Breakfast with Mark and Peter, Back to Bill and Diane's, Movie Time with Bill and Diane

1. I started the day vigorously. My longtime friends from our Whitworth days, Mark and Peter, and I met for breakfast at the Alki Beach Cafe in West Seattle and fell into a nearly two hour conversation, occasionally interrupted by taking bites of our food and sipping on coffee.

Mark and Peter and I have a lot of great history, so, inevitably, we talked about football games we attended between the Ducks and the Huskies and reminisced about great times at Whitworth and got caught up on what we know about people we knew, and still know, from those days in the 1970s. 

At the same time, our conversations are not just about the "good old days". All three of us are deeply engaged with our lives in the present, all have family to talk about, are all pursuing stimulating and fascinating interests. 

We are all trying to come to grips with the intrigues of Bob Dylan's music and lyrics and are always ready to pay our never ending homage to The Boss, Bruce Springsteen. 

And so much more. It's a deep well we draw from. 

I keep thinking that Seattle isn't that far away from Kellogg. It's an easy drive as long as the mountain passes are clear. 

I must get over here more often to see my friends.

2. Back at my room, I took a short nap and finished up writing a blog post.

Soon, I hopped in the Camry and blasted back up Hiway 99 to Shoreline to spend the afternoon with Bill and Diane.

Upon my arrival, we settled into conversation about music, Bill's performance Thursday night, and other matters, including a discussion of Richard Hugo. I couldn't stop myself from offering an explication of Hugo's "Cataldo Mission" (which Bill read at his performance Thurs. night) and rambling on about how amazed I was as a nineteen year old that Richard Hugo wrote this poem, not only about what he experienced at the Cataldo Mission, but about the Silver Valley. I didn't know anyone else even noticed the Silver Valley, let alone worked out a poem that explored the valley's industry and the area's history.

I couldn't stop myself again after talking about that poem because, to me, Hugo's "Letter to Levertov from Butte" is a companion poem. It delves more deeply into the deprivations of poverty in mining towns like Butte and its next door neighbor Walkerville, poverty that Hugo knew early in his life, that was there for us to see in the Silver Valley when I was growing up, and that is so evident in the lives of the students at the school where Debbie teaches.

3. The original purpose of my visit was not to talk nearly endlessly about Richard Hugo! It was to join Bill and Diane to watch a movie together. Diane was eager for us to watch the 1946 British movie, written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger entitled, A Matter of Life and Death.

I was not expecting such an unusual movie, one that took us viewers back and forth between life on Earth and an imagined world populated by people who have died. 

The passages on Earth were vividly shot in Technicolor while the afterlife world was shot in a monochrome (a reversal of, say, The Wizard of Oz).

I don't want to give any other aspects of this movie away.

I was very happy, as I watched it, that I knew nothing about it and so I experienced its strangeness and the depth of its explorations as a complete surprise, a most welcome surprise.

Bill, Diane, and I interrupted our viewing with about 30 minutes left in the movie for a superb dinner.

Diane asked me if I liked cube steak.

I LOVE cube steak and it had been a long time since I'd enjoyed one.

Diane prepared the cube steaks perfectly. She let me use the pan she cooked in to fry myself an egg because I really love cube steak with a fried egg. She prepared a fresh and crispy green salad. 

It was an awesome dinner -- simple, delicious, and invigorating.

We watched the rest of the movie, watched a video clip of Martin Scorsese talking about his experience with the movie, his relationship with Michael Powell, and what he sees as the movie's historical importance.

Bill and Diane are about to go on a getaway to La Push, WA. They had trip preparations to wrap up. I needed to drive back down Hiway 99 to my room in West Seattle and get some sleep since I will be driving to Portland on Sunday.

I don't think we wanted to end the evening, much like Mark, Peter, and I didn't want our morning time to end, but none of us could get around it.

We had to go our own ways. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-28-2022: Awesome Breakfast , Japanese Supermarket and Cask Conditioned Ale, Dreamy Italian Restaurant

 1. Around 9:00 this morning, I leapt in the Camry and barreled up Hiway 99 to Bill and Diane's condo in Shoreline. I got to see Val! We've seen one another's faces on ZOOM frequently and we've been in touch in other ways, but I hadn't seen Val in person since she and Mike catered Dave V's wedding reception back in 1993! 

I joined Val, Diane, and Mike at the dining table and we fell into easy conversation about home purchasing, home improvement, and a bunch of other topics, including some reminiscing about Whitworth. 

Diane baked a superb crustless spinach and feta quiche served with sausage and Val brought fresh melon, mango, and (I think she brought them) blueberries.

We had a splendid time together enjoying one another's company, having great conversation.

2. I returned to my room and scratched out as much of my blog post as I could before Hugh swung by shortly after 1:00 and we were off into the wilds of the International District and then Georgetown to enjoy some treasures in Seattle.

Hugh knows I enjoy Asian food and so he drove us to Uwajimaya, a dizzying Japanese supermarket, copiously stocked with Asian food goods and kitchen appliances and cookware and a variety of bowls, plates, and other dishes and utensils.

I loved seeing all the varieties of fish, produce, sauces, rice, noodles, and other foods and was very impressed with the wide range of prepared foods a shopper could buy to eat on the spot (or back home). 

After our tour of Uwajimaya, Hugh and headed to Georgetown, home to such legendary breweries as Elysian and Georgetown. We drove past an impressive row of well-established taverns and made our way to an old and former Ranier Brewing building (I think), now the home of Machine House Brewing. 

The Troxstar had alerted me to Machine House. He and I used to enjoy trips up to Oakridge, OR to drink cask conditioned ale at the Brewers Union Local 180 and he told me that Machine House specializes in brewing cask conditioned ale.

It's rare to find a brewery devoted to what's known in England as "real ale", naturally carbonated, no gas added, and served at cellar temperature. 

I started with a half pint of Cambridge bitter. I didn't enjoy its flavor a lot and so I tried Machine House's Oatmeal Stout. Ahhh! Yes! I loved this beer and could have sat here all afternoon drinking one half pint after another.

For what I like in a tasting room, this one was perfect, essentially a room in the warehouse. I prefer these tasting rooms with cement floors, exposed brick walls, and with no sign of gentrified remodeling. I could imagine being as comfortable in this space on a regular basis as I was at DC Brau and at the original Atlas Brewing in Ivy City, Washington, DC -- or, for that matter, the original tiny Oakshire tasting room out near the Train Whistle neighborhood in northwest Eugene before the brewery opened their Public House in the Whitaker neighborhood. 

3. Hugh and I left Machine House satisfied and headed to his and Carol's house in Renton.

Carol joined us and we were off to West Seattle where we had a table reserved at La Rustica, a handsome and cozy neighborhood Italian restaurant.

Upon being seated, I ordered a glass of refreshing and slightly sweet Rose wine, a wine I enjoy a lot and don't often get to drink.

La Rustica serves focaccia bread sliced into sticks of varying width seasoned with garlic and herbs. These were terrific and no matter how much of this bread customers eat, the servers always bring more.

I was very grateful when it came time to order that Hugh and Carol were up for tonight's oyster appetizer special. I always think, when I order oysters on the half shell, that I'm going to want them raw, but just like at Sushi.com in Spokane a couple of weeks ago, these oysters were broiled and swimming in an exquisitely delicious sauce that I wish I could adequately describe. I loved this dish and, as a bonus, we enjoyed dipping our pieces of focaccia in the sauce left over once we'd eaten the oysters.

La Rustica offered an excellent menu and our server told us about several specials that were available.

Well, I really like baked pasta and I decided to try La Rustica's Mostaccioli con Zazzicchia. It's penne baked with marinara, cream, and mozzarella accompanied by a delicious sausage. I also ordered a Caesar salad as a second course. 

It's a rich and flavorful dish and the sausage pairs perfectly with the pasta and its sauce. 

I couldn't eat the entire serving, so, as a bonus, I have a box of this splendid pasta and sausage sitting in my room refrigerator, just waiting for me to dive into it again. I also got to bring home several pieces of the focaccia bread! 

It was all right with me that the restaurant had run out of spumoni ice cream because our server offered me a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce as an alternative.

The scoop was more generous than I could comfortably finish, but I loved the several spoonfuls I had room for. 

Hugh and Carol and I had a superb time together talking about a variety of things and closed our evening together hoping that it won't be too long until we can see each other and dine together again. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-27-2022: Stroll to Trader Joe's, Books and Coffee and Dumplings, Bill Gives an Exquisite Performance

 1.  It's simply true that when I'm in a city, I walk more than I do in Kellogg. Today I racked up over 7000 steps, more than I've walked in a single day for way too long.

I started this day of walking by strolling over to Trader Joe's, a hop, skip, and a jump from the room I booked. 

I wanted to have sparkling water in my room and some snacks. I picked up a bag of salt and pepper potato chips, dried cranberry and roasted nut blend trail mix, a bag of lightly salted roasted peanuts, and a container of chocolate chip cookie dunkers.

2. I brought these items back to my room and, a little later, I headed down Alaska Street to California Avenue and a part of West Seattle called Junction. 

I began my tour of this neighborhood at Pegasus Books. Pegasus carries new and used books with a generous supply of mysteries. I wanted to purchase a book and go to a coffee shop and read for a while. I thought it would be fun to read one of the novels that was turned into one of the film noir movies I've watched recently. 

I hit the jackpot. I found a sturdy hardback containing three novels of James M. Cain. The book was in great shape and so now I have Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice all in one book. 

I carried my purchase up to Lula Coffee Company, ordered an everything bagel toasted with cream cheese and an Americano with whole milk. I don't remember the last time I sat in a coffee shop, relaxed, and read a book -- and didn't move an inch for nearly an hour. In fact, I don't remember the last time I bought a book at a bookstore. 

It might see odd that I would drive all the way to West Seattle just to walk up California Avenue and buy a book and take to a coffee shop and read while eating a bagel and drinking Americano, but it's this very sort of thing I love to do when visiting a city. 

After reading the first chapter of Mildred Pierce, I gathered myself and headed down California a short distance to a small eatery called Dumplings of Fury and ordered a plate of three large steamed Kimchi dumplings with pork, tofu, cilantro, and crispy onion bits. 

I love dumplings. 

I loved sitting on a stool at a narrow counter looking out a window onto California Avenue savoring  moderately spicy crunchy pickled cabbage, cilantro, and crispy onion bits spread over dumplings stuffed with pork and tofu. Having this very kind of experience is why I love to travel. 

3. I walked back to my room and took a blissful nap.

I decided I'd walked enough today and so I drove to C & P Coffee Company.

Bill Davie was performing tonight, his first solo gig in front of a live audience since March 5, 2020.

Bill has had times over the last several months when he wondered if he'd ever play his guitar again.

His hands have not been obedient, have not done what his mind tells them to do, making guitar playing sometimes difficult, sometimes frustrating, sometimes impossible. 

But, Bill has persisted. He's discovered ice packs on his forearms are an effective aid. He discovered he can play better if he sits after playing standing up for the last 50+ years. He discovered a kind of guitar strap that works better than what he's used his entire life.

Bill never knows when his hands might rebel. He never knows for sure how long he can play. 

So, for me, at least, his playing tonight was both a source of joy and pleasure and of some low grade anxiety. I didn't want to see Bill's hands quit on him.

And they didn't. 

Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe it was the joy of playing for a supportive audience. Maybe it was a triumph of Bill's persistence.

Whatever it was, Bill played beautifully tonight, performing a wide range of his compositions, reaching back into the 1980s, playing songs he's more recently written, and songs that fall in between the deep back then and more recent years.

I was elated when 9:00 rolled around and Bill played his last song. No, I wasn't elated that C & P had to close and Bill had to wrap things up.

I was elated that Bill prevailed over his physical maladies and whatever doubt he might have carried into this evening.  Bill gave an exquisite performance. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-26-2022: On the Road with The Grateful Dead, Learning More About Bob Dylan, Husky Deli and Jim Page Live

 1. I was a little slow getting out of the house this morning. I kept thinking of things to take care of before I left: feed the cats, scoop the litter box, take dishes out of the dishwasher, put others ones in, etc. Finally, I climbed in the Camry and tried to get my cell phone to play Daniel McKay's Bob Dylan podcast through the car's sound system and nothing worked. I got my destination plugged into Google Maps on my tablet, though (that worked!) and gave up on listening to the podcast episodes. Instead, I listened to SXM radio channels Classic Rewind and Deep Tracks, but, after a while, I switched to what I really wanted: The Grateful Dead channel. 

After all these years of listening to the Grateful Dead, I am still a long ways from matching, in my head, song titles to the songs themselves. Today, I think I finally nailed "New Speedway Boogie", "Cumberland Blues", possibly "Minglewood Blues", and I'm working on others. Having these songs come up randomly on the Grateful Dead channel helped me in my efforts to get this all straight.

2. I pulled into a rest stop somewhere out on I-90 and decided to try again to get my cell phone to play through the Camry's sound system.

I didn't do anything different, that I know of, from when I was home, but for some reason it worked.

I had Daniel's Sept. 30th episode of Hard Rain & Slow Trains downloaded and, much to my delight, it came on. It's the first of two episodes Dan created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of Dylan's album, Time Out of Mind.

I don't know this album (of course -- not knowing Dylan's catalogue well is why I listen to Dan). 

I thoroughly enjoyed Dan's analysis of the album and the background he delved into regarding its production. 

Dan has a keen understanding of how the tracks relate to each other and constitute Dylan's exploration of the riddling nature of time. Dan's production notes were also fascinating. 

3. My drive to West Seattle was easy. I ran into a small amount of congestion leaving I-90 and merging onto I-5, but it was minor.

I got settled into my room and set off for a walk.

I wanted to poke around a little bit in the area of West Seattle known as The Junction and, since I hadn't really eaten much all day, I wanted to try a sandwich at the Husky Deli, on Hugh C's recommendation.

I ordered a half of a Jack's Special on Rustic Sourdough bread, cold, not grilled. 

Why a half? I have discovered recently that if I eat a whole deli sandwich, I feel sluggish, uncomfortable, and I get winded easily if I'm out walking.

The size of the half sandwich was absolutely perfect. The sandwich itself  was loaded with Italian Prosciutto, Hot Coppa, Toscano Salame, Fresh Mozzarella, Balsamic Vinaigrette, Basil, and Tomato. I loved the bread.

Nourished, I made my way on down California Street to C & P Coffee Company where I met up with Bill and Diane and we joined about 8-10 other people and listened to Jim Page and Orville Johnson perform. Occasionally Jim's wife Katy Keenan sang backup and Katy played a short set to get the evening started and to make sure the sound system was working.

I was trying to remember when I first heard Jim Page perform. 

Was it back in 1985, 6, 7, or 8 at the Oregon Country Fair? Was it at Sam Bond's a few years later? I know he and Bill Davie gave a house concert in my home in the fall of 1993, but I'd heard Jim Page before that. 

I just couldn't place it. 

Originally, I had planned to drive to Seattle on Thursday to hear Bill Davie perform at C & P. 

Bill told me, however, on ZOOM, that Jim Page was performing at C & P the night before him -- that was tonight.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hear Jim again live. I'd heard him recently streaming online, but I really wanted to be in the same room while he played and it was awesome tonight, especially because I'd never heard Orville Johnson play along side Jim and Orville's playing and his occasional vocal accompaniments were exquisite. 

Say what you will about driving all the way from Kellogg, Idaho to West Seattle, WA in a day to hear Jim Page, but, for me, it was a peak experience. 

I'm ecstatic that I did it. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-25-2022: Getting Ready to Travel, Baking and Cooking in the Afternoon, Family Dinner

1. Was the last time I went away by myself, not counting visits to Mom, for as many as twelve or thirteen days when I went to NYC and Washington D.C. in late June/early July of 2012. 

Possibly.

Today I diligently packed, made lists of things to remember, and continued to firm up when I will visit what people. Not everything is settled just yet, but it's getting closer all the time.

(I'll add this: I'm eager to go on this trip to Seattle/Portland/Eugene, but while I'm gone, I'm going to miss cooking dinners and other food for Debbie.)

2. Christy assigned me to bring baked beans to family dinner tonight. The ones I've made before in the crock pot call for bacon and I didn't have any on hand, so I looked at recipes that combined pork roast with beans, especially because I have a number of hunks of pork shoulder roast on hand.

I decided to go all out and slow cook a hunk of pork shoulder roast in the oven along with a sauce made from scratch.

Before I did that, though, I baked another dozen Morning Glory muffins for Debbie to have on hand and take to school. 

First I made the sauce. I combined brown sugar, molasses, ketchup, dry mustard, salt, and, pepper in a bowl and set it aside.

Next, I heated oil in the Dutch oven and then seared the hunk of pork roast.

I removed the seared hunk of pork and used the oil and grease in the Dutch oven to sauté a chopped onion until soft.

I returned the pork to the pot and poured the sauce over it.

I put the lid on the Dutch oven and roasted the meat at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

I then took out the Dutch oven, opened it, flipped over the roast, added some water to the sauce, put the lid back on, and roasted the meat for another 45 minutes.

I then took out the Dutch oven, opened it, flipped the roast over again, added water to the sauce, put the lid back on and roasted the meat for 30 minutes. 

Now, the recipe's writer and I both hoped that two hours of roasting would have the pork roast falling apart, easily broken up with a fork. It was!  I broke up the pork on a plate.

So now I put two cans of butter beans and one can of pinto beans in the sauce, stirred it all up, added a bit more water, put shreds of pork in with the beans, and returned it all to the oven, with the Dutch oven's lid off, to bake for about 30-45 minutes.

The last baking time thickened the sauce and when I tested the beans, sauce, and pork, I was blown away.

On the spot, I became an instant believer in this recipe. You can look at it if you'd like. It's right here.

3. Christy hosted family dinner tonight and prepared each of us a Spicy Bourbon Pumpkin Smash. It combined flavors of pumpkin pie with bourbon, topped off with ginger beer. I'd never had a drink anything like this before and it not only tasted good, it was perfect for the season.

Molly brought a cheese ball and crackers for an appetizer and we all yakked about a bunch of stuff as we enjoyed the first stage of dinner.

For the main course, Christy combined roasted vegetables and accordion slice kielbasa into a dish called Hasselback Kielbasa. The recipe is from Ina Garten's latest cookbook, Go-To Dinners.

Carol made a fascinating cabbage salad that included black vinegar and everything bagel seasoning. I can't remember the other ingredients.

My baked beans rounded out our dinner.

For dessert, Christy make whipping cream to put on her Applesauce and Raisin cake, baked from another Ina Garten recipe. 

We talked aa lot tonight about the Silver Valley and all that Molly, Christy, Debbie, and Carol are learning and have learned about this place where we live through their work, paid and volunteer. Molly writes for the local paper and Debbie, Christy, and Carol all work with local children and have learned a lot about the varying plights of local families. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-24-2020: Gibbs Gets Groomed, I Prepare to Leave, Fish Chowder Night

 1. I took Gibbs to the groomer today and now we can see his eyes without obstruction and he looks clean and lean.

2. I have one more small load of laundry to do and then I'll be able to finish the packing job I started today and I'll be ready to take off Wednesday morning.

3. I've made the quick fish chowder recipe in the NYT's No Recipe Recipes book before and used a couple quarts of my crab stock and did it again this afternoon. When I was at the store today, I'd forgotten that this chowder has bacon in it. So I made the chowder without bacon. I just chopped up an onion and some baby Yukon golds. I sautéed the onions for a while, added the potatoes, covered it all with crab stock, and slow cooked this mixture until the potatoes and onion were tender. I then added milk and some half and half followed by a handful of raw shrimp that I had cooked slightly in butter in the cast iron pan. I added the buttery liquid left behind by the sautéing and added a chunk of butter to the chowder itself. The only seasoning I used was bay leaf, salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning. I didn't use flour so this chowder was not very thick. That's the way Debbie and I prefer it. 

Yes, I missed the bacon, but not terribly.

The chowder worked and will provide Debbie with food for lunch for at least a couple of days. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-23-2020: Heidi Muller and Bob Webb's Concert, Astros Make the Yankees Pay, Watching a Creepy Farmhouse Film Noir

1. Sometimes I think I should get myself focused. I'm always thinking about how when I'm, say, watching a movie, I'm not reading, or, when I watch a baseball game, I'm not listening to music. I foolishly wish sometimes that I could do two or things at once, but, alas, it's not the way things work.

Today, though, I enjoyed three different of these things in life I love. It made for an invigorating day.

I'll begin in the middle.

At 2:00 this afternoon, I went to St. Rita's Catholic Church and listed to a Shoshone County Community Concert presented by Heidi Muller and Bob Webb.

I was trying to remember when I first heard Heidi Muller perform. I am all but certain I heard her play a concert for the Corvallis Folklore Society, and, if this is true, that would have been in the early 1990s.

I "see" Heidi Muller online whenever we are both audience members for Bill Davie and so today, because we were aware of each other, I introduced myself to Heidi and we chatted briefly.

Heidi Muller and Bob Webb are versatile musicians, devoted to performing both Heidi's original songs and traditional tunes, whether from the UK or Appalachia.

Heidi plays the guitar and ukulele, but she's best known for her virtuosity on the mountain dulcimer. She brought several for today's concert and played them beautifully.

Bob Webb, I guess you could say, is Heidi Muller's "side man". He adds substance, color, texture, and beauty to Heidi's songs whether he's playing the mandolin, guitar, dulcimer, or his fascinating electric cello. 

Heidi and Bob's performance was beautiful in the present, but it also transported me into some nostalgic emotion that moved me to tears. 

I reveled in memories about thirty years old. Back then,  I frequently joined friends from Eugene and traveled to Corvallis for monthly folk concerts and went to many others in Eugene and elsewhere. 

It was because of my devotion to and enjoyment of acoustic music performed in the Willamette Valley that I first heard Debbie perform and happened to attend the very first Babes with Axes show back in December of 1993.

I miss those days. I miss hearing Babes with Axes. I miss listening to Debbie perform. I miss the bluegrass music I used to get out and listen to. 

I didn't miss listening to acoustic music today, though. 

I was very happy that Heidi Muller and Bob Webb performed in Kellogg and that I was committed to hearing them perform, enjoying them in the present and enjoying how their music also took me to my most enjoyable past and some very sweet memories.  

2. Upon arriving back home, I watched Game 4 of the Astros/Yankees playoff series, with the winner headed to the World Series. 

The Astros are a stacked team, stocked with strong starting pitchers and relievers, solid hitters up and down the lineup, and a tight defense. The Yankees were down in this series 3-0 and it looked early like they might stave off elimination, jumping out to a 3-0 lead early.  But, teams just cannot make mistakes against the Astros and, in the seventh inning, the Yanks' second baseman Gleyber Torres flubbed a short flip to his shortstop and instead of an inning ending double play, the Yankees not only gave an out away, they then gave up two runs, the game winners, as the Astros defeated the Bronx Bomber 6-5. 

3.  Late this morning, I returned to The Red House (1947), a movie I started on Saturday night. Were it not for the Turner Classic Movie channel's weekend program, Noir Alley, I am certain I never would have watched this movie. 

Unlike the usual film noir movie that is set in dark urban landscape, The Red House takes place in the country on a family farm and in the nearby forest.

I don't want to give away what happens in this movie, but I will say that it involves a red house in the heart of the forest, a house that holds a terrible secret that the movie's central character, Pete Morgan (played impeccably by Edward G. Robinson) tries to keep buried. We learn that Pete Morgan was crippled by an accident (nothing to do with his buried secret) that left him with a wooden leg and soon it becomes clear that Pete Morgan's damaged leg is a metaphor for his damaged soul. The secret Pete Morgan is obsessed with protecting warps him and the movie explores the nature of his troubled soul and the consequences of burying his past. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-22-2022: Talking with Rita, Apple and Pork Festival at the Elks, Diving Into *The Asphalt Jungle*

1. Rita is my longtime friend and, starting back in 1993, we team taught courses in English Composition and Philosophy. That project was among the most fun teaching experiences I had in my many years teaching college-level courses. 

Today Rita called me to update me on her medical condition. Over the phone, yes, I could tell Rita's heart disease and other difficulties have weakened her voice, but she was mentally and intellectually as sharp as ever. 

We talked for a while about her decision to put herself under hospice care. 

Rita also talked about her current intellectual ponderings, her rereading of Louise Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Listening to Rita recap the unusual tale this novel tells brought back vivid and enjoyable memories of when we assigned our students early novels by Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine, Beet Queen, and Tracks. Getting at thorny philosophical questions of ethics, how we know what we know (or think we know), and the nature of reality through the events and characters of these novels was not only fun, but magical. 

We talked about other things, too, including Rita's end of life planning.

We made a plan to spend as much of the day of November 5th together as is possible, but I'll call Rita when I arrive in Eugene on November 1st to see if we need to adjust that plan. 

2. Around 5:00 this afternoon, Ed and Nancy picked me up and blasted straight to the Elks Club for this year's annual Pork and Apple Festival. It's a fundraiser for the Kellogg Elks Club. The heart of the the festival is a dinner consisting of slow cooked pork, tender and juicy, apples baked with cinnamon (and brown sugar?), baked beans, cole slaw, and a dinner roll.

Upon arriving at the festival, we could buy tickets for a variety of baked goods like Pina colada bread, banana bread, glazed carrot cake, and others being raffled off along with craft items like autumn welcome signs and autumn themed baskets with dried flowers and stuff. On another table, larger items including baskets of bottles of liquor, were also raffled off. About three or four times during the raffle drawing, Harley and Harley, our master and mistress of ceremonies, took a break and the children in the house rushed to the Elk Race board hanging near the Bingo board and watched as one person threw dice and another advanced the six elk on the board forward depending on the dice roll. The children won prizes and, at the end of the festival, Ms. Harley made sure that every child left with a prize in case any children were shut out at the races.

The highlight of my evening? A tall lanky guy my age approached me just before I got in the dinner line. I didn't recognize him and he introduced himself as Phil Watts. PHIL WATTS! Holy Toledo! Phil and I were teammates for three years on the Kellogg-Wallace American Legion baseball team (1970-72). I hadn't seen him since the our 1972 season ended. 

Phil was a pitcher for our team. I remembered him as a chucker who liked to work the lower part of the strike zone and when Phil's stuff was working, our infielders stayed busy as our opponents hit a lot of ground balls. 

Phil and I had a good talk, some about our baseball days and some about his golf game and enjoyment of fishing and how he is dividing his time, not equally, between Aloha, OR and Wallace. 

3. Earlier in the day, I completed watching the Sterling Hayden double feature I'd planned for myself by flipping on the John Huston masterpiece, The Asphalt Jungle (1950). 

Like the first movie of this double feature (The Killing), The Asphalt Jungle is a heist movie that tells the story of a middle aged man, Doc Erwin Riedenschnieder, played by Sam Jaffe, who wastes no time after being released from prison planning a robbery of jeweler.

And so, in a tightly constructed story, the movie introduces us to a handful of characters who Doc recruits to pull off this heist. At one point, Doc asserts that "One way or another, we all work for our vice." We come to know each of these character, in part, in terms of their central vice and, in a way that I thought was like Shakespeare, we see how each character's vice affects how this heist and its aftermath turns out.

A few examples: Doc's vice is his lust for young women; Sterling Hayden's character, Dix, is fixated on horses (and the memory of the horse farm he grew up on); a character named Cobby drinks too much; a lawyer named Emmerich's vice is living extravagantly; the character Doll can't let go of her attraction to Dix. And so on.

As the plot moves forward, as the heist is planned and carried out and as we witness its aftermath, what's inside these characters drives the story to its several conclusions, each conclusion showing us the fate of each character. 

Given what I enjoy most in movies, this is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

I enhanced my enjoyment of this film after its conclusion by watching videos posted on the Criterion Channel. One featured the remarkable Eddie Mueller expressing his admiration for The Asphalt Jungle and locating it in both the heist genre and in the world of film noir.

I also watched an interview with cinematographer John Bailey who brilliantly explains the work of The Asphalt Jungle's cinematographer, Harold Rosson. I learned as much about cinematography in this 20-25 minute interview with John Bailey than from anything else I've ever encountered. I would love to have this kind of understanding of how movies are photographed and the impact the different choices made behind the camera have on how we experience movies. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 10-21-2022: Simple Chili for Dinner, Back to Film Noir: *The Killing*, Learning About Stanley Kubrick

 1. As I pondered what to cook this afternoon so that Debbie would have food ready at home after her full week of working with third graders, my first thought was to make a fish chowder. To do that, however, I'd need to go to the store and buy some potatoes and I didn't feel like going to the store. 

Then I remembered I had a clump of ground beef in the freezer and I went online and found a simple recipe for chili. This would not be a chili cooking contest winner, but it would be comforting and sustaining. 

All I had to do was brown the ground beef, add half a chopped onion and a garlic clove to the meat, and let the onion cook until soft. I then added a can of pinto beans and a can of diced tomatoes to the pot and added chili powder and a little white vinegar. That was it. I let this chili simmer until Debbie arrived home and it worked, especially with a few saltine crackers.

2. On Twitter today, someone who goes by the name of FilmNoirSally asked her hive of followers to name their favorite femme fatale. I couldn't answer the question myself, but a lot of people did and they named characters in movies I've watched recently and opened me up to some new possibilities.

FilmNoirSally kicked off the thread by naming Sherry Peatty, played by Marie Windsor, in Stanley Kubrick's 1956 heist movie, The Killing. 

I hadn't heard of Marie Windsor, so I did some clicking around and learned more about her and became intrigued with what I read about The Killing.

So I watched it tonight.

The movie tells the story of a steely man, Johnny Clay (metaphorical last name), played by Sterling Hayden, who has just been released from prison after five years and is desperate to make some quick money and run away with his lover and start life over again.

His plan? Gather a team of men and pull off a heist of a horse racing track, steal all that money laid down by bettors. 

They want to make a killing.

The Killing is directed by a young Stanley Kubrick, just 27 or 28 years old.

The claustrophobic black and white interiors of the movie with their deep shadows reflect how each of the men Johnny Clay recruited is trapped in some dark circumstance in his life. There's a cop in debt over his head to a loan shark; there's a weak man married to woman who hates him and he believes quick wealth would please her and save their marriage; there's a bartender with a desperately ill wife who wants quick money to pay for her medical care; you get the point. 

Kubrick tells this story with voice over narration, as if the planning and execution of the heist were itself a horse race. Kubrick also fractures the chronology of the story. It moves back and forth in time, repeats certain scenes. It's a brilliant way of accounting for the numerous things that have to happen at just the right time in order for this heist to succeed.

I would love to tell how it all works out and reflect on what I think Kubrick is getting at regarding human nature and some truths about life itself in this movie, but that would mean spoiling the plot and I'm not going to do that. 

3. Sterling Hayden had played the lead in earlier heist movie, John Huston's Asphalt Jungle (1950). I was going to watch it tonight, but, at 10:00, I decided it was too late to start another movie.

Instead, I read reviews and analyses of The Killing, and, in turn, read articles about how this movie anticipated elements of movie making Kubrick would refine and develop over the course of his directorial career. 

I'm not articulate enough about these things to sum them up, but I was fascinated by what I read and glad that recently I've watched two of Kubrick's early movies, The Killing and Paths of Glory, making it so that I could, to some degree, understand the material I was reading. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-20-2022: Baking More Muffins, Art Linkletter Was Right, 1948 Version of *Green Acres*!

1. Looking ahead and knowing Debbie's day is made a little better by taking a homemade muffin to school, I baked a dozen more Morning Glory muffins today. I needed a couple of things from Yoke's and enjoyed a sunny walk to the store and back. 

2. You might remember the segment on Art Linkletter's daytime show, House Party, called "Kids Say the Darndest Things".  Kids continue to say the darndest things. Today one youngster at school told Debbie she smelled like tuna fish. 

3. This evening I returned to the Criterion Channel and watched another movie featuring James Wong Howe as the Director of Photography.

The movie was a fun dessert, light and sweet. 

As I watched Cary Grant and Myrna Loy with supporting help from Melvyn Douglas in the 1948 screwball comedy, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, I had fun flashbacks to the television show, Green Acres.

In this movie, Cary Grant plays Jim Blandings, a successful Manhattan advertising executive, who lives with his wife (Myrna Loy) and two daughters in an apartment where space is tight.

Blandings becomes obsessed with moving out of Manhattan into the Connecticut countryside and purchases a ramshackle house with acreage.

Much like Green Acres and much like the Tom Hanks/Shelly Long movie, The Money Pit, the movie presents one scene after another of Mr. Blandings spending more and more and more money on financing this big change in his life and gives us scene after scene of things going awry with the project.

The story was funny. 

Most all, though, I enjoyed the elegant Cary Grant playing the bumbling, stubborn, mistake-prone Jim Blandings and the chemistry between Blandings and his patient, whip smart wife, Muriel, played brilliantly by Myrna Loy. 

I went through a phase of renting screwball comedies from the 1940s back in the mid-1980s. I had fun watching a handful of them and I see turning toward them again. I love watching film noir, but, I admit, taking a break from all those murders and all the conniving in those movies might be a good thing. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-19-2022: Travel Plans Coming Together, Dinner at Syringa, Seeing *In the Heat of the Night* in Movie Theater

1. I'm leaving next week on Wednesday for about twelve days of travel, with stops in Seattle, Portland, and Eugene. Today, I finalized where I'll be staying every night I'm gone. I know that my trip will be packed with live music and one movie featuring The Grateful Dead from Copenhagen during the Europe 72 tour. I know I'm visiting friends, sharing a meal with some, having coffee with others, and that I'm not finished figuring out my schedule of get togethers and things to do. 

2. I drove to Coeur d'Alene late this afternoon. The Riverstone Regal Stadium 14 cinema complex partners with Fathom Events to show, on occasion, special film presentations whether of classic movies, opera, or other features. 

Tonight, in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies, Fathom Events via Regal Stadium 14 was showing In the Heat of the Night to commemorate the movie's 55th anniversary. 

I had to see this movie tonight. Wild, wild horse couldn't drag me away.

I started the evening by going to Syringa, a Japanese restaurant in Coeur d'Alene. It's a place I've read about often, heard about some, but never visited.

I decided to make it easy on myself as far as a dinner choice and ordered the Syringa Bento. 

My order included a bowl of delicious miso soup to start.

The Bento included a spring garden salad (I chose the splendid orange ginger vinaigrette as a dressing), about five or six pieces of lightly battered vegetarian tempura, three pieces of cucumber and three pieces of salmon sushi, the chef's sushi roll of the day, and two pieces of nigiri, both raw, yellowtail and tuna. 

It was a superb variety of Japanese food and was actually more food than I had bargained for. 

I enjoyed every part of the Syringa Bento -- and I could have easily shared it with another person. 

3. I left Syringa satisfied and headed over to Riverstone.

The last time I went to one of these Fathom Events was back in November of 2019. Ed and I watched John Fogerty's 50 Year Trip: Live at Red Rocks.

It was awesome. 

That night, Ed and I were two of four people in the theater.

Tonight's Fathom Event had a similar turnout. 

I think nine of us were in attendance. 

I'm ecstatic that I drove over to CdA to see this classic movie, In the Heat of the Night,  on a mammoth screen.

I don't think I'd seen this movie since my sophomore year at North Idaho College.

I'd certainly forgotten a lot about it.

For starters, I'd forgotten that it's a detective story, centered on the process of determining who killed a prominent entrepreneur, Phillip Robert,  in Sparta, Mississippi.

It becomes an unusual detective story because Virgil Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier), the first person accused of the murder, is in Mississippi visiting family. When a deputy apprehends him at a train depot and brings him into the police station, we learn that Virgil Tibbs is a homicide detective from Philadelphia and the story suddenly transforms him from suspect to investigator as he accepts the assignment to help Police Chief Gillespie. 

The pairing of Virgil Tibbs, a black man, with the bigoted Chief Gillespie, creates the movie's central emotional conflict alongside the tension of Tibbs and Gillespie trying to figure out who the killer is.

I marveled watching Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger playing off of each other. Both actors brought to life their characters' depth and complexity. Both characters transcended easy stereotypes and both actors were titanic in ways they not only battled one another, but developed some mutual understanding.

In addition to Poitier and Steiger's captivating work, the movie featured several other superb performances. Lee Grant's screen time is brief, but as the distraught widow of the murder victim, she makes an indelible mark on the entire arc of the movie, portraying Mrs. Colbert's devastation and her mighty resolve not only that her husband's murderer be found, but that her husband's plans to bring new industry to Sparta not be deterred.

In supporting roles, two actors riveted my attention. Scott Wilson played Harvey Oberst, the second man  accused of Colbert's murder with a keen understanding of Oberst's desperation not only as a suspect, but as a man mired in poverty. Anthony James was also brilliant in playing Ralph,  the pie hoarding, fly killing cook and counter man at a local diner. Ralph is off kilter. His enjoyment of exercising small measures of power, sometimes a bit sadistic, over others made me uneasy and Anthony James plays Ralph's dark personality perfectly.

The movie's exploration of racism is, to my mind, complex. On the one hand, nothing about this movie suggests that the deeply held and inherited racism embedded in this world of Sparta, Mississippi is affected by anything that happens in this movie. The movie does, however, portray that individuals of different races and backgrounds, in relationship with each other, can find ways of developing mutual respect. It's limited. It doesn't have an impact on the larger community and its bigotry. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-18-2022: Braising Pork in Curry Sauce, Baking Morning Glory Muffins, Home Runs Rule in the Major Leagues

1. A while back, I bought a large pork shoulder roast and cut it into about six hunks and froze them. Today, I thawed one of those hunks. I decided to see how a Thai yellow curry sauce would work as a braise and went to work on it. I heated a couple of tablespoons of Thai yellow curry paste in a small amount of sesame oil and then added two cans of coconut milk, two tbsp of soy sauce, two more of fish sauce, and two tbsp of brown sugar to the paste. I then sprinkled in some dried lime kaffir leaves. 

While the curry sauce simmered, I salted and seared the pork in the Dutch oven, surrounded it with Yukon gold potatoes, a roughly chopped onion, and chunks of carrot.

I poured the sauce over the pork and the vegetables, put the lid on the Dutch oven, and let this pork dish cook for about an hour in the oven at 300 degrees. 

That did it. 

I just needed to keep it warm and dinner would be ready when Debbie arrived home from school.

2. Yesterday, Debbie told me it would help her a lot if she could have a daily muffin to snack on when she needed something to help boost her energy during the day.

We agreed that I would bake about a dozen Morning Glory muffins.

I lacked a few ingredients here at home and buzzed over to Yoke's, shopped, and returned home.

The recipe I use to bake Morning Glory muffins is packed with ingredients, many of them all but guaranteeing that the muffins will come out of the oven moist and tasty.

It's a little bit of work.

I grated carrots. I grated an apple. I grated zucchini. I chopped pecans.

I combined the carrots, apple, zucchini, and pecans along with applesauce, crushed pineapple, vanilla extract, three eggs, coconut, and vegetable oil in one bowl.

In a second bowl, I combined all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. 

I lined a muffin tin's holes with aluminum liners and preheated the oven at 350 degrees.

I combined the bowl of wet ingredients with the dry ones and mixed them with a big spoon until everything was blended into a flavorful glob.

I filled each muffin liner about two-thirds full of the glob and baked them for about 20-23 minutes.

I then baked a second batch. 

The recipe is here. 

Debbie sampled one.

She declared the muffins were perfect. 

She also enjoyed the curry braised pork and vegetables with rice leftover from last night.

It elates me when my efforts in the kitchen work out.

I enjoy being back into this groove again, like we were in Maryland, where I spend time in the afternoon fixing meals, trying out some new things, and keeping Debbie nourished for the challenging work she undertakes every school day at Pinehurst Elementary. 

3. While I cooked, I listened to the mighty New York Yankees defeat the upstart Cleveland Guardians, fueled by rockets ignited out of the park by Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge and by the nifty five innings Nestor Cortes spun, followed by a most effective committee of relievers over the last four innings. 

The Yankees had to fly to Houston later in the evening and will meet the powerful Astros on Wednesday without much rest. 

I didn't watch or listen to the National League game, but the Phillies also rode home run power to a 2-0 Game 1 victory over the Padres, thanks to solo round trippers by Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber. I saw a replay of Schwarber's moon shot, a blast NASA itself could have launched during the Apollo years. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-17-2022: Thai Green Curry Chicken Wings, Eugene Nostalgia and an Update, All-Class Reunion Meeting

1. I took out another package of chicken party wings, thawed them, and decided to make something I'd never tried before:  Thai green curry wings. 

I began by mixing flour, coriander, allspice, and salt in a bowl and, after patting the thawed wings dry with paper towels, I tossed the wings in this mixture. I then drizzled vegetable oil over the wings and tossed them some more.

I placed the wings on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and baked them at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes. 

In the meantime, I combined melted butter, fish sauce, Thai green curry paste, a little brown sugar, a splash of soy sauce, and some crumbled lime kaffir leaves in a bowl and whisked it. 

I removed the wings from the oven, let them cool a bit, and then tossed the wings in the butter/curry paste mixture I just made.

I placed the wings back on the parchment paper and baked them for about 10 more minutes. 

I also made a batch of jasmine rice. 

So that was our dinner tonight and will be Debbie's lunch tomorrow.

My experiment worked.

Now I'm confident that I can make Buffalo wings, Teriyaki wings, and Thai curry wings. 

We used to order Old Bay wings at the Old Line Bistro in Beltsville, MD. 

I'd like to try to make that kind of wing some time. 

2. I had a fun time for about twenty minutes on Facebook today.

A former Eugene, OR resident, Richard La Rosa, administers a nostalgic Facebook group page called Long Live Lenny's Nosh Bar. Lenny's Nosh Bar was a late night joint on E. 13th until it was overtaken by the expansion of the Sacred Heart hospital in that neighborhood.  

I didn't hang out at Lenny's much at all, but I had students at the U of O who did and a certain number of the Lenny's crowd also hung out at the Allann Bros Beanery on E. 14th (former site of Mama's Homefried Truck Stop; current location of Pegasus Pizza) where I often studied, graded papers, and socialized. 

Well, today, I read a post by Richard La Rosa memorializing Steve Bove, the proprietor of Cinema 7, an art house movie theater that operated in the Atrium Building in Eugene for just shy of fifteen years.

I frequented Cinema 7. Many of my very best movie viewing experiences occurred there. 

In the thread that grew out of Richard La Rosa's original post, Richard recalled Cinema 7's last night.

It was November 12, 1987.

Steve Bove played The Man Who Would Be King as the Cinema 7's last hurrah.

I'd seen this movie about eight years earlier at Cinema 7 as part of a double feature with Robin and Marian. 

I attended Cinema 7's last movie on November 12, 1987 and experienced a flood of joy and gratitude for the many invigorating movies I'd seen there over the years and also felt grief that this jewel of a movie house was closing.

I was a nervous, anxiety-filled graduate student at the Univ. of Oregon, living in constant fear of failure.

For many of my years in graduate school, I over studied, driven by anxiety, and I thought a lot today about how I wish I could have been more carefree during those years.

Yes, I did take breaks from my compulsive study habits and go to movies at Cinema 7 and the Bijou.

Today, as I read people's memories of Lenny's Nosh Bar and their love of the punk/new wave local bands that played in Eugene back then, it made me ache that I missed out on so much of that while reading, reading, reading, writing papers and preparing for field exams, the dark cloud of fear of failure always hovering over me.

And, as it turned out, I experienced enough success in grad school that I got to work great jobs teaching at the U of O, Whitworth, and Lane Community College. 

But, I didn't finish my doctorate and so, in that way, realized my fears of failure.

It's been thirty years since I left graduate school. 

It's been thirty-five years since Cinema 7 closed and thirty-seven years since Lenny's went out of business. 

All is not lost, though!  I learned today that the Bijou Arts Cinema on E. 13th in Eugene has reopened in the same building with a new name, the Art House.

On Saturday, November 5th, I'll get to return to the Wilcox Building, home of the Bijou/Art House and watch the Grateful Dead's April 17, 1972 show at Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen during their awesome Europe '72 tour. 

I'm eager to see and hear the show and eager to see the new and reimagined Art House.

Most of all, I'm looking forward to being back in that building again.

Like Cinema 7, many of the very best movie going experiences I've had in the last 40 years happened in the former Bijou Arts Cinema. 

I'm elated that that venue has re-opened. I've looked over what they are showing over the next month and it's a stimulating combination of independent and international movies,  music films, opera, live theater on film, a David Lynch retrospective, and much more. 

3. This evening, Christy and I attended the October KHS All-Class Reunion meeting.

Things are moving apace. 

Bands will play on Friday and Saturday.

T-shirts, sweatshirts, and canvas bags will be available to order. 

There will be food trucks.

The Saturday BBQ dinner is taking shape.

Signs for businesses to put up and to go elsewhere are in the works.

Preparations are under way for a car show.

Plans are developing for tours.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

It seems to me that for an event that's taking place July 21-23, 2023, planning is going very well. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-16-2022: ZOOMing and Our Lives of Learning, Thorny Question About Heroes, Yankees Win

1. Things in my life quieted down considerably today after Friday and Saturday were so jam-packed. Bill, Diane, Colette, and I talked for a couple of hours on ZOOM today and spent quite a bit of time discussing our experiences in the academic world and our varying experiences in school and out of school with poetry. Some of our discussion about the academic world was critical and it pains me when these matters come up. I loved being a college student most of the time, both when I was an undergraduate and graduate student, but there's no getting around the fact that, like any other institution, colleges and universities have personnel and students who are arrogant, petty, demeaning, and corrosively competitive. 

We talked about these undesirable aspects of the colleges and universities we've attended and been employed by.

But, we also focused on positive aspects, about instructors like Whitworth's Leonard Oakland, instructors who we knew were brilliant, deeply and broadly educated, and, at the same time, understanding of students who needed help, encouraging, passionate about what they were teaching, and eager to help students discover their own paths of learning and exploration. 

For me, the best part of this conversation was when we turned our attention to how we are all independent learners, avid self-teachers. 

Whether the subject is movies, Tarot, poetry, making music, politics, dance, cooking, writing of all sorts, mythology, and a vast array of other undertakings, the four of us, and the other Westminster Basementeers, have undertaken to learn about all kinds of things beyond what we learned in school.

Val and Colette have both returned to school in the last few years. Colette completed an MFA and had a largely positive experience and Val has spoken highly of the masters degree program she is currently enrolled in. 

It's stimulating, challenging, invigorating, and a lot of fun entering into these conversations every other week with my fellow Westminster Basementeers. 

This discussion of our experiences in academia brought back to me some sterling memories and some painful ones. Most of my painful memories are connected to institutional bureaucracy, but I can also count on my failure to figure out how to write a dissertation to give me the pain that comes with falling short and discovering some limitations I have that I'd rather not admit are there.

2. We ended our discussion on what for me was a thorny question -- a most welcome thorny question -- but a thorny question all the same. Colette brought to our attention some of Ursula Le Guin's writing. Colette talked a bit about the questions Le Guin raises regarding stories we've received over our vast past and regarding Le Guin's own work. 

What's thorny for me is that, on the one hand, I love listening to and reading Joseph Campbell and his understanding of the monomythic hero, the hero's journey, and the way that the hero's external journey parallels our own inward journeys toward maturity and becoming fully human.

But, as has been pointed out to me many times in the past, and again today, the stories we've inherited from the deep past and that Campbell elucidates so insightfully are almost exclusively centered on male characters, male experiences, and male heroes. 

I understand why those who point this out see it as a serious problem.

It doesn't move me to try to defend Joseph Campbell and, somewhat paradoxically, it doesn't diminish all that I've learned from his work and his discussions with Bill Moyer. 

Joseph Campbell took up residence in my soul in January of 1975 when Prof Lew Archer introduced us to his work and thinking in his Jan Term mythology course. I'm definitely not going to evict him. 

Nonetheless,  the subject is thorny for me.

It is, to me, a matter that cannot be resolved and I've decided, since Campbell has had such a lasting impact on how I understand myself and world I live it, to simultaneously take the criticism seriously and not be defensive and continue to experience Joseph Campbell as a guiding light in my life.  

3. I've been paying attention to scores during the Major League playoffs, but I hadn't watched a single game until late this afternoon. 

I turned on the Vizio, intrigued that the Guardians are giving the Yankees a very difficult time in this series and I was hoping Cleveland would eliminate the Bronx Bombers tonight. 

It wasn't to be, though.

The Yank's ace Gerrit Cole gave the Yankees just what they needed. He pitched seven strong innings so that that his squad did not have to go its recently wobbly bullpen too early and then the Yanks' two relievers, Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta, each chucked a scoreless inning, preserving New York's 4-2 lead.

The two teams square off again on Monday back in Yankee Stadium.

I'll keep an eye on the game until I leave to attend tonight's All-Class reunion committee meeting. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-15-2022: Getting Started at Rocket Bakery, Visiting Kathy, Back to Whistle Punk Brewery

1. Normally, when I stay at an airbnb, I brew myself coffee in the rental's kitchen. Today, however, I had a different plan for getting my day off to a blissful start.

I followed the exit instructions of my host, hopped back into the Camry, and (I can't believe I'm about to write this!) rocketed down to the Garland District so I could enjoy a triple berry scone and coffee at Rocket Bakery. 

I brought along a notebook and pen because I decided to leave my laptop in Kellogg for this overnight trip. The Garland Street Rocket Bakery is splendid. It's quiet, has plenty of seating, and the barista was perfectly friendly and eager to please. 

I sat for over an hour, writing out notes from my superb day on Friday, preparing to write in this blog. I had parked near the Garland Theater and I was curious if Bon Bon, a small bar attached to the theater, had survived the contagion. 

It had. 

I remembered fondly a great evening I had at Bon Bon with Mary and Kathy playing trivia after we'd eaten dinner at Ferguson's. 

I hope to return to Bon Bon some time for a cocktail and just to sit over a martini and remember those trips to Spokane to team up with Mary and Kathy to answer inconsequential but fun-packed questions.

I don't think I've shopped in a Trader Joe's since living in Maryland. 

Christy went to the N. Spokane Trader Joe's when she went on her retreat not long ago and, inspired, I took a fun trip there myself. I had fun strolling the aisles, remembering purchases Debbie and I used to make at the Trader Joe's in Eugene -- frozen chicken tenders, whole fresh chickens, raisin cinnamon bread, different kinds of chips, French roast coffee, Stilton cheese with cranberries, jars of Gravenstein apple juice, but I wasn't looking to buy a lot. Christy asked me to pick up a few items for her and I bought some chocolate walnut biscotti, ridged potato chips, and coconut milk for us at home. 

I mainly visited the store for old time's sake -- and I'll do it again. I had fun.

I like to drive through the campus of Whitworth University and marvel how the school has transformed its physical self in the years since I attended Whitworth as a student and worked a few years there. I was there from 1974-78 and again from 1982-84.

The campus's buildings back then were a combination of older, rock solid brick structures that needed improvements and older, run down buildings that had never been built for the long run, but were more like short-term barracks. 

Physically, it was a very modest looking campus -- and to some of my colleagues back then, what I just called modest was an embarrassment. 

Nothing is modest on Whitworth's campus any longer. Over the years, the university has invested in significant remodeling projects, built several new facilities, expanded the physical reach of the campus, and, cleared the campus of buildings, well, ones I was fond of, but that others found shameful.

2. From Whitworth, I drove to the facility where Kathy Brainard is living and being cared for. When I arrived, a fence was across the entry way and I didn't see any way to enter.

I drove back to Whitworth, parked in a parking lot, and put out a message to the Facebook group who are Kathy's friends. While there, Linda called me and we had great visit. Another group member sent me the facility's phone number. Then, Susanne wrote me a message explaining how what I called a fence was a gate and how to get in. 

I returned to the facility, pushed the button Susanne told me about, and the gate magically opened and I signed in, put on a mask, and went to Kathy's room.

Kathy was asleep, but one of the employees accompanied me to the room and woke up Kathy, telling her she had a visitor. 

Kathy woke up and murmured my name and I sat by her bed.

I stayed for about 40 minutes or so. Kathy slept most of that time. She didn't seem to know what I was talking about when I told her Copper, Luna, and I had become good friends at that her cats were doing really well.

Kathy did try to talk with me a bit. Her mind had taken her back to the fall of 1965 and she told me she was concerned about going from the sixth to the seventh grade and what a big jump that was. 

I agreed with her. It is a big jump. I added that it would be all right because of good teachers like Mrs. D' Andrea and Mrs. McKenzie. 

I'll return to visit Kathy as soon as I can. 

Visiting her today made me think of how Christy, Carol, Paul, other family and friends, and I used to sit with Mom just to be with her, even if she slept most of the time or had trouble talking. 

It seemed good with Mom and it seemed good today to be in the room with Kathy.

3. After visiting Kathy, I returned to Whistle Punk to pick up the can of beer Chris had put in the cooler for me. 

Today's beer pourer was named Dutch and, like Chris, he was outgoing, eager to be informative, and a great conversationalist with me and the other people who came in.

As soon as I sat down at the bar, Dutch asked me if I came to get the beer Chris set aside. I said, yes, I was the guy, but that I'd also come in to drink some beer.

I ordered the Festbier again and as Dutch and I got to talking it turned out that he has a snowboarding buddy in Mullan who is also working on remodeling properties. Dutch's friend now has The Outlaw and he also has the bowling alley and he's turned the former drug store near The Outlaw into an airbnb. 

Dutch also filled me in on more of the history of the Whistle Punk and what some of their dreams are for future expansion. 

I ended up sticking around for two hours, talking with Dutch, talking some with a woman in from Seattle who is also from Buffalo and North Carolina and was visiting a couple of breweries downtown to try out flights. 

After I finished my second pint of Festbier and ate an order of Buffalo chicken tenders and curly fries from the Heritage Deli attached to the Whistle Punk, I exchanged a hearty handshake of gratitude with Dutch and made my way back to Kellogg, interrupted only by a quick fuel stop and Costco and a quick trip in to buy just a few items. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-14-2022: A Long Tale of a Perfect Day: Bagel and an Early Matinee Movie, Whistle Punk Brewing and Japanese Dinner, Blissing Out with Pigs on the Wing

Debbie often asks me if I'm doing in my retirement what I want to do. On Friday, October 14, 2022, I did exactly what I want to do in my retirement. I know I can't do this every day, not even every week, but possibly I could do something along these lines once or twice a month. I combined having a blast with nourishing my inward spirit. 

If you read the following Three (more like at least Six) Beautiful Things, you'll see how I love spending my time. The only thing I would add to what I did on Friday would be spending time with friends.  I decided, however, to go solo on Friday. For this one day and on into Saturday, I wanted to experience some personal pleasures all on my own. 

1. My day started at Rustic, a joint in downtown Coeur d'Alene. For weeks, ever since I was last in Eugene, I have been longing for a certain kind of bagel baked in house. I'd read up on who makes bagels in CdA and learned that Rustic boils their bagels, giving them a chewy texture and that sounded like just what I wanted.

I love cinnamon raisin bagels and ordered one untoasted with cream cheese. I was almost entirely pleased with the bagel. The bagel's texture was just what I wanted. It made me think that I'd be happy with every style of bagel they bake. I only had one minor problem with the bagel. I love raisins. I thought this cinnamon raisin bagel needed more raisins.  My first thought was that possibly this was just a particular bagel from the batch that didn't get as many raisins as others. Next time I visit Rustic, I'll order another cinnamon raisin bagel and see if it's more packed with raisins. If it's not, then I'll know what the deal is and, in the future, I'll order another kind of bagel -- I mean, no way am I going to boycott Rustic's bagels because I think their cinnamon raisin bagels should be more raisin-y. I'll just move on to cheese or plain or blueberry or everything or something else. 

I loved Rustic's coffee, by the way.

Okay. So in my retirement, in a perfect world, I wouldn't be like the gray hairs on the ads for companies selling retirement investment products,  frolicking in a swimming pool or in the ocean in a tropical site, looking fit and virile, enjoying retirement with their happy perfectly fit wives.  

No, in a perfect world, I'd start each day with a bagel in a place where that bagel was made that day and so, today, I did that! 

Next, I made a quick stop at a Wells Fargo branch in CdA (Kellogg's branch closed in July) to deposit some KHS Class of 72 money that Sharon had had in her possession and I'd had had in mine.

With that bit of business completed, I blasted up to the Hayden 6 Cinema.

As I purchased my ticket for See How They Run, I thought and thought and tried to remember when I last watched a movie in a movie theater. 

I think it was December 23, 2019. Mary Chase, Kathy Brainard, and I went to see Knives Out at the Riverpark Square, a night and a movie I've cherished ever since. 

Ah! That Hayden 6 Cinema was giving an 11:50 showing of this movie and that the short summary I read about See How They Run reminded me of Knives Out had me stoked.

I love going to movies late in the morning and early in the afternoon.

I'd had a blast watching Knives Out (both times) and looked forward to another off beat murder mystery -- this one set in the theater world of 1953 London. (It also made me think of that Columbo episode featuring a murder backstage at a London theater, the one featuring Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman, entitled "Dagger of the Mind". )

I arrived at the theater in plenty of time and joined the other four or five people seated in the very back row to watch a few ads and then the previews of coming attractions.

During the previews, I began to tear up. 

Not because of the trailers, but because after an absence of 34 months, I was in a movie theater, in the dark, with action and sound unfolding before me on a huge movie screen and I had terribly missed this favorite experience of mine. 

I've tried to compensate for not having a movie theater in the Silver Valley and for staying out of movie theaters since the contagion kicked into overdrive by watching scores of movies on my television and my laptop -- and I've loved it -- but, beyond my own awareness, I'd terribly missed being in a movie theater and it hit me beautifully and hard all of a sudden how happy I was to be in a theater again.

I suddenly realized that, in some ways, it wasn't going to matter what I thought of the quality of the movie.

I was teary eyed just to be in a cinema.

As it turned out, though, I had a blast watching See How They Run.

It had so much going on! It parodied the theater business, the movie industry, Agatha Christie mysteries, and more; it was packed with puns, inside jokes, movie and theater references, and comic action. Sam Rockwell plays Stoppard, an alcoholic Scotland Yard inspector who is joined on the movie's murder case by Saorise Ronan, an earnest constable, obsessed with movies, working on her first ever homicide. I had fun laughing as the movie parodied Agatha Christie while at the same parodying itself. It's a movie that is making fun of movies and becomes a part of the joke itself. (I'm not sure that makes sense, but if you watch it, I think you'll see what I mean.)

I'm aching to share some of the inside jokes and references to 1940s movies, but I won't do it. All I can say is that I don't know how many of the jokes I caught and how many I missed, but the ones I did catch gave me moments of welcome and delicious outrage (OMG! I can't believe the movie did that!). 

2. I left the theater happy, hoping to get back to CdA in the future for more movies early in the day. I loved having this movie live with me as I drove to Spokane, checked into my airbnb room, and as I almost immediately booked an Uber ride to go downtown to hang out for 3-4 hours before tonight's concert at the Bing Crosby Theater. 

The driver drove me into Railroad Alley just off Monroe Street right in front of the entry to Whistle Punk Brewery, a spot I'd read about, but never visited. 

(If you are keeping score at home, so far my perfect retirement day has included: a freshly baked bagel with coffee, watching a movie early in the day, checking into an airbnb room, leaving the Camry at the house where I was staying, taking an Uber downtown and having not a care in the world about the car, how much I might drink, or having to drive at night, and, now, visiting a new brewery. I admit, it's not the retirement promised by the marketing people -- no golf carts, no pool, no beaches, no adult beverages served in a pineapple, but it's doing things the way I most enjoy them!)

The Whistle Punk Brewery was started by a retired logger and his son. I stepped into the taproom, housed in the old brick Spokane Electric Building. The tap room's walls are made of exposed brick and stone and the walls feature old logging equipment hanging up along with historic logging photographs.

I thought of the opening of Richard Hugo's poem, "The Milltown Union Bar (Laundromat and Cafe)": "You could love here". 

That's what I immediately thought. 

I could love here.

The bricks, the outgoing helpful friendly guy named Chris pouring beer, the tap list stocked with pilsners, lagers, other Octoberfest season German beers, an Irish red ale, and a couple IPAs. 

This is not, I immediately realized, an IPA focused brewery or taproom. 

I could love here.

So, I ordered a German Festbier, a beer brewed for Octoberfest, and it was just what I wanted. It's a lager style, full of fascinating flavors, and has a nice kick at 5.8% abv. 

I noticed that Chris was pouring Czech Pilsner from a side tap (called a side pour), a way of pouring beer with a heavy head of foam that I hadn't seen since visiting Notch Brewing with the Troxstar in Salem, MA when we met Em Sauter there.

On the spot today, I couldn't remember the name of Notch Brewing, but I mentioned to Chris that I'd been to this brewery in Salem where I first enjoyed a side pour.

I barely had spoken this when he said, "Bro! That's Notch Brewing!"

I smiled. "You've been there?"

"Absolutely. Awesome brewery."

And we talked a bit about session beers and Notch Brewing and beer in New England and I was experiencing surges of joy. It had been too long since I had this kind of conversation in a brewery.

I went back to my table and remembered that my Facebook profile picture features the Troxstar and me drinking side poured Czech Pilsners at Notch Brewing. I was getting a little bit uninhibited and so I showed Chris the photo and it kind of fired him up. 

Maybe you'd like to see the picture, too:

Then, I risked sounding like a name dropper.

But, the Troxstar and I met up with Emily Sauter at Notch Brewing. It was her idea. Em is not only our pal from the days ten years ago when she worked at 16 Tons, she's also well-known in the beer world for her beer artistry. Online, she publishes informative beer cartoons under the name of Pints and Panels and she recently published a book Hooray for Craft Beer: An Illustrated Guide to Beer. 

So I asked Chris, "Do you read Pints and Panels online?" 

"Bro! Yes! And I met Em back east and we had a great conversation. Wait a second. I'll be right back."

Chris disappeared and returned with a pint can of Munich Dunkel beer.

"Bro. When we brewed this beer, Em designed the can's label. Here. Take this home."

I was blown away. 

New England beer. Notch Brewing. We both know Em. Em designed a beer can's label for Whistle Punk Brewing. I hadn't had this much fun in a brewery tap room or tap house since I was last in Eugene. 

I told Chris I couldn't take the beer right now and he asked if I could come back on Saturday and pick it up. The joint would be open at 1:00.

Hell, yes I can come back, I thought.

I'm retired.

I can hang out in Spokane on Saturday until 1:00.

So Chris put the beer in the cooler, gave me his business card, we shook hands, and before long I headed out, stoked, feeling the euphoric effects of a pint and a half of Festbier and having had awesome conversation with Chris. 

Oh! If you'd like to check out Pints and Panels, just go to http://www.pintsandpanels.com

And, if you are wondering what Em's beer label looks like, here are two views of Whistle Punk's Munich Dunkel featuring Em's work:

The last time I ate sushi or any Japanese food was back in May when Hugh, Carol, and I ate dinner at Nishino in Seattle. 

Well, if this awesome day in my retirement were going to proceed with me indulging the simple pleasures of my life, then I my next move was going to be taking a seat at a Spokane Japanese restaurant.

The Inlander's top rated sushi restaurant is in Kendall Yards, but the runner up is downtown and has the whimsical name of Sushi.com. It's at the corner of Main and Stevens.

I had looked the menu over online before I left Kellogg, so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and here's what I decided to eat:

* Oyster Gold Yaki -- four oysters baked in creamy sesame sauce

* Nigiri Sushi -- raw scallops

*Nigiri Sushi -- cooked/marinated eel Unagi 

* Yakisoba Noodles with Tofu 

I loved this meal. 

I loved the variety of flavors and textures, the pleasure of how the oysters swimming in sesame sauce tasted, and the sweetness of the Unagi and the scallops. 

The tofu was prepared perfectly and I simply love diving into a plate of Yakisoba noodles packed with vegetables.

3. I had walked the several blocks from the Whistle Punk Brewery to Sushi.com and now I retraced many of my steps and strolled to the Bing Crosby Theater.

The doors opened at 7:00 and when I arrived at about 6:45, a fairly long line had formed.

The seating was general admission without assigned seats and my sense was that many of the people lined up wanted to sit on the floor level of the theater for this show.

I didn't. 

I like the second level and when I got in the building, the area I enjoy most was nearly empty and I sat right where I wanted.

Tonight's show featured Pigs on the Wing, a Pink Floyd Tribute band. 

Out in the line, I stood behind a couple who were telling another couple that they were from the Seattle area and they will travel as many as 6-8 hours to see Pigs on the Wing any chance they get.

I took note of their enthusiasm.

Another fanatic lover of Pigs on the Wing sat in from of me in the theater and he enthused for quite a while to the people sitting next to him that Pigs on the Wings "were the best" and "I know because I heard Pink Floyd four times live back in the day and these guys are the closest I've ever heard to the Pink Floyd of that era." 

I took note of his enthusiasm.

So, just for the record, I had never heard Pigs on the Wing until tonight and Pigs on the Wing is the fourth Pink Floyd Tribute band I've listened to live, joining The Floydian Slips, The Australian Pink Floyd, and the Black Jacket Symphony, all of whom I loved. 

In addition, just for the record, I am incapable of comparing one of these bands to the others. 

When, for instance, I went to my first Australian Pink Floyd show in Eugene, I wasn't thinking about whether they were better or worse than The Floydian Slips. I was completely absorbed in the pleasure of their performance and for the duration of the show, it was as if I'd never heard another Pink Floyd Tribute band in my life. 

With that in mind, I can make one statement about tribute bands in general.

Tribute bands fall roughly into two categories: those that work to play a note to note faithful recreation of the band's music and those who are faithful to the band's songs, but invest them with their own jams, breakouts, and style.

The Black Jacket Symphony is a band that prides itself in note to note faithfulness as they play whatever group they are paying tribute to. Their Pink Floyd show back in March 2020 was out of sight.

Pigs on the Wing are at the other end of the spectrum. They are faithful to Pink Floyd's fundamental sound and to the fundamental skeleton of each song, and then they explore these songs in their own ways.

Their show tonight was out of sight. 

The first set featured all the songs from Dark Side of the Moon and to round out the hour they played an absolutely supersonic version of a jammed out "Have a Cigar". It was a surprising and explosive coda to Dark Side and sent me into intermission totally stoked for what the band had in store for the second set.

They came roaring out with great versions of "Sheep" from Animals, a strong selection of cuts from The Wall, and some fun psychedelic wanderings from a couple of cuts from Meddle. 

Their last song of the encore ended the show wistfully as they performed, and encouraged a sing a long to "Wish You Were Here" which I found emotionally very satisfying and calming.

I sat in my seat and stared for a while when the show ended, blissed out to have heard live music again and blissed out that I enjoyed Pigs on the Wing thoroughly.

Upon leaving the theater, I followed a path I've followed after several shows either at the Bing or the Fox. I strolled to the Sapphire Lounge and ordered a nightcap, a dry gin martini straight up with green olives. 

I sat alone in a corner table enjoying the crowd of people of all ages enjoying a night on the town; several of the older customers had also been to the Pigs on the Wing show.

I was elated that I didn't have to drive back to my room on East Rowan.

I stepped outside, requested a ride from Uber, and not long after midnight was in my room, needing to quiet down the adrenaline still coursing in my veins, but soon able to settle down and bring my pretty much perfect day of retirement to a close. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-13-2022: Plotting Out Friday and Saturday, Laptop Stays in Kellogg, Children Applaud Kandinsky

 1. I know it's not THAT big of a deal, but when we moved to Kellogg, I came to realize that a lot of the things in life I enjoy are not in Kellogg, but not far away either. Back in 2018 and on into 2019 and into early 2020, I made solo trips to Spokane to hear live music and do other things. (I also had really fun trips over, sometimes with Linda, to play trivia with Mary and Kathy.) My last trip to Spokane was in March of 2020 and I've missed these solo outings. 

Well, I'm going to spend Friday night in Spokane and today I plotted out a course of action for Friday that includes trying out a bagel shop in CdA, going to a movie around noon in Hayden, and heading over to Spokane, settling into the room I'm renting, and going downtown for sushi and Friday night's show at the Bing. I'm hoping after the show I'll find a place to enjoy a post-concert martini. I'll take Uber downtown and back to my room. 

I also have a couple of errands to run in CdA on Friday morning. 

Here's hoping everything pans out. 

I look forward to resuming this way of enjoying myself after a two and half year drought!

2. I got packed for my overnight and decided that I'm leaving my laptop at home. If I need to access the internet, I can use my phone, but I'm making plans for both Friday and on Saturday morning that will have me out and about in CdA and Spokane and I'll do my usual morning writing and other stuff when I return home on Saturday.

3. Debbie is introducing the beauty of color and shapes to her students by taking them into the abstract paintings of Wassily Kandinsky. Today, she showed the students slides of his work. The kids were not only into quietly watching these slides, at one point four of the students were so excited by a particular Kandinsky painting that they broke into spontaneous applause. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-12-2022: Seattle Plans Taking Shape, Goulash for Dinner, Debbie is Settling Into Her Job

1. I finalized my arrangements to travel to and stay in Seattle for three nights, starting Oct. 27th. Bill Davie will play at the C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW) at 7:00 on the evening of the 27th and I look forward to seeing and hearing Bill and seeing Diane.  In addition, I hope to meet some of the people I've joined online to listen to Bill over the last couple of years and possibly seeing some longtime Whitworth friends. Who knows? There might be other surprises in store. 

Plans to see other people are falling into place and I'm leaving some time open to do a few things in Seattle on my own. 

2. Tuesday night Debbie told me she'd like me to make a ground beef dinner for Wednesday's dinner. She gave me some general sense of what she'd enjoy and I jumped all over it today and had a blast making a goulash.

It was simple.

I cooked up a couple pounds of ground beef for about ten minutes and added chopped onion to the meat. I let the onion and ground beef cook together for just over five minutes and then I added diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, a chopped red pepper, Frank's hot sauce, four cloves of chopped garlic, oregano, fresh basil, garlic powder, and water. 

I brought all of this to a very slow boil, put the lid on the Dutch oven, let it simmer for about a half an hour, and then put about 12 oz of rotini into the pot and simmered the pasta until tender and then just let the whole dish sit for a while before we dished up. 

It worked. 

3. Debbie arrived home today tired (to be expected) and encouraged by how things are going in her classroom. Her teaching instincts are impeccable and so her challenge is to trust her instincts while also meeting the requirements of the school/district/state regarding what she must do with her students. She's figuring that out. 

I enjoy cooking dinner and having some kind of relaxing beverage ready for Debbie when she arrives home. Today, I bought a bottle of Merlot and we both enjoyed a taste or two of wine before plunging into the goulash and it paved the way for a relaxing evening. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-11-2022: Preparing Sweet Potato Casserole, Fixing the Maple Walnut Topping, Debbie and Christy Debrief

1.  At family dinner Monday night, just briefly, the subject of sweet potato casserole came up. It intrigued me, so, this morning, I started clicking around on the World Wide Web, looking for a savory sweet potato casserole recipe. 

I found one.

After a quick trip to Yoke's to buy four pounds of sweet potatoes (and a couple acorn squash), I got to work on the recipe.

First, I peeled the sweet potatoes and cut them into chunks about an inch thick and boiled them.

I also cut a small acorn squash in half, scooped out the seeds, and, on a second burner, boiled the two halves. I had decided to add this squash to the sweet potatoes.

Once boiled, I drained the sweet potatoes, peeled the squash halves, and put them all in the Dutch oven and let them cool before mashing them.

On a separate burner, I melted butter with minced garlic, added some Trader Joe's Ajika Georgian seasoning blend (instead of smoked paprika), and a cup of milk.

When this butter/milk mixture was warm, I mashed the sweet potatoes/squash and then poured the butter/milk over the mashed ingredients and blended it all together. 

I greased a baking pan and transferred what I'd just fixed into the pan, creating as even a layer as possible.

2. This casserole has a topping. Very simple. I mixed together chopped walnuts, real maple syrup, rosemary, and salt in a small bowl and spread it over the top of the casserole.

Whenever Debbie and I were about twenty minutes away from being ready to eat, I just had to pop the casserole in the oven (at 350 degrees) and, in twenty minutes, we'd have dinner.

By the way, earlier in the day I made a salad of chopped Romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, chopped English cucumber, orange pepper, and chopped carrot. I blended fresh lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil with a dash of salt and pepper to make a vinaigrette for the salad.

3. Debbie arrived home, ready for a cocktail, and I mixed her a Gold Rush with a variation. Debbie asked for fresh squeezed orange juice to add to the honey syrup, rye whisky, and fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Debbie took her cocktail next door to debrief with Christy. 

Christy returned to Debbie's classroom today as a volunteer and they talked about how superbly things had gone today. 

And, then, Debbie and I enjoyed the casserole and salad. 

I had a blast making this dinner and it made me happy that it hit the spot for Debbie. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-10-2022: Corn Casserole and Pork Chops, Mixing the Gold Rush Cocktail, Tonight's Family Dinner

 1. Debbie and I hosted family dinner tonight and I could hardly wait to get going on preparing the food. One part was really easy. Debbie had already combined whole kernel corn, cream-style corn, sour cream, butter, and corn muffin mix, and poured it in a baking pan, topped with grated cheese. All I had to do was pop this corn casserole in the oven.

I had decided over the weekend that I would, for the first time, serve up baked apple pork chops for dinner. The preparation was simple. I had four pork chops on hand and went to Yoke's and bought a couple more. I left them out for a while to reach room temperature. Later in the afternoon, I peeled, cored, and chopped up some apples. I also measured out the brown sugar and cinnamon I'd need and chopped up some butter into small pieces.

When the magic moment arrived, I put the four pork chops in a baking dish and two in our cast iron pan. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and rosemary. I covered the dish and pan with aluminum foil and popped the pork chops in the oven at 350 degrees for just over a half an hour.

I took them out, covered the meat with apples and sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon on the chops and put butter pieces over that.

Now the chops baked uncovered for another 15-20 minutes and were ready to eat.

2. I also prepared tonight's cocktail. It's called a Gold Rush. All I had to do was combine honey and boiling water to make a honey syrup, add the juice of about five lemons, and then add about a cup and a half of George Dickel Rye Whisky. I transferred the drink from a small bowl to a glass pitcher, put plastic wrap over the top of the pitcher, and let it sit in the fridge until it was time to serve them.

At that point, I put ice in the cocktail shaker, poured the cocktail into the shaker, shook it until it was mighty cold, and poured the cocktail over a large ice cube in everyone's glass.

It's a good drink, nicely balancing the citrus bite of the lemon with the spicy nature of the rye whisky with the sweetness of the honey syrup.

3. Paul is in rehearsal for an upcoming production in Wallace, but Christy, Carol, and Molly all arrived at 5:30. For an appetizer, Carol and Molly brought a platter of celery, carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, and other vegetables accompanied by ranch dip and included some bread and butter pickles. Christy contributed a bottle of Merlot and a white wine. For dessert, I served us each some vanilla ice cream and we passed around a jar of Trader Joe's Cinnamon Bun spread to add to it. 

Today, Christy met with the participants in a writing workshop she's leading. She was stoked. The workshop got off to a roaring start. She told us about how she got the workshop rolling and what general kinds of things they talked about and tried out together. 

There's a lot of teaching going on in our family right now! Carol and Paul are both leading projects. Paul is subbing at the high school once in a while. Debbie is teaching third grade full time at Pinehurst Elementary. Christy got this workshop going.

Any teaching I do this fall will be self-education as I inch my way back to taking and editing photographs again and continue to teach myself more about movies.