Three Beautiful Things 05-30-2023: Giving Luna Pills, Ravioli Dinner, Nana Gets Kidnapped

1. It's that time in Luna's life that the veterinarian recommends monitoring her thyroid and kidney levels. For a few years we've been keeping an eye on her glucose levels in case her one brief bout with diabetes flares up again.

Luna has hyperthyroidism. Today I purchased medicine for her -- well, pills. I broke each of the pills in half and she'll take a half pill every 12 hours. 

Consequently, I began watching instructional videos on how to give a cat a pill without help from another person. 

My hope was that because Luna attaches her self on me or near me any chance she gets, that she might be receptive to me opening her mouth and dropping a little half pill toward the back of her tongue.

She was. 

I'm optimistic.

I think Luna is going to be cooperative and not fight with me when I give her this medicine.

2. This afternoon I thought fixing some spinach stuffed raviolis I have in the freezer would make a good dinner. I did some searching for a white sauce to serve over the ravioli and found a recipe for a simple garlic butter sauce. All I had to do was melt butter in a sauce pan, add minced garlic and some whole wheat flour to the butter, whisk it and cook it, and then add a cup of warmed milk and some basil and oregano. 

Looking back, I wish I had cooked the sauce a bit longer so that it might have thickened a bit more, but, no problem, the sauce and the raviolis made for a tasty and simple dinner.

3. It didn't get him reinstated onto the police force, but Adrian Monk did some nifty detective work this evening as he investigated the kidnapping of a law student's grandmother. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-29-2023: Breakfast with Lifelong Friends, Chip Dip and Cocktail Prep, Family Dinner on Christy's Deck

1. I revved up the Camry this morning and soared into Kingston, picked up Ed, and then bolted over the 4th of July Pass to Coeur d' Alene where we met with Mike S, Stu, and Lars for breakfast at the Breakfast Nook. We had a great time yakkin' about the present and dipping some into the past. It was a fun and easy going time together, spurred by Mike being in CdA to watch his granddaughter play softball.

2. Back home, I prepared my offerings for this afternoon's family dinner. I was in charge of making an appetizer and a cocktail. I wanted to make a potato chip dip for an appetizer and I got to thinking about the chip dips available in the stores. I thought of clam dip. I figured if clam dip was legit, then no doubt shrimp dip is, too. I found a recipe and all I had to do was combine cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, minced green onion, garlic powder, celery seed, and salt in a bowl and add in the chopped shrimp I'd boiled. 

The cocktail I mixed in our carafe was even easier. I made everyone an Orange Blossom by mixing equal parts of gin, sweet vermouth, and fresh squeezed orange juice. I served the drink over ice.

3. We enjoyed dinner on Christy's deck. It was a mild late afternoon and early evening, very comfortable. After eating chips and dip and drinking our cocktail, we served ourselves Christy's chicken drumsticks with BBQ sauce and the delicious corn dish she made, Debbie's pasta salad, and cubed watermelon. 

Molly's pal Brian Etherton joined us for dinner. For any readers familiar with the Silver Valley, Brian is Tim Etherton's son. We talked about all kinds of stuff, including my experiences, some welcome, another not very welcome, with nudity at the Oregon Country Fair, and reviewed the enthusiasm of uninhibited audience members at the Fair who loved hearing the band Debbie played in, Babes with Axes, and tossed undergarments to the stage.

These and other stories had us laughing a lot, our laughter barely interrupted by the cherry custard dessert Carol made that had a name something like the song from The Music Man called, "Shipoopi", but I never mastered its real name. Whatever it was called, it was delicious. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-28-2023: Good Beer at City Limits, Dinner at Radio, Woodward and Bernstein and the Monk Brothers

1. Debbie and I decided to get out of the house and go out for beers, something we used to do regularly, but not lately. We piled into the Camry and blasted up to Wallace, to  City Limits. Debbie knew she wanted a Blood Orange IPA and I hadn't tried a Loft Honey for a long time and I ordered a 12 oz pour of it. Loft Honey is a very easy to drink, subtly sweet Pale Ale, but it weighs in at 8.5% ABV and must be consumed with caution. 

As we sat at the bar, I told Debbie the last time I was at City Limits, quite a while ago, I had hoped they'd have their Bourbon Barrel-Aged Pulaski Porter on tap, but they didn't. Debbie heard me and said, "Didn't you see they have it now? Look at the beer list!" Astonished, I looked at the tap list on the wall and, yes, indeed, the Barrel-Aged Porter was on.

Well, I was eager to taste this beer, but it weighs in at 9.5% ABV and so I ordered a four ounce pour. It was perfect. The beer had been aged in a Buffalo Trace Bourbon barrel for a year and so the beer now was slightly boozy, sweet (but not overwhelming), and held some of the woody flavors of the barrel. Combined with the coffee and chocolate flavors of the Pulaski Porter itself, this was a fascinating beer, complex, flavorful, and fun to drink -- so fun, in fact, I ordered a second four ounce pour, relished it, and Debbie and I ended our visit at City Limits.

In addition to enjoying our beers, we also had a superb visit with our server. She was not only an energetic and efficient bartender, she was fascinating and even inspiring to talk with. She and Debbie both work with children and their devotion to helping children learn and grow sparked heartfelt conversation between them.    

2. Debbie and I hadn't been to Radio Brewing together for a long time and we decided to drop in when we arrived back in Kellogg. We wanted a bite to eat and one more drink. I ordered a small pour of a light on alcohol Japanese lager and Debbie enjoyed a glass of wine. We ordered an Indian dish to split, Butter Chicken, and it was just the right amount of food and tasty, too. It could have been too spicy for me had I eaten the peppers that were sliced on top of our serving, but I didn't eat them and so the Butter Chicken was mildly spicy and replete with flavors from India. 

3. Somehow, as Debbie and I were yakking at Radio, the movie All the President's Men came up and we decided right then and there to watch it again when we returned home. And we did. It was, as always, perfect because it just might be a perfectly made movie. 

The movie ended, and we decided to cap off our viewing pleasures by watching another episode of Monk. It turns out Adrian Monk has a brother, Ambrose, from whom he's been estranged ever since Trudy died.  Ambrose is agoraphobic and has not left his house for thirty-two years.  Ambrose reaches out to Adrian because he's convinced he heard his next door neighbor shoot and kill his wife. 

Reluctantly, Adrian Monk gets involved in the case and a topsy turvy story involving a town's centennial celebration, a raffle, a potato sack race, a Bingo session, and three cherry pies unfolds, testing Monk's skills as a detective and forcing him to confront his estrangement from his brother. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-27-2023: Barbara Absec's Funeral, Quite a Kellogg History, Spontaneous Family Get Together

1. Carol, Christy, and I piled into the Camry and blasted up to St. Rita's Catholic Church and met Stu for a funeral mass to pay our respects to Barbara Absec. She lived in our neighborhood for over sixty years and her two older sons, Terry and Mark, were daily playmates of mine growing up. I don't see Mark as much these days as Terry.  Terry is a charter member of the Hall of Fame of Great Guys, a group of us Kellogg men who used to get together in Don Knott's back yard for some adult beverages and food before Don moved to Lewiston. 

2. It was great to see neighbors who lived near us when our family moved, in 1962, to the house Debbie and I live in now. I talked with three of the Morgans, Gary, Jim, and Marcia (Jacobs). I conversed with two of the Faraca boys, Pat and Jay. Terry Douglas was at the service as was, I heard Christy say, at least one of the Higbees. Mark Absec graduated in 1975 and I talked with at least two of his classmates, Buff Mercado and Pete Miller (who is also related, I think, to the Absecs). I enjoyed seeing Marthanne Worley, a 1972 Wallace High graduate, and we had a great talk about mutual friends from Wallace and Kellogg and caught each other up on what we've been up to for the last forty years or so! 

I either saw across the room or talked up close with people from a wide variety of aspects of my life in Kellogg and the Silver Valley. I enjoyed the experience of having many parts of my life and my history in Kellogg flash before my eyes, especially boyhood memories of playing in the park, playing sandlot as well as organized baseball, and growing up in such a fun and energetic neighborhood. 

3. Back home, Paul helped Debbie put together some patio furniture and then Carol and Paul joined Debbie and me for dinner. We enjoyed a Korean chicken salad Debbie made. Later, Christy joined us and over the course of the late afternoon and early evening we talked about churches, communion, the neighborhood, the history of St. Rita's Catholic Church, and a variety of other things. It was almost like we were having a dress rehearsal for Monday's family dinner! It was fun to have this get together spring up spontaneously and to have plenty to yak about. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 05-26-2023: Bakery and Car Wash, Ed and I Blast Over to the Old Montana Bar, *The Debutante* and *Monk*

1. To prepare for the big excursion Ed and I would be taking to Saltese, MT (35 miles away!), I picked up a few things at Yoke's, bought a mini loaf of cinnamon raisin sourdough bread at the Beach Bum Bakery, and took the Camry through the car wash at Silver Valley Tire. 

2. Ed swung by about 11:00. We piled into the Camry and blasted over Lookout Pass and glided into downtown Saltese and made ourselves at home at the Old Montana Bar. We started out playing some machines and I enjoyed a couple bottles of ice cold Budweiser in a frosty glass. After fiddling around spinning reels, we ordered lunch and my bacon jack cheese cheeseburger and beer battered fries were just right. I switched to water at lunch. Ed and I decided to give the machines one more try and I had some luck and won back almost all the money after lunch I'd lost before. That was fun.

3. Back home, Debbie and I listened to another episode of The Debutate, Jon Ronson's three hour portrayal of Carol Howe, a former debutante in her early twenties from Tulsa who joined the white power movement and lived with other like-minded people in the Elohim City, OK compound. Carol Howe became disillusioned, however, and she became an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.  Ronson's story narrates her experience as an informant and the aftermath, an aftermath which coincides with the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

This is another podcast focused on a particular aspect of what Kathleen Belew covered in Bring the War Home. It goes into depth about life at Elohim City and the people who lived there. As a sidebar, Kathleen Belew is one of the experts Jon Ronson interviews in this podcast. Like Leah Sotille's podcast, Two Minutes Past Nine, Ronson's podcast is valuable in the way it adds to both Belew and Sotille's coverage of   the Oklahoma City bombing. 

At the end of this podcast's second episode, Debbie and I switched gears and watched Adrian Monk try to figure out who was killing members of a jury from a trial six years ago. This story was superb and was further strengthened by a strong subplot telling the story of Sharona and her romance with a San Francisco deputy mayor.  

Three Beautiful Things 05-25-2023: Chaperoning a Pinehurst Elementary Field Trip, Drinks and a Visit to the Vet, Sharona is Mighty on *Monk*

1. It was quite a day for Debbie's third graders and I helped chaperone it. All the third and fourth graders at Pinehurst Elementary bussed to Gene Day Park and Gene Day Pond for a field trip run mostly by Idaho Fish and Game with a couple of time slots planned by the teachers. 

The children learned a lot about fishing today. First, Debbie's class listened to a presentation on the basics of fishing after which they went to a grassy area where they practiced casting and tried to hook artificial fish spread out before them.

A horn sounded and Debbie's students dashed to a station where a Fish and Game guy taught them about different species of fish in Idaho.

After learning about Bull Trout, Brook Trout, and other fish, the children paired up and, working with a list of things at the park to find, went on a scavenger hunt.

Hungry from all this activity, the students broke for lunch and then had a generous amount of time to play on the park's playground, on swings, slides, and other equipment and played a rousing game of Red Light, Green Light together.

Debbie's group was the last to stand on the banks of Gene Day Pond, or on the fishing station, and fish for twenty minutes. I guess the fish weren't biting because no one pulled a trout out of the pond, but it was a really fun activity all the same.

The day ended with a ticket drawing. Several students returned home with a fishing rod and reel. Everyone went home with a couple of stickers and seemed content with the consolation prize.

Debbie's students -- and all the other ones, too -- were at once excited and well behaved. They had plenty of space to run and jump around in, but were never out of their chaperone's sight and were very good about moving from one activity to the next and following instructions.

It made volunteering to chaperone them an enjoyable job.

2. After the field trip, I drove up to Radio Brewing. I hadn't dropped in there for months, but today I sidled up to the bar and enjoyed a hoppy Silver Mountain IPA. Later, I joined Debbie at The Beanery and we enjoyed a couple of drinks and split a turkey club sandwich with chips and salsa. 

In between these trips to watering holes, I took Luna in for a quick checkup and some blood work. The vet is monitoring Luna's heart murmur, thyroid health, and kidney function. The checkup was positive and I'll find out later what the blood work revealed. 

3. The episode of Monk we watched tonight was another strong Sharona story. Adrian Monk investigated the death of an adult magazine publisher who was in the process of shutting down the magazine run by a guy named Dexter Larson. Larson tried to end the investigation by threatening to publish compromising photographs of Sharona he unearthed from over ten years ago. His threat initiated a powerful subplot as Sharona responded to this blackmailing threat. I'll leave it at that. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-24-2023: Walking with Leah Sottile, Another Flatbread Success, Monk and the Guy in a Coma

 1. I returned to the Kellogg Park today and once again walked a mile. I like loops and so I enjoy walking on the trail to the intersection where I can walk up the hill to just west of the clinic, walk east on McKinley, and go down Hill Street and return to my starting point. 

I walked with Leah Sottile today. I had listened to Two Minutes Past Nine a couple months or so ago, but after reading Kathleen Belew's Bring the War Home, I listened to Sottile's exploration of the Oklahoma City bombing again, including an 11th episode she recorded after her original completion of the project. In it, she examines the January 6th, 2021 breaching of the U.S. Capitol and interviews people she'd talked to before about the Oklahoma City bombing about what happened in the white power movement, especially after election wins by Obama and Trump, that led to the mayhem of January 6th. 

2. Back home, I fixed our next HelloFresh meal, another flatbread recipe. This one involved making a simple cream cheese white sauce seasoned with Italian seasoning and garlic powder, roasting garlic and zucchini, and covering heated up flatbread with the sauce, zucchini, grape tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese. I added some sweet red pepper we had leftover. I toasted the flatbreads under the broiler until they were crisp and the cheese melted and then topped them with chili flakes and chopped chives. 

It was delicious. 

3. Can Adrian Monk figure out how a man in a coma could have mailed bombs to family members, killing his sister with one of them? That was the story line in tonight episode of Monk, an episode that also included a strong Sharona story line when, out of the blue, her ex-husband shows up for her son's birthday party after an absence of six years. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-23-2023: Walking with Alex Trebeck Again, Cooking with *Fresh Air*, Finished Belew and Now Back to Sottile

 1. I walked with Alex Trebek again today because Episode 4 of the podcast This is Jeopardy examined the span of Trebek's Jeopardy hosting career as he grew, in the public eye, into a universally recognizable celebrity, well beyond his role as a game show host. He appeared in television episodes, like The X-Files and The Golden Girls, was the subject of parodies on SNL, and appeared in movies like White Men Can't Jump. The episode also explored the ongoing saga of Trebek's mustache, his willingness to participate in pranks on the show, his preoccupation with accuracy, especially in pronouncing words, and his his repartee with contestants. 

My walk was a moderate one that I enjoyed thanks to the cool temperatures. I parked the Sube at the Trail of the CdAs across from The Beanery and walked west to a spot where one can leave the main trail, go up a short incline, and arrive behind the Mining and Smelting Museum. I sauntered over to McKinley Ave, walked east until I reached Hill Street, walked down the hill, across from Teeters Field, and soon I was back to the car. 

This route isn't quite a mile long -- it was a walk low on quantity, but high on quality -- I felt the benefits of this walk most fully when I went to bed and slept comfortably and soundly.

2. I wasn't expecting tonight's HelloFresh dinner, One Pan Trattoria Tortelloni Bake with a Crispy Premesan Panko Topping, to be so easy to fix, but it was both simple and tasty.

I crushed and minced two cloves of garlic and diced two tomatoes. In a small puddle of olive oil I heated up the garlic, a pinch or two of chili flakes,  and a packet of Italian seasoning until fragrant and then added the diced tomatoes.

Once the tomatoes softened, I added a packet of tomato paste, cooked it for a minute, and then added a cup of water, mushroom stock, and cream cheese and cooked and stirred this until the cream cheese was combined with the liquid.

Earlier, in a small bowl, I had combined panko and shredded Parmesan cheese along with salt and pepper. 

I added the packet of cheese tortelloni to the tomato sauce and simmered it all until the tortelloni were tender.

As a grand finale, I sprinkled the panko/Parmesan mixture over the tortellonis and sauce and put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes until the bread crumbs were browned and crunchy and the cheese had melted.

That was it! 

In what seemed like no time, Debbie and I enjoyed a delicious and filling bowl of this simple meal.

In my ongoing commitment to learn more about anti-government movements fueled by conspiracy stories and fear, while I cooked, I listened to an episode of Fresh Air that was broadcast about a week ago.

Terry Gross interviewed historian Matthew Delleck about his new book, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized The American Right,  a study of the origins and impact of the John Birch Society. If you would like to listen to this interview, it's here. 

3. My explorations into the ideologies and actions of the white power movement in the USA, both historically and in the present, has flooded my mind with names, places, publications, events, attacks, bombings, murders, trials, stand offs, ideas about firearms, countless names of groups -- their strategies, political convictions, and religious practices and beliefs -- and ideas about the US Constitution and patriotism.

I finished Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home today. It's a study, supported by archival material, publications, interviews, and many other sources, of the increase in white power activity following the end of the Vietnam War. Her book concludes with the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and makes a compelling argument that the bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was not a "lone wolf", but was tightly connected to white power groups and leaders from Arizona to Michigan to Oklahoma and beyond. 

Having finished Belew's book, I decided to listen again to Leah Sottile's podcast focused on the Oklahoma City bombing and Timothy McVeigh entitled, Two Minutes Past Nine. 

Sottile's podcast is divided into eleven episodes, each about fifteen minutes long. 

Belew's astonishing book is a work of historical scholarship, a distillation of the copious amount of information and the writings of white power leaders found in archival and other sources in libraries, other scholarly studies, white power publications, and other places. 

Belew's book is exhaustively documented and is the result of not only her research, but of consultation with scores of people who helped her, as outlined in her acknowledgments.

Sottile's podcast is a work of journalism.

Sottile interviews government agents who investigated the Oklahoma City bombing, another FBI agent who infiltrated white power groups, Bill Morlin, longtime investigative reporter with The Spokesman Review, whose work over the years focused on extremist white power groups; she interviews the son of Turner Diaries author William Pierce (this book is regarded by many as a white power Bible and helped shape McVeigh's thinking and his work as the [or one of the] bomber [s]); she interviews Kerry Noble, one of the founders of the anti-government, survivalist, Christian Identity militia called The Covenant, the. Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, another group, the remnants of which McVeigh communicated with at the white power compound in Elohim City, OK. 

And there's more. 

Sottile's podcast echoes Belew's work and moves into some things more deeply, in part because Sotille's podcast is more focused on the Oklahoma City bombing whereas Belew's book has a wider sweep. 

If you are still reading this post, please know that I know that I am scratching the surface of the work of Belew and Sottile and that I'm very much in the process of piecing things together. Please excuse any errors I might make. It's an inevitable aspect of blogging. I'm writing while in the middle of reading and listening and some of what I write day to day might need correction or clarification.

I'll just say it helps me to put it all down. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-22-2023: Satisfying Tasks, Shrimp with Tahini/Peanut Sauce, Superb Family Dinner

1. It was time today to dump the litter out of one of Luna and Copper's pans, clean out the pan, and replace the litter. This is one of those jobs that must sound miserable, but, for me, it's very gratifying to know I'm keeping this key element of Copper and Luna's life in our house as fresh and clean as possible.

Likewise, as I've written a million (or is it a zillion?) times before, I like to keep the garage as uncluttered as possible. To that end, I made a satisfying run to the transfer station to recycle cardboard after a quick trip up to the recycling station near the Shoshone Medical Center to leave off cans, plastic containers, and newspapers.

2. Last Thursday at the dentist, while my crowns cooked, I tapped on my Kindle app on my phone and suddenly remembered I have a cookbook loaded on it: Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking. I'd been assigned to prepare an appetizer for tonight's family dinner and I wondered if I might discover a recipe.

I sort of did.

I was looking at a recipe for Thai Baked Sweet Potatoes and when I saw it included a Ginger Tahini Sauce, an inspiration struck me.

First, I realized that for no good reason, since moving to Kellogg, I hadn't made peanut sauce. It's a condiment I loved experimenting with when we lived in Greenbelt, MD.

Next, I realized that I could use this recipe to make peanut sauce simply by substituting peanut butter for the tahini.

Last of all, I decided that I would make an appetizer similar to the shrimp bathed in lemon juice and olive oil I made a couple of weeks ago, but it would be shrimp dressed in peanut sauce.

So, today, I got to work.

I still had the leftover tahini a made a while back when I fixed a Greek dinner for family dinner. 

I decided to use it up and I followed the recipe combining the tahini with lime juice, soy sauce, fresh ginger, minced garlic, chili sauce, and maple syrup.

Once finished, I decided I wanted more sauce, but as I doubled the recipe, I included a quarter cup of peanut butter instead of tahini.

I made a peanut/tahini sauce.

I chopped up several green onions and a most of a bunch of cilantro.

I boiled shrimp in two batches, covered the bottom of our 9" x 13" baking dish with shrimp, covered the shrimp with peanut/tahini sauce, and then topped the shrimp with chopped green onion and cilantro.

3. We met at Paul and Carol's for dinner tonight.

We started with the shrimp and tahini/peanut sauce I made and I also brought over about 1 1/2 baguettes from Beach Bum Bakery sliced. 

Paul mixed us each a whiskey sour. 

We finished our drink and appetizer and sat down at a table set up in the living room for a perfectly prepared meal.

Carol and Paul worked together to grill and slice London Broil, a mess of grilled vegetables, and a bowl of potato halves. It was a perfect combination of foods complimented deliciously by the fresh green salad Molly made. 

We yakked about all kinds of stuff with a very special stretch of time devoted to hilarious stories about Mom. We lovingly and laughingly remembered Mom's obsession with coupons at any store, her meticulous reviewing of the sales receipt after any purchase, the time at Christy and Everett's wedding reception when she met Debbie for the first time and accidentally got a little tipsy from drinking wine, and other fun memories. 

Christy prepared a delicious strawberry and rhubarb dessert. I'd say the dessert was in the dump cake family and it was sublime along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The food was top notch. The stories were plentiful, as was the laughter.  We had some serious discussion, too, as is almost inevitable as we age and people we know begin to decline and we lose people we've known for years to death. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-21-2023: Eggplant Pasta Dinner, Beach Bum Bakery Stop, I Read More Kathleen Belew

1. On Saturday, Debbie reminded me that we had more eggplant in the fridge and wondered if I might make a pasta dish with eggplant but without tomatoes. 

I was happy to do that. In short time, I found a recipe to follow and got crackin'.

I began by cutting all of our eggplant pieces into small cubes, putting the cubes in a couple of bowls, and generously salting the eggplant and leaving the salted eggplant alone for about twenty minutes.

I poured a puddle of olive oil in a Dutch oven, heated it up, and added the eggplant along with three minced cloves of garlic, a shake or two of oregano, a few pinches of hot pepper flakes, and cilantro leaves. I combined and cooked these ingredients until the eggplant was just shy of mushy and, at the same time, boiled a bunch of spaghetti.

When the spaghetti was done, so was the eggplant mixture. I drained the spaghetti, combined it with the eggplant, and our delicious dinner was ready after each of us topped our helpings with grated hard cheese.

2. Before I did a little shopping at Yoke's this morning so that I'm ready to make tomorrow's appetizer for family dinner, I stopped in at Beach Bum Bakery and bought a lemon poppyseed muffin, a bracing and hot cup of coffee, and a couple sourdough baguettes. The muffin and coffee hit the spot and I'm always happy to have baguettes in the house. 

3. Today, I read more deeply into Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home. Much of what I read was focused on white power groups' growth and activity in the 1980s. More people got involved. Their focus became more and more anti-government. Efforts to recruit participants from both the military and in prisons found success. The military connection was vital. The white power militias and milita camps depended on military veterans not only for ideological support, but for military training expertise. Involvement of military members also helped white power groups stockpile weapons and explosives, in part, through stealing them from military bases. 

Running parallel to the white power movement becoming more and more like the military was the way civilian police forces and federal law enforcement groups were, too. 

Right now, I'm moving into Belew's writing about the standoff at Ruby Ridge and the events at Waco, TX. Belew argues that both of these events have to be seen in light of the growth of white power violence in the years preceding them and in how law enforcement agencies had become more and more like the military in terms of weaponry and strategies. It was a volatile and explosive mix. 

Belew's research uncovers much more than I've written here, including a chapter on the role of women and ideas of femininity (and masculinity) in the white power movement. 

I'll keep chipping away at other dimensions of her book in future posts. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-20-2023: Mirror Pond at The Beanery, Social Hour at The Lounge, Cooling Off On Christy's Deck

 1. Finding the weather too hot to sit outside this afternoon, Debbie and I took a seat inside The Beanery and yakked for a while. I like that The Beanery often has at least one beer on tap from Bend, OR and today was no exception: today they offered the great Mirror Pond Pale Ale, an old school, reliable, expertly balanced beer from Deschutes. Deschutes has been brewing Mirror Pond Pale Ale for thirty-five years and I love its straightforward crispness, its reliance on a single hop, and its delicious wedding of bitterness and subtle caramel sweetness. 

At 4:00, The Beanery started serving sandwiches and Debbie and I split a good sized Hill Street Grinder packed with delicious lunch meats and other ingredients piled on a delicious hoagy bun. 

2. We decided to rocket up the hill and stop in for a drink or two at The Lounge. We settled into a couple of stools at the bar and learned from Harley that the Elks Roundup was successful. I checked in for a few minutes with John Sevy and Dick Listoe who were in good spirits and having a fun party at their own table. We got to chew some fat with Cas and I enjoyed my new favorite ice cold beer, the good old Mountain Fresh Rainier. It's easy to drink, low in alcohol content, and connects me back to when I first started drinking beer in the 1970s. 

I guess today was a Jethro Tull beer drinking day for me: I was living in the past.

3. Back home, Debbie and I got a text message from Christy. She was home after an afternoon honoring and celebrating the life of Kris Hinkemeyer. Her house was hot. A friend had given her a bottle of Crown Royal. She wondered if we'd like to cool off on her deck and enjoy a taste or two of whiskey.

So we did.

The night air began to move in, bringing welcome relief from today's heat, and we yakked about a bunch of stuff. We looked back on Grandparent's Day at Pinehurst Elementary some more. Christy told us about the service and reception for Kris H. We learned a bit about Christy's gardening plans. Riley and Gibbs enjoyed being out on Christy's deck with us and this spontaneous party helped bring our easy day to a cool and enjoyable end. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-19-2023: Being a Pretend Grandpa, Lots of Fun at The Lounge, Wah Hing and Debriefing with Debbie BONUS: A Limerick by Stu

1.  Last night, Debbie and I were enjoying cocktails and suddenly Debbie said something like, "Why don't you come to school tomorrow on Grandparent's Day and be a grandpa for kids who won't have a grandparent be able to come? They'd love it."

I didn't see this request coming at all. We've been talking for a few weeks that Grandparent's Day was coming, but I hadn't thought about being a part of it.

So, today, I arrived at Pinehurst Elementary School at about 12:45 and I made my way through a sea of children and grandparents occupying the hall between the main office and Debbie's classroom. Christy also helped out today. She was in the back of the classroom. Debbie was doing her best to explain the afternoon's schedule and to hand out stickers for the afternoon's first project. 

Upon arriving, Debbie told three of her students they'd be with me for this afternoon's activities. 

Before long, two other students joined us. 

We took a few minutes for me learn their names and for them to digest the fact that I am Debbie's husband and Christy's brother (Christy volunteers in Debbie's class twice a week). 

The children had small art projects to do in different classrooms (or stations), they got to go to a cookie and water table outside, and they could attend a book fair.

As their (pretend) grandpa, I sat with the children at each station while they worked with stickers, made designs on a card-sized rectangle of black-surfaced rainbow scratch paper, decorated a small planter with a succulent plant inside, and, for the one child who got this far, worked on a coloring project. 

I enjoyed how much this small group of children liked each other, how they showed each other what they were making, took pleasure in one another's efforts, and enjoyed making each other laugh. 

Things began to fly apart a tiny bit when it came time to head to the book fair. I directed my "grandchildren" to sit on a bench in the hall with me and we talked for a minute about what each of them wanted to do -- go to the book fair? go back outside? color? 

They all told me their plans and we agreed to meet back up before too long.

And we did.

Before long, back in Debbie's classroom, I shook hands with and said good by to the kids I'd been with.

It all worked out.

2.  I left the school and drove on the old highway through Smelterville, past the gulch where the Zinc Plant used to, by the area once occupied by the lead smelter, through the mine yard, and into uptown Kellogg.

It wasn't quite opening time at The Lounge, but I saw Bob's truck in the parking lot across the street and decided to try my luck and see if The Lounge door was open.

It was! 

My afternoon at The Lounge was really fun.

Cas and I yakked for a while. Soon Matt Burmeister came in with a delivery of two kegs from North Idaho Mountain Brewing and he had all kinds of news about prominent news stories over the last week in the Silver Valley and I learned more about his days playing hockey in Alaska and Canada. 

Opening time arrived and soon Doug Yrjana arrived.  I hadn't seen him since Lake City High's basketball team, featuring his grandson as a guard, finished their season not only as Idaho state champions, but undefeated. I knew Doug had planned to go to the state tournament, but I learned today that a medical problem kept him home, but he had a lot of good news to report about the team, other players, and the history of how this team came together over the years.

While at The Lounge, Ed called me and I texted Debbie and, lo and behold, they both arrived at The Lounge simultaneously and strolled in together and we took stools at the north end of the bar and had a great time talking about all sorts of things, including Grandparent's Day at Pinehurst Elementary.

Originally, Debbie and I planned to eat pizza outdoors at The Beanery, but we agreed it felt too hot outside, so, as she left to go home, Debbie assigned me the pleasant task of ordering food to go from Wah Hing. 

3.  Debbie and I talked about the afternoon at Pinehurst Elementary School and about her students as we enjoyed our House Lo Mein, House Fried Rice, and an order of potstickers. 

Being in Debbie's classroom, seeing students she's talked about, getting a glimpse of how her students interact with each other, just getting a feel for what it's like to work with about twenty-seven eight year olds in one space, not only deepened my understanding of Debbie's work, but has already made it possible for us to discuss her work better. 

My impressions of the children were positive. 

The spirit among them was positive. I could see that they love moving around, talking and laughing with each other, working with their hands, and creating tangible things. (They loved panning for gold the other day.)  I could understand why it's difficult for these eight year olds to focus on the less tangible and more abstract subjects their teachers are mandated to have them work on. 

Here's Stu's limerick. Jim Brown died on Thursday. He was 87 years old. 

Choosing the greatest of all.

Depends upon who make the call?

From sport's biggest stage,

The best on the page!

Is Jim Brown, in the game of football! 

Three Beautiful Things 05-18-2023: New Crowns, Children Go Mining, Education and Poverty

 1. As Chad & Jeremy sang in "A Summer Song" back in 1964, "They say that all good things must end someday" and that includes dental crowns.

I arrived at the dentist's office at 2:30 today and arrived home at about 6:15 after having two old crowns replaced. Because our dentist manufactures crowns on site, my time at the office included waiting for my new crowns to cook.

I'm fortunate.

The procedure was painless. 

I was happy to have this procedure finished.

It brought to an end four months of one medical/dental appointment after another since early February, all of which I've made a record of in this blog. 

No appointments now until I see the kidney doctor around July 20th.

2. Debbie and I had a long talk when I returned home, some of it about how much fun many of her students had on the mine tour at the Crystal Gold Mine just a ways east of Kellogg on what was once Highway 10. The children went underground. They learned how to pan for gold. Many of these children live in mining families. It was enlightening for them to get at least a partial understanding of what it's like to be underground and find out a bit of what mining demands of a person.

3. Discussing the school tour led to Debbie and me having another of our many conversations about education in general and about Debbie's experience teaching in the Silver Valley. I read aloud a passage from Richard Hugo's poem, "Letter to Levertov from Butte" in which Hugo writes about "the cruelty of poverty, the embittering ways/love is denied, and food, the mean near-insanity of being/and being deprived". 

In ways unique from Debbie's experience teaching in Eugene and in Greenbelt, MD, she contends daily with the cruel effects of poverty on her students and their families. 

It's wearing on everyone: the families, the children, and the teachers. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-17-2023: The Eggplant Groove, Resurrecting the Eggplant Sandwich, Dealing with My Memory Lapses

1. The other day, Debbie bought a couple of eggplants at Walmart. Today, I decided I wanted to relive a delicious part of the time we lived in Greenbelt, MD. 

I don't remember clearly what kicked off my preoccupation in Maryland with eggplant, but along with including eggplant in Thai curries, I also experimented numerous times with eggplant sandwiches. 

Since moving to Kellogg, though, I haven't cooked much with eggplant, but, today I loved getting back into the eggplant sandwich groove I was in back in 2014-17.

2. I bought ciabatta rolls at Yoke's and started off by cutting two of them in half and drizzling olive oil over each piece. I then put the rolls on the gas stove skillet to toast.

I cut slices of eggplant, salted them, and put them in a bowl with olive oil.

I also cut rings of sweet red pepper and thin slices of red onion and diced a chunk of mozzarella cheese. 

I cooked the eggplant until it was soft, but not mushy, and also cooked the red pepper and onion slices until they were tender and their sweetness began to emerge.

While these cooked, I got out a bowl and combined mayonnaise, sour cream, garlic powder, dry basil, and cilantro lime sauce. 

When the ciabatta halves were all toasted, I spread this sauce on each half and then piled on the eggplant, onion, red pepper, and cheese.

I finished making the sandwich by grilling each side of each sandwich for a minute or two so that the cheese melted.

I wish I'd had fresh basil on hand to put in these sandwiches. Feta cheese slices (in place of the mozzarella, unmelted) would have also been delicious.

No problem, though. Debbie and I loved our sandwiches; we were very happy to have this favorite meal back again. 

3. Earlier today, I signed up to have our monthly electric/gas bill paid for through automatic withdrawal from our checking account. Up until now, I inexplicably enjoyed paying that bill by check, along with our garbage/sewer and our water bill. I thought I had paid our April bill, but when the most recent bill arrived,  I learned was wrong and this mildly rattled me. I realized that I'm just not quite as on top of things as well as I've been used to and so as a guard against my own occasional memory lapses, I decided to take the paying of that bill out of my hands.

I don't know if it's true that working word puzzles can be a guard against mental decline, but I'm acting as if it is. I do Wordle, Quordle, and Waffle every morning and, at different points in the day, I work New York Times crossword puzzles. I almost always work the daily puzzle and I often go into the Times' online crossword puzzle archive and find plenty of puzzles there to work. 

This blog gives me a record of things I've done day to day -- so, for example, when Christy asks me about my experience when I had cataract surgery and I can't remember details about the patch over my eye or how long I put drops in my eyes and other things, it's very helpful to have this blog to refresh my memory. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-16-2023: Christy's Surgery Was Successful, Afternoon Delight at The Lounge, Keeping the Euphoria Alive

1. Christy texted me this morning, asking me to drive her to Kellogg's eye clinic where she had a 10:00 appointment with Dr. Miller as a follow up to her cataract surgery yesterday. I figured the checkup went pretty well when Christy came skipping out of the exam room -- and I was right. Dr. Miller reported that the surgery had gone very well and Christy can expect her vision to continue to improve in the corrected eye. She sees Dr. Miller again next week and then, in early June, the surgeon in Spokane Valley will treat her other eye.

2. I wasn't expecting to have a blast this afternoon, but the forces of mirth were on my side. 

I went to Kellogg's voting site at the Elks, cast my ballot, and, as I strolled out, Cas swung open the door of The Lounge and invited me to join him for a beer. 

Kellogg voters faced one measure on today's ballot and Bob wanted to help me wind down after I'd had  such a stressful (ha! ha!) time voting.

I was happy to wind down in The Lounge outside of business hours.  Bob and I yakked over beers for a while and suddenly Mike Groves popped in and it made me think Debbie would love to know I was at The Lounge so I texted her and she suddenly appeared. Tracy had arrived a little earlier and then Darren A entered The Lounge.

I had never met Darren. He plopped down next to me, yakked with Bob for a bit, and then he and I got to chewing the fat and for some reason he mentioned that he was from Orofino. 

I mentioned that Mom's brother, Uncle Bob, ran West's Gun and Tackle Shop in Orofino for about 9000 years and Darren smiled broadly and told me that when he was a kid, he bought his first rifle from Uncle Bob and later bought his second.

It also turned out that Darren's grandparents lived two houses up Michigan Ave from Grandma West, on the other side of the Erbst's house. This led to us yakkin' a bit about Norm Erbst and his downtown bar, The Sportsman, and Norm's son, John. It was fun. Had we had more time, or had I been thinking more clearly, I would have mentioned that I'm connected by my Aunt Lila's first marriage to the Baugh family. I looked at Darren's Facebook page and learned he is FB friends with our cousin, Derek. It would have been fun to know how well Derek and Darren know each other.  Darren and Derek were not at Orofino High School at the same time -- Darren is about eight years older -- but they could be acquainted in any number of ways.

Needless to say, we had a great matinee party at The Lounge. Debbie and I returned home ecstatic that we'd been a part of this spontaneous enjoyment of some afternoon delights. 

3. I arrived home and wanted to keep the momentum of euphoria alive, but not by drinking any more beer. No, my hope was that Lemony Spaghetti with Brussels Sprouts Sprinkled with Panko and Scallions might help us keep riding the crest of a really fun day.

My hope was realized.

I dashed straight to the kitchen, pulled a HelloFresh bag out of the ice box, and went to work (or was it play?). 

I trimmed and with a knife shredded the packet of Brussels sprouts. 

I quartered the lemon.

I chopped the scallions. 

I melted a hunk of butter and browned a packet of panko and the white scallion parts. 

I put water on to boil and cooked a packet of spaghetti. While it cooked, I removed the browned panko from the pan, wiped it clean, and then cooked the Brussels sprouts.

When the spaghetti was cooked, I kept out a cup or so of pasta water and drained the pasta.

Into the Dutch oven I'd used to cook the spaghetti, I poured a packet of Parmesan roux and the cup of pasta water. I whisked and cooked this for a couple of minutes and then added a packet of cream cheese. Once the cheese melted, I put the drained spaghetti back in the pot and added the softened Brussels sprouts, a packet of garlic herb butter, a packet of shredded Parmesan cheese, the scallion greens, and squeezed the four lemon quarters into this mixture.

I stirred all of this, combining all the ingredients, and let them cook briefly.

Then I divided the lemony spaghetti between two bowls and topped them both with the panko and white scallion mixture. 

I loved cooking this dinner. 

Cooking kept my spirits buoyant and Debbie and I both loved the meal and succeeded in keeping all the good vibes from The Lounge alive.

After dinner, Debbie went next door and had a superb visit with Christy and we topped off this fun and feel good afternoon and evening by watching an episode of Monk focused on the murder of the oldest living man in the whole world.   

Three Beautiful Things 05-15-2023: Driving Christy to Surgery and Back Home, Nostalgic Dinner, All-Class Reunion Shaping Up

1. First thing this morning, at 6:30, Christy and I blasted in her Sube to Spokane Valley and Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute for the first of her two cataract surgeries.  Christy spent the morning being examined and prepared and then operated on. 

I rocketed up to a Starbucks on North Sullivan, ordered a grande double latte extra hot, a blueberry scone (unheated), connected my laptop to the internet, and solved Quordle and Waffle and then composed a blog post. 

I didn't know how long Christy would be tied up in surgery and after I was done writing, I decided to return to the eye clinic and wait for Christy in one of the luxurious chairs in the lobby.

I'm not sure when Christy appeared, wearing big sunglasses, but she took my arm and we piled back into her Sube and returned to Kellogg.

By all appearances, Christy came through the morning's procedures really well.

2. Our HelloFresh box arrived today and when Debbie arrived home from school after Science Project Day, I decided to transport us back in memory to days we loved in Beltsville, MD at the Old Line Bistro (no longer in business). 

When we first visited Old Line, upon moving into our apartment home in Greenbelt, we were introduced to their menu of flatbreads topped with a variety of vegetables and cheeses. We enjoyed those flatbreads a lot and Old Line became a spot we visited regularly, not only for food, but in order to enjoy the superb array of beers they served. 

In other words, it was with warm nostalgic feelings that I thinly sliced a red onion, pickled some of it in vinegar and pineapple juice, and cooked up the rest of it along with pineapple chunks. I drizzled olive oil on the two rectangles of flatbread, covered each with BBQ sauce, spread the caramelized onion and pineapple on them along with thin strips of green pepper. Next I added diced pieces of mozzarella cheese and grated Monterey Jack cheese. I baked the topped flatbreads for about 10-12 minutes, removed them from the oven, and added the pickled onions and chopped cilantro to the oven warmed flatbreads.

The combination of BBQ sauce, pineapple, green pepper, pickled onion, cilantro, and melted cheeses blended together beautifully and not only did Debbie and I enjoy this meal in the present moment, we enjoyed thinking back to the Old Line Bistro and the fascinating people we met and yakked with there, including servers with whom we developed a mutual fondness. 

My romantic soul loves it when I can wed delicious food with superb memories and that's exactly what I experienced this evening.

3. The all-class reunion committee met this evening and, at this point, preparations look solid. Lori, who is organizing the weekend's events, was calm and confident, giving me the sense the reunion will be a lot of fun and proceed smoothly. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-14-2023:Back to Kathleen Belew's Book, *Fresh Air* and Frank Church, Chicken Pasta Salad

 1.  A few weeks ago, I read the early chapters of Kathleen Belew's scholarly, exhaustively documented book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, but for no good reason I got distracted and quit reading it. Today I returned. While Belew does refer to actions of the Ku Klux Klan and other white power organizations during Reconstruction and on into the 20th century, the bulk of her book focuses on the the emergence of white separatists organizing themselves and committing acts of violence in the wake of the end of the Vietnam War. 

I'm going to finish this book before I write much more about it. I can say, at this point, that the timeline of events, say from the November 3, 1979 mass killing at Greensboro, NC to the attacks carried out by the Order, including the murder of radio host Alan Berg and the robbery of armored cars, to the establishment of the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho to the deadly standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco, TX to Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is becoming clearer in my mind, as are the connections between these events. 

What grievances drive this movement? What are the sources of disaffection that inspire separatism and virulent anti-government stances? What do proponents of white power hope to achieve through violence? Belew addresses these questions, but I want to understand her arguments better before I say more about them. 

2. On my late afternoon walk today, I listened to an episode of Fresh Air. It was an interview with writer James Risen who discussed his book, The Last Honest Man, a study of former Idaho senator Frank Church and his work as chair of the 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. His committee's probe into activities of the FBI, CIA, and other government entities led to the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 that imposed procedures for the gathering of intelligence. 

It was a fascinating interview, full of wild stories as well as serious insight into Frank Church's efforts to hold powerful entities like the CIA to account, at least to some degree.

3. Debbie popped open a can of chicken chunks and combined it with pasta, red peppers, celery, mayo, and other ingredients to make a smashing chicken pasta salad. I served myself a bowl and customized it a bit by adding sweet pickle relish and a generous sprinkling of black pepper to my salad. I loved it. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-13-2023: Reflecting on Leah Sottile, Game Show Hosts, Shrimp and Ravioli

1.  Leah Sottile's work as a freelance journalist, podcaster, and book writer is always nearby in my life. I subscribe to her Substack newsletter, The Truth Does Not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It, where I've been reading her recent posts about the trial and guilty conviction of Lori Vallow Daybell, one of the subjects of Sottile's book, When the Moon Turns to Blood. 

Reading Sottile's writing and listening to her podcasts, takes me back to when the plays and poems of William Shakespeare dominated my work as a graduate student and an instructor and occupied much of my thinking. I realized, at some point, that, to me, the more one of Shakespeare's plays unfolded about a character, say Beatrice or Macbeth or King Lear or Rosalind, the more baffling they became to me. 

I used to think that the more I knew about, say one of Shakespeare's characters, the more I would understand. But, as I spent more time with these characters, their contradictions, their unpredictability, their complexity, the less I could draw coherent or absolute conclusions about them. 

Leah Sottile's work focuses largely on extremists in the western USA. 

She narrated two seasons worth of podcasts on the Bundy family and others who share the Bundy family's view of the world. 

Her podcast investigating Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Alfred P. Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City inevitably led her to digging into the standoff at Ruby Ridge, the destruction of the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, TX, the Aryan Nations compound near Hayden, Idaho, among other organizations and events in the realm of what scholar Kathleen Belew refers to as the White Power Movement.

Sottile's writing about Chad Daybell and his wife Lori Vallow Daybell investigates people associated with, or having been excommunicated from, the Church of Latter Day Saints whose lives center around prophecies about end times and near death experiences, around visions of epic conflicts between spirits of evil and good. 

The more I find out and learn about the Bundys, David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh, and other adherents to white power or those, like the Daybells,  preoccupied with end times, the less I understand.

Similarly, I just finished reading Leah Sottlie's interview with K. Rambo, the editor of Portland, OR's weekly street newspaper, Street Roots. The interview focused on homelessness and poverty in Portland. Before studying journalism at Linn-Benton Community and Iowa State University in his late 20s, Rambo was homeless when he was younger -- his teenage years until his late 20s. He and his staff of professional journalists write about issues of justice and equity in Portland from the point of view of those living on the streets.

If you'd like to check it out, go to https://www.streetroots.org/

Reading this interview and having served breakfast to people in need on Saturdays at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, my response was much the same as when I study King Lear and read and listen to Leah Sottile: the more I read about the many dimensions and complexities of homelessness and poverty, the less I understand. 

For now, I'll leave it at that. 

I've been exploring points of views and perspective that are not my own and that I'm unpersuaded by. I have had some success comprehending what informs these perspectives and the ways different people act on these worldviews. 

I don't know that I will ever understand them. 

I'm occupying a space that lies somewhere between comprehension and bafflement. 

2. These matters I'm exploring are sobering, very serious, but there's more to my life day to day than getting outside of my own views of things and learning more about other prevalent world views in the USA.

For example, Debbie and I returned the podcast, This is Jeopardy this evening. We didn't quite make it all the way through the second episode because we fell into conversation about our experiences growing up with game shows. When I was much younger, had their been game show host cards, like baseball cards, I would have bought and collected them, and looked for other collectors to look at each others' cards and possibly trade them.

I thought a lot tonight about some of the game show hosts I spent hours watching, especially in the summers and mostly before I started college.

I imagined having cards of Hugh Downs, Wink Martindale, Art Fleming, Peter Marshall, Jack Barry, Jack Narz, Bill Cullen, Monte Hall, Stubby Kaye, Alex Trebek, Tom Kennedy, Joe Garigiola, Garry Moore, Bud Collyer, Gene Rayburn, Dick Clark, Bert Convy, Bob Barker, Bobby Van, Richard Dawson, Chuck Woolery, Pat Sajak, Allen Ludden, Jim Perry, Bob Eubanks, Jim Lange, and others. In my game show host dream world my Whitworth roommate, Rich Brock, and I spend hours avoiding our studies and, instead, pore over our cards, remembering great episodes of the game shows and laughing at the absurdity of it all.

3. I had fun time in the kitchen today, too. At Debbie's request, I took out a couple handfuls of frozen shrimp, cooked them in butter and garlic, and then, in a pot of boiling water, cooked a container of cheese raviolis. The shrimp and ravioli went together really well. We both added grated hard cheese to our bowls and Debbie added cherry tomatoes and chili flakes to hers. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-12-2023: Walking with Alex Trebek, Pizza and Family Dinner, Debbie's Getting Better

 1. While on a walk today along Riverside to Cameron to the 4-way stop and then back home, I listened to the second episode of the podcast, This is Jeopardy! It focused on the revival of Jeopardy in 1984 and the hiring of Alex Trebeck as host. Trebeck's early days and even years hosting the show were especially challenging. Some viewers couldn't accept that Art Fleming was no longer with the show and wrote disparaging letters expressing their disdain for Alex Trebeck.  It's hard to believe, given how beloved Alex Trebeck became, that in the beginning, many viewers found him arrogant, a show off, and a huge disappointment -- especially vis a vis Art Fleming. 

Alex Trebeck hung in there, though, and, in time, viewers adjusted and his successful career as the host of Jeopardy seemed to last forever until he died in 2020.

2. Our family decided to go out for family dinner. Since we couldn't meet on Mother's Day or the day after, we decided to congregate at an outside table at The Beanery and order a bunch of wood-fired pizzas. 

We had a blast. 

Molly's pal, Jenna, joined us and we relaxed, aided by beer, wine, and cider, and told a lot of great stories and enjoyed a lot of roaring laughter. 

I wish I could accurately list the names of pizzas we ordered. I know one was all cheese. Another was The Beanery's version of Hawaiian pizza. Another was a Greek pizza.  Another one might have had beets on it. You can tell. I was losing track. 

No matter.

The crusts were thin, just the way I love them, often charred. 

The toppings were superb, creative, beautifully imagined.

And my beer, a Payette North Fork Lager, was absolutely flawless,  the perfect drink to enjoy with pizza slices.

3. Debbie felt better today as the illness she's been plagued with seems to be subsiding a bit.

So, instead of struggling just to make through dinner, Debbie was animated, really funny, and social -- she made a round or two to other tables to talk with Kellogg people she knows from our neighborhood and at work.

But, there was a limit to what Debbie felt like doing.

Christy, Carol, Paul, and Molly (I don't know about Jenna) left The Beanery and visited Molly's apartment in what I think of as the old Casey Westcott house. 

Debbie and I will visit Molly's apartment another time.

We headed home, stayed up for a little while, and then both hit the hay pretty early. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-11-2023: Writing and Texting, Debbie Works and Sleeps, The Sad Story of an NI(J)C Basketball Magician

 1. I spent a lot of time today writing capsule accounts of great things I got to do with Terry Turner because of our friendship and Denny Crum being his brother. I texted some more with Terry. I am a  very lucky guy.

2. Debbie returned home as soon as she could from school this afternoon, walked in the door, and went straight to bed. She had to return to school around 5:30 in order to organize her students for a short music concert all the school's children gave. She returned home again around 7:00 or so. I fixed her one rye whiskey, fresh squeezed orange juice, Cointreau, and fresh squeezed lemon juice cocktail and once she slowly finished it, Debbie went right back to bed. 

3. Byrdman sent me a link to a documentary film about 30 minutes long telling the story of Detroit basketball legend, Curtis Jones. Curtis Jones played at North Idaho College (then NI Junior College) and Dad and I saw him play at the end of the 1968-69 season in Coeur d'Alene. 

The game matched NI(J)C against junior/community college powerhouse College of Southern Idaho.

I was in the ninth grade. 

I'd never seen a basketball player like Curtis Jones. He was quick. He was fast. He had surreal peripheral vision -- it was literally as if he had eyes in the back of his head. He was a pass first, shoot second point guard with extraordinary ability to penetrate the key and make perfectly timed passes to teammates. His favorite target was a leaper named Rob Young. 

CSI was long and strong. Their center was 7 footer who later played at Creighton and Long Beach named Nate Stevens. They had a rugged power forward who later played at Drake named Tom Bush. Their best guard was from Central Valley High in Spokane Valley, named Ron Adams, and he later played at the U of Idaho. 

If I didn't understand before how quickness, speed, and precision passing could overcome size and strength in a basketball game, I sure learned it that night. 

With their quickness and the magic of Curtis Jones wheeling and dealing the rock, NIC defeated CSI that night in one of the most thrilling basketball games I had and have ever seen.

The Curtis Jones story, however, was a terrible one.

Curtis Jones was illiterate.

The schools he attended in Detroit passed him along and for nearly two years he figured out ways to fool his instructors at North Idaho Junior College.

In the end, though, because he couldn't read or write, he never played college basketball again after his stint at NI(J)C.

He returned to Detroit, was a legend playing in rat ball games featuring Dave Bing and other Detroit superstars, but he lived out his short life unemployed, supported in his family home by his mother.

If you'd like to watch this short film, Fouled Out, here's the link: https://bit.ly/3pzxZ82

Three Beautiful Things 05-10-2023: RIP Denny Crum: Seeing UCLA at Bohler in 1969, West Regionals in 1970, Final Four in LA in 1972 -- and More

1. I didn't know quite what to think or say on Tuesday when I found out longtime Louisville men's basketball coach (1971-2001) died. 

Denny Crum and my lifetime friend, Terry Turner (KHS, '72), were both the sons of June Turner. They were (half) brothers.

So, when UCLA hired Coach Crum to be John Wooden's top assistant in 1967, my life took a mind boggling turn. 

I got to do things I never would have imagined. 

In the winter of 1969, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar)'s senior season, Terry invited me to go to Pullman and watch Washington State play UCLA in the not very friendly confines of Bohler Gym. The Cougar fans were raucous in the cracker box of Bohler and homemade posters festooned one end of the gym with messages like "Sidney Wicks, You're so Bush Your Mother Was a Tree" and at least one poster  mocked Lynn Shackelford's high arching baseline jumpers. 

I was awe struck. 

The seats Denny Crum secured for us were directly behind the UCLA bench. 

Needless to say, I'd never seen anyone as tall and graceful as Alcindor/Jabbar. That season, Sidney Wicks was a sophomore reserve for the Bruins. He entered the game at one point, received a pass about fifteen feet from the hoop, took a dribble, and made the most powerful and balletic move to basket to score that I had ever seen. 

I left Bohler that night eager for the 1969-70 season, knowing that Sidney Wicks would be a starter alongside UCLA's other powerful forward, Curtis Rowe. Everything I saw in Wicks' one flight to the iron on February 15, 1969  was a foreshadowing of his superb play over the next two seasons, especially against Jacksonville in the 1970 NCAA Final when Wicks not only scored 17 points, but, at 6 foot 8,  defended Jacksonville's imposing 7 foot 2 center, Artis Gilmore, blocking four of his shots, out rebounding him 18-16, and limiting him to making 9 of 29 shots from the field. 

2. That 1970 Final Four was especially meaningful to me because Terry invited me to join him to go to Seattle's Univ. of Washington campus the week before and watch the NCAA West Regional where UCLA, Santa Clara, Utah State, and Long Beach State battled for a slot in the Final Four. 

It was my first trip to Seattle. Bill Kramer bought our entire Kellogg contingent the best meal I'd ever eaten at that point in my life at Ivar's. Seattle blew me away. It was my first visit to a city bigger than Spokane and being there lit something inside me, ignited my lifelong love of visiting cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC, London, and others. 

3. This evening, a text message came flying in from Sharann, Terry and Denny's sister. 

She was reminiscing at home about Denny Crum and asked Terry and me to refresh her memory of the trip Terry and I made to Los Angeles in 1972 to watch the Final Four at the LA Memorial Sports Arena. The games were played on March 23rd and 25th.

Denny Crum was, in 71-72, the Univ of Louisville's first year coach and on Saturday, March 18th, Louisville defeated Kansas State and so the Cardinals advanced to the NCAA Final Four.

Somehow between that March 18th victory and Wednesday, March 22nd, the day Terry and I flew into Los Angeles, our parents agreed to let us go to LA, secured our flights, and got us to the airport in Spokane. 

It all happened so fast that I had trouble believing I was actually going to LA, but we arrived on Wednesday, stayed with (I think) Terry's aunt, got to see Denny Crum briefly when he brought the tournament tickets to the house, and by Thursday evening, we were in the stands, several, but not that many rows, up from the court watching Florida State defeat the Univ of North Carolina and UCLA defeat Louisville. 

The basketball was thrilling. UCLA's team featured Bill Walton as a sophomore and he was as great of an all around player as I'd ever seen. UNC's squad included Bob McAdoo, George Karl, and Bobby Jones and I was gobsmacked when the lengthy, sharpshooting Seminoles of Florida State, led by Rowland Garrett, Ron King, and Reggie Royals upset the Tar Heels in a 79-75 thriller. On Saturday, FSU continued its upset minded ways and gave UCLA a lot of trouble, but, in the end, UCLA was more talented and better and prevailed, 81-76.

Well, Terry, Sharann, and I got the details of the LA trip all figured out but we weren't quite done staggering down memory lane.

I say stagger because Terry and I swooped into Roger Pearson's apartment in Salem on Monday, March 24 to watch Denny Crum's Louisville Cardinals play Crum's alma mater, UCLA, for the national championship. 

I didn't know it at the time, but Sharann was in Portland for a conference that weekend.  It's too bad the four of us didn't coordinate a get together and a viewing.

Louisville won that game, 59-54. It was Denny Crum's first of two national titles at Louisville. 

Roger, Terry, and I then piled into someone's rig and rocketed to the Ram, a Salem watering hole, for a boisterous and drunken post-game celebration. 

We were overjoyed for Coach Crum's success and for Terry's connection to it.

We had the kind of epic celebration together that we were capable of back in 1980 as young guys in our mid to late 20s. 

What a blast! 

Terry, Roger, and I got together again and watched Coach Crum's Cardinals win their second national title in 1986.

We were much more subdued by then and loved seeing Louisville win, but didn't paint the town afterward. 

Our good times watching those two Cardinal championships together came back to me last spring.

Roger, Terry, and I reunited at Terry's house to watch an NCAA championship game in April of 2022 for the first time in twenty-six years and had a great time watching Kansas come from behind to defeat North Carolina. I don't remember any of us being deeply invested in who won or lost. We definitely didn't drink beer like it was 1980. 

We were just guys who've been friends for nearly our entire lives, enjoying basketball, the sport that drew us together at the YMCA, in junior high and high school, and enjoying being fans of college basketball, especially those UCLA and Louisville teams coached so expertly, as an assistant and as the head coach,  by Denny Crum. 

The news of his death awakened immense gratitude in me. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-09-2023: Debbie Recuperates, Kitchen Cleaned, Bulgogi Beef Stir Fry for Dinner

 1. Debbie tried to make it at work today. She couldn't do it. Wisely, she went to the ER, got checked out, got a prescription, returned home, and slept many hours today. I was relieved that she didn't push herself any longer and stopped everything and enjoyed restorative sleep.

2. Making all that food yesterday meant cleaning up the pots, pans, and utensils I used and taking care of the dishes everyone used at dinner. Fixing the meal was fun and satisfying and getting the kitchen cleaned up also felt really good.

3. I wasn't sure today about Debbie's appetite, but late in the afternoon she said something like, "If some one fixed dinner, I'd enjoy eating it"! 

No problem!

I pulled the bag of ingredients out of the fridge and went to work making HelloFresh's Bulgogi Beef Noodle Stir-Fry with Cabbage, Carrots, Lime, and Scallions. 

I was stoked to make this dinner. I enjoy Korean food a lot and, as a bonus, this meal looked simple to prepare.

All I had to was chop up the scallion, brown the package of ground beef, and stir fry the scallions and packet of shredded carrots and cabbage, and mix up a sauce using a bulgogi sauce, soy sauce, sweet chili sauce (all in packets), and garlic powder. 

I boiled and drained the noodles and combined all of these things together and served Debbie and me each a bowl of delicious food. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-08-2023: Tahini and Hummus, Greek Salad and Greek Rice, Greek Pork Chops and Lots of Table Talk

1. I started my day in the kitchen, preparing tonight's family dinner, by making a small batch of tahini. I poured a bunch of roasted sesame seeds in the food processor and as the machine pulverized them, I poured oil down the chute into the processing bowl. By mistake, I realized too late, I used sesame oil instead of olive oil. My knees started to shake with trepidation as I dipped a spoon into the sauce and within seconds I felt a warm bath of relief. The tahini tasted awesome made with sesame oil.

I cleaned the food processor, reassembled it, and put a can of chickpeas and a quarter cup of chickpea liquid in the food processor along with garlic cloves, fresh squeezed lemon juice, olive oil (I got it right this time), tahini, and salt. I ran the food processor and within minutes I used a spatula and transferred the hummus to a bowl.

Earlier, I had purchased sesame seed and plain bagels at Beach Bum Bakery and later in the afternoon I cut one of each into bite-sized pieces to be dipped into the hummus as an appetizer.

2. I decided to make a simple Greek cucumber salad. All I did was peel and slice two cucumbers, halve a heaping handful of grape tomatoes, cut up some Kalamata olives, put it all in a bowl and added a generous sprinkle or two of crumbled feta cheese.  I dressed the salad with a combination of fresh squeezed lemon juice, olive oil, and oregano. 

For tonight's side, I made Greek rice. I chopped a white onion and a couple cloves of garlic and cooked them in olive oil in a sauce pan for over five minutes. I added long grain white rice and cooked it with the onion and garlic for a few minutes. I poured a couple cups of chicken broth and the juice of a couple of lemons over the rice, put a lid on the sauce pan, brought the liquid to a simmer, and then turned the heat on low and once the rice was cooked, I added a some fresh rosemary to the rice and fluffed and stirred it. 

3. I bought inch thick pork chops at Costco Saturday and Sunday evening I made a marinade of fresh squeezed lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. 

I took out the chops a while before cooking them so they'd warm up to room temperature.

I turned the heat up to medium high under both cast iron skillets for about five minutes. I poured vegetable oil into each hot pan and then put three chops in each pan. I seared one side of the chops for about 3-4 minutes and then turned them over and put both skillets in the oven at 400 degrees. I roasted the chops for about 6 minutes or so, plated them, and covered them with aluminum foil and let them rest for about five minutes.

In between fixing the rice and the pork chops, I got out our carafe and in it I mixed vodka, ouzo, and fresh squeezed lemon and orange juice. The cocktail is called a Greek Doctor and everyone enjoyed it, meaning that all of us enjoy the anise, licorice-y flavor of ouzo. 

I had a blast preparing this dinner and everyone said they enjoyed it. 

We all sat at the dinner table for quite a while -- were we there for two hours? -- and talked about school, children, the Salmon River,  Monk, our mothers, Mother's Day coming up, and a host of other things. By the end of our yakking and laughing, the bottles of wine and the bottle of ouzo were empty and the vodka bottle was pretty well dented, too. 

We had a mirthful and merry time. Yes, some serious subjects came up and so did a lot of funny stories and numerous wise cracks.

Three Beautiful Things 05-07-2023: 1969: B S, & T and The Rotations, My Music Adulthood, Monk Comes Back to Earth BONUS: A Limerick by Stu

1.  Back in 1969, my freshman year at Kellogg Junior High School, our class decided to hire a band called The Rotations for our end of the year dance. I might not have all the details exactly right these fifty-four years later, but here's what I remember.

The Rotations were, I think, from Seattle and I'm not sure how we knew about them -- had they played the Northwest Metal Union hall? I'm not sure.

To hire them meant we had to raise about five or six hundred dollars and someone in town, I think, donated a color television and we raffled it off and succeeded in raising the money. 

I didn't have a date for the dance and one evening, not long before the big night, some of us were talking over at the United Church after a youth group meeting or activity. 

One of the senior gals, about to graduate from KHS, wanted to hear The Rotations and wondered if we could go together. She had two friends who also wanted to go and we arranged a triple date -- three freshman guys and three senior gals. 

The dance was a blast.

More important, The Rotations made a lifelong impact on me.

The Rotations were an accomplished cover band replete with horns and electric instruments and a superb vocalist.

I don't remember their entire set list, but I know they played "Magic Carpet Ride", "Born to be Wild", "Ride My Seesaw", and other great hits of the time.

Before this dance, I had never heard Blood, Sweat & Tears.

I was absolutely hypnotized by The Rotations playing both "You've Made Me So Very Happy" and "Spinning Wheel". 

Somehow, I found out those songs appeared on a recently released LP entitled simply, Blood, Sweat & Tears and I ran down a copy and bought it.

Today, I was at my desk, writing bills, organizing file folders, and taking care of other home business and I  put Blood, Sweat & Tears on Spotify.

I suddenly realized that although I have a different desk now, I was sitting in exactly the same place I sat in back in the early summer of 1969 when I listened to this album repeatedly, obsessively.

At fifteen years old, I'd never heard anything on LPs I owned by The Beach Boys, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, or even The Beatles that was as sublime, as deeply stirring as the first track of this album, "Variations of a Theme by Erik Satie". I wouldn't learn until many years later that Erik Satie composed music for piano in the late 19th and early 20th century and that Blood, Sweat & Tears reached back to a melody composed decades earlier and riffed on it to open this innovative and eclectic LP.

From there, this album ventured into a riveting fusion of musical styles, bolstered by a tight horn section, vivifying keyboards, a traditional rock n roll guitar section, superb drumming, and the superb vocal stylings of David Clayton Thomas. 

Before this album, I'd never heard so much variety, so much energy, so much improvisation, and so many passages of music paying homage to forbearers, whether to Cream or to Billie Holiday. I'd never heard a singer move so readily between gospel stylings, the blues, crooning, and straight ahead rock and roll. 

It was as if this album opened a portal into a world of musical wonder and I enthusiastically entered this world and became obsessed with Chicago, Santana, Chase, Jethro Tull and other musical groups devoted to fusion, whether of rock and jazz, rock and African and Latin influences, rock and folk, or rock and classical musical. 

2. Before David Clayton Thomas joined Blood, Sweat & Tears, they cut their debut album, a project spearheaded by Al Kooper. 

That album was entitled The Child is Father to the Man.

That title sums up my experience in June of 1969 with the album Blood, Sweat and Tears.

I bought the album as a child and it became the father of my music listening adulthood.

I was immature in countless other ways, but my musical taste and my openness to the explosion of innovation and experimentation in rock and roll music that took place when I was a teenager signaled that I had moved into adulthood as a music listener. 

This album, Blood, Sweat & Tears, was my Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club's Band, my Dark Side of the Moon, my Pet Sounds, my Hiway 61 Revisited.

As I listened to this album this afternoon, yes, it took me back in time, but I was more impressed with how contemporary it sounds, how ageless, how fresh and electrifying, how moving it is to me. 

A freshman class's dream.

A raffle.

A youth group meeting.

The Rotations.

A transforming night.

3. Friday night, bone tired and suffering from allergies and a sinus infection, Debbie went to bed early and we left Monk up in the air, on a jet plane, suspicious that one of the passengers was guilty of homicide. This evening we rejoined Monk in the friendly skies and watched with amazement as he overcame every obstacle thrown at him and conducted an investigation of this crime from high in sky.

Having finished this episode, we wanted more and watched Monk return to his deceased wife Trudy's high school alma mater and, with the vital assistance of Sharona, get to the bottom of the death of an English teacher that had every appearance of being a suicide.

 Here's Stu's limerick: 

The time of the year is for “walks”. 

To let the wind blow through your “locks”! 

And to lighten your load, 

As you head down the road. 

Today you can “bag” wearing socks. 

 No Sock Day. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-06-2023: Driving While Fantasizing, Smitty's Surprise and IPA Memories, Luna and Copper and Crossword Puzzles

1. It's odd.

When I lived in Greenbelt, MD, vaulting into the Sube and blasting into Washington, DC, whether to go to Union Station and the Mall, DC Brau, one of the other breweries, the National Aquatic Gardens, the National Arboretum, meet up with a friend from out of town, or to make a visit to a neighborhood I hadn't explored before, got to be routine. It was never boring to go into DC, but, in fact, even though I was in the suburbs, Washington, D. C. became my home town, albeit, a thrilling home town. I reached a point where it no longer felt like I was going some place else when I roamed around what people in the area call "The District". I was home. 

Now, however, after living in Kellogg for nearly six years, it's a really big deal for me, in terms of excitement, to drive to CdA (unless it's strictly a medical visit). 

As I was planning the family dinner I'll prepare on Monday, I concluded that a trip to Costco on Saturday would be a good idea and I started to get pumped up at the prospect of picking up some items we need and of walking the aisles, checking out products and enjoying fellow shoppers.

So, I hopped into the Camry, got my phone and the car's sound system in sync, and put on one of my favorite albums of the last fifty years: Spirit's Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.

This album came out in 1970, and, similar to Jethro Tull, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Chase, Tower of Power, Spirit fused jazz, classical, folk, psychedelia, and rock and, on this album, created a loosely constructed concept album -- I've always been so enamored by the album's music and its sound, I've never gotten around to thinking much about its concept or its connection to the 1961 horror film, Mr. Sardonicus.

No, as Spirit rocked the inside of the Camry, I enjoyed fantasies.

Sometimes I dreamed of Spirit playing out back at the Kingston HillTop last summer for our 50th high school reunion.

Other times I dreamed that the band, Dirty Betty, who did play at our reunion, performed a Spirit set, augmenting their band by inviting Kellogg graduates like Nick Thorpe, Tom Lyons, and others to join them on stage, turning Dirty Betty into a rock/jazz fusion group.

My favorite daydream on this drive was fantasizing that I was a member of either Spirit itself or of a Spirit tribute/cover band and that my skills were so awesome that I was a Jay Ferguson/Randy California hybrid, singing soaring vocals and playing a monster electric guitar.

That was a lot of tripping for a short trip of about 40 minutes from Kellogg to Costco!

2. When I lived in Eugene and near Washington, DC, by keeping an eye on Facebook posts from 16 Tons and Bier Stein in Eugene and on Quench, DC Brau, and other beer joints in DC, Virginia, and Maryland, I would see when these places would tap a keg of special beer, or, in the case of DC Brau, offer a new beer or a new collaboration. 

I still follow these beer joints on Facebook and Twitter and sometimes it makes me ache.

For example, I've never had the pleasure of drinking what I think is the original East Coast Hazy IPA, the great Heady Topper brewed by Alchemist Brewing in Stowe, Vermont. When we lived in Maryland, in order to quaff a Heady Topper, one had to drive to Vermont and purchase Heady Topper on site.

Something, I guess, changed recently.

On at least two different occasions, 16 Tons in Eugene scored cans of Heady Topper and were I living in Eugene, I would have purchased some -- likewise, I haven't had the pleasure of drinking Russian River's superb DIPA, Pliny the Elder, since Debbie and I got together with Eugene friends two nights before we moved away back in June, 2014. Recently, in the last week or two, 16 Tons was pouring both Pliny the Elder and Russian River's Blind Pig, a very tasty IPA.

On Friday, however, Coeur d'Alene's relatively new bottle shop, Bottle Joy, posted on Facebook two things that arrested my attention:

1. Bottle Joy's proprietor is working his tail off, trying to persuade Russian River to distribute their beer to Bottle Joy. Oh, my! This would be an awesome development, should it work out, not only for the possibility of being close to the great Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig, but also Russian River's impeccable sours, among them, Beatification, Consecration, and Supplication. 

2. Bottle Joy scored a keg of an IPA that is a collaboration between Russian River, Ninkasi (of Eugene), and Bale Breaker (of Seattle).

It's named after Bale Breaker's brewer, Kevin Smith, a longtime devotee of Ninkasi and Russian River. The brewers from Ninkasi and Russian River, out of the blue, told Kevin Smith they wanted to collaborate with him, brew a beer together.

And they did.

The result: Smitty's Surprise. 

So, after I finished shopping at Costco, I buzzed straight down to Bottle Joy, fervently hoping the keg of Smitty's Surprise hadn't sold out.

It hadn't.

I took my golden pint of beer to a seat by the window looking out on Burt's Music and Sound and began slowly sipping away.

This IPA was West Coast all the way. No haze. A firm bitter bite. A variety of flavors. I couldn't identify those flavors the way beer experts can, but I do know that drinking this beer transported me back about 10-12 years when I first began trying out a host of IPAs, especially at 16 Tons. It brought back Ninkasi memories of when I first tried their great Total Domination IPA and I wasn't quite ready for it yet. Over time, though, I came to enjoy these hoppy, bitter West Coast IPAs, especially grapefruit-y ones like Deschute's Fresh Squeezed IPA and Hop Valley's Citrus Mistress.

Drinking that Smitty's Surprise today, I was never sure what I was enjoying more, the beer in my hand or my history of drinking beer. It was a toss up, I think: the present moment was euphoric, but the memories of tap houses, breweries, friends, and beers at home also had me stoked.

Smitty's Surprise weighed in at 7.0% Alcohol by Volume.

One pint was enough. I wanted a clear head for the drive back to Kellogg. 

I left feeling happy that I'd dropped in for this beer. I wondered what the new tap house in Wallace, The Blue Raven, sells. (I wish they posted their tap list.)  I was happy the other day when The Beanery had Boneyard IPA on tap. I can count on Bob to have Sierra Nevada Pale Ale by the bottle in the cooler at The Lounge. 

By and large, though, I think to approximate the experience I had today sipping that Smitty's Surprise, I need to venture to Missoula, CdA, Post Falls, Spokane Valley, or Spokane.

Or up to Sandpoint.

So be it! 

3. Back home, I eventually retired to the bedroom with my laptop and completed Saturday's NY Times crossword and then worked out the whole of Sunday's puzzle (it comes online early Saturday evening). 

More important than the puzzles, though, was my time with Luna and Copper. 

They both got close to me in their patented ways: Luna dug into my chest and purred and pushed her face into mine, telling me she trusts me. Copper trusts me, too, but he expressed his trust by curling up closer to my hip or thigh and is at peace in his own way. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-05-2023: Planning Family Dinner, Pasta and Clam Sauce, Monk's Up in the Air

 1. I focused a well-spent stretch of time today on recipes. I wanted to decide what I'll prepare when Debbie and I host family dinner on Monday and I hoped to either find or dream up something pretty good to make for dinner tonight. Debbie has been suffering from allergies and a sinus infection all week long and she's been bone tired. A pretty good dinner would, I hope, lift her spirits. 

I am going to keep family dinner details a secret because I like to surprise Carol, Paul, Christy, and Molly -- that said, it'll be a Greek dinner. (Tip of the hat to Stu for suggesting I fix a Greek supper.)  I found some recipes that will move me into some areas of Greek cooking I've never gone before.

2. I also tried something new when I cooked dinner late this afternoon. Realizing we had a couple tins of clams in the basement and based on a comment about food that Debbie made earlier in the week, I decided to use up the last half of the box of medium shells I opened on Wednesday and make a clam sauce for the pasta.

I found a simple recipe that intrigued me. When I think of clam sauce, I imagine a creamy white sauce. But this sauce is just a combination of butter, oil, garlic, clams (with liquid), basil, parsley (I used oregano), and pepper. 

This bowl of pasta and clam sauce comforted Debbie and more than satisfied my easy to please palate.

3. Debbie went to bed tonight soon after our next episode of Monk got started. We left Monk on a flight from San Francisco to somewhere in New Jersey. Monk doesn't fly well. That he suspects a passenger on board of having committed a murder, though, might take his mind off of his multiple neuroses about being up in the air and give him a case to focus on. We'll resume this episode later. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-04-2023: Testing My Lungs, Surprise Sirloin Steak Dinner, Monk Investigates Willie Nelson

1. I met a 1:00 appointment this afternoon for a Pulmonary Function Test (actually a battery of tests) at the Shoshone Medical Center. I decided to come into this appointment with my lungs having had a light workout, so I walked to the trail to the high school, followed it to a culvert that crosses Jacobs Creek, walked to Jacobs Gulch Road, and on south to the outpatient area of the hospital. 

Before long I was under the care of Liz, a calm, clear thinking, articulate, engaging pulmonary therapist. After a short interview regarding my pulmonary history and current experience, Liz had me do a series of tests involving deep breaths, long exhales, and pants. I don't know what the results will look like, but I was very pleased with how strong I felt while doing these tests, especially as I recalled how weak I felt doing similar tests 40-50 years ago in the wake of the accident I experienced at the Zinc Plant. 

The testing took about 90 minutes to complete. 

I left the testing room feeling spry and walked back home easily.

For the transplant program at Sacred Heart, I began a series of blood draws, heart and lung tests, x-rays, scans, and interviews back at the beginning of February. Today's tests, I think, brought all this testing to an end. 

I imagine I'll hear from the transplant program at some point regarding whether I still qualify for kidney replacement. 

For now, though, it's a relief to have these tests and interviews finished.

2. Back home, I relaxed for a while and gave nearly a half an hour over to trying to come up with a solid dinner plan.

Then it hit me: why not, for the first time in many years, go to Yoke's and buy Debbie and me steaks.

That's what I did. 

I bought a package of petite sirloin steaks, returned home, and got to cookin'. 

First, I started a pot of baby Yukon Golds boiling.

I remembered we had four slices of bacon in the icebox. I got out two cast iron pans and started cooking the bacon. 

I sliced a handful of cremini mushrooms and a couple of small zucchinis. 

When the bacon had finished cooking, I dumped the mushroom and zucchini slices, along with two minced cloves of garlic, into the bacon grease and got that little mess cookin'.

In the other puddle of bacon grease, I placed the salted, peppered, and garlic powdered steaks and put the timer on for three minutes. When the timer went off, I turned the steaks over and put the timer back on for three more minutes.

The vegetable mess finished cooking. The potatoes finished boiling. I put the steaks on a plate to rest for five minutes.

I put butter and sour cream on the table for the potatoes and soon Debbie and I were having a splendid dinner of steak, mushroom and zucchini, boiled potatoes, and a couple slices of bacon.

We were both surprised and happy that I decided, after all these years, to fix a steak dinner at home again.

3. I was moved by Willie Nelson's guest appearance on Monk. In case you haven't seen this episode, I won't give away what happened that stirred me, but for this episode's moving final scene, Willie Nelson was perfect, as was the connection between him and Monk. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-03-2023: Driving Backward, Ahhh--A Tidier Garage, No Cook Pasta Sauce

 1. I am terrible at driving the Sube (or any vehicle) in reverse. I'm fine rocketing around in every forward gear, but over the years I've just never gotten the hang of doing what I see people do all the time: back into parking spots, back into the cardboard recycling area at the transfer station, or back out of a problematic situation on a road in the woods.

I'd say a majority of the small dents and scratches on the body of the Sube are a result of me making contact with something in the material world while driving in reverse. 

Well, today, I decided to back the Sube into our driveway so I could more easily put recyclables in the back of the car.

It only took me about five or six (or was it seven?) attempts to get the mirrors adjusted right and the Sube lined up with the driveway and to back smoothly in, but I did it! 

I blocked out the demons inside me that told me that neighbors were gathered at their front windows laughing at me, the way Dad used to laugh at Ellery when he tried to back into a parking spot across the street at the church.

And if neighbors were laughing at me, hey!, it was free entertainment and a good laugh is good for the soul! 

2. I got all the cans and plastic containers and newspapers properly separated and packed up and I loaded up the broken down cardboard and zipped out to the transfer station to put them all in their proper bins.

I didn't back into the area with the bin for cardboard.

Baby steps. 

My reward was the lightness I feel when the garage is less cluttered. 

It's a small thing, but I experience outsized pleasure from keeping the garage pretty neat.

3. One of my favorite cookbooks over the years, going way back at least twenty years, is No-Cook Pasta Sauces. The recipes result in delicious pasta dishes that require no (or very little) cooking of the sauce. I wanted to make something light today, so I fixed the Chickpea, Lemon, and Rosemary Sauce served with medium shells.

All I had to do was drain a can of chickpeas, put them in a bowl, and add olive oil, the juice of a fresh squeezed lemon, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. I was supposed to wait to add the rosemary and green onion, but I jumped the gun.

I place the bowl containing these ingredients on top of a pot of water while I brought it to a boil to warm these things.

When the water began boiling, I removed the bowl and cooked the medium shells.

I drained the shells and added them to the bowl, tossed it, and our meal was ready.

I ate my bowl of pasta with the addition of feta cheese and Kalamata olives and cut myself slices of bread from the whole wheat sourdough loaf I purchased today at Beach Bum Bakery.

For dessert, Debbie and I watched Monk and the courageous, quick thinking Sharona deal with a homicide made possible by a San Francisco earthquake. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-02-2023: Repairs Restore My Equilibrium, First Time Cooking Fritters, More *Monk* After Dinner

 1. First thing Monday morning, as Debbie eased the Camry out of the garage and activated the garage door to close, the door wouldn't go to the floor. About six inches above the floor it reversed direction and opened again. At about the same time, I had our sprinkling system programmed to start watering at 7:00 a.m. and it didn't work. 

Back to back mechanical failures within minutes of each other threw me into a temporary state of high anxiety and for a minute or two worst case scenarios dominated my consciousness.

I soon got a grip.

I made a couple of phone calls.

Both repairmen came to the house this morning.

The sprinkler system just needed to be adjusted following last fall's system blow out.

The garage door just needed, in the repairman's words, some TLC.

By shortly before noon, everything was working again, and, as a bonus, our garage door operates more quietly.

As a double bonus, the repairs and the fact that both guys could come the day after I called them, restored my sense of contentment.

2. I was a stranger in a strange land late this afternoon in the kitchen. 

I had never fixed fritters before and tonight's HelloFresh meal was Edamame & Cauliflower Fritters with Roasted Broccoli Slaw & Sweet Chili Mayo.

Roasting the broccoli in the oven, combining the florets with shredded cabbage, and dressing it with sesame dressing, salt, and pepper was easy (and delicious).

On the fritter front, well, I minced a plug of ginger and a couple garlic cloves and put them in the skillet with sesame oil and the edamame. The recipe said to heat them in a microwave, but we don't have (or want) one. 

I mashed half of this mixture, put all of it in a bowl, added the packet of tempura mix with water and made a batter.

I heated about a half an inch of vegetable oil in the cast iron skillet and when it was hot, I spooned small blobs of fritter batter into the oil. Some of the fritters stayed intact. Others didn't. Luckily, intact or falling apart, they tasted great, especially with the sweet chili mayo sauce I made for them.

It turned out, despite my insecurities as I fixed this meal, that it was one of our favorites! 

3. As a thunder and lightning storm invaded the Silver Valley, Debbie and I relaxed while watching two episodes of Monk. One case involved a homicide that took place during a marathon race and, in the other, Monk, Sharona, and Benjy go on a vacation, but, of course, Monk gets involved in a murder case at the resort's hotel.