Three Beautiful Things 07-30-2023: Phone Call from Roger, Preparing the Salmon, Epic Family Dinner

1. Today was no ordinary day. The invigoration kicked off this morning when Roger P. called me to discuss my kidney situation, get a report on the All-Class Reunion, and talk about other things. I was fired up when I got off the phone. I immensely enjoyed talking with my lifelong friend. 

2. My chief responsibility for family dinner tonight was to prepare the salmon I bought on Saturday at Costco for Paul to grill. Christy gave me a recipe and gave me dill from her garden and lemons from the store. 

I began by setting the salmon pieces out in their packaging to reach room temperature. Meanwhile, I sliced lemons, minced garlic, and removed unnecessary stems from the dill. I tore off a length of aluminum foil, covered it with parchment paper, and put it inside a baking dish. I laid dill and lemon slices on the parchment paper, put the salmon on top of it, drizzled the salmon with melted butter, added salt and pepper, and topped the salmon with minced garlic and more dill and lemon slices. I covered the salmon with more foil and repeated this process with a second hunk of salmon.

I also put the three baguettes I bought at Bum Beach Bakery in the oven for five minutes at 450 degrees to give the baguettes a more crunchy crust. I sliced the baguettes and bagged the pieces.

3. The people gathered at the table, the delicious spread of food, and the inclusion of some old school lagers made tonight's family dinner a vibrant and joyous event.

Our guests were Dick and Renae, on vacation in Kellogg from Arizona, and their friend Kathy, in town from the Boise area. I've known Dick for as long as I have memory and Renae came to Kellogg to teach in 1973, worked with Mom, and we have known her for fifty years now. 

In a tribute to our fathers, I brought Dick and me some Heidelberg beers to drink together. Well, as it turned out, Brian, Molly's pal, has some fun memories of drinking Heidelberg in his youth, and he joined us. Not only that, Brian, not knowing what I was bringing, brought a few cans of PBR to dinner and so Dick, Brian, and I had a blast drinking a few old school lager beers.

For dinner, others at the table drank gin and tonics to start and Paul made delicious tapenade served with assorted crackers. Renae assembled and brought a crisp, fresh, gorgeous green salad with cranberry raisins and pears, Carol contributed grilled summer squash from her garden, I brought slices of the Beach Bum Bakery sourdough baguettes and Paul perfectly grilled the salmon I prepared. Molly and Brian brought wine. For dessert, Christy brought light and refreshing lemon phyllo cups. 

Our dinner conversation covered countless subjects as we all got to know each other better, shared stories and memories, and enjoyed a lot of good cheer and laughter together. 

2. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-29-2023: Debbie Lands in Newark, Success at Costco, Remembering Brown Ales

 1. Debbie was originally scheduled to fly out of Spokane at 5:30 a.m. and arrive in Newark in the afternoon. Delta cancelled the 5:30 flight. The new flight was scheduled for 11:55. It got delayed. Debbie made it to Minneapolis in time to have her connecting flight to Newark delayed 90 minutes. It's a relief she arrived in Newark, but to get there she waited out about nine hours of cancellations and delays. Long day. 

2. We are having family dinner on Sunday this week and will have nine people at the table. Christy is in charge and decided we'd have salmon and asked me to buy some at Costco. So, I blasted over to CdA and had a very pleasant trip to Costco, picking up salmon, a few things for Carol and Paul, and a few staples for Debbie and me. 

3. I put a cooler with ice in the Camry so I could keep the fish and dairy products cold in case I decided to stop in at Bottle Joy after shopping.

I stopped in at Bottle Joy. Ha! I enjoyed a Hazy IPA from Modern Times Brewing and followed it up with a half pour of Mammoth Double Nut Brown Ale. The Hazy IPA was soft, peachy, delicious and the Nut Brown Ale was a treat. In my opinion, Brown Ales are underappreciated. I loved the contrast between my beers as I moved from the juicy and hoppy IPA to a malty, nutty, much sweeter Nut Brown Ale with pleasant notes of chocolate and coffee. Back in about 1996, when I dove into the world of USA craft beer, Brown Ales were fairly popular but have ceased to be a common or regular offering in most tap rooms. Today, I loved the experience, not only of drinking this particular ale, but also how it transported me back over twenty-five years (well, forty-four years -- when I last drank Brown Ale in England) to those heady and cool autumn evenings at McMenamin's High Street Pub in Eugene when the Brown Ale tasted especially good. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-28-2023: Walking with Dylan, Sitting with Riley, Debbie's Ready to Fly East

1. I discovered this morning that a morning walk down to McDonald's and back, while listening (again) to Bob Dylan's book, The Philosophy of Modern Song is fun and that Bob Dylan's insights and assertions range, to me, from the brilliant to the insane. (I can't tell if he's pulling his readers' legs or if he's serious when he makes his case for polygamy.)

2. Riley continues to recover (pretty well it seems) from his surgery on Monday. His tail had to be removed because of a cancerous tumor on it and he had a benign tumor removed from near his hindquarters. It takes two devices, a cone and a comfort collar, to keep him from licking the sites of the surgeries and, as it would be for any dog, this arrangement has been difficult for Riley. Today, Christy had a 1 p.m. appointment and I sat with Riley for an hour and a half or so. He was under the influence of a medicine to lower his anxiety and it worked! Riley was still and calm while I was with him and I was still and calm, too, as I slowly but surely completed the Friday NYTimes crossword puzzle. 

Christy took a picture of us when she returned home. It's at the bottom of this post. 

3. Debbie and I stopped at Pho Le 1 in Coeur d' Alene for some Vietnamese cuisine and then traveled to the Spokane International Airport. I dropped Debbie off at the Ramada. Driving to and back home from Spokane was easy. 

But, all is not perfectly smooth for Debbie. Late Friday evening, she received word that Delta Airlines canceled the 5:30 flight she was scheduled to be on, so she now leaves GEG at 11:00 and arrives in Newark at about 11:30 p.m. Her original schedule had been much more convenient, but, it'll all work out. 

Here's Riley, totally unable to reach his stitches, with me at the end of our time together.  

 

Three Beautiful Things 07-27-2023: Our Heating/Cooling System is Good, Debbie Rocks the Kitchen, Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill

1. A tech from Border's Heating and Sheet Metal showed up at our house, as scheduled, this morning. I was under the impression that our heating/cooling system ought to be checked out annually and the tech came to do that. The unit in the living room that we use the most needed some deep cleaning, but not the other units. He made sure all the units are functioning well and they are. 

This was great news.

2. Even though Debbie put in several hours in her classroom, preparing for the 23-24 school year, she wanted to fix dinner when she arrived home, after a quick trip to the vet to have some spots on Gibbs' belly checked. (There's no problem.) 

Debbie combined lettuce and basil from Carol's garden with feta cheese and a killer vinaigrette, built around pomegranate balsamic vinegar, and other perfectly chosen ingredients and created a superb salad. Along with the salad she made one of my favorite pasta dishes: spaghetti with garlic and basil and grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.  

3. After we finished this simple and totally satisfying meal, Debbie and I returned to the last episode of the Season 8 of Slow Burn, entitled Being Clarence Thomas. It was difficult for me to listen to as it told the story of Thomas and Anita Hill being called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to present their conflicting testimony regarding Anita Hill's claims that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her when he was chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and she worked there as an adviser to him. 

Three other women were prepared to testify, but the committee didn't hear them. Their contributions were limited to written testimony, all of which made claims about Clarence Thomas similar to Anita Hill's.  

Listening to this episode further cemented my understanding of the past, of history. Things that occur in the past are always connected to things that happened previously and things in the past are never done, are always with us in the present. 

History doesn't repeat itself. 

It continues.  

It's not uncommon for people to say, "Oh -- that's history", usually meaning that what they are referring to is over with. It's not. 

The issues raised when Anita Hill testified, the way she was vilified, and the impact it all had on Clarence Thomas himself have all continued not only to live, but to shape our lives in the USA, and will continue to do so long after the parties involved are gone. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-26-2023: Whitworth Reunion Taking Shape, Spiffing Up, Another Great HelloFresh Meal

1. Arrangements are coming together for Peter, Mark, and me to spend a couple of nights together in Spokane in September. The place we're renting isn't far from Whitworth. It'll be fun to roam around campus and regale each other with stories and memories, but also note how much the old college, now university, has developed over the nearly fifty years since we were students. 

2. I did some sweeping and cleaning around the house today in preparation for tomorrow's visit by a person to give our heating and cooling system an annual check up and maybe some cleaning.

3. I began by chopping a cucumber and putting the pieces in rice vinegar and sugar. I got the cauliflower chopped, drizzled it with oil, and roasted the pieces. I chopped up the green onion, dropped the white part, minced, in hot oil, and once it was fragrant added jasmine rice and water to the pot and cooked the rice. I put oil in the frying pan, heat it up, and cooked the green part of the scallions until they were fragrant and added a mixture of red cabbage and carrot slivers. Once these were tender, I added them to the pot of rice.  In that same pan, I poured out a drizzle of olive oil and cooked the ginger and garlic I had minced earlier for about a minute, added corn starch, soy sauce glaze, apricot jam, sriracha, and water and made a sauce. I added the roasted cauliflower to the sauce, stirred in up until sauce covered the florets. 

I divided the rice/carrot and cabbage mixture between two bowls, added the cauliflower covered with sauce, and topped off the bowl with the pickled cucumbers. 

What a great medley of flavors: garlic, ginger, apricot, soy, and the vinegar-y pleasure of the cucumber pieces. 

This Sweet Heat Vegan Cauli Bowl with Cabbage Carrot Rice and Pickled Cucumbers turned out to one of my favorite of all Hello Fresh meals.

Good thing we rescued the box from Christy's porch! Ha!  

Three Beautiful Things 07-25-2023: Luna Is In Good Shape, Luna's Labs Look Splendid, Loaded Slices of Toast for Dinner

1. Several weeks ago, I began giving Luna pills for her thyroid. She and I are now at peace about me putting a pill in the back of her mouth twice a day. I'm happy we reached this accord. It's made the process much easier.

Today, I took Luna to see the veterinarian for a follow up exam and some blood work. Luna has a heart murmur and it sounded the same today as it has before. Otherwise, Luna's health is sound. It was especially good news that she had gained some weight thanks to the thyroid medicine.

2. Later in the afternoon, Dr. Cook called me with superb news. The medicine has brought Luna's thyroid number back into range. Sometimes an overactive thyroid masks kidney problems. Luna's kidney numbers look good. Sometimes the thyroid medicine can compromise a cat's liver -- but, not Luna's. 

Unless something happens that concerns me, Luna's next follow up will be in six months.

3. With our Hello Fresh box rescued (ha ha) from Christy's front porch, today I dove into one of our bags and prepared Debbie and me Charred Tomato & Ricotta Toasts with Walnuts, Chili Flakes, and Balsamic Glaze.

I had fun preparing it. 

To start, I minced a garlic and halved a package of grape tomatoes, put them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and drizzled them generously with olive oil -- and seasoned them with salt and pepper. These went in the oven (450 degrees) for about ten minutes.

In the meantime, I clipped the leaves off of stems of Italian parsley. I scooped ricotta cheese into a small bowl, added the parsley, some Parmesan cheese, and chili flakes. Then I put minced garlic in another small bowl with olive oil 

When the tomato halves and minced garlic were charred, I put them in a bowl. I had put the olive oil and garlic mixture on two slices of sourdough bread so they were ready to put on the baking sheet and toast for about five minutes at which time I added chopped walnuts to the sheet and roasted them (a little too long) for about three minutes (two would have been better).

I put each slice of toast on a plate, covered them with the ricotta cheese mixture, topped the cheese with charred tomato halves and garlic, Parmesan cheese, and walnuts. On top of these things I added more parsley, a smattering of chili flakes, and streaks of balsamic glaze.

Debbie and I both enjoyed these loaded slices of toast for their flavor and various textures.  

Three Beautiful Things 07-24-2023: Beach Bum Bakery Bagels, HelloFresh Saga, Lunch Becomes Dinner

 1. I always look forward to bagel day at Beach Bum Bakery. I always buy at least a half a dozen bagels, sometimes more, for the upcoming week. The bagels freeze beautifully and I either thaw them overnight or, if I forget to do that, in the oven. (I set the oven at 350 degrees, put the bagel on a rack while the oven preheats, and, once the oven is preheated, leave the bagel in for several more minutes. If some parts are still frozen, if I toast the bagel, the toasting usually finishes the thawing.) 

For understandable logistical reasons, Beach Bum Bakery didn't have any raisin cinnamon bagels this week. No problem. I purchased three sesame and three plain. I will enjoy some of them for breakfast, toasted and with a spread of either butter or cream cheese, or I will fix bagel sandwiches, mostly open-faced on half a bagel, with lunch meat, cheese, and yellow mustard. I'll add dill pickle if I have pickles on hand.

2. I returned home from bagel buying, a trip to the post office, and a tour of Yoke's.

Debbie told me, as bolted into the house, that UPS sent a confirmation of their delivery of our Hello Fresh box, but that it didn't come to our house. 

I jumped online and let the world of Facebook and the world of Silver Valley Classifieds know what happened and asked for help, hoping the person who got the box would message me.

Well, it turned out that because Christy's dog, Riley, was at the vet going through a successful surgery, he was not home to bark and bark and bark and bark and bark when the UPS deliverer came to Christy's house next door. Therefore, Christy didn't know she had a package on her porch, but later in the day she discovered a parcel and, lo and behold, it was our Hello Fresh box! I sauntered next door, retrieved the box, and, once home, I leapt on Facebook and deleted the messages I'd posted asking for help.

3. The Beach Bum Bakery bagels are substantial. Not only are they delicious and not only is their texture perfect, they are filling. This afternoon, I cut a sesame bagel on half, used one half to fix an open faced sandwich with roast beef, Swiss cheese, and yellow mustard and that sandwich made fixing dinner unnecessary. The sandwich and the handful of Lay's Original potato chips satisfied me for the rest of the day, although I did snack a few times on vines and pieces of black licorice. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-23-2023: Stirring Closing Ceremony, A Slowed Down Afternoon, Yakkin' at Christy's BONUS: Sibling Photo!

 1. I dashed up to Kellogg High School's Andrews Gymnasium this morning for the closing ceremony of the All-Class Reunion. I walked in the gym about ten minutes before the festivities started and the west side bleachers were almost full, a superb turnout. 

The ceremony moved me, mostly with feelings of nostalgia and a love for my school. I was in the choir at North Idaho College with Joy Persoon (many most enjoyable NIC choir memories rushed in) and at some point decades ago she became the choir director at Kellogg High School. For this ceremony, she came out of retirement, assembled a choir, and they rehearsed for several weeks and performed a series of familiar and fun, and sometimes touching, pop songs. "I'm a Believer" and "Stand by Me" got my feelings stirred up. In addition, some great memories from the mid-1980s in Eugene connected to the a cappella group, The Nylons, came flooding in as the choir sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". (I'm wondering if Jeff S. remembers how much Doug I. loved The Nylons performing this song on their album, Seamless. Doug's enthusiasm was contagious, he got me hooked, and I bought the album in 1986 or 87.)

To help start this ceremony patriotically, Carol's sister-in-law, Laurie Roberts,  sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and, after the choir performed, Mayor Mac Pooler talked a bit about signs of progress in Kellogg,  the winners of two 500 dollar drawings picked up their cash, and the ceremony ended with all of us in attendance singing "The Alma Mater" together. 

"The Alma Mater" described perfectly how I felt as I headed home:  loyal and true.

2. I was indescribably grateful that the closing ceremony occurred indoors. 

I had stayed put in The Lounge during the welcoming ceremony and the Saturday catered bbq dinner simply to stay out of the weekend's heat.

Back home, in our comfortably air conditioned little house, I returned to my daily routines -- I got caught up working NYTimes Crossword puzzles and got caught up writing in this blog. 

Debbie found a couple of quarts of broth stocked with a lot of beef bits, thawed them, and made a very different kind of beef stroganoff, featuring orzo instead of rice or noodles. It was awesome.

Carol dropped by during our relaxing afternoon to pick up a child's paperwork for the camp Carol and Paul will conduct this coming week.

I really had no idea what Carol had done during the reunion -- we saw each other briefly at registration, but never again, and so she walked me through her time with graduates from the 80s at the Longshot Saloon, her participation in the parade, hers and Paul's performance at the welcoming ceremony, and what a good time she had at the catered bbq dinner, eating, visiting, and enjoying the band.

3. Debbie and I ended the day by going next door to Christy's at about 8:00. Christy had an incredible time from Thursday through Sunday with both the All-Class Reunion and the Class of 1973's 50 year reunion. Christy's class had a dinner at The Timbers on Thursday, met at Radio Brewing on Friday, enjoyed a breakfast at Christy's house on Saturday while decorating their float for the parade, and had a great time being in the parade. Over the weekend, I only saw Christy once, from a distance, as she rode in Butch Moore's truck cab while he pulled their float down the parade route. 

So, Christy, Carol, and I had next to no contact with each other during the reunion until the closing ceremony had ended. The two of them nabbed me as I was leaving the gym and Tina snapped a picture of us. 

Here it is:

Three Beautiful Things 07-22-2023: Chipping In, Breakfast and Parade, Reunion-ing at The Lounge

1. Today was a full day in Kellogg as the All-Class Reunion occupied every hour! I started the day at seven this morning at Teeters Field and helped a crew of volunteers set up tables and chairs for tonight's catered barbecue dinner. I pitched in not only because the committee needed help with this, but because I thought I'd hold up better doing some work in the cool of the morning. 

I held up pretty well, but, even at 7 a.m., the temperature was starting to rise and we had no protection from the rising sun. I got a little winded a couple of times, but got a good job when I was asked to open chairs around the tables as others hauled them over. 

After a while, a quick and hardy youngster asked me if I'd like him to help me. 

You bet I did!

Things moved along lickity split once he started unfolding chairs and getting them placed. 

2. I trudged from Teeters on up to McKinley Street and Cas was unloading bags of ice from his pickup and putting them in a large cooler in The Lounge. Saturday was going to be a long and busy day at The Lounge and he was loading up ice as a back up to his ice machine.

After we yakked for a little while, he headed home and I crossed the street and enjoyed a very tasty breakfast at the Elks.

I joined Marcia and Doug at a table out front in the shade and we had a great visit and before long Denise joined us. The four of us had more great conversation and then Deni offered to drive me up to Diane's where parade preparations were taking place.

The Class of 72 made great contributions to the parade. We decorated a trailer that Jake pulled with his pickup. Behind us, Al and Ping rode in a side by side, Stu and Lars rode in Stu's classic Oldsmobile, Jeri and Don rode in their convertible, and Judy and Jen rode in their CanAm. 

3. The parade ended. We returned to Diane's and undid all of our purple and gold decorations and popped all the balloons.

A handful of us headed down to The Lounge. 

I didn't feel like going out in the heat to wander around nor to sit in the stands for the Welcoming Ceremony, so I drank a few slow Rainiers and got to see longtime friends who came in and out of The Lounge. I enjoyed seeing Sharann and yakked with her a while. I had a great conversation with Renae. Windy and I sat at the bar together. We've known each other for nearly seventy years and had a lot to talk about. 

I headed home, drove in the driveway, and got a call from Debbie. 

She was uptown! 

So I returned to The Lounge, we stayed for a short while, and decided to have dinner at home.

I was bushed.

It had been a full day of light labor and lots of conversations.

I stayed home, rested, fixed dinner, and went to bed early. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-21-2023: Class of 72 at the Carlsons', Two Fun Conversations, Home to Stay

1. I'd say the number of people at the Carlsons' property was about forty. As a part of the KHS All-Class Reunion, our class, the Class of 1972, met near the Coeur d'Alene River just outside Pinehurst. It was a hot day and we all gravitated either to the shade underneath a good-sized tree on the Carlsons' property or sat in chairs in the river. I was concerned about my tolerance of the heat, but by staying in the shade and thanks to a frequent breeze, I never became overheated and found the afternoon both enjoyable and relaxing. 

2. I enjoyed every conversation. Two, however, were especially memorable. I had no recollection of ever knowing that a couple or three years after we graduated, Robin Lytle hitchhiked across the USA and into Canada. In telling some of us about it, Robin stressed how many good and generous people he met, both in small towns and in urban centers. I was really happy that this was his experience. His tales brought to mind the many experiences I've had in London, New York City, Washington D.C., Portland, Seattle, and other cities where strangers I encountered were, with only a few exceptions,  friendly, helpful, and kind. This has been true for me on subway trains, in museums, bars and breweries, parks, in churches, and at the theater, to name a few.  

Also fun was my conversation with Kenton Bird about his book, Tom Foley: A Man in the Middle.  I enjoyed asking him a few questions about the book and how he and co-author John C. Pierce divided the labor of writing it. I hope I can get away and attend one of Kenton's presentations on his book -- maybe in Moscow or, I don't know, how about Spokane?

3. I arrived home from our party around 5:30 or so with every intention of going back out to listen to tonight's band at Teeters Field. 

I just couldn't do it. 

I was tired after an afternoon of socializing and it felt really comfortable to be in the cozy confines of our little house. 

In addition, I volunteered to go to Teeters Field at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning to help set up tables and chairs for Saturday night's barbecue and afterward I would be going to the Elks for breakfast and then up to Diane's to help prepare our entry in the reunion parade. 

I thought it best to rest up for what was going to be both an early day and a busy one. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-20-2023: Kidney Appointment, Food Delivery and Moon Time, Patio Beer with Debbie

1. At 9:00, I met with Dr. Bieber, my kidney doctor, and, as expected, he was about 95% pleased with my blood work, happy to hear I was feeling all right and not retaining water in my lower legs or ankles.  We are sticking to our schedule of blood work every three months and meeting in person every six months, unless I experience a negative change in my condition.

This visit gave me (and Debbie) a lot to think about. 

I told Dr. Bieber that the transplant nephrologist in Spokane had urged me to get transplanted as soon as possible. Up until this morning, Dr. Bieber had expressed support for my decision to be inactive, but listed for a transplant, and continuing to accrue time. This morning, though, he, too, like the doctor at Providence Sacred Heart, spoke more positively than ever about me having a preemptive transplant, having the surgery before dialysis and while I'm still feeling good. 

Okay. 

I might just change the way I've been looking at this situation, too.

2. Ed picked me up around 5:30 or so and we blasted over the pass to CdA with pulled pork and BBQ sauce from Garrenteed BBQ in the back seat and delivered it to a wedding party at the CdA Eagles. 

The delivery went smoothly, thanks in large part to a young, strong guy meeting us outside the Eagles building and packing the hotbox up to the second floor, saving Ed and me from having to lug it up! 

Once our delivery was finished, we sat at the bar at Moon Time for a beer. I enjoyed a Pale Ale from Bale Breaker and we ordered some roasted bread that was mighty tasty. 

We had a relaxing time, yakkin' and enjoying the scene at Moon Time. Ed needed some good relaxation after a couple of days of hard work driving truck in the heat and I was happy to join him in chilling for a while. 

3. Debbie and I enjoy stovepipe cans of No-Li's Hazy IPA, Cascade Fog. I went to buy a can or two at the Gondolier, but they were sold out. Fortunately, Yoke's at a good supply and I purchased four cans, one of which Debbie and I split and drank on the patio, as the refreshing Silver Valley cool night air move in. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-19-2023: I Finished *Tom Foley: Man in the Middle*, Cooking a Couscous Dinner, Enjoying Beer with Debbie

1. As our KHS Class of 1972 classmate, we know him as Kenton Bird. As a scholar and a writer, he goes by R. Kenton Bird. Kenton collaborated with another scholar, John C. Pierce, to write and publish the book Tom Foley: A Man in the Middle. 

I finished reading it today.

I enjoyed how the book explores the history of the USA and the Inland Northwest during the thirty years Tom Foley represented Washington's District 1. The book's coverage of the years from 1981-94  when Foley was, first, the House Majority Whip, then House Majority Leader, and, lastly, Speaker of the House fascinated me the most. 

To understand why I was fascinated, allow me to briefly state what I think the word "politics" means, ideally, and what I think the word has come to mean in its common usage.

To me, politics is the process of forming policy. To use an old and worn out metaphor, it's the making of sausage. Ideally, I think the practice of politics, more than establishing a position and holding it no matter what, is the practice of problem solving, of putting what action a moment in history calls for into action because it works, as opposed to having a predetermined position and never budging from it.

Tom Foley was a sausage maker, a problem solver, a public servant, and, at his best, eager to work with other public servants, both Democrats and Republicans, to encourage them to air their views of the issues, listen to them, and work to find common ground and workable solutions. 

When I hear the word "politics" used online and in conversations, most of the time it means, not the process of hammering out policy, but what one's position is or what means one will use to see that one's own position prevails. 

When we say, "we avoid talking about politics at the Thanksgiving table", what we are saying is that we avoid discussions in which people who disagree with one another stake out positions and fight about them. We are not talking about discussions in which disagreeing parties seek ways to solve problems that might require come compromise or a realization that one's position might be satisfying ideologically, but it's not contributing to solving the problem at issue.

Tom Foley was committed to bipartisan politics. 

R. Kenton Bird and John C. Pierce's book examines the disheartening ways in which intensified partisanship in our legislative bodies and in the electorate opened the way for Foley to be voted out of office in 1994 on the heels of working in sane, undramatic ways to try to create sound policy in the House and serve his constituents back home in Eastern Washington. 

It brought back to mind a moment outside the Center Building at LCC maybe twenty years ago. (I might have the time wrong.)

Our teachers' union, the LCCEA, had recently elected a new president named Jim. 

Jim and I had been involved in a Eugene activist group back in the mid-1980s. We weren't close friends, but were always on good terms with each other.

We ran into each other outside the Center Building and he asked me if I'd like to get involved with some union activism. 

I balked.

Sensing my hesitation, he said, chuckling, "Ah! Bill -- you're not exactly a knee capper, are you?"

I agreed.

I'm not much of a knee capper. 

I've never been very effective in situations of conflict. I've never been very good at imposing my views on others, even the ones I feel the most strongly about.

I've never been skilled at politics, at policy making -- it's difficult for me to navigate others' disagreements and arrive at workable solutions. 

Tom Foley could, though. 

He wasn't, in Jim's words, much of a knee capper, but he was very skilled at building consensus, at leading disagreeing parties to find common ground, at working toward solutions. 

He was great at politics, at policy making. 

But in 1994, his sausage making didn't translate into votes and he was voted out of office. 

2. Ever since discovering them, I've loved Israeli Couscous. They are pearls of toasted pasta that are cooked up much like a grain. 

I bring this up because I had a blast this evening preparing tonight's HelloFresh meal: Spicy 'N' Saucy Turkey & Bell Pepper Bowls with Roasted Zucchini Israeli Couscous.

All I had to do was chop up a zucchini and roast it for about 15 minutes in the oven.

While the zucchini roasted, I chopped up an onion and a bell pepper and I combined the Israeli couscous with water and chicken stock concentrate, brought to a boil, and then let in simmer for a short while.

I heated up oil in a skillet, cooked the chopped onion until soft, added a package of ground turkey, the bell peppers and a good sprinkling of chili flakes. Once the turkey was brown and the bell pepper pieces were soft, I added two packets of Mariana sauce and heated it all.

In the meantime, I removed the zucchini pieces from the oven and combined them with the Israeli couscous. 

Once combined, I divided the couscous between two bowls and added the turkey-marinara-bell pepper sauce and PRESTO! we had a delicious dinner.

3. I was in the mood to drink a beer while cooking and had a stovepipe can of No-Li's Cascade Fog in the fridge and slowly drank it. Debbie was also in the mood for a beer and we shared cans of Daft Badger's Blood Orange IPA.

Neither one of us had drunk a beer for about a week and we both enjoyed some time together eating a delicious bowl of food and enjoying two of our very favorite area beers.

Three Beautiful Things 07-18-2023: Straightening Out a Transplant Snafu, Reading About Tom Foley, Leah Sottile Interviews David Neiwert

1. It always agitates me a bit when I receive a call from the Providence Sacred Heart's Transplant Program. Today, the transplant nurse, Tara, called and left a message. I called her right back and now I know why I haven't heard from the program about whether I'm still regarded as good to go for a transplant. Back in April, I met an appointment with Dr. Jespersen to discuss a picture I had taken of my respiratory system in February and he reported back to the program that I was okay for a transplant. 

He also ordered pulmonary function testing, not because the transplant program asked him to, but because he's now who I see as a pulmonary specialist and he wanted current numbers regarding my pulmonary function. It had been about four years since I was last tested.

He noted to the transplant program that he had ordered this testing. He sent the results to the transplant program, but the doctors in the program want him to write an analysis of the test results.

So, the transplant nurse asked me to get a hold of Dr. Jespersen and tell him that the transplant program needs a written analysis of the pulmonary function tests before the program will accept me as good to go for a transplant.

So, I hopped on my Kootenai Health MyChart account where I can write directly to my doctors and explained to Dr. Jespersen what the transplant program needs from him.

I'd been wondering why I hadn't heard anything from Providence Sacred Heart about my status on the transplant list. 

Now I know what the hold up has been and I hope Dr. Jespersen responds upon receiving my message.

If not, I'll see if I can make something happen with a phone call.

2. Our KHS Class of 1972 classmate, R. Kenton Bird co-wrote with another scholar, John C. Pierce, a political biography of longtime Eastern Washington Congressman and former Speaker of the House, Tom Foley. 

The title of the book: Tom Foley: The Man in the Middle.

I ordered a copy a few weeks ago directly from the publisher.

My plan has been to have the book read by Thursday or Friday.

Kenton will be in town for the All-Class Reunion this coming weekend and I want to be able to talk with him about his book.

I read about half of it today.

Kenton and John C. Pierce make it clear that not only do they see Tom Foley as a centrist in terms of political views, but that he was also committed to doing all he could to see that the House of Representatives conducted its business with comity and civility, with members who were in conflict with one another searching for common ground to work out policy differences. He was committed to the idea that a governing democracy depends on spirited and respectful debate, an adherence to traditional codes of conduct and procedures, and on being sure the minority party's views are fully listened to by the majority party.

Until Foley was voted out of office in 1994, the Democratic Party was the longtime majority party of the House of Representatives and Foley earned a great deal of respect for his commitment to listening to the views and concerns of G.O.P. members.

Kenton and John C. Pierce's book is not solely concerned with why Foley's approach to policy making became increasingly difficult to carry out as the divisions between the two parties became more contentious in the late 1980s and on into the 1990s. But, it's an important exploration of this book as is why the voters of Eastern Washington, with their District 5 Representative having become a highly respected Speaker of the House, would vote him out.

I'll come to understand Foley's defeat and other aspects of his career even better as I finish the book on Wednesday or Thursday. 

3. I subscribe to Leah Sottile's Substack account. Today she posted an interview she conducted in Portland at Powell's Books with David Neiwert, a longtime journalist who has spent much of his career writing about right wing extremism and has just published a new book, The Age of Insurrection. Leah Sottile, like Neiwert, is devoting her journalistic career to covering political extremism and I enjoyed very much that she, a relative newcomer to this area of investigation, got to interview Neiwert, whom she looks to as a mentor, a source of wisdom, and writer she has and will continue to learn a great deal from. 

The interview definitely moved me to want to read Neiwert's work over the years.

Three Beautiful Things 07-17-2023: Light Meal for Family Dinner, Family Histories, The Most Fun I'd Ever Had

1. Debbie and I hosted family dinner this evening and Debbie did most of the heavy lifting preparing the meal we served. She roasted a whole chicken in the morning and later in the day, once it cooled, assembled a very tasty chicken salad with orzo, garlic, tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, basil, and other ingredients. 

I contributed by purchasing a couple of baguettes at Beach Bum Bakery. I also emptied and loaded the dishwasher to help Debbie keep the kitchen somewhat uncluttered while she made the salad. 

I was also tonight's bartender and we had a simple and reliable cocktail: rum and coke with lime.

For an appetizer, Debbie slathered a block of cream cheese with Harry and David's Pepper and Onion Relish and we put this combo on Triscuit crackers.

We had a frozen dessert -- they weren't popsicles, per se, but the same idea. 

2. Paul's mom, Pat, is in town until after the All-Class Reunion. She's a 1954 graduate of Kellogg High School and has clear memories of life in Kellogg in the past. We had fun discussions about the stores and the cafes and the joints that used to line the two main streets of uptown Kellogg and we learned more about Pat's family as she grew up. 

Our looking back at Kellogg and Pat's history segued nicely into Carol telling us about letters she has transcriptions of that our great-grandmother wrote to the governor of Tennessee, urging him to pardon our great-grandfather who had shot and killed another man in an alcohol fueled incident. Her pleas eventually succeeded. This led to us talking about the Wilson family, how large it was, and how Grandma Woolum's siblings are divided by a time gap. Grandma was one of the older siblings, then her dad went to prison, but upon being released, Grandma's Mom and Dad had more children and so there was a significant age gap between the older and younger Wilson siblings.  

Quite a story! 

3. Yesterday I wrote about listening to Emerson, Lake, & Palmer and memories of hanging out at The Cockroach Castle during my freshman year at North Idaho College. It made me especially happy that I got responses from both Jane and Liz. Liz and I both marveled at what a relatively short amount of time, just a few months, we all spent at The Castle. In her mind, as well as mine, that glorious time had expanded, had come to seem much longer than it was. I'd say, though, if time is measured by fun, exploration, experimentation, and the joy of being together with one another and having one blast after another, then, for my spirit, that was a long and full period of time that the calendar cannot measure, one of the most important in my life. Sharing so much of it with Liz contributed mightily to it being more fun than I'd ever had before. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-16-2023: Superb ZOOM Conversations, Back to the Cockroach Castle, A Prog Rock Bicycle Dream

1. Bridgit, Bill, Diane, and I took to the ZOOM waves at 10:00 this morning. Our two hours of conversation uplifted and stimulated me, gave me great pleasure. Diane and Bill recently watched the 1999 movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was fun talking about that production, about the time a few years ago when our Westminster Study Group spent time studying and discussing the genre of comedy, and about other movies, especially comedies. I really enjoyed our detour into discussing movies from 40-50some years ago, like Tootsie and Harold and Maude. We agreed that we'll most likely never see another period of movie making like what happened in 1970s and on into the 1980s, but were collectively grateful that we live in a time when those movies are readily accessible for us to continue to enjoy at home. 

Our conversation moved from genre to gender and we focused many of our observations and insights on current things being written about men and manhood, especially in relation to the slow increase over the decades of women assuming positions of power and becoming more independent. I think we agreed that while writers, commentators, and people in public office are giving this question a lot of attention in 2023, it's not merely a contemporary issue. Robert Bly raised similar questions thirty years ago when he published Iron John and forty to fifty (or more) years ago the men's movement, in its many different manifestations, emerged. As I wrote a few days ago, Joe Jackson's 1982 song, "Real Men", raised the very questions that we read and hear discussed in 2023. 

We've developed deep trust over the years in this Westminster Study Group since we formed it nearly fifteen years ago. I was very grateful for that trust today, especially as we discussed questions about gender. It can be a volatile topic, but we weren't volatile. Quite the opposite. We encouraged one another's perspectives, valued what each other had to say, and deepened our thinking and our feelings about living in the world as men and women.

2. After this superb two hours of conversation, I was home by myself while Debbie worked on getting ready at school for the upcoming school year. I've been in an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer mood lately and I felt like time traveling back to evenings I spent with Bruce and Rob in their apartment at the Cockroach Castle near the NIC campus, listening to EL&P and impressing each other with our sharp wit and compelling insights -- after all, we were 19-21 years old and had reached that glorious time in life when we knew it all. 

I often wish I could be that smart and funny again! I loved all my unearned confidence and certainty! 

A featured album at The Castle was Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Trilogy and sure enough, putting it on took me back to those first days in my life not living at home, to listening to music I never heard on KWAL in Kellogg and having my musical horizons expand, to a time when I got hooked on poetry, read serious fiction, and started to feel passion about my studies, beyond just earning credits, fulfilling requirements, and trying to get good grades.

3. This Sunday of movie talk, Whitworth reminiscing, and listening to progressive rock playlist on Spotify made it into my dreams overnight. During our ZOOM conversation, Bridgit and I reminisced a bit about the Jan term course I taught at Whitworth called The Family in American Drama. 

That detour into the 83-84 Jan Term was connected with our discussion of movies from the 70s and 80s and I shared my enthusiasm for ending that Jan Term class, which was often exploring dark and serious issues, with the uplifting movie about family, Breaking Away.

So prog rock and Breaking Away merged in my dream world when I dreamed Roger Waters was participating in a one on one bicycle race with another songwriter  on an oval track and the competition included him composing songs while racing. 

I don't know how the competition turned out, but I found the dream entertaining. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-15-2023: The Heat is On, Deep Cat Nap, I Have a Few Questions for Dr. Bieber

1. I should have played the soundtrack from Beverly Hills Cop today and listened again and again to "The Heat is On". 

I know, Kellogg isn't Pheonix or other hotter places in the USA, but it was hot enough to keep me indoors.

I am working on making sure to get up and move around indoors, get steps in here in the house, and not give in to the temptation to stay seated in a comfortable chair all day long.

I can do better, but I partially succeeded today by vacuuming, tending to the litter pans, sweeping the bedroom floor, and performing other tasks around the house.

2. This afternoon, I decided I hadn't been spending quite enough time with Copper and Luna in the bedroom. They are impressively cooperative with the arrangement we have established. Gibbs hassles Copper and Luna relentlessly if they are in the same room he is, so we keep them separated. Luckily, Copper and Luna relax and lie around contentedly behind the closed door of the bedroom or the Vizio room.

Gibbs just can't do the same! He can't relax behind a closed door. Ha!

So this afternoon I lay down with Copper and Luna. Luna immediately leapt onto my upper body, her front legs on my shoulder, her hind legs on my chest. 

I found her light weight pressing on me relaxing, as was having Copper press himself against my lower legs.

I fell asleep.

It was a refreshing and deep cat nap.

3. I'd been experiencing some low level anxiety after my blood draw on Friday. It was a relief that Labcorp posted my results so promptly this morning. I was relieved that so many of my numbers, with a couple of exceptions, were so stable. (The relief led to my deep afternoon sleep.)  

I see Dr. Bieber on Thursday and I'll discuss with him the conversation I had with the transplant nephrologist in Spokane back in February. That doctor urged me to have transplant surgery as soon as possible. Dr. Bieber (like Dr. Jones and Dr. Malik before him) have leaned much more toward not sending me into surgery as long as I'm feeling good and my numbers remain stable.

So, on Thursday, I'll also seek Dr. Bieber's insight into the few numbers in my bloodwork that are out of range and about my status on the transplant list. 

I'd also like to know more about whether my intolerance of heat and sun are connected to having chronic kidney disease. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-14-2023: Time for Labs Again, Feeling Spent, Debbie's Superb Chicken Salad

1. Whether I'm correct or not, I've come to believe that when I have bloodwork done, my numbers will be better if I'm well hydrated when I arrive at LabCorp. Today was (yet another) blood draw day and I prepared by drinking steadily from my water bottle, filling it up when empty, and continuing to hydrate. Things went well at the lab and now, as happens every three months, I feel low levels of anxiety about what this test's numbers will reveal, especially after having to slow down my exercising after getting overheated. 

2. Even though the blood draw was routine and even though the phlebtomist was very easy to work with, I arrived home feeling spent afterward. I know why. Unlike most times when it's time to have blood drawn and to see Dr. Bieber, this time I'm more anxious about it and anxiety makes me tired. I slept quite a bit this afternoon and on into the evening. I went to be early. I'm hoping this anxiety calms down after a good night's sleep and once my bloodwork results get posted. But, it would be foolish for me to deny it. I am uncertain as to whether my condition is remaining stable and that uncertainty drained me today.

(As I write this, it's Saturday morning. I just got my blood work results. My renal panel is not much different from three months ago. My GFR remains at 17 -- very encouraging.  A few results are out of range and I'll discuss these numbers on Thursday with Dr. Bieber.)

3. I dealt with feeling run down by working several crossword puzzles and by enjoying the superb chicken salad Debbie made. The salad was oil and lemon based (no mayo), making it light and refreshing, as did the combination of fresh tomatoes and basil. I especially enjoyed the texture of the salad's orzo. Orzo is a pasta shaped like a large grain of rice and, unlike bows or penne or rotini, its presence is not dominant, but subtle and, in this salad, it gave way to the other ingredients, allowing them to express themselves more fully.   

Three Beautiful Things 07-13-2023: Assessing my Wind, Perfect Salmon Dinner, Listening to Albums I Love

1. I hope to figure out in the next few days whether the shortness of breath I experienced tonight when I walked to the Gondolier (to buy some milk -- they didn't carry any!) is from walking too soon after I ate, points to me needing to walk more and build up my wind, or is another problem. I see Dr. Bieber in a week. Every visit, he asks me if I'm experiencing shortness of breath and I've always been able to tell him that I haven't been.  I'll keep walking, see if it's a stamina problem, hope for the best, and discuss this with the doc next week. 

2. Well, if I did walk too soon after eating dinner, the meal Debbie fixed was awesome. She fixed a garlic-y pot of rice, cooked a chunk of salmon just the right size for the two of us to split, and served the bean salad she made a couple of days ago. 

It cooled off nicely as the sun set. It made sitting outside comfortable -- and it made my evening walk pleasant, too, despite my concerns about being a little short of wind.

3. I've been having fun, while working puzzles inside to stay out of the sun, to listen to albums from 40-50 or more year ago. My senior year at Whitworth, I developed a deep affinity for Emerson, Lake & Palmer's album, Brain Salad Surgery ("Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends") and, lo and behold, all these years later, it once again gave me a jolt and it did what I enjoyed when I was young: it transported me to imaginary worlds, gave me a welcome sense of romance and uplift. 

Today, I returned to Joe Jackson's superb album, Night and Day, and listening to it brought back enthusiasms I felt not only for this lp, but for the early days of MTV and the fun times I had with students at Whitworth getting together to watch videos come on. I thought a lot about how well, from my point of view, Joe Jackson's song, "Real Men", has aged. It's not just the questions Joe Jackson raises in this song that are always current, but so is his passion, his feelings for the complexity of what it means to be a man ("What's a man now? What's a man mean?/Is he rough or is he rugged?/Is he cultural and clean?"). 

The last album I listened to, both in the Vizio room and on my walk, was Steely Dan's masterpiece, Aja. Several songs on this album give me the pleasure of a tightly written short story as Donald Fagan and Walter Becker bring characters to life in my favorite cuts,  "Deacon Blues", "Josie", "Black Cow", and "Meg". I listened to a lot of contemporary jazz during the years surrounding the time Aja was released (1977). Aja's jazzy flavor seems to me rooted in that music (several prominent jazz artists from that time play on Aja) and so the album serves me up deeply satisfying nostalgic pleasures, both musical and literary, and I loved how it worked on me yet again today.

I hadn't listened to Brain Salad Surgery or Night and Day for quite a while -- but Aja? Well, that's a different story. I never let Aja get too far away and my enjoyment of this album continues to grow. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-12-2023: *This is Jeopardy* and Trivia Memories, Spicy Tunisian Bulgur Bowl, JFK and Whitworth Notalgia

1. I don't think all the episodes have dropped yet. I've listened to every available episode of the podcast, This is Jeopardy. I've enjoyed the detours of this podcast. For example, one episode focused on a weekly quiz night at O'Brien's Irish Pub in Santa Monica, reputed to be the nation's most challenging barroom quiz night and a magnet for past Jeopardy champions and contestants. 

I enjoyed listening to the stories about the people who show up at O'Brien's and was appropriately intimidated by the difficulty of the quiz questions. 

Most of all, though, I enjoyed how this episode transported me back just four years in time to when I started driving regularly to Spokane, sometimes along with Linda,  usually once, but sometime twice, a week to join Mary and Kathy to play trivia, mostly at the Northern Quest Casino, but also at Rock City Bar and Grill and few other spots. 

I had a blast joining them, puzzling over questions, having a cocktail or two, and enjoying some solid bar food. 

It all came to an end in mid-March of 2020 as the pandemic took hold.

It was fun remembering those evenings. No matter how well (or not) we competed, we had fun together and branched out from playing trivia to doing other things together -- a movie one night, happy hour at Luna, a reunion with Hugh at Perry Street Brewing, sushi at the South Hill Grill, Kathy and I went to a Zags women's basketball game -- all of this came back to me this afternoon. We lost a wonderful time of fun and enjoyment when the trivia games ceased and we all stayed home a lot as the pandemic isolated us from one another.

2. Around five o'clock or so, I broke open tonight's HelloFresh bag and had a blast fixing Debbie and me Spicy Tunisian Bulgur Bowls. When this bag came in our weekly box, I was stoked. I love bulgur. I love Mediterranean food. I love "bowls". 

Tonight's meal was 100% worthy of my excitement.

First, I made carrot sticks and roasted them, seasoned with harissa powder, a new spice in my life.

At the same time, I put the bulgur on to cook in water and vegetable stock.

I then cooked up chopped zucchini and later added tomatoes seasoned with a Tunisian spice mixture.

I made two condiment in separate small bowls. In one, I combined chopped cilantro leaves with olive oil, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I the other, I mixed sour cream with lemon juice.

Before long, everything was ready. I put dried apricots and a slab of butter in the bulgur and then divided the bulgur between two bowls. I topped the bulgur with the roasted carrots, cooked zucchini and tomatoes, and roughly chopped pistachio nuts. I divided the cilantro/lemon/garlic mixture between the bowls and topped each bowl of food with the creamy lemon sauce and chili flakes.

This bowl had so much going on. The apricots sweetened the bowl a bit, the spices and chili flakes gave it subtle heat, the spices were various and exciting, and the presence of lemon in the cilantro mixture and the sour cream sauce was refreshing and tasty. The textures of the bulgur combined with the vegetables felt good in my mouth and each bite was an adventure in variety and pleasure.

3. After dinner, Debbie and I listened to the first episode of 60/20, a podcast from the JFK Library examining the 1960 national election in which John F. Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon. This opening episode focused on the primary season running up to the Democratic Party convention held in Los Angeles. I won't go into great detail, but the primaries didn't have nearly the importance in 1960 that they would come to have, say, by 1968, but JFK's approach to these primaries, his getting out to primary states well in advance of voting days and his decision to reassure voters that, as a Roman Catholic, his first obligation was not to the Vatican, but to the Constitution not only worked, but foreshadowed how future candidates would approach these primary elections. 

Listening to this podcast took me nostalgically and happily back to my senior year at Whitworth. In the spring of 1976, I was a member of the 20th Century US History theme dorm and from February until the semester ended in March, the nearly twenty of us in the dorm watched both primaries closely, listening to analysis on television and the radio of candidates' strategies. Tonight, I was struck by how Jimmy Carter seemed to have learned from JFK's strategy of getting as well known as possible in the early primary states well ahead of the primary elections. He had early success and built the momentum that carried him to the nomination. 

I also remember clearly Ronald Reagan's effort to seize the GOP nomination from the incumbent president Gerald Ford. As I remember it, Regan's strategy was to focus on wedge issues and exploit them to establish that he was the more conservative of the two. The wedge issue I remember most clearly was Reagan's attack on the Panama Canal treaty negotiations, talks that resulted in the USA ceding to canal to Panama. Like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, Reagan's position was that the canal belonged to the USA and that the USA ought to keep it. I remember this particular wedge issue as being very effective in energizing the more conservative wing of the GOP and that it helped build support for Reagan and increased his popularity among the more conservative Republicans.

We had superb discussions about this and many other issues in the lounge of our dorm. Akili buzzed with respectful debate and discussion and helped me solidify what candidates I supported and why. 

 

Three Beautiful Thing 07-11-2023: Walk to The Gondolier, Looking Back at Watson on *Jeopardy*, Slow Beer on the Patio

1. I've been cautious about being outdoors too much after it took me nearly a week or so to recover from getting overheated a couple of weeks ago. Today, though, I ate a small dinner late in the afternoon and gave my food an hour and a half or so to settle. If I go on a walk soon after eating, I almost immediately get winded. The sun was setting. The temperature was moderate. I decided to walk down to The Gondolier. Josh had purchased three cans of really good beer at The Gondolier during his family's visit and I decided to check out their small, but high quality, selection of craft beers. 

I had a very good walk to the store and I purchased 19.2 ounce cans of Buoy's Double IPA and No-Li's Cascade Fog, a tasty hazy IPA. 

2. While walking, I listened to the next episode of the podcast This is Jeopardy. It focused on the 2011, three day match featuring Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and Watson, an IBM question answering super computer. 

While it was fascinating to hear Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter discuss being defeated by Watson -- it wasn't even close, really -- it was also fascinating to hear the back story of how a team at IBM developed Watson, what the challenges were, and how they prepared Watson to compete on the show. 

IBM had earlier developed a chess playing super computer, Deep Blue. In 1997, Deep Blue defeated chess Grandmaster, Garry Kasparov.

Now the question was whether IBM could do with language and information something similar to what it had developed with Deep Blue (Deep Blue could consider about 200 million chess moves per second). 

It turned out -- and this is a crucial aspect in Jeopardy -- that it was very difficult for the humans to buzz in ahead of Watson with their questions to the board's answers. Given how Watson was programmed to buzz in, the machine had an advantage that the humans couldn't overcome. Watson was also immensely knowledgeable, but so were Jennings and Rutter, and so, really, Watson's decisive victory owed a lot to its buzzer quickness.

3. Back home, I joined Debbie on the patio in the most ideal of outdoor conditions. While some parts of the country are suffering from brutal heat waves and New England has been deluged with biblical rainfall, here in Kellogg the temperatures during the day have been moderate the last couple of days and the evenings almost miraculously cool.

I slowly drank my can of Buoy Double IPA. 

I learned online that the 19.2 oz cans are known as stovepipes. 

One stovepipe of this beer was plenty for me and I really enjoyed its grapefruit flavor and its piney and floral hits on my nose. Its bitterness was, to me, moderate, giving each sip I enjoyed a pleasing finish. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-10-2023: Bagel Day at Beach Bum Bakery, Better Black Bean Tacos, Business and Bag Stuffing at KHS

 1. Having high quality bagels on hand boosts my spirits and gives me culinary pleasure, so, since today was bagel day at Beach Bum Bakery, I bought five raisin cinnamon, four sesame, and four plain bagels. Rebekah tried a different method this week as to when she folded the raisins and cinnamon into the dough and asked me to tell her if I thought this week's raisin cinnamon bagels were better than last week's. Well, I immediately fixed myself a raisin cinnamon bagel and I got so lost in the pleasure of the moment eating it that I couldn't answer her question! All I knew was that I loved last week's bagel, loved this week's, and am very happy that on Mondays I can purchase superb raisin cinnamon bagels in Kellogg, along with other styles.

2. The last time our HelloFresh box included black bean tacos, Debbie thought they were all right, but wasn't excited about them. Black bean tacos arrived again today. I gave preparing them another try. I cooked green pepper and onion. When they had softened, I added black beans, southwest spice, Tex Mex paste, and some water. I let this mixture cook for a while. I heated the tortillas on our stove top grill. All I had to do then, was put some filling on each tortilla, top it with smoky red pepper creama, and, just like that, Debbie and I each had three tacos. Debbie liked them a lot more this time around (did I do something different?) and we both enjoyed finishing off the leftover Spanish rice from family dinner with our tacos. 

3. It was a busy and vitally important evening today for the All-Class Reunion Committee. Our meeting at the KHS cafeteria had a huge turnout. We finished some business that needed our attention, and then figured out an assembly line and stuffed 600 cloth bags with different items for each registrant to pick up when they register on Friday or Saturday at KHS. It was fun. At first the process was moderately chaotic, but, in time, the goodwill and intelligence of all the people present prevailed, and we became an assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud. 

The business meeting took about an hour and we completed the bag stuffing in another hour and I think we felt a collective sense of accomplishment and happiness not only that we got so much done, but that the reunion itself is almost upon us and, as far as I can tell, we are ready! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-09-2023: The Who and a Nostalgic Night and Day, Mixing a Martha Stewart Margarita, Mexican Family Dinner

1. So, I had a little shopping to do to get ready for family dinner and, when I blasted the Camry over to Yoke's, I had Classic Vinyl on the satellite radio and suddenly The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" came on and I sat in the parking lot for a while listening to it, and then realized that once I returned home, I could retire to the Vizio room and listen to the entire awesome album, Who's Next. 

And that's what I did. 

For better or worse, it nourished some nostalgia I'd been indulging today. Saturday night I had a long dream about people I studied and taught with at the University of Oregon back around 1984-86. I poked around a little bit online, found out what at least two of those people are up to now, and welcomed warm feelings I had about those people and those days at the U of O. 

Who's Next took me further back to finals week at Whitworth in 1974 and preparing the evening before my Shakespeare exam by listening to Who's Next through headphones and connecting my love of that album with my newfound love of Shakespeare's play.

I realized that I'll never feel that kind of youthful joy and stimulation and pleasure again with either The Who or Shakespeare's plays, and I'll most likely never again see the people from nearly forty year ago who visited me in my dreams Saturday night and my day dreams today.

But reliving those experiences in the world of my dreams filled me with warmth and some longing. 

2. For family dinner, Christy assigned me to mix a Martha Stewart Orange Mint Margarita. 

I began by squeezing the juice out of oranges and limes. I combined these juices with about 8 oz of fresh mint leaves from Carol's garden and I did my best to muddle them. (I'm not a confident muddler!)

I poured the muddled lime, orange, and mint mixture into our carafe and added tequila and Cointreau.

Over at Carol's, with Molly's help, I salted the rims of chilled glasses. Molly put ice in the glasses. I poured some margarita into each glass and garnished them all with an orange slice. 

If I had to do it over, I'd cut back a bit on the lime, try to increase the presence of the mint, and, well, increase the amount of tequila a bit. I just didn't think the proportions of the drink I made today were quite right, not quite the way I wanted them to be.

But (thank goodness), the on site reviews were positive! 

3. Christy, Carol, Paul, Debbie, Brian, Molly, Pat (Paul's mom), and I sat around a table on Carol and Paul's patio, under the cover of a translucent tarp (there must be a better word) stretched over us.

We enjoyed a mild, not spicy, Mexican dinner. 

We started with chips and a broiled vegetable salsa that Carol made and then dug into Christy's green enchiladas, made green by spinach and green chilis, and Debbie's Spanish rice. We also enjoyed pieces of watermelon and cantaloupe. The recipes all came from Martha Stewart, as did the Mexican pound cake Christy baked for dessert, served with a scoop of Espresso Madness ice cream. 

Our dinner was delicious and we talked about all sorts of things, including some Kellogg public school history as reported by Pat and a discussion of motels on old Highway 10 including the Turnbow's motel, the Trail, Rock, and Sunshine Inn. This all came up because Pat graduated with Mickey Turnbow and I recalled saying one of the stupidest things I ever said in my life at a Turnbow Christmas Eve party at Bob and Sis's motel when I responded to Mickey Turnbow raving about Julius Erving by arrogantly proclaiming that I didn't think he'd ever make it in the NBA, that he was just a star in the "undisciplined" ABA. 

I was a little bit off in my drunken 18-19 year old analysis! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-08-2023: Zero and More on *Deadish*, Puzzle Day, Simple Pasta

1.  It's been two weeks since I got overheated on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. I'm wary of being in the sun and even more wary of being in the heat. I didn't do it today, but at some point I've got to make myself go out early in the cool air of the morning, before the sun rises very high in the sky, and see about exercising again. 

I stayed inside almost all day today. 

At one point, I went to the KEPW-FM archives and spent over two hours listening to Jeff Harrison's July 6th Deadish show. 

It moved me. 

It transported me back to some of my very favorite times in Eugene, in the 1990s, when I went to hear Zero play at the WOW Hall or the Hilton Ballroom. 

With the Oregon Country Fair happening this weekend out near Veneta, Jeff opened his radio show with Zero selections recorded live in 1995 and 1990. 

For the first time in the over thirty years I've enjoyed Zero, thanks to Jeff, I got to hear tunes from Zero's acoustic set at the Country Fair in 1995. 

It was amazing and Jeff's selections featured one song with saxophonist Martin Fierro (RIP) singing the lead vocal, something else I'd never heard. 

The rest of Jeff's radio show was awesome -- a good dose of the Dead, an "Eyes of the World" cover by  Greensky Bluegrass with Holly Bowling joining them on piano, and a recent performance in Europe of Bob Dylan perform "West L.A. Fadeaway". 

2. While listening to Jeff's show, a playlist of jazz standards, and some Jivin' Johnny Etheridge on Eugene's KRVM-FM, I worked puzzles. I got creamed by a NYTimes Friday puzzle from a book of puzzles I possess, but I completed the Saturday NYTimes puzzle for today and nearly completed the July 9th Sunday puzzle -- it gets posted online early in the evening on Saturday. I also successfully competed an acrostic puzzle from another book of mine I enjoy.

3. Debbie and I kept dinner very simple tonight. I threw together a pretty solid pasta sauce and boiled a batch of bow time pasta and that was it! 

It worked. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-07-2023: Lunch with Jeff at Daft Badger, Remembering Rita, Yakkin' at The Lounge

1. I hopped in the Camry and blazed over the 4th of July Pass, eased into Coeur d'Alene, and met Jeff Steve, up for a visit from Ventura,  at the Daft Badger. Jeff and I fell immediately into easy conversation about all sorts of things: the good old days (!) back in Eugene, people we both know from Coeur d'Alene and Whitworth, Jeff's plans to go to the Oregon Country Fair on Sunday (he last went to the Fair in 1991), and a host of other topics. We have a lot of fun talking about our experiences with the Presbyterian Church, Jeff's time years ago when he was involved in a house church, and how we've both read and been inspired by spiritual traditions outside of Christianity, including the Tao, the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and more. 

2. I told Jeff how much I enjoy that we talk about the things we do. Driving home, I thought a lot about how indebted I am to Rita Hennessy for our work teaching together and our friendship, how both of us could talk easily about a variety of spiritual experiences, Western as well as Eastern inspired, and how this was exactly what we talked in about in our last conversation back in November before she died a few weeks later. Rita was dying just as she had lived, in the embrace of writings and conversations about love and joy.  

3. Not long after I returned home, Debbie and I sauntered into the The Lounge and had a great time yakkin' with Cas and Tracy and later with Ed who saw our car parked nearby and joined us for a beer. 

Debbie got to yak with her fellow teacher, Deanne, and I talked with Cas about this week in fantasy baseball. Our teams are facing one another in the head to head league this week and Cas's squad is creaming mine.  I just have to laugh at how really lousy my team's luck has been this week -- after a couple or three weeks of pretty good luck and solid performances. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-06-2023: Simple Farewell Dinner, A Relaxing Several Days, I Had a Good Time with Beer

1.  We kept things very simple regarding our dinner with Adrienne, Josh, Ellie, and Jack before they left Kellogg this evening to spend the night at a hotel near the airport before flying out early Friday morning. I just poured canned tomatoes and tomato sauce in a Dutch oven, seasoned it with light amounts of salt, pepper, garlic powder, basil, oregano, and fennel seeds, and added a small chunk of butter, and made a straightforward pasta sauce. 

We poured this sauce over spaghetti. Debbie made a very simple and tasty cucumber salad and we had leftover bean salad from the night before. 

It was a simple and satisfying dinner to enjoy in the midst of Adrienne's family getting packed and ready to go. 

2. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Adrienne's family. It's fun to see Jack moving with his new deep voice into his teenage years. Ellie is full of vitality, both in her joy when she's happy and in her protests when she's not (!). 

The uncertainty for a period of time after Ellie's birth in 2019 coupled with the challenges of managing home life during the most restrictive days of the pandemic put a lot of strain on this family. Debbie helped them significantly by living with them for a year, taking care of Ellie and helping Jack do school from home and helping with all sorts of other things, while Adrienne and Josh worked during the day. I experienced the strain they were under when I visited them in New York.

Challenges remain, as always in family life, but I was very impressed with how much more relaxed Adrienne, Josh, Jack, and Ellie were this week than when I last saw them two years ago. Our time together was light, fun, full of good cheer (and good beer), and very enjoyable. 

I look forward to when we can all get together again, whether here in Kellogg or with a trip back east.

3. The past five days or so have been very good beer days for me. I drink beer for taste and flavor and memories. I have had stretches of time in my life when I drank beer mostly in order to get inebriated, but I've not enjoyed inebriation for quite a while and I don't like it when I drink a bit too much and start to feel drunk.

I also enjoy drinking beer when I'm in the company of another (or several other) beer drinker(s) who enjoy drinking a wide variety of styles. 

Josh fits this description. Although he steers away from, but will occasionally drink,  sweeter beers (like Loft Honey or Heidelberg), Josh enjoys a variety of IPA styles (imperial, hazy, juicy, West Coast, etc.) and has a special fondness for Belgian beers. He's also very much into imperial stouts and barleywine. 

During his visit, we didn't drink any imperial stouts or barleywine and we only shared one Belgian beer. Had he been here longer, we could have traveled west and purchased Belgian beers as well as the more intense stouts and barleywine.

As it was, Josh came back to the house after going to the store with fun and tasty IPAs. I can't list them all here, but I had a great time sampling small amounts of several of the beers he bought and experienced a bit of an IPA revival for myself. I had a store of porters in the fridge, both Baltic and chocolate-y, and we shared those. 

I also enjoyed, on the other end of the spectrum from IPAs, cracking open a couple of cans of Heidelberg that have been in our basement since last July. Having been stored in a cool place, the beer wasn't skunky after its long sit (I feared it would be) and it was fun to sip on Dad's favorite beer and pretend like he was still around and we could drink a few together while yakkin' and laughin' about all kinds of things. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-05-2023: Making Chicken Wing Sauce, Chicken Wing Buffet, Heidelberg Beer -- and More Beer

1. My first move this morning: thaw chicken wings. I had quite a few stored here and decided to thaw them all. My original plan was to cook them all late this afternoon and then have a bunch as leftovers. Well, once I got them all thawed, I decided I had way too many to cook in one session so I packed about half of them in zip lock bags to either used fairly soon or put back in the freezer.

I checked with Adrienne to find out whether Josh, Jack, and she would enjoy hot wings. (Debbie and I do.) I learned that Jack and Josh both would prefer my offer of teriyaki sesame wings. Great! I combined soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a pot, brought it to a slow boil, let it bubble and thicken, and PRESTO! I had a teriyaki sauce. In another pot I combined butter and Frank's Original Hot Sauce and PRESTO! I had a hot wings sauce.

2. I made a flour, salt, and pepper mixture in a zip lock bag and dropped pieces of chicken in about five or six at time and floured about 40 or so party wings. I used two cast iron implements to fry about four batches of wings in butter, kept the finished ones warm in the oven, and, when I fried them all, I made three bowls of wings: hot wing, teriyaki sesame wings, and plain ones. 

3. Debbie made a superb bean salad. She also cut celery sticks and put out Ranch and Blue Cheese dressing. We all loaded up whatever our choice of chicken wing style was and headed to the patio.

Before I served myself, I needed to sit in the air conditioned living room for a short while and I relaxed with a tall boy of Heidelberg beer that's been in the fridge for many months. It held up! I drank some of it indoors, took the rest outside, and it tasted great with our dinner.

I have a bunch of tall boys in the basement. I've been concerned whether they would still taste all right after sitting all fall, winter, and spring, but now I know that by having them in the basement, in the cool basement, the beer held up. 

I brought another couple of cans upstairs. They were cool but not quite cold. I put them in the freezer for a while and got to introduce Josh to the slow brewed, premium lager that my dad (and Don Knott's dad) loved so much.

Having Josh her for a visit has been especially fun because he immensely enjoys craft beers, likes trying out a lot of brands and styles, and enjoys talking about beer. I really enjoy joining in, drinking small samples, reminiscing about East Coast beers, telling what little I know about West Coast beers, and trying to recapture some of the early days of craft beers, even drinking a West Coast original like Red Hook Long Hammer IPA. 

If we had more time, I'm sure we'd go hunting for Red Hook ESB, maybe run down some Anchor Steam somewhere, and I'd enjoy sharing Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale with Josh. 

We did the best we could enjoying a variety of beers. Next time, when I know Josh and Adrienne are coming, I'll stock up on beers, classics as well as contemporaries, imperials as well as regulars, and be better prepared to enjoy further tastings on the patio. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-04-2023: Mellower 4th of July than in 1967, Yakkin' with Tracy and Christy, Jack's Great Evening

1. When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was both fun and funny. For many years, our family partied at Rose Lake on the 4th and messing around with other kids was fun, as was getting in the water and enjoying the spread of food. The adults were funny. They spent the day drinking and eating and laughing and often making me laugh.

Our Fourth of July party today was much more in keeping with how Christy, Carol, and I have grown into adulthood. The get together in Carol and Paul's backyard featured some wine and a few beers.  We had great food -- brats, hot dogs, pasta salad, grilled vegetables, chips, and rhubarb pie. Multiple conversations bubbled up around the tables. Carol recounted hers, Paul's, Zoe's, and Jason's moonlight bicycle ride on the Hiawatha trail the night before. The entire party was much mellower than the more raucous parties nearly 60 years ago at Rose Lake.

2. Tracy and I talked seriously for quite a while about what she works to accomplish to improve systems in the world of education and how I've tried to move my life of the mind away from what being an educator required of me and toward enjoyment having nothing to do with teaching and little to do with analysis and interpretation. I loved every day I worked as an English instructor, but once I retired, I was done with institutional thinking and learning and have tried not to live according to the adage, "once a teacher, always a teacher". Now I follow my curiosity and look for ways to be moved in different ways by the books I read and the movies I watch and the music I listen to.

This all led to Tracy, Christy, and me talking about retirement. We discussed how, yes, some people retire and then don't know what to do with themselves and how neither Christy nor I experienced this -- each in our own ways, our days of retirement have been fulfilling and our lives are much more self-defined rather than, as they used to be, defined by our profession.

3. I left the 4th of July family party around 6:30 or so. Debbie had already come home. Josh, Adrienne, and Ellie came home not long after I did. Jack stayed at the party, eager to enjoy the safe and sane fireworks Paul would be lighting, the more spectacular fireworks of people in the neighborhood, and the climactic fireworks display at the Silver Mountain resort.

I volunteered to return to Paul and Carol's after the fireworks were over and bring Jack home, no matter how late.

I waited for the noise and bursts of color to end by diving into the NYTimes Crossword archives and working one puzzle after another. I relaxed, spent much needed time alone, and felt confident that Luna and Copper would endure all the noise just fine. I knew Gibbs has a history of being unaffected by fireworks.

At some point close to 10:45, our front door swung open and in strolled Jack!

Someone over at Carol and Paul's brought him back home. I would have been happy to pick him up, but was also grateful that I didn't have to leave the house and was especially happy that Jack had a fun time at the party with a bunch of people he barely knows and without his mom and dad or Debbie or me being present. 

In other words, the night ended perfectly. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-03-2023: Raisin Cinnamon Bagels Debut at Beach Bum, Charcuterie in the Afternoon, Remembering Everett on His 92nd Birthday

1. Over the weekend, Beach Bum Bakery posted its Sunday menu on Facebook and asked readers if they'd like to see anything on the menu. I've been very (very) happy with Beach Bum Bakery's plain, sesame, and everything bagels, and, at the same time, have yearned for a raisin cinnamon bagel. So, I responded on Facebook that I'd like to see raisin cinnamon bagels added to their offerings. Lo and behold, Rebekah loved the idea, jumped right on it, and today I bought a dozen bagels, four of them raisin cinnamon.

Sidenote: I love raisin cinnamon bagels, but, I've found that certain bagel bakers skimp on the raisins and the cinnamon.

Not Rebekah!

Much like Beach Bum Bakery's cinnamon swirl bread, these bagels were loaded with cinnamon and Rebekah was most generous with the raisins.

Upon arriving home, I immediately cut a raisin cinnamon bagel in half, toasted it, and applied a thin layer of cream cheese.  

I was blown away by how delicious it was and ecstatic that raisin cinnamon bagels will be a regular Monday offering at Beach Bum Bakery.

It's a development I simply never expected to come about when I moved back to Kellogg six years ago and I couldn't be happier.

2. Debbie thought it would be fun to try a HelloFresh charcuterie board while Josh, Adrienne, Jack, and Ellie are here, so I pulled the bag out of the icebox along with the sealed tray of meats and went to work.

I sliced the two small baguettes, drizzled olive oil over the slices, and baked them for about 10 minutes in the oven.

Presto! Crostini!

I seasoned packets of walnuts with Tuscan Heat Spice and cooked them in olive oil until toasted. I put the nuts in a small bowl. 

I whisked Ricotta cheese and seasoned it with truffle zest in a small bowl.

I mixed fig jam and balsamic glaze in a, yes, you guessed it, small bowl. 

I sliced a cucumber.

I rolled mozzarella cheese pieces inside pieces of prosciutto, Black Forest ham, and coppa.

I cut Grand Cru into wedges.

I put a packet of grape tomatoes in a small bowl.

Along with disks of salami, I put the crostini, roll ups, cucumber slices, and Grand Cru wedges on a platter.

My presentation wasn't quite as handsome as the picture of the board done right on the recipe card, but it sufficed and Josh, Adrienne, Debbie, and I loved noshing on this delicious variety of snacks. 

3. Later, I followed the HelloFresh directions and made a rich tomato sauce and cooked two packets of tortellinis in the sauce. I topped the tortellinis and sauce with a panko/Parmesan cheese combination and put the dish under the broiler until the bread crumbs were golden and toasty. 

This dinner entree worked.

Later on, Christy and Tracy came over and we all yakked on the patio and, when the time was right, we raised a toast to Everett on his 92nd birthday and spent a good amount of time reminiscing about his life and his most admirable character. 

Great stories emerged. 

Everett's remarkable life definitely lives on beyond his passing away in late 2020. 

*By the way, just for the record, I raised the question in an earlier blog post as to whether Carol had initiated the big party for her 40th birthday held in the backyard of what was then Mom's house.

She did not. 

Mom, Christy, and Paul put their heads together and hatched the plan.

But, when Carol and her family went to New York City to volunteer for the Salvation Army and to enjoy shows on Broadway, among other things, in celebration of her 50th birthday, Carol initiated that! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-02-2023: Post-Party Relaxation, Temperate Weather on the Patio, Belgian Beer Greatness

 1. It was bound to be a slower day today after the pageantry of Carol's birthday spectacular on Saturday. That turned out to be just the case. I spent much of the morning relaxing with Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, the Sunday NYTimes Crossword puzzle, and blogging. 

If you didn't read my correction to my blog post yesterday, I'll repeat the correction today: I originally said (because I thought it was true!) that Carol had initiated the plan for her birthday shindig. (Didn't she initiate what happened in what's now our backyard twenty years ago for her 40th birthday?) 

Well, she didn't. Over the Christmas holiday, Christy, Paul, Molly, Cosette, and Zoe huddled and eventually came up with the plan that took shape as Saturday's fun-filled, celebratory hullabaloo. 

2. Unexpectedly and delightfully, today was not at all intolerably hot. In fact, it was temperate and breezy outside, making it comfortable and relaxing to sit on the patio, watch Ellie play, sample beers, and enjoy one another's company. 

3. For me, the highlight of today's beer tasting occurred when I brought out a bomber of Unibroue's C'e n'est pas La Fin de Monde. The Troxstar gave me this bottle many months ago and I couldn't bring myself to open it until I had a fellow Belgian beer fan to share the beer with. Its ABV is 9.5% and if I tried to drink the entire 22 oz of this beer, it would wreck me. 

Josh loves Belgian beers and so today the time was right and with some help from Debbie and Adrienne, we savored this mash up between the Old World complexity of a Belgian tripel and the New World power of contemporary IPAs. 

It was the best beer I've tasted in a long time and, inevitably, transported me, in my imagination, back to the days in Eugene when the Troxstar, Shane, Loren, and others from St. Mary's Episcopal Church gathered on occasion at the Bier Stein to enjoy an evening long Belgian Blowout. 

Those were among the best beer drinking sessions of my beer drinking life, both for the exquisite flavors of the different Belgian beers and for the great company at our table. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-01-2023: The Langfords Arrive, Carol's 60th Birthday Party, Patio Beers

1. Adrienne, Josh, Jack, and Ellie arrived in Kellogg late this morning from New York. Not surprisingly, Jack and Ellie have grown up quite a bit since I last saw them in September of 2021. Ellie's vocabulary has increased about 500 fold in the last two years and Jack has grown into a bona fide almost teenager, taller, his voice changed, and he's in possession of a battery of middle school jokes (stupid ones!) and a silly sense of humor. 

Debbie laid out a sandwich bar and, fortunately, the weather today was comfortable and we could sit on the patio and visit. 

The Langfords spent some time in the afternoon resting and napping after having started their day so early to fly out here. 

We settled into one another's company easily and comfortably. It's terrific having them here -- they'll stay until Friday. 

2. For Carol's 60th birthday (July 3rd), Christy, Paul, Molly, Zoe, and Cosette huddled last Christmas and started to plan a big party that they threw today in Carol and Paul's back yard.

This extravaganza got going at 4:00 with about 50-60 (or more?) attendees settling in, starting out with a glass of wine or lemonade or ice tea or water. 

Some time around 4:30, Paul led the congregation in a toast and offered up a prayer of thanks for the food we were about to enjoy, and everyone lined up in the house and filled their plates with cold cuts, cheese, fruit, vegetables, a variety of salads, chips, and other simple and delicious offerings.

A while later, the afternoon's entertainment got underway as Paul, Molly, Zoe, and Cosette performed a series of songs with the aid of their karaoke machine and Carol and Paul brought the entertainment to a close by dancing to a duet sung by Ed Sheeran and Beyonce. 

The party's last communal event was answering trivia questions about Carol's life on a printed card intermixed with names being drawn for door prizes.

I sure hope this party was just what Carol had imagined and hoped for: people attended from all stages of her life and all parts of her life; Carol loves sunflowers and she wore a ring of sunflowers in her hair and the party's decor featured sunflowers and other flowers that Christy and Tracy contributed and arranged; it was a festive party with lots of laughter, music, delicious food, and good cheer. 

I hope Carol had a great time kicking off her summer long celebration of turning 60 years old. 

I'm not sure what all she has planned, but she is definitely going into the summer with the motto, "You only turn 60 once!" and she's going to make the most of it!

3. As I've been recovering this week from getting overheated a week ago, I was concerned that I might get overexposed to heat at Carol's party.

To my profound relief, today was a most comfortable day. The temperature was moderate, a cooling breeze (sometimes a wind) kicked up intermittently, and I was completely comfortable the whole time.

I only drank water at the party, but once we were back home and enjoying the comfort of our patio, I decided to drink a little bit of beer.

Josh avidly enjoys craft beer. He was enjoying NoLi's Born and Raised IPA and Debbie asked me if I wanted to split a bottle of Pfriem's IPA. I was feeling good and decided to give it a try. I poured myself a small glass and it was superb, both the beer and the conversation with Josh and Debbie. Josh then pulled a tall can of NoLi's Cascade Fog, a hazy IPA, out of the fridge and he and Debbie and I split it. One more small glass of beer for me, another superb one, and I thoroughly enjoyed yakkin' about beer and other things with Josh and Debbie and feeling the early summer night air of Kellogg grow increasingly cool minute by minute, a source of great comfort.  

Three Beautiful Things 06-30-2023: Prepping for the Langfords, Gas Oven Baked Flatbread, *Deadish* Redux

 1. Adrienne, Josh, Jack, and Ellie arrive July 1st some time in the afternoon, so Debbie and I have been scurrying around the house, trying to spruce up the joint a bit and doing little jobs, like changing light bulbs. I have a couple more things to tend to Saturday morning. I hope our little house will be presentable and suffice! 

2. Unlike at The Beanery, our HelloFresh flatbreads this evening were not wood-fire baked! All the same, they were pretty good. I cooked chopped zucchini in olive oil, marinated a sliced tomato in olive oil and garlic, and prepared a ricotta cheese and lemon sauce. I preheated a baking pan greased with a small amount of olive oil. Soon it was assembly time: slather the ricotta cheese sauce on the flatbreads, spread the zucchini bits on top of it, and add the tomatoes. I put them in the oven for about 10-12 minutes, took them out, and added fresh parsley leaves, hot honey, and some chili flakes.

The combination of sweetness, heat, and the lemony ricotta cheese underneath the zucchini and tomatoes was awesome. 

3. I relaxed in the comfortable chair with my feet on the ottoman in my study and listened again the entirety of Jeff's 06-29-2023 Deadish show. I let the sweet sounds of those acoustic covers of Grateful Dead songs lull me to sleep for a while and then I worked an acrostic puzzle to the last 80 minutes of so of the show featuring parts of Grateful Dead show from June 29, 1986 and 1976 and a couple of songs from July 1, 1966. 

Jeff's whole show sounded even better this next time around. 

Bliss.