Three Beautiful Things 09-29-2023: Goulash, Doc Severinsen Documentary, *Buena Vista Social Club* Two Decades Later

1. When she left for work this morning, Debbie already knew she'd want to stay home after work, not go uptown. She asked me to cook something for dinner with ground beef. I decided to prepare one of the most comforting and tasty ground beef dinners of all: Paula Deen's goulash. There's nothing to it. All I had to do was brown some salt and peppered ground beef, added chopped onion and garlic to the beef and let that cook for five minutes or so. I then added water, diced fire roasted tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano, thyme, basil, garlic powder, umami, a couple bay leaves and about eight ounces or so of macaroni.

All these ingredients simmered in a covered pot for about a half an hour.

I let it cool down some.

We filled our bowls and lo and behold

It worked! 

2. Debbie and I settled into a relaxed evening of television viewing. We'd watched about half of All the President's Men the other night and finished it tonight, reciting different lines before the actors got them out and, once again, marveling at what a superb piece of filmmaking this movie is.

Next, for reasons unclear to me, I went to the PBS app on our smarty pants tv and looked at past seasons of American Masters.

Then, for reasons really unclear to me, I clicked on the PBS documentary, Never Too Late: The Doc Severinsen Story. 

Am I ever glad I did!

Doc Severinsen hadn't crossed my mind since Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show. 

Well, that's not quite true. 

Every time I've either gone by Arlington, OR on I-84, or stopped there for fuel or a burger, I've marveled at how this is the town Severinsen grew up in, where he first learned to play the trumpet.

But I didn't know a thing about him as a performer, conductor, and teacher in the years after he left The Tonight Show.

It turns out that Severinsen never really slowed down, even as he entered his early nineties. 

This documentary focuses a lot on Doc Severinsen's obsession with staying fit, playing the trumpet at an elite level, passing on his knowledge, exploring new areas of music beyond big band jazz, and continuing to be a vital force in the world of academic music and in the world of staged performances into his nineties. (This documentary was released in April, 2021. In preparing to write this blog post, I read that in September of 2021, Doc Severinsen performed for the last time -- he had turned 94 in July of 2021. He lives on today at 96 years old.)

It's an inspiring documentary and, at the same time, an examination of the costs Severinsen's devotion to his trumpet exacted on his personal life and his relationships, especially his marriages. 

I had no idea when I clicked on the link to this episode of American Masters that Debbie and I would find ourselves enthralled by Doc Severinsen's trumpet playing, his devotion to teaching, and his complicated private life. 

3. Watching Doc Severinsen play at such an elite level and with such vigor into his nineties and watching him, at the end of his playing career, become the trumpet player in a Mexican ensemble, the San Miguel 5, triggered memories of the movie, Buena Vista Social Club. 

It, too, is a documentary. It tells the story of Ry Cooder going to Havana and finding an ensemble of aging Cuban musicians who had been virtually forgotten following Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba.

The performances in this movie are extraordinary, as are the stories of the musicians. I saw this movie in Eugene at the Bijou when it came out in 1999 and I've had the movie soundtrack cd for just as long. 

Debbie and Gibbs needed to hit the hay before the movie ended, but the forty minutes or so we watched tonight was exhilarating, moving, and inspiring. 

Maybe we'll finish it Saturday evening. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-28-2023: Home PT, Take Out from Wah Hing, Debbie's Work is Going Pretty Well

 1. I stretched muscles being guided by the handouts Terry sent me. I looked online into other muscle stretching and strengthening exercises. Many of them involve a chair.

2. I decide before Debbie arrived home that I'd like to take a night off from cooking. Debbie walked in the door. She said, "So, are you going to order the Chinese food?" She had read my mind from all the way in Pinehurst. "Yeah." I replied. That's exactly what I'm going to do. 

And so I left and came back home with potstickers, pork fried rice, and Hunan beef. 

It worked! 

3. Debbie's school year is off to much better start than a year ago. She has a slightly smaller number of students. That makes a huge difference. More students in this year's class are functioning at grade level, also a positive factor. Debbie worked hard over the summer to prepare for this school year, building on what she'd learned during her first year at Pinehurst Elementary. That work is paying off. She's also going to bed earlier and I, at least, think the added hours of sleep have been good for her work. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-27-2023: PT at Home, Enhancing Potato Soup, I Lost Interest in the NBA

1.  A while back, Terry Turner sent me a handout with leg exercises and a link with knee exercises. So, today I began what I guess you'd call physical therapy at home. 

2. With the cooler and wet weather having moved in, I decided to make a simple potato soup for dinner. Both Debbie and I enhanced our soup in our individual bowls. Debbie added leftover ragu to her soup and topped it with grated cheddar cheese -- she said the ragu raised the soup "to the next level".  I loved hearing that! 

I thought back to Wednesday nights around twenty years ago when I regularly dropped in at McMenamin's High St Brewery after Shakespeare class for an order of fries and a couple pints of Hammerhead Pale Ale. I enjoyed vinegar on my fries. So, when I ladled myself a bowl of soup this evening, I added vinegar to my bowl and, because I like sour cream on baked potatoes, I dropped a dollop of sour cream in my soup.

I'm not sure it reached the next level, but I enjoyed these enhancements a lot.

3. I don't think about it much, but today I briefly wondered why my interest in the NBA has dropped off so much in the last, oh, ten years or so. The Portland Trailblazers just traded their best player, Damion Dillard, to the Bucks. When I was younger, this kind of blockbuster move would have sent jolts of wonder through my system and I would have sought out other fans to discuss such a move and would have developed opinions (sure to be wrong) about whether it was a good move and what the future of the Trailblazers looked like.

None of that happened when I heard the news.

I came across, but didn't seek out,  some comments about the move made by people who both love the Blazers and the NBA, but none of it really registered for me.

It was sure fun when I loved the NBA -- especially in my teens, twenties, and on into my thirties. 

But, other interests, other pursuits have taken over. I still tap into my days of NBA enthusiasm by watching videos of past players and talking about the NBA of 35-55 years ago with friends. 

I miss the old excitement, but, for whatever reason, it's gone. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-26-2023: Shopping at Fred Meyer, Fantastic Beers and Yakkin' with Byrdman, Cooking a Fun Salmon Dinner

1. I bounded out the door, leapt into the Sube, blasted over the pass, and bolted into CdA and the Fred Meyer parking lot. The high point of my shopping spree was buying new flatware! It's a fun purchase I like to make every ten years or so. 

2. Byrdman and I practically needed pontoons in the deluge that hit CdA as each of us drove to Growler Guys to order beer and sit, sip, and yak. 

Growler Guy has a wide variety of beers on tap and my attention went immediately to Firestone Walker's 26th Anniversary Ale. I don't drink them often, but when I do, I love anniversary ales, no matter who brews them. This high octane beer was superb, combining sweetness and depth by blending Parabola Russian Imperial Stout aged in bourbon barrels, Velvet Merkin Milk Stout aged in bourbon barrels, Bravo Imperial Brown Ale aged in bourbon barrels,  Heavy Things Barley Wine aged in brandy barrels, Helldorado Blonde Barley Wine aged in brandy barrels, and Wheat Wine Strong Golden Barley Wine aged in bourbon barrels. 

As you can imagine with all this imperial ale, barley wine, and barrel aging, this ale weighed in at 11% ABV.

Drinking this complex eight ounces of warming slightly boozy ale delighted me. I don't really have words for the depth of character this beer achieves by combining the maltiness of imperial stouts, an imperial brown ale, and those great barley wines. 

I would say it made my day, but it wasn't the only eight ounces of beer I enjoyed at Growler Guys.

My day was also made by drinking eight ounces of a most satisfying Imperial IPA from Mother Earth Brewing of Nampa, Idaho. In collaboration with Bale Breaker Brewing, Mother Earth produced the next in their 4 Seasons series, called Summer '23. This beer was quite a contrast from the Anniversary Ale. Summer '23 is loaded with complex hoppy flavors, combining a pleasant bitterness with citrus and peach. 

Byrdman and I got a lot of good yakkin' in about topics ranging from NIC and high school sports in the 1970s to the genius of Novak Djokovic to the stifling impact of this past summer's heat and its impact on our outdoor activities. 

It was an awesome session.

3. Back home, I pulled our other HelloFresh bag out of the icebox and wailed away on making Parmesan Herb-Crusted Salmon, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Asparagus, and Mustard Sauce. 

I began by peeling four or five cloves of garlic, smashing them, and putting them in a packet of aluminum foil with oil and roasting them in the oven for about ten minutes and setting them aside.

In the meantime, I chopped up a handful of potatoes and boiled them for about 15-20 minutes. While these potatoes cooked, I got out a bowl and combined chopped parsley, a packet of panko, parmesan cheese, and olive oil and set it aside.

By now the salmon filets were at room temperature and I put them on a plate and oiled and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

I put the skin side down and slathered the top of each filet with a layer of Dijon mustard. On top of the mustard, I put a layer of the panko/herb/Parmesan/parsley mixture.

I had trimmed a handful of asparagus spears and I drizzled them with olive oil and salt and peppered them.

Now the fish and the spears went in the oven to roast for about 10-12 minutes.

While they roasted, I drained the potatoes, threw in the roasted garlic, added a cream sauce base from a packet along with butter and some potato water and mashed the potatoes.

The salmon and asparagus continued to roast when I combined white vinegar, cream sauce base, Dijon mustard, and a teaspoon of sugar in a pot, cooked it until it thickened, and then added a dollop of butter. 

By now, the salmon and asparagus were roasted. On a plate for Debbie and one for me, I scooped out equal parts of mashed potatoes, divided the asparagus spears between us, and put a salmon filet on each plate and topped the fish with the mustard cream sauce. 

None of this was difficult cooking, but completing several steps within a short period of time was a really fun challenge. 

I succeeded! 

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-25-2023: Re-Securing the Splash Shield, Laundry Drop Off, Pork Filet Dinner

 1. Back in February of 2019, I ran over a chunk of ice on I-90 just east of Coeur d'Alene and it slightly dislodged the Sube's underbody splash shield. After a pulmonary appointment that day, I took the Sube to Les Schwab Tire Center and one of their guys re-secured the shield and all was well. Just over two months later, the shield slipped, was rubbing against the front tire on the driver's side. I took it to Silver Valley Tire and a guy there re-secured the shield with zip ties. Today, almost two years and a half years later, I went to Silver Valley Tire first thing this morning because the splash shield need to be secured again. 

I hope it stays in place or at least another couple of years or so.

2. When I wash blankets in our washing machine, the machine rocks and nearly walks away. Today I needed to have blankets laundered and so I dropped them off at Laundry X-Press. I'd never asked them to launder anything for me before, but today I decided that rather than hanging out at the laundromat, I'd pay to have these blankets cleaned and dried. 

It worked! 

I returned around 4:00 and the blankets were ready to go, folded neatly and packed in a large plastic bag. 

3. Debbie is in charge of our HelloFresh orders. We've agreed, over the last several months, to order meatless HelloFresh entrees. They've been splendid.

This week, however, Debbie changed things up and today I prepared Tuscan pork filet served on top of garlicky tomato spaghetti with roasted zucchini. 

All I had to do was cover the two small, thick pieces of pork with Tuscan heat spice and sear them. Once seared, I put them in the oven on a baking sheet that also held half moons of chopped zucchini.

While these roasted, I boiled a packet of spaghetti and, in the pan I used to sear the pork, I heated some oil and cooked a batch of chopped tomato and finely chopped garlic. After a couple of minutes, I added some pasta water, chicken stock concentrate, and packet of cream cheese to make a sauce.

By now, the zucchini and pork came out of the oven and I had drained the spaghetti.

I added the spaghetti and zucchini to the sauce, tossed it all for a minute or so, and then sliced the two pork pieces into medallions. I put the spaghetti covered with sauce and zucchini into bowls and split the pieces of pork between them. I added parmesan cheese.

It was fun to prepare and eat a HelloFresh meal using meat. 

I learned more about cooking pork.

And best of all

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-24-2023: I Go Bonkers on ZOOM, My First Ragu, Drinking Cans of Hazy IPA with Debbie

 1. Diane, Bill, Bridgit and I jumped on the ZOOM machine this morning and had a lot to talk about. First of all, Diane's surgery was successful and she's recovering well. She has follow up appointments coming up, but the initial signs are that her overall condition looks good. Unfortunately, Bill discovered he has a broken bone in his foot (we saw the X-ray!). He'll see a podiatrist soon for further diagnosis and treatment, but, for now, his foot is stabilized in a lightweight boot and he can get around. 

Bridgit told us great news about succeeding, after working at it for a year, at hiring a full team of employees on the staff she supervises. She insisted on filling these positions one at a time. It took longer than possibly her bosses wanted it, but the payoff is worth it. Bridgit has hired a team of stable, committed, compassionate, and empathetic staff and they are doing splendid work.

I went a little bonkers on ZOOM. All the joy I felt and much of the thinking I've been doing about Stop Making Sense and the Hal Hartley movies I've watched was bottled up, unexpressed inside me. I blabbed and blabbed about my long history with Stop Making Sense, my love for this movie's music, theatrics, and philosophical explorations and then blabbed and blabbed joyously about my discovery of Hal Hartley.

2. I had decided a few weeks ago that when it was our turn to host family dinner again, I would make a ragu. I had purchased Italian sausage ravioli at Costco and decided that a meatless ragu would be an excellent way to prepare a contrast between the ragu and what I poured it over.

The recipe I doubled emphatically stated that the vegetables should be finely chopped and I did just that, slowly and surely chopping carrots, celery, red bell peppers, and onions into small pieces which I then cooked, putting them all in a pot with rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano into a combination of olive oil and melted butter. While I slow cooked the vegetables for about fifteen minutes or so, I made about four cups of hot vegetable stock using Better Than Bullion paste and water and soaked a couple handfuls of dried porcini mushrooms in the stock. 

When the vegetables were softened, I added about six cloves of finely chopped garlic, let it sauté for a minute or so and then added in the mess of grape tomatoes I had halved along with dry vermouth. Once the liquid had reduced a bit, I scooped the now hydrated mushrooms out of the vegetable stock, chopped them, and added the mushrooms, vegetable stock, two bay leaves, and a couple dollops of tomato sauce to the pot.

I cooked all of this for about thirty minutes with the lid on the pot, removed the lid, and let the ragu simmer and thicken some more until it was time to serve it for dinner.

It took about five minutes, once the water boiled, to cook the ravioli. I put raviolis in everyone's bowl and covered them with the vegetable ragu. 

It worked! 

3. Before Carol, Paul, Christy, Molly, and Brian came over for dinner, Debbie and I split two cans of Ya Ya Brewing's Hazy IPA, Fluffy Puffy Sunshine. It's an almost buttery IPA, soft on the tongue, thanks to heavy doses of oat flakes. It's got a tropical flavor, is hardly bitter at all, and Debbie and I agreed: we ought to buy more of this beer, as I can find it.

Drinking this Northeast Style Hazy IPA moved Debbie and me to reminisce about all the fun we had drinking beer in Maryland, Washington DC, and New York. We paid our own humble tribute to the now shuttered Old Line Bistro, smiled and talked about our Sunday afternoon trips do DC Brau, and marveled at the great beers we enjoyed in Nyack, New York at District 96.

We can't have those places back again. That's all right. We have a great time sitting in our living room in Kellogg, cracking open beers, beers I've purchased, Debbie has bought, and beers that family members have picked up for us in their travels. 

It's adventurous because we try beers we know nothing about.

So it's often a crapshoot. 

It's blissful. 

No matter if the beer is average or fantastic, it's a blast to sit, sip, and yak. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-23-2023: Morning Rounds for Breakfast, *Stop Making Sense* Thrilled Me, An Unexpected Beer at Bottle Joy

1. It turned out that the coffee situation at the apartment I rented wasn't what I wanted. It's been a while since I've stayed at an airbnb and I must remember any time I do it again to take my own coffee, filter, and filter holder and make sure I have milk on hand. 

The good news is that I was staying not too far from Rocket Bakery on Garland, so once I got packed up, I dashed up there for a superb cup of coffee and a delicious hazelnut scone.

By going to Rocket, I (once again) broke my pact of trying all new places on this trip, but, as with going to Jack and Dan's, I have a lot of great memories attached to Rocket Bakery and didn't mind going to a familiar place.

But, I dined out for breakfast, as planned, in place I'd never been when I drove down Monroe St. a ways to Elliotts An Urban Kitchen and was I ever glad I did.  

Elliotts is single room cafe with booths along part of its south wall, tables with regular chairs and other tables with high chairs. Elliots serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner and has a full service bar.

If it were 2003 instead of 2023, I might have ordered a Bloody Mary to enjoy with my breakfast, but I didn't want to mess with booze at 9:15 a.m. today.

Elliotts brunch menu had plenty of offerings. The Eggs Benedict looked really good, but I didn't want meat as rich as ham, but, to my delight, Elliotts also offered a Veggie Benedict with home fries and that sounded just right.

And it was delicious. The Hollandaise sauce was light and flavorful, the eggs on the English muffin were perfectly prepared, and the red pepper, onion, avocado, spinach, tomatoes, and jalapeños were a perfect crunchy and smooth combination of sweet and heat. 

The home fries were also delicious. 

So was the coffee! 

I ventured back to the Camry nourished and fulfilled.

2. I enjoy driving around the Whitworth campus and neighborhood, trying to piece together memories from forty to nearly fifty years ago and observing how the University has expanded. 

After this nostalgic tour, I headed south and went to Huckleberries and bought beers for Debbie and me to sample, including a couple of cans of the Fluffy Puffy Sunshine I'd enjoyed last night at Wooden City.

I returned to downtown, got the Camry parked, and by about 1:00 found my seat in the IMAX theater.

My whole reason for coming to Spokane this weekend was to watch the re-release of the Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert movie, originally released in about 1984, on the huge IMAX screen and to hear the movie through the theater's incredible sound system.

Surely I've seen Stop Making Sense at least twenty times. I saw it in two different movie theaters when it came out, in Eugene and Portland, I went to at least three, if not more, dance parties centered on this movie playing and we partiers dancing. I rented the movie regularly, played it for my World Lit class when we had our Dada Day, and I regularly go to YouTube to watch clips from the movie, especially "Life During Wartime". 

I have multitudes of great memories tied up in Stop Making Sense. It's a movie that has stimulated and shaped much of my thinking about absurdity, about art that puts radically dissimilar things side by side. 

It's a joyous movie, full of energy, dancing, theatrics, superb musicianship, awesome singing, a wide variety of musical styles and genres, and great fun.

I had an emotionally satisfying time today watching Stop Making Sense again, reveling in the hugeness of the concert unfolding on the IMAX screen, letting my mind wander through countless memories and friendships and fun days teaching all attached to this movie.

I swear, if I lived in Spokane, I'd return to the IMAX every day the movie is showing. I love it that much. 

I did not want Stop Making Sense to end this afternoon, but, alas, it did, and sat in my seat and stared while theater workers cleaned the theater and then left the auditorium and sat at a table and stared some more, let the movie and all it means to me sink in more.

In time, my head cleared.

It felt safe for me to drive. 

I left Spokane.

3. On my way home, I stopped in at Bottle Joy in Coeur d'Alene. My plan was to drink one beer and to buy some more cans of beer for Debbie and me to split back in Kellogg.

To my utter surprise and delight, I discovered a beer I didn't know had even been brewed on Bottle Joy's tap list.

For years, I've enjoyed Firestone Walker's Double Barrel Ale -- I've written about this before.

Double Barrel Ale was the first beer Firestone Walker brewed to sell. 

To commemorate the 10,000th batch of beer to come out of their Paso Robles Brewhouse, Firestone Walker brewed a batch of Double Double Barrel Ale aged for a year in 11 year Old Fitzgerald Bourbon barrels. 

Gawd! 

Weighing in at 12.3% ABV (I only drank eight ounces of it), all of the toffee sweetness of the Double Barrel Ale was magnified and complimented by the boozy brown sugary presence of the bourbon. For me, it was like drinking a perfectly baked oatmeal cookie that had been wrapped in bourbon soaked cheesecloth. 

I worked my way to the bottom of this sweet malt and bourbon bomb very slowly, let the pleasant heat of the alcohol move me into a state of mild euphoria, and then sat for a while and drank water before gathering up the six beers I selected out of the cooler and heading back to Kellogg. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-22-2023: Afternoon Delight at Jack and Dan's, A Hazy IPA at Wooden City, Raw Fish Night at Zona Blanca

 1. In order to arrive efficiently at the apartment I rented for tonight, I knew I'd be taking the Hamilton exit off of I-90. I was a little hungry and figured a beer might taste good, so I pulled into the parking lot of Jack and Dan's. 

Jack and Dan's. 

Dad's favorite spot in Spokane many years ago and, once I turned 21, my favorite place to go with him and have a cold one or two or three or . . . As I bellied up to the bar today, I remembered when Dad and I waltzed into Jack and Dan's on March 17, 1984 and as we were downing a schooner of green beer, a television crew came in. They filmed footage of us and others to show on the evening news and, sure enough, that evening we got to see ourselves on television while an intrepid reporter intoned, "It was a festive day on St. Patrick's day at Jack and Dan's today . . ." 

Coincidentally, later in 1984, in Eugene, I was sitting in the stands. It was dollar beer night. I guy from one of Eugene's tv stations came up to me and asked if his crew could film me drinking a beer. I agreed and later that night, on the eleven o'clock news, there I was, gulping cheap beer out of a plastic Eugene Em's cup, and an intrepid reporter intoning, "Well, it was dollar beer tonight at Civic Stadium..."

No tv cameras today.

I enjoyed a Hazy IPA, a side of fries, and listening to 70s music on the sound system. Even more, I enjoyed remembering not only that St. Patrick's Day with Dad, but other times he and I went to Jack and Dan's -- and I thought about Christy, Carol, and I going to Jack and Dan's on our first sibling outing and remembered meeting Stu at Jack and Dan's back in March of 2020 before we went to the Gonzaga campus and I bought a Zag hoodie, made even more fun by the fact that Stu's retirement party was at Jack and Dan's. 

2. It didn't take long for me to get settled in the apartment I rented and soon I hired an Uber driver to take me downtown. I knew I was going to drink a beer and later some tequila and I didn't want to also have to drive the Camry.

I requested a ride to Wooden City, a handsome restaurant on West Riverside featuring a wood fire oven. I sat at a table and I faced the kitchen and watched the cook prepare pizzas, tavern burgers, and other happy hour dishes as the wood burned away in the oven.  I had decided before I came in that I wanted to try a Hazy IPA brewed in Spokane Valley by YaYa Brewing. The beer is called Fluffy Puffy Sunshine. I was hoping it would be pretty good. I visited YaYa's tasting room a couple of years ago and enjoyed the beer I sampled that day.

I snapped a picture of the can the beer came in and its goldenness poured in a glass and texted it to Debbie. I enjoyed the beer and Debbie and I agreed that I should look for cans to buy in Spokane and bring some home.

3. Having enjoyed the beer and the ambience at Wooden City, I strolled to Howard St., headed south, and walked into Zona Blanca, a ceviche bar. 

I knew exactly what I wanted to order before I walked in. Zona Blanca serves oysters on the half shell and I knew I would start with half a dozen of those. I love to drink a shot of liquor when I eat raw oysters. In the past, I've always drunk a shot of bourbon. But Zona Blanca has an extensive tequila list. I love tequila. I decided to try a tequila I'd never drunk before, anticipating that it would taste splendid with the oysters. 

I was right.

Before I knew it, the woman serving my table brought me a pour of Fortaleza Blanco. I indulged in a small taste of this tequila before my oysters arrived and that one little sip sent me into a state of mild ecstasy. It was all I could do to leave the tequila alone while waiting for my oysters to arrive, but I did it.

On the ice-packed platter along with the oysters was a small lime cut in quarters, a container of a lime sauce, and a bottle of hot sauce with an eye dropper. I eye dropped a tiny bit of the hot sauce on my wrist and sampled it and my tongue was on fire. I was worried that my taste buds were wrecked, but they recovered and I decided I would not use this sauce until I ate my sixth oyster. 

I ate the other five oysters with lime juice and the lime sauce and sipped on my shot of tequila.

I blissed out. 

The oyster flesh and the brine helped temper the heat of the sauce on my last oyster. The heat didn't wreck me. I enjoyed it! 

Tonight was definitely raw fish night for me. I had decided on Thursday that after I finished the oysters that I would try ceviche, a raw fish dish that originated in Peru, for the first time in my life.

I ordered ceviche mixto, a fascinating blend of (raw) yellowfin tuna, (raw) octopus, (raw) lime cured shrimp, aguachile, salsa de cacahuates, chiles, and mayo with corn tostados on the side. 

What a symphony of flavors and sensations! Heat, citrus, sweetness, tastes of the sea, and a variety of textures. The tequila paired beautifully with the ceviche and I loved diving into this, for me, unique dish. 

The server asked me, as she took my ceviche bowl and tequila glass away, if I'd like Tres Leches, a sweet milk soaked cake with whipped cream, cinnamon, and lime zest, for dessert. 

I asked it would have a cooling effect.

She answered and smiled generously, "Yes! That's what it's for!"

I couldn't resist and the cake was perfect: light, moist, not overly sweet, and refreshingly cool, a pleasing contrast to the superb and spicy ceviche. 

My plan coming to Spokane for this overnight visit was to try places to eat and drink where I'd never been before.

I agree, I immediately broke this pact by going to Jack and Dan's. 

So what? I had to go to Jack and Dan's! 

I loved how I kept my agreement by going to Wooden City and Zona Blanca and I have another cafe in mind for Saturday breakfast. It will be a place I've never been before. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-21-2023: Getting Ready to Go, Dinner from Flavor Fusion, Hal Hartley's *Simple Men*

1. I'm going to spend Friday night in Spokane and return to Kellogg Saturday afternoon. It's a short trip, but with the way I spent so much time today listing out things to be sure to pack, you'd think I was going to Ireland for a month! Charging cord. Medicine. Tooth care stuff. Milk. Sparkling water. Change of clothes. Etc. Etc. I guess the basics are the same whether going away for a night or a month.

2. Debbie arrived home from school and wondered if we might want to order food to go. For us, this means either food from Wah Hing or from Garrenteed BBQ. I'd made a trip earlier today to Yoke's and I could see across Hill Street that the Flavor Fusion food truck was open today. I recommended we give it a try. I rocketed over in the Sube, ordered two rice boxes, Gimme Gimme Chimichurri Steak and Kung WOW Chicken along with two orders of Asian Cucumber Salad. 

I brought the orders home and we dug in and enjoyed the medley of flavors, the blends of heat, sweetness, and different textures. 

I wrote a Google review the other day for Beach Bum Bakery, ending it by saying that Beach Bum Bakery's bread, bagels, and pastries has significantly elevated the quality of my life in Kellogg and made me even happier to live here. 

I'll add Flavor Fusion to what I said about Beach Bum Bakery. Having this delicious Asian fusion food available in Kellogg not only makes me very happy, it adds to and further improves the quality of my life here. 

3. Debbie had had a good day at school today, particularly late in the day when she played a guitar and invited the students to sing songs along with her. One student requested that Debbie let her sing "Country Roads" with Debbie accompanying her. Debbie said yes and the rest of the students joined together to sing the chorus. "Can we do this every day?" the children asked, excitedly. They loved this way of ending their school day.

Debbie has been committed over the last couple of weeks or so to getting plenty of sleep at night and so has been turning in earlier than she did a year ago.

That's working. 

It works for me, too.

Tonight I watched he third movie of what has come to be known as Hal Hartley's Long Island Trilogy: The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, and Simple Men. 

Hartley did not make these movies with creating a trilogy in mind, but, as it turned out, these movies are connected by taking place in small towns on Long Island and by their exploration of the desire for connection in a world that is largely void of meaning, full of anxiety and uncertainty, and tedious. 

Simple Men tells the story of two brothers in search of their father who has escaped from prison. Hal Hartley loves working with implausible situations in these Long Island movies, and in Simple Men he creates, in the father, a character who was once a star shortstop for the Dodgers who later became an anarchist and was jailed for putting off a bomb in the Pentagon.

I found myself believing this implausible story about the father -- I mean, in the world of the movie, it was true -- and the real heart of the movie was not its plausibility, but its portrayal of the two brothers' journey from New York City to the outer reaches of Long Island to find their father, the characters they get involved with along the way, and the complications of their relationship to one another and to their dad. 

Hartley, when interviewed for a short feature for the Criterion Channel, talks about his love for Peter Brook's movie Marat/Sade. In particular, he loved how the action in this movie would suddenly break into dance -- non-realistically. 

Among my favorite scenes in Simple Men is such a dance scene. Three of the movie's character suddenly begin dancing, seeming to intuit how to move with each other, how to create choreography as they move further into their dance. They dance to Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing". Want to see it? Go here. 

The person who posted this on YouTube tells us that this scene is an homage to a scene from Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 movie, Band of Outsiders, a movie I've never seen.

But I have seen this iconic clip from the movie -- maybe you have, too.  Want to find out?  It's here. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-20-2023: Walk to Yoke's, Garlic Lemon Wings, Hal Hartley's *Trust*

1. I enjoy going on walks the most when either I'm walking around a small lake or pond or when I have a destination and a reason for going to that destination. Today, I wanted to find out if Yoke's carries arborio rice. It's the rice used to make risotto. So I filled my water bottle,  put my backpack on, and walked to Yoke's and back. It was a successful stroll. Yoke's carries small boxes of arborio rice. I also wanted to buy a couple of heavier items, didn't feel like carrying them on my walk back home, so, a little later in the afternoon, I drove back to Yoke's and purchased a few items. 

It was a good walk. I hope to build on this, but, for now, racking up about 3500 steps feels about right.

2. Coincidentally, on the same day that Debbie was going to text me and ask me to fix chicken for dinner, I had taken chicken wings out to thaw. Debbie never got around to making her request and was very happy when she saw the package of wings in a bowl of water, thawing.

I cleaned the chicken pieces, dried them off, and heated a drizzle of oil in a pan and then added a pretty good sized chunk of butter. As the butter melted, I floured the chicken and when the butter finished melting, I added about four or five cloves of finely chopped garlic to the pan. I cooked the garlic for about a minute, squeezed some lemon with the butter and garlic, and then I fried the wings.

I also boiled a handful of Yukon golds which we ate with butter and sour cream. Chicken and potatoes for dinner. 

It worked! 

3. I resumed my private Hal Hartley film festival this evening after Debbie turned in. His second movie, Trust, just like The Unbelievable Truth, featured Adrienne Shelly, again as an unmoored angsty teen ager, Maria. Maria learns she is pregnant. The news triggers a fatal heart attack in her father and her mother, at least temporarily, throws her out of the house. Maria's story runs parallel to the story of Matthew, played by Martin Donovan, who lives with his father, a violent man, in a damaging relationship. 

Maria and Martin, both lost souls, both abused at home, meet by chance and the movie tells the story of their platonic relationship, how they navigate the brokenness of their lives, their aimlessness, and their budding devotion to one another. 

Right now, I can't quite pin down the point I'm about to make, but Trust made me think of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. Albee's play examines the existential angst of middle aged, more affluent suburbanites, not the young, working class Long Island small town characters of Trust, but Hal Hartley and Edward Albee both explore through carefully crafted dialogue the deep uncertainties, insecurities, and fears of their characters, both writers are keenly attuned to the the experiences of human misplacement, alienation, and longing for connection. 

The two Hal Hartley movies I've watched so far are darkly comic. They are quirky, philosophical. He's not interested in realism and, at the same time, the inward struggles his characters experience are very real and Hartley mines the shared human experience of feeling and being adrift, puzzled, and alienated, of the confusing and often futile desire to find meaning and purpose, human connection, and commonality.  

Three Beautiful Things 09-19-2023: Planning an Overnight Trip to Spokane, A Longer Walk, Very Tasty Vegan Curry

1. Back when I was planning to spend Thursday and Friday nights in Spokane with Mark and Peter, I was wondering if I could shoehorn in a viewing of the re-release of the Talking Heads concert movie, Stop Making Sense at AMC River Park Square in an IMAX theater. 

Today I decided, now that Mark and Peter can't come to Spokane, to spend Friday night in Spokane and go to Stop Making Sense on Saturday afternoon. 

So, I've rented an apartment for the night, bought a movie ticket, decided where to eat, and have made a list of a few things I might shop for. 

I've also left room for some serendipity in case something fun comes up in Spokane that I hadn't planned on.

2. I took advantage of the cooler weather and overcast sky this afternoon by taking my longest walk yet of the late summer. I'm encouraged by feeling strength return gradually to my legs and by the improvement in my wind. Today I walked to the high school on The Trail, then cut over to Jacobs Gulch Road and walked to the Shoshone Medical Center where I went up the stairs leading to the Health and Wellness Trail and walked on home by way of the last leg of The Trail and through our neighborhood.

I've worked my way up to about 3500 steps -- not an earth shattering number, but an encouraging number for me.

3. Debbie and I have two HelloFresh meals a week. Tonight, for the first time, HelloFresh sent us the ingredients for a vegan curry. I love making curry with curry paste. Tonight I made a curry with a packet of HelloFresh curry powder. It was a lot of fun.

All I had to do was boil noodles, run cold water over them, drizzle some sesame oil over them, and let them sit in the drainer for a while.

In the pot I'd used to boil the noodles, I cooked sliced mushrooms and sliced red pepper.

I added a bit more oil to the pot along with minced garlic, and, after it cooked about a minute, I added chili sauce, stock concentrate, curry powder, and coconut milk. Once I combined these ingredients, I stirred in the noodles, a dash of sugar, and splashes of the rest of the coconut milk. I removed the pot from the burner and added the juice of a lime.

I divided what was in the pot between two bowls and topped each serving with crushed peanuts and chopped cilantro. 

I have great news about his curry. 

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-18-2023: New Plans for the Weekend, Cooking Risotto, New Clean Sheets

1. Mark, Peter, and I had planned to meet in Spokane for two nights this week, starting Thursday. The three of us have not been in Spokane or on the Whitworth campus together since we were students there.

Mark called me this morning. His wife, Linda, is in the hospital with sepsis and cellulitis. We postponed our get together.

I decided, later in the day, that I would go to Spokane for a solo trip on Friday, spend the night, and come home Saturday. I'll spend some time Tuesday making plans and finding a place to stay. 

I'll have fun seeing Stop Making Sense at the IMAX and dining out and possibly taking in another source of entertainment.

I will be fervently hoping and praying that Linda recovers. 

I enjoy hanging out in Spokane by myself, but whatever I do will only be a shadow of the fun Peter, Mark, and I would have had.

2. For the second night in a row, I cooked something I'd never done before. On Sunday, I fixed basted pork chops, a first. Tonight, thanks to HelloFresh, I made risotto -- not only did I make it for the first time, I think this was the first time I ever ate risotto.

I chopped zucchini and halved grape tomatoes and roasted them.

I boiled a pot of five cups of water. 

In a large pan, I cooked the shallot I chopped up and then added a packet of arborio rice, chopped sun-dried tomatoes,  minced garlic, vegetable stock concentrate and more Tuscan heat spice blend than the recipe called for. 

I cooked this for a short while and then for the next, oh, I'd say, twenty minutes, I cooked the rice, starting with a cup of boiling water, stirring it, letting the rice absorb the liquid, and then repeating this several times with half cups of water.

When I finished cooking the rice, I added a packet of cream sauce base and more Tuscan heat spice blend.  Then I added and stirred in a generous chunk of butter and Parmesan cheese. Once the butter melted, I added and stirred in half of the roasted zucchini and grape tomatoes.

I put the risotto in bowls for Debbie and me, topped each bowl with the rest of the roasted zucchini and grape tomatoes and more Parmesan cheese.

It was a fun dish to make, and best of all

It worked! 

3. I ordered a new set of sheets for our queen bed. I laundered them. Today, I put them on the bed. It's a small luxury, having new clean sheets. Small, yes, but a source of pleasure. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-17-2023: Debbie Returns Home, Basting Pork Chops in the Skillet, Copper Is Becoming Bolder

1. Debbie arrived home last night around 8:00. Until she arrived in Seattle, she'd had good fortune with flights departing as scheduled, but her Seattle to Spokane flight was rescheduled, was delayed.  Debbie's trip to Michigan was terrific and, in a good way, intense what with many reunions packed into a short period of time. Debbie had enough energy to tell me some great stories about the ceremony, about seeing Adrienne and Brian, and about seeing five of her step-siblings and members of their families. 

2. Christy isn't feeling well this weekend and on Saturday she decided to cancel the family dinner she was scheduled to host on Sunday.  I was happy she decided to forego dinner and give herself more time to rest and recuperate.

Upon receiving the cancellation message, I took out two thick pork chops I had been thawing, knifed holes in them, and put them in a ziplock bag with Mojo Curillo marinating sauce.

Late this afternoon, I took out the pork chops, dumped the marinade, and let the pork chops reach room temperature. 

I sliced an onion into thin rings, peppered them, and cooked them and, when they had softened, added a container of leftover jasmine rice to the pan.

I heated the cast iron skillet, poured some vegetable oil in it, and seared the pork chops.

Once seared, I removed them long enough to add Mojo Curillo to the pan along with some dried rosemary.

Then I cooked the chops, and every twenty seconds or so, I spooned the combination of marinade sauce and rosemary over the pork chops. I flipped them, continued to baste them, and when they cooked to a point where there was a little bit of pink in the center, I removed them from the heat and let them rest for several minutes. 

I'd never tried this method of basting before. I was eager to see how the pork chops came out. 

I put a bed of rice on a plate and plopped the rested pork chop on top and dug in.

I was really happy. 

The meat was moist, shot through with flavor from the sauce and the rosemary. 

I'd put some of the marinade over the rice when I removed the chops from the skillet. 

That worked!

The basted pork chop worked! 

My simple pork chop dinner worked! 

3. With Debbie having returned home, she and Gibbs went to bed upstairs and, for the first time since Thursday, Copper and Luna roamed around the living room and kitchen. 

When I finally went to bed myself, Copper did something he's never done in two and a half years he's been with me. 

He jumped up on the bed and got close to my face. Usually he positions himself near my legs, but Luna was occupying a the bed's northeast quadrant and Copper surprised me my coming so close to my face and head. 

Maybe he came to that spot because he could more easily swat pairs of glasses off the nightstand. 

Or maybe he wanted to be close to me in a unique way. 

I don't know for sure, but I do know that Copper has become gradually more willing to get physically close to me in ways that seem bolder than ever. He's not like Luna. He's not a jump in my lap cat. 

Who knows, though?

Maybe that day is coming.  

I'd sure enjoy it. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-16-2023: Road Trip to The Old Montana Bar, Yakkin' at The Lounge, A YouTube Discovery: *What Makes this Film Great*

 1. Today, I originally thought I'd stay home and watch a couple of Hal Hartley movies. Early in the afternoon, I changed my mind. I felt like going on a short road trip, so I leapt into the Sube and barreled over Lookout Pass and eased into the small parking lot in front of The Old Montana Bar in Saltese. 

I enjoy The Old Montana Bar, especially in the afternoon, because the bar serves really cold mass produced beer in an iced glass, their small casino is the only place locally that I know of that has one of my favorite games, Wolf Moon, they serve reliably delicious food, and, at least in the afternoons, it's what I think of as a Social Security bar. Usually, almost everyone who's in the place is around my age. Today, a crew of, well, I'll say retirees, were in, having been out on ATVs enjoying, I presume, the Montana landscapes.

So I won a little money playing video poker, won a bit more playing Miss Kitty, and then the guy who'd been playing the machine that has Wolf Moon on it as an option changed machines, and I jumped on the machine in his place. I won a little money there.

I like to limit myself to two bottles of Budweiser at The Old Montana Bar. I also quit playing machines after two beers. Finishing my second beer coincided with being a little bit ahead in the casino.  I cashed out. I used some of my winnings to treat myself to a Mushroom Swiss Cheese Burger and fries with a Pepsi and a tall glass of ice water. 

I returned to Kellogg in a relaxed frame of mind. I had a very modest amount of extra cash in my wallet, and and was really happy that I made the 40 minute drive to Saltese to enjoy the ambience and solid food at The Old Montana Bar and to spin reels for as long as it took me to slowly drink a couple of long neck Budweiser beers. 

2. I didn't head straight home. I dropped in at The Lounge. Charlie was in the house, doing what Charlie always does, playing superb blues music, using an app on his cell phone, on The Lounge's digital jukebox.  It wasn't very busy when I arrived at The Lounge and so I got to yak quite a bit with Cas and had fun yakking with Ginger, Harley, and Riles. Harley told me that he hadn't cracked open any of the Heidelbergs I gave him a while back -- and for good reason! He and Candy are going to Montana later on to see Kim and Marty and Harley will take the Heidelbergs over as part of a birthday celebration. It was fun reminiscing with Harley about the days when Heidelberg was sold in keg bottles, when it was one of the Silver Valley's most popular beers, and the great enjoyment that beer gave so many people. 

3. Back home, I turned my attention to Hal Hartley, but not by watching another of his movies.

Instead, I went in search of videos of him talking about his filmmaking style and of other people talking about his movies.

I had the good fortune of stumbling upon a YouTube channel hosted by a film scholar, Aaron Hunter. Hunter is a teaching fellow at Trinity College in Dublin and he posts lectures on his What Makes This Film Great YouTube channel. 

To my delight, he has lectures on some of Hal Hartley's movies and tonight I listened to his analysis of the movie I watched on Friday night, The Unbelievable Truth. 

His lecture helped me understand Hartley's unconventional filmmaking much better. I'm not quite at a point where I can write about Hartley's style of making movies in my own words. I can say, however, that the same sorts of things that appeal to me about David Mamet's style -- the pauses, the repetitions -- are at work in Hal Hartley's writing and I can say that the same sort of non-realistic (or non-naturalistic) elements of the theater of the absurd that I enjoy so much are also at work in how Hartley writes and films movies.

To my further delight tonight, I also stumbled on Aaron Hunter's lecture explaining what makes one of my favorite of all movies, Between the Lines, great. I thought Hunter's insights were right on the mark as he discussed how Between the Lines captures the uncertainty the idealistic characters in this movie face as the independent weekly newspaper they work for is going under and as they wonder where their lives are headed as they approach their early thirties and realize that the dreams they had about their lives when they were younger are not coming true. 

I've watched Between the Lines at least a dozen times. I loved it when I was in my late twenties and felt so much of the ambivalence about life, love, sex, work, and the future as these characters experience. Watching the movie now, in my late sixties, it continues to work for me, not only as a superb period piece, released in 1977, anticipating the changes that were on their way in the 1980s, but also as a movie that I feel deeply, one that rekindles idealism I once felt and takes me back to disillusion I experienced as the life I dreamed of when I was in my twenties disintegrated as I moved into my thirties. 

Some of these characters are difficult to like because in their confusion they behave badly, say mean and self-centered things, hurt each other.

I, too, was very confused as I moved into my thirties and, I, too behaved badly, said mean, self-centered things, and hurt other people. I don't like that that's true, but it is and Between the Lines helps me understand my younger self and helps me, in my best moments, be somewhat forgiving of myself. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-15-2023: Debbie's Most Significant Weekend, Volleyball at Kellogg High, My Intro to Hal Hartley

1. Ah! Great! What a relief! Debbie's flights to Detroit departed and arrived on time. Debbie and Adrienne met up at the Detroit airport, rented a car, and drove to Debbie's step-sister's house where she and Adrienne will stay. Debbie is in the Lansing area to participate in a ceremony that will commit her father's and her step-mother's ashes to their resting place. Debbie's father died about thirty years ago and his wife, Phyllis, died three years ago. This weekend's gathering will be huge for Debbie. She'll be with Adrienne, see her brother, Brian, and Brian's wife, Diane, and spend time with as many of Phyllis's seven children and other members of the family tree who can make it. It promises to be a spirited and emotional weekend. 

2. Ed and I headed up to Andrews Gymnasium around 6:30 to watch Kellogg Wildcat volleyball. The Grangeville Bulldogs were visiting Kellogg. We arrived during the junior varsity match, which went five sets with the Wildcats prevailing. Ed wanted to watch two players in particular on the Kellogg varsity team. Ed has gotten to know Madison Cheney because she works at Garrenteed BBQ,  Ed's son-in-law's  food truck. He also wanted to see Alan and Peggy Derbyshire's granddaughter, Paige Yrjana play.

Kellogg also won the varsity match in four sets. The action was fun to watch. Madison Cheney was a powerful player for Kellogg, both as a spiker and a defender at the net. Paige Yrjana is a quick, active player, very impressive.

I thought the Kellogg team was as fun-loving and joyous a team of athletes as I'd ever seen. They were all smiles while in action and seemed to love supporting one another's efforts. I couldn't help but think of how, when I played high school basketball, I was so afraid of failing that I played with more anxiety than enjoyment. I wished I could have been as relaxed and loose as a player as these fun loving Wildcats were tonight. No matter the situation, they seemed closely bonded to one another and to be having a great time volleying the ball to each other and over the net. 

3. I don't know why back in the 1990s and the early 2000s when Hal Hartley was making quite a few independent movies, I didn't see any of them. They had to be playing at the Bijou in Eugene, but not only did I not see his movies, I have no memory of deciding not to go to them.

Well, starting this month, the Criterion Channel is featuring a bunch of his movies (maybe all of them) in a collection. I'd listened to the channel's interview with Hal Hartley before I went to Kellogg High School and when I returned home, I watched his first movie, The Unbelievable Truth.

The movie zeroes in on a small town on Long Island. Two things are happening at the same time: first, a man from the town has been released from prison and returns to his hometown and, second, a teenage woman is in a state of malaise as she nears the end of high school and is certain that the world could come to an end any day, any hour, any minute.

The movie glides along, almost like a dream, and through ingeniously crafted dialogue and a series of set. scenes, tableaux really, the movie takes us into the perceptions, assumptions, rumor mongering, frustrations, complications, and contradictions of the characters who populate this small town.

Critic Vikram Murthy summed up Hal Hartley's work this way:

Hartley remains one of American cinema’s foremost chroniclers of wayward malaise; his existential portraits foreground their artifice while plumbing genuine emotional depths. His indelible characters are embittered romantics who encompass a bevy of contradictions: they’re sincere and ironic, passionate but apathetic, principled yet inevitably compromised. In other words, they’re true human beings.

It's just this malaise and this movement between romantic longings and bitterness that propels The Unbelievable Truth, making it just what I want from independent movies: a film that bears little resemblance to higher budget studio projects, that tells its story by moving outward from the troubled interiors of its characters, and that progresses not so much by developing a plot, but by developing mood through conversations and farcical coincidences and accidental discoveries. 

My plan is to watch as many of these Hal Hartley movies as I can. Watching this movie, listening to Hartley being interviewed, and reading interviews he's given has me intrigued and I'm convinced that watching his movies and learning more about them will help me in my endless effort simply to understand movie making better.  

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-14-2023: Breakfast at Sam's, Beer from The Dalles, No Recipe Cooking with Gravy

1. I was going through my morning routine this morning when a text message flew in from Don K. He and Jake had a round of golf planned and were going to have breakfast at Sam's beforehand. Don invited me to join them. I did. We had a good time together, talking about golf, the humbling experience of aging, and other stuff. I ordered half an order of biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs on the side and, as you'll see (if you keep reading), my order inspired how I cooked dinner for Debbie and me. 

2. Debbie arrived home from school and we cracked open the two beers from Freebridge Brewing in The Dalles. Debbie enjoyed her pint of Dirty Juicy IPA and I was impressed with my Pulpit Rock Pilsner, a fun German style beer that also featured some Oregon hops. Debbie and I yakked about the possibility of future travel -- and, if nothing else, thinking about going on a trip in a year or so got our imaginations stirred up.

3. I had dinner ready when Debbie walked in the door. I cooked it knowing that she was driving to Spokane this evening and spending the night at the Ramada Inn at the airport and catching a 6 a.m. flight to Salt Lake City and then Detroit. 

I took out a chunk of frozen ground beef and thawed and browned it in the cast iron skillet. While it cooked, I chopped onion, celery, and garlic and got out another pan, cooked these ingredients, added about 4/5s of the ground beef and added a shake or two of frozen green beans out of the bag. 

I kept some ground beef in the cast iron pan because I decided to make a ground beef gravy (inspired by having eaten gravy for breakfast). I used ground beef from Costco and it is lean, so I added olive oil and butter to the pan along with flour, stirred it up and cooked it and then added milk and, in a moment of inspiration, added sour cream to the gravy, giving this meal a hint of stroganoff (if only I'd had mushrooms on hand). 

I also made a pot of jasmine rice. 

So, for each of us, I put rice on the bottom of a bowl, added the ground beef and vegetable mixture, and topped it with gravy. 

If I do this dish again, I'll fry an egg for my bowl and plop it on top of the gravy and ask Debbie if she'd like the same.

I'm also thinking it's high time I tried cooking loco moco -- I'd say tonight's meal was a distant shirt tail cousin of loco moco -- and would have been even more closely related had I included a fried egg. 

We were both very happy with this dinner.

We agreed.

It worked!

Three Beautiful Things 09-13-2023: Clean Litter for Luna and Copper, A Good Review, Cookin' with Heidelberg

1. Today was the day. I want Copper and Luna to have as clean of a litter pans as possible. Normally, that means keeping the pans scooped. Today, however, was the day. I emptied both pans of old litter, scrubbed them, and put new litter in their pans. I couldn't tell afterward if they appreciated my efforts or were giving me the feline "well, it's about time" look. 

2. I had a virtual review session today with the guys who advise me about my one modest IRA. We all agreed. The account is humming along in pretty good shape and we'll see toward the end of October whether any adjustments might be warranted. 

3. Thanks to popping open a Heidelberg after that short virtual meeting and thanks to deciding to enjoy a second can while I cooked dinner, I'm down to two Heidelbergs left of the forty-eight cans I purchased last summer for our Class of 72 50th reunion. 

The Heidelberg refreshed me as I roasted chopped zucchini and red pepper, boiled a batch of penne, and made a creamy sauce, following HelloFresh's directions. I made the sauce in the same pot I boiled the pasta in, then I added the pasta back into the sauce along with fresh peas and the roasted vegetables. I squeezed generous amounts of lemon juice into this Pasta Primavera and seasoned it not only with salt and pepper, but with much of a packet of Tuscan heat spice blend. The heat worked beautifully in contrast to the rich creamy sauce. 

I served Debbie and me each a bowl of this excellent pasta dish and we agreed.

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-12-2023: Care for the Camry, Street Paving, Block 15 Beers Rock

1. I made a quick trip to Parker Toyota in CdA today to have the Camry serviced. Talking with the service guy after the car had been inspected and the tires rotated, I learned more than I ever had known about the life span of synthetic oil and found out when the Camry will be due for its next big service job. I left happy that the Camry is in such good shape and happy to be enlightened about caring for our car. 

2. I drove straight home from Parker Toyota. When I arrived in Kellogg, the big day I've been anticipating for a few weeks had arrived. A crew was paving the street (Little Cameron) in front of our house. Yes, okay, it was a minor inconvenience not be able use our driveway and to have to park on a side street near our house, but very minor. I've never quite known the last couple of weeks or so exactly what day Little Cameron was scheduled to be paved and it's good to have that done.   

3. Debbie arrived home and barely settled into her spot on the sofa when I said, "Sticky Hands?"

"God, yes!"

So I cracked open the can of Block 15's Sticky Hands 2IPA and poured us each a glass of it. Suddenly Debbie and I were having a party, our favorite kind, splitting a can of beer that we not only enjoy tasting, but that has great memories locked up in it. The Sixteen Tons Cafe in Eugene seemed to always have Sticky Hands on tap and I indulged not only this beer's array of flavors and the bite of bitterness at the finish, but also time traveled back to the many great times I had in Eugene exploring beers and having great conversations with other beer hounds. 

Carol and Paul gave us a second beer from Corvallis's mighty Block 15. It's called Deep Seek and neither of us had heard of it, let alone drunk it, before. Deep Seek not as aggressive as Sticky Hands. Its ABV is lower and its hop profile is simpler. I enjoy Hazy IPAs a lot and, at the same time, I really enjoy going back to the pre-hazy days and diving into a classic West Coast IPA. Deep Seek is just that. If I had to do it over again, I would start with the Deep Seek and then drink the Sticky Hands second. My taste buds were delightfully overwhelmed by Sticky Hands. But, I enjoyed Deep Seek. I'd drink it again -- and, if I do, I'll make sure it's the first (or only) beer I drink while having a session. 

I won't go into detail, but I fixed HelloFresh's chickpea salad sandwiches with a side of roasted potato  wedges for Debbie and me.

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-11-2023: Uptown Walking, Oregon Beers, Grilled Chicken Family Dinner

 1. There's this spot near Kellogg Lumber where the Trail of the CdAs has a branch trail that goes uphill toward uptown Kellogg. Since I'm trying to get my legs and hips accustomed to walking again and trying to build up my wind, I wondered how it would go if I parked the Sube down by The Beanery, walked east on the trail, went up that branch trail toward town, and then walked back to the car via McKinley and down Hill Street. 

On this overcast day, with no direct sunshine, this walk went really well. When I arrived near where I parked the car, I kept walking to the Bunker Ave side of the Furniture Exchange and stopped by Beach Bum Bakery's mobile shack and picked up the half a dozen bagels I ordered a couple of hours earlier.  

I think the mild discomfort I felt in my legs and hips came from the fact that I'm reversing some atrophy. I'm hoping as the weather continues to cool down and as I have more days free of direct sunlight that I'll continue to increase my number of steps and get my lower body used to moving again. 

2. When Debbie and I arrived at Carol and Paul's for family dinner, Carol gave me four cans of beer she and Paul bought for me in Hood River. These were thank you beers for when I kept an eye on their place when they went to Rockaway Beach, OR. 

Two of the beers are from Corvallis, Oregon's mighty Block 15, including their majestic hop bomb IPA, Sticky Hands. The other two are from Freebridge Brewing in The Dalles and they will be the first beers I've ever drunk from that operation.

3. Our family dinner tonight was another superb meal. 

Carol started us off with an Apple Cider Moscow Mule, a very tasty and refreshing drink.

She also set out a tray of her homemade pickles along with slices of two superb cheddar cheeses as an appetizer. 

Paul grilled boneless chicken thighs and drumsticks for the main course, accompanied by Christy's potato salad (which featured more of Carol's pickles),  Debbie's minty, lime-y fruit salad, one of the best fruit salads I've ever eaten, and sweet delicious corn on the cob.  For dessert, Carol served up her Chocolate Zucchini Cake, which I've heard called famous. If it is famous, its fame is appropriate. It was a great dessert. 

Our dinner had a low key disco music theme. Christy, Paul, Carol, and Molly all were at Saturday's Silver Valley Chamber event in Wallace called Disco Murder Mystery. All through the evening tonight, disco music played in the background and we heard a handful of stories from Saturday night's gala.

We also talked quite a bit about our local schools and listened to Debbie talk a bit about her first week back teaching at Pinehurst Elementary School. All in all, Debbie is off to a good start, and, as always, she faces different challenges whether presented by her students, parents, or the school system itself. There's no way around having these different challenges crop up. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-10-2023: ZOOM Time is Solemn, Diane is Reading David Lodge, A Day Early for Family Dinner

1. Bill and Diane sent out a last minute invitation to talk on Zoom this morning. I was able to accept and the three of us had quite a discussion. Bill's mother died recently and Bill told me what happened during his mother's last days and hours and talked about other matters related to her death. 

Diane has another surgery coming up in about a week. It's related to her recent cancer diagnosis and Diane talked about the nuts and bolts of the surgery and also about her mental and spiritual state as she not only prepares for the surgery, but as she lives with a number of uncertainties related to what they will or won't find when the surgeon opens her up. 

2. The last time we talked with each other, Diane had mentioned that she'd like to read another author whose sensibilities might be similar to Robertson Davies. I recommended she give David Lodge a try. She is doing just that. Diane has started Lodge's novel, Therapy, and she loves it. Like Davies, Lodge's work is funny, learned, humane, and insightful about human life and it's working for Diane. 

I loved hearing this. It made me think I might have fun revisiting both Robertson Davies and David Lodge.

3. We don't have a set day for family dinner. Depending on people's schedules and activities, we usually have dinner either on Sunday or Monday -- sometimes, even on Tuesday.

Carol recently sent out a schedule for when dinners will be for the rest of 2023 and I had it in my head that we were going to be having dinner on Sundays regularly because Paul and Carol will be working with the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace to prepare a production in November.

So Debbie fixed a fruit salad and bought the wine we are contributing to this week's dinner and we started to pile into the Camry.

But, oddly it seemed to me, Paul had Cleo on a leash in front of Christy's house.

Paul and Carol's car was parked in front of Christy's house. 

I wondered out loud to Paul why he wasn't home grilling chicken.

Paul replied, "Are you thinking family dinner is tonight?"

"It's not?"

Paul then called out to Carol who was in the back yard with Christy to confirm that, indeed, Debbie and I were mixed up about what day we were having family dinner. 

Ha! We had it wrong.

I went back in the house and popped open a Heidelberg and once again marveled at how good this beer tastes, thinking, once again, that 7 Seas, the craft brewery who makes it now, might be using the same recipe as Heidelberg from back in the day, but I think this craft brewery has access to better ingredients and maybe they use better brewing techniques. 

I always liked Heidelberg when Dad drank it, but I never remembered it tasting this good! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-09-2023: A Perfect Walk, A Great Bowl of Pasta, Remembering When I Enjoyed Football

 1. I experienced it as the perfect walk. No, it wasn't terribly long, but walking from our house to Kellogg High School and back again afforded me some uphill walking, just the right distance for the shape my legs are in right now, and a way to build more strength in my legs. I set out around 5 o'clock and much of The Trail to the high school was shaded. Being out of the sun energized me. 

2. Debbie told me she had an idea for dinner tonight and it was superb. She boiled a pot of penne pasta, drained it, and added fresh garden tomatoes chopped up, smoked clams, garlic, oil, chili flakes, and I'm not sure what else. Her creation was delicious, comforting, and satisfying -- and we have leftovers. 

3. I experienced an odd twinge of nostalgia today. About ten years ago, I lost interest in college (and professional) football (and not because of any current changes) and quit watching it. I read up a little bit on what's happening so that I know what other people are talking about if the topic comes up. Today, I felt some very low grade grief that I no longer feel excitement in September that I used to feel for start of the football season. Today would have been a fun day to feel that excitement. Oregon won. WSU won. Idaho won. I miss the old excitement, but it's just not in me any more in the present. Fortunately, a lot of fun and fond memories are still in me! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-08-2023: Blood Draw Routine Resumes, A Beneficial Walk, HelloFresh Taco Friday

 1. Back in 2015 when the University of Maryland transplant program in Baltimore determined I was fit for a kidney transplant and put me on the list, I received a box of kits. Each kit contained a vial for a blood sample. I went to the Labcorp office in Greenbelt month after month. A phlebotomist drew my blood and sent the sample to Baltimore. I had a routine and I continued that routine when I left Maryland's care and enrolled in the transplant program at  Providence Sacred Heart in Spokane and I continued the routine, albeit to a different transplant program.  

In the fall of 2020, however, in consultation with both the transplant nurse and nephrologist Dr. Bieber, I switched my status on the transplant list to inactive -- so, no more monthly blood draws.

Well, a few weeks ago, I changed my status back to active (I am, however, inactive right now until Oct. 15) and a few days ago a blood sample kit arrived in the mail.

So, I walked to the Shoshone Medical Center. The order for the blood draw had come in from Spokane. The  phlebotomist was a total pro and she and I carefully worked out the details of what the blood draw and return of the kit requires. 

So, I'm back into the blood draw routine again -- I enjoyed it before and I enjoyed it again today.

2. Deciding to walk to the Shoshone Medical Center was a superb move. The outdoor temperature was mild enough and I walked in enough shade that I didn't suffer from either heat or the sun. I'm trying to rebuild strength in my legs and walking uphill on the trail to the stairway that goes down to the medical center parking lot gave my legs and my wind a test that seemed just right. 

My plan is to increase the distance I walk as my legs regain strength and I'm hoping that it won't be too long before I decide I'm ready to return to the Health and Wellness Trail.

I'm also planning to enjoy the milder weather by riding my bicycle again -- keeping my fingers crossed. 

3. Debbie had a good first week of school and when she dropped in at The Lounge late this afternoon on her way home, two of her fellow teachers were in the house and she came home having had a great time. 

I didn't join Debbie. 

I fixed dinner.

I broke out a black bean taco bag from HelloFresh.

I sliced and pickled some onion slices by putting the slices in a pot over a low heat and pickling them with lime juice and sugar.  

I also fixed a cabbage topping for the tacos by combining shredded cabbage, mayo, and cilantro.

I heated olive oil, cooked more thin onion slices, and added a can of black beans to the onions along with a southwest spice blend and a seasoning paste included in the bag. Once the liquid had dissipated, I mashed the beans. In a separate pan, I heated up the last of our leftover meat from our Mexican dinner on Sunday. 

Debbie and I each loaded up flour tortillas with the beans, meat, pickled onions, cabbage, Mexican crema, and grated cheese. 

Good news! 

It worked! 

(And so did the muffins I baked that Debbie took to Pinehurst Elementary today. She left the house with thirty-five muffins and brought home two! Different staff members told Debbie they enjoyed the muffins. They worked!)

Three Beautiful Things 09-07-2023: Afternoon Baking Project, Dinner Sandwiches, Thursday's NYTimes Crossword Weirdness

1. Debbie signed up to bring a cake or something similar to celebrate a Pinehurst Elementary School staff member's Sept 8th birthday. Debbie asked me to help her out by baking Morning Glory Muffins. I was happy to help out and, while I don't bake much, it's a blast when I assemble the ingredients and bake these muffins. 

Morning Glory Muffins are loaded! 

I grated carrots, apples, and zucchini. To answer the recipe's call for applesauce, I used the last of the star anise and date applesauce I made last week and stretched it with about an added half a cup of store bought. I cracked eggs and measured out all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, coconut flakes, vegetable oil, sugar, vanilla extract, crushed pineapple, and chopped pecans. The dry ingredients went in one bowl. The wet ingredients in another. The grated stuff had its own bowl. First I combined the wet and the grated ingredients and then added them to the dry ones and PRESTO! with some effort I combined them all and spooned the batter into muffin liners. 

I baked forty muffins. Three dozen went to Pinehurst and we kept four at home. 

The project wore me out, but it was a most satisfying fatigue. 

2. Debbie arrived home at the end of her third straight day of things going pretty well at school. We both decided we did not want to go out for food and live music at The Beanery, but neither of us had a lot of energy for cooking dinner either.

Fortunately, I had purchased a loaf of bread earlier today along with lunchmeat and cheese and fortunately our next door neighbor, Jane, had given us a bag of tomatoes. 

Debbie said she'd be happy with a tomato sandwich and some tortilla chips. 

I said I'd be happy with a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich and chips.

We kept it simple and tasty and, as a bonus, having already taken care of all the dishes I used to bake the muffins, our decision to eat sandwiches meant no more cooking, no more cleanup! 

3. If you work New York Times crossword puzzles, you know that Thursday's puzzle is always, well, unusual. Sometimes I enjoy the whimsical nature of Thursday's puzzle, sometimes the whimsy and cleverness annoy me, and, at least once, I've thrown up my hands and given up. Today's puzzle didn't have any rebuses or weird geometry. It had a theme -- generally speaking, having to do with technology -- and the clues for the theme words were, indeed, whimsical, if not silly. 

I figured out the theme and eventually I completed the puzzle and was, to be honest, relieved that it would be another week before an unpredictable and maybe even goofy Thursday puzzle would roll around again. 

(I'll just add that it's possible I'm a spoil sport about Thursday's puzzles. Every day, each NYTimes crossword online is accompanied by an article reviewing the puzzle -- and every time I've read the review of a Thursday puzzle, the reviewer was tickled by whatever the puzzle within the Thursday puzzle was. Maybe one day I'll find delight in these Thursday puzzles -- but, for now, well, I feel low grade dread when Thursday comes around, but I'm committed to giving these Thursday puzzles my best shot week after week.)

Three Beautiful Things 09-06-2023: When Gibbs is Away the Cats Will Play, Old Feelings Surface, A Loaded Session of Music and Cooking and Tequila

1. I dropped Gibbs off at the groomer this afternoon and so Copper and Luna spent about two and a half hours or so outside the bedroom. It's not so much that they do anything much different when they are in the living room and kitchen. They spend much of their time, no matter where they are, lying down, content. They like being where I am, though, and so today Luna jumped on the chair and sat beside me, purring, and Copper wandered around a bit.  Copper found a ball of Debbie's yarn to bat around for a short while, but eventually he found a spot on the rug near where I was seated and curled himself up, contented, at ease.

2. Late this afternoon, after I took a walk, I felt an urgency to listen to two John Gorka songs, "I Saw A Stranger with Your Hair" and "Love is Our Cross to Bear". Both songs are on his 1990 album, Land of the Bottom Line. I found the album on Spotify and played the songs. I was suddenly besieged by feelings I had nearly forty years ago, feelings that these two songs used to stir up in me when this album came out several years after I first felt them. When I was much younger, I had no idea that strong feelings never really go away. I thought, back then, that, in time, as I moved on from broken relationships, the enjoyment in these unions I once felt would disappear, as well as the desire to experience that enjoyment with that woman again. 

Now I know better. For years now, I've thought, yeah, The Boggles got it absolutely right in their song, "Video Killed the Radio Star" when they sang, "we can't rewind we've gone too far".  Decades ago, I thought (stupidly) that I could rewind, go back to where I was before my insides got all stirred up in a relationship and in its eventual demise.

But, I can't rewind, because, in a very good way, things went too far. 

And, so, for about ten minutes today, it was about 1990 again and the feelings of loss and yearning John Gorka stirred up in me back then were back for a while today, surprisingly fresh, surprisingly strong, and mercifully brief. 

I can't rewind, but the John Gorka songs ended, and soon the feelings that always live in my body returned to wherever they reside in me, go back to being dormant, and, today, I got on with my 2023 life and 1990 faded away.

3.  Life this evening in 2023 was good. I poured myself a mixture of tequila, fresh squeezed mandarin orange juice, a touch of Cointreau, and a squeeze of lime juice. 

I was in the mood for J. J. Cale and Leon Russell. I drifted into a mild euphoria listening to them separately and together, on YouTube, in a 1979 recording made at Russell's Paradise Studio.

As I prepared dinner, I switched the music to Leon Russell exclusively and boiled a pot of pasta, roasted some sliced almonds,  cooked up garlic and sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, and added halved cherry tomatoes and sliced mushrooms along with some vegetable stock concentrate, a half a cup of water, cream cheese, and butter to the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes.  

Before long, I had a sauce.

I had drained the spaghetti, returned it to its pot, and poured the sauce over it.

I filled a bowl of spaghetti for Debbie and one for me and topped both bowls with almonds and parsley.

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-05-2023: Walking Uptown, Making Fish Chowder, "A GREAT Day!"

 1. Included in my errands today was a trip to the post office. I parked the Sube near the Inland Lounge and walked to the post office to buy stamps. I continued south to Market, turned west, walked north on Main to its intersection with McKinley and then strolled back to the car. Did I accumulate a ton of steps? No. Did this walk help snap me out of a low grade funk I've been in over the last few weeks? Without a doubt. Did I feel the benefits of this walk in my hips and legs? Definitely. 

I experienced the benefits of this, by most measures, short walk through the night. I slept great.

2. I had taken crab stock (thank you for the shells, Kellogg Elks) out of the freezer to thaw toward the end of last week, fully expecting to make a fish chowder over the weekend.

For good and fun reasons, I delayed this project, but today I made this, for me, much anticipated dinner.

I was going to start by cooking some bacon, but, alas, when I unzipped the ziplock bag and took out our last bacon slices, they were turning green. 

I dumped them and, instead, I melted a good hunk of butter in our new pot.

Before melting the butter, I had chopped up a white onion, most of a small bag of baby Yukon golds, half a dozen or so celery sticks, and a handful or two of baby carrots. 

I dumped all of these chopped foods into the melted butter and seasoned it all with Old Bay Seasoning, Unami, salt, and pepper.

When the onion bits were tender and translucent, I poured a quart of crab stock over the vegetables and slow cooked them until the carrots and potatoes were tender.

I had thawed a couple handfuls or more of raw shrimp and cooked them in butter and I opened a couple cans of clams.

I added in the shrimp and clams, including the clam juice and the buttery liquid left over from cooking the shrimp.

I salted the chowder a bit more, added a few splashes of whole milk, and heated the chowder up a bit with smokey red chili flakes. 

All the chowder need now was to warm up a bit and then Debbie and I dove in.

I'm thrilled to report ---

It worked! 

3. When Debbie arrives home from school, sometimes she says five words that are awesome to hear. Today was her first day with students and when she walked in the door, she said, "I had a GREAT day!" 

I enjoyed hearing her good news even more than the chowder we had for dinner! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-04-2023: Freshening Up, Great Comfort Casserole, Rats in Manhattan

1.  I got my material life in somewhat better order today: got my laundry done, discarded old clothes with holes in them, ordered new sheets for the bed along with sleepwear, socks, toothbrushes -- nothing too exciting, but these things needed my attention.

2. Debbie transformed the leftovers from Sunday's Mexican dinner at Kelly's into a delicious casserole that she served along with chips and salsa. It was a most comforting meal with smoked meat, rice, corn, and delicious seasonings and it was mild. I could have added hot sauce or pepper flakes, but I enjoyed being comforted by this dinner without a lot of heat.

3. The latest issue of The New Yorker is a lot of fun. It's dedicated to animals and features pieces from over the years. One is on butterflies. Another on pigeons. I can read about emotional support animals. And squid. Tonight, though, I crawled into bed, protected by Luna and Copper, and read part of Joseph Mitchell's 1944 essay on rats in New York City -- maybe not the best subject to go to sleep with, but it's a fascinating piece and I love reading Joseph Mitchell. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-03-2023: Cooling Down, We Were Dinner Guests, Clark Is In the House

1. I have spent much of this summer not wanting to experience a repeat of what happened back in June when, on a simple bicycle ride from Kellogg to Smelterville and back again, on a morning I had thought was mild, I got over exposed to sunshine, overheated, nauseous, and dehydrated. The physical effects of that incident stayed with me for about five days. I haven't been back on my bicycle since and I've spent way too much time indoors, especially on hot and sunny days.

It seems to be cooling off some here in early September. 

I want (and need) to exert whatever mental strength I possess to break out of the habit I've fallen into in the last couple of months of staying indoors a lot and get back out and be active. 

I'm going to have to push myself. I develop routines or habits and they are difficult for me to change. 

I've got to, though.

I don't want to fall into a major funk from the fairly minor one I'm in right now.

2. While I was over at Carol and Paul's house feeding the rabbits and checking up on the enigmatic cat, Clark, Debbie texted me with the news that Diane's daughter, Kelly, was fixing a Mexican dinner for a bunch of family members and we were invited.

If we accepted this invitation, it meant that Gibbs would get to see about six dogs, all smaller than he is, and mostly related to him one way or another. 

We accepted the invitation. 

Dinner was at Kelly's house -- which used to be Diane's house -- and, oh my! what a dinner Kelly, with help from her brother, Matt, prepared.

Regarding food and drink, the first delight of the evening was the dispenser of margaritas. All I had to do was put my ice filled Solo cup under the spigot, open it, and fill my cup. The margarita was mercifully mixed with a low to moderate amount of tequila and so I could enjoy sipping on it without getting hammered. 

The second delight: Matt had smoked a batch of tomatoes and with them he made a salsa that was mild to medium in heat and absolutely over the top in flavor. Therefore, snacking on a few chips with this smokey salsa before the main event was awesome.

The third delight was the main event itself. 

We each made ourselves a tostada. 

On top of a corn tortilla we piled any number of the following options: homemade refried beans, grilled pork, chicken, and/or beef, Mexican cheese, shredded cabbage, and salsa. Kelly made Mexican rice and Mexican street corn on the cob as sides. 

I might have forgotten something in my description, but suffice it to say, this was an awesome dinner, with great variety, textures, and a nice amount of smoke. 

Then, one more delight: Leah made a light, spongy Mexican cake for dessert. It was out of sight. 

3. After dinner, I checked up on the enigmatic Clark (the cat) over at Carol and Paul's. I opened the back sliding door and sat around, playing a game on my phone. Lo and behold, I heard Clark come in the house. I saw him inspect things down the hallway. I closed the sliding door, looked around to see where Clark might be. 

He disappeared -- maybe he went under a bed or he might have hiding places I don't know about.

Not sure.

But I am nearly 100% certain that when I walked out the door, Clark was in the house somewhere. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-02-2023: I Try to Please Clark the Cat, A Fun Crowd at The Lounge, Cajun Spiced Dinner

1. Carol and Paul's cat, Clark, had me concerned. When Carol and Paul gave me home, garden, and animal care instructions, my understanding was that Clark would spend the days outdoors but probably want to come indoors at night. Well, Friday, I never saw Clark. I went to the house in the evening and hung out for about half an hour with the back sliding door open, but Clark never came in the house and I never saw him. 

Today, to my relief, I laid eyes on Clark (and the outdoor cat, Leo). Clark was resting on a pillow on the other side of the sliding door and then he leaped down and went somewhere in the back yard and gardens. I returned to the house this evening and once again hung out for over a half an hour. I opened the sliding door. Clark never came indoors. 

I'll check again on Sunday (and Monday) and just see if the enigmatic Clark might change his mind and come in the house. 

(Clark and Leo have a food outside. I'll also make sure they have plenty to eat.)

2. Debbie and I decided to see what was happening at The Lounge around 4:00 and we settled in at the bar and before long a crowd swarmed in to refresh themselves after playing in a golf tournament at the Pinehurst course. They were in high spirits. The golfing was good. They had a good time at the 19th hole at the golf course, enjoying adult beverages and a post-tournament hamburger dinner. 

I hadn't see Jake for a while and he and I yakked at the bar for a while. Debbie also joined in and Debbie saw Cindy and Carol Lee for the first time in quite a while. 

When Debbie and I left to go home for dinner, the table of golfers were having a blast, telling stories, making wise cracks, and laughing. 

3. While at The Lounge, Debbie recommended a change in dinner plans. I had thawed out crab stock and was ready to make a shrimp chowder for dinner, but she thought I ought to hold off on that plan and fix the two sausages we had in the icebox.

So, I boiled some diced baby Yukon golds, sautéed a chopped onion, added zucchini and tomatoes to the sauté along with the sausages chopped up. When the potatoes were tender, I put them in the pan, seasoned it all with our Cajun spice blend, and guess what?

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-01-2023: The Wine Arrived, Great Trips to the Dump, Quesadillas After a Session at The Lounge

1. I relaxed for a couple of hours at Paul and Carol's house, working the Friday NYTimes crossword puzzle and waiting for the UPS driver to bring a couple cases of wine. She arrived with the wine, I signed for it, and everything was good at chez Roberts.

2. All the new kitchenware we brought into the house this week came in cardboard boxes. Christy also had a small pile of cardboard to be recycled, so I loaded up Christy's pickup with our cardboard, Christy's, and a couple trashed garden hoses and a couple other items of trash and rolled out to the transfer station. I loved having our garage emptied of cardboard and helping Christy get rid of what I took out there for her.

That was my first trip.

My second trip involved taking a fold up bed frame and mattress that are no longer useable to the transfer station. I recycled the metal and dumped the mattress. 

3. After a rousing couple of hours at The Lounge yakkin' with Debbie, Ed, Deanne, Fitz, and Cas, I returned home and used my new cookware for the first time.

I made HelloFresh quesadillas. All I had to do was peel and chop a small sweet potato and roast the pieces in the oven, chop an onion and a green pepper and cook them. When the sweet potatoes were roasted, I put them in with the onions and green peppers. Meanwhile, I made a crema of sour cream, southwest spice, and lime juice. I laid out two tortillas and covered each with a layer of Mexican cheese, topped the cheese with the veggies, and added more cheese on top of the vegetables. I folded the tortillas and put them in the vegetable pan until each side was brown and the cheese melted. I cut each quesadilla into wedges and topped them with crema and salsa and put lime wedges on the side. 

It worked! 

Three Beautiful Things 08-31-2023: Kitchen Rearranged, Helping Carol and Paul, Improvised Dinner

1. Our new kitchen knife set arrived today and so I leaped into action reconfiguring our little kitchen. I filled the sink with warm soapy water and washed our new cookware and the new knives. I figured out which of our kitchenware pieces can stay in our kitchen and which will be in the basement. It's all good. I think, for now, things are pretty well settled again. Next it's a matter of cutting, dicing, slicing, boiling, frying, sautéing, blending, grating, well, in short, cooking! 

2. Carol, Paul, Molly, Zoe, Jason, Cosette, Taylor,  Saphire, and four family dogs will descend upon Rockaway Beach in Oregon for the Labor Day weekend. Today, I dropped in at Carol and Paul's house and they told me what they needed me to do at their house with cats, rabbits, wine, pumpkins, flower pots, lights, locks, and other details while they're gone.

I think I got it! 

3. Debbie came home from school for a short time this afternoon and then headed back to Pinehurst Elementary for a school open house, starting at five o'clock.

I decided to draw upon things I've learned from cooking HelloFresh dishes and improvised a dinner for myself.

To start, I put a pot of salt water on to boil so I could cook a batch of rigatoni. I heated up some olive oil in the cast iron pan and cooked a couple of chopped tomatoes until tender. To the tomatoes, I added a can of drained black beans and, as they heated, I added a dollop of sour cream, pasta water, some cream cheese, and a small chunk of butter. I seasoned this mixture with cumin, garlic powder, and umami and, when the pasta was cooked, added it to the beans and tomatoes.  I further seasoned my dinner with some ground red pepper for heat and, having put my meal in a bowl, I squeezed lemon juice over the top along with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. 

It worked!