Three Beautiful Things 04-25-2024: David Byrne on *Fresh Air*, Into the Great Wide Open, Spicing Up the Curry

1. Out of the blue the other day, Deborah called me. She was out driving around in her car, listening to Fresh Air, and wanted me to know that Terry Gross was interviewing David Byrne. She knew that I'd been ecstatic last fall when I went to Spokane to watch the remastered version of Stop Making Sense at Riverstone Square's IMAX theater. She figured, 100% correctly, that I'd love to hear this interview.

Today I listened to it while on a cardio machine at the Fitness Center. I'm not sure what my expectations were, but the interview exceeded them! I was very impressed with how forthcoming and open David Byrne was about his young life, his songwriting, his influences, and his sense of himself as a performer,  how he moves and sings on stage, especially in Stop Making Sense. 

2. Stu and I were yakkin' by text message about all the uncertainties in our lives. Debbie and I yak about the same thing from time to time. She and I chuckle at ourselves for having thought, when we were young and life was tumultuous, that when we grew older, things would smooth out, life would be settled, we'd get to coast. Ha! 

So, after listening to the David Byrne interview, I dialed up the episode of Tom Petty's old show, Buried Treasures that was playing on the 24/7 Buried Treasures channel on the Sirius/XM app. 

For many reasons having to do with uncertainties in our life right now -- you know, kidney transplant, will Debbie teach another year?, etc. -- just hearing Tom Petty's voice as the show's host planted in my mind his song "Into the Great Wide Open". 

I'd always thought of this as a young person's song, of the way life, when we were young, could seem so full of possibilities and so many unknowns, as if we were about to jump in a car and just travel, without plans, the wide open roads stretching across the USA.

I'm seventy years old. 

Maybe the Great Wide Open has become The Great Unknown, but whatever it is, I know what it's not. 

It's not the Great Wide Certain.

Thinking about these things and listening to Tom Petty's music selections kept me going as exercised for a last half an hour on a second cardio machine. 

3. I broke open our second HelloFresh bag and fixed Debbie and me a Creamy Chicken and Potato Curry. It was supposed to include peas, but either the packers at HelloFresh didn't pack our peas or I lost the packet. No problem! Today I had bought another big container of spinach and I simply put spinach instead of peas in the curry and it worked out great. In fact, I think spinach worked better than the peas would have. This curry was mild, no heat at all, so Debbie and I both added smokey red pepper flakes to our helpings and enjoyed the spicier version much more than the mild one. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-24-2024: The Washing Machine Didn't Walk Away, Slow Weight Loss, A Fun Tortellini Dinner

1. In the past, when I've put the queen sized blankets from my bed in the washing machine, it's made the machine rock violently during the spin cycle and try to walk away!  Each time I thought I'd balanced the load, but I guess I hadn't. 

Today, I decided to see what would happen if, instead of taking the blanket to the laundromat, I tried putting them in our machine again.

You know what happened? 

NOTHING!

I divided the blankets into two loads and felt a great sense of triumph (!) when both loads cycled through peacefully and my blankets were clean.

2. I did a lot of writing today -- more on that at a later date -- and I didn't want to leave my laundering project unattended, so, as far as exercise goes, I took a day off. 

I'm happy to say, though, that my slow, not always steady, effort to lose weight continues to move in the right direction. I set goals for myself in five pound increments and I just surpassed my most recent goal. It took several weeks, but I've tried not to get anxious about the slow pace of my weight loss. I just do my best to stay the course. 

3. Debbie and I enjoyed our chicken dinner very much Tuesday evening. Our remaining HelloFresh bag is also a chicken dinner and we decided to do something different tonight. 

Drawing upon things I've learned from preparing HelloFresh meals, tonight I sautéed a half a white onion and, when the onion got tender, I added finely chopped cloves of garlic. To this mixture, I added all the spinach we had left. At the same time, I boiled a batch of frozen tortellinis and I roasted panko in butter.

Soon, I pulled it all together. I put the boiled tortellini in the pan with the onion, garlic, and spinach and topped it with the roasted panko and added chopped green onion bits.

Had this been a HelloFresh meal, I'm sure the bag would have included ingredients for a sauce, white or red, but Debbie and I had decided we didn't want a sauce.

We loved this sauceless meal! 

It's a dinner we'll return to again.  

Three Beautiful Things 04-23-2024: Good News at the Dentist, Good News at the Garage, Great Boxed Dinner

1. First thing this morning, I strolled down to the dentist's office and everything looks good. I have a couple of older crowns, but they are holding up well because I wear a guard at night to protect them. 

2. The Camry went into the garage today for a 30k mile service job and everything looks great. 

3. Debbie added a couple of boxed dinners to our HelloFresh order this week. Tonight we tried one of them, a most delicious Garam Masala Coconut Chicken Thighs with Golden Raisin Cashew Rice. I sure enjoyed it! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-22-2024: Blood Draw Snafu Rectified, Back to *Buried Treasures*, Steelhead for Dinner

1. There's a lab in Spokane that needs a fresh vial of blood from me every month in support of my being on the transplant list. I was going to head up to the hospital lab last Monday for a blood draw, but when I opened the box the lab mails me every month, it was essentially empty! I contacted Tara, my transplant nurse, and she had the lab send me a new box. Today, I took the full box to the lab, my blood got drawn, and now I'm back on schedule again.

2. Today when I exercised at the Fitness Center, I used my Sirius/XM app to play the channel entirely devoted to Tom Petty's terrific old show, Buried Treasures. Several years ago, I used to listen to Buried Treasures when it came out weekly on Deep Tracks. I also listened to the awesome Bob Dylan radio show called Theme Time Radio Hour.  Dylan's old show is archived online and it'll be fun to huff and puff and alternate between Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Lou Simon, and the Satellite Survey show hosted by Dave Hoeffel. 

3. I prepared a fun HelloFresh dinner tonight. For the first time, HelloFresh sent us a bag featuring steelhead trout which I roasted with fresh dill and mandarin orange and lemon slices. Lemony asparagus spears garnished with dill accompanied the fish and I plopped the fish and vegetables on a bed of garlicky jasmine rice seasoned with turmeric. I also made a creamy lemon and garlic sauce that tasted great on the fish. It was a fun dinner: new, fun to prepare, and delicious. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-21-2024: Hungry for Spinach, Debbie's Spinach Salad, A Gemelli Family Dinner

1. Thanks to our breakfast at Roosters Country Kitchen in Pendleton on Friday morning, where I enjoyed a spinach and mushroom omelette, and, thanks to having bought a large container of spinach leaves at Costco on Saturday, I think I'm going to fix myself eggs and spinach on a regular basis for a while. I got right into it this morning with a Yukon gold potato and spinach scramble topped with a small amount of grated sharp cheddar cheese and it worked! 

I gave my breakfast an hour and half or so to digest and headed to the Fitness Center for a good session and listened to the recent '60s Satellite Survey broadcast, entitled "The 60s' 40 Biggest One Hit Wonders". 

It was a great show and I finished listening to it when I returned home. 

2. Carol assigned Debbie and me to make a green salad for tonight's family dinner. Debbie volunteered to take charge of our assignment. She enjoys remembering when her mother discovered spinach salad some time in the 1960s and Debbie replicated the salad and the dressing her mother made all those years ago. 

I don't have the recipe handy, but I loved the bacon in the salad and the dressing was a little sweet thanks to the inclusion of a small amount of sugar and some ketchup, both of which worked beautifully.

3. Carol went all out today and made a complex and delicious pasta sauce that included roasted tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, vodka, butter, red wine vinegar,  cinnamon sticks, and other great ingredients. 

She boiled gemelli pasta, combined it with the sauce, and put it all in the oven. 

It was an awesome dish and Debbie's spinach salad paired perfectly with it. 

Paul created a bar where we could make "mule" drinks of our choice blending ginger beer with either vodka, tequila, or amaretto. 

Well, earlier this week at the Plateau Steakhouse, I ordered a Cadillac Margarita and it triggered a desire in me to drink some straight tequila over ice. 

So, for my cocktail, I decided not to have a ginger drink (which I love), but enjoyed tequila on the rocks with a squeeze of lime juice. 

It was really good.

We had a really robust time at the dinner table talking about a very wide variety of subjects and having a lot of laughs. 

There's a lot going on in our family these days involving the banjo, dogs, medical stuff, future trips, stuff from the past, teaching, performing, and more and we seemed to talk about it all tonight, one way or another. 

It was fun. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-20-2024: Exercising with *Jukebox Diner*, Quick Trip to CdA, Easy Chicken Dinner

 1. It felt good to return to the Fitness Center after being absent for over a week. I especially enjoyed dialing up Lou Simon's Sirius/XM radio show, Jukebox Diner, using the Sirius/XM app and listening to callers making their requests and hearing songs I wouldn't listen to on my own. On his April 7th show, Lou Simon got worked up as he disagreed with a caller's interpretation of Carly Simon's "That's the Way I've Always Heard It  Should Be" and, on his April 14th show, he returned to talking about that call, offered his explication of the lyric, apologized to the caller for getting his dander up, and played the song again. Later, the caller, named Steve, called in again and he and Lou made peace, reached a detente.

2. I wanted a haircut. I wanted to go to Costco. Therefore, I blasted over to CdA in the Camry. My trip was a success. I got right in at Supercuts and was back out in no time. I fueled up at Costco and had a good time stocking up on a few supplies in the store. 

3. Back in Kellogg, I shopped a little more at Yoke's and decided not to join Debbie at The Lounge. Instead, I put four chicken drumsticks in our cast iron skillet along with a small handful of baby Yukon potatoes, baked them, and steamed a pack of frozen broccoli and cauliflower. 

Debbie returned home and we enjoyed this nifty, easy, tasty little meal and, as a bonus, Debbie packed leftovers for her lunch on Monday. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-19-2024: Going to Roosters with Rooster, Easy Driving, Sweet Fatigue

1. Sometime in the last, oh, forty to fifty years, guys Ed worked with began calling him Rooster. I've always called Ed Ed, but I've known for a long time that he's had this nickname. 

Well, for many years now I've joined guys I grew up with at the Wildhorse Resort once or twice a year for a few days of food, socializing, gambling, and relaxation. 

Every year, coming in or going out of Pendleton, we've seen a billboard advertising a Pendleton restaurant called Roosters Country Kitchen. 

Every year, Ed and I have said something to the effect of "we really ought to eat there some time". 

We never did.

Until today.

Terry and Jake headed home earlier than Ed, Mike, and I, but while we enjoyed our nightcap on Thursday night, Ed, Mike, and I agreed to go to Roosters for breakfast after we checked out of the resort. 

Now we'll go back every time we go to Pendleton.

Under the care of a friendly, attentive, and energetic server, Ed and Mike were very happy with their breakfast steak and I thoroughly enjoyed the spinach mushroom omelette I ordered. 

Breakfast at Roosters was a perfect way for the three of us to conclude our time in Pendleton together. 

2. Ed and I had an uneventful trip back to the Silver Valley. We made a quick stop at the Country Mercantile just north of the Tri-Cities. Driving conditions were easy and traffic was safe and sane out on the open freeway and as we made our way, easily, through Spokane, Post Falls, and Coeur D' Alene. 

3. Back home, Copper seemed unfazed by my absence and equally unfazed by my return! He fared very well under Debbie's care while I was away. 

The drive from Pendleton to Kellogg involves a little over four hours of actual driving time. 

It's not that much driving, but all the same, when I arrived home I was ready for a nap and I went to bed pretty early.

I was tired, but it was a sweet tired.

The three nights hanging out with lifelong friends and having a great dinner with Colette was a blast.  

Three Beautiful Things 04-18-2024: Breakfast at the Oregon Trail, Relaxing Afternoon, Early Nightcap

1. Jake, Terry, Mike, Ed, and I piled into a couple of cars and blasted east on I-84 to the town of Meacham, OR to the Oregon Trail Store and Deli for breakfast. Every time we go to the Wildhorse Resort, we visit this superb dining spot run my a wife and her husband. Once again, our servings were plentiful, the food was superbly prepared, and we had a great time yakkin' and joking with the husband. He runs the front of the establishment while his wife cooks up awesome meals in back.  

2. We returned to the resort. I spent quite a bit of time in my room, tending to my fantasy baseball teams, getting caught up on NYTimes crossword puzzles, and relaxing. I spent some time on the casino floor. Around 2:30, Jake, Ed, and I met in the lobby bar and enjoyed beers and, a couple hours later, Terry, Ed, Mike, and I met in the Wildhorse Sports Bar for a happy hour plate of nachos. 

3. Ed, Mike, Terry, and I met around 7:15 in Terry's room for an early whiskey nightcap. We made plans for leaving in the morning and talked about other things. Mike and Ed left after a bit and Terry and I yakked for a while about what's happening with government in both Idaho and Oregon and kept an eye on the PGA golf tournament being played at Harbor Town near Hilton Head, South Carolina. 

I wondered if Debbie's cousin, Sally, was staying at her condo at Hilton Head right now and let my mind wander, thinking about her husband, Ted, having died several years ago and how much the two of them enjoyed attending and volunteering at golf tournaments together. I felt Ted's absence. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-17-2024: Relaxing at the Resort, The Band Got Back Together at the Lobby Bar, Steak Dinner and Ginger Whiskey

1. One of the aspects of coming to the Wildhorse Resort that I enjoy is time alone in my quiet hotel room, solving word puzzles, writing in this blog, napping, contemplating, in short, relaxing. I spent a few hours today enjoying some solitude. 

In addition, I put the April 14th Jukebox Diner radio show on, put in my earbuds, and spent a half an hour huffing and puffing in the hotel's exercise room. 

That felt really good! 

2. Later in the afternoon, Mike, Terry, and Jake arrived back at the casino/hotel after playing eighteen holes of golf and, along with Ed and me, we all sat in the hotel lobby bar and enjoyed a round or two of adult beverages. It was the first time the five of us were able to get together all in one place on this trip and we had a great time yakkin' and laughing and making a concerted effort not to solve the world's problems.  

3. Later, at 6:30, the five of us met at the resort's Plateau Steak House for dinner. We make it point every time we come to the resort to eat together at the resort's fine dining establishment. I started off with a delicious and refreshing Cadillac Margarita and then enjoyed a fresh and perfectly dressed chopped salad before digging into a boneless rib eye with sides of crispy Brussels Sprouts and asparagus with a light stream of Bearnaise sauce. 

After dinner, Ed, Mike, Terry, and I sat around in Terry's room. Terry cracked open a fifth of Heaven Hill Kentucky Straight Bourbon. We mixed it with Cock and Bull ginger beer. This after dinner cocktail was perfect and we launched into a great session of yakkin' about everything under the sun, except the world's problems. 

We let the big world have those problems and gladly left it up to someone else to solve them. 

We had a lot of things on our minds -- things closer to our day to day lives in the little and excellent worlds we all live in. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-16-2024: On the Road, House Money, Dinner with Colette

1. I sprang into action around 5:30 this morning, fixed myself coffee, completed Wordle, and simultaneously made a last check of my packing list and put my remaining unpacked items in my bag. I flew out the door, rocketed the Camry to Ed's house, picked him up, and we enjoyed breakfast at the Breakfast Nook in CdA. 

We had one more stop to make after breakfast. We dropped into the Spokane Tribe Casino and I cashed in my ticket. I'd wagered on UConn to win the NCAA men's basketball tournament and picked up my cash. 

Ed and I hung for under an hour at the casino and then we hit the road.

2. Ed and I yakked our way to the Wildhorse Resort and checked into our rooms. I unpacked, fiddled around for a while on the casino floor, and went back to my room, having played with my UConn win and the other modest amount of money I won on machines at the Spokane Casino. I haven't lost it yet! 

3. I napped. 

A text message notification woke me up.

It was Colette.

Her meeting at work wrapped up earlier than she'd thought it would.

She could be at Thai Crystal in downtown Pendleton around 5 o'clock.

Perfect.

I had time to clean up and soar into town.

Colette and I enjoyed our dinner and talked and talked for over two hours about everything: Colette's work, medical stuff, working with students who need accommodations and special assistance, education (Waldorf schools in particular), and a host of other things. 

It's remarkable, given Colette's very busy work schedule, that we are always able to work out time to dine together and yak whenever I come to Pendleton. 

  

Three Beautiful Things 04-15-2024: Getting Ready to Hit the Road, Shoshone Glass: Same Day Service, Great Spaghetti Dinner

1. Making lists, gathering cords and bathroom stuff, finishing laundry: in short, getting ready to head to Pendleton on Tuesday. 

2. I called Shoshone Glass, hoping they'd be able to perform a same day repair on a chip on the Camry's windshield. They did! They got me in at 10:00 and I was out of there within 45 minutes. 

3. 3. I made Debbie and me HelloFresh's Lemony Spaghetti with Brussels Sprouts topped with Panko and Scallions. It is one of my very favorite meals this company offers. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-14-2024: Scottie Scheffler Wins the Masters, Annual Mostaciolli Feed, Drinks on the Patio

 1. I'm at a point in my long life as a sports fan where I've become less and less partisan about who wins and have come more and more to enjoy seeing sports played well. 

This change in my perspective was in full force today as I watched much of the final round of The Masters golf tournament. 

I wasn't really pulling hard for any one player over another nor did I single out any players to fulfill some need I've had for there to be a villain. 

I wanted to see the world's best golfers confront the challenge of playing one of the world's most exclusive and challenging golf courses, Augusta National.

Today, Scottie Scheffler played the course more steadily and calmly than any of his competitors. 

Early on in the first round, he struggled to strike his ball onto Augusta's greens in regulation, but he made one superb recovery after another. His playing partner, Collin Morikawa, on those same early holes, was striping the ball. He had several birdie putts and could have applied a lot of pressure on Scheffler, his playing partner, if he'd made any of those putts. 

But, he didn't, and then, starting at the ninth hole, which Morikawa double bogeyed, his game began to wobble. Other golfers chasing Scheffler also had small disasters. Ludvig Aberg splashed his second shot on 11. On 12, Max Home's tee shot struck what looked like a patch of concrete on the green, and his ball caromed into the bushes. 

Scheffler's competitors fell away and Scheffler, with an almost eerie sense of calm and a steady display of masterful shot making, pulled away and won the tournament by four strokes. 

Scottie Scheffler is not a dramatic player -- he's not particularly animated or demonstrative. 

He is a quietly fierce competitor who excels in all aspects of the game of golf and, today, he further secured his current status as the world's best player.

2. Today, Christy, Carol, Paul, Molly, Debbie, and I met at around 4 o'clock at St. Rita's Catholic Church for their annual Mostaccioli Feed.

Every year this feed is like a high holy day, not only for the St. Rita's parish, but for the town of Kellogg and the other towns nearby. 

People line up to pick up their green salad and garlic bread and then watch hungrily as Don Rinaldi serves them a generous pile of mostaccioli and another guy piles on the red sauce and meatballs. Every year, the Mostaccioli Feed has a wine table where diners can pick up a glas of Chianti. 

Yes, the room is noisy.

Yes, it can feel a little bit, not very, cramped. 

But, it's a chance to see a lot of old and not so old timers out enjoying one another's company as well as  a delicious pasta dinner. 

3. On the spur of the moment, Debbie invited our family over to our house for a cocktail on the patio. Molly had cleaning to do at her apartment and did not join us, but Carol, Paul, Christy, Debbie, and I enjoyed drinking gin and yakking in ways we couldn't at the feed, given the noise and our seating arrangement. 

It was fun having our first get together on the patio and fun to get caught up on what's happened over the last week and the different things that are to come: Paul installed Christy's gate, Christy returns to Riley's trainer, Debbie continues to work on getting rid of things she no longer needs in her classroom, I'm heading to the Wildhorse Resort in Pendleton on Tuesday, and Carol and Paul continue to work with young people and encourage people to be creative. It's a vibrant time in life. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-13-2024: Overcoming Fatigue, Challenging Day at The Masters, Superb Pasta Salad and BLT

1. I'm glad that I've remained calm, haven't gone on a roller coaster ride emotionally or paced the floor or felt the tightness of anxiety in my stomach as I've waited to find out if I would be going in for surgery when I've been contacted three different times in the last ten days with news that the first step toward possible kidney transplant was underway. 

It has, however, been fatiguing. 

Fortunately, I didn't have anything really going on today and I could rest, take naps, and do what I needed to restore my energy.

2. I enjoyed a few restful hours watching The Masters and marveled at how demanding Augusta National Gold Club was today. The course grew drier and faster as the day progressed -- at times I thought I was watching a U. S. Open -- and if today's action revealed anything, it showed those of us who love golf that these top players demonstrate their best talents when they have to recover from errant shots, settle themselves down after what they thought was a good shot goes awry, and do their best to put bad scores on specific holes behind them and focus on what lies ahead. 

I thought Scottie Scheffler steadied himself particularly well after he double bogeyed 10 and bogeyed 11 with an eagle on 13 and a birdie on 15 and a huge birdie on 18 after he stumbled and bogeyed 17.

I would have to say I'm somewhat of an empathetic viewer of golf. So, it pained me to see Bryson DeChambeau struggle mightily on several holes on the back nine, but he electrified the gallery and possibly lifted himself out of his own slough of despond when he holed out with a miraculous shot from 77 yards on the 18th hole. 

I laughed joyously when that shot dropped in the hole. 

3. Debbie fixed a superb pasta salad today and it was the perfect accompaniment to the BLT I fixed myself for dinner tonight. I hadn't had a BLT for a long, long time and, for me, today, the bread was the key. Earlier I had bought a loaf of White Bread Done Right, a product of Dave's Killer Bread. It was perfect, as was the pepper bacon, juicy tomato, crisp lettuce, and, my favorite condiment, a generous blob of French's yellow mustard. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-12-2024: A Respite from Offers, Making Tentative Plans, The Lounge Was Hoppin'

1. Ed, Mike, Terry, Jake, and I have a three night trip to the Wildhorse Resort planned for this upcoming week, Tues through Friday morning. I had already told the staff at the transplant clinic that I would be unavailable for kidney offers from April 15-19. First thing this morning, after having three offers over the last ten days, I expanded my time of being unavailable to include today and the weekend. 

When I am available for offers, which is most of the time, I'm always aware that at any moment a transplant coordinator could call and that another period of waiting and possibly fasting would begin. I wouldn't go so far as to say I dread these calls, but I will say it lightens my mind to know I won't get a call over the next nine days.

2. At 1:00 this afternoon, about eight members of the KHS Class of 1972 met at Diane's house over snacks to begin planning for a 70th birthday party later this year. It's too early for me to divulge details. But, we had a calm and easy meeting and have some good ideas on the table for how and where we might celebrate. As soon as things are nailed down more firmly, I'll be sending out notices to announce what's going on. 

I don't want to put information out now that might have to be changed later. 

3. After the meeting, Jake, Carol Lee and strolled into The Lounge, sat down at a table, and started yakkin'. Before long the Shannons arrived, then Bucky and Debbie, and, a bit later, Diane and Debbie joined the table. We had a blast telling stories, laughing, acting like experts about this and that, and enjoying one another's company. 

We weren't the only animated table in The Lounge. The Moores and friends crowded around a table next to us and down toward the north end of The Lounge, Harley and Candy and a crowd of fun people were enjoying each other at another table. 

The Lounge was hoppin'!  

Three Beautiful Things 04-11-2024: Transplant Update -- Another "No Go", No Fasting! Great Stir Fry, *Bundyville*

1. I admit it. 

These kidney transplant updates are dizzying.

Here's the latest.

On Wednesday evening, around 8:00, one of the transplant coordinators called me to ask me the initial screening questions because another donor was, as it turned out, near death. I misunderstood this initial call. I thought he said this was not a case where to donor was brain dead but hadn't met the criteria to be declared legally deceased. 

Twenty-four hours passed. 

I texted the transplant coordinator who called me Wednesday evening. 

He was off duty, but let his colleague, Patricia, know that I was seeking an update.

Patricia and I have talked before and she straighten out my misunderstanding. 

She told me that the donor had just gone into the operating room where life support would be removed. 

I knew what this meant. 

For the donor's donated organs to be viable, the donor had to meet the death criteria within a certain time frame. 

That didn't happen. 

Patricia called me shortly after 10:00 to report that the situation was a "no go".

So, after twenty-six hours of calmly waiting, I could go to bed knowing that a transplant was not happening now and that I have no idea when the next call will come. 

I accept that. 

2. This was my third go around in the last week or so with news that a kidney was potentially available. 

When I received the first two calls, the next call I got was to begin fasting. 

Because of the time that passed before the donor went off of life support, on this go around, I was never instructed to fast.

So, late this afternoon, I chopped vegetables, took out tofu I had drained the water from, made a pot of brown rice, and made a sauce and fixed a delicious stir fry dinner for Debbie and me, a dinner I had been thinking about for a couple of days. It was even better than I had imagined. 

3. I think Leah Sottile is a terrific writer and creator of podcasts. I read her book, When the Moon Turns to Blood, about Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell and the murder of two of her children. Lori Vallow has been found guilty of the murders and Chad Daybell's trial started this week. 

With this in mind, Debbie and I decided to listen to Leah Sottile's podcast on the Bundy family called Bundyville. Tonight we listened to her accounting of the 2014 standoff near Bunkerville, NV and the occupation, a couple years later, of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. 

These stories, of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell and of the Bundy family, are connected by the out of the mainstream, apocalyptic Mormon beliefs they all hold and put into practice. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-10-2024: Early Stage of Another Kidney Offer, *Jukebox Diner* at the Fitness Center, Debbie Fixes a Great Dinner

1. At 8:00 this evening (Wednesday), I received a call from a transplant coordinator. A donor has died. The donor's two kidneys are potentially available for transplant and I might be in line for one. 

That's it. 

I answered some screening questions and when I said, "Now do I just wait for the next phone call?" the coordinator replied, "Yes". 

No news yet. 

2. I got in a good hour of exercise today at the Fitness Center. It felt good to be getting back into this routine today and yesterday after it was interrupted over the weekend and I was so tired on Monday. Today I enhanced the pleasure of my exercise by listening to first hour or so of the April 7th broadcast of Lou Simon's Jukebox Diner on my Sirius/XM app. Lou Simon's selections and his conversations with people calling really worked for me. 

3. Back home, Debbie told me she'd fix dinner tonight. Great! I had been to Yoke's earlier and bought a bunch of vegetables to use in a stir fry, but I was delighted that Debbie wanted to serve the potato pancakes she made and froze a week ago accompanied by perfectly prepared asparagus spears and mushrooms.  

Three Beautiful Things 04-09-2024: One More Nap, *Fresh Air* Looks Back at *Curb Your Enthusiasm*, Delicious Corn Chowder

 1. This morning it seemed to me that if I took one more nap, I might get myself back on track again and feel less out of whack. I got a bit sleep deprived over the weekend and on into Monday and this morning, and I'm happy to report that my nap late this morning worked. I sprang into the afternoon feeling as spry as I possibly can and was ready to get myself moving again.

2. Revived, I blasted out to the Fitness Center. I exercised for about an hour. I could feel the effect of my four day lay off, but it wasn't a big deal. What was a big deal was getting my old body back in motion again and burning some calories. 

I listened to a Fresh Air retrospective of Curb Your Enthusiasm. As a way of paying tribute to the show coming to an end, Fresh Air's television critic, David Bianculli, reflected on the arc of the show's development and made predictions regarding what he thought would happen in the show's final episode. The rest of the program was a sampling of past interviews, going back as far as twenty years, with cast members and others involved in making Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

Ironically, most of the interviewees did not curb their enthusiasm as they talked about their work on the show. Just the opposite. They exuded enthusiasm. 

3.  I returned home, fortified by proper rest and a solid hour of huffing and puffing, and fixed a pot of HelloFresh corn chowder with green peppers and Old Bay seasoning toast. The chowder was rich, creamy, and full of flavor and it was simple to make. I wanted a bracing evening meal and this chowder more than fulfilled my wish. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-08-2024: Fatigue, Risotto for Dinner, UConn Wins and I Give Larry David a Try

1. As I woke up this morning and went through my morning routine of coffee, oatmeal, word puzzles, and blogging, I thought I was feeling pretty good. Yes, Copper had awakened me a few times and, yes, Copper had evicted me from the bedroom a little earlier than I'd wanted to be kicked out, but I seemed to be doing all right. 

Late in the morning, though, that changed. I'd felt sleep deprived on Sunday after a long day of fasting and waiting on Saturday and suddenly, today, my legs went rubbery, my eyes got heavy, and I faced the fact that I needed rest and more sleep. 

I needed to stay home and recharge my tired old body and mind. 

And that's what I did.

2. Debbie arrived home before 4 o'clock.  

She, too, was exhausted. 

I rallied a bit, though, and had a lot of fun fixing Debbie and me Zucchini and Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto. Fixing risotto requires continual stirring and adding hot liquid for about twenty minutes or so. I enjoyed this process this evening, enjoyed how gradually the rice absorbed more and more liquid and how, as it became softer, the rice also became creamier. 

Once I'd finished the stirring, I added a cream sauce, some parmesan cheese, and roasted zucchini and grape tomatoes to the rice and sun-dried tomato and garlic mixture. 

We loved it.

Such a good dinner helped pull both Debbie and me out of our fatigue funk and we were feeling fortunate to be able to enjoy such good food. 

3. I spent the rest of the evening in front of the Vizio.

I marveled for a couple of hours at yet another sterling performance by the UConn Huskies as their men's basketball team steadily wore down Purdue with a nearly perfectly executed defensive plan -- shutting down Purdue's three point shooters -- and by keeping the pace of the game up tempo, but running a surgically efficient half court offense when they couldn't score pushing the ball up court. 

The final score: UConn 75 Purdue 60. 

UConn's balance, depth, strength, discipline, and precision overwhelmed Purdue and for the second consecutive year, the Huskies are NCAA men't basketball champions.

After the game, for the first time ever, I decided to give the show Curb Your Enthusiasm a try. 

I have watched very few episodes of Seinfeld. Bits of pieces of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm pop up as Reels frequently on my Facebook page. I watch them. So, I had a sense of what to expect from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I was interested in checking out this show, in part, because Larry David rouses strong responses in people. I have friends who hate his stuff, find it condescending, and others who think he's riotously funny.

Larry David's been featured in different media platforms lately because this past Sunday the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm aired. Fresh Air, for example, aired a retrospective. 

A recent New York Times opinion piece by George Washington University professor of philosophy, Mark Ralkowski, entitled, "Larry David, Philosopher King" spurred my sudden interest in watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Ralkowski argues that Larry David "stands as an underappreciated philosopher of our everyday lives. He has taught us important truths about both how we live our lives and how we should live our lives. Most important, he's been our foremost critic of the social rules that govern the way we interact, offering an enticing vision of social freedom that we'd be foolish to ignore." 

Professor Ralkowski invites his readers to see Larry David's observations about societal strictures or of unwritten rules as Freudian or as illustrative of philosophical concepts developed by Martin Heidegger, John Searle, Noel Carroll, Mary Douglas, Simon Critchley, and Friedrich Nietzche.

Whoa! I thought. 

Is there something to Professor Ralkowski's observations? Or is he an elephant pushing a pea? Is he making a mountain of of a molehill? Or can we really learn a great deal about ourselves and the world we've constructed by seeing it through Larry David's scripts?

I can't answer these questions, but they stimulated me and moved me to start watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

My first impression: I don't know enough to agree or disagree with Ralkowski as to whether Larry David is a philosopher king. 

I did have fun, however, thinking of him that way as I watched the show tonight.

I can, however, think of Larry David as an absurdist. I experienced the two episodes I watched as in the tradition of the theater of the absurd, as dark comedies exploring the futility of finding meaning in a meaningless and random world, where details as small as the folds below the belt in a pair of corduroy pants triggers a heated discussion about sexual arousal or where a guy who runs a bowling alley and gives Larry David's regular shoes to the wrong bowler results in tempest in a teapot between Larry David and a shoe salesman at a department store. 

So, I think I'll keep watching. I enjoy the theater of the absurd. I enjoy the idea that Larry David is a contemporary philosopher who conveys philosophical insights to us via his dark comedy -- and whose episodes always remind us of their inherent absurdity by featuring a repeated and absurd musical theme throughout. 

I'm not going to provide a link to Mark Ralkowski's opinion piece because it is protected by a paywall.

I did, however, export the article to my desktop as a PDF file and if you ask me to send it to you, I'll be happy to do so. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-07-2024: The Eccentric Copper, The Mighty Univ of South Carolina Gamecocks, A Robust Family Dinner

 1. Copper definitely travels to the beat of a different drum. I've managed to help him be less restless during the night by putting more wet food in his bowl when we go to bed, but even with that, he'll insist I get up, say at 3 a.m., and add more wet food to his dish. 

I comply. 

He's very insistent. 

Then every morning about 5:30 or so, Copper starts prowling and howling around the bedroom.

A few mornings ago, I figured out what Copper wants.

He wants me to get out! 

Ha! 

The same Copper who is a purring ball of contentment when I join him on the bed during the day is, in the early morning, like a strict landlord who hasn't been paid rent and he kicks me out, evicts me. 

Ha! 

So, Saturday morning, I was up at 5:00 because I wanted to hydrate and have some food before beginning to fast at 6:00 (doctor's orders because of a possible transplant that day). 

After the transplant surgery didn't happen, I went to bed around 10:00. I was bushed. I'd been awake for about seventeen hours.

And wouldn't you know it: at about 5:45 on Sunday morning, Copper began to howl and pace.

He was kicking me out! 

I complied.

Later in the day, around 3:00, I joined Copper and took a coma nap. He moved in close to me. He purred deeply, totally contented, and fell into a deep sleep himself. 

He wanted me with him at 3:00, but wants the bedroom to himself at around 6 a.m.

It's weird. 

Copper is definitely a funny cat, and, for whatever reason, he's been especially eccentric since Luna died in December. 

I surrender to his eccentricity. 

I submit to his wishes.

Happily. 

2. At noon, the University of Iowa and the Univ of South Carolina played for the women't NCAA basketball championship. 

To their everlasting credit, the underdog Iowa Hawkeyes started the game scorching the twine and jumped to an early lead.

I thought to myself (and I wanted to be wrong!), there's no way Iowa can maintain this pace and this high of a shooting percentage. 

Indeed, they cooled off a bit and the stronger, longer, deeper Gamecocks steadily asserted their superiority, scoring from in the paint and beyond the three point line and on midrange jumpers and steadily taking control of missed shots on both ends of the floor. 

I thought Iowa was having to work much harder for their points than USC. I knew Iowa's bench was thin and USC's was deep and I figured, in time, USC would wear down Iowa. 

And they did.

USC is simply a great basketball team -- they are balanced, they share the sugar, they are disciplined on both defense and offense, and they play with joy and toughness. 

I put down a sentimental wager of 20 bucks on the Hawkeyes in early March, hoping that Iowa's transcendent guard, Caitlin Clark, could crown her stellar college career with an NCAA championship. 

That didn't happen. 

South Carolina finished the season undefeated and proved themselves to be the nation's best team. 

3. We had a rousing family dinner tonight featuring robust serious conversation, a very good measure of hardy laughter, and comforting food and drink.

We started with a Red Snapper cocktail. It's a gin Bloody Mary. Christy makes a superb Bloody Mary mix and this drink was awesome. We sat at the dining table, covered with the world map tablecloth Debbie recently purchased, and enjoyed Debbie's ground beef enchilada casserole and Paul's salad, a combination of lettuce, vegetables, feta cheese, and apple slices. This dinner came with tortilla chips and guacamole and salsa and Molly brought a container of cinnamon and sugar tortilla chips for dessert. 

As expected, much of our discussion over cocktails focused on what we referred to as "Bill's kidney week". Debbie and I talked about what we learned. We discussed what we would like to see happen moving forward, especially when everything aligns and I have the surgery. We discussed the anxiety and emotions of the week and I tried to explain how and why I felt calm, why I didn't experience the week as a roller coaster ride. 

We talked about more than kidney week (thank goodness!).  Carol and Paul wrapped up their stint as artists in residence at Canyon Elementary School with a successful show at the Sixth Street Melodrama's theater in Wallace. Debbie told us about challenges she's facing in her work at Pinehurst Elementary. Later on, Christy told Debbie and me about the joyous experience she and Carol had at the First Interstate Center for the Arts in Spokane watching a matinee performance of My Fair Lady on Saturday.

We also learned this evening that Christy and Carol were both enthused about their post-performance dinner at Indigenous Eats, a Native owned restaurant serving, in the restaurant's words, contemporary Native American comfort food. 

The restaurant has two Spokane locations: Christy and Carol dined in the Gonzaga District at 829 E. Boone Ave. #E. The other location is downtown on the third floor of the Riverfront Square Mall. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-06-2024: A Preface of Thanks, I'm Instructed to Fast, My Day of Fasting and Waiting, No Transplant

Before I begin writing my daily list of beautiful things, two things.

First, Saturday was a day of waiting and uncertainty. I was buoyed and uplifted, beyond measure, by the over a hundred expressions of support, both by emoji and written comments, friends and family posted in response to my Facebook post that I might have transplant surgery today.

I am grateful, again, beyond measure, for this love and support, for the prayers and positive thoughts. 

Secondly, I am indescribably fortunate. 

 I have been dealing with and monitoring chronic kidney disease since January of 2005. In these nineteen years, I've never experienced any symptoms of this disease. Day to day, I feel terrific. My kidneys are making maximum use of the function they have left and are doing astonishing work. 

I recognize and accept that this is a most opportune time for a transplant. An additional kidney would improve the filtration of my blood and, because my two kidneys are filtering my blood really competently, it will make it much easier for me to recover from surgery, especially if it takes a few days for the new kidney to wake up and begin working. 

In the last five days, I've been involved with two organ offers. 

Neither worked out. (I wrote about the first offer in an earlier blog post.)

The good news is that as I wait for the next offer, I'm feeling great. I'll continue to go to the Fitness Center, eat mostly good healthy food, and stay calm. 

I'm indescribably fortunate to be doing so well while simultaneously chronically ill. 

1. From my perspective, this day, April 5th, really began at 10:30 a.m. on April 4th. 

Remarkably, for the second time this week, a transplant coordinator called me with a kidney offer, with the possibility of transplant surgery taking place. I was a backup candidate. One potential recipient was ahead of me. 

It was so early in the process on Friday, April 5th, that the coordinator told me to go on with my day and await further instruction.

The day passed. 

No updates.

No further instructions. 

I went to bed. 

I wasn't sure what to think -- I kind of figured the other person was receiving the organ.

But, at 4:57 a.m., I heard a chiming notification on my cell phone. 

The text was from another transplant coordinator telling me that the Spokane Sacred Heart surgeon, Dr. Ojogho, wanted me to start fasting, no food or liquid, starting at 6 a.m.

2. Now I knew a transplant was a distinct possibility, but, as I have come to learn, definitely not a sure thing.

I soft boiled two eggs and plopped them on two pieces of toast. I ate two more pieces of toast covered with butter and honey. I drank two cups of coffee. I drank at least two cans of plain seltzer water.

Six o'clock rolled around and I began my fast, fortified. 

I waited for further instructions from the transplant coordinator (who was in New Jersey!). 

I worked the difficult and time-consuming Saturday NYTimes crossword puzzle. 

I watched Purdue wear down North Carolina State and UConn proved to the stronger team in its win over Alabama.

I got started on the Sunday NY Times crossword puzzle. 

I stayed calm, even as the hours of fasting and waiting piled up. 

3. Shortly after 3 p.m., just to make sure nothing had changed, I texted the transplant coordinator and asked him if I should continue fasting. 

He replied, simply, "Yes."

Later, around 7 p.m., I texted him again, wondering if he had any updates. 

He told me that he was still waiting for the kidney to be accepted for me by the Sacred Heart transplant team. 

He thought we should get some news shortly.

I asked if this was the same organ I'd been offered the day before, on Friday, at 10:30 a.m.

It was.

There was so much I didn't (and really couldn't) know: 

When did the donor die? (I thought, but I'm not sure, the donor was deceased when I got the 10:30 call on Friday.)

When did the donor go into the operating room so whatever organs s/he donated could be removed?

How long did that process take?

What about the person ahead of me? When did the offer to that person fall apart?

Where was the donor located? How far did the organ have to travel to reach Spokane?

And when did the team in Spokane begin its work determining whether to accept the kidney for me?

The unknowns helped me stay calm. So much was out of my control. 

The reality is that this can be a process that takes many hours, the process of getting to the point where I am told to report to the hospital.

At 8:36 p.m. on Saturday, April 6th, my phone rang. 

It was the transplant coordinator. 

His message was brief and straightforward.

The transplant team did not accept the kidney for me.

I understood. 

I contacted a few people with the news, posted the news on Facebook, and then I warmed up some tomato soup, thawed and toasted myself a Beach Bum Bakery sesame bagel, and drank cans of Polar seltzer water. I was especially happy to drink the water. 

Then I went to bed, not knowing when the next offer might come nor how it will turn out. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 04-05-2024: Another Transplant Update, Preparing to Possibly Fast, Iowa Defeats UConn

1. A transplant coordinator called me at 10:30 this morning (Friday). He told me I was the backup candidate for a kidney transplant. It wasn't time for me to quit eating or drinking, but, he told me, "Proceed with your day." 

By bedtime, around 10:00, I hadn't received another call. 

Just before 5:00 a.m. (Saturday morning), however, another transplant coordinator texted me with instructions not to eat or drink after 6 a.m.

What's next? 

I await further instructions. 

2. With the possibility looming ahead of me that I might be instructed to fast, I ate much more than usual today, capped off by a delicious meal of assorted appetizers and an order of chicken fried rice that Debbie brought home from Wah Hing. 

I've been dedicated over the last few months to losing weight. I went off my regimen today, wanting to have eaten a good reserve of food in case a transplant coordinator instructed me to fast. 

3. I watched the UConn/Iowa women's NCAA basketball semi-final today. As the first quarter drew to an end, I thought UConn had squandered an opportunity to build a more sizable lead than they did. UConn defense rattled Iowa. UConn got a lot of stops and forced several turnovers, but they didn't translate those stops often enough into points. 

Yes, I agree, the illegal screen foul called against Aaliyah Edward's in the waning seconds of the game as UConn worked to set up a last shot for Page Buekers was very disappointing. But, I also agree with the UConn players and their coach, Geno Auriemma, that UConn lost to Iowa for reasons that go beyond that one call. They didn't cash in on their great defensive play early in the game. When Caitlin Clark missed a free throw a second or two after that call on the illegal screen, UConn failed to rebound her miss. 

Yes, if I were a UConn supporter, I'd be bitterly disappointed. 

But, I admit, as someone who has a little bit of money wagered on Iowa to win the whole tournament, it's fun that my wager is still alive going into Sunday's final, a final which promises to be a rugged challenge for the Iowa Hawkeyes against the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 04-04-2024: I Am Uplifted, Serious Podcasts at the Fitness Center, U.S. History After Dinner

1. Hearing from so many Facebook and other friends over the past couple of days during the uncertain hours waiting to see if I'd be receiving a donor's kidney heartened me. Many of the likes and hearts and cares I received on Facebook came from former LCC students. All of the comments and emojis lifted my sprits. Hearing from these past students both lifted my spirits and brought back joyful memories of the work we did together,  the conversations we enjoyed, and  how much I enjoyed teaching at LCC. 

2. One of the many positive things that happened in the Wednesday meetings with the transplant professionals was having all three of them praise me for how I'm taking care of myself as a kidney patient. Their encouragement strengthened my resolve to continue to go to the Fitness Center regularly and exercise and to continue in my efforts to lose weight. 

So, this afternoon, I hightailed it out to Smelterville.  I huffed. I puffed. I didn't blow any houses down. But I did listen to a Fresh Air interview with an expert on propaganda, especially on Allied propaganda to counter Nazi Germany's propaganda campaigns. The expert, Peter Pomerantsev, has also studied Vladimir Putin's propaganda campaigns and he was insightful about how authoritarians employ propaganda, not so much to change citizens' minds, but to give them reason to believe their deepest and darkest prejudices and fears are legitimate. 

I wasn't done working out when this interview ended and I switched over to the podcast Throughline and listened to their episode on the history of the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, Hezbollah. I've dipped into this history before, but it had been several years. It all came back to me -- the Lebanese Civil War, Israel's invasions of Lebanon, the attack on the U. S. Marines in Beirut, the Iran/Iraq war, and more. I hadn't explored this history, however, since the Arab Spring in the early 2010s and today I learned more about the consequences to its reputation when Hezbollah lent support to Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war. The episode ended with questions about Hezbollah's role in the current war between Israel and Gaza. 

3. Back home, I fixed Sesame Soy Pork Bowls (from HelloFresh) for Debbie and me.

After dinner, we listened to two podcasts.

First, we listened to the final two episodes of Landslide, a dive into the the 1976 and 1980 presidential elections and rise of power of New Right Convervatives, led by Ronald Regan, in the Republican Party. The season concluded with Regan's landslide victory over Carter in the 1980 election, thanks largely to how evangelicals (like the Moral Majority) and secular conservatives formed powerful coalitions that swamped Carter. This coalition was greatly aided by the hostage situation in Tehran, the recession of the late 1970s along with inflation, gasoline shortages, and by the Carter administration's efforts to end the tax exempt status of private schools that were segregationist, that were created, in part, as a part of the backlash to civil rights legislation and legal rulings that made segregation illegal. 

Then we went back to favorite podcast, Slow Burn, realizing that we haven't listened to several seasons of their work.

We decided to listen to the first episode of the season focused on the Los Angeles riots of 1992. 

The season began with an episode entitled, "The Tape". We listened to what led up to Rodney King and his two friends being pulled over by the police and how things escalated to the point that four of the officers beat Rodney King. We also heard from the man who lived in an apartment overlooking the intersection where the beating took place and how he happened to have a video camera and decided to record what happened. 

Before long, that video tape was played on news outlets across the USA and around the world and coverage of one of the major events of the early 1990s kicked into high gear and beyond into overdrive. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-03-2024: Testing and Talking at Sacred Heart, Why the Transplant Was Cancelled, Some of What We Learned Today

 1. Several weeks ago, Renee at the Providence Sacred Heart Kidney & Pancreas Transplant Clinic called me to schedule my next round of tests and appointments at the clinic. Now that I'm seventy years old, I meet with the transplant professionals every six months. Today's visit also included blood work, x-rays, an EKG, and an echocardiogram. 

Here's what was not scheduled: on Tuesday, April 2nd, Patricia, a nurse at one of the transplant call centers, called me with the news that I was in line for an organ, a kidney that they hoped would become available on Wednesday, April 3rd.

The kidney would come from what's known as a DCD, or a Donor After Cardiac Death. 

A DCD is a donor who has suffered devastating and irreversible brain injury, may be near death, but does not meet formal death criteria. 

So, this donor's organs could not be removed until this person met formal death criteria.

Another important detail: I was a backup candidate for transplant with one other potential recipient ahead of me. 

I began my day of testing by registering for lab work and an EKG and while registering, my phone rang. 

When I answered, another call center nurse told me that I was to begin fasting, no food or water, at 10:00 a.m. This call came in at about 9:55!

This meant that it was possible that I'd be transplanted later tonight or just after midnight on Thursday morning. 

2. At about 1:00, Debbie and I met with Tara Wolf, the transplant nurse assigned to my case.

She updated us on what was happening with the donor.

At 4:00 in the afternoon, the donor would be removed from life support and would die a natural death. 

What Debbie and I didn't know was that in order for the donor's kidneys to be viable for transplant, that person's death had to occur within 60-90 minutes. 

If the donor lived longer than that, any plans for transplant would be canceled. 

Tara Wolf told Debbie and me that the transplant team agreed that when we were done with the afternoon appointments, that we should return to Kellogg and wait for a phone call telling us whether the transplant was going forward or canceled, whether the person ahead of me accepted the offer of the organ if things were moving forward, or, if I was to be the recipient, whether the surgeons, once they could closely examine the organ, agreed that this was a kidney suitable for transplant. 

I'll jump forward: back in Kellogg, around 7:30, the nurse who had called me with the fasting instructions called again to tell me that the donor had lived past the 60-90 minute time frame and that the doctors canceled transplanting the donor's kidneys. 

3. Every six months, when Debbie and I meet with members of the transplant team, we learn more than we knew before. Here are a few things we learned today:

* We had probably been told this before, but today it really sunk in that kidney transplant surgery is not replacement surgery. My kidneys will stay intact, untouched, and continue to function. In a spot below my kidneys, I'll have a third kidney placed in my circulatory system. 

That my existing kidneys are stable, that they are doing good work filtering my blood, is great news. The new kidney might take a few days to wake up and get to work, but my existing kidneys will continue to do their work while the new one and my body adjust to each other. 

I now understand better than I ever have why the doctors are eager to introduce a third kidney to my system while my diseased kidneys are still functioning pretty well. It will enhance the success of my recovery. 

* It's becoming clearer and clearer to Debbie and me that the transplant surgery itself has evolved into a fairly routine procedure. The real challenges lie in what happens after the surgery, making Debbie's role as my primary support person vitally important in the days and even a few weeks after the surgery.

* We are getting a clearer picture all the time of what the post-surgery care involves -- all of it manageable -- but there will be a lot to keep track of -- when I take what pills, keeping a record of what goes in and comes out of my body, monitoring whether I'm showing symptoms of rejection or other potential problems, and more. 

* I learned that as kidney donations have become available recently, my name as a potential recipient has popped up frequently. But, the program I'm enrolled in is very cautious about the kidneys they accept and at least some of these kidneys didn't meet the program's standards. 

Both of these bits of news sat very well with me: I now know my case is very much in play and I was happy to have confirmed what I've observed over the last nearly six years that this is a careful and cautious transplant program. 

* Last of all, our experience over the last two days of getting a call about a potentially available kidney on Tuesday and then waiting for most of the day on Wednesday to find out whether the donor's kidney would be viable and whether the person ahead of me accepted the offer or not also helped us understand more clearly than ever that when I receive the initial call about a potential transplant, I should stay as even tempered about the call as possible. In between that initial call and an actual surgery lie all kinds of hurdles that must be dealt with. 

I helped us today when Tara Wolf told us about a patient from Great Falls, MT who experienced six "false alarms" before he finally was transplanted.

I also received a comment on Facebook today from Charlie Cameron (KHS, '71) whose wife recently had a liver transplant after two "false alarms". 

Knowing of all the contingencies that lay between me and surgery, as Wednesday, April 3rd progressed, helped me stay calm. 

All I could do was wait and find out.  

 

Three Beautiful Things 04-02-2024: Filing, Possible Kidney Transplant, Spicy Chicken Cutlets

1. I completed a medium sized project I've been putting off for weeks. I got the pile of papers on my desk filed. It took a while!

2. Just as I finished and just as I was about to go hike the Wellness Trail, I got a call from a transplant center in Houston. The nurse, Patricia, told me I was second in line for an organ. She also told me the donor is DCD (Donation After Cardiac Death). As of Tuesday afternoon, the donor was near death, but had not yet met the formal brain death criteria. 

I should know more Wednesday afternoon -- has the donor been declared deceased? Did the other potential recipient accept the organ? Etc. 

Coincidentally, I am scheduled to be at Sacred Heart all day on April 3rd for routine testing and meetings with the transplant team. This appointment has been scheduled for several weeks. 

So, I'll go through the routine of blood work, x-rays, heart tests, etc in the morning and meet with transplant staff in the afternoon and the news about the organ will probably come while I'm at the Transplant Center at Sacred Heart. 

3. I had a lot on my mind this afternoon as I tore open the HelloFresh bag. Cooking was the perfect thing to do after my conversation with Patricia in Houston and I had fun making chicken cutlets coated with a blend of panko, butter, mozzarella cheese, and Frank's seasoning mix. I also made mashed potatoes with sour cream, butter, and scallion whites mixed in and roasted three chopped carrots. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-01-2024: Outdoor/Indoor Exercise, Iowa Triumphs, Crosswords with Copper

1. My plan today: hike the Wellness Trail and then exercise some more at the Fitness Center. 

I did it.

I surprised myself and didn't stop on the Wellness Trail until just before the last rise in the trail before reaching the picnic table. I hiked non-stop farther than I thought I could/would. 

2. While I huffed and puffed at the Fitness Center, I listened to the first quarter or so of the Iowa/LSU women's basketball game, but once I returned home, I followed the game online, so I did not witness Caitlin Clark's superb game, did not SEE Iowa's emphatic victory. 

3. Debbie needed to be on the phone for quite a while, so I retreated to the bedroom where I tracked the basketball games while Copper and I worked on NYTimes crossword puzzles. I was behind! I managed to work my way through the Friday and Saturday grids, but still have Sunday and Monday left to do. 

Copper was a huge help. 

His contentment as we lay side by side helped me relax, even when certain clues stumped me for a while. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-31-2024: Zach Edey Dominates, NC State's Astonishing Run Continues, Easter Family Dinner

1. After a grocery shopping trip to Yoke's, I settled in to watch Purdue play Tennessee for a trip to the NCAA men's basketball tournament Final Four. The game came down to whether the Vols could, in any way, contain Purdue's giant inside, Zach Edey. 

Tennessee couldn't. 

Edey scored 40 points and snagged 16 rebounds. Tennessee's stellar Dalton Knecht poured in 37 points, but, in the end, Zach Edey was too overpowering and Purdue earned a trip to the Final Four with a 72-66 victory. 

2. I didn't think I'd watch the Duke/North Carolina State game, but I couldn't resist it, especially after seeing, early in the game, what DJ Burns can do as a nimble, deft, intelligent 6'9", 275 pound giant who makes great spin moves to the basket, is an adroit passer, and is full of joy playing basketball.

In the second half, North Carolina State flattened Duke. Duke's star center, Kyle Filipowski fouled out. Duke couldn't reign in DJ Burns. Duke's offense was, to quote their head coach, disjointed. The Wolfpack outscored Duke by 18 points in the second half. They continued their most unlikely advance to the Final Four, not only as a lowly 11 seed, but as a team that had to win five games in five consecutive nights to win the ACC tournament in order to even get into the NCAA Tournament itself. 

More than anything else, I enjoy the variety of players, playing styles, and coaching philosophies in college basketball. I enjoy how players of all sizes, of varying levels of talent, of differing ages and levels of maturity find teams to play on and enjoy hard fought competitive games, knowing, in many cases, that their basketball playing days will come to an end when their eligibility runs out. 

3. At half time of the Tennessee/Purdue game, I assembled a cabbage salad called Lebanese Slaw as my contribution to tonight's family dinner. I mixed together shredded cabbage, salt, mint leaves, dill, Italian parsley, chopped green onion, and diced cucumber and dressed it with a combination of olive oil, fresh squeezed lemon juice, crushed garlic cloves, a small amount of sugar, and Zaatar. 

I loved this salad and thought it deliciously complimented the asparagus casserole Debbie made, Carol's slow-cooked brisket, the accompanying medley of vegetables Carol cooked in the crock pot with the meat, and the dinner rolls.

We started Family Dinner this evening in grand style with Carol's deviled eggs and a superb Bloody Mary bar featuring Christy's peerless Bloody Mary mix and a tray of condiments. 

Our conversations tonight were wide ranging, covering topics and stories that took us to memories from the past and that were also very much anchored in the present. 

We had a lot on our minds during this Easter Family Dinner! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-30-2024: Hiking the Wellness Trail, UConn Decimates Illinois, Alabama Streaks By Clemson

 1. Yes, it was a bit chilly out, brisk, a bit breezy, but it was also sunny. I decided to forego huffing and puffing on machines today and, instead, huff and puff up and down the Wellness Trail overlooking the Shoshone Medical Center. After reaching the picnic table at the trail's end, I contemplated how long it might be before I could hike this relatively short trail without stopping to rest. I can't do that now, but, if the weather is pretty good and I keep coming back, how about two weeks from now? Is that reasonable/doable? 

I'll find out. 

2. UConn had looked unbeatable so far in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, but today against Illinois, they weren't really looking so indomitable in the first half. Their big center, Donovan Clingan, disrupted multiple Illinois shots inside and scored some fairly easy baskets near the rim, but UConn shot poorly from the outside. Late in the first half the game was tied, but UConn closed out the half with five points and led at halftime 28-23. 

I can't really account for what happened in the second half. 

I do know this.

UConn demolished Illinois, scoring the second half's first twenty-three points and turning what had been a close first half into a rout. 

The final score: UConn 77. Illinois 52. 

3. Debbie was at The Lounge after working in her classroom for several hours. With the UConn/Illinois game out of hand and the outcome no longer in doubt, I headed up and joined her. 

I enjoyed a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, split a combo appetizer plate from Wah Hing with Debbie, and returned home to watch Alabama stick to its offensive philosophy and defeat Clemson, 89-82. What is that philosophy? 

Well, Alabama's head coach, Nate Oats, approaches the game of basketball mathematically and draws upon imaginably detailed stacks of data and, applying analytics to how his team plays, he's determined that, to put it simply, his team's odds of winning are at their peak if his team takes only two kinds of shots: a) from beyond the 3 point arc and b) at the rim. Alabama looked shaky in the first half. I think they missed their first nine 3 point attempts. As the game progressed, though, they heated up from beyond the arc and they were able to score points at the rim. Clemson hurt themselves with foul trouble and a puzzling inability to convert free throws, but, in the end, Alabama's relentless barrage of three point attempts, put backs on offensive rebounds, and successful drives to the tin prevailed. 

Now the  indomitable UConn Huskies will play the math-driven, long range bombers and relentless into the paint penetrators of Alabama. Can UConn dominate the Rolling Tide? Or can Alabama translate its coach's obsessive attention to analytics into another scoring spree that outdistances UConn? 

We'll see on Saturday. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-29-2024: *Fresh Air* Repeat in the Fitness Center, Purdue Defeats Gonzaga, Tennessee Smothers Creighton

1. While I huffed and puffed at the Fitness Center this afternoon, I listened again to the Fresh Air interview with E. Tammy Kim discussing the State of Oregon's retreat from the ballot initiative that passed in 2020 decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of hard drugs.  Much of the growing opposition to this experiment was in response to drug use by people without housing, people living in encampments and on the streets of Medford, Eugene, Bend, Salem, Portland and other places. 

As I listened, I remembered. I've volunteered to serve breakfast on Saturdays to homeless people in Eugene. I had students at LCC who lived in tents and campers and who "couch surfed", staying for short periods of time in a succession of the living rooms of friends, acquaintances, or relatives. I lived near downtown in Eugene, frequently rode on the city bus system, and encountered the homeless any day I stepped out of our house. 

I remembered one man in particular He had been a successful builder, but lost his work when his body broke down.  His life spiraled into homelessness. He lived with his son in a tent near the Willamette River, did his homework either at the college or the public library, and needed help more than once when someone entered his tent and stole the books we were reading in the course. 

I not only have no idea how or if the problems addressed in this episode can be solved, I don't know what the solution would look like. 

2. Back home, I tuned into the Gonzaga/Purdue men's basketball game, curious to see how the improved Gonzaga Bulldogs would fare in a rematch with Purdue. Purdue defeated Gonzaga back in November, 73-63. 

I supposed for Gonzaga to win this game, they had to try to make scoring difficult for Purdue's mighty center, Zach Edey. If the Zags succeeded in this effort, they then had to either stop Purdue's outside shooters or hope they had a poor shooting game. Lastly, I thought the Zags needed their inside players to stay out of foul trouble.

Purdue was the superior team today. The Boilermakers' outside shooters were deadly, especially in the first half. Over the course of the game, Zach Edey dominated inside and the Zags' Anton Watson,  Graham Ike, and Ben Gregg all got into foul trouble, with Ike and Watson both fouling out. 

The final score was 80-68.

I am now intrigued to watch Sunday's Elite 8 tilt between Purdue and Tennessee.

3. You see, I also watched the Creighton/Tennessee tilt and Tennessee's defense, especially on the perimeter, was so suffocating that, at times, I had trouble breathing. 

Creighton fought back against Tennessee when they fell double digits behind in the second half, but along with their stifling defense, Tennessee's Dalton Knecht had a solid scoring night and their point guard Zakai Zeigler, not only was a defensive menace, but expertly ran Tennessee's offense. He accomplished the very things on offense that he and Tennessee teammates prohibited Creighton's guards from doing. 

So, after this game, right along with the post-game panelists, I wondered if Tennessee's perimeter defense can disrupt Purdue on Sunday.  Can they force Purdue to run their sets from farther away from the basket than they want? Can this disruption mean that Zach Edey might received passes in the paint a few feet further away from the basket than he's comfortable with? Can Tennessee get players other than Knecht to score? Will Tennessee defeat Purdue? 

I don't know, but I'll be intrigued to find out. 

Oh! By the way, I made five wagers at the Sports Book inside the Spokane Tribe Casino last week. 

Three of my wagers are dead: Creighton, Arizona, Houston.

Two are alive.  

Can Iowa win the women's tournament? 

How about UConn? Will they win the men's? 

These are my last two chances for a payout. . . .

Three Beautiful Things 03-28-2024: Rained Out, A Shining North Dakota Light, Fantasy Ups and Downs

1. I was all ready this afternoon to return to the Shoshone Medical Center Wellness Trail. I wanted to see how I'd do hiking it after exercising for the last few months on indoor machines. 

As I got ready to go, it started to rain. 

So, I got out my resistance band and worked out lightly at home instead.

2.  I was listening to the Clemson/Arizona game on the radio when Debbie arrived back home after several hours working in her classroom. She said she'd like to have basketball playing on the television. I'm not absolutely sure why, but it took about fifteen minutes for the Vizio and our internet service to connect with each other, but eventually they did. 

The Arizona game had completed by then, but I enjoyed watching Alabama and North Carolina race up and down the court. Alabama raced just a bit better than the Tar Heels and scored an 89-87 victory. It was fun, and, for me, unexpected, to see Grant Nelson, a kid who transferred to Alabama all the way from North Dakota State turn out to be Alabama's key player as he scored big buckets from outside and inside and played some stellar defense, especially late in the game. 

3. This is true every day of the baseball season: I thoroughly enjoy starting out every morning, even before I take on the Wordle, Quordle, and Waffle puzzles, by setting my fantasy baseball lineups and then checking in, throughout the day, to ride the roller coaster of the successes and failures of my teams. My primary goal is not to embarrass myself and I got off to a good start today in our head to head league, but my rotisserie team plunged into the dungeon of 7th place out of 8 teams.  Friday will be a new day, though, and maybe my rotisserie team will perform better and move up in the standings. 

Much of the fun of being in these leagues grows out of the unknown and experiencing day to day elation and bitter disappointments. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-27-2024: Jess Alvarenga's Unique Search for a Spiritual Home, Immigrant Women Cooks/Chefs, Oregon Reconsiders Decriminalizing Small Amounts of Hard Drugs

1. Lately, members of our family, both here and across the USA, have had discussions about code-switching, the word used for the practice of people alternating between languages or vernaculars depending on who they are speaking with. Examples of code-switching are various and multiple. Any number of people, American Indian tribal members, indigenous peoples of Alaska, African-Americans, and many others who live in one kind of ethnic neighborhood or community or another often speak one way with one another and switch the way they talk with people outside their community. 

It's common.

National Public Radio produces a regular program and podcast entitled, Code Switch. The program explores "how race affects every part of society -- from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between."

I've known about this program for many years, but, until today, I hadn't listened to any episodes. 

Since code-switching has been a recent topic of family discussion, I decided that while I huffed and puffed at the Fitness Center, I'd choose an episode of Code Switch and listen to it. 

Especially after listening to Sarah McCammon's interview on Monday, this episode title at Code Switch caught my eye: "A former church girl's search for a new spiritual home". 

So I clicked on it and listened to Jess Alvarenga tell her story.

She was raised in a Pentecostal church, had deep and joyous experiences with prayer, fellowship, and with having been (these are my words) slain by the Holy Ghost.

But Jess is queer. 

Her sexuality and the Pentecostal church didn't mesh. 

So, Jess went searching. 

In this episode, she interviews a dominatrix and together they talk about the spiritual dimensions of BDSM. 

At the top of this episode, the people at Code Switch made it clear that this episode would deal with sexual content that some listeners would prefer not to hear talked about. 

As I huffed and puffed and listened to Jess Alvarenga tell her story and the dominatrix tell her story and as they both discussed their spiritual journeys, they expanded my notions of spiritual experience and healing and, as it turns out, connected me back to stories and experiences some of my Lane Community College students had confided to me many years ago.

Jess Alvarenga also spent time interviewing Buddhist monks who experienced spiritual enrichment through the ingesting of psychedelic mushrooms. 

Jess Alvarenga's last interview brought her back to where the episode began, in a way. She interviewed a Berkley Pentecostal pastor, a pastor who was accepting of Jess Alvarenga as a queer woman, who moved her with his openness and loving spirit. 

Jess Alvarenga's search for a spiritual home is ongoing. 

If you'd like to go beyond my summation of this episode and listen to it yourself, just go here. 

2. I continued my exploration of Code Switch by listening to an episode entitled, "Women of color have always shaped the way Americans eat". In this episode, we hear immigrant women cooks not only discuss how they cook and how they think about cooking, we also hear about the obstacles they face in the publishing world as they work to have cookbooks they've written published. 

If you'd like to listen to this episode, it's right here -- I enjoyed how hungry it made me feel! 

3. As I went to sleep tonight, I listened to a Fresh Air interview with E. Tammy Kim. Kim wrote an article back in January for the The New Yorker about the 2020 ballot measure Oregon voters overwhelmingly passed decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of hard drugs. In this episode, Dave Davies interviews Kim about the article and the unforeseen difficulties that arose as the new law turned out to look much better on paper than it was in reality. You can listen to the interview here. 

I don't know if The New Yorker article is protected by a paywall. If not, it's here. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-26-2024: Early Morning in CdA, Recovery, Simple Spaghetti Dinner

1. Debbie and I bolted out the door soon after 6 a.m. to soar to Kootenai Health in CdA so Debbie could have a routine medical procedure done. While Debbie was going through the procedure, I went to the hospital's coffee shop and enjoyed a chocolate chip croissant and a cafe au lait, both rare treats. 

Then I experienced another rare treat! Debbie rarely wants to eat breakfast out, but, as we left the hospital parking lot, she surprised me by saying she wanted to do just that. 

We went to the Breakfast Nook and not only had breakfast, but we came home with a container of left over hash browns that Debbie plans to transform into potato pancakes. 

2. Back home, we were both bushed. Getting up at 4:30 a.m. knocked me out of my usual routine and Debbie needed to recover from her medical visit. We both took naps and lounged around the house, resting up, not asking much of ourselves.

3. I broke open a HelloFresh bag and made a simple Sun Dried Tomato Spaghetti dish that basically involved little more than cooking the pasta and making a simple sauce with sun dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, and a few other simple ingredients. 

We were definitely grateful that preparing this dinner was so simple and I found eating spaghetti comforting. 

I look forward to having a bit more zip on Wednesday! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-25-2024: Podcast on the Right to Bear Arms, Podcast on Public Apologies, *Fresh Air* Looks at Punk Rock and Evangelicalism

1. I enjoyed a new approach this afternoon to my listening routine while I huff and puff at the Fitness Center. I decided to listen to podcasts and began by returning to an episode of Throughline that I put on the other night when I went to bed. I slept through parts of it and knew I wouldn't fall asleep while exercising, and I was right! I stayed awake for the entire episode entitled, "The Right to Bear Arms". In each episode, Throughline ventures to look at different questions with an historical perspective, working to develop a throughline from points in the past to the present. 

"The Right to Bear Arms", for the most part, tracked the history of the Supreme Court's rulings on firearm ownership and how, in 1977, the National Rifle Association's focus shifted from being an organization largely concerned with responsible gun ownership and gun safety to a political one, to advocating for the loosening, if not the elimination, of restrictions on firearms possession. 

The Supreme Court also shifted. For many years, the court's rulings on the right to bear arms focused on the opening of the amendment and the relationship between gun ownership and a well-regulated militia. More recently, however, the Supreme Court has focused its rulings more on the second half of the amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Want to listen? Just go here. 

2. I still had more huffing and puffing to do and tuned into a second podcast from Throughline. It focused on the proliferation of public apologies in recent years. The episode explored three different cases. It looked all the way back to the Salem witch trials. It then moved to the 20th century,  examining German Chancellor Willy Brandt's spontaneous and silent falling to his knees while visiting a 1970 memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an act of public contrition for the horrors Germany perpetrated upon Warsaw. Its third chapter detailed Bill Clinton's repeated apologies for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. 

The podcast also explored the practice of restorative justice and began and ended with a criminal who decades after he was incarcerated honestly confronted the atrocious nature of his crimes and wrote letters of apologies to the victims, never knowing if the victims received or read the letters. 

Just as I listened twice to Throughline's episode on the right to bear arms, and will return to it, I plan to listen to this study of apologies again and continue to wrestle with whether, in any way, the harm we do to one another can be alleviated by apology and what impact apologizing has on us when we have perpetrated harm on others. 

Interested? Click here. 

3. I knew I'd be getting up much earlier than usual on Tuesday morning to drive Debbie to Coeur d'Alene for a routine medical procedure, so I went to bed much earlier than usual and listened to two episodes of Fresh Air. 

The first featured Ann Marie Baldanodo's interview of Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker,  the two founders of the feminist punk rock band, Sleater-Kinney, to discuss Sleater-Kinney's latest album, Little Rope, and to look back over the last thirty years since Sleater-Kinney emerged as what Rolling Stone called the best American punk band ever. 

You can hear this interview here. 

Then I listened to a second Fresh Air interview, another I will return to again.  

Tonya Mosley interviewed NPR Politics Correspondent, Sarah McCammon about her recent book, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church.

Immediately, in this interview, Sarah McCammon's intelligence and generous spirit struck me as making her an ex-evangelical (or exvangelical) I could listen to. She reminded me in one important way of the comparative religions scholar Karen Armstrong. Debbie and I traveled to Portland years ago (pre-kellogg bloggin') to hear Karen Armstrong lecture on worldwide Fundamentalism. Central to her lecture was her insight that Fundamentalism rejects, on the whole, modernity. Sarah McCammon separated from the evangelical church, in part, because of its rejection of modernity -- one example would be a rejection of a modern approach to science, including evolutionary theory as well as more modern understandings of, say, the age of our planet. 

In this way, my listening to the podcast on the right to bear arms and to Sarah McCammon's interview about her spiritual development converged. As the podcast on the right to bear arms drew to a close and focused on the current Supreme Court, the discussion turned to Constitutional originalism, the idea that legal text should be interpreted based on the original understanding at the time of the text's adoption, not in terms of how society and technology and other aspects of modern life have changed over time. To me, at least, originalism is a kind of rejection of modernity, of change. 

I puzzle over this conflict between change and resistance to change, between modernity and resisting modernity all the time. I seek sane voices that examine the resistance to modernity and try to understand this resistance better, even as I embrace (for the most part) modernity and change.  

You can listen to Sarah McCammon being interviewed here. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-24-2024: Making Lemon Couscous, Draft Day at The Lounge, Citrus Family Dinner and Stories from 1999

 1. Right away this morning, after finishing my puzzle and blogging routine, I fixed my contribution to tonight's family dinner. Christy assigned each of us to make a citrus dish and asked me to make a rice or grain offering. I decided to make lemon couscous, using Israeli pearls. First I roasted the couscous. I then zested two lemons and juiced them. I heated up some olive oil and added minced garlic and took it off the heat when it became fragrant. Into the pot with the garlic I added three cups of chicken stock and the lemon zest and lemon juice along with the roasted couscous pearls. Once the liquid boiled, I turned the heat on low, put the lid on the pot, and then roasted a handful of almonds. 

When the couscous were done, I realized I'd put too much liquid in the pot. I strained the extra liquid, put the couscous in a bowl, topped the couscous with the almonds I'd roasted, and further topped the dish with orange segments. 

2. I fixed this dish in the morning because I spent much of the afternoon at The Lounge with Cas, Ginger, Seth, and my laptop. Today was our fantasy baseball draft day. Four of us were able to meet at The Lounge for a draft day party. The other four members of our leagues couldn't make it. 

It was fun watching each other make our draft picks. We all participate in two fantasy leagues and during the break between the two league drafts, pizza arrived and the draft party also became a fun and delicious pizza party. 

A couple of people have asked me how I think I did -- did I draft solid teams?

I have no idea.

I'll find out how I did once the Major League Baseball season swings into full action and see if either of my teams compete very well.

3. The citrus blow out at family dinner was a success. Debbie made little citrus kabobs on toothpicks, combining a piece of orange, a little chunk of cheese, a mint leaf, and a dab of blackberry preserves. Carol contributed a mandarin salad from Betty Crocker. Christy fixed orange glazed chicken thighs. For dessert, Christy baked a lemon pound cake and served it with limoncello. 

We talked about a lot of things as we dined, including what we plan to do with Copper and Gibbs if/when I have transplant surgery. We also reminisced about those harrowing days in November of 1999 when I contracted bacterial meningitis and Christy, Everett, Mom, and Carol all traveled to Eugene, arriving about the time I was released from the ICU. We'd planned a family weekend on the Oregon coast over Veteran's Day. That didn't happen. But a lot of other stuff happened at the hospital and tonight a lot of stories emerged, many of them things we could laugh at all these nearly twenty-five years later. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-23-2024: Tires Switched, Happy Birthday Tona!, Yakkin' at The Lounge

 1. It's kind of a crazy thing to feel so elated about, but here I am. 

At about 7:15 this morning, I drove the Sube down the street to Silver Valley Tire. All our spring/summer/fall tires were in the back of the Sube. 

I walked home, revved up the Camry, and blasted it to Silver Valley Tire.

Two hours or so later, the tire changers completed their job. I brought both cars home. I loaded the winter tires into the garage.

Our cars are outfitted for the spring, summer, and fall until the snow and ice returns later in the year. 

And I'm elated. 

2. Ed swooped by, picked me up, and we attended Tona's surprise 70th birthday party at the Elks. 

It was awesome. 

The turnout was superb. Tona beamed as one person after another embraced her, wished her a Happy Birthday, and yakked with her for a while. 

3. As the party drew to an end, Ed and I strolled across the street to The Lounge and enjoyed a couple beers. Before long, Debbie joined us and we yakked about toasted cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, homemade bread, and asphalt, among other things. Ed had to take off and Debbie and I switched gears and began putting ideas and possibilities on the table for what the rest of 2024 might look like -- always wondering, is there a kidney transplant in our near future? 

Three Beautiful Things 03-22-2024: Afternoon in Coeur d'Alene, Chillin' at The Lounge, *Landslide* and the Ascent of Jimmy Carter

 1. Debbie and I blasted over the 4th of July Pass for an afternoon in Coeur d'Alene, each doing our own thing. Debbie had a salon appointment and I fueled up at Costco, sauntered up and down the aisles of the warehouse, and did some more sauntering at Pilgrim's. I always have fun shopping and Debbie's left the salon happy and with fun stories about conversations she had, especially about Bigfoot. (That was unexpected!)

2. Back in Kellogg, we dropped in at The Lounge. We shared Wah Hing's Appetizer Combo Plate. Ryan popped in, plopped down next to me, and we talked about the NCAA men's basketball tournament and his high hopes for his alma mater, James Madison, to defeat Wisconsin. Turns out they did. Ryan also showed me a picture of his new inflatable fishing vessel and described the fun he recently had putting it in at Steamboat on the North Fork. He didn't catch any fish, but he had fun being on the water. 

3. I didn't realize it when Debbie and I started listening to the podcast, Landslide, but all of its episodes have not been released yet. They are coming out, one at a time, on Thursdays. 

Well, yesterday, the episode, "Ordinary Man" dropped and we listened to it tonight. The podcast shifted focus from the conflicts in the Republican Party in 1975-76 to a surprising development in the Democratic Party: the rise of a politically astute, obscure former governor from Georgia, Jimmy Carter. 

Once again, listening to this episode took me back to Whitworth in the spring of 1976 and the theme dorm I wrote about earlier. 

Our 20th Century History class tracked the daily/nightly news with great interest as Jimmy Carter won the Iowa caucus, after having campaigned in the state for many months leading up to it, something no candidate had ever thought to do before. Likewise, he had campaigned hard for months in New Hampshire and he won that primary.

Frank Church and Jerry Brown challenged Carter later in the primary season with some success.

Carter secured the Democratic Party's nomination to run for president, though, when George Wallace, who had run against Carter and lost to him in the Florida primary, released the delegates he'd won to Jimmy Carter.

Carter's bona fides as a conservative governor of Georgia swayed Wallace to support Jimmy Carter. 

At the same time, Carter's support of civil rights earned his the support of Andrew Young and many African-American voters. 

I am looking forward to how this podcast presents the 1976 election between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. 

In 1976, Gerald Ford won every electoral vote in the West and the Rocky Mountain states. Yes. He won Washington, Oregon, California. He won Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and more. 

Carter, on the other hand, won every state in the South, including Texas. He won Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina -- but he lost Virginia to Gerald Ford. Carter also won New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, but Ford captured New Jersey and Connecticut. 

How will the podcast Landslide explain these mind boggling results?

We'll tune in the next two Thursdays to find out! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-21-2024: With the Radio On, Reagan and Ford and the Podcast *Landslide*, Subaru Gratitude

1. It does mean that if I were to discuss team's playing in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, I would not be able to hold teams up to the eye test. Today, I didn't watch any games. I listened to two games on my Sirius/XM app. Listening to the University of Oregon Ducks steadily pull away from and defeat the South Carolina Gamecocks made my session at the Fitness Center all the more enjoyable. Back home, for a while, I tuned into Gonzaga's flattening of McNeese State. 

At some point, I might turn on the Vizio and watch some action, but I enjoy listening on the radio a lot. I can put my ear buds in, have a private listening experience, and experience the drama with my ears and imagination, which is stimulating. Listening on the radio offers me more flexibility, too. I can exercise, work on other tasks, and, if I drive the Camry, enjoy the games while in the car. 

2. Debbie and I have been listening to a fascinating podcast, Landslide. It chronicles the emergence of Ronald Reagan as the animating force of what was known in the mid-1970s as the New Right, a conservative political movement that Reagan helped energize with his appeals to law and order, his warnings that the United States was becoming a second-rate power in the world, and his steady admonitions that US citizens' freedoms were eroding, that the government was overreaching and needed to be reigned in. He seized upon U.S. plans to relinquish control of the Panama Canal as further proof of growing US weakness in international matters. 

The episodes we listened to this evening focused on the 1976 Republican Party primaries. Early on, Gerald Ford looked like he would dispatch Reagan handily, but conservative organizations outside of Reagan's campaign team blitzed North Carolina with a blizzard of direct mail appeals and a repeated thirty minute Ronald Reagan television ad. The mailings and Reagan's ad were aggressive and emotional, focusing not so much on dry policy issues like the economy, but on grievances: the rise of the women's movement, gun control, school textbooks, racial integration (especially busing), school textbooks, and the fear that the United States was, as Reagan repeated, the number two power in the world. 

Listening to these episodes took me back to my senior year at Whitworth. I was a member of a theme dorm. About eighteen of us lived together in a small dorm, all enrolled in a 20th Century History course that met in the lounge of our dorm late in the afternoon -- on Tuesdays and Thursdays, maybe?  Professor Jim Hunt was the faculty member in charge of the course. We had a television in the lounge and we all watched the national nightly news together and discussed what was happening. Much of the news coverage focused on two things: the emergence of Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primaries and the very testy state primary battles between Reagan and Ford. 

Our discussions after the newscasts, our further conversations in the dining hall and in and around our dorm rooms stuck with me and that summer I paid close attention, especially, to the GOP Convention. The wrangling that went on that week, the sharp divisions in the GOP, and the indelible mark Reagan put on the Republican Party, even as he lost the nomination, all came back to me this evening.

Most of all, I could see that what has happened and is happening politically in this period of time in which Donald Trump is so prominent is not history repeating itself, but is a continuation of a movement that gained strength and momentum when Ronald Reagan challenged President Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination in late 1975 and on through to the summer of 1976.

3. Debbie and I bought the Sube the last weekend in April in 2004. When I returned home from the Fitness Center today, I noticed that in twenty-five miles, the Sube's mileage will hit the 200,000 mile mark. I brought this up with Debbie this evening and we had a nostalgic conversation about what a great and reliable car the Sube has been and continues to be (fingers crossed). We've crossed the USA several times in the Sube. It has rocketed up and down the New Jersey Turnpike. It was a source of cool transportation, thanks to its air conditioning, when Molly suffered burns in the summer of 2004. That simple fact was a life saver. And, now, the Sube gets us around the Silver Valley, sometimes to CdA, and we hope it'll give us many more miles of reliability. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-20-2024: Filling Out Brackets Irrationally, Taking a Day Off, Fixing Greek Bowls for Dinner

1. Sharann (Turner) and Doug Watson run a fun NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket contest every year.  Doug is the Commissioner. His contest rewards participants who successfully pick lower seeds to defeat higher ones. Today, I entered three brackets in the pool. I have concluded that unlike the basketball experts whose analysis I read and unlike many friends of mine, I do not have an analytical mind when it comes to basketball. I've decided to stop pretending like I do. I watch games for the pleasure of watching players make plays and for the drama of the competition. I'm lousy at analysis and forecasting. 

Therefore, I take different approaches to filling out tournament brackets. Which team is geographically the western most? Which teams, for irrational reasons, have inspired me to feel sentimental about them?  Who do I, again for irrational reasons, wish would win? I don't follow these whimsical criteria one hundred percent of the time, but I have given up on even trying to reason out my picks. 

I'll just have fun seeing what happens and I'll keep my fingers crossed that one of the wagers I made at the Spokane Tribe Casino pans out.

2. Since November, when I started going to the gym(s), I've also been reading this and that about exercising and working out. One thing that comes up repeatedly is that a person should occasionally take days off, should rest. I've pretty much ignored this advice. I suppose my thinking has been that I'm not exercising vigorously enough to need a day off here and there. 

Today, I was fatigued. I felt sleep deprived. My legs, especially, seemed to be demanding a day of rest.

So, that's what I did. 

I shopped a bit at Yoke's, got some laundry done, did a few things around the house, but mostly I rested and every time I sat down, it seems, I fell asleep. 

I'll return to the Fitness Center on Thursday. I hope to feel refreshed and invigorated. 

3. Parent-teacher conferences started at Pinehurst Elementary this afternoon. Debbie arrived home from work at 7 o'clock. I kicked up my energy and broke open a HelloFresh bag and made us a dinner called Greek Goddess Bulgar Bowl. I really don't know why HelloFresh gave this meal a divine name (!), but it was a good meal. 

I roasted chickpeas and shallot slices. I fixed a pot of bulgar. I combined cucumber, tomato, shallot, feta cheese, and dill with a vinaigrette and made a fresh tasty salad.  I put a swipe of hummus along the inside of each of our bowls and then, in sections, dished out the chickpeas, salad, and bulgar. I enjoyed the harissa powder that seasoned this meal along with the different textures provided by the fresh vegetables, the almost crunchy chickpeas, the smooth hummus, and the fluffy bulgar.