Three Beautiful Things 04-28-2024: ZOOM Talk, Nu Step, Retro Family Dinner

1. It had been a while since the Westminster Basementeers jumped on the ZOOM machine, but Bill, Diane, Val, and I talked to each other this morning around 10:00.

As we age, as we face medical challenges, both for ourselves and our animals, that tends to be, for a while, what we talk about. Val has a hand/wrist injury. Diane is recovering handsomely from cancer treatment. Bill has a day surgery coming up. Val's dog has been beset by seizures. I continue to wait for the next kidney call/offer. 

I had to leave our conversation early so I could get to the Fitness Center before it closed at noon. 

I'm grateful I got to stay long enough to learn about the trip Val has planned to Eastern Europe later this year -- it sounds fascinating and challenging. 

2. I almost always start my time at the Fitness Center on the Nu Step machine and today, propelled again by another episode of Tom Petty's old show, Buried Treasure (not Treasures as I have errantly written in the past), I stuck with the Nu Step machine for the entire fifty-five minutes I exercised. 

3. We did our best tonight to have a retro dinner as the focus of our Sunday family dinner. 

We started with bite-sized celery bits, some stuffed with whipped cream cheese, others with cheese that sprays out of a can like whipped cream. 

I used the tall narrow highball glasses Cas lent me and fixed everyone a 7 & 7 garnished with a (not so retro) Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.

Carol brought wedges of iceberg lettuce dressed with bacon, cherry tomatoes, green onions, and bleu cheese dressing -- this was our retro salad.

For our main course, we enjoyed pot pies. We fudged on our entree a little bit. Truly retro pot pies, at least this was true in our family's household, would have been made Swanson's pies or Banquet. We, however, enjoyed Marie Callender pot pies -- Christy enjoyed a beef pie and rest of us loved our chicken pies. 

Our table wine: Carlo Rossi Burgundy served from a carafe and a bottle of Rose -- I wanted to serve Lancer's, a favorite of Dad's, but not available at Yoke's. 

Christy has many fond memories of a dessert Mom used to make called Lemon Fluff. She made individual servings of lemon fluff in small aluminum pie containers lined  with (I think) a graham cracker crust. Mom used crushed vanilla wafers, as I understood it from tonight's conversation about this dessert. I thought the graham cracker crust worked great.

Since our dinner was a nostalgic one, so was much of our conversation. Christy shared vivid memories of Mom making lemon fluff, of it being her dessert when she and Dad participated in the Camp Fire Girls' Father/Daughter Banquet. She also discussed her ongoing detective work trying to determine where the recipe originated. We reminisced about the Rena Theater in Kellogg. Somehow, we even had a brief discussion of Glasgow, MT! Is it the USA's most remote town? I'm not sure that question really got settled. 

As our dinner party broke up, we went our separate ways with Kentucky on our minds. 

As the host for next week's family dinner, Christy will assign us Kentucky dishes to prepare -- it is, after all, Kentucky Derby weekend! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-27-2024: Morning Errand Blitz, Swords and Highball Glasses at The Lounge, Enjoying Salad and Salmon and Teff

1. Once I worked puzzles and blogged this morning, I leapt into action and raced to Silver Valley Tire Center and had the Camry wheels retorqued. I sidled up to the next door vacuum cleaner and removed Dorito detritus from floor mat on the driver's side of the Camry. I blasted over to the liquor store and bought spirits for family dinner tomorrow and rounded out my morning errands with a family dinner shopping extravaganza at Yoke's.  What a morning! 

2. Ed swung by around 3:25 and we rocketed up to The Lounge and had a great time yakkin' with Cas and visiting a bit with Tom and Cindie Sawyer. Debbie arrived later and while she was talking to Julie and Diannah, I told Cas that, if it were possible, I'd like some cocktail swords for Sunday's family dinner. He gave me a bunch and THEN I mentioned that I'd sure like to serve Sunday night's highball in a glass similar to the tall narrow one I was, at that moment, drinking club soda out of. 

Bob disappeared.

He returned with a box of six such (I call them) highball glasses and now I'm set to serve drinks just the way I'd dreamed of when Debbie and I started imagining Sunday's dinner. 

3. Back home, Debbie and I dove into the bean salad (featuring white hominy!) she made today along with dining on a salmon burger patty and an unusual, but delicious second side: teff. Teff is a lovegrass native to the Horn of Africa, cultivated for its edible seeds. It's prepared much like any grain, brought to a boil and simmered in a covered pot. It's a solid source of calcium, zinc, and iron. It's gluten free. I like it a lot and, I admit, I ate a little too much of it tonight -- but that's what drinking a few 7 & 7s will lead me to do once I arrive home from The Lounge.   

I over-teffed. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-26-2024: More Tom Petty, Crossword Challenges, Superb Take Out Dinner

1. Listening to episodes of Tom Petty's Buried Treasures show while doing a little cardio at the Fitness Center keeps me very happy while I exercise. 

2. As the weekdays come to an end, The New York Times crossword puzzles are increasingly challenging. It took me a good chunk of time, and some help from the World Wide Web, but today I felt some satisfaction as I completed the Friday puzzle. The Saturday puzzle pops up online at 7 p.m. on Friday, so I got started on it, but realized after a while that I needed to let it go, get some sleep, and return to it with a rested mind on Saturday. 

3. Debbie texted me from The Beanery wondering if I'd like it if she brought home dinner from there. Am I ever glad I said yes! We split a superb chicken pesto sandwich, servings of quinoa and baked potato salad, and a small bag of BBQ potato chips. Totally out of sight take out food! 

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!