Three Beautiful Things 09-29-2024: Link to the Don Knott Slide Show, Violence in the Novel I Just Finished, Pork Roast Family Dinner

1. Today, Simon Miller posted the Don Knott Celebration of Life slideshow. It's on YouTube right now. I hope it stays up for a long time, but YouTube might take it down because of the music. If that happens, Simon will publish it elsewhere and I'll get the word out as to its new location.  Here's the current link: bit.ly/knott23

2. Today I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It's a masterfully told story featuring complicated and complex situations and decisions. It's at once suspenseful and, for me, very disturbing. The book includes passages of sadism and sexual assault. These scenes help portray the rot and corruption and depravity of the dark element of Sweden and that the book's main characters are investigating. These scenes unsettled me. They are violent. They were similar to the crimes committed in the book I just finished, Lost Girls. Before I read any other books in this Stieg Larsson series, I think I'll want to know if sadism and sexual assault is a repeated element of his novels. If it is, I'll either pass on reading more of them or let a good amount of time pass before I read The Girl Who Played with Fire. 

All that said, I think in a while, I'll watch the move The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in part because I very much enjoy watching Daniel Craig act and I'm fascinated by the actors filling other roles in the 2011 movie. 

3. Carol and Paul hosted tonight's family dinner. Seated at the table were Christy, Carol, Paul, Pat, Debbie, and I. Carol prepared a tender and delicious pork roast. Christy fixed a tempting and delicious looking sweet potato casserole and I was dismayed that I thought I'd better not eat any of it with blood work coming up tomorrow and with my need to avoid foods rich in potassium. Debbie made a fresh and delicious cabbage salad. I had fun making do it yourself Rice a Roni from scratch, not out of the box. Pat baked a delicious apple pie and I enjoyed eating it a la mode. We had fun talking about the challenges of being left handed, the old days of Kinney's Shoes, the Celebration of Life for Don Knott, gardening, fall decorations, and other things.  

Three Beautiful Things 09-29-2024: Patio Party, Don Knott's Celebration of Life, Depravity (No Details) in *The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*

1. Debbie and I hosted a word of mouth, informal party on our patio following the Celebration of Don Knott's life, the reception at the church, and the buffet dinner, drinks and invigorating socializing at the Inland Lounge. 

I'm not sure how many people came into our back yard -- maybe between 15-20 -- but this party was also invigorating, a time for longtime, lifelong friends to remember Don some more and also talk about old times together, how things are going in the present, and have a chance to laugh and love each other. 

As the evening drew to an end, a handful of us ended up in the best social space in any house anywhere: the kitchen, with a bit of migration into the living room which, thanks to the large opening between our kitchen and living room is almost the same room. 

Gradually, our friends had to get going -- some had morning tee times, Terry Turner had a long drive back to Oregon on Sunday, Christy needed to see how Riley was doing -- and Debbie and I were alone in the kitchen. 

Debbie summed up the day and the patio party perfectly: "This is why we moved here."

2. Immediately, in the time before today's service, upon talking with Paul Roberts and Simon Miller, and later, talking with Don's daughter, Beth, I knew today's service was going to go beautifully. 

And it did. 

For my part, I entered the relaxation/trust zone I needed to occupy first thing in the morning and maintained my residence in that zone throughout the service. 

My attitude about being asked to officiate this service contributed significantly to keeping me in the zone. 

Once I knew I would conduct Don's Celebration of Life, I felt a deep sense of solemnity, a sense of duty, of service. While I wanted to do all I could to contribute to the celebratory spirit of this service, at the same time, I wanted to be of service to Don, his family, and to his many friends gathered in the church today. 

That I also read the tribute to Don that my lifelong friend Roger Pearson wrote, magnified my sense of duty -- I felt a welcome obligation to be of service to the nostalgia, love, and respect that animated Roger's most eloquent composition, along with feeling loyalty to Don and his life and our memories of him. 

My hope is that I met these obligations. 

I do know that it was my solemn sense of duty and service that strengthened me, kept me relaxed, and spiritually nourished me throughout our celebration of Don Knott's life. 

A footnote: as far my participation in this day of celebration while being immune compromised, the church setting did not feel very risky. I didn't stay long at the church reception and I sanitized my hands as soon as I returned home. 

The crowded Inland Lounge felt riskier. Before I walked in the door, I put on a mask and I made a beeline for the back room where there were fewer people. I went through the buffet line masked, sat at a table   pretty much apart from the others and trusted the health of my table mates, finished eating, put my mask back on, went to the bar and exchanged a few fun words with Cas, and bolted out the door. 

Then when I was with friends and family on the patio, I was outdoors, which is much safer, and, again, I trusted the health of the handful of people I yakked with in the kitchen later on. 

3. So, wow!, even with this vitally important service coming up at 3:00, I couldn't resist reading more deeply much of the morning and into the afternoon into the novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I won't give away details, but this novel has become increasingly disturbing and unsettling to me the more the story develops. As Mikael Blomkvist and Lisabeth Salander dig deeper into the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, they unearth more and more evidence of criminal depravity and this depravity makes its way to Blomkvist's own front porch. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-27-2024: Beach Bum Bakery's Sabbatical, Plot in *The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*, Entering the Zone

1. The Beach Bum Bakery, a purveyor of superb organic baked goods, opened its tiny mobile shack on the south side of Furniture Exchange in Kellogg a couple of years ago. Later on, they moved the shack to Coeur d'Alene. They baked their goods in Silverton and parked their tiny shack in the Runge's parking lot and then at Lowe's. On Wednesdays, they were a vendor at the Coeur d'Alene Fifth Street Farmers Market.

Beach Bum Bakery's proprietors have decided to take a break, reassess how and where they do business, and hope to reopen in the spring. 

So, Thursday was my last chance to purchase an order of Beach Bum's peerless New York bagels.

Today, I picked up my order at Furniture Exchange. I added the dozen I bought today to the 6-8 bagels I already had on hand. 

They freeze beautifully. 

My challenge will be to dip into my supply infrequently enough that I can have bagels on hand up until Beach Bum Bakery reopens and bakes them again. 

Ha! My guess is that I'll consume my supply much sooner than later! 

2. I spent a lot of time today engrossed in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I agree with those who have told me they love Stieg Larsson's character development. I'd add to this that in great novels, character development is tied inseparably to plot. I am thoroughly enjoying how Stieg Larsson has plotted this story, how he introduces new characters with new plot and subplot lines and how he deepens our understanding of the characters we already know with these further movements in the novel's story line. 

Surprising, sometimes disturbing, things happen in this book, and I became more and more absorbed in the task one of the main characters, Mikael Blomkvist, has accepted to carry out: he is not only researching the history of the famous Swedish industrialist family, the Vangers, but he's also working to unravel the mysterious disappearance of a family member, Harriet. Harriet was a teenager when she disappeared. The novel takes place in the early 2000s and she disappeared about forty years earlier. 

And, now, I've reached the point in the book when Mikael Blomkvist hires the titular girl with the dragon tattoo, the enigmatic and brilliant Lisbeth Salander to help him with his efforts. 

I think things are about to REALLY get fascinating! 

3. When I retired for the night, I had printed out my contributions to Saturday's Celebration of Life in highly readable 20 point font, double spaced.  I formatted the text in ways that I hope will help me read it effectively. I punched holes in the margins of each page and loaded the pages in a binder. 

Now, on Saturday, I'll read over the text a few more times, get more and more familiar with it, and I'll relax. 

I'll relax. 

That's my zone. 

Nowadays, I think of it as my kidney transplant zone. 

It's the zone I entered into as I awaiting news when I received kidney offers. 

It's the zone I entered into during the nearly eight hours I awaited transplant surgery at Sacred Heart. 

It's the zone I want to be in as I officiate Saturday's Celebration of Life. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-26-2024: Getting Familiar with the Service, Reading a Terrific Book, A Fun Trader Joe's Dinner

 1. In my slow and steady efforts to prepare to officiate Don Knott's Celebration of Life on Saturday (3:00, Mountain View Congregational Church, Kellogg), I am getting more and more familiar with what I'll say and will continue to practice on Friday. 

2. I am well into the book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I'm finding it absorbing, difficult to put down. The author, Stieg Larsson draws characters in compelling and efficient detail, populating his story with fascinating characters who are also in compelling situations. 

3. When Debbie arrived home, she went right to work making the homemade dog food she feeds Gibbs. She reached a stopping point -- she'll finish the project on Friday -- and then I made a Trader Joe's dinner: Thai Vegetable Gyozas on a bed of organic cous cous topped with Trader Joe's Hoisin Sauce and Trader Joe's Aglio Olio Seasoning Blend -- kind of a mix of garlic and chili flakes. The woman who checked me out on Wednesday told me she uses this blend in Italian, Asian, and other dishes, so I gave it a try. 

It worked! 

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-25-2024: Blood Work and Results, Fun in Spokane and the Valley, A Busy Afternoon and a Power Outage

1. I blasted out of Kellogg around six this morning to have blood work done at Sacred Heart. The results were mostly positive with one exception. 

My white blood cell count and my absolute neutrophil count are getting low. 

Therefore, the transplant team lowered one of my immune-suppression drugs and took me off of the antibacterial drug I've taken since the transplant. 

The following is a blog statement, not an informed medical statement: my sense is that the drugs I've been taking to suppress my immune system or to do work on its behalf have contributed to this lowering of my white blood cell count and my absolute neutrophil count. 

Nurse Jenn sent me a long list of precautions to take in light of my white blood cell count and absolute neutrophil having fallen. 

Actually, the list of precautions isn't much different from what I've been doing. 

It does throw my participation in the get together at the Inland Lounge after Don's Celebration of Life into some doubt. 

I'm thinking if I wear a mask and camp out in the back room where I can keep more distance from people that I can attend for a while. 

I would really hate not to go at all! 

2. After I left my excellent visit to the medical center, my day just continued to be fun and uplifting.

I rocketed over to the Great Harvest Bakery for a delicious Morning Glory muffin and a bracing cup of Cravens coffee and purchased a loaf of Dakota bread.

Trader Joe's is near the Great Harvest Bakery and I popped over there and bought a bag and a half of some fun products including a new seasoning mix, a new pesto, a Thai peanut satay sauce, a couple of seasoned, pre-prepared meat items, a fancy salad for Debbie to take to work, and other things. 

I followed Debbie's directive: if it looks fun, buy it! 

I obeyed. 

I have now read eight of the twelve books on Leah Sottile's July 13th book list she compiled in response to  the NYT's publication of a list it called "The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century."

The four I have left to read don't seem to be available on any bookstore shelves locally, so I'll order them from independent bookstores online and have them shipped. 

I do, however, want another book right now to read, and so I dropped into the Barnes and Noble store off Sullivan Road. 

I wandered around a bit and suddenly I couldn't -- and didn't want to -- resist the attraction of Stieg Larsson's novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

I purchased it, strolled to the Barnes and Noble cafe, bought a tall latte, and sat outside in the mildness of a September Spokane Valley morning and read the book's first chapter. 

I'm hooked. 

3. I spent much of the afternoon finalizing the Saturday buffet following the Celebration of Life for Don Knott. 

It's now nailed down! 

Plenty of food -- and as I wrote in an email, if it's not enough, I'll buy Chinese food next door at Wah Hing! 

Debbie arrived home with the news that she had to leave soon to return to an event at Pinehurst Elementary School. 

I went into cooking overdrive and, before Debbie had to leave, I got out the wok and made a chicken stir fry that included onion, zucchini, celery, cabbage, and cilantro and enhanced it with the Peanut Satay Sauce I bought today at Trader Joe's.

With that wok, I'm telling you, it's possible to make fast food that is mighty tasty! 

Just as Debbie arrived home, the power went out thanks to a short, powerful thunder storm.

We shrugged and each went to bed.

I had the best night of sleep I've had in months! 

When we woke up, PRESTO!, the power was back on. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-24-2024: Saturday's Buffet Looks Great, Writing My Part of the Celebration of Life for Don Knott, Wah Hing Hits the Spot

 1. Today, I delayed going to Spokane for blood work until Wednesday and stayed home to work on two projects related to Don Knott's Celebration of Life (Saturday, Sept. 28th at 3 p.m. at the Mountain View Congregational Church in Kellogg.)

First project: Keeping track of people's contributions to the Saturday buffet. 

This project worked well. I am positive we'll have plenty of food at the Inland Lounge following Don's service. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the contributors. 

2. Second project: Writing, as the officiant of the service, my contributions. I completed a solid first draft of Saturday's service and I'll return to it on Thursday and see about making any edits. 

3. Debbie arrived home in the mood for some Chinese food, an awesome idea,  and we ordered Ginger Beef from Wah Hing along with an order of potstickers and for both of us. It was a perfect break from our own cooking. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-23-2024: DON KNOTT'S CELEBRATION OF LIFE IS HAPPENING!!!, Contributing Food for After the Service at The Lounge, Meatloaf Family Dinner

1. So I had this bright idea that I would use the Event Announcement capability on the Kellogg Idaho Class of 72 Facebook group page and post the information about Don Knott's Celebration of Life as an event. 

Little did I know that for people living outside the Pacific Time Zone, the Event Announcement would tell them the Celebration of Life would begin not at 3 PST, but in Montana the time was listed as 4 MST. 

This caused confusion. 

I received a text asking me, essentially, if the time of the service had been changed because a Montana member of the group saw the time listed as 4 p.m.

So, I took the Facebook announcement down from the Kellogg Idaho Class of 72 group page. 

Little did I know that when I deleted this event announcement, Facebook would send out notification that the event had been cancelled. The Facebook robots equate an announcement being deleted with the event being canceled. 

I didn't think of that! 

Luckily, Ed and Nancy Hanson called me almost right away to tell me that Nancy received a cancelation notification.

So, I went to work on email, Facebook, and this blog immediately to get the word out in all caps that 

DON KNOTT'S CELEBRATION OF LIFE HAS NOT BEEN CANCELED!!!

I hope the fact that the service is happening will be helped further along by today's publication of Don Knott's obituary. 

Here's a link to his obit:

https://shoshonenewspress.com/news/2024/sep/24/donald-knott-70/

2. Cas called me today. I'd asked him earlier about how Don Knott's friends and I could help with the food situation for after the service at the Inland Lounge. 

He told me that he and Tracy will provide ribs. 

He asked me to tell people who want to contribute to bring food that doesn't need to be kept warm because the electricity capability at the Inland Lounge is limited. 

So, I've put out an announcement about bringing food to one group of people, and will probably ask some others.

I've asked people to let me know what they are bringing so I can let others know and hopefully avoid duplication. 

If you are reading this and want to contribute, just email, text, or Facebook message me what you'd like to bring.

So far we have a pasta salad, chips, Trader Joe's chocolates, and cold chicken wings, so there are plenty of options available! 

3. We had a superb family dinner tonight in Christy's back yard. The main dish was Christy's terrific ground beef and pork meatloaf. She also made a grape salad and Carol contributed a fascinating and delicious cornmeal zucchini  pie and she made a zucchini chocolate cake for dessert. For an appetizer, I cut up some Beach Bum Bakery bagels served with Trader Joe's egg salad. Molly also brought delicious bread to eat with dinner. 

So, around the table sat Christy, Debbie, Carol, Paul, Paul's mom and Molly's grandmother, Pat, Molly, and me. 

The weather cooperated and, as always, we talked about a variety of subjects ranging from the perils of having skunks in our neighborhood to the glories of Ethiopian food, especially at the Spokane eatery, Queen of Sheba. 

Don Knott's Celebration of Life Is Not Cancelled!

Because I deleted an event announcement of Don Knott's Celebration of Life  I'd posted on the Kellogg, Idaho Class of 72 Facebook page that caused confusion about the time of the service, Facebook sent out notifications that made it look like the event has been canceled. 

Don's Celebration of Life is very much happening. It's at 3 pm on Saturday Sept. 28th at the Mountain View Congregational Church in Kellogg. 

In fact, Don Knott's obituary is available online and you can read about Don's life AND when and where his service will take place. Here's the link: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/shoshonenewspress/name/donald-knott-obituary?id=56359724

Three Beautiful Things 09-22-2024: Birthday Party Wraps Up, Preparing for Don Knott's Memorial, Talking to Roger

1. Wisely, when Diane and others planned the food for our birthday weekend at the Pineapple Lodge near Trout Creek, MT, they figured we'd have plenty of leftovers from Friday and Saturday and didn't need to bring special food for Sunday's wake up, have a bite, and hit the road breakfast.

They were right. 

We had plenty of leftovers to feed us.

We got ourselves gathered and were out of the house by check out time.

I had an easy and relaxing drive home and hope my friends did as well.

2. I'll be conducting the Celebration of Life for Don Knott this coming Saturday (3 p.m., Mountain View Congregational Church in Kellogg), so Don's daughter Beth and I, on Saturday, arranged to talk things over on the phone today.

And we did. 

I'd say we are set. 

I know what I need to do to prepare for the celebration and Beth knows what she needs to do and this service should come off smoothly. 

3. After I talked with Beth, I had a superb conversation with Roger Pearson about the service, about Don, and some other things. We decided what we needed to and did so candidly and most enjoyably. 

I gotta say -- after spending a weekend with so many people at the Pineapple Lodge and after working out details about the service with Beth and Roger, I was bushed. I looked forward to recharging my batteries with a good night's sleep and returning to my tasks on Monday. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-21-2024: Sept 28th The Celebration of Don Knott's Life, Spinning Reels, Birthday Dinner and *Boom Again* Trivia

1. The date, time, and place for Don Knott's Celebration of Life is now secured, as well as the get together to follow the service. Here are the details:

Date: September 28th, 2024

Time 3:00 p.m.

Place: Mountain View Congregational Church, 525 W. Cameron, Kellogg, ID (Many of us knew this the home of the United Church in our youth!)

Food and drinks at the Inland Lounge after the celebration at the church. 

In addition, if you'd like to contribute money in Don Knott's name to Kellogg High School athletics, Don's daughter Beth has started a GoFundMe to raise funds. Here's the link: https://gofund.me/8e362a7f

2. I had a lot of fun, even though I didn't win any money, with Wanda, Nancy, and Ed at the Wayside Tavern in Trout Creek, MT playing slot machines for an hour or so. It's been fun after over months away from machines to spin some reels and feel the occasional thrill of victory and the always reliable agony of defeat. 

3. Tonight we enjoyed our official 70th birthday party with a delicious shepherd's pie dinner and three gourmet cakes baked by Susan Dahlberg. Stu had the honor of declaring the joy of the occasion and he blew out the 7 and 0 candles. 

After dinner, we divided participants into two teams and played a couple rousing games of the Boomer trivia game, Boom Again. I thought our class members had solid grasp on facts in all the categories and did a good job answering the questions the game raised. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-20-2024: On the Road, A Feast, Four-Handed Cribbage

 1. It takes me longer now that I am a post-transplant guy to get my medicine, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, binder, and other things gathered and organized to travel. So, this morning, I was a little bit late getting out the door to drive to the Pritchard Tavern and join a table surrounded by Class of 72 classmates for a fun and delicious lunch. 

Afterward, we stopped at the Coyote Bar, a country establishment at the bottom of the eastern side of Thompson Pass and for the first time since May 10th I got to play Wolf Moon, my favorite slot machine, and I had some luck. I carried my rinse free cleansing foam in my pocket and washed my hands repeatedly, figuring that was the safest way to enjoy spinning some reels and I was relieved that not many people were at the Coyote. 

2. We all arrived at the Pineapple Lodge north of Trout Creek, MT for our 70th birthday celebration. We got settled into our room and a couple of hours later a pasta feast suddenly appeared with penne, meatballs, sausage, tomato sauce,  lasagne, garlic bread, green salad, and other food items to snack on. 

It was a great dinner -- especially good for me, as it turned out, because the lasagne was not tomato based -- freeing me up to eat a moderate amount of the pasta with tomato sauce and more generous helpings of the lasagne. 

3. I retired to my room and finished reading and being disturbed and unsettled by Lost Girls. 

The highlight of my evening, once I finished the book, was playing four-handed cribbage with Jake, Diane, and Lars. I enjoy playing cribbage online. My opponent is a robot. It was much more fun playing live cribbage and I've always enjoyed what a blast it is to play four-handed. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-19-2024: *Lost Girls*, Cabbage Apple Salad, Shohei Ohtani and Fantasy Baseball

1. I almost finished Lost Girls tonight. It's a study of the paths that led the five women, the subjects of this book into making money by selling sexual acts and the indifference of law enforcement, because the women were escorts/prostitutes, when reports came in that each of the women was missing. The book explores the way the media, especially television, sensationalized these crimes, the way rumors and speculation about the possible perpetrator(s) evolved among the residents of the area on Long Island where police recovered the five women's remains and among online amateur armchair sleuths and crime analysts who speculated as to who committed the crimes, and the heartbreak of the family members and the combination of solidarity and tension that developed between these families. 

I have finished the original book, but the edition I purchased includes an Afterword and an Epilogue that Robert Kolker added to Lost Girls. I will read these two added chapters as soon as possible. 

2. This afternoon after a trip to Yoke's I gathered up and prepared the ingredients for the cabbage apple salad I'm taking to Trout Creek, MT as my contribution to Saturday's dinner as a bunch of us celebrate turning 70 years old.  I went a bit beyond the original recipe by adding bacon and radishes and shredded carrots to the salad and adding fresh lemon juice to the dressing. Debbie and I both liked how it turned out, but the real test will be whether it's tasty to my fellow birthday celebrants! 

3. Fantasy Baseball update: I'm in two fantasy baseball leagues thanks to an invitation three or four years ago from Cas. In League 1, my team is in last place and will probably finish there. In League 2, my team qualified for the four team championship playoff, but my team lost in the first round of this bracket. Now I'm playing for third place. 

Matt, my opponent, has Shohei Ohtani on his fantasy team. 

Today, Ohtani vaulted into baseball immortality by becoming the first player in history to slam 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season. His performance today was, in a good way, monstrous: three home runs, 10 runs batted in, a single, two doubles, and two stolen bases. His historic day at the plate resulted in 59 fantasy points, a mind boggling total, and catapulted Matt's team into a 100 point lead over my fantasy squad. 

I'm about ready to wave the white flag of surrender, but this round has another nine days left. 

The question is Al Michael's most famous one: Do I believe in miracles? 

Three Beautiful Things 09-18-2024: Disturbing Book, Encouraging Workout, Encouraging Blood Test Results

1. I wrote notes about each of the women introduced in the early chapters of Lost Girls and am keeping them a bit straighter in the next section of the book as they enter into the world of escorting and prostitution. It's troubling reading about the instability of these women's lives as they grew up and how, in their twenties,  they turn to sex work to try to stabilize their lives financially. Also troubling is to read how whatever temporary stability they might create through this work is so readily undermined, either by their own actions or by things outside their control. Knowing that each of these women will eventually be discovered as a corpse on the southernmost beach and marsh land of Long Island makes reading the desperate conditions of their lives and employment all the more disturbing. 

2. I returned to the Fitness Center today and had a great experience. I exercised on two machines for a total of just over fifty minutes. On the cross training machine, I set the machine at a higher level than I ever have since the surgery and I felt no discomfort and came away thinking I could have set it even higher. I always pedal at Level 1 on the recumbent bike and did so again today. 

It was a motivating session.

3. A couple more blood test results came in. For now, at least, the reduction of the dosage of my immunosuppressive drugs is working to deal with the two viruses (BK and CMV) that revealed themselves in the past two or three weeks. The results I read today and yesterday reported no detection of the BK virus and such a low level of the CMV virus that it's considered by the transplant team as negative. I'll continue to be tested for these viruses. They'd like to see this good news recur a few weeks in a row. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-17-2024: Keeping the Lost Girls Sorted Out, A Copper Print Arrived, A Different Curry Approach Worked

1. I read early chapters of the book, Lost Girls, today and began to learn about the early lives of four of the women Robert Kolker writes about in this book. On Wednesday, I'll go back and reread and jot down some notes on at least three of these chapters because I'm having difficulty keeping three of the women straight in my mind. The reason is simple: these three victims' names all begin with M: Maureen, Melissa, Megan. It's helped some to go online and look at the pictures of their faces that newspapers ran back in around 2010-11, but I am determined to overcome my own confusion (it's on me -- the writing is lucid and not confusing) and get a firm grip on which backgrounds go with which of the individual women. 

2. Last week, I made an order through flickr to have this picture of Copper printed:

I am always unsure of how pictures I see on my computer screen will translate into printed photographs. This one worked well.  It's an 8" x 12" print and Debbie thinks she might have a frame that will work with this photo. I hope so. It'll be fun to have one of the Copper Project 2024 pictures out for anyone who comes to our house to see. 

3. I've been hankering a bit lately for Thai curry and I decided late this afternoon to take a different approach. I created the curry sauce in my routine way: red curry paste, coconut milk, brown sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce, and kaffir lime leaves. 

Here's what I'd never tried before: I sliced a white onion and put the slices on the bottom of a baking pan. On top of the onion I placed each of the party chicken wings from a single pack. I then poured the sauce over and around the chicken pieces and baked the chicken, onion, and curry sauce combination for about 35-40 minutes. I also fixed a pot of brown rice and when the chicken was cooked through, I put a layer of rice in the bottom of a flat bowl for both Debbie and me and topped the rice with onion, chicken pieces, and sauce. 

I was very happy that an approach to fixing a chicken curry that I thought might work, did indeed turn out to work very well! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-16-2024: Flitting Around Spokane, Completing Tasks in CdA, Comfort Food for Family Dinner

1. My day was chock-full of activity out in the world. Doing all this stuff bolstered my spirits and strengthened my hope that I'll be out and about in the world more and more in the next weeks and months.

I started the day with a 6 a.m. drive to the Sacred Heart Medical Center and had blood work done. 

The results started to come into my cell phone about ninety minutes later and things look pretty good. I was especially happy to see that my efforts to avoid foods high in potassium resulted in my potassium levels coming back in range. 

My glucose levels are a little high (really! just a wee bit high) -- and I think this might be dietary, too. Before my next labs on Sept 30th, I'll do my best to cut back on sweet things and see if that helps. Resuming exercise should also help. 

One of the transplant nurses always contacts me a day or two after blood work. My Tacrolimus levels came up a bit in the last two weeks. My dosage didn't change. I'll be interested to find out if this increase is significant enough to adjust the amount of Tacrolimus I take twice a day or if we'll stay the course. 

In order to ward off the CMV virus that popped up in bloodwork a couple of weeks ago, the team lowered my dosage of immunosuppressive drugs and that appears to be working. My CMV levels came down -- from an already low level. 

2. I sprang out of the lab and jetted up to 29th Ave and darted into Great Harvest and thoroughly enjoyed a pint of coffee and a Morning Glory muffin. I also bought a loaf of Dakota bread for home. 

Then I popped down a couple of blocks and did some indulge shopping at Trader Joe's, with special attention on treats for the 70th birthday party this coming weekend. 

My time at Great Harvest and Trader Joe's took up just the right amount of time and now Auntie's Bookstore was open and I blasted downtown and found the very book I was looking for: Lost Girls by Robert Kolker, the next book I'm going to read from Leah Sottile's list. 

It's a true crime book in which Kolker reports on the lives of the victims of a serial killer who buried his victims on Long Island's Gilgo Beach. This book was originally published in 2013, but the edition I bought today was published this year with an afterword and a new epilogue -- I think Robert Kolker added these sections to his original book because in July of 2023 a suspect in these murders, Rex Heuermann, was arrested, adding more content to his original book. 

I rocketed out of Spokane to take care of a handful of things in Coeur d'Alene.

I dropped in at Camera Corral and learned the technician continues to search for a part to repair the lens I dropped off there a while back. It was good to get an update. 

I scooted up to the Ironwood Starbuck's for a latte and a relaxing time of sitting and staring into the great unknown on a picnic table outside the shop. 

I had an 11:20 appointment with Pulmonologist Dr. Jespersen. I see him every six months, so this was my first appointment with him since the transplant surgery. 

I was kind of giddy with Dr. Jespersen as I reported how well my recovery has gone so far and I was especially happy that he liked how my lungs sounded and that the damage I suffered at the Zinc Plant in 1973 continues to, as he put it, "live in the background", but we'll always be on the watch for any change. 

We ended our conversation on this note: "With your reduced immunity, you are vulnerable to respiratory illness. Be sure to contact me and your transplant team right away if you develop pneumonia or other problems." 

I assured him I would do just that. 

After I filled the Camry with gas at Costco, I went to the pod of food trucks at Prairie Pavilion and enjoyed a delicious bowl of chicken, noodles, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, Hoisin sauce, and cilantro at Stir Fry Guys. 

I wrapped up my CdA visit at Parker Toyota with a 5000 mile service job on the Camry where the car checked out as healthy and I returned to Kellogg. 

3. Debbie worked all day and I'd been taking care of business all day and we had one more commitment ahead of us: we were the hosts for tonight's family dinner! 

Knowing we'd have little time to prepare this meal, it was most fortunate that we had a frozen enchilada casserole in the basement freezer. 

Debbie thawed it over the weekend. 

I popped it in the oven when I arrived at home. 

I bought corn chips at Trader Joe's. 

We lightly spiffed up the house. 

Christy brought more chips and a heavenly warm bean dip. 

Carol made a delicious cucumber, tomato, herbs, and other items salad. 

Debbie had bought a bottle of tequila and a bottle of margarita mix.

Paul brought some wine. 

We were set. 

We spread our offerings on the dining table and the kitchen counters and each served ourselves and settled into the living room for a comfort food feast and a lot of conversation about everything from upcoming memorial services to assembling a desk chair (a job Paul succeeded in accomplishing!). 

Three Beautiful Things 09-16-2024: Violence and Grace, I Learned More about Debra Magpie Earling, Debbie Fixes a Superb Dinner

 1. I finished Debra Magpie Earling's book Perma Red and as I let the story and its conclusion sink in, an odd connection rose up in my mind, a connection between Flannery O'Connor and this book. O'Connor's short stories often featured moments of redemption shaped by violence. O'Connor referred to it a the violent intrusion of grace. If Earling's characters, Louise White Elk and Baptiste Yellow Knife, experience grace and redemption in the book's conclusion, their moment of grace grows out of violence -- violence that Baptiste Yellow Knife perpetrates and is victimized by and that Louise White Elk experiences as she is regarded as exotic and target of male desire, desire for sex and power. 

2. I listen to a podcast interview with Debra Magpie Earling, mostly about Perma Red, on the podcast Breakfast in Montana, and learned about her family connections in Rose Lake, Idaho and bit about growing up in the Spokane area and walking out, never to return, of West Valley High School. I also learned more about Earling's real life Aunt Louise, the person in Earling's family who inspired her creation of Louise White Elk. I also learned that Earling original manuscript ended much more darkly, and that no publisher would print the book until she changed its conclusion. I've thought a lot about the contrast between Earling's original conclusion the conclusion she wrote in order to get it published. 

In their own ways, both conclusions work, each with their own emotional power. 

3. Debbie combined cabbage, bacon, wide noodles, butter, and leeks with a side of optional sour cream into a most delicious dinner. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-14-2024: Back to the Sadness of *Perma Red*, Copper is a Challenge to Photograph, Hot Shrimp and Fried Rice and Gyozas

1. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I took a day off from the Copper Project 2024 today. 

But, here's the deal.

On a day to day basis anymore, I tend to be a one trick pony. 

If I get absorbed in taking pictures, I don't get much reading done.

If I get absorbed in a book, I don't take many pictures and I definitely don't watch movies.

My days tend to be single focused. 

(But I always cook.)

Today, I got absorbed in Debra Magpie Earling's Perma Red  -- so I didn't do much else -- and will probably finish it on Sunday. 

The book focuses on the tumultuous life of Louise White Elk. Louise White Elk's story is one of social and material instability and deaths on the Flathead Reservation, the men who prey upon Louise, Louise's ongoing urge to escape (and her doing it), and the mercurial man she married, but rarely sees, Baptiste Yellow Knife. 

In addition to writing a series of heartbreaking, sometimes frightening stories in this novel, Debra Magpie Earling writes the prose of this novel in rich, often haunting, poetic language. It's physical prose. Sensory. It's of the world, of nature, and it's transporting. 

It's also grievous. 

2. Back to Copper for a minute or two. 

People I follow on Facebook and who post pictures elsewhere online often post photographs of their cats getting into or on top of their stuff. Some cats lie on computer keyboards. Others get on the kitchen counter while a human is cooking. Others jump on the human's lap or chest, making it a challenge for the human to read a book.  Etc. 

These are funny and entertaining pictures. 

Copper doesn't do any of that. 

I currently have my medical stuff -- pillbox, transplant binder, bottles of pills, water bottle, plastic bag of masks, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, box of Kleenex, rinse free cleansing foam, sun screen, urine sample jars, pill cutter, and maybe more -- set up on a card table next to the bed I sleep in. I also keep my cameras, writing implements, reading material, bills, checkbook,  and other miscellaneous items on this (crowded) table.  

I also have a desk chair sidled up to it. 

It would make for funny and entertaining pictures if Copper leapt up on this table and nosed around in all this stuff. I'd even settle for a picture of Copper claiming the desk chair as his own. But, alas, Copper is not what Rhonda K. calls, in a long standing series of cat photographs she's posted on Facebook, a Helper Who Hinders. 

He doesn't mix himself up in my stuff. 

Copper lies on the laundry bag in the closet. Copper finds different places to lie down on my bed. Copper wanders into the Vizio room from time to time to eat dry food, to use the litter box. Sometimes, he'll leap into an empty laundry basket or a cardboard box, but not as often as he used to. 

My challenge, then, in working on the Copper Project 2024, is to figure out various ways to take pictures of Copper resting. 

That's what I've done and it's what I'll do. 

It would be fun if Copper were more entertaining, but I think he's past the entertainment stage of his life. 

He goes much more for the regal, dignified, contented, relaxed look. 

3. I might be overstating it a bit to say that tonight I fixed fusion cuisine for dinner, but I sort of did. 

It was simple. 

First I fixed hot shrimp by cooking a bunch of shrimps in butter in the wok and then transferring them into a pot where I had heated up Frank's RedHot sauce with butter. 

With the wok empty, next I warmed up brown rice left over from last night, poured two beaten eggs in the rice, added chopped green onion, and cooked this mixture. 

At the same time, I put about ten gyozas in a basket and steamed them and served them with the Asian stir fry sauce I made last night. 

So, at least to my way of thinking, the hot shrimp was a kind of Louisiana cuisine. 

The fried rice with egg and green onion was kind of generically Asian. 

Debbie and I both put our Louisiana hot shrimp on top of the quasi-Asian rice: a fusion! 

And, on the side, we enjoyed our Japanese gyozas and topped them with the generic Asian stir fry sauce I'd made. 

Whether this was actually fusion cuisine, really, what difference does it make?

It all tasted great and was a lot of fun to dream up and put together! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-13-2024: Returning to the Pentax Q, Stir-Fried Pork and Vegetables, Copper's Trusting Relaxation

1.  Through flickr and the Mac Photos app, I looked at many, not all, of the pictures I've taken over the years with my Pentax Q. I purchased this camera in November of 2013. Overall, I was happy with many of these pictures -- in fact, I thought I had taken many of them with my Nikon 3100. I'm puzzled why I've let this fine and conveniently sized camera languish unused for so long. 

I turned on the Q and began to teach myself once again how its buttons and dials work, what its capabilities are, and so on. I have a ways to go as far as learning and re-learning the versatility of the Pentax Q, but I'm glad I have it back in action again. 

2. A couple of nights ago, I fixed Debbie and me boneless pork chops baked with a mustard and panko and poultry seasoning topping. I baked half the pork chops in the package and a little later Wednesday night I found a simple recipe for a delicious Asian marinade and put the remaining chops in a zip lock bag with the marinade I mixed up. On Thursday, I took the marinated pork chops out of the marinade, cubed them,  and stored them in the refrigerator.

Today, I chopped up white onion, yellow squash, yellow pepper, mushrooms, carrots, and celery and stir fried them in the wok while a pot of brown rice cooked. I added spinach leaves and red pepper flakes to the vegetables along with the marinated pork cubes and I made a stir fry sauce. Once the rice finished cooking, I blended it in and poured the sauce over it. Our dinner was a tasty blend of sweet, spicy, lemony, and, thanks to the brown rice, nutty. 

3. Some of my friends, for various reasons, have accepted my always standing offer to send them my blog posts via email. Some of these friends are not on Facebook, so when they comment on a post, I'm the only one who reads it. 

Today, Deborah, my longtime/forever friend, starting in 1974 during our time at Whitworth, wrote me the perfect response to the picture I posted of Copper resting on the spot on my bed where I like to lie when I read. 

For starters, here's the picture again: 

Deborah wrote: "Oh, my. The epitome of trusting relaxation. Gorgeous. . . "

She added: "If there is another dimension beyond this one I so hope all the creatures are there, in peace."

Deborah's response moved me, touched one of my deepest desires. 

More than anything, with Copper (and the other animals I've lived with) and with my friends and family, I want them to experience trusting relaxation. Developing this trusting relaxation with Copper has taken some time, especially during the month or more when I was under the impression that being in the same room with Copper was risky because of my post-transplant condition. 

Thank goodness I double checked on that understanding and learned it was my misunderstanding. 

In the time this summer since Copper and I have spent many hours together in the bedroom and since we put up a gate to keep Copper and Gibbs apart, Copper's trust toward me has grown, slowly and surely. 

He's been increasingly willing to make physical contact with me, pressing himself against my legs while I read, resting his face on my palm other times, sometimes even pressing himself against my side above my waist. He licks me on occasion. When I pet him he purrs more willingly and happily than ever. 

When I read Deborah's words, "The epitome of trusting relaxation" it thrilled me that in this picture Deborah could see what I've been experiencing over the last couple of months and loving with Copper. 

Today, Copper lay on a hooded sweatshirt of mine I had lying on the bed. 

I tried out my Pentax Q and took some pictures of him. 

I was rusty. 

I decided to edit one of the photographs by cropping it and making it a monochrome picture. 

So, here it is: my first published picture in the Copper Project 2024 taken with my Pentax Q! 

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-12-2024:RIP Em, Encouraging Photo Review, Get Together at Corby's, Copper Takes My Spot!

A mournful note to begin. 

Today the Coeur d'Alene Press published Bob Emheiser's obituary. To many of us, he was known as "Em" or "Coach Em". He was our Kellogg Wildcat basketball coach when I was a senior and I'd been in his Civics class at Kellogg Junior High my freshman year. 

If you'd like to read Em's obituary, it's right here. 

1.  I spent time today looking back at a set of pictures I took in October, 2019 when Byrdman and I went on a drive. The first pictures I took that day were in the vicinity of Bull Run and after some time there, we headed up the St. Joe River and drove up some of the creeks (or was it one creek?) that feed the St. Joe. 

My mind changed in two significant ways as I revisited these pictures. 

First, I'd always thought my pictures from that day were cliched. Run of the mill. Boring. 

I felt differently today and they made me think that with the weather cooling down and the leaves about to turn, that I ought to take pictures outdoors around North Idaho again. 

Secondly, I had it in my head that I took lousy pictures with my small Pentax camera. I haven't had it out for a few years. That day, I divided my shots between the Pentax and my Nikon and, lo and behold, I not only liked the Pentax photos, I urged myself to get that camera back in action again. 

2. This afternoon I participated in my first (I think) social outing, outside of family gatherings, since the kidney transplant. 

A bunch of guys from the KHS Class of '71 meet from time to time at Dave Corbeil's Post Falls bar, Corby's. (Dave is a 1967 KHS grad.) 

Those guys had a get together planned for today, Byrdman (Class of 1970) let me know about it, and I decided to join in. 

I decided that I'd trust that none of the guys who came today would have a contagious illness. I decided that I'd drink a Pepsi and I didn't want to wrestle with a mask between sips, so I didn't wear one (although I carried one in my pocket, just in case). I brought a small bottle of cleansing foam with me and washed my hands after any handshake -- and tried to do it as inconspicuously as possible. 

So, the next couple of days will tell whether this was such a good idea.  Did I contract any illnesses at Corby's today?  I have to say, though, I'm happy I gave it a shot and, if going to Corby's turns out to have been okay, I'll sure welcome a boost of confidence that, even in my compromised condition, I can do this sort of thing from time to time in the weeks to come. 

Next test: Friday I will go to Trout Creek, MT and join about 20 other longtime friends in a huge house to celebrate our 70th birthdays. 

I enjoyed yakkin' with the guys who got together at Corby's. Aside from phone calls and texting, I hadn't had in person yakkin' time with longtime friends for several months and I'm really glad I decided to take part. 

3. I am a lie on my back reader for the most part. Today, I delayed returning to reading Perma Red because Copper decided to take over my reading spot! 

Note to myself, and feel free to read it along with me: I'm doing better with focus and shutter speed/aperture settings. Now I need to give better attention to the composition of my photographs. Composition has always been challenging to me and I can see, especially before I edit/crop pictures, that lately I haven't been very mindful of how I'm composing what's inside the frame. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-11-2024: Feeling Better Than Ever, Great Afternoon in the Kitchen, The Bedroom is Not a Photo Studio!

1.  Ever since I woke up from transplant surgery on May 11th, I've thought, "Hmm. I'm feeling pretty good." And I was right. I haven't been in pain, my mental state has been positive, I've been able to get around almost from the beginning and take care of myself, cook, and do other light tasks around the house -- and with time, the tasks I've done have become heavier and heavier.

Over the last couple of days, however, I've felt even better. My already good mental state has improved, I've felt small surges of joy, and I've enjoyed the last few days more than any others over the last four months. 

2. I think my efforts today in the kitchen contributed mightily to my sense of uplift. After picking up groceries curbside at Walmart at 7 a.m. and then enjoying a latte from Silver Peak Espresso (always a boost!), I had the ingredients on hand to fulfill Debbie's request that I bake a batch of Morning Glory Muffins. I had a blast organizing the wet and dry ingredients, mixing them together, spooning out the batter into baking cups, and producing a couple dozen muffins. It's a great help to Debbie to have grab and go food to take to school in the morning. These muffins perfectly fit that need.

This morning I took a pack of boneless pork chops out of the freezer to thaw. Once thawed, I laid them out on a baking pan lined with aluminum foil. I made a mixture of panko and poultry seasoning of my own creation and roasted it in a pan on the stovetop. I put a layer of Dijon mustard on each pork chop and added some hot Chinese mustard to the Dijon, hoping to satisfy Debbie's and my enjoyment of a little heat in our food. I spread the panko mixture on top of the mustard mixture. While the chops baked, I made a pot of jasmine rice and a mixed vegetable stir fry. 

It was a simple dinner to prepare. It was very satisfying as well. 

Uplifting. 

 3.  As I continue the Copper Project, it hit me today that sometimes I expect myself to take studio quality pictures. Ha! My bedroom is hardly a studio. I don't have highly controlled sophisticated lighting in the bedroom and I'm often unsatisfied with what lies in the background of pictures I take of Copper. 

Often, I take pictures of Copper from near the foot of the bed and my heap of nighttime pillows at the head of the bed are part of the background. I don't always like this. So, today, I moved the two blue pillows from the head to the foot of the bed, thinking I'd take pictures of Copper without those pillows behind him. 

Well, of course, Copper immediately rested himself in front of the pillows in their new spot. 

So, I gave in and took a few pictures of Copper in front of the pillows. Here's my favorite: 

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-10-2024: Renewed Vitality, Educating Myself, Quick and Very Delicious Dinner

1.  If you read this blog and grow weary of my Copper project, please indulge me. I am feeling better than ever these days and one thing that is boosting my mood, is invigorating my vitality is taking photographs again, especially trying out different ways to take pictures of Copper. (I think he's a great model and taking pictures of him in the lighting conditions of my bedroom presents me with challenges I enjoy facing.)

2. Not only am I enjoying taking photographs, I'm enjoying educating myself again about how my Nikon 3100 works, some of the ins and outs of Photos for Mac (all my previous work with pictures was on a PC), and what I'm finding to be the improved performance of flickr. It's all stimulating, vitalizing. 

3. We try to always keep tilapia on hand. I thawed four filets today, not knowing that Debbie was going to be leaving the house soon after she arrived home from school. She would be blasting over to Teeters Field to watch present and former students play soccer.

I told her I'd have dinner ready the second she walked in the door -- and I did. I fixed a mixed vegetable stir fry, a pot of golden couscous, and fried the tilapia filets. For a fish sauce, I threw together the rest of our Trader Joe's lemon pesto along with sour cream and yogurt and topped it off with chopped green onion. I hadn't tried this combination before and Debbie and I agreed: it was an awesome sauce for dressing the fish. 

It was a quick dinner and a really delicious one. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-09-2024: The Sube is Home, Searching for Home, Copper Project at flickr

1.  I drove the Sube home today after its weekend away at the repair spa and the air conditioner once again blows cool/cold refreshing air into the cabin. 

2. As I move more deeply into the novel, Perma Red, Louise White Elk is developing into a restless character, eager to be and stay on the move, and in her wanderings she experiences, as a young teenager, shocks that catapult her into something like adulthood while she very much remains an adolescent. I'm wondering if this novel is developing as a story about Louise White Elks' mighty sense of displacement and not belonging and is becoming about her search for home. 

3. I continued to take a few pictures of Copper today and I reacquainted myself with my flickr account and familiarized myself with some things that are new, to me, at the site. I thought I'd post a picture I liked of Copper, but that kind of bugged me because of the blue pillows in the background. I cropped the picture -- the edited version is the second on here -- and I'm undecided which version I prefer. I've begun an album at flickr called Copper Project 2024. 

I can tell as I add more photos to it that gradually I'm knocking the rust off and my photographs seem to be improving incrementally. I've got a lot of work to do, as always. 

I'll continue to post this link to the album periodically in case you'd like to look at it.  Just click here. 

By the way, clicking on the photos in the album will give you a larger view. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-08-2024: Copper's Closet Spot, Reading *Perma Red*, Carne Asada for Dinner

1. I'm enjoying taking pictures of the various ways Copper spends his days and the various ways he presents himself to the world.  Several years ago, Mom purchased a cloth laundry bag with the word "Laundry" printed on it. I had it lying on the floor of my closet, empty, flat to the floor, and, many months ago, Copper started to lie on it, sleep on it, relax on it. He's claimed it as his own. He seems to enjoy being in the closet and just likes having this bag underneath him. I admit, it doesn't make for an artful, attention grabbing picture, but photographing Copper in the closet presented me with some challenges and I got out my kit lens for the first time in forever, snapped a picture I can live with after several attempts, and here he is: Copper sleeping on the laundry bag in the closet! 

 

2.  I'm into the next book I'm reading from the Leah Sottile list. Once again, I'm reading a book that takes place on an Indian reservation, but Debra Magpie Earling's Perma Red is not set in North Dakota, but in Montana on the Flathead Reservation near and in the towns of Parma, Dixon, Paradise, and others. The book takes place in the 1940s and tells the story of a teenaged girl becoming a woman. Her name is Louise White Elk. She is a fiery teenager, determined to forge her own way in life, not to be defeated by the abusive schools she attends, the cruelty of adults she can't avoid, as well as the cruelty of poverty and the all too ubiquitous intrusion of death in her young life. 

3. At Trader Joe's this past Wednesday, I purchased another hunk of beef that is marinated in a package. This one was a Carne Asada which I grilled on the stovetop. I also made a pot of white rice and cooked up a mess of vegetables in butter -- zucchini, white onion, yellow pepper, and corn -- seasoned with the Southwest Spice Blend I made, patterned after the blend found in several HelloFresh meals. 

Currently, I am on a low potassium diet, so I'm steering clear of potatoes, tomatoes, avocados, bananas, and other potassium rich foods. 

But, Debbie isn't restricted, so I boiled a couple of potatoes for her, just in case she thought they might taste good in place of or along with the rice.

This was a successful meal and I have a small container of Carne Asada bits left over and, as I peer into the future, I see some street tacos for lunch on Monday. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-07-2024: Copper's Comfort, I Finished *Red Clocks*, Ginger Beef from Wah Hing

 1. Since we put a barrier up dividing the small area in our house where the two bedrooms sit from the living room, Copper no longer has to be behind closed doors to keep Gibbs from scream barking at him. We've had this arrangement for several weeks now. Copper loves it, loves moving freely from room to room, loves having the the two rooms' doors open.  He's been content, and, as you can see from this picture, relaxed. I hope you can tell that Copper is near peak comfort when he stretches out on his back on my bed. 

2. I had taken a little time away from the very serious, often dark, list of books on the Leah Sottile list I've mentioned several times since July. Today I returned to Red Clocks by Portland, Oregon's Leni (rhymes with RAINY) Zuma, a novel set in the not too distant future in a small fictional Oregon fishing town on the coast. In this future, the U.S. Constitution has been amended to outlaw all abortions and legislation has passed that allows only married heterosexual couples to adopt children.

Zuma tells the interlocking stories of four women who live in or near this small town: a high school student, a high school teacher and biographer, a stay at home mother, and a mender who lives in the woods and treats people who come to her with concoctions she makes from herbs, barks, and other natural sources. The novel also includes the story the biographer is writing of a 19th century woman who was an Arctic explorer. 

Through these characters and their stories, Zuma explores different dimensions of womanhood -- marriage, being single, having an accidental pregnancy, professional ambition, professional sacrifice, motherhood, being an outsider, living as a battered wife, and more. 

I found the stressful and often dark storylines in Zuma's book to be offset by the lyrical beauty of her writing. I particularly enjoyed how she took her readers into the details of the natural beauty of the Oregon coast and the forest lands just east of the ocean. 

Over the last month or so, I've had strong yearnings to visit the Oregon coast and so I relished doing about the next best thing, enjoying the beauty of coastal Oregon through Puma's descriptions and poetic attention to detail. 

3. Debbie paid the Inland Lounge a visit this afternoon and returned home with a bag of Ginger Beef and rice from Wah Hing. I always enjoy cooking dinner for Debbie and me, but tonight I was so absorbed in Red Clocks that I welcomed how I only had to put the book down for the short amount of time it took me to enjoy this delicious dinner and then I returned to the suspense of what was going to happen to these characters in court, in pursuit of an illegal abortion, in marriage, in the Arctic, and in the midst of professional and moral decisions as a teacher -- and more.  

Three Beautiful Things 09-06-2024: Copper and I Grow Old Together, Good For My Soul, Viruses and Medication

1. I've haven't ever nailed down Copper's age. I've looked into it a bit and Dr. Cook made his estimate, but I'm not absolutely sure. It's no problem that I don't know, but let's say Copper is about 13 years old.  That's the equivalent of nearly 70 years old in human years. In other words, Copper and I might be at about the same stage of life. 

Today, I pulled back the curtains in the bedroom, hoping to photograph Copper using more natural sunlight. I took a couple pictures I enjoyed, but with the manual focus lens I'm using, I forgot to get the pictures in focus. 

I did, however, snap one picture in focus and it's a picture that portrays many hours of Copper's days and portrays what I also enjoy doing as a seventy year old! 

2. Today my lifelong friend Roger Pearson called me. He and Don Knott grew up together in the same neighborhood, both attended Lincoln Elementary and Kellogg Junior High and Kellogg High School together. They played guard together in basketball, were golfing partners recreationally and teammates on the KHS golf team, and were best of friends, like brothers to each other, over the years. 

It did my soul a lot of good to talk with Roger about Don, especially as we discussed all the things we admired about him: his intelligence, generosity, concern for others, determination, and athletic skill, to name a few. 

Later in the evening, in a group text, Roger, Terry Turner, and I reminisced about a wild afternoon and evening we spent on September 6, 1980 in Eugene, first at Autzen Stadium watching the Oregon/Stanford football game and then remembering how at Taylor's we watched John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors go toe to toe in a semi-final US Open tennis match. Terry and I got pretty rowdy watching the match, beating on the booth we were seated in and, looking back, I don't remember clearly if we were warned to settle down or leave or if we were actually escorted out. 

I do know one thing: Taylor's was not our last stop that evening! Man -- forty-four years ago we had stamina and we could get loud and obnoxious and careless! 

3. I like to use this blog as a way to write about what's going on with my kidney transplant. 

The results of three of my blood tests came in on Thursday and Friday -- the results of these particular tests always take a little longer. 

A reminder: the transplant team monitors either weekly or bi-weekly the levels of immune-suppresion drugs in my system. I need to have enough of these drugs in my system to prevent my immune system from rejecting my new kidney, but if my levels are too high, I'm vulnerable to viruses and infection.

What I'm about to write is not alarming. 

My dosages of immune-suppression drugs have been a bit too high and two viruses have exploited my suppressed immunity and shown up in tests.

One is the BK virus, the other the CMV. 

The levels of BK and CMV in my system are very low. 

Ever since the transplant, I've been taking a medication to prevent CMV infection and this drug, along with the lowering of my immune-suppression dosages, will likely take care of this infection. Likewise, this lowering will help my immune system deal with the BK virus. 

I do need to be vigilant. 

I need to keep washing my hands, being careful about the social situations I enter into, and keep wearing a mask when I'm unsure about whether there might be people around me who are ill.

I also need to be monitoring myself for flu like symptoms, fever (I take my temp morning and evening), infections, and diarrhea. 

I've been doing all of this anyway over the last four months, but with the appearance of these low level viruses, I'll be even a bit more attentive to how I feel and how I move through the world. 

One last thing: you might wonder why the doctors didn't give me the exact right dosage from the get go. 

First of all, we humans are not machines. We all respond to medication differently. Until some time passed  and the doctors saw how my system was responding to the medications, they've had to make education estimates regarding the dosage of my immune-suppression drugs and adjust dosages as we move forward. This is routine, normal, to be expected. 

Second of all, reality isn't stable. We live in a reality of continuing flux. In such a reality, a reality that my renal health is very much a part of (!), things are going to change, doctors need to make adjustments, and the whole process of testing, monitoring, and responding will continue on. 

I'm confident and optimistic that this process is going well. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-05-2024: Back to Exercising, Terrorism on *NCIS*, Spaghetti Dinner and Flexibility

Quick note: It didn't work to photograph Copper today -- that just happens some days. 

1. It felt great to return to the Fitness Center today after five days away. I am in the process of figuring out just how far and how hard I can push myself on the cross training machine and the recumbent bicycle. After thirty minutes of exercise today, I was a bit winded, but the great news is that I felt no discomfort in the surgery site. 

2. Debbie and I haven't watched television together for quite a while, but this week we watched a four episode NCIS story. The NCIS team faced an international terrorist group that recruited children and these episodes included the most intense moments of danger, violence, injury, and death I've ever seen on NCIS. Right in the middle of it all, Mimi Rogers appeared in a guest star role as a CIA agent whose son was killed by this terrorist organization. I enjoyed seeing her as seasoned actor in her 60s. She was superb. 

3. I learned at my transplant appointment on Wednesday that my potassium levels have crept a bit out of range on the high side again. To my relief, the doctor and I agreed to address this problem without another medication. So, tonight, Debbie requested pasta for dinner and I made her spaghetti with a tomato sauce and ground beef that I couldn't eat because tomatoes are a high potassium food. She was very happy with the sauce I made. I very much enjoyed my plate of spaghetti with Trader Joe's lemon pesto and a bit of sour cream, a combination I dreamed up and that worked for me. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-04-2024: Spending the Morning at Sacred Heart, A Full Day of Fun, The Copper Project

 1. I hopped in the Camry around 5:45 this morning and jetted to the Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center for blood draws and a series of conversations with the transplant team. It was a superb morning at Sacred Heart. The blood draws went smoothly. I met another nephrologist, new to the staff, Dr. Samer Abdulkhalek. He was a calm, reassuring, easy going doctor, easy to talk with. 

As I've written before, right now, as I enter the fifth month since my surgery, the primary concern with my condition is getting the immune suppression medication correctly dosed. I need these drugs as a safeguard to keep my immune system from rejecting my new kidney. I'll take them for the rest of my life.

So, if the dosages are too low, rejection is a possibility.

If the dosages are too high and my immune system is over compromised, viruses can exploit that situation. 

For a while, my dosages tested on the high side and, as I've written before, the BK virus manifested in my system, but with a very low presence. The hope is that having reduced my dosages, my system will take care of this virus. 

When I have blood work done again in two weeks, the doctor will have me tested for a second virus, CMV. I already take a medicine to prevent this virus, but if we discover the virus snuck into my system anyway, we'll increase the dosage of this medicine which should eliminate it. 

These developments are unremarkable. It's all part of the post-transplant process of recovery and adjustment. Going forward, I'll continue to have my blood tested every two weeks and return in a month for another visit to the clinic. 

By the way, I also had a splendid conversation with Helen, the social worker I've talked with ever since I enrolled in this program back in 2018, and I had a quick conversation with Nurse Angela who encouraged me to get out more, keep washing my hands, do all I can to avoid being in the presence of people who are sick, and to wear my mask in situations where I'm unsure, like in stores or other public places, if people around me might be ill. 

2. I left the Sacred Heart complex feeling encouraged, feeling happy after the tests and conversations. 

I then embarked on the busiest and fullest day I've experienced since the surgery. 

Here's what I did:

I dropped in at Auntie's Bookstore and purchased a copy of the book Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling. It's on the Leah Sottile list I'm reading. 

I enjoyed a most delicious turkey sandwich at Great Harvest and bought a big oval loaf of Asiago Sourdough bread. 

I roamed the aisles of Trader Joe's. I bought some items. 

I visited the Camera Corral in CdA and dropped off my favorite 50 mm lens, hoping their technician could repair a lens cap problem. I'll find out next week after the woman whom I talked to returns from a short vacation. 

I filled the Camry with gas at Costco.

I went to Hippo for a car wash. 

I ordered a grande latte at Starbucks. 

I left the Camry for Debbie at Pinehurst Elementary and drove home in the Sube. 

For the first time in over four months, I was out and about from about 6 a.m. until I returned home at 3 p.m. 

3. So, because I took my auto focus 50 mm lens in for lens cap repair, I got out my other 50 mm lens tonight, a totally manual lens, and started to get reacquainted with it. I'm posting these pictures I took last night of Copper. I can tell I need to relearn getting the aperture and shutter speed working together better.If I succeed, I should be posting better, I hope sharper pictures, but even though these phots are not great, here they are! If I am going to make progress, I'd like to have a record on this blog of my less successful efforts.  (I had some fun with the first photo using the vignette editing feature.)

Three Beautiful Things 09-03-2024: A/C Is Toast, Trader Joe's Salmon, Copper's Eyes and Length

1. I took the Sube to an Osburn garage that services auto air conditioner units and the Sube's unit is shot. 

Toasted.  

Not sure what the next step will be. 

2. I thawed some salmon filets I bought at Trader Joe's and seasoned them with a Trader Joe's salmon rub and Debbie and I agreed we ought to have this meal again. 

3. I was able to take a so so picture of Copper's eyes. I hope to take better pictures as I practice more. Copper is a pretty big cat and I guess the second picture shows that since I didn't get his entire tail in the frame!

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-02-2024: Don Knott Made a Dream Come True, I Got My Camera Out, Chicken Stir Fry

1. First of all, before I get rolling on today's blog post, Terry Turner, Carol Lee Jacobs, and Byrdman all reported about gifts Don had given them in the Facebook comments on my post about Don Knott giving gifts: Terry told about Class of '72 golf ball markers Don had made and gave to Terry and others; Byrdman posted a picture of an NAIA World Series (held in Lewiston) t-shirt Don gave him;  Carol Lee posted a picture of a divot repair tool Don gave Jake in memory of Kirk "Goose" Hoskins embossed with this: The Goose 1954-2019.

Don Knott did more for me than just give me gifts. 

He also made a dream come true that I never thought would happen. 

Back in 2022, the year of our 50th KHS class reunion, I discovered online that a craft brewery had taken over the former Heidelberg brewery in Tacoma and opened 7 Seas Brewing. At some point, the enterprising new owners unearthed the recipe for Heidelberg beer and decided to start brewing and canning it. Heidelberg hadn't been brewed for many years. 

You've got to understand. Heidelberg was a top selling beer in and around Kellogg. My dad was a prolific drinker of Heidelberg beer. So was Don's dad. In honor of them and because I knew many of my classmates would enjoy the tangy velvety taste and the sweet nostalgia of having Heidelberg beer at our reunion, I hoped I could find a way to bring some to our reunion weekend get togethers. 

One day Don texted or emailed me that he was going to drive to 7 Seas Brewing in Tacoma and fill up his car with Heidelberg beer. I ordered two cases, wanting to share as many cans as people wanted. 

In total, Don bought 14 cases, some for himself, the others filling orders. 

He stocked a cooler with Heidelberg tall boys for our class's Friday night party and once those who wanted them had popped open a can, we raised a toast to our fathers, Pert Woolum and Norm Knott, and to the glory of Heidelberg beer. 

It was a dream come true for me. So was spreading joy with the two cases I bought by sharing cans of beers with anyone who wanted them. (Don's generosity rubbed off on me!)

The cup of my heart will always be running over with gratitude for the effort Don made to make my Heidelberg dream come true. 

2. When I decided to post pictures of gifts Don Knott gave me, I wasn't happy with my cell phone pictures and I took out my Nikon 3100 for the first time in way too long. I began to get reacquainted with my camera, took the gift pictures, and then decided to try to photograph Copper. That's always a challenge, but I'm going to stick with it and see if I can have some success. 

As you can see from this one attempt I'm posting, I always have trouble snapping a picture at just the moment Copper happens to look up, happens to make eye contact with the camera. I didn't succeed here, but I hope, over time, to take some pictures that better show Copper's intriguing eyes.

 

3. Debbie and I have been doing a good job of eating the food we have on hand rather than adding more food to our fridge and pantry. I think we've reached a point, especially with produce, where we need to do some shopping. But, this evening, I thawed the last three pieces of chicken tenders that were in the freezer, chopped a half a white onion, sliced up a half of a yellow squash we had on hand, and fixed a pot of jasmine rice. I got out the wok, stir fried the chicken, onion, yellow squash, and a half a bag of frozen green beans, added in some rice, and made a sauce composed of Hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, molasses, garlic chili paste, and some water. (I now kick myself that I forgot to add in some ginger.)

It worked!

Three Beautiful Things 09-01-2024: Don Knott's Gifts, Morning Zooming, Reading *Red Clocks*

 1. In this time of mourning the death of Don Knott, my sadness wells up right along with a multitude of fun and admiring memories of great times we had and of Don's lovable personality. 

One thing Don enjoyed doing was going online and ordering custom made things to give as gifts or order things that led to him making the gifts himself. 

For example, when Mom died in 2017 and we held her Celebration of Life on October 6th, Don attended the service, the reception that followed over at Carol and Paul's house, and the post-reception party at the Inland Lounge. 

At the Lounge, Don presented me with a gift he made. He'd ordered a cloth Heidelberg beer logo and glued it to a baseball cap and in honor of our Heidelberg loving fathers, he presented me with this cap. It's among my most prized possessions. I wore that cap -- it looked splendid with the suit and tie I was wearing at the Lounge! -- for the rest of afternoon and evening. Since that day, I've probably worn this cap a little too often. It's starting to show its age, but even if I don't often put it on, I love this cap. Here it is: 

Don also, of course, attended the Celebration of Life held in honor of our classmate and lifetime friend Kirk "Goose" Hoskins on June 1, 2019. I hosted a pre-Celebration get together for the many members of the Class of 72 who came to Kellogg to honor Goose. At that party, Don gave us each a sticker he'd had custom made online that we could wear for the rest of the day. It was a most thoughtful and fun gift. I keep mine affixed to the fridge at all times. Here's what it looks like: 

I don't remember exactly when Don moved to Lewiston, but on at least two occasions, if I remember correctly, a bunch of us made a road trip to see Don in Lewiston. We met at the Effie Tavern, home of burgers the size of a sheep's head. After one of those trips, Don had coffee cups custom made that said "Effie Time" on one side and, on the other, featured a picture someone from the tavern took of all of us who made that trip. Here are the two sides of that cup -- I hope you get the gist of how thoughtful all these gifts were, another one of the things about Don we loved so much. 

2. Bill, Diane, and I met this morning on Zoom and had, as we always do, a lively conversation that mixed good humor and mirth with some very serious discussions. The three of us all have ongoing medical matters going on and it was encouraging to learn that each of us, in our own way, is doing pretty well. I rattled on and on about the book list I'm reading my way through and I shared the astonishment I felt when I read a piece of writing I submitted to The Whistle, a publication that used to come out of the Whitworth English department and was sent out to alums. Deb Akers found the piece I wrote in 1983 and mailed it to me and I had totally forgotten how well-formed my thinking about comedy, literature, community, and my efforts to find some stability after the divorce that had been recently finalized. Later in 1983 and on into 1984, I would take several strides back into despondency, but at the moment I wrote this short essay, I was evidently feeling good about things and I enjoyed how I wrote about it 41 years ago and enjoyed telling Bill and Diane about it -- especially because our Westminster group spent a few weeks discussing the world of comedy in literature a few years back.

3. I've begun reading the seventh of the twelve books on the list Leah Sottile published mid-July. A Portland writer, Lena Zumas, wrote Red Clocks and in it she imagines a future in which abortion has been legislatively made illegal and the Personhood Amendment has been added to the Constitution, granting rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo.

Zumas sets her novel in a small fictional fishing town on the Oregon Coast and tells the story of five women, all very different from one another. I'm not very far into the book, but one thing I know so far is that the stories of these women intertwine and at least some of the intersection involves the local high school. So, I'll move on. I'm thinking that this book is headed in a dystopic direction -- I mean, having read six books on Leah Sottile's list, I know her reading (and writing) inclinations tilt strongly toward the dark. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-31-2024: Don Knott's Elegance, Family Dinner/Birthday Party, High Regard for Don Knott

1. Ever since we were youngsters, I marveled at what I came to regard as Don Knott's elegance. 

By elegant, I don't mean fancy. 

I mean that the way Don wore everyday clothes, often a golf shirt with a regular pair of pants, was, to my eye, always graceful. Not only did he wear clothes well, he almost seemed to glide through the world, with an ease and an efficiency that I thought came naturally to him, that, again I marveled at. 

Don's elegance was, to me, most evident on the golf course, baseball field, and basketball court. 

Again, without being fancy, Don always dressed impeccably on the golf course and his elegant golf swing perfectly matched his elegant appearance. I don't know if Don ever took golf lessons from a professional, but I do know, because I played golf with Don as a teenager when we first took up the game, that from the beginning Don swung a golf club elegantly, smoothly, with a steady, syrupy tempo. Around and on the greens, Don pitched, chipped, and putted not only with intelligence and imagination, but with the same smooth and elegant tempo he employed off the tee and in the fairway. 

I know a lot of hard work and practice lay behind Don's brilliant golfing ability, but he made it look effortless, in much the same way he made just looking good seem effortless. 

Don performed with this natural smoothness and elegance as baseball/softfall player, too. In the field, as a second baseman, Don was nearly flawless and made vacuuming ground balls and firing accurate throws to first base look simple. At the plate, much like on the golf course, Don swung the bat efficiently, elegantly, and most effectively, drilling well placed line drives to the outfield and, on occasion, blasting a pitch out of the park. 

Don also worked hard, especially in high school, to develop a smooth, elegant, highly reliable jump shot and he succeeded. Once again, I have to use the word marvel. I didn't get a lot of playing time our senior year, and so, from the bench, I got to watch Don play countless minutes and I marveled at his consistency, the grace of his movement on the court, and not only the beauty of his jump shot, but its accuracy. 

I didn't see Don play a lot of basketball after high school -- I saw him play some minutes the one season he was on the North Idaho College team and very occasionally saw him play men's league games in the Silver Valley. But on those occasions, around 1983, when I got to go to a Johnny's Bar game or two, I saw that Don's elegant basketball skills had matured -- and along with the improvement of his already stellar abilities, his movement on the court was as smooth and deceptively effortless as ever. 

So in these physical ways, the way he wore clothes, his golf swing, his performance as a baseball fielder and hitter, his efficiency on the basketball court as well as the way he kept up his vehicles and the way he kept up his house and the patio we all enjoyed so much, Don was stylish and elegant -- I'd even say classy.

The memories I've been reliving over the weekend in the wake of Don having died have been, in large part, playing over and over again this natural elegance I always admired and marveled at over the more than sixty years Don and I were friends. 

I've thought, too, about the many honest and serious talks we had, the great stories I've heard about wild escapades Don and other of my friends undertook when we were younger, and Don's devotion to the Oakland A's. 

But, whoa, that golf swing, That jump shot, The way he swung a baseball bat. His ease. He was blessed with an admirable elegance. 

I marveled at that. 

2. At tonight's family dinner at Carol and Paul's house, we celebrated Cosette's 29th birthday. Cosette requested shrimp scampi and Carol fulfilled her request deliciously. Christy brought a very tasty baked pepper jelly cheese dip with crackers for an appetizer and Debbie threw together a delicious vegetable salad and brought two kinds of bread to use to sop up the shrimp scampi juices. I didn't contribute anything to this dinner! 

Cosette also requested cheesecake for dessert and Carol baked one served with huckleberry sauce. 

3. I sent out an email to as many high school classmates as I have email addresses for about Don Knott's death.  It's been heartening to read the responses people wrote, to know the high regard so many felt for Don. Likewise, the responses to my blog post yesterday have also been heartening and the same thread runs through all of these responses: Don Knott was a great guy and it's terribly sad that he has passed away, that he has left us.