Three Beautiful Things 02-02-2025: *After That Night*, KWAX-FM, Leftover Lasagne

1. I think it was last year, possibly in 2023, that one of our Westminster Study Group discussions turned to television shows and my faulty memory dimly recalls that Val and Bridgit both enjoyed ABC's Will Trent. 

Well, some time earlier in January (I think), Debbie and Jake were yakkin' at the Lounge and Jake told Debbie he'd like to pass on a book he was reading. A while later, Jake swung by the house and the book he dropped off was After That Night by Karin Slaughter. 

It is one of her Will Trent crime mysteries. 

I won't go into the storyline too much, but I will say that once Will Trent, Sara Linton, and Faith Mitchell begin their surreptitious and off the books investigation into a series of rapes, this book gripped me and today I spent much of the afternoon and evening reading it. 

2. The passages describing the assaults in After That Night are horrifying. Mercifully, most of the book focuses on the investigation and the relationships between the lead characters. 

As a way of having something pleasant and soothing in my world while I was reading, I used the TuneIn app and put on Eugene's classical music station, KWAX-FM. 

It worked. 

Playing quietly in the background were Baroque compositions, recordings of performances given in different venues in Oregon, an hour of classical guitar, an hour long program devoted to American classical music, and other programming. This music was a good influence on my spirit while I delved into the violence and unnerving revelations of After That Night.

3. Debbie dashed to the store, bought some ground beef, used some mushrooms, and stretched the leftover lasagne from family dinner into another main dish that I thoroughly enjoyed along with a couple helpings of the green salad I always have at the ready and add more lettuce and vegetables to, as needed. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 02-01-2025: Freezer Case Lasagne, An Intense January, Trust

1. Debbie bought a frozen lasagne back in, oh, let's say, November in anticipation of having more visitors than usual in our house, but, it turns out, we didn't need to draw upon its convenience. 

We decided to draw upon it today. We hosted this week's family dinner and decided to make things really easy on ourselves. I took the lasagne out of the freezer on Thursday and by today it had thawed and I simply followed the directions and heated it up. 

Carol and Paul brought a generous and delicious antipasto plate and Christy brought Mediterranean pull bread. Molly graced out dinner with bottles of wine. 

2. Looking back over the month of January, it's been a demanding one, a mixture of grief, reunions, governmental transition, and more. We talked about what's been happening. 

On Thursday, Christy participated in the Radio Brewing get togethers before and after the commitment of Jackie Clemson King's ashes to the columbarium at Greenwood Cemetery.  

Christy's longtime friend Dawn Arnhold McLees has been hospitalized with Stage IV lung cancer in Coeur d'Alene and now is under the care of the Silver Ridge care facility, also in Coeur d'Alene. Christy and Teresa Bailee witnessed Dawn sign her will on Friday and told us what impressions were of Dawn's mood (good spirits) and her physical condition -- radiation treatments seem to have shrunk the tumor some and Dawn doesn't have to be on oxygen for the time being, a relief. 

On a lighter note, the documentary reviewing music on Saturday Night Live came out in January and so talking and laughing about SNL's performers over the years, both musical ones and comedic ones, gave us some relief from January's sadness. 

3. Family dinner also, sometimes, gives us a forum to talk with each other and sort out what's happening in the bigger world of the USA. We spent quite a bit of time this evening sorting out and discussing the early days of the new administration and did our best to sort out and discuss some of the forty-five executive orders President Trump as issued since taking office. 

Our evening together was intense. 

It's been an intense January. 

But, I'm relieved and grateful to say that our weekly get togethers are free of conflict, grateful that we can discuss what's happening in the small world of Kellogg and the larger world of the USA and listen supportively to each other and end our evening knowing each other better and having aired out our thoughts and some feelings,  rough, inexact, and possibly tentative as they might be. 

Trust. 

It's golden. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-31-2025: The Positive Influence of Young People, Another Leah Sottile Reading List, I Did Three Smart Things

1. I had never thought of this until now: for decades, I looked to older writers for insight, guidance, challenge, and reading pleasure. It struck me today that now that I'm seventy-one years old, I don't have as many elders to look to, but am, in fact, guided, challenged, and delighted by younger writers. 

I like this. 

I realized today that this is a carry over from all those years I was an instructor.

Students I worked with simply knew more than I did about all sorts of things, ranging from living on the streets to having survived violence at home to reading books, listening to music, and watching movies I'd never heard of to having worship experiences I was not familiar with to raising and caring for all kinds of animals to working in the woods to -- well, you get the point. 

Among my favorite features of being a community college instructor was having students of all ages, from 15 to 70 (at least) enrolled in courses I offered. I often had students work on projects in small groups and from time to time, especially early in the term, older students would complain to me about having to work with younger students. 

The complaint commonly went something like this: "What do I have to learn from these young kids?"

I'd say something like, "Well, hang in there. Let's see where this goes."

Inevitably, as the term progressed, I could see these older students enjoying their younger classmates more and more. Some older students came to me and reported that they'd been wrong when they complained. 

They were learning a lot from these younger kids. 

2. If you've been reading this blog over the last several months, you know that much of my reading has been guided by Leah Sottile. a free lance journalist and writer living in Portland who must be about 25-30 years younger than I am. 

She's become for me what my elders used to be.

Back in December, Leah Sottile wrote an essay at her Substack site (the site's name is "The Truth Does Not Change with Our Ability to Stomach It") entitled "Some Very Good Writing" and listed, with comments, ten articles her readers could click on and read, articles that inspired  her in 2024.

Over the last two days, I read them.

If you'd like to check out Sotille's list and her reflections, just go here.  

You can read about a corrupt oncologist in Helena, an artist in Portland whose severe mental illness left him homeless and drug addicted, an unsolved murder of a grandmother outside Missoula, a writer's experience bringing a sweet and anxious dog into her home, and more. 

3. As I stumble and bumble my way through life day to day, every once in a while I do something smart. 

I remarked today to Debbie that in recent months I've managed to do three smart things. 

I bought a wok.

I bought a moka pot to make espresso coffee.

I bought a milk steamer/frother. 

Tonight I made a chicken stir fry with a lot of vegetables and created a no recipe stir fry sauce and as Debbie and I enjoyed our dinner, I had to stop and smile and reflect on how much I enjoy the wok and how good it felt to have done something smart! 

Three Beautiful Things 01-30-2025: Clean Sheets, Tri-Tip Beef and Roasted Vegetables, An Uplifting Congratulations

1. It's a comfort and a pleasure to launder my bedding and to experience crawling into bed feel so fresh.

2. Some time ago I cut a chunk of tri-tip beef into thick strips. I had one more zip-lock bag of these steak strips left in the freezer. I thawed them, seasoned them with chili and lime seasoning, Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, salt, and pepper. I seared them, then cooked them somewhere between medium rare and medium and served the steak strips with roasted cauliflower and potatoes, seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning. I continue to eat a small to moderate amount of potato about once or twice every two weeks to keep my potassium levels in range. It's working. Since my potassium spike months ago, I've managed to keep the level of potassium in blood right where the medical pros and I want it. 

I must say -- this was a simple and really delicious and satisfying meal.

3. I posted on Leah Sotille's Substack (titled "The Truth Does Not Change Our Ability to Stomach It") that I completed my mission of reading all the books on the list she posted in July. She responded with a hearty congratulations and the offer of congratulatory gift. She will be mailing me a signed copy of her deeply unsettling and chilling book, When the Moon Turns to Blood, her investigation of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell's extremist Mormon worldview and the murder of two of Vallow's children, Tylee Ryan and J. J. Vallow -- and others. 

I read this book two years ago and will be very happy to receive Leah Sottile's signed copy of it. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-29-2025: Wagering in Memory of Don Knott, The Pain of Reading *Columbine*, I Finished the Leah Sottile Booklist

1. Buff swung by the house around 8:45 this morning and we piled into the Camry, picked up Ed in Kingston, picked up Darren in Post Falls, and then we dashed to the Spokane Tribal Casino to make wagers on the Super Bowl at the Caesars Sportsbook.

I had decided when Philadelphia won the NFC title that I would lay a bet down on them in memory of Don Knott. He was an avid Eagles fan. 

And I did. 

So, no matter what, win or lose, it was fun to imagine having Don right there with me as I paid my money and put my ticket in my wallet. 

After making our wagers, the four of us spun reels for a while and returned home in the early afternoon. 

2. Dave Cullen's book Columbine is a painful book in countless ways. It's painful to read about Eric Harris's psychothapy and Dylan Klebold's profound misery. It's painful to dread the massacre any reader knows they would carry out. It's painful to read the details of the attack. It's painful to read the horror so many people experienced in the school, painful to read the grief, anger, and disorientation families of deceased and surviving victims felt and expressed, painful to read the way law enforcement covered up and lied about their mistakes and failures, painful to read the distress the writer Dave Cullen endured working on this book for ten years, painful to read about the cruelty the Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's parents endured, and, there's more, but I'll end by saying it was painful to read how this attack inspired and continues to inspire others and painful to read how difficult these attacks are to prevent. 

3. Back in July, I read Leah Sottile's Substack article about the NYTime's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

The list inspired Sottile to make a much shorter list of her own, a list that filled in some gaps in the NYTimes list, especially by calling more attention to true crime books, books written by women, with some attention to Pacific Northwest women writers, and books by some of Sotille's favorite writers that the NYTimes did not include.

I now have read the entire list of books Leah Sottile published in July.

I had read one of the books previously, Jess Walter's The Cold Millions. 

I dived into the other thirteen books over the next six months and read seven other books from outside the list during that time just to change things up a bit. 

Minus Cold Millions, here's the list -- in the random order Sotille listed them, not in the order I read them:

Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family by Jess Walter

The Cassandra by Sharma Shields

Fire Season by Leyna Krow

Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder and a Woman's Search for Justice In Indian Country by Sierra  

    Crane Murdoch

Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph, Murder, Myth and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw by           

     Maryanne Vollers

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and Japanese Pyche by Haruki Murakmi

American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombings by Lou Michel                   

      and Dan Herbeck

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

For now, I'll say that every one of these books upset me, challenged my thinking, chipped away at the naivety I have left, and opened up fresh possibilities for what can happen in a story, whether fiction or non-fiction. 

Several of these books tap into dreamscapes, visions, and other ways of experiencing reality through magic realism. 

Three of the books focus on Indian reservation life.

Seven of them tell the story of multiple killings.

All but Murakami's book explore dark aspects of life in the USA.Murakami explores dark aspects of Japanese culture. 

In turn, some of these books explore the deadly consequences when competing views people hold of what the USA is or should be come into violent collision with each other. 

I'm going to close this by borrowing and fiddling with a favorite passage Mark Van Doren wrote about Shakespeare's works.

No one of the books on Leah Sottile's list tells the whole truth, nor do all of these books taken together, nor could the whole truth be told had she listed ten thousand books. 

But the piece of truth each book deals with is eloquent and seems to be all. 

(That's the end of Mark Van Doren.)

That is the pleasure of reading a book that digs deep into a subject. 

We learn more, but paradoxically, we seem to know less. 

The deeper a writer goes into the complexities of, say, Ruby Ridge, Columbine, murder in the North Dakota oil fields, the Long Island murders, Indian Reservation life, slavery, and the other subjects covered in these books, the more mysterious these things become and the more any final truth about these events eludes us. 

It's this elusiveness that keeps me reading. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-28-2025: Taxes Filed, Columbine Cover Ups, Copper's Ingenuity

1. I filed our taxes tonight and sent off our payments. I like having that job done. 

2. The whole story about what happened when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked Columbine High School grew more and more difficult to sort out in the aftermath because of agencies, like the county sheriff's office, who were more concerned with protecting their reputation and covering up their mistakes and failures than with coming forth with the results of their investigations. I wouldn't say their cover ups were worse than the attack, but the cover ups fueled an immeasurable amount of long lasting resentment, delay, anger, and distrust. 

3. The pet gate is working perfectly to keep Gibbs from hassling Copper. Today, however, Copper figured out that he can go under the gate and enter the living room and return. I don't think he'll want to make this stealthy move when Gibbs is out and about, so it shouldn't be a problem -- leaving me free to get a big laugh out of of Copper's ingenuity. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-27-2025: Unanswerable Questions About Freedom, I Will Return to Dr Bieber, Another Snuffles Food Experience

1. Today was a long good day. I leapt out of bed around 4:30 and did all I needed to do to collect what I needed for a medical trip to Spokane and about an hour or so later, I hit the road. 

Once I checked in at Sacred Heart, I got right in for a blood draw. 

Easy.

Now I had about four hours of waiting ahead of me before my appointment at the transplant clinic and I planned on enjoying that time. 

I blasted right down to Lower Level 3 and grabbed a 20 oz triple latte, found a sunny window table and returned to reading Columbine by Dave Cullen. Later, I went to the coffee shop close to the transplant clinic for a bagel and cream cheese and another latte. 

I read more about what investigators concluded from their analysis of all the writing and videotapes Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold produced for many months before they attacked the high school.

What really grabbed my attention was the conclusion that Eric Harris was a psychopath and, like many psychopaths, cunning, impulsive, manipulative, secretive, and unfeeling.

Eric Harris disguised his psychopathy with his high intelligence, charm, compulsive lying, manipulation, and highly developed ability to tell his parents, counselors and therapists who worked with him, members of law enforcement, teachers, and other adults exactly what they wanted to hear. 

Uncontrite about his criminal acts, he faked contrition. Lacking any respect for authority, he faked respect. Incapable of love, he knew how to play act love. He was, at a very young age, an accomplished and successful con artist.

The, unanswered question for me was whether Eric Harris was born with psychopathy or whether it developed in him as he grew up.

I spend quite a bit of the time I ponder things thinking about freedom, its existence, value, limits, and its intoxicating power. I don't have answers and I especially don't have answers for the question of how free is the psychopath. Can the psychopath choose not to have dark and destructive fantasies? Choose not to feel superior, choose not to hate the world of stupidity and inferiority he (or she) lives in and want to destroy it, choose not to pursue the thrill of exerting power, of enjoying others' pain, of finding, at least, temporary pleasure in killing?

Reading Leah Sottile's list of books has confronted me with the question of whether Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Rex Heuermann (the alleged Long Island serial killer), and other psycho(or socio-)paths are free to say no to the impulses, dark ideals, obsessions, and so on that drive them. (I'm also thinking back to 1980 when I read Norman Mailer's book, The Executioner's Song. How free was Gary Gilmore?)

It's been forty-five years since I studied Mark Twain in a seminar dedicated to his writings in graduate school. That seminar rattled me, while I was taking it and long after, because Mark Twain's writings became increasingly deterministic as he grew older and he became more and more skeptical of the existence of free will.

For twenty-six years, until the spring of 1980, free will was, to me, a given, an essential truth about human existence, a fact that transcended questioning or doubt.

Mark Twain's writing and the presentations of our professor, Dr. Clark Griffith, changed that, inspired my doubt and that doubt persists now in my early seventie

2. I checked in at the transplant clinic almost right away I plopped down in Exam room #1 and discussed my renal and overall health with PA Natasha Barauskas. She was happy with my labs -- gave them an A+ in fact, and asked me if I was ready to be released from the care of the Sacred Heart transplant team back to the care of Kootenai Health's Dr. Scott Bieber. 

I didn't say so, but in one way I didn't want to be released, only because I've enjoyed every minute I've spent with the professionals and staff in the transplant program at Sacred Heart. 

Despite my great experience at Sacred Heart, I told PA Barauskas that yes I was ready and that I thought Dr. Bieber was a great guy and I looked forward to working with him again.

From my perspective, this is a move that reflects positively on my progress since the transplant and the stability of my health right now. 

I've made an appointment and I'll see Dr. Bieber on March 6th.

I'll continue to have labs done every two weeks.

I return to Sacred Heart on May 12 for my one year check up. My transplant was on May 11, 2024, so I'll have this checkup one year later almost to the day. 

3. I didn't arrive home until after 5:00. I enjoyed a superb turkey sandwich at Great Harvest and read more of Columbine. 

I then drove to CdA, stopping at the Huetter Rest Area for a brief nap, and picked up a lens at Camera Corral, got the Camry washed at Hippo, fueled up at Costco and then went inside and bought some groceries and supplies, picked up a bag of items at Trader Joe's, and stopped at the Lean Bean for a latte to drink on the trip back to Kellogg.

Back home, I did my Snuffles self-hugging and floating expression of deep pleasure again.

Debbie turned Sunday's chuck roast and noodles into a heavenly soup and at the end of this long wonderful day, it crowned my happiness and contentment that so much happened and that it was all good -- even Dave Cullen's book, which is painful, but written masterfully. It's a pleasure to read a book so carefully researched and clearly written. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-26-2025: *Columbine*, I Nearly Floated Like Snuffles, Extending the Joy Project

1. I enjoy books that jump around, that don't move on a straight line from the beginning to the middle to the end. Dave Cullen's book, Columbine becomes such a book as it develops. Cullen writes short chapters that alternate between ones that, first of all, go back and look at different students, families, and others before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked Columbine High School with the most intense attention focused on Harris and Klebold, that, second, revisit and deepen the horror of the attack itself on April 20, 1999, and, third, that look at the complex repercussions that grew out of the attack, the murders, and the inevitable trauma that ensued. In other words, in moves between lives before the attack, the attack itself, and the aftermath(s) of the attack. 

I'm going to hold off right now on elaborating upon it, but I've learned more about psychopathy from this book than from anything I've ever read before. 

2. My favorite kind of beef --don't yell at me -- is chuck roast. Tonight, Debbie slow cooked a small chuck roast and combined it with the frozen noodles she buys at Walmart (tip of the hat to Carol Lee) and I'm not sure what else and it was, for this chuck roast lover, a transcendent bowl of food, complimented perfectly by the celery salad Debbie made. 

I ate this meal and I felt like Snuffles, the self-hugging, floating, dog biscuit loving bloodhound from Quick Draw McGraw. Remember Snuffles? Click this link for a 13 second reminder. 

https://tinyurl.com/42wfwkh9

3. I know I've published all 10 of the Life is Good/Joy Project pictures from the challenge I accepted from Russell, but I'm going to add an 11th image. I took this picture on the afternoon I mentioned in another post when I went roaming in Georgetown and went to the Georgetown Waterfront Park. It was on Sunday, June 24, 2012. I'd celebrated the Eucharist at the National Cathedral that morning and then walked for countless blocks. Somehow I remained inconspicuous when I snapped this faceless portrait, an achievement that continues to give me joy. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-25-2025: Debbie Works on the Kitchen, The Rush to Closure, Joy Day 10: Sibling Outing Number One

1. Debbie has had a bunch of superb ideas for rearranging some things, like spices, grains, coffee cups, and other things in the kitchen, and today she turned her vision into actuality and I'm all in. 

2.  As I read more deeply into Dave Cullen's astonishing book, Columbine, I recalled conversations I had with B_t__a, a student of mine at LCC. Kip Kinkel shot her in the Thurston High School cafeteria on May 21, 1998. Our conversations were confidential. But, I will say, from my own point of view, I regard it shallow and heartless when I hear or read it said that victims of trauma need to let go, put the past behind them, move on, just heal, seek closure. Such statements always sound to me like they are for the sake of those who say them, not to help the trauma victims in any meaningful way. 

These thoughts and my memories of B_t__a surfaced when I read this opening paragraph to Chapter 22 of Columbine. For context, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire and set off pipe bombs in Columbine High School on Tuesday, April 20, 1999. 

Dave Cullen writes on page 115: 

HEALING BEGINS, the Denver Post announced Thursday morning. The headline spanned the full width of page one thirty-six hours after the attack. Ministers, psychiatrists, and grief counselors cringed. It was an insanely premature assessment. The paper was trying to be helpful, but its rush to closure did not go over well in Jeffco [Columbine High is in Jefferson County, also known as Jeffco]. With every passing week, more of the community would grumble that it was time to move on. The survivors had other ideas.

3. In contrast to reading my way through Columbine, today I also posted my last "life is good" image for the Facebook Joy Project. This image speaks well for itself. I'll just say that Carol took this picture of Christy, me, and her outside the Inland Tearoom and Cafe (also known as Inland Cafe and Tea) in Coeur d'Alene on January 6, 2025, the day the three of us went out on our first sibling outing of the year. Our plan is to go out on one once every month. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-24-2025: Hooking Up Speakers to the Vizio, Quick Pork Chop Dinner, The Turtle's Life's a Circle

1. When Patrick was here over the weekend, having realized that the speakers he and Debbie purchased back in November wouldn't work for the keyboard set up he created for Debbie, they were going to take the speakers back to Best Buy and try to get a refund. 

At first, I thought (maybe said), don't bother. I'm sure we can find someone to give them away to.  

Then a second idea slowly surfaced in my thick as Heinz ketchup brain. 

"Might those speakers work with our television?"

Patrick lit up. 

"Let me check the back of your tv." 

He did. 

"Yes! They'll work and you'll also have Bluetooth available."

We didn't work on hooking up the speakers while Patrick was here.

I took on the task today.

I learned a lot about fiber cables, RCA cables, the speaker set's input light, how to change the input into the speakers, and a variety of other things and, after about three hours of YouTube videos, consulting the user manual online, and a couple text exchanges with Patrick, I emerged from the dark depths of my ignorance, saw the light, and now the speakers (and its remote) are working. 

I can listen to audio from my cell phone and my laptop through these speakers now. 

The sound coming out of the television is now awesomely improved. 

Yes. It took me quite a while to figure everything out. 

But, I did it. 

My patience never wavered.

I felt like the problem solvers in Houston in the movie Apollo 13, working the problem, figuring things out. I didn't bring astronauts from the brink of death back home again (!), but I figured out how to do something I'd never done before. 

2. Debbie stopped in for a terrific visit at The Lounge after work and I wasn't quite sure when she'd arrive home -- no problem. 

I imagined what I might do to make a quick dinner once she arrived and figured, correctly, that I could make a quick, nutritious, and delicious meal just using the electric frying pan. 

I took out the boneless pork chops we had in the fridge so they could warm up to room temperature. 

I sliced a half a red onion, a half a red pepper, a small yellow squash, and got out some leftover pieces of potato from our store of leftovers and some sliced mushrooms I had on hand. 

I covered the pork chops with panko bread crumbs and seasoned the meat with umami, pepper, and garlic powder. I put leftover panko bread crumbs on the vegetables. 

I fried everything in the electric skillet. 

It was ready to eat fairly soon and we both were very happy with how tasty this simple meal turned out to be. 

(I sliced an apple, and ate the slices raw,  to go with my mess of vegetables and pork chop.) 

3.  Today I posted my 9th "life is good"image on Facebook. It's a Joy Project. 

I felt life was really good every time I rocketed down the Baltimore Washington Parkway, entered Northeast Washington DC, and made my way to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. 

The picture I posted today brings me joy because I discovered I loved taking pictures of turtles and in this picture I tried to portray the turtle as a small circle within the huge circle of the lily pad the turtle sunned on. Yes, looking back, I wish, if I could have, I'd taken a couple steps back and included the whole of the lily pad in the frame, but I'm happy enough to have established the circle pattern with the turtle and the turtle's resting place. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-23-2025: A Most Welcome Dental Cleaning, Reading *Columbine*, Joy 8: David (RIP) and Snug (RIP)

1. Ever since moving to Kellogg in 2017, I've been on a four month, rather than a six month, dental cleaning schedule. I take good care of my teeth, but I'm just one of those people whose dental health needs more attention than most people.

I knew going into my kidney transplant, that, after the surgery, I'd have to go anywhere from 6-12 months without a cleaning because of concerns that the cleaning might send infection into my bloodstream. 

At the six month mark, I talked with Dr. Murad and he instructed me to be patient and wait longer before my next dental cleaning. 

When I let the transplant team know I needed a damaged tooth extracted, the team supported this, prescribed me pre-procedure antibiotics, and, in turn, supported my return to dental cleanings. 

So, today, for the first time since April 23, 2024, Kathy got to work her dental cleaning magic on my teeth. 

She thought things might be rough today because it had been nine months since I'd had a cleaning, but good news: my teeth and gums were in better shape than she anticipated. She also told me the area of my extraction looked really good. 

It was a positive experience and now I'm back on schedule again, to my relief. 

2. The list of thirteen books Leah Sottile posted back in July have been heartbreaking, unsettling, transporting, and always fascinating to read. I have one book on this list left. I didn't plan for it to be the last one. I've read these books without a plan regarding order. 

But, Dave Cullen's book Columbine, his comprehensive book on the school shooting, what led up to it and the aftermath, is the one book I have left to read. 

Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. He then spent ten years researching and working on  this book and published it ten years later in 2009.

I'm just over a hundred pages in and I'm done reading about the horror of the violence on 04-20-1999 as it happened and about the agonizing waiting families endured before they found out if their loved ones were alive or not. 

Cullen writes brilliantly about the unsettling amount of wrong information about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and the shooting itself that began to circulate almost immediately. Much of this wrong information lives on, despite efforts, like Cullen's, to correct it. 

I'll return to writing about what wasn't true about the killers and that day in a future blog post after I've read more of the book.

3. Today I posted my 8th "life is good" picture as a part of the Facebook Joy Project. 

I took this picture in the late spring of 2009. 

It features my now deceased brother-in-law, David, with my now deceased beloved Springer, Snug. 

David had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had decided to ride across the USA  with his brother-in-law on their motorcycles. They paid us a visit in Eugene. 

David died in November of 2009, several months after his visit to Eugene. (I saw David for the last time on a visit to his home in Arlington Heights, IL in August of 2009.)

This is one of my favorite of all pictures I've ever taken. 

I've always thought, and I might be crazy, that David and Snug look like brothers in this picture. 

It's the last time I saw David still looking pretty healthy and it is, to me, a great picture of Snug feeling calm and secure in David's company. 

By the way, Snug died in October of 2011. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-22-2025: Errands, Culinary Flashback, Joy 7: The Washington Monument

1. This clear cold day was just right for clearing recyclables out of the garage, mailing a package at the post office, and picking up a grocery order at Walmart. 

2. It was also fun to turn the clock back about a dozen years, give or take, and fix an old favorite electric frying pan dinner. I combined and fried bacon pieces, a half a pound of ground beef seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning, onion, red pepper, potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, and spinach leaves and toward the end of it all cooking up, I covered everything with shredded cheddar cheese. 

It was a fun culinary flashback and, despite me forgetting to include green beans and mushrooms in this meal, it worked really well. 

3. On April 1, 2016, I got up fairly early in the morning and drove to Washington, DC's Union Station, parked the car, and took a bus to the Tidal Basin. I took pictures of the fading cherry blossoms, the regal Jefferson Monument, and then made my way to the Tulip Library in the shadow of the Washington Monument. I took a bunch of pictures that day, and I remember that by 2016 I had become something like hypnotized by the Washington Monument. 

On April 1, 2016, I wasn't thinking about ever moving to Kellogg. I strolled and took pictures as if I would be living near Washington, DC for a long long time. I don't know if I would have done things differently, acted with more urgency, in 2016 if I knew I'd be leaving the East Coast just a year later, but I took great joy in living in Greenbelt and being so close to Washington, DC. 

So, for the Joy Project I'm participating in on Facebook, here's my picture for Day 7. 

I imagine this image can be seen, maybe even interpreted, in a number of ways. I welcome that. 

I took this picture out of love, my love for living in Maryland so close to Washington, DC,  my love for leafless trees, for silhouettes, and my love for the majesty and grandeur of the Washington Monument. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-21-2025: I'm Fit for Medicare!, Quick and Tasty Dinner, Day 6 of Joy

1. I arrived at the clinic uptown this morning in plenty of time for my annual Medicare Wellness Exam. I'm happy to say I passed it with flying colors and found out, through blood work, that my cholesterol numbers are all in range and my prostate-specific antigen test result was normal. 

2. Debbie brought home a couple 6 oz chunks of steelhead. In advance of her arrival, I roasted a variety of vegetables and baked the fish, seasoned with a salmon rub and fresh dill and put lemon slices on the side, just in case. 

Debbie's four day weekend of projects with Patrick exhausted her, so, very satisfied with our meal, it wasn't long before she went to bed much earlier than usual. 

3. I posted my Day 6 Joy Project image today. It's a picture I snapped back in June of 2012. That morning I worshipped at the National Cathedral and then I made my way through Georgetown and spent a couple of hours at the Georgetown Waterfront Park on the bank of the Potomac River. 

This woman and man are looking out over the Potomac. Their enjoyment of the gorgeous day, each other, and the lovely view brought me joy as I took this photo and, when I saw it at home, I was particularly joyful that there was a fairly generous amount of negative space in the picture, giving me, at least, the illusion that they were looking out into endless beauty. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-20-2025: Projects Come to an End, Albums of 1975, Day 5 of Joy

1. Patrick and Debbie continued to work on projects in the basement and they did some more rearranging of furniture between the kitchen and living room. Alas, though, around 3:15 or so, I piled into the Camry, as did Patrick, and I dropped him off in at the Spokane International Airport in plenty of time to board his flight back to Portland. 

After I returned home, Debbie and I had a superb conversation about how proud and happy we are that Adrienne, Patrick, and Molly have grown up to be such great adults and that we are also most grateful that Misty is in our lives and a part of our family, too. 

2. Jeff Harrison, my longtime friend and host of the radio show Deadish on KEPW FM in Eugene on Thursdays at 9:00,  emailed me a sound file of his January 17th show which focused on cuts from albums that came out fifty years ago in 1975.

It's an awesome show that runs for over two hours and features music by Patti Smith, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Richard and Linda Thompson, to name a few, and represents how some popular music began to shift toward disco and punk, but also maintained the established traditions of country, folk, blues, and rock and roll. Jeff's tour of 1975 was eclectic, nostalgic, heart warming, and invigorating. 

I listend to a good chunk of it before I left for Spokane and finished listening to Jeff's superb show in the Camry after I dropped off Patrick.

3. Today was Day 5 of the Joy Project I'm participating in on Facebook. I snapped the picture I posted today back in April, 2012 near Eugene's Farmers Market. I had been working for about a year taking faceless portraits of people. I'm not sure, but I think I shot this photograph from the hip and then edited it. I straightened it out. I might have turned it from a color picture to a black and white. I made other adjustments. The mysteriousness of this image brings me joy. So did different friends' responses nearly thirteen years ago. No matter what my friends said, it always had to do with the evocative nature of this picture and I am the most drawn to pictures that are more evocative than detonative. It's rare when I create an evocative image, so doing so was, and continues to be, uplifting. 

Here's the picture: 

Three Beautiful Things 01-19-2025: Retirement Party on ZOOM, Wings and *Black Doves*, Day 4 of Joy

1. This morning at 10:00, Bill, Diane, Bridgit, Val, and I joined forces on ZOOM in celebration of Bridgit's retirement. Her last day of work was on Friday,  after spending most of her life in human services, both in the field and as an administrator, and she struck me as relieved, tired, and maybe even a little bit in awe that she went to work on Friday, put in her day, and suddenly it was over. 

It was heartening to hear from Bridgit that her colleagues not only praised her to the hilt as she ended her career, but stepped up and helped her get many tasks done that helped her get to and cross the finish line. 

And, so, as we conversed for about 90 minutes, retirement was the word of the day! 

It led us to discuss not only life after a work career ends, but also the necessity of determining what our purpose in life is and how we figure that out after so many years of work driving our lives and how we live them. 

2. After a day of Patrick and Debbie working hard on projects around the house, especially in the basement, we sat at the kitchen table together and ate Buffalo Wings with celery and blue cheese, a dinner Patrick requested as he and I traveled from the airport to Kellogg. 

Debbie watched an episode of Vera and upon its conclusion she and Patrick both headed to their respective sleeping areas upstairs. 

I decided to give the Netflix series, Black Doves, a try, watched the first episode,  and found it suitably intense and intriguing and I plan to continue watching it.

3.  Today was Day 4 in the 10 Days of Joy project I'm participating in on Facebook. 

The picture I posted is below. 

In addition to what I wrote about it, also seen below, nearly five years ago, this picture brings me joy because I treasure how our family pulled together back in 2020. From the get go, we were in agreement on what we needed to do as far as staying put in our homes, deciding when we could gather again, and what protocols we would follow when we decided to gather again. 

I was especially grateful for this unity because the possibility existed that the coronavirus could be especially hard on people, like me, with Chronic Kidney Disease. 

Our family understood this and we were unified not only in protecting ourselves but each other. 

As I mention below, Debbie sewed these masks we are wearing on a day late in May of 2020 when we decided we could have a get together because we could establish distance between ourselves in Paul and Carol's house and wear our protective covering when we weren't eating. 

Here's what I wrote about this picture back on May 27, 2020:

The thing I like most about this picture is that we didn't plan for it to look the way it does -- several people who've seen it think it looks like an album cover. Christy wanted a picture of us wearing masks Debbie sewed. Zoe set the timer on her camera. Paul slid to the floor. Zoe stood near where she'd been sitting. The rest of us stayed in place and we accidentally ended up with this great picture. It was a moment of serendipity and good luck. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-18-2025: Projects, Invigorating Family Dinner, Day 3 of Joy

1. Today Patrick and Debbie worked hard all day on projects. Debbie's keyboard is set up so that she can do more sophisticated recording, instrumentation, collaboration, and other things. They are working on transforming the bedroom in the basement into a guest room. They also rearranged the furniture in the living room according to a plan Patrick devised and one that Debbie is very happy with. 

2. Carol and Paul hosted family dinner tonight. Christy isn't feeling well and stayed home. So seated around the table were Carol, Paul, Molly, Patrick, Debbie, and me.

Carol made a flavorful and mild pumpkin curry in her crock pot and she put together a very delicious cabbage salad. I sautéed garlic and red onion in sesame oil in a pot and then added water, sesame oil, and brown rice. I also roasted raw almonds in our cast iron skillet. I put the rice in a baking dish, covered the rice with the almonds, and this simple rice dish accompanied the pumpkin curry. 

We had superb and sustained discussion of what it means to be human, what it means to be an animal, what it means when we regard things as sacred, how the early Christian church had to distinguish itself from Greek philosophy, especially Platonism and Gnosticism, the concept of soul, and the relationship between written texts, of any kind, and us as readers. Books appeared. Paul and Carol read passages from Wendell Berry and Thomas Moore. By the time we began to disperse, the word of the night was "invite" (or "invitation"). 

In the best sense of the word, this was an intense discussion and we were all fired up and stimulated as we wound down the evening and family dinner came to an end. 

3. I posted my Day 3 image of something that brings joy to my life. I took this picture in Eugene in March 29, 2014. It's part of my Holding Hands collection, which also includes street photographs of people with their arms around one another. I feel joy for having captured this particular moment and for the way these two are helping each other out as they cross a vacant street (8th, maybe?) on a showery blustery day -- a day, by the way, in which I snapped a few other pictures focused on umbrellas. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-17-2025: Trip to CdA? Not Today!, Steak and Vegetables Dinner, Copper Brings Me Joy

1. I started today with plans to rumble over to Coeur d'Alene and shop for groceries and some other items at Trader Joe's, Pilgrim's Market, and Costco. I had lists made and was rarin' to go. Once Patrick and Debbie were up, we discussed the day and I changed my plans. 

Patrick's work day was light. He had items to buy at Burt's Music and the Hayden Walmart (possibly elsewhere, too) for the projects he and Debbie will work on this weekend, so I decided to put in a curbside grocery order to pick up at the Smelterville Walmart and I would do some luxury grocery shopping in CdA another day. 

This new plan worked out superbly. 

I stocked the fridge. 

Patrick purchased what he needed. 

There was, is, and will be peace in our little kingdom. 

2. A few weeks ago on one of my after Sacred Heart luxury shopping trips to Trader Joe's, I bought Balsamic Rosemary Beef Steak Tips and froze them. 

For dinner tonight, I roasted potatoes, red onion, cauliflower, and broccoli in the oven, seasoned with olive oil and Everything But the Bagel seasoning.  

In the wok, I stir fried the balsamic and rosemary beef and then added zucchini, red pepper, and mushrooms, giving us a meal balanced between deliciously marinated beef and a variety of vegetables.

I didn't cook the vegetables perfectly, but it didn't seem to matter much. We enjoyed our dinner a lot.

3. I continued to meet Russell's challenge that I participate in a Facebook exercise of posting an image that brings me joy for ten days in a row. 

Back in late January, early February of 2021, Linda L. asked me if I would foster Luna and Copper until she could find them a permanent home. Or, God willing, until Kathy's health improved and she could take them back. 

Debbie wasn't in Kellogg at that time  She was helping out Josh and Adrienne with Jack and Ellie in Valley Cottage, New York.

I remember thinking to myself that once Luna and Copper came into our house, it was highly unlikely that I would foster them. 

I was pretty sure they would become permanent residents -- unless I could return them to Kathy -- which never could happen.

And, so, Luna and Copper made our home their new home. 

Luna's ailing heart gave out and she died in December of 2023, but Copper is very much alive and we've developed a very happy relationship and I am elated to post this picture of Copper as the second of ten images of what brings me joy.

Three Beautiful Things 01-16-2025: Patrick Arrives, Joy Project, I Submit

1. Patrick will spend the weekend with us, through late Monday afternoon. He and Debbie have projects in mind, including setting up a keyboard and software to enhance Debbie's music composition.  

Patrick worked today, so his flight from Portland arrived soon after 8:30 in Spokane and, thankfully, my drive to Spokane and our trip back to Kellogg was easy, with especially great visibility on the return trip as nighttime clouds parted and the moon shone on I-90. 

2. I started an easy ten day project on Facebook today. It's a challenge that's been going around Facebook for a while to post a picture a day for ten days of something that brings participants joy, with no explanation. I'll break the no explanation rule here on my blog. My first picture brings back the joy I experienced in June of 2012 when Mary McGrail and walked the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun was setting. 

The picture is below. 

3. I am happy and grateful to report that I submitted scrupulously to the post-extraction care directions the dentist gave me and, so far, the healing and cleansing of the crater are going very well. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-15-2025: Good Recovery Day, Professional Help, GarrenTeed BBQ Hits the Spot

1. Recovery day. The discomfort above my mouth and below my eye settled down. I rested. Napped. Enjoyed Copper's company.  Rinsed my mouth with salt water every time I ate or drank anything (besides water). 

I had a good day. 

I think I'm on the right track as I give the crater in my mouth the care and attention it requires. 

2. Kristin from Complete Dental Care called me to make sure everything is all right. I told her I was doing very well.  I had a question about the numbering of my upper right molars and her clear answer made perfect sense and gave me a fuller and better understanding of Tuesday's extraction. 

I also had a very helpful exchange via the patient portal, with my transplant nurse coordinator, Jenn. I had questions about antibiotics and infection prevention, not only related to Tuesday's extraction but also to next Thursday's dental cleaning appointment and I'm confident everything is in good order. 

3. Debbie texted me, wondering if I'd like her to bring us home some dinner. 

My response? 

PLEASE! 

After work, she dropped in at GarrenTeed BBQ and I was blown away by how delicious the brisket, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans were that she ordered for me. 

My post-extraction morale is in great shape thanks to rest, napping, salt water, Tylenol, antibiotics, probiotic yogurt, probiotic kefir, Kristin, Jenn, Debbie, Copper, and GarrenTeed BBQ! 

Three Beautiful Things 01-14-2025: Successful Extraction, Successful Bone Graft, Successful Recovery -- After Several Hours!

 1. It turned out that the root of the molar the dentist extracted today was fractured and brittle and was not supporting that tooth well any more at all.  

Like me, it had aged. 

The root's brittleness made it difficult to remove. The lower part of the tooth, as expected, required the dentist to apply pressure and he tugged and pulled and removed it and then he patiently went to work on the root with different tools, including his drill, and succeeded in completing the extraction.

I cannot overstate how grateful I am for whatever numbing agent the dentist uses in 2025. 

The upper right side of my mouth was comfortably numb the whole time, making it possible for me to endure all the effort it took to extract this tooth with very little discomfort. 

2. The dentist put bone particles in the socket to help my body grow new bone in the empty space and he placed a thin barrier, called a membrane, over the bone graft material. It acts as a protective shield.  Then he sewed up the area to hold the membrane and bone graft material in place. 

The dentist did not give his work a chef's kiss, but he was happy with how things went.

He gave me simple instructions: to ward off possible infection, begin a five day, ten dose course of antibiotics this evening and assured me he had used surface antibiotics during the procedure -- I had also taken a large dose of antibiotics at home before going to the office. 

I am to chew food on the left side of my mouth only. 

I am to follow up all eating and drinking with a salt water rinse. 

I return in two weeks to have the stitches removed.

I return in eight weeks to have the membrane removed. 

Then, at some point later, I'll have a bridge or implant put in. 

3. When the comfortable numbness wore off, I could tell the region of my face above my mouth and below my eye socket felt offended by all the pushing, pulling, yanking, and pressure the procedure subjected it to.

I wasn't miserable or in anything like agony, but I was uncomfortable enough that I found it difficult to sleep steadily until about 3 a.m.

My patience combined with some Regular Strength Tylenol paid off eventually and I slept comfortably for about four hours and, on Wednesday, I plan to rest, maybe grab some more sleep, and enjoy having my mouth and face return to feeling close to normal again, even with a gaping crater in the back of my mouth! 

Three Beautiful Things 01-13-2025: Fractured Root, Transplant Team Approves, No Recipe Shrimp Curry Vegetable Soup

1. From the outset when I enrolled in the Sacred Heart transplant program, I've experienced it to be a cautious program, comprehensive in checking out and monitoring many aspects of my health in preparation for the kidney transplant (May 11, 2024) and doing the same post-transplant.

I am grateful for this program's cautious and comprehensive approach. 

One aspect of my health they paid close attention to, from the get go, has been my dental health. 

I remember back in 2018 when Sheri, my transplant coordinating nurse at that time, told me that one of the primary reasons they couldn't list quite a few patients for transplant was because of poor dental health. 

So, today, when I found out the tooth that's been bothering me a bit has a fractured root -- a root canal I had years ago is breaking down -- and that the tooth can't be saved and needs to come out, I immediately contacted Nurse Jenn to make sure the transplant team was good with me having this procedure and the follow up work performed. 

2. This evening, Jenn's answer arrived. 

The team is good with me moving forward with the dental work. 

My primary task will be to monitor any post-procedure infections by continuing to take my temperature twice a day and look for any other signs of infection. 

So I'll take a big amoxicillin capsule a half an hour before my January 14th at 1:30 appointment and the doctor will set this procedure in motion. 

3.  Dental visits, however long or short, big or small, wipe me out. 

I returned home, napped, got a few things done, napped again, and soon it was time to think of dinner.

I hadn't thawed anything and I didn't want to go to the store, so I took some time and imagined what I could do with what we had on hand.

I thought, hmmmm, we have a bag of shrimp. Coconut milk. Chicken bouillon paste. Yellow curry paste. I began to imagine a shrimp curry soup. I looked in the vegetable drawer -- Eureka! Half an onion, a red pepper, zucchini, plenty of carrots, a few stalks of celery. 

I was in business! 

I sautéed the celery and onion with some black pepper and added the carrot pieces and red pepper and later the zucchini. In a separate pan I cooked the raw shrimp in butter until they turned pink. In a separate container, I mixed curry paste, coconut milk, brown sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce, and the chicken broth  I made from bouillon.

I poured this broth and the shrimp and the melted butter into the pot where I'd prepared the vegetables.

I added dried lime keffir leaves.  

That was it.

Debbie and I enjoyed a terrific no recipe shrimp curry vegetable soup for dinner. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-12-2025: Cocktails, Family Dinner, Gifts

1. Our family dinner late this afternoon was going to, in part, continue the celebration of Christy's birthday. Christy hosted today's dinner and assigned me to make Old-Fashions. Because I've quit drinking alcohol, I'm out of practice making drinks and I don't stock our liquor supply much any longer. 

I needed bourbon and blasted down to the liquor store to buy a pint. The liquor store was closed. 

I put out an emergency message to Christy and Carol, wondering if they had bourbon on hand. 

Christy did! 

So, game on. 

I shook off my mixologist rust and made the others what turned out to be a suitable blend of sugar, orange bitters, water, bourbon, an orange slice, and an upper shelf Maraschino cherry -- Luxardo, I think. 

2. Christy prepared a very delicious Italian Wedding Soup for dinner with toasted bread and Carol brought a fresh and crispy green salad. It was a simple and very satisfying dinner. 

3. A lot of conversation at dinner centered around yesterday's funeral with special emphasis on discussing our history with the Rinaldi family, what's happening these days with family members and other people who were at the funeral and reception, and some discussion of what kinds of television viewing we are enjoying at present. 

Carol and Paul gave Christy a fun 1955 themed tote bag that contained different items and lists related to 1955 and, as a tribute to the quail who have in recent times begun to visit our back yards, Debbie and I gave Christy a small flock, covey, or bevy of yard quails that she can add to her back yard's decor. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-11-2025: Donnie Rinaldi's Funeral, The Longshot Saloon and the Reception, Talking with Rosie and Deni

1. For as long as I've been conscious and as far back as my memory reaches, the Donnie and Rosie Rinaldi family members have always been present in my life. Dad and Donnie were born a month apart and grew up in Kellogg at the same time. They both went to Lewiston's  North Idaho College of Education (a.k.a. Tiger Tech). Mom was there, too, and graduated from N.I.C.E. Donnie and Dad worked at the Zinc Plant for several years at the same time. Our families visited each other. I remember in the 1990s, especially as Dad's health worsened, Donnie was an especially caring friend for Dad, tender with Mom, and helped out with different tasks around our house. I'll always remember that, as a way to thank Donnie for his kindness and assistance, Mom and Dad always tried to have a bottle of MacNaughton Canadian Whiskey on hand for Donnie when he came to visit and Donnie always enjoyed a smash. 

Donnie and Rosie's oldest son, Vince, and I were baseball and basketball teammates. Their daughter Deni and I are the same age. We "co-starred" in our kindergarten pageant at the end of the school year. Deni played Mother Goose and I played her faithful, ever-present cat. 

Deni and I walked together, side by side, by choice, in the procession and recession at our 1972 Kellogg High School graduation ceremony. 

Donnie was 94 when he died on December 18, 2024. 

This morning was his funeral at 11:00 at St. Rita's Catholic Church here in Kellogg, the church where Donnie and Rosie celebrated Mass and were active members for decades.

2. Family and friends from the Silver Valley and well beyond filled the church for the funeral, a solemn, dignified Mass combining grief and joy, the grief of Donnie no longer being with us and the joy of the promise of eternal life. 

Afterward, the Elks Club hosted a luncheon and reception and attendees packed the room. 

I have to be cautious about being in packed rooms -- especially ones like at the Elks with a fairly low ceiling, so I left after about ten minutes and joined Jake, Craig King, Bucky, Debbie, and Dood at the nearly empty Longshot Saloon. I strolled in and didn't actually see Dood, a disappointment -- he and Bucky and Debbie left shortly after I arrived and I didn't get to visit with them. 

I did, however, have a great session with Jake and Craig.

After some high quality yakkin', we headed back to the Elks and I could tell the crowd was shrinking.

All the same, I took a seat along a wall on the edge of the party. 

Shelley Church, Don Knott's sister, pulled up a chair next to me and we had a great conversation about life after Don and reminisced about good times we had with Don over the course of his life. 

3. Eventually the crowd shrunk some more and I could see that no one was visiting with Rosie, so I scooted over to her table and we entered into a wonderful conversation and, before long, Christy joined us.

This mighty day also had a running (or should I say a flying) drama going on. 

Deni (Mother Goose!) had booked a flight to Spokane, due to arrive on Friday. It included a flight out of Atlanta. 

Winter storms paralyzed Atlanta on Friday.

Deni waited and waited and waited and then waited some more to depart from Atlanta and finally flew out on Saturday, not in time for her father's funeral Mass, but in time to land in Spokane, rent a car, and rocket to the Elks around mid-afternoon and be reunited with her family and to see those of us who were still at the reception. 

I had at least two, maybe three, superb conversations with Deni, met her son Aaron, and Deni and I made tentative plans to possibly see each other back in the West later in the summer of '25. 

I gave Carol a ride home a while earlier and it was after 5 o'clock when Christy and I bade the reception farewell and I drove us back home. 

What a day.

What a sad and joyful day, a day of loss and uplifting reunions. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-10-2025: Little Green Cleaning Machine, Mouth Guard During the Day, A Fun Pasta Creation

1. When we lived in our apartment home in Greenbelt, MD and when the corgis were alive, they occasionally emptied their bladders on the apartment's carpeting. Debbie purchased a Bissell Little Green portable carpet cleaner and it worked perfectly to clean these small messes the corgis made. 

Well, recently, Gibbs has had a few indoor accidents near our front door on our living room rug. 

I decided it was time to bring a Little Green portable carpet cleaner back into our life and it arrived on Thursday. Today, I took the parts out of the box, executed a couple of small tasks and assembled it, and tried it out on those spots Gibbs left on the rug.

I enjoyed having this little machine back in my hands again and I thought it did a pretty good job of cleaning up Gibbs' problem spots and he has not repeated his violation of our living room rug. 

2. I am most grateful that my night time mouth guard also works during the day. The guard eliminates the discomfort I've been experiencing in my mouth. It takes some getting used to, wearing it while awake, but I'm accepting how it feels and am grateful for its effectiveness.

3. I got out the electric frying pan and cooked white onion, garlic, ground beef, bacon, red pepper, zucchini, and fire roasted diced tomatoes. We put this sauce over spaghetti for dinner and with the help of Everything But the Bagel seasoning and a few shakes of Trader Joe's Umami Seasoning Blend, I fixed a dinner that worked great for Debbie and me. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-09-2025: Post-Transplant Dental Quandaries, The Whisks Arrive!, Toasted Sandwich Heaven

1.  To protect extensive dental work I had done in 2018, I wear a mouth guard at night. Because of my transplant, I've had to put dental cleanings on hold. Recently, I've had some minor discomfort in a couple of areas in my mouth, but, luckily, if I wear my mouth guard during the day, it relieves me of the discomfort. 

From the outset, since I enrolled in the transplant program at Sacred Heart, my care team has always been concerned about infections post-transplant with some special emphasis on dental infections. 

I want to make sure that the occasional and minor discomfort I've experienced lately isn't tooth infection, so today I made an appointment to see the dentist on Monday -- the soonest I could get in. 

I had a good online conversation today with Nurse Jenn about my upcoming dental appointment and I'm going to write to her again on Friday and see if, with the help of taking an antibiotic before the appointment, it might be safe at this point, nearly eight months after the transplant, to schedule a dental cleaning. 

It might not be. 

Some post-transplant literature recommends waiting a year before having a cleaning done. 

2. I purchased an electric milk steamer in November. It comes with two tiny whisks that snap into the bottom of the steamer. One froths milk. The other creates a small amount of foam while the milk heats. Somehow I lost the attachment I used most often, the small amount of foam whisk. I ordered another pair of attachments and they arrived today. 

I paid heed to the warning that accompanied my order that these could be the wrong sized attachments, but upon examining pictures of the whisks I bought, I was about 95% confident that I'd bought the right ones. 

They arrived today.

They were the right ones. 

I'm happy they were the right ones and happy that I can make both lattes and cappuccinos, depending on which whisking attachment I snap into my milk steamer! 

3. I had a dinner tonight made possible by the gallivanting I do after visiting Sacred Heart for blood work. 

A while back, I bought a package of Colby Jack slices at Trader Joe's.

Tuesday of this week, I bought a loaf of Great Harvest's incomparable white bread and then when I went to Trader Joe's, I bought bacon.

Tonight, I got out my electric frying pan and made a toasted Colby Jack cheese sandwich with bacon on Great Harvest white bread. 

My only regret is that I forgot we had the dill pickle chips Zoe made and gave us as a Christmas gift. 

Next time. 

Those dill pickle chips would round out the perfection of this divinely delicious sandwich. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-08-2025: Ed and I Hit the Road, Relaxing at the CdA Casino, Pork Tenderloin Dinner

1. Another day on the road today. The wet snowflakes falling this morning didn't have much detrimental effect on the roads, so I had no problem zipping out to Kingston to pick up Ed.

I drove Ed to the Kootenai Medical Center's Cancer Center where Ed is nearing the end of about four weeks or so of radiation treatment. 

Everything went smoothly there and we headed down to the Coeur d'Alene Casino to spend some time taking our minds off of cancer and kidney transplants and other stuff for a while and just relax.

2. Upon arriving, we went straight to the Red Tail Bar and Grill for breakfast. Ed doesn't eat much in the late afternoon or evenings as a way to prepare for his treatments, so he was really hungry and, as it turned out, I hadn't eaten anything since dinner on Tuesday. 

Ed enjoyed his breakfast burrito and I was very happy with my half order of biscuits and gravy and a couple scrambled eggs and hash browns. 

The hash browns were especially fun for me because potatoes are high in potassium and, most of the time, I need to eat foods lower in potassium. But, my potassium levels were great on Tuesday and I knew I could enjoy these potatoes and then lay off of spuds again until my January 27th labs. 

I played some games I enjoy a lot, tried a few new ones, didn't have much luck, but succeeded in having a relaxing time.

I also protected myself the entire time on the casino floor by wearing a mask and putting on vinyl gloves. 

3. Back home, I browned and then roasted a Trader Joe's Peppercorn Garlic Pork Tenderloin and fixed a combination of onion, red pepper, and yellow squash with leftover basmati rice, heated up in the tenderloin's drippings. 

It was a simple and delicious dinner with a perfect amount of leftovers for Debbie to have for lunch on Thursday and for us to do something with at home.  

Three Beautiful Things 01-07-2025: Private Eccentric Pleasures, Great Harvest Pleasures, Multiple Coeur d' Alene Tasks and Pleasures

 1. I think it might have been a bit of self-aggrandizement, but back in around 1993-94, I used to encourage students to follow their lights and used myself as a possibly mediocre example. I told them about things I did, alone, that I called Private Eccentric Pleasures (PEP). 

I might have been overstating what I enjoyed by referring to them as eccentric, but they were personal and they always gave me pleasure. 

I frequented Eugene's WOW Hall to hear jam bands and other rock/jazz/blues music, almost always by myself, and joined other revelers and danced solo. I cocooned myself into a private dancing world, gyrated, perspired, grinned broadly, and enjoyed these nights while 100 percent sober. I never smoked weed or used hallucinogenic drugs and I abstained from alcohol from January, 1986 until October, 1996. This PEP was a natural high!   

Other Private Eccentric Pleasures I enjoyed included driving by myself to Portland just to see movies that often opened a week ahead of when they premiered in Eugene. I went to movies all the time in Eugene by myself, a pleasure I had first begun to curry in Spokane from 1982-84 and that continues to this day -- I just wish I went to as many movies in theaters in 2025 as I did all those years living in Spokane and Eugene.

But I really enjoyed the theaters in Portland, being in the city, being an anonymous person, and being able to think about and relive each movie I saw as I tooled back down I-5 to return home. 

Now my PEP is going to Sacred Heart Medical Center for labs twice a month and to visit the transplant team periodically.

That's what I did today. I was out the door around 5:30 a.m., drove to Spokane, glided into the parking garage I use, enjoyed the friendly greeting of the security guy I checked in with at the main hospital, went to the check-in area where I ran into and had a great visit with fellow Kellogg native Dave Macri, got checked in, and enjoyed the always friendly and efficient Angela as she filled vials with my blood and sent me on my way. 

Then, just because I enjoy the vibe there, I went down to the basement to the cafeteria, ordered a 12 oz double latte, and read more of Lone Wolf. I caught snippets of Sacred Heart personnel yakking about their work or giving each other a hard time or just relaxing on a break. 

I didn't listen hard. I prefer to mind my own business. Most of my concentration was on the book I was reading.

But I did catch fragments of conversation and caught the tone. I could tell some conversations were  earnest, others playful. The different tones created the good vibe I enjoyed. 

Eccentric? I don't know.

A pleasure. For sure. 

2. I left the medical center and cruised up Grand Boulevard to 29th and soon eased into a parking place in front of Great Harvest where I enjoyed an Oatmeal Blueberry muffin with a cup of coffee while reading some more of Lone Wolf. I enjoyed the vibe and energy of the people working at Great Harvest and the people, mostly my age or older, dropping in for food and drink, either to enjoy in the shop or take out. 

3. More Personal Eccentric Pleasures lay ahead in Coeur d'Alene. I stopped in at Supercuts for a haircut. 

PEP. I enjoy Supercuts.

I blasted over to Costco and fueled the Camry. 

PEP. I enjoy Costco. 

Then three major sources of pleasure -- are they eccentric? I sat at the counter at Breakfast Nook and read more Lone Wolf while dining on a Jack cheese and mushroom omelette, hash browns, sourdough toast, and coffee. I loved how packed it was, mostly with old-timers (including me), and the non-stop activity of cooks preparing meals and an army of mostly middle aged or older servers energetically and with friendliness and charm waited on customers with efficiency and warmth. 

Then I waltzed into good vibe central at Trader Joe's and picked up a few groceries for home and continued my waltzing in good vibe stores and bought raspberry kefir, freshly ground peanut butter, and a variety of delicious produce items at Pilgrim's Market. 

I returned home happy. I had bags of groceries. I was nourished. I had hardly any hair on my head! 

And, to my relief, the lab results looked stable, encouraging me that my body and my new kidney are doing pretty well together. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-06-2024: Return of Sibling Outings, Our First 2025 Outing, Digging Deeper into What Makes Eric Rudolph Tick

1. Christy, Carol, and I used to go on outings that didn't include anyone else. Just us. We did them in the spirit of the Sibling Assignments we used to write in our blogs. 

We hadn't been out of a Sibling Outing for quite a while and Carol took charge of getting us back into them via a Christmas gift. She made each of us a folder. Each folder has twelve monthly calendars for 2025. Carol assigned each of us a month and a place to go. The person assigned to the month decides what our activity will be, where we'll dine, and what our transportation will be. 

Carol assigned herself January. She chose January 6th as our outing date. She drove. She combined the activity and dining spot and told Christy and me we'd go for high tea at Inland Cafe and Tea. It's located on Government Way in a strip mall across from the Fairgrounds, just north of Nosworthy's Hall of Fame, the former Ground Round. 

2. The Inland Cafe and Tea menu offers four adult high teas (and one for children). For our outing, Carol chose the Sunflower Tea. It included the following:

• a bottomless pot of tea for each of us -- we had, I'd say, about eighty different teas to choose from 
• a cup of soup -- today's soup was split pea and ham
• a scone with our choice of topping -- the toppings are lemon curd, clotted cream, fruit jam, caramel or chocolate sauce, or a seasonal topping
• two tea sandwiches -- the choices are pecan chicken, inland ham, egg salad, or cucumber with chive cream 
• a petite sweet (ours was a dainty cupcake)
• garnishments of fresh fruit

We had a relaxing time sipping tea, yakkin' away,  and eating our fresh, made in-house offerings. 

I thought our year of outings got off to a terrific start. 

If you'd like to go to Inland Cafe and Tea's website, here's the link: https://www.inlandcafeandtea.com/

3. As I moved into the last third of the book Lone Wolf, the story continued by telling what happened after law enforcement captured Eric Rudolph and the high stakes legal maneuvering surrounding his case. With Eric Rudolph in custody, the attorneys and investigators, and we, as readers, came to know Rudolph much more fully. He turns out to be a complicated, complex, idealistic, and, I'd say, egotistical man on a deadly mission to save the USA from its own decline and corruption. Rudolph sees much of this decline and corruption embodied in abortion which he opposed with deadly force. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-05-2025: Debbie Returns to Kellogg, I Prepare for Debbie's Return, I Read More Deeply into *Lone Wolf*

1. Everything worked out this morning. Debbie's flight from Newark to Minneapolis worked. So did her next flight to Spokane. I arrived at the airport right at 12:30 and Debbie was at the curb. No snow or ice was on I-90 so my drive over and our drive back to Kellogg was wet but uneventful. 

Gibbs loves having Debbie back home! 

2. Before I left for the airport, I worked for around an hour getting gunk out of the bathroom sink drain and succeeded in getting it to drain well again. 

I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, vacuuming the living room, and clearing up any last bit of clutter in the house I hadn't taken care of earlier. 

I'm not a great house cleaner, but I thought things looked pretty decent for Debbie's return. 

3. I spent much of the evening, after roasting a Trader Joe's Spatchcocked Lemon Rosemary Chicken, reading more deeply into Maryanne Vollers' in depth book about Olympic Park, abortion clinic, and gay bar bomber Eric Rudolph. 

Through tireless interviews and research, Vollers could explain and tell the story of how Rudolph managed to escape being caught for five years, even though he spent much of that time not that deep in the Western North Carolina woods and made frequent nighttime forays into nearby towns to find himself food and other supplies in a variety of thieving ways. 

I found myself contrasting Rudolph's survival over those five years in the woods with the failure of Chris McCandless to survive trying to live off the land in Alaska in Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild. 

Broadly speaking, the primary difference between the two was basic: Rudolph had had extensive experience over the years hiking and camping in the woods he hid out in and he positioned himself close enough to towns and people's cabins and other domiciles outside of town that he could plunder dumpsters, gardens, people's homes, and other sources for food and supplies. 

McCandless had no experience in the area of Alaska where he tried to live off the land and also, unlike Rudolph, he didn't devise detailed plans of how he would survive nor did he keep in contact in any way with civilization. Rudolph listened to a radio and brought newspapers back to his camp. He didn't fully isolate himself in the woods. 

He also devised ingenious ways to stay out of the sight of the armies searching for him on land and from the air. 

I knew the whole time I read about Rudolph's five years on the lam that he would eventually be caught. 

The book opens with his capture.

Like classic epic stories, Lone Wolf opens in the middle of the story, turns to events before his capture, retells the capture story, and moves on to Rudolph's incarceration and when I put the book down last night, he was meeting his original defense attorney for the first time. 

Eric Rudolph's trial is coming up soon in the book.

Three Beautiful Things 01-04-2025: Debbie Rebooks, I Spent the Day with *Lone Wolf*, Parallel Stories

 1. Debbie rebooked her delayed Saturday flight out of Newark and will be flying into Spokane early in the afternoon instead of after midnight Saturday night. 

2. I spent much of the day reading Lone Wolf, learning more than I ever had known about how law enforcement investigates bomb sites, work to reconstruct the bomb the perpetrator detonated, and how much they learn about the bomber from the details of the bomb itself. 

3. I enjoy books that have a main river of a story running through them and that develop multiple tributaries to feed that river. In Lone Wolf, the primary focus is on Eric Rudolph's bombings and the extensive manhunt to track him down, but Maryanne Vollers also develops smaller (in length) stories about other bombers (like the Unabomber) and other violent events, like Ruby Ridge and Waco, events in which the same agencies trying to track down Eric Rudolph responded to those situations. I enjoy learning how the Rudolph case was affected by what agents learned, say, in their search for the Unabomber and it's affected by the excesses and huge mistakes these agencies made on Ruby Ridge and at Waco. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-03-2025: "The Darkest Precincts of Idealism", Fueled by Disillusionment, Gibbs and Copper Are Untroubled

1. Today I finished Buffalo, NY journalists Dan Herbeck and Lou Michel's biographical study of Timothy McVeigh entitled American Terrorist: American Terrorist and the Oklahoma City Bombing. 

Once McVeigh was found guilty and sentenced to death, he decided to entrust his whole story to Herbeck and Michel. He submitted to countless hours of interviews, made all kinds of documents available to the writers, and asked nothing in return. No compensation. No book deal. Nothing. 

Timothy McVeigh lived by codes of idealism. He definitely entered what Maryanne Vollers  calls "a journey into the darkest precincts of idealism, an exploration of how things can go terribly wrong in the name of doing good." She's the author of Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph and the Legacy of American Terror, the book I started this evening,

For the last, what?, two years or so, I've been reading books and listening to podcasts trying to understand what's commonly called right wing extremism. Much, but not all, of Leah Sotille's journalism focuses on this and Lone Wolf will, too, given the right wing ideals Eric Rudolph acted in service to when he bombed Centennial Park during the 1996 Olympics, two abortion clinics, and a gay/lesbian bar.

2. Today, reading Maryanne Vollers' phrase "the darkest precincts of idealism" helped me more than anything else I've read or heard in the last couple of years. 

My idealism and the idealism of many people I've associated with in church, in my work, and as a volunteer were not journeys into dark precincts of idealism, but into light ones, the precincts of alleviating hunger, studying compassion, exploring and practicing self-examination, pondering Socrates' insights into what it means to live a well-lived life, and more. 

Not one of these ideals ever even faintly suggested that in order to achieve them, I needed to do something violent in the name of good. 

I've also realized, especially as I've grown older, that the ideals I pursue can never be realized, that my reach will always exceed my grasp, as Robert Browning writes in his poem "Andrea del Sarto". 

Knowing this, I do my best, not always successfully, not to be disillusioned. 

The reading and listening I've been doing over the last couple of years leads me to wonder if the journey into the darkest precincts of idealism isn't fueled by disillusionment.

It was for Timothy McVeigh. 

His disillusionment with the U. S. Army, the federal government, the FBI and ATF (he was enraged by what happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco), and other agencies that he saw as waging war against Americans and against citizens' freedoms convinced him that he bombed the Murrah Building in the name of good. 

I'd say those who bombed ROTC buildings, burned down ranger stations, lit fires and destroyed property in cities, whether in the wake of the MLK's assassination or the death of George Floyd, and who have carried out other acts of similar violence did so in the name of good and were fueled by disillusionment. 

A lot can go terribly wrong in the name of doing good. 

This little blog post barely scratches the surface of how this can be true. 

3. You might wonder with all this serious reading I did today, with all this serious pondering the reading led me into, do I give myself a break from thinking about these conflicts and these acts of violence we live with now, and have lived with for decades? 

None of these troubling aspects of human life trouble Gibbs or Copper. 

With Debbie having been gone for two weeks, I've done my best to divide my time between the living room, Gibbs' domain, and the bedroom, where Copper spends much of his time. 

It's a comfort and a great help to my spirit to have Gibbs jump on my lap and relax, especially after he was so gloomy for the first couple of days Debbie was gone. 

Copper is always grateful when I come into the bedroom. 

I lie down to read and he inches as close as he's willing towad me -- within about a foot -- and purrs contentedly when I pet him, simply lay my hand on his back or stomach, and when he rests his face inside my hand when I shape it like a cup. This wanting to put half his face in my cupped hand is a new development, one that seems to transport Copper beyond contentment into a temporarily ecstatic state. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-02-2025: Family Reunion, I Delighted Leah Sottile!, Back to Timothy McVeigh

1. Debbie sent Christy, Carol, and me several pictures today, helping us see what a joyous reunion Debbie, Adrienne, Patrick, and Molly have experienced and how happy our grandchildren seem to be to see one another and be in the company of the family as a whole. 

I haven't experienced FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). 

I've experienced KOMO (Knowledge of Missing Out)! 

That hasn't been a bad thing -- not when I see what a happy occasion this reunion has been. 

I'll add that some time ago, Patrick and Jack began working together through electronic communications to help Jack build a computer. 

Now, with Patrick and Jack being in one another's company, they've finished this project and Debbie sent us pictures of them working together and connecting the computer to Adrienne's internet connection. 

I look forward to Debbie's return to Kellogg, but, at the same time, I wish her time with the family all being together could last longer and that it were simpler to make happen more often. 

2. As I've written several times on this blog, Portland free lance journalist Leah Sottile, back in July, posted on her Substack a list of books she admires in response to the New York Times' list of the top 100 books of the 21st century. Out of my admiration for Leah Sottile's podcasts and writing, I decided to read every one of the fourteen books she listed. I am almost finished with book number twelve, leaving me with two to go.

Today, I remembered that several days ago I'd received a notification email that Leah Sottile had posted a new article on her Substack. I subscribe to her Substack account and I checked out her latest piece entitled, "Some Very Good Writing". 

In it, she reminded readers of her July book list and she put a footnote at the end of this reminder paragraph. 

I read the footnote. 

It referred to me! 

Leah Sottile wrote: "It couldn't delight me more that one subscriber, Bill, has turned the book list into his personal reading list. Folks, be like Bill. Read more books."

I had commented a few months ago on one of Leah Sottile's Substack articles that I decided to read all of the books on her list. That's how she found out I undertook this project. 

I am happy to have delighted Leah Sottile. 

As I told her, reading her list of books has been unnerving, challenging, stimulating, and chilling. 

Now I look forward to reading the articles she listed in her latest article, "Some Very Good Writing". 

I also look forward to her next book coming out: it's an investigation of the New Age movement entitled Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age. 

3. I drove to Gladstone and Eugene and back again in the first part of December. Upon arriving home, I seem to have become caught up in other things and then I started watching Poker Face and I fell out of my reading routine. 

Today I returned. 

I picked up where I left off about a month ago in the book, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Today's reading chilled me, not only because it detailed the logistics and the unimaginable carnage of the bombing itself, but it detailed the cold rationality Timothy McVeigh drew upon to carry out his mission.

It haunts me to read stories of people who possess the gift of superior intelligence and employ their intelligence in the pursuit of violence and destruction, fueled by obsession and a narrow and intense commitment to a particular ideology.

The killings at Ruby Ridge and at Waco and McVeigh's deep disillusionment with the U. S. military and his experience as a soldier in the Gulf War combined to fuel Timothy McVeigh's anti-government obsessions.

He wanted to pay the federal government back for the deaths and injuries its agencies had brought about and he had come to believe that doing so, by engineering a huge, unforgettable act of destruction, would trigger a widespread anti-government revolution. Timothy McVeigh either hoped or believed that once people understood why he blew up the Murrah Federal Building, that it would be the start of a movement to end, by whatever means, government tyranny and build up liberty.

The bombing did not have this widespread effect (although it did inspire a fraction of our population). 

The book then chronicles McVeigh's arrests, his indictment, and I put the book down later tonight,  still deep in Timothy McVeigh's trial. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-01-2025: Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! And EARLY!, Zucchini Saute and Couscous, *Poker Face* Features Actors "Of a Certain Age"

1. Christy's birthday is January 9th. 

Commonly, our nieces, Zoe and Cosette, come to Kellogg for the holidays, but are long gone by the time Christy's birthday rolls around. 

We already had a New Year's Day Almost The Whole Family is in Town prime rib family dinner planned tonight. 

Two or three days ago, Carol sent me a text announcing that since our nieces (her daughters) were still in town, we would have an EARLY surprise birthday party for Christy. 

It worked! 

Christy arrived for family dinner, kind of wondering why everyone else was already there, but also preoccupied with her potato dish needing more time in the oven and with handing out prizes/awards for the gingerbread house contest. 

So when she saw that the dining area was festooned with streamers and balloons and a Happy Birthday sign hung on the wall and when she heard us all cry out, "Surprise!" as she made her way from the living room toward the kitchen, we caught her way off guard! 

We had a superb Family New Year's Day Surprise Birthday dinner: a shrimp cocktail appetizer, and then prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, green salad, fruit salad, a sautéed zucchini dish, and happy spirits all around the table.

Toward the end of dinner, Carol turned on the television and played a video Debbie made in New York  with the Diaz family, Langford family, and Patrick and Meagan singing "Happy Birthday" to Christy. 

What an evening! 

Gingerbread house awards. Carol created a birthday Mad Lib. We all contributed words to it and giggled at the result. Carol also created a game called "Is Christy Younger or Older Than . . . ?" and gave us twenty-five people, events, and other things and we all wrote down our guesses -- Is Christy younger or older than Ron Howard? Than G. I. Joe? Than the Slinky? And so on. I often don't enjoy games, but I enjoy trivia-ish games and this one was terrific. (I also enjoy Sorry!)

2. Carol assigned me to cook a vegetable side dish for tonight's dinner. 

I got out my new electric fry pan, heated up some olive oil, and then sliced up a red onion (and my left pointing finger), cooked the onion for a while, and then added and sautéed slices of zucchini and yellow squash with crushed garlic, tarragon, Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, Everything but the Bagel Seasoning, also from Trader Joe's, and the fresh juice of a half a lemon. 

When this had all cooked up, I thought the vegetables alone needed stretching, so I did the easiest possible thing: I cooked up a pot of couscous. 

So, my sautéed zucchini dish became sautéed zucchini on a bed of couscous dish. 

It worked! 

3. Back to back episodes of Poker Face (Season 1, Episodes 5-6) feature women actors, S. Epatha Merkerson, Judith Light, and Ellen Barkin) in their very late sixties and early seventies.

I love how the creators of Poker Face cast them. 

In episode 6, Ellen Barkin's character, Kathleen Townsend, an actor who is all but washed up, tells her former television acting partner, Michael Graves (played by Tim Meadows) that older women in movies and television go from being Mom to senator to dementia patient.

That line of Kathleen Townsend's was a cagey way for us, as audience, to be ironically informed that women, as Townsend puts it, "of a certain age" would not be confined to being Moms, senators, or dementia patients in Poker Face. 

They play profane, embittered, scheming, dangerous criminals, driven by long held grievances, a hunger for revenge, and, in Kathleen Townsend's case, greed. 

From my point of view, there was nothing stereotypical about them and these characters gave Merkerson, Light, and Barkin the opportunity to exercise the breadth and depth of their enormous acting abilities and strike real fear in the characters around them in these episodes and in me as a viewer. 

My enjoyment of watching older actors in movies or on television began long before I became old myself.

One (of many) examples stands out. 

In 1981 in Portland, I believe at the Bagdad Cinema and then again the next year in Eugene at Cinema 7, I saw Lee Grant's stunning work as the director of the Tillie Olsen story made into the movie Tell Me A Riddle, featuring Melvyn Douglas and Lila Kedrova as an elderly husband and wife who have become distant from one another, but, in the course of the movie, close the gap between them.

I've got to watch it again. I know I've seen Tell Me a Riddle again since 1982. I also know it's been quite a while.