Three Beautiful Things 05-06-2025: Stiff Back, Flexibility and Expo 74, Looking at Pictures

1. All of a sudden this morning the lowest region of my back stiffened and so started my Amos McCoy day. I gave myself multiple heating pad treatments and was able to get a few things I wanted to accomplish done around the house. 

I think the stiffness is subsiding.

The other good news is being slightly immobilized gave me all the more time to read more deeply into The Fair and the Falls. 

2. In my reading today, I learned much more about the obstacles the City of Spokane and the leaders of private enterprise had to confront and overcome to secure the land for Expo '74 and to secure finances for the making this dream come true. 

I can't sum it all up here -- and, besides, I have more challenges to read about. 

I will say, though, that had the business leaders and elected officials of Spokane and Washington State assumed inflexible ideologically defined stances toward working with the federal government and taxation, the fair never would have happened. 

At one crucial point in time, after a city wide bond measure failed, a signifiicant number of Spokane business leaders wrote letters to city council members in support of a Business and Occupation Tax, a tax these leaders found odious. It would tax the businesses' gross, not net earnings, and would be a tax on the businesses themselves, not on the consumers. The city council, despite their general opposition to the tax, put it into effect, unanimously, and four of those council members faced a primary election the very next day, knowing that their "yes" votes might cost them their seats. They were all victorious in the primary, remarkably. 

Voting in this tax cleared the way for the project to move forward. 

3. While reading this book, I also looked up pictures of what the area we now know of as Riverfront Park looked like with the train trestles, train stations and warehouses, and other businesses dominating it. What is now Spokane Falls Boulevard was Trent Avenue and I have been working at getting a better visual sense of what it looked like before the transformation of Expo 74. 

It all was dreary. 

Try as I might, though, I don't have my own memories of that area. I have memories of parts of downtown south of the train yards -- I remember The Crescent and J J Newberry and the Bon Marche and P. M. Jacoy's and  other stores, but not the tracks and places razed and transformed as Expo 74 and Riverfront Park came into being. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 05-05-2025: *Tales from the Golden Road*, Expo History and *Deadish*, Steak and Bagels

1. I drove to CdA first thing this morning to have the damage assessed that I inflicted on the Camry's sideview mirror a weekend ago. 

I made the easy drive over more enjoyable by listening to Dave Gans' radio show, Tales from the Golden Road, on Sirius/XM's Grateful Dead channel. It's a call in show and listening to caller after caller tell stories of shows they went 40-50 to almost 60 years ago and marveling at the detailed knowledge many of these callers have about show tapes was really fun and reminded me yet again why I do not consider myself a Dead Head. All I do is listen to the band. I don't have detailed knowledge, great stories, a long history of having gone to a ton of shows, or any tapes. I don't have any tie dyed clothing either! 

I love listening to Dead Heads tell stories and discuss the Deadiverse, but I cannot count myself one of them. 

I was also happy to hear so many of these longtime Dead Heads express their enjoyment of Dead & Company, giving special praise to what John Mayer has brought to this band. 

2. I checked in with a service advisor and then settled into a comfortable chair in Parker Toyota's waiting area and read more in The Falls and the Fair about what happened, thanks to King Cole's ingenius outreach to the many groups in the city of Spokane to discuss how downtown Spokane might be improved, resurrected even. 

I made reading this most enjoyable book even more pleasing by putting in my earbuds and listening to Jeff's May 1st Deadish show featuring a heavenly acoustic set from May 1, 1970, a recording session on May 1, 1969 in which Bob Dylan and George Harrison got together with other musicians and performed in a studio together, and then some May 1st electric Grateful Dead from, I think, 1981. 

The car was ready within about an hour -- I return next week for a new mirror to be installed (and more Deadish! --  and so I listened to some of Jeff's show in the waiting room, more of it on my drive back to Kellogg, and caught Jeff's After Show at home as he played songs the Grateful Dead performed on May 2nd as a tribute to a friend and regular listener whose birthday is on May 2nd. 

That was fun, especially when Jeff ended the set with the Beatles and "Birthday"! 

3. On Sunday, Debbie dipped into our basement freezer and brought up a steak to thaw and, this evening I cut this thick hunk of beef in half and fixed us a fun and delicious meal of steak, roasted potatoes, and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans combined. 

Earlier in the day, the first thing I did when I arrived back in Kellogg was buzz up to the newly opened Beach Bum Bakery on Main Street and buy three sesame and three everything bagels. The Beach Bum bagels are, at least from my perspective, huge so I eat them one half at a time and buying a half a dozen of them is, for me, equivalent to buying a dozen of other bakers' bagels. 

I'm ecstatic that Beach Bum Bakery is back. Having these bagels in my life again is a source of deep joy for me. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-04-2025: A Little More About Ghosts, Sunday Family Dinner, Our Family Dinner Conversations

1. After I wrote about the ghosts of Spokane that haunt, even taunt, me to this day, stirring up guilt and shame for harm I was responsible for causing  over forty years ago, I appreciated friends telling me that they, too, experience similar haunting and feel similar regret for things they did or that happened decades ago. 

These ghosts remind me on a personal level what I've been writing about on a broader societal level for quite some time. The past lives on. It's present. What was, is.  Now this is true for positive deeds as well as negative ones. I used to think, however, that the knowledge and the impact of the good things I've done in my life would outweigh, maybe even cancel out, the reckless and heedless things. 

I was wrong.

They all live on. 

2. Christy hosted tonight's terrific family dinner. 

For an appetizer, Christy made a Benedictine spread to put on crackers and also filled mini philo pie crusts with the spread. 

Carol built each of us a remarkable and beautiful looking wedge salad with toppings I'm unable to list because my memory is inconsistent. 

Christy baked delicious and tender bbq chicken drumsticks and thighs.

I brought roasted carrots and enhanced them with a butter, garlic, and honey sauce. 

For dessert, Christy baked scones and provided whipped cream and fresh strawberries to cover them with. 

3. We yakked for quite a while before, while, and after we ate. 

It was fun talking about colloquial and idiomatic language along with regional peculiarities, whether in North Idaho or southern Indiana/Northern Kentucky. It was also fun talking about accents. 

And, it was interesting talking about prejudices that sometimes come to bear on people simply because they talk differently and rely heavily on words and phrases not considered proper English. 

We all know a lot of very intelligent, perceptive people who do this. For all of us, many people with these habits of language were our students who we saw be underestimated because their language use didn't conform to standards of propriety. 

We discussed family news and updates and Debbie filled us in more on Samantha's baby shower in Arlington Heights, IL when Misty met for the first time family members she didn't know, until over a year ago, she even had. 

We also had an interesting conversation about vacations and how modest and unspectacular ours were when we were kids, but how much we enjoyed them. Our family went to Orofino to see Mom's family every summer and, at least sometimes, came back to Kellogg via Spokane to see Grandma Woolum.

As I look back, I do not remember ever thinking a vacation would be anything else -- I had no thoughts or dreams about Disneyland, going to the Oregon Coast, going back east, or doing any other kind of trip that might involve motels or popular destinations. 

I was eager to go to Orofino and swim in the city pool, frolic on the sandy beach at Beaver Dam on the Clearwater River's north fork,  hang out with the Stanley kids who lived next door to Grandma, and visit the Johnston's in Peck --- oh, and see our relatives. 

Back then, all of that felt to me as exciting as Coney Island or seeing the Grand Canyon! 

Three Beautiful Things 05-03-2025: The Continuum of History, Technology and Downtown Spokane, The Ghosts of Spokane

1. I don't know -- do I read a lot of history? Or historical fiction? I guess I read enough. 

I read enough to have concluded that history is not so much about what happened, but about what is always happening. I don't think history repeats itself so much as it moves on a continuum. What was, is. 

As I've mentioned, the book The Fair and the Falls is, in part, about the ongoing and never solved questions regarding the relationship between human beings and the natural world, the questions regarding to what degree is the natural world ours to extract from, harness, profit from, and spoil and to what degree is the natural world a source of well-being, beauty, spiritual nourishment -- in other words, to what degree is the natural world better if humans leave it alone.

The book also deals with the ongoing questions every city faces about how to make and keep its downtown core vital, safe, and alive as the heart of the city. 

Expo '74 emerged from years of city leaders, both elected and in the world of business, wrestling with this question as downtown Spokane, and the city itself, began to decline in the 1950s. 

While the particulars of the challenges of life in downtown Spokane (or Eugene, Portland, Seattle, and most cities) change, the essential questions remain the same. 

As I read about Spokane in the late fifties and on into the 1960s, it's fascinating to learn more about what people in Spokane and other cities were thinking about as far as attracting people back into downtown,  about the pros and cons of urban renewal programs, and about ways to resurrect the river and the falls and make them a centerpiece of downtown renewal. This would require dismantling the railroad yards that essentially covered the river and working to make the falls prominent again. 

2. Technological developments have had and continue to have a significant impact on the urban core of cities. 

In the case of Spokane, things began to decline downtown with the growing popularity of the automobile which was accompanied by the emergence of shopping centers, like Northtown, making stores available outside downtown and providing plenty of parking on large lots. 

Before the rise of the automobile's availability and popularity, downtown Spokane thrived on people coming into the downtown core via mass transit (bus, trolley, streetcar, etc) and people traveled away from and into Spokane by train, so travelers added to the bustle of downtown as they came and went from the train station down by the river. 

Before the emergence of television, downtown Spokane had multiple movie theaters and dance halls. Television, of course, contributed to people spending more time at home being entertained. 

This technological continuum continues today. I doubt I need to discuss it in any detail.

3. I'm enjoying reading this history of Spokane and closing the book and going on Spokane side trips with maps and looking things up online. 

Remembering my days living in Spokane (1974-78 & 1982-84) is both exhilarating and dark. 

I loved my life as a student and an employee at Whitworth. 

I loved my early days of marriage in Spokane.

I'd say that when I lived in Spokane between 1982 and 1984 that that was the most confusing, frightened, and troubled time of my entire life following the dissolution of our marriage in August of 1982, followed by the marriage being annulled about a year and a half later. 

The teaching part of my life was very enjoyable and I treasure the friendships I made during those years, especially the ones that have endured -- I am thinking especially of the Westminster Basement Study Group. 

But, any time I go to Spokane, read about Spokane, talk with Debbie about her days and my days in Spokane, the ghosts of 1982-84 haunt me. 

I confront them, wrestle with them, try to learn from them. 

Regret and shame live on, though. 

So do the fun and happy memories -- and there are a ton of them. 

As I write this, I'm reminded of how the Spokane ghosts often are accompanied by the singing voice of Linda Thompson as she and Richard Thompson perform the song, "For Shame of Doing Wrong". 

Two lines especially repeat themselves:

    I'm sorry for the things I've said, the things I've done

    I'm sorry for the restless thief I've been. 

One source of relief from those Spokane years exists, though.

I have no memory of having been wronged. 

I'm not haunted by what anyone might have done to me -- if I was wronged, I've rinsed it from my memory -- and that includes the anger and confusion I experienced for several years after the divorce and annulment.  

Those feelings are gone, as is the resentment. 

I'm not haunted by what anyone did to me.

I'm haunted by what I did to others. 

It makes reading this history of Spokane a complicated experience, but I welcome it. 

Yes, I would be happy if one day the ghosts of 1982-84 disappeared, but I don't want to forget what I did nor do I want to abandon that confused, frightened young man in his late twenties becoming thirty years old. I think he needs me to remember him. 

Not forgetting helps me continue to learn and I think what I've learned has helped me as a person in many ways, often very slowly, over the ensuing forty plus years be less confused, less frightened, less volatile, and less troubled.  

Three Beautiful Things 05-02-2025: May's Sibling Outing: Jundt Art Museum, Indigenous Eats, Grandma's House, Manito Park

1. Christy, Carol, and I agreed in December that we would do our best to go on a sibling outing once a month in 2025. Carol spearheaded this plan by making a calendar that assigned each of us a month and location to travel to together. 

May is Christy's month and Carol assigned her South Hill Spokane. 

I think the three of us agree that these assignments are flexible and today's outing exemplified this.

In April, Carol was in charge and she took us to the Museum of Northwest Art and Culture in Spokane. 

Upon seeing on Facebook that we had gone to the MAC, Kenton Bird wondered if we had been to the Jundt Art Gallery on Gonzaga's campus and seen the Fletcher Martin murals he painted for the Kellogg Post Office, one that the city rejected and the one that was deemed appropriate and acceptable. 

We hadn't and Christy decided we would visit the Jundt Gallery for our May outing -- not quite in the South Hills, but we'd get up there eventually! 

So, after a round of espresso drinks at Silver Peak Espresso in Smelterville, Christy drove us to the southwest corner of Gonzaga's campus and we spent time taking in the exhibition entitled, "Art U.S.A.: One Hundred Works on Paper, 1925-1950".

2. I mentioned last month after we'd seen a watercolor show at the MAC that I enjoy art the most that veers away from naturalism or realism and that is more expressive, even abstract. I have also always enjoyed portraits and art that explores social criticism. 

This exhibition at the Jundt is eclectic. It features a wide variety of mediums, subjects, landscapes, portraits, social criticism (some through pointed Biblical analogies), with, I thought, a special emphasis on everyday life in the USA from 1925-50, whether work, home life, recreation, sporting, or entertainment and whether rural and urban. 

At best, I probably took in about 15 to 20 percent of this exhibition. Knowing I wanted to absorb more of it, I bought the very handsome hardback book featuring all the artwork and the commentary posted by each work. 

I'm also thinking that I might go back to Spokane this coming week and return to both the Jundt and the MAC. I want to take in more of the "Art U.S.A." and, especially because I'm currently reading a history of Spokane, I want to return to the exhibition at the MAC focused on fire and revisit the room dedicated to the Spokane fire of 1889. 

This was only my second visit to the Jundt Art Museum. Like the MAC, it's an exquisite place. The building itself is elegant and the exhibit rooms are airy and peaceful. There's a seating area with huge windows looking out on the Spokane River and a stroll down a hallway off of this seating area leads to  more windows and a view of Lake Arthur, a small lake and registered wetland area I'd also enjoy exploring one day. 

3. Our minds and spirits could only absorb so much at the gallery. We all enjoyed what we did take in, but it was time to head a few blocks east to Indigenous Eats for delicious Indian tacos on fresh fry bread, loaded with terrific ingredients. I opted for a bison taco.

We piled back into Christy's Sube and drove up to E. Bridgeport and saw how things look at the house Grandma Woolum lived in for about forty-five years. The house has been worked on and it looked like an improvement project was ongoing on the front porch. That neighborhood has seen some rough times over the last thirty years or so and today, at least from the street, it looked like a mixture of houses cared for well and others that were run down. 

We sorted out E. 717 Bridgeport memories as we then headed up to Manito Park.

We strolled to the Lilac Garden. 

It's not in full bloom, but enough of the lilac trees were flowering to make our stop enjoyable. 

Just being in the park was relaxing and peaceful, so while we didn't get to enjoy the full splendor of peak lilacs, we did enjoy the early blooms and the majesty of walking in the natural beauty of the the part of the park we visited. 

We had a chatty and uneventful drive back to Kellogg. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-01-2025: Spokane Emerges, I Get Organized, A Box for Copper

1. It was fun and engrossing today to read about Spokane's remarkable growth around the turn of the century and to learn how impressed others outside the immediate area were with Spokane as a city, both for its industry and its beauty.

2. My paper life sorely needed organizing and after weeks and weeks of procrastination, I did it today.

3. Copper is very happy I took care of this paper organizing project. I emptied a shallow box that he fits into perfectly, put it on the bed, and he has contentedly been lying in that box about 95% of the time since I put it out for him. 

This suddenly available box is making him very very happy. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-30-2025: The Machine and the River/Falls, Spokane's Industrial Expo of 1890, Debbie Transforms the Casserole BONUS: Stu Writes a Batman Day Limerick

1. The angle that J. William T. Youngs takes in writing the history of Spokane, with special emphasis on Expo '74, is the crucial importance of the falls. You can see this in the book's title: The Fair and the Falls: Spokane's Expo '74, Transforming an American Environment. 

The first non-native people who settled in the area we now call Spokane found the falls mesmerizing.

By about the 1870's though, being mesmerized by the fall's natural beauty and power gave way to the idea that the river and the falls could be harnessed, could be a source of power for operating sawmills, flour mills, and, later, for generating electricity. 

The beauty and grandeur of the falls gave way to developing capital and I'm fairly sure this will be a thread running throughout this book, especially because Expo '74's theme was environmental and in order to create a space for such an exposition, the river and the falls had to be transformed from being a railroad yard, essentially, to being a park. 

2. It's probably needless to say that as Spokane, then known as Spokane Falls, began to grow as a center for commerce, preserving the original and natural beauty of the falls and river was hardly a priority and the river suffered what, at least from my point of view, were all kinds of indignities: sewage, sawmill waste, animal remains, and other sources of pollution were dumped into it and to accommodate the commercial needs for power, the course of the river and its original landscape were altered, not for aesthetic reasons, but to serve commercial interests. 

In other words, Spokane was a microcosm of the entire USA as this tension between development and the worth of the natural world's original beauty developed, whether in forests, waterways, or other natural sites. 

And now I've learned from this book that in October of 1890, just over a year after the great fire of 1889 reduced downtown Spokane to ashes and rubble, Spokane (Falls) hosted what amounted to a modest world's fair, the Northwestern Industrial Exposition. 

Builders worked feverishly to erect a huge exposition hall at what is now the spot downtown where W. Sprague comes to an end and Riverside takes over and Cedar intersects, just east of Maple and Walnut Streets. 

In contrast to Expo '74, this exposition did not have an environmental theme at all, but was a showcase of technological advances and of Spokane's mighty potential as a commercial center. 

It also featured cultural demonstrations and entertainments. 

It attracted thousands of people to this recovering and ambitious new city.

I find this chapter of Spokane's history especially fascinating having recently read The Devil in the White City. 

3. Debbie repurposed the great enchilada casserole we had on Sunday into what I'd call a bracing sauce, adding more ground beef and other ingredients. She also made a pot of brown rice and the whole transformation was awesome, especially when I topped my bowl of transformed casserole over brown rice with generous splashes of Franks's Hot Sauce. 

****

I'm publishing this blog post on May 1st. 

Until Stu sent me this limerick, I had no idea that May 1st was Batman Day. 

Stu commemorated this big day with the following verse: 

The Penguin and Joker are Wild. 

The Riddler’s strange riddles beguiled. 

But a “Biff” and a “Sock”, 

Made their heads start to rock. 

When the world of this hero they riled.

Three Beautiful Things 04-29-2025: Spokane History, Friends Comment About Aging, Popcorn Comeback?

1. Today I returned to reading J. William T. Youngs' book, The Fair and the Falls, his epic history of Spokane, beginning with how it became established as a settlement and grew into a city. The physical shape of the recently published paperback edition of this book, the one I recently purchased, is wide and it takes me longer than usual to read across a page. I'm reading the book slowly anyway because I want to take in the details of this story. They are largely unfamiliar to me. I don't mind reading slowly. It's a good thing because the book's content and its physical shape are slowing me down. It's a very readable history, by the way. Youngs' writing style is not slowing me down. 

Oh! I'm also being slowed down by my frequent consultation of maps, especially online, to make sure it's clear to me where in the Spokane area certain events Youngs described took place. 

Slow. Informative. Unnerving. Fascinating. 

It might take me at least a month to work my way through this superb book. 

2. On the one hand, I know that for many of us aging means dealing more frequently with physical maladies, increased visits to the clinic and blood draw laboratories, dental problems, and, among other things, more different medicines in our pill boxes. 

On the other hand, aging also mellows us. A couple of my friends took the time to reflect on this in their Facebook comments on my post yesterday and I deeply appreciate their insights and the knowledge that many of us are thinking about the many dimensions of aging, not just the slow downs, aches, pains, and embarrassments. 

3. If you've read this blog with any regularity over, say, the last ten years, you know that when Debbie and I lived in Maryland we enjoyed both popcorn dinners and popcorn evenings and enjoyed having David and Olivia, our grandchildren, over to spend the night and have popcorn parties. 

For no good reason, we fell off the popcorn train when we moved to Kellogg.

It wasn't a decision. 

It just slipped away.

Debbie is staying home ill this week and tonight she hankered for popcorn. 

I sprang into action, fixed us each a small bowl, and who knows? Maybe popcorn will make a comeback in our life together again! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-28-2025: Anxiety Grip Disappears, Mike Says, "Keep it as a gift", Medicinal Red Curry

1. I think it pretty much ended when I retired or maybe earlier when all of a sudden, in 2009, I inexplicably stopped plunging into black holes of overwhelming depression. What ended? Gripping anxiety pain in the pit of my stomach. When I used to be gripped by this anxiety, I usually knew what the source of it was -- money, work, a troublesome student, something I felt deeply insecure about, and other causes. 

It's been so long since anxiety pain gripped me that I thought I was finished with it. 

But, as ESPN's Lee Corso loves to say: "Not so fast, my friend."

Early Tuesday morning, that anxiety pain returned. 

I suppressed the coughing and gagging that used to accompany this sensation and I was baffled by why I felt it again. It was, as far as I could tell, not connected to anything. There must be a phrase in psychology for this experience that includes the word "displaced". Displace malaise? Displaced anxiety? 

I don't know. 

The good news is that I went back to sleep and when I woke up for good Tuesday morning that gripping anxiety sensation in the pit of my stomach was gone and hasn't returned. 

All I was left with were memories of confused, testy, insecure, and frightened times (break ups, academic failures, all kinds of screw ups, money worries, losses, fears of messing up at work) in my life when, sometimes, I lived with that sensation for days -- even weeks -- on end. 

But not today. And aside from early this morning, not for a few years. 

2. When Ed, Mike, Terry, Jake, and I were at the Wildhorse Resort, Mike handed me a slim book,  written and illustrated ostensibly for children entitled, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse written by Charlie Mackesy. 

Today I read the book and enjoyed its whimsy and its focus on the beauty of kindness, love, acceptance, and care for others. 

The book also transported me back to when I first taught a course called "The Literature of Comedy" (or something like that) and in those early days of teaching it, in the late 1990s, I focused on how the genre of comedy often focused on the idea of homecoming, of having lost or departed from one's home and then returned again; the idea was of home as a spiritual center, a place of shelter, clarity, acceptance, fulfillment, and peace. 

The first time I taught the course, on the first day of class we watched The Wizard of Oz. 

"There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

I texted Mike a thank you for the book and told him I'd be returning it. 

In the book's spirit of kindness and generosity, Mike texted me back and said that no, I should keep the book as a gift and do what he'd done: share it with others. 

That's my plan. 

3. Debbie left school as soon as she could today plagued by a sore throat, cough, and congestion. She arranged for a sub and will stay home Tuesday.

I texted Debbie before she left school and wondered if I could get her or fix her anything. 

She requested spicy red curry, emphasizing that she was hungry for onion. 

So I went to work, after a quick shopping trip to Yoke's, and combined red curry paste, coconut milk, soy sauce, brown sugar, and fish sauce into a curry sauce and added dice potatoes to it. I brought the sauce to a boil, lowered the heat, and cooked the potatoes. 

In the wok, I cooked frozen chicken tenders until they thawed and almost cooked through, removed them, and stir fried vegetables: white onion, red pepper, frozen cauliflower, broccoli, and green beans, and mushrooms. I cut up the nearly cooked through tenders, returned the pieces to a space I cleared in the wok, and cooked them through. 

I pushed everything up to the sides of the wok and heated up the lime rice left over from dinner last night and then pushed the rice off the wok's bottom and heated up a single package of Thai wheat noodles. 

I poured the red curry sauce into a larger pot and added all the vegetables and the chicken to the sauce and made sure the noodles and the rice were ready to have curry sauce poured over them. 

This dinner didn't cure Debbie's illness, but it did draw out of her my favorite word to hear after I've cooked her a meal.

"Perfect."

Three Beautiful Things 04-27-2025: Family Dinner, Debbie's Travel Plans, A Link to the Story of Ranjani Srinivasan

1. Debbie and I hosted family dinner. With Christy, Carol, and Paul's approval, we served dinner at three o'clock. 

Over the winter, Debbie had made pans of enchilada casserole and we served the last one today. Carol and Paul brought tortilla chips and sour cream and salsa, Christy brought sparkling water, I made a pot of lime rice, and Debbie rounded out our meal with a vegetable plate, a cabbage salad, and frozen lime juice bars for dessert. 

2. We talked about a lot of subjects, including Debbie's news that she'll be going to New York and Virginia for three weeks, leaving mid-June, to see Adrienne's family and then Molly's. She'll also look after our grandchildren in both places while Josh and Adrienne are at work and when Molly and Hiram go away for a couple of nights to celebrate Hiram's birthday. 

I will happily tend to things here in Kellogg and keep Copper and Gibbs company. Ha! I guess they'll keep me company, too! 

3. I mentioned in my blog post yesterday that I fell asleep before the segment of the March 28th episode of This American Life entitled, "The Museum of Now" ended. I finished listening to the segment after dinner. In it, a thirty-seven year old PhD student at Columbia from India tells the story of having her visa suddenly revoked and of repeated visits ICE made to her apartment and what she did in response to these sudden and bewildering developments over a five day period, including being dropped as a student, losing her teaching job, and losing her university housing. 

Her name is Ranjani Srinivasan. 

If you'd like to hear her story, as she and her roommate tell it to This American Life, here's a link:  https://www.thisamericanlife.org/857/museum-of-now/exhibit-two-10

If you put her name in a search engine, you can read what other outlets have reported. 

I'm posting this information because one reader of my blog asked for it. 

I came across this story accidentally when it woke me up while sleeping Saturday night. I had yearned to    listen to This American Life again after not having tuned in for years. I went to Spotify, clicked play, and episodes just started playing. I fell asleep, woke up periodically to listen to bits and pieces of the podcast as it moved from one episode to another. But, I stayed awake for much of the episode about Ranjan Srinivasan, but fell asleep before the story ended. Her story unsettled and intrigued me and I finished listening to it today. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-26-2025: My Wandering Mind, My Return to Folk Rock Music, My Return to *This American Life*

 1. I find that setting alarms on my phone, making lists and attaching them to my pill box, and writing occasional notes to myself helps my wandering mind remember my medications as well as Copper's and other things -- like I have a load of laundry sitting in the drier.  

As I age day to day, I try to stay mindful of the fact that my mind sometimes just wanders off -- obscure memories return, things that happened over forty years ago that embarrass me, sometimes haunt me.  I lose track of what's happening right now. It's ghostly. 

It's not really a problem when this wandering happens at home -- I do, after all, set alarms and write stuff down, but I'd like to reign in this mental wandering when I'm driving, especially when I drive alone. I'd like to learn to catch my mind drifting off as it starts to do so, not when I'm several minutes into having thoughts, remembrances, and dreams. The mental activity is good, in and of itself, but not when I'm driving or when the drifting distracts me from things that need taken care of. 

2. Jeff's Deadish show dedicated to British folk rock music will be on the KEPW-FM archive until either Wednesday or Thursday. His shows stay archived for two weeks. Today, while I worked puzzles, I went back to this April 17th show and jumped ahead to hour number two so I could listen again to Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and Pentangle -- and maybe other ensembles from 55-60 years ago. I especially enjoy the vocals of Sandy Denny and Maddie Prior and the way these innovative groups worked electric guitar and other rock influences into their explorations of traditional British folk music tunes, whether traditional songs they rework or original songs they composed themselves in traditional styles. 

3. I'm hungry for mental stimulation. I honestly wish I could do multiple of these stimulating things simultaneously. I know this is foolish, but it's my blog and this is where I can write foolishness! 

I wish I could read several books at the same time. I wish I could read, listen to music, and watch movies at the same time. 

Tonight, as I retired for the night, one of my hankerings I enjoy came back to me and I knew I wouldn't be reading, watching movies, or listening to music, let alone taking in a sporting event, because I wanted to listen to voices, radio voices or podcast voices. What should I tune into? At first I thought I'd listen to Radiolab, but then a flash of memory pushed me a different direction -- it had been a long time since I tuned in to This American Life. I don't even remember the episode I put on as I fell asleep, but every so often I woke up and listened to bits and pieces of whatever was playing. At one point, I caught a segment, but didn't finish it before falling asleep again, about a grad student from India being harassed by U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 

This American Life presented this segment as five days of diary entries and I stayed awake to hear about an email the student received, her refusal to open her apartment door when agents came pounding on it, her hiding out  in a friend's apartment, her frantic attempts to work with the University and the government to figure out what was going on, and her shock when suddenly Columbia University unenrolled her, canceled her housing, and terminated her grad student teaching position. 

I've got to return to this episode and this segment to see how it concluded. 

But as it played tonight, I simply couldn't stay awake. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-25-2025: Driving and Spinning and Clipping in Montana, Oh Man! Not the Side Mirror Again!, The Wonders of Jeff and *Deadish*

1. It's had been a week of dental work, concern about Copper, a dermatology exam, and getting the sprinkler system running and I decided I'd like some time to drive by myself to Montana. 

So, once I finished my morning routine of medication for me and Copper, scooping the litter pan, putting cream on my feet, eating some breakfast, blogging, and doing five puzzles (!), I piled myself into the Camry and headed east. 

As I came down Lookout Pass, coming out of a work zone, I misjudged the distance between the Camry and one of those looper tube traffic cones (picture below) as I came out of the work site and I clipped it. I didn't realize at first that I clipped it with the sideview mirror. I thought I'd done so with the bumper. 

In Saltese, I stopped in at the Montana Bar and Grill and played my favorite of all gaming machines, Wolf Moon (not available in Pendleton, Spokane, or Worley, to the best of my knowledge), got crushed, shrugged, and enjoyed a burger, fries, and a bottle of Bud Zero. 

2. I hit the road again and stopped in at Winki's Diner for a small ice cream cone, sat at a table outside, and noticed that the sideview mirror was collapsed, the cover was gone, and part of its workings was dangling below the mirror. 

I'd viewed this scene before -- one day I clipped the entry into our garage and damaged the mirror in similar fashion. 

I decided against continuing my Montana travels and I headed home. I tested the mirror -- I could adjust if from inside the car. The blinker light was working, but that blinking light was under the mirror, dangling. 

I wanted to return to Kellogg without the dangling part of the mirror falling off and succeeded. 

I stopped in at the local body shop to have it looked at, but it was closed. 

I'll try again Monday. 

I'm really glad the mirror and its operation are intact, but I want to get that dangling piece back in place and I want to replace the back cover that is now littering the roadside on the east side of Lookout Pass. 

3.  On this trip, until I left Winki's, I was able to use my phone and the car's bluetooth to listen to Jeff's April 17th Deadish program. 

I don't know why the connection that worked from Kellogg to Saltese and Saltese to St. Regis quit working as I headed west, but I didn't sweat it. I would finish listening to the program at home in Kellogg. 

Jeff replayed a program he had aired back in September of 2022 and for two and half hours he featured heavenly and fascinating music from the British Folk Rock Days, music recorded between about 1965 and 1970. 

He played, among others, Davey Graham, Trees, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, and more. 

This combining of rock and British traditional folk and other sources of folk music strikes a very sweet spot in me and I loved it. 

As a bonus, in his After Show, Jeff played a beautiful album I'd never heard before: Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day. 

I then did some easy digging into the World Wide Web to learn more about Vashti Bunyan and maybe figure out why I didn't know her name or her music. 

Hers is a great story of wandering, disappointment, abandonment, discovery, appreciation, and revival. 

After I fixed Debbie and me some baked sesame seed, lime/chili, garlic, salt, and pepper chicken drumsticks to enjoy with Debbie's superb bean salad, I opened up Saturday's NYTimes crossword online and listened to Jeff's April 24th Deadish program while working the puzzle. 

The Grateful Dead played on April 24th in both 1971 and 1972 in Durham, NC and Dusseldorf, West Germany. In the first hour, Jeff played a couple of Peter Rowan songs performed by the Jerry Garcia Band and then played selections from the Durham show. In the following hour and a half, Jeff played Dusseldorf selections, including a wondrous "Dark Star" and when I heard the unmistakable sound of Keith Godchaux's piano playing I suddenly realized that at this time Pigpen and Keith and Donna Godchaux were all in the band at the same time. 

How did I not know that? 

It's because of such gaps in my knowledge of the band, and for other reasons, that while I've been listening to the Grateful Dead since I went to my first show on 12/31/1988 and attended about six more shows after that, I cannot accept the moniker of Deadhead. 

I love the music, but in too many ways when it comes to the Grateful Dead, I'm just out of it. 

And that's fine. I yam who I yam. 

The Deadheads I know are not, when it comes to history, names of songs, song writers, knowledge about specific shows, and other things, I repeat, they are not out of it! 

I am.

But I keep trying to be with it! 🌹🌹🧸🧸🧸💀💀💀🤣🤣🤣🤣

********

As promised, here's the picture. 

Until today, I didn't know these things were called looper tube traffic cones!

Three Beautiful Things 04-24-2025: Sprinkler System Running, Laundry Day, Salad Dinner

 1. Keith swung by and now our sprinkling system is up and running and he made the very small repair that it needed. 

2. I welcomed my first day this week without any appointments, whether with the dermatologist or the dentist or the veterinarian. So I did laundry much of the day! 

3. I very much enjoyed the green salad I fixed myself for dinner and the hard boiled egg I sliced and put on top. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-23-2025: Copper Visits the Vet, I Return to the Dentist, We Try Venison

1. First thing this morning, I loaded Copper into his crate and headed over to the vet for blood work a month after he'd started taking thyroid medicine. Good news: no troubling effects of the medicine. Copper's liver and kidney numbers are good. One mystery result, but not in the blood. Commonly, a cat that has been dropping weight will start gaining it back once on this medication. Copper, however, lost a pound. Dr. Cook cut his medication dosage in half. I'll go back in another month or month and a half. We'll do blood work again, but only to screen his thyroid numbers and we'll see if he's regained weight. 

I'll make a record of Copper's food intake. That might help.

To me, the really good news is that Copper is content, happy, loved, and doing the usual things Copper does. 

And he's getting old. 

I've seen more signs of his aging over the last several months and I accept that he could be moving into the beginnings of his last stage of life. One never really knows, but it's undeniable that Copper is getting up there in years and I will do my best to make his days comfortable and easy. 

2. I trudged back to the dentist's office today for a cleaning.

It went beautifully and I had a good conversation with Kathy and with the doc about caring for the area where the doc did work on Tuesday. 

I understand what to do, plan to be diligent, and will check back in next week, on Tuesday, for a post-procedure check up.

3. For many years now, Debbie and I have enjoyed dinners of ground beef and vegetables cooked in the electric frying pan. Monday, Debbie bought some ground venison, so tonight we had one of these potpourris with the venison and we were both very happy with the result. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-22-2025: Dental Work Continues, Gibbs Fails to Intimidate a Visiting Cat, Salmon and Asparagus

1. Luckily, my afternoon was free. This morning I went to the dentist. The doctor executed the next stage in the process of replacing my extracted tooth with an implant. It didn't take long, and thanks to anesthesia, wasn't painful, but I needed rest, sleep, and pain relief in the afternoon and evening. I experienced dull minor pain in the area he worked on and, as the dentist promised me (!), I had a headache all day and through the night. 

(As I write this, I feel about 95% recovered and pain free 👏👏👏.)  

2. What I would call a tortoiseshell cat, a cat I've never seen before, plopped itself and relaxed on a tree round that is taller than the fence in the northwest corner of our yard and Gibbs went nuts barking at the cat. Gibbs' barking bored the cat. The cat continued to relax and when I went out to check on things gave me a look that seemed to say, "Can you get this hyper mutt to shut up so I can continue to sun myself and relax in peace?"

Eventually, I persuaded Gibbs to leave the cat alone and, with the help of a shredded cheese lure, he came back into the house. 

About thirty minutes later, I checked on the cat -- no longer there -- the cat had moved on and I have no idea if the cat lives with someone nearby or is cat without a home. 

I'll keep a casual lookout for the cat and see if I can figure anything out. 

The cat is welcome here any time, as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm not sure Gibbs shares my sentiment! 

3. I rallied myself late in the afternoon and fixed Debbie and me a fun dinner of roasted asparagus spears and baked salmon accompanied by Jasmine rice. 

For how simple it was to make, this dinner delivered a lot of pleasure. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-21-2025: No Skin Cancer, *The Fair and the Falls*, Errands and Debbie Transforms Leftovers

 1. I blasted over to Coeur d'Alene this morning to meet a 9:30 appointment at North Idaho Dermatology for a routine examination of my skin as I near the one year mark since the kidney transplant. 

This was a precautionary visit, an examination to see whether,  in my immunocompromised condition, my skin showed any signs of cancer. 

My skin did not show any signs. 

Great news. 

Physician Assistant Ian Shupe did prescribe an anti-fungal cream for me to apply to my feet. 

I'll get going on that. 

2. After a delicious latte at the coffee shop outside the Kootenai Health Lab Services -- I made a special stop here because they use Doma Coffee and I think their lattes are terrific --, I buzzed over to Costco and fueled the Camry and then rocketed over to Parker Toyota for what they call an intermediate car service. 

While I waited for the technicians to finish -- all I needed was a new air filter and windshield wiper inserts --, I started reading the engrossing book, The Fair and the Falls. I read the very first bit of the book in which J. William T. Youngs introduces his readers to James Glover, regarded by some as The Father of Spokane. 

I read this material very slowly, letting myself be transported to a time when the land around the Spokane River and Spokane Falls was wild and James Glover saw the place with a double vision: the natural beauty left him spellbound and the commercial potential, the potential for development and profit, excited him. 

His first thoughts about this land paralleled the themes of Expo '74 itself. 

3. I continued to make the most of this day in Coeur d'Alene: haircut, car wash, Costco shopping, Pilgrim's shopping with another latte thrown in to wash down a chocolate croissant. 

Back home, Debbie prepared Italian sausages, turned her Easter dinner salad into a chicken pasta salad, and sautéed white onion pieces to add to the Easter dinner creamed spinach we had leftover. 

These transformation of Sunday's leftover were superb. 

Today I used up the remainder of a Costco cash card to stock up on beef, chicken, and pork and Debbie repackaged the meat and I loaded it into our basement freezer. 

This was a jam packed day and a satisfying one. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-20-2025: Episcopalian and Byzantine Catholic Worship, Easter Vigil and Handel's *Messiah*, Easter Family Dinner

1. I transported myself back to St. Mary's Episcopal Church a couple of time today on Easter Sunday. First, the deeply solemn and joyous Easter Vigil service came alive in my memory as Carol and Paul reported on their experience attending the confirmation and baptism of one of their students at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Church, a Byzantine Catholic parish in Spokane Valley. The confirmation and baptism rites were a part of the church's Holy Saturday service and I was fascinated by learning more about the Byzantine Catholic liturgy and how it looked in relationship to the Episcopal one. 

2. I was also transported back to St. Mary's after dinner. To my delight, the Symphony Hall channel on SiriusXM played the entirety of Handel's Messiah. The Easter Vigil liturgy is structured around selected readings from the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament, if you prefer) and on into the New Testament that bring worshipers into highlights of the biblical story that ultimately reaches its peak with the story of the Resurrection. Handel's Messiah, also brings elements of the Old and New Testament to life.  Both the Messiah and the Easter Vigil are journeys, helping us to prepare for and experience the Resurrection as the conclusion of a series of stories and poetry ending in glory. 

3. Paul, Carol, Christy, Debbie, and I gathered at the Roberts' house at 2:00 for Easter family dinner. 

We went immediately to the dinner table and enjoyed the superb deviled eggs Christy made as an appetizer. Before long, Paul brought the phenomenal London Broil he prepared on the grill and along with it we enjoyed baked potatoes, the creamed spinach I prepared, and an inspired salad built around bok chow and the scintillating flavor of tarragon that Debbie made. We enjoyed cupcake size pieces of cheesecake that Carol made for dessert. 

I had never made creamed spinach before today and I thoroughly enjoyed making the white sauce, enhancing it with green onion nd garlic, and wilting fresh spinach with bacon grease and later batches with butter. I thought the broken pieces of bacon I mixed in with the spinach and white sauce enhanced the over all flavor of the dish.

I really enjoyed eating at 2;00 and wondered it that time would work for other family dinners, even if the dinners don't fall on a holiday.........

Three Beautiful Things 04-19-2025: I Learn More About Rescuing Cats, Reassuring Copper, Symphonic Music Helps Me Worship

1.  I learned much more today, through our email correspondence, what a tireless advocate for the health and well-being of cats Debi Mc is in the Oakridge area of Oregon. She wrote in wondrous detail about rescues she's been a part of, her monthly efforts to see that cats in need are transported to Portland to the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon for spaying, neutering, vaccinations, and other health care. Debi also works closely with the Cat Rescue and Adoption Network in Eugene/Springfield. Over the last twenty years or so, Debi has coordinated and participated in the rescue, recuperation, and placement into welcoming homes of countless cats, all as a volunteer. When Debi was a student of mine, starting thirty-five years ago, she was committed to working on behalf of animals and now I know how her efforts have become focused primarily (but not exclusively) on cats and how she has become even more ambitious than when we first met. 

Debi's work rescuing, rehabilitating, rehoming, and, from my point of view, resurrecting cats will be the focus of my quiet and contemplative celebration of Easter Day. 

Thanks to Debi and the other volunteers she works with, these cats have risen. 

They have risen indeed.

2. Speaking of cats, I spent much of the day today reading about animal rescue efforts online, corresponding with Debi Mc, and working puzzles, all with Copper at my side. 

His contentment increased as the day progressed. 

He doesn't like it when I go gallivanting and am gone for a few days, but today he seemed to gain assurance that I was sticking around and that made him happy and nappy. 

At my side, he got in quite a few hours of relaxed and peaceful sleep along with deep purring when he was awake. 

3. As Holy Saturday became Easter Sunday overnight, I played SiriusXM's channel called Symphony Hall Playing this channel while I slept and having the music wake me up on occasion was a most enjoyable way to enter into the joy of Easter Day. 

The selections tended strongly toward the uplifting and the triumphant and brought to mind the many Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday services I used to attend and even be a part of at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Eugene and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in College Park, Maryland.  

Overnight, I knew I wouldn't be driving to Coeur d'Alene to worship at the Episcopal Church, St. Luke's, closest to us, but somehow this music, my memories, and  the refreshment and fulfillment I experienced helped me experience the joy of this day. 

In my own way, I'm having a worshipful time and feeling connected to all those around the world also celebrating Easter in their own ways. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-18-2925: Our Trip Ends, Burning the Camry's Rubber, Reassuring Copper

1. These biannual trips with my lifelong friends to the Wildhorse Resort and Casino go by quickly. 

Here it was, Friday morning already. 

I had done most of my packing on Thursday evening. I cleaned up and finished this morning and descended to the hotel lobby. Upon checking out, my bill confirmed that my first two nights had been comped and my third night was discounted nicely, so I ended up only being charged about 27 bucks per night. 

I liked that and beamed as I drove next door to fuel up the Camry, returned to purchase a latte, and sat in the lobby. In no time at all Ed and Mike appeared and we took off for Roosters Country Kitchen in Pendleton for our final meal together, some more story telling, and our reluctant farewells. 

2. With one exception, when a driver ahead of us between Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene stopped suddenly on the freeway -- just because highway workers were parked in the shoulder? -- and I screeched the Camry to a rubber burning stop and veered right a bit, avoiding a collision, the drive from Pendleton went smoothly.  

I arrived home and immediately checked on Copper. 

He doesn't like me to leave. 

He was resting comfortably in a suitcase I no longer use and is a bed for him in the Vizio room. 

When Debbie arrived home from work, she reported that aside from eating, drinking, and using the litter box, Copper spent nearly all the time I was away in that suitcase. 

3. I left Copper alone for a couple of hours or so upon my return, thinking he might leave the suitcase on his own volition. 

He didn't.

So, once I was ready to settle into the bedroom to finish the Friday NYTimes crossword puzzle, I lifted Copper out of the suitcase and brought him in with me. 

That's what he wanted me to do.

For the rest of the evening and all through the night, Copper stayed close to me and if a rolled over and began to sleep with my back to him, he meowed, pawed me a bit, and reminded me that I am to sleep facing him. 

I complied. 

Gladly. 

So, all is well back home and now I have one project ahead of me: eat lightly! I indulged in more big meals on this trip away than I have in many many many months and lost ground meeting the doctor's orders that I continue to work on losing weight. 

Sigh. 

I enjoyed my indulgences, but now I've got to try to get back to eating in a somewhat disciplined way again! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-17-2025: Restful Morning, Lunch in Meacham, OR, Yakkin' with Mike and Ed -- Twice! Back at the Resort

1. I spent a leisurely morning in my resort hotel room resting and working puzzles. I had had my fill of food at the steak house last night and so I more than made due with coffee. A while back, some of us extended what used to be a two night excursion into a three night one to Pendleton and it's restful mornings like this one that make me very happy that Ed, Mike, and I were staying a third night. 

2. Around 11:30, I taxied Mike, Ed, and me up into the Blue Mountains to the tiny town of Meacham, OR. On every trip to Pendleton, as many of us that can cruise up to Meacham to eat either breakfast or lunch at the Oregon Trail Store & Deli, a way off the beaten path eatery that serves up superb food. 

I ordered a bacon cheeseburger that was so loaded with meat, cheese, lettuce, onion, and tomato that I could barely open my mouth wide enough to bite into it, but I did and I enjoyed every bite and the pleasant work it took to earn those bites! The hand cut fresh French fries that came with the burger were also superb. We hadn't had lunch here for quite a while and Mike, Ed, and I were -- well, I'd say we were jubilant that we came for lunch -- but we know a breakfast would have also been out of sight. 

Some time back, the Oregon Trail proprietors put Oregon Lottery gaming machines in a little room behind swinging doors in their establishment and the three of us hopped back there and spun some wheels. I came out six bucks ahead! 

3. Back at the resort, I had fun riding a gaming machine roller coaster that ended up working in my favor and then I joined Ed and Mike in the sports bar where I enjoyed a non-alcoholic beer. Around seven, the three of us congregated again in Ed's room and had a great time yakkin'. Over the years, these evening gatherings have been a time to drink whiskey together and Ed and Mike each had a cocktail and I didn't drink anything, but just joined in the yakkin'. 

I ended my night down at the casino's deli where I ordered a half a chicken Caesar salad, a small bag of Tim's potato chips, and a bottle of water, a nice light dinner after last night's big pork chop and today's super-sized burger in Meacham. 

It was an easy, relaxing, fun last day at the Wildhorse Resort.  

Three Beautiful Things 04-16-2025: Breakfast Storytelling Hour, Prison Blues and Wool, More Stories and a Steakhouse Dinner

1. Jake, Terry, Mike, Ed, and I met in the casino's Traditions restaurant and enjoyed breakfast and storytelling time together. No, we didn't have a storyteller come, like at a library, and read us stories, we told them. It's what this group of friends does really well and the combination of meat, eggs, potatoes, coffee, and tales worked perfectly to start the day. 

2. Later, Ed, Mike, and I piled into the Camry and I taxied us to downtown Pendleton to check out two businesses that carry clothes made by prisoners incarcerated at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton. One of the stores was closed, but we ambled down to Piece of Pendleton and looked over the Prison Blues line of blue jeans, jackets, work shirts, suspenders, and other products. Very impressive. 

Afterward, we stopped in at the Pendleton Woolen Mills store and admired their blankets, shirts, coats, and other products. 

3. Terry and Jake golfed. Ed, Mike, and I relaxed. I worked puzzles, played some machines, and eventually we all congregated in the sports bar for another session of storytelling and I enjoyed a delicious latte. 

A couple or three hours later, we all congregated again for dinner at the resort's steakhouse, The Plateau. We come to the Wildhorse Resort twice a year, usually in April and October, and always have a steakhouse dinner at The Plateau on Wednesday evenings. 

I used to automatically order the Whiskey steak, but recently I've switched things up a bit. Back in October I ordered salmon and tonight I savored a thick juicy pork chop accompanied by parsnip puree and beautifully prepared carrots. 

I miss the pre-transplant days when I started my steakhouse dinner with a martini and often enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner, but tonight I ordered a non-alcoholic Heineken Zero beer and enjoyed the taste of a cold beer, even though I didn't get to experience the slight euphoria that real beer gives me! 

We were all satisfied with and sated by our delicious dinners and ended our evening together wishing Terry and Jake safe travels. They will hit the road very early Thursday morning. Ed, Mike, and I will spend another day and night at the resort.   

Our host took this picture of us just before our drinks, bread, salads, and dinner came out:

Starting with me and going to my left and around the table, here are me, Ed, Jake, Terry, Mike

 

Three Beautiful Things 04-15-2025: On the Road, Dinner with Colette, Great Luck Before Bed Time

1. Ed and I piled into the Camry and blasted off for the Wildhorse Resort near Pendleton, OR. 

First, we ducked into the Breakfast Nook in CdA for a generous, delicious, and bracing breakfast.

I had a winning ticket to cash in at the Spokane Tribe Casino in Airway Heights, so we strolled into the casino. I cashed out my winning wager on the UConn women's basketball team and Ed and I hung out for a little while and spun a few reels so that I could return my modest winnings to the casino! 

Before long we were back on the Interstate and made the stop at the Ritzville Starbucks we always make, grabbed some Joe,  and were off to the resort.

We arrived, checked in, got situated, and after a bit all five of us, Terry, Mike, Jake, Ed, and I sat at the hotel bar and they enjoyed libations and I refreshed myself with a non-alcoholic  Bud Zero, giving me the welcome illusion that I was joining the fellas for a beer. 

2.  Colette and I met downtown, as we always do when I'm in Pendleton, at the Thai Crystal and yakked for about three hours over a Thai dinner. We had a great conversation about people we both knew at Whitworth, health, medical treatments, family news, and other great topics. We agreed that we could have yakked for another three hours, our conversation was so relaxed and easy, but Colette had to drive back to Walla Walla and I was starting to fade, having been up early and done a lot of driving. 

3. I returned to my room, took my evening pills, descended to the gaming floor, and played one machine. I had a lucky spin that put me in a bonus game that turned out very lucky and, having not only won back what I lost at the Spokane Tribe Casino, but increased my bank, I decided to end my evening on a positive note, didn't play any more, went back to my room, worked the Connections and Strands puzzles, and then called it a night. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-14-2025: Traveling Renal Care Bag, SLOW Packing, Youth Movement in Our Families

1. Packing for this week's Pendleton getaway has become more complicated since I became a transplant recipient: pills, vinyl gloves, masks, hand sanitizer, transplant notebook, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, and who knows what I left off this list. 

The great news, though, is that I am not now nor have I ever. been on dialysis and so I don't have to pack a machine with me that would clean/filter my blood at night. 

So, I'm not complaining, just stating a fact: packing is more complicated!

2. As I spent most of the day SLOWLY packing, every SLOW move I made, every list I SLOWLY composed, every note I SLOWLY wrote to myself, and every item I SLOWLY set out in the open as a reminder to pack it in the morning was a piece of my total scheme to defend against forgetfulness and my SLOWLY weakening memory. 

3. Patrick and Meagan's application was accepted and they will move into a terrific apartment in Cincinnati. Meagan's new library job in Northern Kentucky starts in about a month.

Molly and Brian applied to rent a house in Boise. Their application was accepted. Both ot them have jobs and I don't know when their move in date is. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-13-2025: Debbie Arrives on Schedule, My *The Fair and the Falls* Saga, Our No Buy Family Dinner

1. Debbie's flight out of Newark this morning was scheduled to depart for Salt Lake City at 4 a.m. our time. 

I put my laptop to sleep when I went to sleep last night and left a Delta Airlines flight status tab open.

I woke up at 5 a.m. to check on the status of Debbie's flight. 

She departed Newark on time! 

I checked her SLC to Spokane (GEG) and it was scheduled to depart on time and arrive just past noon.

Things looked great -- and they stayed that way. 

I picked up Debbie just past noon as scheduled. 

2. Over twenty-five years ago, I was shopping in downtown Eugene for a Christmas gift for Debbie.

I stopped in at J. Michaels Books and stumbled upon a book by Eastern Washington University professor J. William T. Youngs entitled, The Fair and the Falls: Spokane's Expo '74: Transforming an American Environment. 

Debbie is an EWU graduate. She worked at the BLM booth at Expo. We both had strong and deep connections to Spokane. 

I gave her the book for Christmas. 

Well, somewhere, some time, over the next dozen years or so, that book disappeared.

My guess is that it was the victim of one of our ruthless purges, possibly when we moved to Maryland. 

This book sprung back to the front of my mind on our sibling outing Friday to the MAC as I absorbed the photos on display of Spokane in 1899 and at the turn of the century in the museum's fire exhibition. Pictures in that room of the falls and a map of downtown Spokane prompted me to think about how that river area later became essentially a railroad yard and an industrial site and the natural beauty of that whole area, as described in Youngs' book, was (I'd say miraculously) restored as a way of creating the fair site. 

Back home, as thoughts and images of Spokane's history danced in my head, I happened to visit the Auntie's Bookstore website on Saturday and, to my utter surprise and delight, learned Youngs' book,  The Fair and the Falls, has been republished as a paperback after a long period of the hardcover edition being out of print. 

So, on Saturday, I immediately ordered a copy of The Fair and the Falls from Auntie's and today I dropped in and picked it up. 

Then, with over an hour to go before Debbie arrived at the airport, I blasted up to Great Harvest, ordered a strawberry and white chocolate scone and a cup of coffee and admired what a handsome, pretty large, and fascinating book I'd just purchased and began to feel a little giddy about taking it to the Wildhorse Resort to read while relaxing in my room when I'm not spinning reels, roaming around Pendleton, dining out, or joining the fellas at the bar and enjoying a non-alcoholic beer. 

3. This had been a full day by midafternoon. 

But there was more to come! 

Christy hosted family dinner tonight. 

Christy has taken on a sensible project called the No Buy Challenge as a way to take stock of what she already has in her possession (both food and non-food items), to not buy more of things she already has, and to refrain from going on buying stuff just for the sake of buying stuff sprees, however small. 

So, in that spirit, Christy made a plate of appetizers, drawing upon jars of pickled beets, dill pickles, smoked oysters, and other items she had on hand.

For our main dish, she combined chicken, frozen fried rice, canned mushrooms and water chestnuts, plus celery, almonds, and cream of chicken soup from her pantry and icebox into a delicious (and comforting) casserole of her own creation. 

I contributed a green salad and Carol and Paul brought steamed tender stalks of asparagus to compliment the casserole. 

For dessert, Christy made a crushed pineapple dump cake using ingredients she'd purchased in the past. 

As an added bonus, a friend gave Christy a sourdough starter and Christy baked her first ever loaf of sourdough bread and it was really tasty and had, for me, had an especially pleasing texture. 

We talked about a lot of different things, with some, I'd say, special focus on the early bits of news Debbie began to share about her trip to New York and Chicagoland and her report on the very happy weekend in Chicagoland when Misty met her step-siblings, her Uncle Brian, her cousins, and David's widow, Muffie, and members of Muffie's family, all on the occasion of David's daughter Sam's baby shower. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-12-2025: We Are Museum Members, Animal/Natural World Books, Why Leave Today?

1. I enjoyed the scale and the exhibitions so much at the Northwest Museum of Culture and Arts on Friday that today I enrolled Debbie and me as members of the museum.

2. The other day, Debi Mc posted a mountain lion blissing out in a cardboard box and it reminded me of when I read Cougars on a Cliff. I told Debi about that book and how much I've enjoyed the handful of books about animals and the natural world  I've read or listened to  since moving to Kellogg. She wondered if I'd send her a list of those books and I did. 

The Truth About Animals by Lucy Cook

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

Salmon, People, and Place: A Biologist's Search for Salmon Recovery, Jim Lichatowich

Fathoms: The World in the Whale, Rebecca Giggs

Grayson, Lynne Cox

Eager: The Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter, Ben Goldfarb

World of Wonders, Aimee Nezhukumatathil 

Cougars on the Cliff, Maurice Hornocker with David Johnson

Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery

3. I thought about cruising over to CdA and doing some shopping at Costco, but I was very comfortable at home with Gibbs and Copper. The NYTimes releases its Sunday crossword puzzle online on Saturday afternoon and I had a salad to make for Sunday's family dinner -- so, I stayed home, worked the puzzle,  made the salad, and decided Costco would most likely still be there in the next couple of days or weeks. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-11-2025: Fire Exhibit at the NW Museum of Arts and Culture, The Stirring Paintings of Andrea Joyce Heimer, Watercolors -- The Cambell House -- Frank's Diner

1. What a day! 

Christy, Carol, and I piled into the RobertsMobile and Carol blasted us to Browne's Addition in Spokane.

Today we enjoyed our next monthly sibling outing. 

Carol was in charge of our April trip and decided we'd go to the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC).

My first impression (and all the rest of them!) was joyously positive. 

MAC is a modest sized, even small museum. 

Granted, I have enjoyed the mammoth museums I've visited over the course of my life whether in London, New York City, Washington, DC, San Francisco, or  elsewhere. 

But, I have a limited museum/art gallery viewing capacity mentally. 

I loved going to the National Gallery in DC, for example, but I always limited myself to visiting, at most, four or five rooms or focused on displays of a single style of art.  

If I tried to take in more than that, I was running on empty. 

Today, my ability to focus and enjoy the museum was spent after visits to two superb exhibitions. 

First, I slowly made my way through "Fire: Rebirth and Resilience", an exploration of the paradox of fire, its life giving qualities, like heat, and its destructive capabilities. 

The exhibition featured recent greedy fires in Washington state in Mabden and Medical Lake, for example.

It also featured multiple displays of the savage fire that ripped through Spokane in 1889. 

2. I reached a point where I couldn't absorb any more fire destruction, photographs, maps, written commentary, and human heroics and left the fire room. 

I then entered the gallery featuring Andrea Joyce Heimer's unusual and unsettling paintings. 

Heimer paints large pictures with long, narrative titles. Her paintings are not naturalistic, not in any way photographic.

Rather, she presents collages of scenes, often from her memories of being raised an orphan in Great Falls, MT, that are a mixture of dreams, fantasies, hopes, and events from her life, combining darkness with humor, all done in overwhelming detail. Sometimes her painting style struck me as prehistoric, like cave drawings, but in color, and each of her works was like looking at visual novel. 

I couldn't begin to take it all in, but the slow survey I did of Heimer's paintings transported me into experiences with life, death, wonder, memories,  and all the thoughts and feelings these experiences called up inside me. 

3. The three of us met up again near the museum's gift shop and strolled a short ways to the Helen South Alexander Gallery in the Cheney Cowles Center to enjoy the Spokane Watercolor Society's National Juried Show of thirty watercolor paintings. 

I'm not positive, but I think what I enjoy most in paintings took shape back in 1975 (fifty years ago!) when I first stood in front of the huge dramatic paintings of J. M. W. Turner in London at an exhibition in either the Tate or the National Gallery focused on his work.

I guess the best way to say it is that I became enamored with subjective paintings, like the French Impressionists, that were less concerned with painting objective portrayals of the world (resembling photographic likeness), but more with the inner experience one has with the outer world. 

It was the impact of Turner's paintings that also made abstract art wondrous to me. 

Watercolors seem to me to be a perfect medium for subjective renderings of subjects, whether still life paintings, landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, or anything else.

In the paintings we viewed today, those painting which were, to me, more dream like, where objects almost seemed to blur into one another, were the ones I enjoyed most. 

Some of the watercolors were more objective, more like photographs, requiring a tremendous amount of skill. The skill astonished me, but the paintings didn't stir me the way the more subjective ones did, where I thought color choices, presentation of scene, and degree of sharpness seemed much more determined by feeling than by objective observation. 

We closed out our visit to MAC by admiring the handsomely preserved Campbell House, built in 1898, for mining magnate Amasa B. Campbell.  One of the Campbell House's architect, Kirtland Cutter,  is well-known in the Inland Northwest for many of his designs, including the Davenport Hotel. In designing the Campbell House, Cutter partnered with Karl Malmgren. As of now, I don't know anything about Malmgren. And, for now, I'm wanting to finish this blog post, not look into the career of Karl Malmgren! Sorry, Karl....

We ended our outing to Spokane at Frank's Diner where I threw all concern about weight loss out of one of the vintage railcar's windows (the diner is housed in a railcar) and ordered a terrific Creole Bay Benedict, a lobster, crab, and hollandaise sauce entree,  with hash browns.  I said YES! when our server asked if I'd like my hash browns with grilled onions and gravy. 

What a fun meal, made a little more saucy by transgressing my weight loss project. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-10-2025: Kidney Appointment, Part 1, Kidney Appointment, Part 2, Acoustic Grateful Dead on *Deadish*

 1. I had an appointment with Dr. Bieber, the kidney doctor I see at Kootenai Health, early this morning. 

He was clearly happy that I was reaching the one year anniversary (May 11) of my transplant and told me things usually get easier after a recipient passes the one year mark. 

I blurted out something that might have sounded stupid, but I said it, "Wow! Things have been so easy so far. That's great news that they could get easier!"

No harm done. 

2. Our conversation then took a slight shift, one that I welcomed. 

Dr. Bieber said something to the effect of this: transplants are a great thing, but we do have do deal with things that suck (his word...I chuckled inside) post-transplant. 

We talked about my blood work and, at this point in time, my numbers do not indicate that I'm becoming diabetic, but kidney transplant recipients have to keep eye on this. I've been told this several times in the past year, including during my pre-op time at Sacred Heart. 

He encouraged me to continue to try to gradually lose weight. I had lost some weight  since the last time I saw him in March and it will help my system defend against diabetes if I continue to shed pounds. 

Then there's the cancer possibility.

I will always live with lowered immunity because of the anti-rejection drugs I take.

Dr. Bieber referred me to a dermatologist. That appointment is coming in two weeks. It'll be an exam to see if any signs of skin cancer are apparent. 

Lastly, it was good news that I'm having my prostate checked annually by my primary care provider and that I'm on a regular colonoscopy schedule. 

As I thought was true, the vast majority of my blood work looked really good, really stable. 

I return to Sacred Heart for a one year exam on May 12.

Back to Dr. Bieber on June 12. 

I am now on a once a month schedule for blood work, but that could always change. 

3. Jeff played a very healthy dose of the Grateful Dead on Deadish tonight. Part of his show featured different cuts from the Dead's April 9, 1970 show at Fillmore West which included a handful of acoustic tunes. 

That acoustic mini-set was purely beautiful, as close to perfectly played and sung

 acoustic music as I've ever heard.

If anyone ever doubted that the Grateful Dead's music has roots in American acoustic folk and blues music, a listen to these songs would surely erase that doubt. 

I don't remember, as I write this, if Jeff played "Viola Lee Blues" on his show (I'll go back and check later), but I know he played acoustic versions of 

Candyman

Friend of the Devil

Deep Elem Blues

Black Peter

It was sublime. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-09-2025: Hey Knucklehead! You Bought One!, Copper Sunning in 2021, Super Salad

1. On Tuesday, I discovered that Gibbs had urinated on our living room rug. I absorbed as much of it as I could with paper towels and I then treated the rug with an anti-urine spray as directed. 

I wished to myself that I still had the little rug cleaning machine we had back in Greenbelt. 

I woke up this morning and suddenly struck my forehead with the bottom of my hand's palm.

I bought one of those very rug cleaning machines back in January! 

I'd totally forgotten. 

And I stored it essentially in plain sight -- it's not hidden behind a door or in some obscure spot. 

So today, I vacuumed the rug and then I got out our recently purchased Bissell Little Green cleaning machine and cleaned that spot again. 

Maybe next time I'll remember that I have just the machine I want and need to clean up such occasional accidents. 

2. In my Facebook memories today, a handful of pictures popped up that Christy took of Copper. I was out of town.  Christy had come over to give Copper and Luna some company. Debbie was in New York and Gibbs was with her. So, Copper and Luna had the run of the entire house back then, in 2021, and I loved remembering the days in 2021, before Gibbs returned to Kellogg with Debbie, when Copper could sun himself, perched on our ottoman, soaking up rays and looking out the living room's picture window. 

3. Tonight for dinner I fried bacon until I could crumble it and put the bits in the last of my most recent huge green salad. I had already added brown rice to the salad. In the bacon grease, I fried three or four chicken tenders, let them cool, and chopped the pieces up, adding the chicken bits to the salad. 

The mixed greens, spinach leaves, apple slices, and various chopped vegetables in the salad, along with the rice, bacon, and chicken were so flavorful that I didn't dress this salad and enjoyed it immensely as was!  

Three Beautiful Things 04-08-2025: Recycling With a Dopey Grin, Led Zeppelin Flash Mob, A Shindig With Oysterband

1. If you read this blog much at all, you know that I find irrational and incomprehensible pleasure in removing cardboard boxes, newspapers, and aluminum cans out of our garage and taking them up the road to the transfer station's recycling area. 

I did that today.

With a dopey grin and a spring in my step, I made our garage a bit tidier. 

PEP. 

Private Eccentric Pleasures. 

2. I was looking up something, I don't remember what, on YouTube this evening and the words "Led Zeppelin Flash Mob" caught my eye and, being the sentimental sap that I am, I remembered that years ago I used to watch this video of a mob, men and women of all ages , slowly gathering in, I think, a German town, and performing an incredibly beautiful rendition of "Stairway to Heaven".  

If you'd like, see if it moves you. I tear up every time listen to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPHvwzyGwHA&list=RDQPHvwzyGwHA&start_radio=1

3. Well, I was now a YouTube goner for a couple of hours. 

I watched Dire Straits play a stunning live version of "Sultans of Swing".

I watched a band -- maybe a community band -- gather as a flash mob and play a fun and glorious instrumental version of "Bohemian Rhapsody". 

I suddenly discovered that Oysterband made a video of their rocking Celtic polka song "New York Girls" and watched it at least three times.

"New York Girls" is the opening song on Oysterband's riveting album, Ride, so I did what any reasonable person would do at 10:30, with Gibbs on my lap.

I played cuts from the album, remembering what a comfort Oysterband and June Tabor were to me as I listened to their album Freedom and Rain in the hospital as I recovered from my bout with bacterial meningitis in November of 1999. 

Tonight, though, the Oysterband topper for me was their song "Granite Years" from their album Deserters. Its refrain continued to play over and over in my head as I finally pulled myself together, joined Copper, and went to bed for the night:

Say that I was foolish

Say that I was blind

Never say that I got left behind

Three Beautiful Things 04-07-2025: BLOCK THAT METAPHOR!, Late Turnovers Doom Houston, Upheaval and Contentment

1. I miss some of the whimsy I used to enjoy in The New Yorker that the magazine has moved away from. 

One whimsical feature, so small and inconspicuous, tucked in, as I remember, at the end of articles,  that it would be easy to miss, was Block That Metaphor! It featured examples of figurative language and mixed metaphors abuses that appeared in other publications. They were unfailingly funny! 

Today, as I read some writers at The Athletic forecasting how they thought tonight's Florida/Houston game would come out, one writer mixed his metaphors in the following sentence, a sentence that suddenly made me leery about all the blood I've had drawn from my arm since the transplant, suddenly anxious that my mindset might have been drawn out with the blood! 🤣🤣🤣

So, here's the sentence. 

BLOCK THAT METAPHOR! 

Writing about the Houston Cougars, the writer asserted:

"These are grown men with a never-die mindset flowing through their veins."

2. I listened to the Houston/Florida game on the radio and, sadly for the Cougars, some of their never-die mindset must have leaked out of their veins. 

Houston committed four turnovers in the last 1:21 of the game and lost by two points to Florida, 65-63.

3. Maybe I should be somewhat restless. 

I write this because I've been spending the last few days since my Friday blood draw in CdA contentedly staying home, reading, working puzzles, cooking, enjoying Copper and Gibbs, keeping up on current events, and grateful that, for the time being at least, life in the small world of our home, family, friends, and pets is so calm, joyous even --I'm thinking of Debbie's experience with family in Chicago over the weekend and Carol and Paul's enjoyment of their visit to Moscow to see Bucky --while in the big world of government and finances, things are, as I see them, tumultuous, uncertain, uneasy.

Multiple realities are competing for my attention and for how I feel day to day.

I see Copper having curled himself into a ball, asleep at the edge of my small pile of flannel sheets that need laundered, and it helps my perspective to know he's not upset by wars, financial chaos, or even the NCAA basketball tournaments. He's content to be fed, have me shoo Gibbs away when Gibbs scream barks at him, have a clean litter box, and be provided with comfortable places to rest and sleep.

I've been more self-reliant during my days in the house than Copper can be, but, still, he helps keep my mindset balanced.

(My mindset, by the way, that is not flowing through my veins!)

Three Beautiful Things 04-06-2025: Letting Spiritual Variety Sink In, Helping Gibbs Relax, A Weekend of Vegetables in the Wok

1. I didn't start a new book today. I continued to let the stories and the unnerving revelations of Blazing Eye Sees All sink in. Debi Mc's comments on my blog were an affirmation to me of the joys of a wide reaching spiritual life, an openness to various traditions, and being spiritually grounded in particular foundational practices and ageless wisdom. 

2. Gibbs started scream barking and hopping and scratching at windows and then I heard the sound of leaf blowers. 

Ah! Ethan and his workers arrived to give Jane's, Christy's, and our yards a spring cleaning and a first mowing. 

The yard workers were here for quite a while blowing, mowing, and fertilizing -- well, and talking -- all human actions that Gibbs wants to protect me from! 

Luckily, if I simply put Gibbs on a leash, he calms right down, even jumps up and sits on my lap or beside me in a living room chair. 

Copper? 

I think he slept through it all, unfazed by the noise and activity, unbothered by Gibbs' cries of alarm.

3. For the nearly eleven months now that I have been (beautifully) recovering from the kidney transplant, the transplant team's emphasis has been on protein in my diet and I've enjoyed eating fish, beef, pork, and chicken. This weekend, however, I was in the mood for vegetarian meals. I fixed myself some bacon at breakfast today, but I fixed vegetable stir fries for dinners, served with couscous on Saturday and with basmati rice today.

I supplemented these meals with nuts by the handful to up my protein intake.

These stir fries really hit the spot and while I enjoy eating a variety of foods --I'm an omnivore -- I enjoy variety! -- , I have enjoyed the pleasures of vegetarian cooking for over forty years and enjoyed my weekend of cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, celery, yellow squash, green salads, and other vegetables both cooked and raw yesterday and today. 

For me, vegetarian eating is not only delicious, but it's (I'm not exaggerating) profoundly nostalgic and brings back happy memories I treasure, memories of decades in the past and the many times in recent months and years that I've cooked vegetarian meals. 

When I was in my thirties and forties, especially, vegetarian cooking was source of stability, a reliable source of pleasure and calm. Much else in my life was not so stable or very calm, but things were always reliably even keeled in the kitchen with vegetables. 

A  post script. 

Tonight, before I turned back the covers to crawl into bed, I sat up on the bed with Copper for a while and I wanted to go back to 1983, a turbulent and ecstatic year, when I was loving teaching but outside the classroom much of my life was in chaos. 

I wanted to feel some of the elation I felt during that year of my inward life being so polarized, so I went to YouTube and retrieved two different videos of Joan Armatrading singing, "Drop the Pilot". 

That did it. 

Forty plus year old invigoration returned, I beamed and I remembered how I used to fend off guilt and confusion and my deep sense of failure by dancing without inhibition alone in my apartment, often to Joan Armatrading. 

The second video ended. I turned to Copper, pet his welcoming head and spine, and re-entered the world of April, 2025, stretched out under the covers, and, with a hand resting on Copper, let his deep purring put me to comfortable sleep. 

Drop the pilot.

Try my balloon.

Drop   the   monkey

Smell

My

Perfume

ahhh zzzzzzzzz