1. On Christmas Eve, when I listened to The Festival of Lessons and Carols on KUOL-FM, I learned about a website called Your Classical (www.yourclassical.org) and on Sunday evening I went over there and poked around. I was especially curious about the website's podcasts and felt drawn to one called Classically Training. The host, Aerin O'Malley poses in these podcasts as a person who knows little or nothing about classical music -- she presents herself as undergoing training to learn more -- and so those of us who are just beginning to swim in the deeper end of the classical music pool have an ally in Aerin O'Malley who interviews a new expert guest each episode and asks them the most basic questions.
I jumped ahead to the podcast's fourth episode Sunday night entitled, "Sonatas and Concertos and Preludes, Oh My!". O'Malley's guest is Valerie Kahler, a classical music radio host and a cellist and singer. Kahler's life has been steeped in classical music.
In a mere fifteen minutes, Kahler helps her audience understand what we gain as listeners of classical music if we have some understanding of terms like symphony and concerto and she talks a bit about these two genres of classical music and what makes them unique from each other.
It's all starting to slowly sink in for me and I'll keep taking in more of what this vast universe of pleasure and genius has to offer.
Maybe you'd like to listen to the podcast episode I mentioned above. If so, just click here.
2. I had a couple good sessions of yakkin' today with lifelong friends. Stu and I yakked on Messenger about some of his challenges today where he lives and we also tried to remember just what happened in our 7th grade basketball season. I had to admit that I remember next to nothing about that short season. I know our games were all in the Silver Valley. Stu thinks we went undefeated. I like that idea, but I don't remember. I couldn't even say with certainty who our starting five was!
Rog and I talked a bit about 7th grade basketball, too, and how our coach that year had severely underestimated Roger's abilities, but rather than sulk about it or pity himself, Roger went to work proving the coach wrong and moved right up the team's ladder to being one of our team's dynamos.
He had a similar thing happen one day when a herd of us youngsters descended upon the Little League field to divide up into teams and play some fun sandlot baseball against one another. Roger remembers being among the last players selected to go on a team, but, he didn't get his dauber down and succeeded in proving to the other guys that he was a guy who knew his way around the game of baseball and made solid contributions to the team that finally selected him.
I enjoyed Roger's stories a lot and also enjoyed how much fun it was to play pick up games, no matter the sport, and not rely solely on organized leagues to both have a blast together and hone our skills.
3. I was stoked today knowing I had two terrific sources of leftovers to eat for lunch and dinner. First, at midday, I finished the soup I made with the chicken we didn't use at our Christmas Caesar salad bar combined with pork dumplings from Trader Joe's and a potpourri of vegetables.
Last night, I stir fried a cubed block of super firm tofu with a variety of vegetables and splashed soy sauce all over my wok full of great food and then heated it all up with Trader Joe's Green Dragon Hot Sauce.
I ate about half of what I prepared and I finished off the rest of this most satisfying stir fry tonight, but didn't add hot sauce.
Both nights, I especially enjoyed the tofu. Not only was it delicious here at the end of 2025, but cooking with tofu took me back to happy days in a micro kitchen in a small basement apartment on W. Broadway in Eugene where I made a strong commitment to cooking, not only because I enjoyed it, but because cooking with beans and tofu and pasta and homemade tomato sauce and vegetables helped me live well on the modest stipend I earned while teaching as a grad student at the U of O.
I didn't cook with a wok back then, starting really in late 1984. I had pans and pots I'd bought at thrift stores and learned that with inexpensive cookware it's really crucial to learn how to control the heat under these pots and pans.
One of the fun details about those years in the 1980s was living without a car. I bicycled or walked everywhere and, luckily, since I didn't live in the hills of Eugene and because Eugene's streets accommodated bicycles pretty well, I managed beautifully without a car.
Moreover, I lived near terrific neighborhood grocery stores. I could always get what I needed for a few days of meals into one or two bags at either the Kiva or Frontier Market -- and occasionally the Red Barn -- and either put them in a backpack while bicycling or in paper bags to carry if I was walking.
I was really mixed up about a lot of things in the 1980s and I needed the solace I found in learning how to cook vegetarian meals, discovering how delicious they were, and having one aspect of my life that I always felt good about and always felt successful.
Man.
All I had to do Sunday night to do some fun time travel was stir fry tofu, red cabbage, celery, snap peas, mushrooms, and sweet peppers and serve it to myself over a bed of basmati rice.
I like feeling that part of being in my early thirties again.
Those were confusing years with tumult, uncertainty, and anxiety.
Luckily, I found solace in the kitchen where I always felt good about what I was doing. Unlike so much of the rest of my life, when I was in that tiny kitchen, I was not riddled by self-doubt, fear, bouts of reprimanding myself, and pretending I was doing just fine.
What a relief.
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