Three Beautiful Things 07-16-2025: Ed and I Glide Down to Worley, More Swiss Cheese and Mushrooms, Slow Go Wednesday

1. It's not the money. 

I don't spend enough money on a visit to the CdA Casino to affect much in our family life and if I happen to win at the casino, it's always some very modest amount. 

I go to the casino to enjoy the suspense of spinning reels and the relaxation of leaving the other more serious matters of my life temporarily behind and enter into the world of silly sounds and computer generated visuals of the gaming floor. 

I mask up, slip on vinyl gloves, and keep the stakes low so that I can relax.

Today, I picked up Ed around 7:30 and so my visit to the CdA Casino today included the added bonus of yakkin' with Ed on the drive down and back and getting caught up on what's happening these days and offering each other our expert analysis and reasonable, iron clad, absolutely correct opinions 🤣. 

2. I also enjoy dining at the Red Tail Bar and Grill at the CdA Casino at lunch time, Ed and I sat down for a meal. 

I satisfied my recent months long jonesing for Swiss cheese and mushrooms by enjoying a Mushroom and Swiss Cheese burger, an order of fries, and a zero alcohol Michelob. 

More relaxation. 

More pleasure. 

3. I maintained the low key, slow go mood and tempo of the day when I returned home. 

I hadn't worked the puzzles I usually complete in the morning, so I enjoyed completing those.

While working these puzzles, I nodded off several times, unsurprisingly. I didn't sleep many hours last night, so I wrapped up my slow go day by going to bed early, hoping to sleep more hours tonight than I have been recently. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-15-2025: Heating and Cooling Checks Out, All-Star Game at The Lounge, Schwarber Is The Swing Off King

1, I had a good conversations about our heating and cooling system and our furnace with the technician who came to the house to do annual maintenance on both. Everything is spiffed up and operating well. 

2. Seth, Cas, and later on, Tracy, and I had a terrific time together at The Lounge late this afternoon and on into the evening watching the Major League Baseball All-Star game together. 

I devoured about a hundred and fifteen slices of delicious Dominio's pizza and enjoyed drinking about forty-seven cans of Bud Zero non-alcohol beer, or so it seemed. 

The game epitomized the beauty of baseball. The National League scored in a variety of ways, first scratching out a couple of runs early on and then, after a handful of ho-hum innings,  added four more tallies when Pete Alonso sent a three run parabola into the stands and Corbin Carroll launched a solo rocket of his own over the fence. 

Baseball is a game of lulls and surges and after hibernating for six innings, the AL squad woke up and roared to life in the seventh, themselves scoring in a variety of ways. Brent Rooker crushed a three-run roundtripper and Maikel Garcia turned a walk, a stolen base, an error, and an infield groundout into a run, and the awoken AL was within striking distance of the lead.

In the ninth, I loved how Byron Buxton and Bobby Witt Jr. hit consecutive opposite field doubles just inside the right field line and how Witt scored in the most small ball way possible when Steven Kwan legged out a weak chopper to third base for a game-tying RBI. 

3. No one else scored and with tonight's tilt tied at 6-6 after nine, the two teams each sent three batters to the plate. Each batter got three swings and earned a point for each home run he hit. The team who piled up the most points would win the tiebreaker and the 2025 MLB All-Star game. 

Kyle "I'm just here to have fun" Schwarber turned having a good time into earning the title of the game's Most Valuable Player by parking all three of his swings deep into the Atlanta night, earning the NL three of the team's tie-breaker winning four home runs, and a 4-3 Swing Off/Mini Home Run Derby victory. 

Our night in The Lounge featured a lot of first-rate yakkin' about baseball in the past and the present, travel, work, scammers, grandchildren, and a host of other topics, yakkin' made possible by the leisurely rhythms of a baseball game, the stretches of inaction between innings, and our enjoyment of one another's company. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 07-14-2025: Go Slow, Cooling Down the House, A Convenient Salad

1. Byrdman introduced me to the idea that, as we age, the sixties are the go go years, the seventies are the slow go (or is it go slow?) years, and the eighties are the no go years. 

I sure felt the go slow today as I worked my way from the upstairs to the main floor to the basement getting the house straightened up, swept, and vacuumed in preparation for having a routine check up/maintenance job done on Tuesday on our heating/cooling system and furnace. 

Slow. Slow. Slow. Rest. Rest. Rest. But, I got almost everything done as I worked away most of the day. 

2. The upstairs and the main floor were warm enough that I cooled them off with our cooling system before I worked in them and that turned out to be a good way to make sure they were working pretty well before the technician arrives on Tuesday. 

3. I had made a big vegetable and apple salad over the weekend and on a day when I was mostly cleaning house (and taking breaks), having that salad fixed and ready to munch on made my day much easier. Around dinner time, I added Greek seasoned chickpeas packed in oil to the salad and that worked really well. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-13-2025: Preparing Food for Family Dinner, Christy's River Tale, Sweet Memories from 2014-17

1. Today was a very busy day for Carol and Paul -- church, Paul preaching, a church meeting, a matinee performance at the Sixth Street Melodrama and Theater, and family dinner. 

Aware of all of this, Christy, tonight's dinner host, asked me to prepare two offerings for dinner and asked Carol and Paul to bring wine. 

Simple enough.  

Christy assigned me to bring an appetizer and a rice dish and told me she was making a citrus chicken dish and hoped what I brought would go well with the chicken. 

I had quite a bit of celery on hand, so I took out a bowl and mixed together whipped cream cheese, sour cream, bacon pieces, shredded cheddar cheese, green onion, and Everything but the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend, filled each celery stalk with this mixture, and then sprinkled more Everything blend on top of them. 

For my rice dish, I dreamed up a dish rather than using a recipe, for the most part. 

I used a recipe to make creamed spinach.

To meet Christy's request, I didn't technically make a rice dish, but, to me, couscous can act like rice even though it's a unique kind of pasta. 

So, I made a white sauce, wilted a bag of spinach, combined the sauce and the spinach and then I cooked u all the couscous I had on hand. 

I layered the creamed spinach and the couscous and I was very happy with how it turned out and I think it was a good compliment to Christy's chicken dish. 

2. Christy reported on the river float several of her classmates took on Friday on the CdA River and shared the good news that one of the floaters made a mistake and found himself separated from the rest of the group. 

After a period of anxiety, things worked out and he rejoined the Classs of 73ers. 

Christy didn't float (I wouldn't have either! I'll never float again!), but she and others who stayed on dry land joined with the floaters for a fun potluck in the afternoon. 

3. As we talked more over dinner, the subject of Baltimore came up and suddenly a rush of stirring memories swamped my mind. Some of them involved Baltimore, but, overall, I was reliving those great three years of living in Maryland, exploring Washington, DC,  New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Virginia, and I thought and talked a bit about some things I didn't do, feeling some regret, but knowing there was no way I'd be able to do everything I could have done. 

So I focused more on the fun and energizing things I did do, mostly within myself. Those thoughts included things as simple as going to senior water aerobics, walking to the Greenbelt library, and having many fun meals with Molly, Hiram, and family. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-12-2025: Life with Gibbs, *Lonesome Dove* and Self-Examination, Tofu is Back

1.  I attribute Gibbs' readiness to bark at people walking by, delivery people coming to our porch,  Copper on the other side of the pet gate, neighborhood dogs on the other sides of our back yard, and sometimes just at a breeze bending grass not to a character flaw, but to a virtue. He's earnest. In his own Maltese-Shih Tzu way, he's acting as a service dog, barking warnings. 

I do my best to as soon as I can to discourage Gibbs from barking too long in the back yard.

Recently, he's been remarkably cooperative with my efforts. 

I never yell at Gibbs and if I stand on the porch and, in a conversational voice, call his name, lately he's been really good about coming to me.

It helps that I'm also offering him Swiss cheese. 

I've been on a Swiss cheese jag for a few weeks.

Gibbs has joined me. 

Lately, he'd rather eat a few small pieces of Swiss cheese in the kitchen than bark his brains out in the back yard. 

2. One thing I'm experiencing while reading Lonesome Dove relates to Socrates' dictum that "the unexamined life is not worth living." 

This novel is moving me to self-examination in an unexpected way, through the observations and thoughts of Lorena Wood, who, for much of the Part I of this book, has been the prostitute at the Dry Bean Saloon.

Lorena is very perceptive, especially when it comes to the character weaknesses of men in general, but of one man in particular, Jake Spoon. 

Her observations have little to do with sex, but much more to do with immaturity, dependence, broken promises, flattery, manipulation through deception, and other similar qualities that Jake Spoon manifests, but so do other men in this story. 

Lorena has moved me to examine similar qualities in myself, especially as I reflect on my past and what I've done as I've aged to at least try to mature, be more independent, keep my word, eschew manipulation, and, generally be a more balanced and consistently kinder and more reliable person. 

When I started reading this book, I wasn't expecting to be putting it down as often as I do to have quiet periods of self-examination, but that's one of the very welcome effects Lonesome Dove is having on me. 

3. For the first time in months, tonight the stir fry I fixed in the wok included tofu. I've been enjoying tofu for about forty years now and I really don't know why I'd gone so long without having purchased and cooked it before tonight -- especially because it's really good for me and my kidney health. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-11-2025: Morning Walk, Return to the Lounge, The Soul of a Poet

1. After a day off on Thursday, I was was up walking this morning around six o'clock and enjoyed being in deep shade and cool air as I went up to the high school and back home via Jacobs Gulch Road. My hope at this point is to walk at least a mile on my walking days and my Fitbit told me at the end of the day that I walked just over a mile and half today. I'm happy with that. 

2. Have I written about why I try to avoid being in places where people smoke cigarettes? And why it is that I wear a mask if I go to a casino with smoking areas?

The concern is that if a smoker happens to be carrying something contagious, exhaling cigarette smoke broadcasts the contagion out widely. 

This afternoon, Ed called me and wondered if I'd like to go up to the Lounge with him for a beer. 

(For me, "for a beer" means drinking a non-alcoholic one so as not to compromise my anti-rejection medications.)

I did and I had a great time yakkin' with Ed, Cas, Fitz, and Brett F. 

I was a little bit anxious because about four or five people were smoking, but I decided to take my chances, hoping none of them were sick -- or, if they were, that I have enough horsepower in my immune system to fight it off.

I hope I'll be all right physically, because it was uplifting for my spirits to be with the guys I yakked with today and to be back in the Lounge again.

3.  So far, Lonesome Dove features one black character/cowboy. His name is Deets. 

I loved a passage featuring Deets that I read today. He and another character/cowboy, Dish, are guarding a pen full of horses. It's an all night job. After a while, Dish leaves his post, leaves Deets, having grown so restless with sexual desire that he has to go to the Dry Bean, the local saloon, hoping to satisfy himself with his favorite prostitute, Lorena. How that works out is another story altogether. 

So Deets is alone with the horses.

And the moon. 

As Deets admires the moon, Larry McMurtry gives us a listen to Deets' inner voice. We've learned earlier that Deets doesn't read or write, but in this passage of the novel, within himself, Deets expresses himself poetically and romantically as he muses upon his lifelong love of the moon, its mystical qualities, its eternal state of inconstancy and flux. 

If we were, as we read this novel, to experience Deets only in terms of his external appearance and by the words he speaks out loud, we'd hardly know that his is the soul of a poet. 

Along with being a superb story teller, it's this kind of deep and often surprising exploration of his characters that is helping me see what makes McMurtry such a highly respected novelist. 

I didn't expect to be moved by a tiny part of this huge novel dealing with one cowboy's horniness and another cowboy's willingness to guard horses alone through the night under the light of the moon. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-10-2025: Stable Labs, My Pill Schedule, One Day On -- One Off For Now

1. Nurse Jenn messaged me today and reported that this week's labs looked stable and that Dr. Murad would like to continue to increase the levels of Tacrolimus in my blood. So he raised my dosage one half of a mg. 

2. After my exchange with Nurse Jenn, I realized my pill box was empty and so I filled it for the next week and made the change she instructed me to make. 

I realized, as I filled my box, that I'm the only person, say, in our family, who knows what medications I'm taking and the dosage. 

I'm going to figure out a way to create a list of the various medicines and over counter pills and the dosage I take each day that I can carry with me -- in my wallet, I guess.

But today I decided that Christy and Carol should have this list and should know the numbers to call if I have problems or something happens and I can't call the transplant clinic myself.

With Debbie staying in New York indefinitely, I realized I would need my sisters' help.

So, this evening, I typed out a chart showing what pills I take in the morning, at noon, and in the evening and sent both Christy and Carol a copy with an email outlining some other information. 

That eased my mind. 

3. I actually hope this changes before long, but right now I'm on a one day on, one day off morning walking schedule. After my jaunt on Wednesday at the Medimont Trailhead and after accumulating some more steps at the casino and Trader Joe's, I woke up today with rubbery legs and I rested them. I'm hoping that by next week I'll feel fit enough to walk about a mile or so daily. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 07-09-2025: Walking Near Cave Lake, Breakfast and a Little Luck, Eating Like It's 1982-3

1. I spent a couple of hours or so until about 7:30 this morning tidying up the kitchen, taking care of Gibbs and Copper, and getting ready to head out the door. 

I'd read in a review from a biking business that the Medimont Trailhead on the Trail of the CdAs featured a stretch of shady trail as well as great views of Cave Lake. 

Because of my general intolerance of direct sunshine and heat, I perk right up whenever I read about shady trails.

To beat the heat, I left the house early-ish (my household jobs took longer than I planned) and when I arrived at the trailhead, it was, indeed, cool and shady and so, limited by the after effects of the slump I was in, I walked about 3000 or so steps out on the trail and back to the car again. Today I walked in an easterly direction and next time I go down, I'll try westerly.

2. Carol and Paul asked me to pick up a couple of boxes of theater programs at the Fed Ex office in CdA today, so to get there I decided to once again drive to St. Maries, go through Heyburn State Park to Plummer, and head north on Hiway 95. 

I hadn't eaten anything yet, so I stopped at the CdA Resort and Casino and refreshed myself with breakfast at the Red Tail Bar and Grill. 

After I ate, I played just three machines, won a little money which I will add to my Pendleton fund, and returned to the Camry and blasted north to CdA where I picked up Carol and Paul's theater order and stopped in to buy produce and rice and some tuna at Trader Joe's.

3. God only knows why what I'm about to write has stuck with me for over forty years, but here goes.

Back at Whitworth, I remember Bill Davie talking about what he fixed himself for meals as a student living in an apartment and how much he enjoyed making a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and folding in a can of tuna.

This evening, I didn't have any boxes of mac and cheese in the house, but I had some twisty pasta, shredded cheddar cheese, shredded parmesan cheese, butter, and Frank's hot sauce. 

So, I boiled the pasta, poured the cheeses over it, added in a chunk of butter and as it melted, I folded in a can of tuna. To give this inspired-by-1982-3-Bill Davie dish a kick, I splashed hot sauce over the top. 

If I'd had a can of black beans on hand, I would have added some beans to this dish, but I'm happy to say that, as it was, this little creation of mine brought back fun memories of apartment living in N. Spokane (Bill and I lived across N. Colfax Rd from each other) and, moreover,

it worked! 

  

Three Beautiful Things 07-08-2025: "You're Just Chill", My Reward, Couscous Stir Fry

1. For some reason, one that I can't explain, but that is a huge relief, having needles inserted into my skin and veins doesn't bother me at all.

I couldn't begin to say how many times I've had blood drawn in the last ten years. Since 2015, every month I was active on the transplant list, I had blood drawn at least once a month and, since the transplant, I've never gone more than two weeks before it was time for another blood draw. 

Right now, I'm on a weekly schedule. 

I bring this up because twice in the last three weeks, the person poking me had trouble getting the vein they chose to cooperate. 

The first time was when I got my first steroid infusion.

The second time was today. 

Today the guy at Kootenai made two unsuccessful stabs, one in each arm, and then he did the right thing.

He found the woman who drew my blood a week ago. She remembered exactly where she'd poked me last week, repeated that poke, and PRESTO! my blood flowed generously out into the vials. 

I've had this same experience in Eugene, Springfield, Greenbelt, Kellogg, Spokane, and now Coeur d' Alene. 

Each time the first (or second or third) attempt didn't work, I was unruffled, patient, trusting, and calm -- and, as I believed would happen, each time things worked out fine.

The woman who succeeded today apologized for my trouble when she was done. 

I responded, "It's no problem."

I liked it when she then said, "You're just chill, aren't you?"

"I guess so."

2. I had one more deposit to provide for the lab.

I succeeded. 

Ah! 

Then I purchased my modest reward.

I strolled just outside Lab Services to Big Blue Coffee. 

I hadn't eaten for nearly thirteen hours and I didn't drink any black coffee before I hit the road this morning. 

So I was primed to snack on a chocolate croissant and sip a 16 oz latte.

They made me very happy.

3. Back home, inspired by today's successful phlebotomist, I chilled. 

My most ambitious accomplishments were reading some more Lonesome Dove and fixing another terrific stir fry in the wok, this time combining shrimp, broccoli, onion, yellow pepper, green beans, and couscous. 

I filled a bowl and topped my creation with a combination of Hoison sauce and Soy sauce. 

It worked. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-07-2025: Revisiting a Daily Childhood Walk, Breaking Out of a Reading Slump, The Wok Rocks

1.  After the biopsy on my kidney and then during subsequent two days of infusions of steroids and a few days after that of increased Prednisone dosage, my sleeping patterns got out of whack and I experienced a temporary loss of energy -- a slump. Fortunately, this slump was physical. I wasn't experiencing depression, thank goodness. 

Recently, I've felt myself getting back in whack again. 

Along with having energy and motivation return, I also have felt a most welcome urge to get my body moving again. 

We are in the grip of longer days, more sunshine, and warmer weather and when I go out to walk, I need to be not in the sun and out of the heat. 

So, this morning, shortly after 5:30 a.m., I walked the route on Riverside Ave that I used to stroll to get from home to what used to be Sunnyside Elementary School and then returned home on Cameron Ave. 

For most of the 40 minutes I was out, the sun hadn't come out and the air was cool.

It was a very satisfying stroll.

2. That slump I was in also repressed my desire to read.

Today, I returned to Lonesome Dave and as some of the characters rounded up a herd of horses in Mexico in the dark of night and moved them north back to Lonesome Dove near the bottom of Texas, I read passages describing opposite qualities co-exisiting in one particular character and read another passage describing the chaos when a herd of horses heading into Mexico come into conflict with the herd leaving Mexico. 

Both passages struck me as Shakespearean. 

The deeper I move into this novel, the more I am experiencing Larry McMurtry's genius and depth.

3. I cooked both breakfast and dinner in the wok today. For breakfast, I heated up the oil, cooked up sliced mushrooms and a handful of fresh spinach leaves. I also heated up a lump of left over jasmine rice. I turned down the heat and folded two broken eggs into the rice, mushrooms, and spinach and, as the eggs got solid, I put a slice of Swiss cheese over the mixture and, once it melted, I took it out of the wok and enjoyed my meal.

For dinner, I thawed a couple of chicken tenders, chopped them up, and then combined the chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and celery in the wok and once they were nearly done I added left over jasmine rice from last night. I put this mixture in a bowl, splashed soy sauce over it, and began to think that I could see myself doing most of my cooking day to day in this wok -- and wondering why I haven't! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-06-2025: I Stayed Home, Rest and Refreshment, Satisfying Meal Out of the Wok

1. I gave serious thought to taking a drive this afternoon, but then I decided I would rather not be a part of the busy holiday weekend traffic -- why should I add my vehicle to the high volume of activity on the roads and to the congestion on I-90 when I didn't really have any where I needed to be.

So I stayed home. 

2. It turned out that staying home was a solid move. Our family activities on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were all good, happy occasions. At the same time, well, they left me in need of rest and refreshment!

3. I added to my refreshment by cooking up a very satisfying dinner in the wok: shrimp, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow pepper, and celery served with jasmine rice. I was in the mood for soy sauce and a few splashes enhanced this bowl of simple and very delicious food.  

Three Beautiful Things 07-05-2025: Bucky's Dedication (Baptism), Lunching on Leftovers, Quiet and Sleepy Saturday

1. With a threat of rain hanging over the morning, Paul decided that rather than dedicate (that is, baptize) Buchanan in the Roberts' back yard, that Paul, Carol, Cosette, Taylor, Saphire, Christy, Zoe, Buchanan, and I would meet at the Mountain View church and that Paul would conduct the rite indoors and in the  space so familiar to our family, the space where Taylor and Cosette were married. 

That continuity worked. 

Zoe was the morning's camera operator. 

Paul handed us each a passage from the Bible to read, all tied together by the theme of raising a child in the embrace of God. 

Paul gave a short talk and he pressed water to Bucky's forehead and connected his mom, dad, and sister together with Bucky by pressing water on their foreheads as well. 

2. This was our third day in a row of family celebration: Carol's birthday, Independence Day, and now Bucky's dedication.

We had a generous spread of food left over from Thursday and Friday and we enjoyed lunching on it at Carol and Paul's house after the service. 

3. I returned home, settled into a quiet day of acrostic puzzles and I completed the Sunday NY Times puzzle (it was available at 3 this afternoon) and grabbed a few quick naps here and there. 

Copper and Gibbs joined me as they, too, had quiet days and grabbed a few naps themselves. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 07-04-2025: Holiday Racket, Family Barbecue, Memories of October 2010

1. I never really know from one kaboom, pop, kabang, whistle, crack holiday to the next if the current one will be the one in which Gibbs or Copper or both of them cross over from oblivious and unbothered by all the noise into a zone of high anxiety. I spent hours on a bed behind a closed door with the Corgis, holding and petting them while they shook nervously at the sound of firecrackers, fireworks, and God only knows what other sources of booms, crashes, and thrumming. 

I always wonder if the next holiday of din will be the one that finally pushes our pets over the edge. 

The crossover didn't happen tonight.

Gibbs only barked when every once in a while a person walked in front of the house. 

Otherwise, he just peered out the east living room window and occasionally glanced over at me. I might be projecting, but I think his face was asking me, "What is all this senseless noise?"

Copper chilled. 

He didn't respond once to the racket. 

2. Paul barbecued brats and corn on the cob. Christy brought potato salad. I brought beans. The table also featured chips and a fruit salad. We had leftover pie and cake from Carol's birthday and Zoe made a delicious batch of homemade ice cream. 

We enjoyed our holiday meal on the Roberts' patio.

3. During our conversations tonight, I found myself suddenly trying to piece together the very difficult time Debbie and I experienced, especially in 2009, but that carried over on into 2010 and beyond. We got through it and so did family members who had rough times, but pinpointing when specific things happened was, at the dinner table for me, impossible.  

One thing that came up: Carol said something about WHEN Olivia and Molly visited Kellogg not long after Olivia had started walking. 

What? 

I was stumped. 

I had no memory whatsoever of Molly and Olivia coming to Kellogg. Carol said it was in the fall -- so it would have had to have been in the fall of 2010.

So, later, I consulted my trusty blog.

Ah! 

Right!

October, 2010. 

Debbie, Molly, and Olivia made a weekend trip to Kellogg. 

I stayed behind in Eugene. 

Then I read in my blog that on their way home, Debbie, Molly, and Olivia picked up Charly, who had been living for I don't remember how long in New York, at the Portland Airport. 

So, not only was this the weekend when Olivia got to meet Mom and the rest of the family in Kellogg, it was the weekend we were reunited with good old Charly. 

I'm really glad I had a written record of all that!  

Three Beautiful Things 07-03-2025: Carol's Birthday Party, Beach Bum Bakery Visit, Beans in the Crock Pot

1. Today was Carol's birthday! 

She told the rest of the family that she wanted a smorgasboard of meats, cheeses, breads, cut vegetables. crackers, and other finger-y foods and a German chocolate cake for her birthday dinner. 

So that's what we had out on the patio. April and Eric attended. Cosette, Taylor, and Bucky arrived today from Moscow. Zoe had arrived earlier in the week. 

We settled into the generous spread of food laid out on the table, had fun watching Carol and listening to her open gifts (some required explanation and readings), and enjoyed Zoe's perfectly baked cake along with having the choice of Zoe and Carol's freshly baked apple pie. 

2. Much of my contribution to the birthday smorgasboard came from Beach Bum Bakery where I purchased Sourdough Focaccia bread and a Honey Challah loaf -- and Debbie and I gave Carol a Beach Bum Bakery gift card as her birthday gift. 

3. I had been soaking a pound of white beans all day long. When I arrived home, I put the beans, water, molasses, brown sugar, chopped onion, and bacon into the crock pot so that my contribution to our 4th of July barbecue could cook on low overnight. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-02-2025: Go Driving, Modest Casino Success, Back Home

1. I was in the mood to hit the open highway, contemplate some things, listened to *Deadish* and, without a plan, see where I ended up. 

It turns out I headed west to the Rose Lake exit, drove south on Hiway 3 to St. Maries, drove west on Hiway 5 to Plummer, turned north on 95, and dropped in to see how things were looking at the CdA Casino. 

2. I played machines for a little while, left the casino with some winnings, and so made a modest contribution to my Pendleton envelope as I save up for our trip there in about three months. 

3. I stopped in CdA to fuel the Camry, buy some food for Carol's birthday party and for my own salads at Trader Joe's, and cruised back to Kellogg on I-90. 

It was an uneventful, low key, even restful outing, the sort of solo drive I hadn't made in quite a while.  

All my solo driving over the last year or so has been focused on medical trips.  

Three Beautiful Things 07-01-2025: Nine Page Lab Order!, June 23rd Lab Results Look Good, Remembering *Short Cuts*

1.  I was up and at 'em first thing this morning to get cleaned up and to get Copper and Gibbs ready for me to blast off to Kootenai Health for labs. 

I'm on a once a week blood draw schedule again for the time being. 

I find all of the staff who work the counter at Lab Services very helpful, but I am especially happy when   an employee named Deborah is available to check me in. 

She looked up my order among the faxes transmitted to her computer, found the one Dr. Murad had faxed in for me on June 23rd, and for a second the color drained from her face. 

"It's nine pages long," she said, smiling bravely.  "Have a seat and I'll get your order entered. It'll take a while." 

No problem. 

She then alerted her fellow counter worker that she'd be working on a nine pager and would be occupied for a while. 

She patiently and carefully entered the orders. 

I got called in. 

Everything worked out perfectly. 

About fifteen minutes later, I was seated in the lobby outside lab services enjoying a chocolate croissant and a superbly prepared latte.

2. As I've mentioned before, the doctors I work with are  assessing some signs that have popped up of early rejection of my transplanted kidney. 

I've also mentioned that not one of the kidney pros appears alarmed. 

I saw Dr. Murad last Monday (June 23) at the transplant clinic and after our visit he sent me to the hospital lab for a handful of tests that can't be done at Kootenai. He told me the results would take a bit longer than my routine tests take. 

So, today, I messaged Nurse Jenn (my nurse coordinator at the transplant clinic) and asked her if all the June 23rd results had arrived yet. 

She replied immediately. 

Yes. In fact, the last result had just arrived. 

She liked what she saw: things look stable and she used the words "great" and "double good". 

Before too long, Dr. Murad will also study these June 23rd results and the results of today's blood work and then I'll find out if he wants to change any of my medications or any of my dosages. 

In summary, at this point, on July 1, 2025, as I understand it, things look encouraging in my little world of  transplantion and some complication. 

I sure hope I'm right! 

3. This evening my mind  wandered back to about 1993 or '94. As it does so often, I wandered back to the Bijou theater in Eugene and got to thinking about the three hour Robert Altman masterpiece, Short Cuts. The movie features an incredible ensemble cast of actors ranging from Lily Tomlin to Jack Lemmon to Lyle Lovett to Buck Henry. It blends together a whole bunch of story lines and examines multiple aspects of life in suburban Los Angeles. 

I remember it being an emotionally demanding movie and a marvel of improvisational development. 

It's dumb for me to feel this way, but I really wanted to leave the house and go the a local art house and just watch whatever independent movie was playing from whatever country it was made in.

That experience is unavailable in Kellogg. Or CdA. I don't know what's playing at the Magic Lantern,  my favorite Spokane movie theater from 1974-78 and 1982-84. 

For now, though, I'll dial up Short Cuts one of these afternoons or evenings and groove on Robert Altman while, at the same time, allowing myself to be disturbed by what I'm watching. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-30-2025: No Timetable, Deborah Uplifts Me, I Won't Go to the Oregon Country Fair

1. Today Debbie called me from a Wegmans parking lot in Montvale, NJ and I suddenly had fun memories of when I used to drive south from Greenbelt, MD to Lanham, MD or drive north to Columbia, MD and go to Wegmans just for the fun of it. Wegmans is grocery chain with stores in nine eastern states and the District of Columbia. I enjoyed wandering around in Wegmans, sometimes eating lunch or a snack there, and just taking in the smells and sights. 

Debbie called to catch me up a bit on things and I extended my full support when she told me she has no timetable for when she'll return to Kellogg. 

Copper, Gibbs, and I will continue to hold down the fort while Debbie is away. 

2. My longtime and close Whitworth and beyond friend, Deborah, wrote me an email today that uplifted me, that gave me food for thought that I thoroughly enjoyed, and that described how she and Scott had enjoyed a stir fry dinner very similar to our family dinner Sunday out of the wok. 

3. Today was a good day for correspondence with longtime friends. Not only did I hear from Debbie and Deborah, but I also heard from Jeff, my longtime and close friend in Eugene (and host of Deadish). 

Because the Troxstar's retirement party is on July 11th, I'd planned to attend it in Eugene. 

But, because of the closer monitoring of my new kidney these days and because Debbie will be in New York indefinitely, I canceled those plans. 

I wrote an email to Jeff telling him I wouldn't be down. 

Dang it! 

I'd told Jeff earlier in the spring that my hope was to come to Eugene, go to the retirement party, and, for the first time since 1993, head out to the Oregon Country Fair. 

Jeff snagged me a VIP pass for the fair and now I won't be using it. 

Sometimes kidneys and family obligations just get in the way of other stuff, but I'm going to hold out hope, the good Lord willing, that maybe next year I can wander down to Eugene, join Jeff at the fair, and be admitted as a Very Important Person -- after all, that's what it says on the pass! 

Three Beautiful Things 06-29-2025: (A Violent Day), Spiffing Up, Cooking Family Dinner, Intellect and Emotion

A cruel and deadly shooting took place this afternoon near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on a local mountain. These killings are beyond my comprehension and so I have nothing to say beyond these words:  I don't understand violence and I'm dumbstruck. 

Therefore, I'll focus my blog post on things that happened today that I do have words for. 

1. I hosted today's family dinner, so I spent a good portion of today cleaning, putting things away, vacuuming, and hoping the house was inviting for Christy, Paul, and Carol to join me for dinner. 

2. I had decided several days ago that I would fix dinner out of the wok. After Darren's birthday party on Saturday, I shopped for vegetables, peanuts, and sauces at both Trader Joe's and Pilgrim's and so, today, I had everything I needed. 

Late this morning, I decided to chop and slice the vegetables I would stir fry and put them in containers in the fridge. I had thawed the tri tip steak chunks I would stir fry and cut them into bite size pieces. Midafternoon, I prepared the Thai wheat noodles, then the meat pieces, and then I stir fried white onion, snap (or were they sugar?) peas, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and maybe others.

At the same time, I steamed a package of Trader Joe's pork gyoza/potstickers for an appetizer. 

It seemed to all work out. 

3. We had a very good discussion of the ways we draw upon intellect and emotion to make our way in the world. I wondered to myself if a balance between the two is ideal, but rarely achieved. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-28-2025: Big D's Big Boy Party, Buy the Wok, Could Have Saved Myself Heartache

1. Ed's son, Darren, turned 40 this past week. Today, Darren's wife Erica threw Big D's Big Boy Party in hers and Darren's back yard in Post Falls.  It was a joyous occasion with awesome tacos and side dishes, a bunch of Darren and Erica's family and friends full of mirth, and a splendid gift opening ceremony. Darren scored multiple bottles of fine whiskey, some LPs, house plants, and, among other gifts, a hoodie personally signed by Gonzaga men's basketball great Robert Sacre, thanks to Ed.  

2. I don't like to make recommendations (I'm too easy to please) and I don't like to give advice.

I made an exception today at Trader Joe's, though.

As I was checking out my groceries, the cashier told me that her husband has been wanting to buy a wok and then she said something about being concerned about using a wok and burning down the house. 

I gave her a brief bit of advice: "BUY THE WOK!"

3. As I was listening to the "Draggin the Line" Radio Station on Spotify today, driving between Kellogg and Post Falls, I realized I would have saved myself a lot of heartache in my life if I hadn't taken songs like "Never My Love", "Cherish", "Wait a Million Years", "Midnight Confessions" and others so seriously. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-27-2025: Sibling Outing to Spokane Valley, Indian Cuisine, Cheese Bagel at Beach Bum Bakery

1.  Today Christy, Carol, and I blasted over to The City of Spokane Valley to enjoy this month's sibling outing. I was in charge of our itinerary and, building on our enjoyment of the MAC in Spokane and the Jundt Gallery at Gonzaga, I decided we would go check out the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum.

It's a cozy museum housed in the historic Opportunity Township Hall building, featuring archives, artifacts, photographs, books, maps, stories, and other ways of understanding how the Spokane Valley as we know it came into being, the innovations that helped move its development along, and the men and women who had significant impacts on everything from irrigation to agriculture to aviation to commerce. 

The museum also displayed the fraught history of Native American tribes, so the museum didn't flinch from the history of achievement and cruelty. 

2. Not long ago, Christy mentioned at one of our get togethers that she had never eaten food from India.

To remedy this situation, we followed up our visit to the museum with a late lunch/early dinner at The Mango Tree.

Our server was eager to help us understand important details of the menu -- giving special attention to the spicy heat level of different entrees -- and with her helpful aid, we made our orders. 

I thought (and I was right!) that a mild appetizer would be fun and ordered Samosa Chaat, a wonderful blend of chickpeas, vegetables. yogurt, mint chutney, tamarind chutney, fresh tomatoes, and onion. 

The three of us shared this very delicious starter to our meal. 

When Debbie and I lived in Greenbelt, MD, one evening we joined other employees of the Prince George's County School District for dinner at a place in Beltsville called Swahili Kitchen.

It was a Kenyan restaurant and among the superb platters of food we all shared and dug into together was a spread of goat meat.

It was one of the most memorable and delicious servings of food I'd ever eaten. 

So, today, when I saw that The Mango Tree listed goat as an option for its Vindaloo bowl, I seized upon the opportunity to once again enjoy a spicy and beautifully seasoned goat entree. 

Our entrees came with golden naan bread and delicate basmati rice and I loved the symphony of flavors and sensations that filled my mouth as I enjoyed this Goat Vindaloo.

3. Today was a superb day for food.

This morning, I dropped in to Beach Bum Bakery to check out Rebecca's bagel supply. 

Because she had temporarily run out of everything seasoning and sesame seeds, she decided to see how cheese bagels generously enhanced with Gouda cheese would work. I got to be her first customer to try her new style of bagel and, honestly, it was one of the best bagels I've ever eaten. 

Rebecca thought it might be a problem that she used a white cheese instead of, say, cheddar cheese.

But, ha!, since I've been on a Swiss cheese jag lately, the white cheese atop and inside this bagel worked absolutely perfectly for me! 

(I think the cheese was Gouda. I get things mixed up and might not have heard this right. One thing that won't change: it was an awesome bagel!)

Three Beautiful Things 06-26-2025: Quirkiness, Awaiting Test Results, My Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Jag

1. I returned to Lonesome Dove today for a short reading session and now I'm about a hundred pages in. Larry McMurtry's characters are growing in their quirkiness and I enjoyed the absurdity of Gus making a sign for the ranch, how the men working at the ranch wanted to be included, and how he put a random Latin phrase at the bottom of the sign. I thought to myself, in conjunction with the quirkiness that surfaced, hmmm -- McMurtry does have a keen sense of the absurd. 

This could get pretty interesting. 

2. The results of testing I had done last Friday and Monday of this week continued to creep into my patient portal today. These tests are unfamiliar to me and so I don't know how to read the results. More results are pending and my hope is that before too long I'll hear from the Transplant Clinic as to whether my situation requires more treatment. 

By the way, Dr. Murad was forthcoming with me on Monday that because some of these tests had to be sent to labs not close to Spokane that the results wouldn't come in immediately. 

I'm fine with that. 

3. I really am on a Swiss cheese and mushrooms jag: I fixed a scramble with eggs, Swiss cheese, and mushrooms for breakfast and fixed myself a couple of small Swiss cheese and mushrooms hamburgers for dinner. This yearning I have also includes spinach, but I was out of spinach and will correct that next time I go to the grocery store. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-25-2025: Spike Lee, John Turturro, Donna Deitch and Jane Lynch -- Interviews

1. For a while today, I'd say all the activities over the last week caught up to me. I did some sitting and staring. I nodded off a couple of times. 

After a while, feeling too lethargic and sleepy to read, I turned to the television. 

I perked myself up. 

At first, I thought I'd like to watch a cast of awesome actors deliver a superbly composed script and I put on the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross. 

Too dark. 

So, I fired up The Criterion Channel and decided to watch interviews with movie makers and this was the ticket to uplift and stimulation. 

First, I watched an interview with Spike Lee and learned about the movies he grew up with and huge impact his college studies had on his vision and development as a filmmaker. 

2. Then I watched an interview with John Turturro, one of my favorite actors, who also works as a director and producer. 

Listening to Turturro talk about growing up with movies and his forays as a college student from SUNY New Paltz into New York City to watch films fascinated me. His deep emotional and intellectual experiences watching movies, acting in them, and learning about movies from other luminaries in the film making world filled me with even more admiration than I already had for John Turturro. His answers to the interviewer's questions were insightful and down to earth and his analysis of a handful of clips from movies that have influenced him over the years was brilliant. 

3. Back in about 1985, when I used to spend as much time as I could at the downtown Eugene Art Movie House called Cinema 7 (and at the Bijou, too), I watched a movie that had a profound effect on me called Desert Hearts. It's a story of a romance that develops between two women on a dude ranch near Reno and was as tender and honest an exploration of love, affection, daring, mutual respect, and honesty as I'd ever seen in a movie.

Donna Deitch directed the movie and it uplifted me this evening to stumble, on the Criterion Channel, upon an interview Deitch gave to Jane Lynch. 

I love Jane Lynch and she conducted this interview from her heart, not only drawing out of Donna Deitch details about the technical aspects of the movie and how she came to cast it, but she also told Donna Deitch what a profound impact Desert Heart had on her when she was in her late twenties. She watched the movie repeatedly, inviting it to help her understand and enjoy her experiences loving women and how she experienced great growth as a person and a dramatic artist thanks to this movie. 

If a single thread ran through these interviews it was the powerful ways movies have the potential to expand our understanding of the world, to transport us into unfamiliar situations, to feel connection with characters and situations much different than our own, and to learn more and more about the complexities of the human condition. 

I'd say more than anything else, I miss art movie houses in my life. 

I miss going to independent movies, international movies, transgressive movies, provocative documentaries, movies that have very little to do with what my day to day life looks like, but that have everything to do with the heart, soul, suffering, love, and emotions of human beings. 

That's where I went this evening with Spike Lee, John Turturro, Jane Lynch, and Donna Deitch and absorbing their stories, feelings, and insights turned what had been a humdrum day into an invigorating evening. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-24-2025: Ah! Rest!, A Eugene Afternoon, Swiss Cheese and Mushrooms

1. No medical travel today. The effects of the steroid infusions are diminishing. The temporary increase in Prednisone pill dosage isn't bothering me. 

I rested today. 

I enjoyed being much less worn out.

2. I also enjoyed an invigorating telephone conversation with Judith and we discussed health matters, grief, theater in Eugene and Ashland, and ions. We encouraged each other to make the best of the goodness we each have in the personal orbits of our lives. 

I had hoped to travel to Eugene for the Troxstar's retirement party on July 11th and to visit longtime friends. 

Today, however, I decided such a trip was too much because of upcoming weekly lab work, kidney appointments, possible infusion again, dental appointments, and not knowing how long Debbie will extend her visit back east. 

I'm disappointed, but I sensed this change in plans coming once this transplant complication emerged. 

3. I've had a hankering for a few months now for Swiss cheese and mushrooms. 

I've fixed scrambled eggs with them. 

I've ordered omelettes at cafes with mushrooms and Swiss cheese.

I've had these two items on burgers lately. 

Today, I thawed out a hamburger bun, thawed out a chicken breast tender, and cooked it. I sautéed mushrooms. I melted Swiss cheese atop the chicken and enjoyed a delicious chicken, Swiss cheese, and mushroom sandwich for dinner. 

It was a simple, gratifying dinner to top off a much simpler and gratifying day after several days of biopsy, infusion, blood work, and an early Monday afternoon at the Transplant Clinic in Spokane. 

This tasty sandwich was perfect.  

Three Beautiful Things 06-23-2025: Addressing Early Rejection, What's Next, Satisfaction and a Great Harvest Sandwich

1. I drove to Spokane late this morning for a 1:00 appointment with Dr. Murad at the Providence Sacred Heart Transplant Clinic. 

Protein has leaked into my urine from my new kidney. 

Although they contemplated letting this development ride for a while and see what happens, in the end, Dr. Bieber and the transplant team talked with each other and agreed I should have a biopsy performed on the kidney and see what shows up. That happened Wednesday. 

Inflammation showed up, signaling that my immune system is most likely sending antibodies to the new kidney, a sign of early rejection. So, to slow down the inflammation, I had steroid infusions on Friday and Saturday. 

Today, as our appointment developed, the transplant doctor, Dr. Murad, instructed me not to worry. Early rejection can be and nearly always is treated and fixed. 

Doing so, requires some investigation. 

In order to gain a more detailed understanding of what's going on, Dr. Murad sent me to the lab for blood work that will tell him if those antibodies are active, whether the BK or CVM viruses are poking around in my system (tests on Friday of last week said NO they aren't), and a couple of other tests. 

When I take increased dosages of anti-suppressive drugs, the viruses can get frisky and exploit my decrease in immunity. 

Results will arrive later in the week and if those antibodies need to be treated, I'll go back to Infusion Services for an IV of medicine (not steroidal) to get after them. 

Aside from some mild heartburn, now fading insomnia, and weight gain (steroids do that), I feel fine. 

My immune system might be suspicious of this new organ, but my new kidney, according to Friday's blood work, is doing a very good job filtering my blood, of doing its work. Those numbers looked good over the weekend. 

2. So what's next? 

* Close observation. 

* Weekly labs starting next week. 

* Increased dosage of the immunosuppressive drug Myfortic with the hope the viruses won't exploit this suppression. 

* Tricky balance. On the one hand, we want to suppress rejection. On the other, we don't want to lose too much virus protection. 

* Possible infusion. Test results will determine if we need to make this move. 

* Return to Dr. Bieber on July 17.

* Return to Dr. Murad at Sacred Heart on July 24. 

* Repeat, on the 24th, the immunologic blood tests I had done after my appointment this afternoon. 

3. I left the Transplant Clinic and lab services feeling good -- the medical pros are not referring to my current situation as a setback, but as a complication that they/we can address. 

I enjoy talking with the pros who help me at Sacred Heart; likewise, I enjoy my visits with Dr. Bieber and his nurses at Kootenai Health. 

The pros carrying out the other services -- biopsy, infusions, labs, all of them -- have been calm, kind, efficient, friendly, and a pleasure to work with. 

To increase my satisfaction even more, I left Sacred Heart and drove to Great Harvest and ordered a turkey goddess sandwich on Dakota bread and a molasses ginger cookie. 

My next pursuit of satisfaction will be to sleep and rest at home. 

Unless I go in for an infusion, I'll have about a week off now from driving to appointments and having needles of one sort or another inserted into my body. 

I'll be tapering off the Prednisone blast this week with the hope of sleeping better. 

Maybe I'll return to the book,  Lonesome Dove. 

I'm eager to see what those fellas decide to do with the idea of heading to Montana. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-22-2025: No Infusion! No Appointments!, Green Salad, Mediterranean Family Dinner

1. No infusion. No appointments. Lots of supportive messages and emojis! I welcomed a quieter day today. Steroid induced insomnia and heartburn had me awake soon after I went to bed Saturday night, but both settled down and I ended up sleeping for about seven hours, a welcome change. 

2. I put together a huge green salad, my most productive project of the day.

3. We had a delicious Mediterranean family dinner last night, featuring Paul's baked philo/asparagus appetizer, a whopping Greek salad Carol prepared, Christy's superbly baked Greek Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner with great variety of vegetables, and a ciabatta baguette from Trader Joe's that I contributed. Christy baked a wonderful Orange Cardamom Olive Oil Cake for dessert. 

We had a lot to talk about: family updates, kidney developments, a look back at military history from our high school years, and current developments in the Middle East. 

Great food. 

Calm conversation. 

A wonderful late afternoon dinner. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-21-2025: Morning Steroid Infusion, Quick Shopping and a Latte, Dealing with the Infusion Aftermaths

1. I knew going into these two steroid infusions on Friday and Saturday that one effect might be sleep deprivation. 

After Friday's infusion, that night I went to bed around ten o'clock, hardly slept, and I woke up at six and learned from my Fitbit, not to my surprise, that I'd slept only three hours. 

I was due at Infusion Services at 8 a.m. and I actually felt pretty good. 

I had a strong home made latte, gathered myself, and drove to CdA without a hitch, my drive made very pleasant by listening to the June 12th Deadish program, which I continued to listen to in the infusion chair and on my way back home. 

Nurse Jillian was a calm and efficient pro, the only nurse on staff on this Saturday morning, and she moved quickly, quietly, and helpfully between the handful of us she served. 

It was a really good morning at Kootenai Health. My vitals were solid, both as I arrived and as I left, and I was strong on my feet as I rose from my chair and walked back out to the Camry. 

2. I stopped in at Pilgrim's, hoping to purchase a baguette for Sunday's family dinner, but their oven was on the blink, so I bought few other items, and headed across the street to Trader Joe's and now I have a baguette to take to dinner.  I bought a few other things, there, too.

To fuel me home, I bought a Morning Glory muffin at Pilgrim's and 16 oz quad latte at Union and had an uneventful and pleasant drive back home. 

3. Back home, I thought I'd sleep, but I didn't. My insides were mildly agitated by caffeine and steroids, so I relaxed and rested. 

I worked puzzles, read stuff online, messaged with Debbie,  dealt all day with persistent hiccups, and experienced a return of heartburn, which I'd not experienced for well over a year and a half.  I kept the hiccups under control with peanut butter and milk, my go to remedies, and two hours after I took my regular medicine around 8 p.m., enough time had passed that I could take Tums at ten and again around 1 or 2 in the morning and the Tums knocked out the heartburn. 

I slept seven hours Saturday night, a great improvement over Friday. 

Now, here on Sunday morning, I will, instead of taking 5 mgs of Prednisone be taking 60 mgs for the next. three days and then taper down on Wednesday and Thursday and return to my regular 5 mg dosage on Friday. 

I see the transplant team at Sacred Heart in Spokane on Monday, June 23rd early in the afternoon and then will have whatever labs they order.

I look forward to a restful Sunday. 

I look forward to talking with the medical pros in Spokane. 

I hope to find out if the Spokane docs can tell if the treatment is working so far, and, if they can't, finding out when we'll know if this steroid treatment is cooling off the inflammation in my kidney. 

Aside from the annoying hiccups and heartburn yesterday and aside from being a bit of a sleep deprived zombie at times (!), I feel good. 

Thanks again and again to all of you who read these updates and extend your support, love, and encouragement. 

Your kindnesses and thoughtfulness are a significant boost to my well-being! 

Three Beautiful Things 06-20-2025: Kidneypalooza

1. It's Friday morning. 

Around 9:00 today's Kidneypalooza kicked in! 

First, Yoke's messaged me that my new (temporary) Prednisone prescription was ready.

Second, a most animated and helpful nurse from Kootenai Health's Infusion Services called, wondering if I could come in at 11 this morning and again at 8:00 on Saturday. 

I returned her genuinely positive call with a genuinely enthusiastic reply. 

Yes! 

I was thrilled that on such short notice they could accommodate me both days (and I didn't have to be admitted into the hospital). 

Third, while at Yoke's to pick up my new prescription, Lauri called from the Transplant Clinic at Sacred Heart. We scheduled me an appointment for 1:00 p.m. No early rising. Labs will follow my chat with which ever doctor I see on Monday. 

2. I realized at the Yoke's pharmacy counter that I didn't understand the details of my Prednisone prescription.

So I dashed out to the Camry, called Dr. Bieber's office, and listened to Nurse Carolyn who was made things so clear to me that I nearly wept, and I returned to the pharmacy, buoyant with understanding, and picked up the medicine. 

Now I know I have a course of increased Prednisone dosage that goes from Sunday through Thursday, tapering off gradually on Wednesday and Thursday.  I'll return to my regular dosage of Prednisone on Friday. 

3. Fourth, kidneypalooza hit the snow-capped peak of awesomeness at Infusion Services. 

I checked in and met Nurse Jemie. She and I calmly worked out what labs I needed and which tests Dr. Bieber canceled after he read the biopsy report. 

She happily hustled around in earnest, making phone calls and, to make sure she had everything right, took a walk to the lab. Her extra efforts paid off. We were ready to move forward. 

Nurse Jamie patiently set up my arm for a blood draw and the IV.  She calmly, and in good humor, saw that Plan A wasn't working and moved gracefully to Plan B (my other arm) which did work. She filled vials and then got the steroids pumping into my arm.  She brought me a couple cups of water so I'd be able to produce a urine specimen when the infusion ended. I succeeded. 

I agreed to leave the IV apparatus in my arm overnight so it would be in place on Saturday morning and Nurse Jemie did a spiffy and efficient job of securing everything in place and then she sent me home. 

A bonus: Jamie was a fun and fascinating conversationalist. She asked what my job used to be. Hearing I was a community college instructor opened the way for her to tell me about her studies at Central Oregon Community College and elsewhere and her determination to earn degrees in the face of demanding challenges outside the classroom. 

Listening to Jamie transported me back to the many students I admired and loved working with at Lane Community College who shouldered on with similar fortitude and determination.  

Nothing during today's Kidneypalooza was difficult. Everyone I worked with today made the whole 'palooza enjoyable, even uplifting, at times inspiring. Listening to Jeff's June 12th Deadish show in the car and while being infused invigorated me. 

All the same, having so much information and activity (and even the driving) packed into about four hours or so wiped me out and, when I returned home, I reunited with a dear old friend: 

The Coma Nap!  

Three Beautiful Things 06-19-2025: Biopsy Results and Treatment Plan

1. Last week Dr. Bieber thought my biopsy results would come back to him in 24-48 hours. The doctor who did the biopsy, Dr. Khorsand, thought it would be 5-7 business days. 

It turned out that Dr. Bieber was right! 

He called me this afternoon with the results. 

To make a longer story short, the biopsy uncovered inflammation in my transplanted kidney. 

Dr. Bieber wasn't absolutely sure how to move forward with this discovery (monitor? treatment?) and consulted with the transplant nephrologists at Sacred Heart. 

2.  Dr. Bieber called me back with the news that he and the Sacred Heart docs agreed to treat the inflammation with two steroid infusions, one Friday and the second on Monday with some adjustment to my steroid medication at home. 

I will also go to Spokane next week for a visit to the transplant clinic as a way of making sure Dr. Bieber, the transplant program, and I are all on the same page regarding the results of this biopsy and the treatment. 

3. As I understand things -- and I might not have this perfectly understood -- it's unusual that this inflammation is present and that protein is present in my urine, but I'm not showing symptoms -- no high blood pressure, no serious water retention in my feet or ankles, etc. The blood work I had done right before the biopsy was very solid. My filtration number (GFR) has never been better since the transplant. I have no idea when I last had a GFR reading of 56 -- possibly in the the 20th century! 

So, I'll get treated.

I'll see what the docs have to say. 

I'll hope I continue to feel great and that we can tamp down this inflammation. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-18-2025: A Successful Biopsy Day

 1. Today, with the agreement of the Sacred Heart transplant team, began Dr. Bieber's quest to see if testing will answer the riddling question of why protein has started to show up in my urine and to identify what kind of protein it is. 

This quest began today with a biopsy of my transplanted kidney. 

Christy picked me up at 5:45 a.m. and we arrived at Kootenai Health at a perfect time. No one else was looking to check in around 6:35  and within a few minutes the check-in woman gave me the green light to waltz down to Specialty Procedures where I answered more questions, submitted to a pre-biopsy blood draw ( I discovered when I arrived home that the lab results were awesome), the insertion of an IV port (or whatever it's called), and a very helpful explanation by Doctor Khorsand as to what I could expect from the performance of this procedure. 

2. Once in the what I'll call the biopsy room, a kind and friendly nurse hooked me up to an IV with a moderate sedative and before I knew it, Dr. Khorsand had inserted the needle, secured three samples, and found out the pathologists reported they had all the tissue they needed. 

Dr. Khorsand told me I did a good job (lying there I guess! :) ) and the kind and friendly nurse wheeled me back to the prep room where I recovered for four hours. I drank coffee. I slept a bit. I ate a Mediterranean salad for lunch. Nurse Ray called Christy and she came to my room and we yakked until another nurse discharged me a little after 1:00. 

Dr. Khorsand thought we'd have a report on the biopsy in 5-7 business days. 

No problem. 

3.  The discharge nurse and the discharge papers both instructed me to take it easy for the rest of today and probably the next two days.

Once Christy dropped me off at home, I soon hit the wall and fell into a super deep sleep.

Once awake, I made sure Copper's and Gibbs' needs were met, completed my usual morning routine of puzzle solving and blog writing, ate quick-to-prepare snacks, and by nine o'clock, I hit the hay. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-17-2025: Learning About the Biopsy, Housecleaning, Green Grass

1. A radiology nurse from Kootenai Health called me today with a battery of routine questions and with instructions regarding my preparation for Wednesday's biopsy of my transplanted kidney. 

Arrive at the hospital at 6:40 a.m.. 

No food for eight hours. 

Take meds at 4:30 a.m. 

She told me I'd be moderately sedated. 

I learned I'd be at the hospital for six hours. Most of that time would involve preparation and then recovery. 

The procedure itself, she told me, won't take long at all.

2. I buckled down today and cleaned house. I focused on Copper's eating area, on a couple of rugs in my bedroom that needed spot cleaning, on areas in the Vizio room where Copper sleeps at times, and on cleaning up litter particles that Copper has unintentionally kicked out of the litter pan. I swept the kitchen, vacuumed the living room, and finished some laundry. 

I also found the backpack I thought I'd left at Wildhorse Casino or possibly at an Airbnb in Eugene. But, no, ha!, I'd left it in a suitcase that needed some cleaning, a suitcase Copper likes to sleep in. 

I'm feeling, well, I'm feeling giddy about having laundered my backpack and having it back in my life.

3. I am not even 100 pages into Lonesome Dove. I have avoided all spoilers up to this point. 

In my reading today, a new character, Jake Spoon, has entered the story. All I'll say is that he's started in on some grass is greener elsewhere talk and I have to believe that if the other characters decide to go in search of this green grass elsewhere, it could be take them on a road to disillusionment, difficulty, and possibly disaster. 

I could be wrong, but it's rare that anywhere is all that much better than where we are. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-16-2025: Back to Reading, Puttering, Characters

1. What distracted me last week from reading Lonesome Dove? I didn't read a word of it. I guess trips to Spokane and CdA for medical stuff and the airport and an event at Gonzaga kept me busy. Well, whatever it was, I returned to the book for a short stint of reading today and hope to increase my reading hours on Tuesday. 

I've missed the long stretches of reading I enjoy.

2. I puttered around the house today: laundry, making dog food packets for Gibbs, and making a mammoth green salad with vegetables, apples, and strawberries. I didn't get everything done (ha!). I'll chip away at some other tasks on Tuesday. 

3. When he answered questions from the stage last Tuesday, Jess Walter repeatedly emphasized that as he composes a novel, he focuses his efforts primarily on characters. Over the last week, I've thought a lot about what he said and have tried to remember how much emphasis the courses I took in grad school focused on characters and how much, when I taught novels, my instruction focused on characters. 

My memory might be faulty -- a lot of time has passed -- but what sticks with me is all the discussion we had of ideas or genre or narrative voice. 

As I returned to Lonesome Dove today, I could feel Jess Walter's influence on me as I admired Larry McMurtry's creation of his characters, especially the physical details and their habits. I can, as I should, see the plot growing out of these characters' different perspectives, preoccupations, attitudes, hopes, memories, and more. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-15-2025: Stunning Finish, Grilled Burgers, Father's Day and Golf Many Years Ago

1. Because of the hour and half+ rain delay at Oakmont yesterday afternoon, I was out the door and on Carol and Paul's patio when J. J Spaun electrified the world of golf by driving the green on the par 4 17th and two putting for a birdie, to give him a one stroke lead in the U. S. Open, and then sank an unbelievable birdie putt of about 64 feet on 18 to dramatically secure a victory.  

Thanks to Byrdman and Terry Turner's comments on the text machine, I knew how this splashy, soggy  tournament ended and, once I returned home, I jumped right on my MacBook machine and found replays of J. J. Spaun's magnificent finish, a finish that contrasted vividly from his horrible and seemingly cursed front nine when he started the final round with five straight 5s and seemed to have played himself out of contention.

But, the tournament leaders, Sam Burns and Adam Scott, struggled mightily. The leaderboard got tighter. 

The rain delay gave J. J. Spaun 90 minutes to clear his head, and the golf gods seemed to have rewarded viewers who stuck it out through the tiresome rain delay with an unimaginable finish and seemed to have rewarded J. J. Spaun's resilience  and cool manner with a stunning win. 

2. Carol and Paul hosted Christy and me for a fun grilled burger dinner on their patio. We began with carrot and celery sticks and a vegetable dip that Carol called Martini Dip, served in a martini glass and featuring green olives and other ingredients, but no gin, vodka, or vermouth. Christy brought a potato salad and I contributed an apple, strawberry, spinach salad. We ended the evening with two desserts. I brought cupcakes topped with fresh organic strawberries from Beach Bum Bakery and Carol made a superb rhubarb custard pie. 

3. Father's Day and the U.S. Open's final round blend inseparably in my memory. On many of these Sundays before he died, Dad and I watched final round coverage of the U.S. Open together and enjoyed some memorable finishes to the tournament. When I moved away, I called Dad on Father's Day to wish him a happy Father's Day and to debrief together about the U.S. Open. For some of those phone calls, I hadn't seen the final round, but Dad filled me in on what happened. 

One year (1977? 1978?), we played in a Father/Son event at Esmeralda Golf Course in northeast Spokane.  In that event, father and son played alternate shots and I'll never forget the humiliation I felt on the second tee. It's a par 3, around 140 yards long, and I addressed my ball, took a out of synch horrible swing at my tee shot and missed the ball so badly I only advanced it a few feet. Dad had to hit a second shot that was almost the length of the hole. He, too, was embarrassed. I wanted to find a place to hide. 

Overall, though, I think we had a pretty good time that day, but I was a wreck on the golf course and hated the number of times I let our father/son team down....

Three Beautiful Things 06-14-2025: Debbie Finally Arrives in Newark, The Mental Strength of Golfers, My Old Friend Self-Doubt

1. Debbie and I were out the door at 4 a.m. this morning and so began Debbie's long day of a Delta cancellation, Debbie's switch to United Airlines, other delays, and ultimately, ten hours after we left the house, Debbie's arrival at the Newark airport. 

2. It's been a few years since I watched several consecutive hours of golf on television, but today I tuned in for coverage of the Men's U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club and watched the best golfers in the world deal with rain, wind, further changing weather conditions, wet rough, slower greens, steep banked bunkers, and their own nerves and fatigue as they made their way around this brutal (in a good way, to me) course. 

I also got to witness some superb shot making and different players' determination to get the upper hand on this difficult and unrelenting course. These golfers' mental achievements impress me every bit as much as their physical ones. 

3. I was struck by a comment I either heard or read yesterday about golfers letting self-doubt creep in.

I recoiled. 

I never had to let self-doubt creep in. 

I was never without self-doubt when I played golf. 

And the reach of my self-doubt extends far beyond my days playing golf. 

Self-doubt is my old friend. 

If self-doubt were to creep for me, it would have to creep out of my mind! 

Three Beautiful Things 06-13-2025: Biopsy Scheduled, Debbie Is Finished Teaching Full Time, Watching the Men's U.S. Open Golf Championship

1. A most helpful woman from Radiology at Kootenai Health called today to schedule my biopsy. 

Her call succeeded. 

I go in this coming Wednesday for a 6:45 a.m. check in.

I can't drive home after the procedure and Christy agreed to be my limo driver. 

2. Debbie has cleared out of her classroom, turned in her keys, done whatever else she needed to do, and is finished with her three demanding years of teaching 3rd graders at Pinehurst Elementary School. 

She arrived home, wanted a hamburger, and I fixed her one.

Then she went to work getting ready to fly out of Spokane tomorrow morning, headed to New York and later to Virginia to see Adrienne's and Molly's families. 

She took a quick break from her preparations to drop in for a quick visit to The Lounge. 

3. I watched a lot of U. S. Open golf today and shuddered as one after another of the world's best players confronted the unrelenting difficulties of the course at Oakmont Country Club where the rough is thick, the greens are mammoth, undulated, and fast, the wind is fickle, and the course mercilessly punishes any errors and sometimes, just to show whose boss and because golf is not a fair or just game,  cruelly punishes what appear to be good shots! 

Three Beautiful Things 06-12-2025: Upcoming Transplant Tests and a Biopsy, Surprise Party!, Wok Action

1.  I cruised out to Smelterville today to the clinic for an appointment with Dr. Bieber, the Kootenai Health kidney doctor I work with. 

My blood work has been looking, in his words, pretty good. Stable. Almost all my numbers are in range. 

One nagging (and new) problem has persisted, though. 

Higher than normal levels of protein have been showing up in my urine. 

The pros at Sacred Heart and Dr. Bieber have been keeping an eye on this problem for a few months and Dr. Bieber changed my medication back in April to try to lower the protein level.

The protein problem persists. 

Dr. Bieber decided he'd like to make a stronger effort to try to figure out what's going on and so I will be taking a 24 hour urine sample to my next blood draw (on June 23rd), those June 23rd labs will include two new tests, and, in consultation and agreement with Dr. Murad at Sacred Heart, Dr. Bieber ordered a biopsy of my new kidney.

I don't know yet when I'll go to CdA for the biopsy. 

Dr. Bieber told me I shouldn't be worried about this development. 

He wants to examine this protein problem now, not wait, and see what the tests reveal. 

So I'm not worrying.

2. Debbie arrived home this afternoon. It was the last day of classes and she reported on the day's difficulties and the more positive things that happened. 

Debbie wanted to go elsewhere to wind down and she stopped in at The Beanery, having forgotten that her fellow teachers were meeting there! 

It was a fortunate coincidence that she went to The Beanery instead of Radio Brewing and she had a great time socializing with those in attendance. Throughout her time at Pinehurst Elementary, Debbie has enjoyed the people she's worked with and she came home happy that she stumbled into the party she hadn't remembered was happening! 

3. Debbie wanted some home cooking again tonight -- she did not want to bring home food from anywhere in town -- and so I got out the wok and fixed a heaping pile of tri tip steak cubes, red onion, yellow pepper, green cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Thai wheat noodles, a dinner that both of us enjoyed to the max. 

Now Debbie has one more day of work in the building and then she'll fly out of Spokane Saturday morning and go visit Adrienne's and Molly's families and return home at a yet to be determined time after the 4th of July. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-11-2025: I Slept In, Crossword Puzzle Peace, Debbie Said It Was Perfect

1. Jess Walter's book launch Tuesday night stimulated me. Stopping for a loaded burger at Capone's extended my night beyond my usual bedtime, as did gabbin' with Debbie when I returned home. 

I didn't rise and shine until 9 a.m. this morning. 

Very unusual.

Also refreshing. 

2. I continued my effort to make peace with the Thursday NYTimes crossword puzzle when it came out at 7 p.m. this evening. I would say I 95% succeeded -- I did unlock the puzzle's theme and "gimmick" but stumbled a little bit as I wrote in the first word that fit the clue and gimmick, but nailed everything else. 

3. Debbie wanted white fish and sautéed zucchini and onion with white rice for dinner. 

No problem. 

I used the electric frying pan to cook the onion and zucchini and used it to cook two tilapia fillets. 

I made a pot of jasmine rice. 

Debbie's response, having served herself and as she dug in: PERFECT! 

Made my day. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-10-2025: Blood Draw and Chocolate Croissant, Jess Walter at Gonzaga, YOLO! Loaded Burger at Capone's

 1. Several days ago, as I looked ahead to June 10th, I thought I'd go to Kootenai Health, submit to my weekly blood draw (which today the transplant team changed to once every two weeks), and drive to Spokane and do some wandering around until I attended the Jess Walter night, put on at Gonzaga University by Northwest Passages, the Spokesman Review's ongoing series of on stage conversations with Pacific Northwest writers. 

Then came the heat dome. 

I couldn't wander around Riverfront Park and other spots in today's heat. 

So, I had my blood drawn, broke my fast with a mighty delicious chocolate croissant and latte at the Big Blue Coffee Co. They serve coffee drinks, pastries, and other delights just outside the lab.

As it turned out, I'd had a restless night before driving to CdA, so, once back in Kellogg, I rested, napped, and only left the house once to pick up bagels at Beach Bum Bakery.

I wouldn't have had the stamina to wander Spokane, heat or no heat. 

2.  Around 5:45, I arrived easily at Gonzaga's Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center and checked in.  

Tonight's event launched the public release of Jess Walter's latest book, So Far Gone. 

My ticket included a signed copy of the book and a free drink token, so I picked up the book and ordered a crisp and refreshing bottle of Heineken 0.0% alcohol beer. 

The program was superb, brilliantly conceived and carried out. 

Rather than follow the usual procedure of having one person interview Jess Walter, tonight's program featured Spokane's mayor (Lisa Brown), WSU's basketball coach (David Riley) and a wonderful lineup of Jess Walter's writing colleagues appearing one by one, either on stage or by video tape, to each ask Walter an interview question. Among writers who asked questions were Sharma Shields, Cindy Hval, Shawn Vestal, Leyna Krow, Timothy Egan, a funny and startling video appearance by Erik Estrada, Craig Johnson, Matthew Sullivan, and several others. 

Jess Walter's graciousness and his stimulating, open, generous, very intelligent, kind, funny, and eloquent answers to the questions deeply impressed me, making this evening, coupled with the Northwest Passages event I attended in April featuring Leah Sottile, two of the finest book related programs I've ever attended. 

If you go to YouTube and search for Northwest Passages, you'll discover a trove of past Northwest Passages programs, including the Sept. 8, 2024 presentation featuring KHS Class of 72 author Kenton Bird discussing his and John Pierce's book, Tom Foley: The Man in the Middle.   

3.As I left Spokane,  I hadn't eaten since having another Sloppy Joe wrap early in the afternoon, and as I neared Coeur d'Alene I decided for old time's sake to stop in at Capone's in Midtown.

I enjoyed another 0.0% alcohol bottle of Heineken and ordered a loaded hamburger packed with Swiss cheese, bacon, grilled mushrooms, grilled mushrooms, tomato, dill pickle, and red onion. 

I should never have eaten such a loaded sandwich around 9:30, but I figured YOLO! 

I'll enjoy this gluttony now and hope against hope that it doesn't keep me up all night. 

Turns out I only woke up a couple of times with a little intestinal unrest, but, on the whole I slept fine and got away with eating not wisely, but well. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-09-2025: Resilience and My Delusion, *Spotlight* is a Mighty Movie, Sloppy Joe Wrap

1. Coco Gauf dropped the first set of her championship match with Aryena Sabalenka at the French Open over the weekend and then came back to win the next two sets and the match. 

As often happens in sportswriting and discussion, observers rightly praised Gauf for her resilience in the face of a superb opponent, dicey weather conditions, and other factors. 

Coincidentally, I had reasons I'll keep to myself to remember back to 1982 and the dissolution and eventual annulment (1984) of my first marriage. 

It came back to me how delusional I was during this time and in the years to follow. 

But, I'd heard the word "resilience" so many times used to describe athletes and teams who overcame difficulties, even doing so gracefully, that I got it in my head back then that I, like them, was resilient in the face of this shattering change in my life. 

I wasn't. 

I almost thrived on telling people how resilient I was. I wasn't lying so much as I was delusional. I was saying what I wanted to be true, but it wasn't. 

Why mention this in a list of Three Beautiful Things? 

Admitting delusion, recognizing how lost I was and how frightened and reckless, owning up, within myself, to harm I caused, and examining myself further regarding the many, many times when what I thought and said about myself was not in keeping with who I actually was nor with many of my actions is a good thing. 

So here it is, the first of today's Three Beautiful Things. 

2. Having watched the last half an hour or so of All the President's Men on Sunday moved me today to look at clips from the movie Spotlight. While I deeply admire the story of All the President's Men and think it is among the most brilliantly written, directed, acted, and produced movies I've ever seen, it's never moved me to tears. 

Spotlight does. 

I had some tearful moments with scenes from Spotlight today. 

3. After dinner on Sunday, Christy told a story about how celebrity chef Michael Symons, in a pinch, used Sloppy Joe mix to make tacos. 

We have flour tortillas on hand and tonight, when Debbie and I ate leftover Sloppy Joes for dinner, I decided not to use a hamburger bun. Instead I made a Sloppy Joe wrap. 

It's possible that I preferred my wrap to the classic Sloppy Joe on a bun. 

My jury is still out, but that Sloppy Joe wrap scratched an itch I didn't know I had! 

Three Beautiful Things 06-08-2025: Sloppy Joe Family Dinner, Zags at the NBA Finals, July Plans Up in the Air

1. Honestly, I enjoy every approach we all take to hosting family dinner. 

Debbie and I hosted tonight's dinner. Heading into the weekend, Debbie told me she had a plan and she'd take care of everything.

I knew this would be good.

And it was.

Debbie made a smashing Sloppy Joe mix along with a potato and bacon salad and a vinegar-based cole slaw. 

That meant tonight's approach was to turn back the clock, have a dinner we would have loved as kids, and it meant we kept this dinner simple. 

Christy made surprise pinwheels and initiated a relaxed contest to see if we all could guess what ingredients, all from her pantry and fridge, she wrapped inside of these terrific appetizers. 

Debbie's final contribution to dinner was awesome and another throwback to what we loved as kids: vanilla ice cream cones! 

2. With two recent Gonzaga grads playing as starters in the NBA finals on opposite teams, Paul raised the question as to whether any past Zag hoopsters had been on NBA championship teams. 

It was fun to guess and we were all wrong. 

Theo Lawson reported in the Spokesman last week that two players who were bench warmers were on championship teams and did not log any Finals minutes: Adam Morrison with the 2009 and 2010 Lakers and Austin Daye with the Spurs in 2014. No minutes, but they have rings. 

John Stockton, Ronny Turiaf, and Kelly Olynyk, playing for the Jazz (1997, 1998), Lakers (2008), and Heat (2020) all played in NBA Finals, but their teams lost the championship series. 

So, who will join Adam Morrison and Austin Daye?

The Pacers' Andrew Nembhard?

The Thunder's Chet Holmgren?

Right now, the series is tied at one game a piece. 

We'll see. 

3. After Zoe, Carol, Paul, and Christy went home this evening, Debbie and I started an earnest conversation about our plans for July. When will Debbie return from Virginia? When will I leave to travel to Eugene? What are the possibilities for a trip to Fairbanks, Alaska? 

It was a good conversation and, before long, we'll have things figured out. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-07-2025: Celebration of Life, Thursday Puzzles, "You're missing the overall."

1. At noon today, Debbie and I attended the Celebration of Life for Dawn Arnhold McLees. The service paid tribute to Dawn's life of faith, love, laughter, creativity, travel, enjoyment, and more.  Many of Dawn's friends, including a contingent from the KHS Class of 1973, and members of hers and her husband's family were in attendance to listen to stories, reflections, and music and to see a wide variety of images of Dawn's life displayed in three different videos/slide shows. 

Christy composed and clearly and confidently read a "Where I'm From" poem that perfectly and cogently, with vivid specificity, captured the depth and breadth of Dawn's life. 

It was perfect. 

2. If you work NYTimes crossword puzzles day to day through the week, you know that the Thursday puzzle always is a themed puzzle and often features something unusual. It's never a straight ahead conventional puzzle. 

Over the last several years, I've come to dread the Thursday puzzle. 

I've groaned at some of them, feeling they were more gimmicky than witty. 

But yesterday and today, I decided to make a genuine effort to make peace with the Thursday puzzles. 

I went back in the archives and found several Thursday puzzles I hadn't tried to solve yet and focused time and effort and a change in attitude on them. 

These Thursday puzzles (I think) always feature one clue, often near the bottom of the Across list of clues, that, once solved, reveals in some direct or indirect way what the theme and often the trick of the puzzle is. 

So in these unsolved puzzles, I've been starting the puzzle solving process by going straight to this clue that, once solved, gives the puzzle solver some idea of what the deal is with this puzzle. 

It's helping. 

My attitude is improving!

3. From time to time, in talking about things and the need to see the big picture, Debbie and I quote Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat in All the President's Men when he admonishes Bob Woodward with the famous line: "You're missing the overall."

Tonight we decided enough with quoting the movie. 

Let's watch the last part of it.

We had watched most of it a few months back and tonight we resumed where we'd left off before and, sure enough, we got to watch Woodward and Deep Throat have what the movie presented as their last conversation and confrontation with each other. 

We nearly cheered when Deep Throat told Woodward, "You're missing the overall."

Three Beautiful Things 06-06-2025: Learning More About "Tech Bros", A Good Walk, Debbie Plays Odd Videos

1. I read a long interview/article from the latest issue of The New Yorker focused on the Dark Enlightenment/Neo-reactionary influencer Curtis Yarvin and followed that up by listening to a half an hour interview that Heather Cox Richardson conducted with Gil Duran whose newsletter and podcast, The Nerd Reich, focuses on the anti-democracy efforts in the world of high tech and the influence that the so-called Tech Bros have had and are having on our government, especially the executive branch and Elon Musk. 

It was a sobering afternoon of reading and listening. 

The article in The New Yorker is here. 

The interview with Gil Duran is here. 

2. I left the house again today! I decided to wait until the sun went down before I walked to the high school and back home again, racking up the most steps I've registered in a while. I felt a bit stronger today. 

3. Friday. 

The end of Debbie's second to the last week of her teaching job at Pinehurst Elementary. 

I sat in the living room after walking, working the NYTimes Saturday crossword puzzle while Debbie watched, and I listened to videos of llamas being sheared, rescued dogs being groomed, a horse being rescued from being stuck in mud, a standoff between an elephant and a hippo, a passenger refusing to deboard a flight, and other unusual stuff I would never think to look at. 

Crossword puzzle solving plus off the wall videos made for a relaxing evening, especially since we'd had popcorn earlier. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-05-2025: Walking in West Shoshone Park, Excellent Recovery, Wraps for Dinner

1. I left the house today for the third day in a row! Who knows? I might be developing a new habit! 

I saw a post of Facebook featuring multiple photographs of the West Shoshone Park in Pinehurst. 

In the 9,000 different years I've lived in or been visiting Kellogg and the Silver Valley, I had never been to this park. 

Today I decided to try it out as a place to go for a walk. 

The park struck me as a great place for multiple activities: baseball, pickleball, volleyball, picnics, large group gatherings under shelters, tennis, and more. 

I don't think I'll return to West Shoshone Park just to walk, though. 

I have not one complaint. 

My reasons for not returning to walk are peculiar to me. 

I'd like to have a trail or a path to walk on out of concern for my balance. I don't want to stumble or trip. 

Ideally -- and this is a challenging desire on my part -- I'd like to walk in mostly shade. 

I did walk among some trees today in some shade, but I hope to find an even more shaded place to walk. 

(Once I build up some stamina and return to hiking, then I'll be in more shaded areas.)

So, without question, if I were looking to get a group together for a picnic or if I were still somewhat athletic and wanted a place to play the sports I mentioned above, this park would be awesome. 

I also thought it was a relaxing park. 

I'm really glad I went, got some steps in, and, after all these years, finally visited this excellent facility! 

2. As I wrote yesterday, I was very happy with how smoothly all the procedures I submitted myself to at Kootenai Health went on Wednesday. 

At the same time, that visit to CdA wiped me out. 

I've had other experiences with getting wiped out like this before and had the fatigue linger for a few days. 

Not today! 

I didn't walk for a long time at the park, but my short walk energized me, I felt great when I returned home, and I slept really well Thursday night. 

Recovering so well from Wednesday's fatigue and feeling so good today was very encouraging and motivating. 

3. I thawed one of our packets of ground beef today. 

I was in the mood for some kind of a ground beef/vegetable combo wrapped up in a flour tortilla. 

So, I sautéed onion and red pepper, added the ground beef to the electric frying pan, seasoned the beef with a southwest seasoning I put together some time ago, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, and added fresh spinach and mushrooms to the pan. 

Debbie and I each made our own wraps. I added uncooked purple cabbage to mine along with Frank's Hot Sauce and some shredded sharp cheddar cheese. 

It was just the dinner I'd dreamed about all afternoon! 

Very satisfying. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-04-2025: A Morning at the Clinic, Lunch and Errands, Recovery at Home

1. I blasted (and crawled!) over the pass first thing this morning for an easy and smooth four hour visit to Kootenai Health. 

Right now I have two standing bloodwork orders at Kootenai and today I needed to fill them both. The transplant team told me, after my May 12th visit, to get once a week labs after they took me off of a medication, so I had that lab drawn.  I see Dr. Bieber next week, so I had labs done for him in preparation for our appointment. 

Next I did some ultrasound preparation and skipped over to the west entrance of the clinic where it was time to have pictures taken inside my body. 

First, I descended into the basement and had a chest x-ray performed and then an ultrasound of my native kidneys and my bladder. 

Then I rocketed up the elevator to the third floor where my hip and lower spine were scanned to check out my bone density. 

2. I enjoy the Breakfast Nook's Frisco Burger, so I dashed over there and had lunch. I had a complimentary car wash coming at Squeaky's, got that done, and I fueled up at Costco and went in the store to replenish our supply of olive oil, paper towels, and toilet paper. 

3. I was drained. 

The sun was having its draining effect on me. 

Even though things went beautifully at the clinic, having procedures done fatigues me. 

I was more than ready to go home.

I put the Grateful Dead station on the satellite radio, stayed alert behind the wheel from CdA to Kellogg, arrived home, let Copper out of the Vizio room, brought the Costco purchases in the house, tended to Gibbs, and then flopped on top of the bed's covers and passed out. 

I fell into a double coma nap with Copper at my side and, even when I woke up, spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting my energy and oomph back. 

It returned. 

I then had a replenishing night's sleep. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 06-03-2025: Hey! Get Out of the House!, St. Vinnie's and a Sunshine Muffin, *Deadish* Abides

 1. Warning! 

I'm going to write about being peculiar, about being odd. 

First of all, I believed what I read and heard a few years ago that the new virus going around was highly contagious and that some one like me who was in his late sixties and lived with pulmonary damage and progressing kidney disease was likely at greater risk of not only contracting Covid, but getting hit hard by it. 

Maybe that's not too peculiar, but sometimes, I felt like an oddball, out of the ordinary. 

(What's new? Ha!)

So, in light of what I accepted as highly likely about this new virus, I stayed indoors a lot, and alone, especially when Debbie was helping Adrienne and Josh with their kids in New York. 

The really peculiar thing, you see, was that I enjoyed this time of solitude, not because I'm anti-social, but because I spent my days doing things I REALLY enjoy: reading books, listening to podcasts, watching movies, working puzzles, listening to music, blogging, cooking, and maintaining contact with friends via text messages, emails, Zoom, Facebook Live, occasionally the telephone, and sometimes visits outdoors. 

The oddness is compounded now by how, even though the virus's communicable powers seemed to have weakened, I often will go a few (or several) days and not leave the house. 

I read, blog, work puzzles, cook,  listen to music -- well, all those things I did indoors when I was, without complaint, quarantining myself. 

Today, I told myself that I had to get out of the house! 

Enough is enough! 

So, I went uptown to Beach Bum Bakery and loaded up on bagels, had a splendid conversation with Rebecca, and accepted her gift of a Sunshine Muffin she was concerned had become a little too old to sell.

2. Debbie had collected a small pile of things to donate to St. Vincent de Paul's. 

So not only did I leave the house and go uptown, I drove all the way to Osburn and dropped off the donations. 

After putting them in a shopping cart at St. Vinnie's, I crawled back in the car and decided to give the Sunshine Muffin a try. 

Maybe, maybe maybe maybe, it was a tiny bit dry, but the muffin sure worked for me and eating it reminded me that when Beach Bum Bakery first opened as a small portable shack parked at the Furniture Exchange, the first purchase I made was a Sunshine Muffin. 

It's an awesome treat. 

And, as Beach Bum Bakery reminds people every day: Don't panic! It's organic! 

3. Wow! This getting out of the house was working pretty well. 

I invigorated breaking out of my hermitage in the car by playing Jeff's May 29th Deadish broadcast via the KEPW.org archive.

He played an eclectic mix of tunes recorded live across the nation, all on May 29th over the years, and so not only did I get to listen to Grateful Dead tunes, but also to Miles Davis, Zero, The Yardbirds, the Chambers Brothers, and more, while driving the wild streets of uptown Kellogg, cruising the open highway to Osburn, and sitting back at home in the living room with Jeff's voice and his ingenious music selections playing on my wireless Bose speaker.  

Staying home is good. 

But leaving the house for something other than grocery shopping and blood draws and transplant follow up appointments is pretty good, too. 

I might just try it more often! 

Three Beautiful Things 06-02-2025: The Summer of '84, Air Fried Food, Starting *Lonesome Dove*

1. I have solid reasons to believe that with Don K. and Michael Q's help, I moved from Spokane back to Eugene on June 1, 1984. 

Almost immediately, upon arriving in Eugene, a brand new friend offered me a ticket to see Laurie Anderson (unknown to me) on June 3rd at the recently built Hult Center. I accepted the ticket. The show blew me away. So did the Hult. 

Michael, Don, and I were obsessed with the Celtics-Lakers NBA championship series.

The Race II was held the first weekend I was back in Eugene and the route went right by my new residence.  I was back in Track Town USA. 

I joined the YMCA. 

I returned to strolling around at Saturday Market and worshipping at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. 

Over the twenty months I was away from Eugene and taught at Whitworth College in Spokane, a group of Eugenians launched a newly weekly (and free) publication called What's Happening -- later to become the Eugene Weekly. 

Also during that time, a squat rectangular metal building that was kind of a food truck and trailer hybrid sprang up at 13th and High.

It was a burger joint. 

In the explorations I've been doing since hearing from Scott Taylor, I got it in my head that I remembered one of his fellow Big Time Poetry Theater mates, named Gary, working at that place. 

I also knew that the first time I saw copies of What's Happening was one day when I dropped into this joint for a burger. 

Today I became determined (obsessed) to find the name of that establishment. 

I began a search, first in archived copies of the Register Guard, Eugene's city newspaper.

I was looking for an ad from this burger joint. 

I didn't find any ads in the issues of the Guard I inspected.

I turned my attention to the Univ of Oregon's student newspaper, the Oregon Daily Emerald. 

Aha! 

Success! 

It was the Great Oregon Burger Company.

Today wasn't the first time I'd tried to remember the name of that business, just the first day I searched in earnest for the name. 

Finding it, putting that missing piece of my life in Eugene in 1984 in place, gave me raising-my-arms-in- victory styled pleasure! 

I don't remember the burgers. 

I remember discovering What's Happening, a significant milestone in my Eugene life, and I remember this guy who worked there and I wonder if he was Gary. 

2. Now I'm remembering, as if I could ever forget, what a dizzying year 1984 was: I had some of the best and some of the most painful times in my entire life. 

I'll leave it at that for now. 

Here at home, on June 2, 2025, I wasn't dizzy nor was I experiencing polarized swings of feelings like I was in 1984. 

No, in my current well-balanced state, I quite placidly thawed a pound of chicken tenders, marinated them in an oil, lemon, and a spices/herbs mixture and sliced a few yellow potatoes, poured olive oil over the slices, and seasoned them with Everything but the Bagel seasoning mix. 

I got out the air fryer. 

I air fried the potatoes and then the chicken tenders and I steamed a mixture of corn kernels and green beans. 

The food turned out pretty good, making for an enjoyable dinner.

3. My mind was too jam packed with countless memories of and questions about my life back in Eugene in 1984-87 to return today to reading Lonesome Dove. 

But I did start reading it on Sunday.

I've kept myself in the dark about Lonesome Dove's storyline.

All I can say as Larry McMurtry gets this thick novel underway is that in short order early on he's established a handful of vivid characters and has beautifully set the physical scene of the book's early action in and near the fictional town of Lonesome Dove, TX.

I'm enjoying his unrelenting attention to detail, whether to the Texas landscape, the frontier town of Lonesome Dove, the peculiarities of the characters he's begun to develop, animals, or saloon life. 

I've probably got a couple or three weeks of reading ahead of me to finish Lonesome Dove and already McMurtry has succeeded in giving me that great feeling of I can hardly wait to get back to reading more of this book!