Three Beautiful Things 04-12-2026: Marijuana and Intoxication, Superb Family Dinner, The BIG Questions

 1. I found the chapter on marijuana in Michael Pollan's book Botany of Desire fascinating. Yes, on the one hand, I found his research into the history of marijuana and marijuana cultivation and the genetics that informed how growers developed better and better pot to be very interesting.

Even more interesting to me was his writing about consciousness and imagination and religious rites and how over the centuries different consciousness altering substances like wine, peyote, opium and others have enhanced religious and imaginative experiences, have aided shamans and others in their search for insight into mystical realities and have also aided poets, essayists, writers of fiction, and musicians (for starters) to explore insights and experiences and to imagine possibilities not otherwise available to them. 

Does Pollan write about the abuse of consciousness altering substances. 

Yes. 

But like the desire for sweetness and beauty, Pollan also explores the human desire for intoxication, why organic intoxicants exist in the natural world, and what results from the pursuit of different types and different levels of altering one's consciousness (I write this post feeling the pleasure of and experiencing the benefits of the mild enhancement I'm now enjoying under the influence of my second morning latte!).

I just fixed Debbie a latte and during my break from writing this post, I thought about how Pollan writes about marijuana's medicinal qualities in this chapter. I immediately thought of two friends whose quality of life is enhanced by marijuana. One suffers from PTSD and the other from chronic pain. 

Marijuana helps give them the relief they desire via a healing form of intoxication. 

Both friends are ambitious as they pursue their avocations and marijuana helps them pursue the activities they experience as sources of happiness and fulfillment. 

2. Debbie and I hosted tonight's family dinner and all I did to help out was vacuum the living room!

Debbie had a plan for dinner and she carried it out beautifully. 

She baked gluten free dinner rolls, made a shredded carrot salad, and mashed several potatoes as compliments to the delicious pork and sauerkraut casserole she also fixed. Carol air fried a startlingly delicious batch of lemon garlic tofu cubes and Christy baked a very tasty Olive Oil Almond and Orange cake which she served with Orange and Sweet Cream Ice Cream (I hope I got that name right...). 

3. I thoroughly enjoy discussions of Christianity and spiritual experience when everyone talks about these matters in their own language, on their own terms, and don't simply repeat what they've heard their pastors say or what they think they ought to say in order to conform with some sense of correctness. 

We had such a discussion after dinner tonight and fearlessly shared our thoughts about mysticism, love, ecumenism, original sin, the Holy Spirit, charismatic worship, and other topics as they came up. 

Not once did anyone say, "That's not right!" or "I disagree" or any other discouraging or conversation killing words. 

We are searching and questioning and trying out insights and possibilities; we approach these matters humbly, unrestricted by assertions of certainty or dogma. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-11-2026: Magic App, Tulip Mania, Wondrous Stir Fry

 1. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! We received a very modest check (also known as a warrant) in the mail today from the State of Idaho. We filed an overpayment of our state income taxes. I told Debbie I'd mail it to the credit union and she told me that I can make a deposit via the OCCU app. I loaded up the app and PRESTO! the app took a picture of each side of the check and in a flash the transaction was complete. 

That was a fun thing to learn -- and amazed this codger. 

2. Do you remember the Dot-Com Bubble of the late 20th century? 

Well, what if I were to tell you that Holland experienced a TULIP bubble in 1634 that popped in 1637?

It's a period known as Tulip Mania. 

Tulips had become highly fashionable, and speculators suddenly became willing to pay extraordinarily high prices for bulbs and then the whole thing collapsed, and many people suffered great financial losses. 

If it weren't for reading the "Tulip" chapter of Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire, I never would have known about Tulip Mania nor about the evolutionary history of the tulip and I wouldn't know as much as I know now about the concept of beauty. 

Next chapter? 

Marijuana.

3. I tend to stock the stir fries I make with quite a few vegetables. 

Debbie, however, fixed a stir fry tonight that was very satisfying and the only vegetables she used were onion and spinach. She deftly combined soy sauce, honey, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, and maybe other ingredients into a superb sauce and added Thai wheat noodles. She also made a pot of brown rice, so I savored this delicious meal, one of the only times I can remember having both noodles and rice in my stir fry bowl. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-10-2026: Apples, Burgers at the Elks, The Lounge and Ice Cream and Potato Chips

1.  Before I read Chapter 1 of The Botany of Desire today, I basically knew the following about apples: I love biting into them, they taste great with peanut butter, I enjoy apples and cinnamon (apple pies and other baked apple desserts and in a bowl of oatmeal), and that they go great, when baked, with pork chops and pork roasts. 

Now I know so much more about the apple's genetic history, the story of John Chapman, also known as Johnny Appleseed, the countless varieties of apples, how grafting works, and how the number of varieties of apples has shrunk because of which varieties sell the best in grocery stores. 

Next up in this book: tulips. 

2. Debbie and I attended Burger Night at the Elks late this afternoon. We sat with Ed and saw a host of other friends and acquaintances. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the scene and especially enjoyed the burger. It's not a monster burger. It's not a slider either but occupies that perfect spot in burger sizing where it satisfies my hunger but doesn't leave me feeling stuffed. 

And it tastes great.

3. We dropped in at The Lounge and it was an especially great time for Debbie. She visited a couple of tables and had great conversations with different people. I didn't mingle. I was happy sitting at the bar, nursing a Bud Zero, and having a pleasant mix of quiet time and conversations with Cas and some patrons who stopped by to chat. 

As we arrived home, Debbie told me that she wished we'd stopped at Yoke's, that chips and ice cream would make this a perfect evening.

I agreed and volunteered to go over to the store and I returned with barbecue chips and salted caramel ice cream and that's how we topped off our night on the town in Kellogg. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-09-2026: Mastery of Plants, What is Appalachia?, Another Perspective on *The Italian Symphony*

 1. The Science/Nature book club at Auntie's meets the first Tuesday of each month, giving Debbie and me plenty of time to read the club's next book, Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. Through a study of the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato, Pollan's book will explore the evolution of these domesticated plants and their relationship to the human desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control.

I've read the book's introduction. I told Debbie what I thought the book was about and she reminded me of this question: Does a virtuoso violin player master the violin or does the violin master the player? 

Likewise, do humans master these plants or do their inherent qualities of sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and pleasing taste master the gardener? 

We'll see.  

2. When we lived in Maryland, I discovered and became fascinated with a podcast from West Virginia Public Radio called Inside Appalachia. I know that the Silver Valley of North Idaho is not Appalachia, but as I listened to different episodes of this podcast and as I thought back on my many viewings of the documentary movie Harlan County, USA, I saw parallels.

Recently, Debbie read a book entitled What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. 

So, tonight, Debbie asked me to find an episode of Inside Appalachia and I did and we listened to it together. 

The episode we listened to explored the question "What is Appalachia?" and over the next hour we learned (or were reminded) that the Appalachian Range extends from north Georgia to Maine and that the cultural, economic, and political variety in these regions between Maine and Georgia make the question of just what Appalachia is a complex one that reaches far beyond the stereotypes we might have. 

This podcast episode featured interviews with people from Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere and included interviews with academic scholars and local historians about the history and the implications of this squishy word "Appalachia". 

It was fascinating. 

It did not, however, lead me to think about North Idaho as much as other episodes have. 

I thought this episode locked in on uniquely Appalachian issues and realities. 

3.  Back on March 29th, Debbie and I heard the Spokane Symphony perform Felix Mendelssohn's energetic and captivating Italian Symphony. I had gone to Spokane on March 26th to hear the symphony's conductor, James Lowe, lecture on the program that included this symphony and Debbie and I listened to his pre-concert lecture on the 29th.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lowe's analysis of the Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and this evening I wondered if Debbie might like to hear another perspective on it. I knew that the podcast Sticky Notes, hosted by Joshua Weilerstein, who makes his living as a flourishing guest conductor around the world, did an episode on the Italian Symphony. 

She didn't want to listen to this -- she wanted to listen to something on Appalachia. 

So, when we finished listening to Inside Appalachia, I listened to Joshua Weilerstein's hour long take on this symphony. It was my bedtime story. 

Musically, in terms of symphonic form, Lowe and Weilerstein had a similar understanding of this piece. 

Their interpretations of what Mendelssohn was inviting his audience to experience, however, were not the same. 

This fascinated me. 

For Lowe, each movement represented Mendelssohn's impressions of and experience in four different Italian cities: Venice, Rome, Florence, and Naples. 

For Weilerstein, the symphony was more pastoral, a way for Mendelssohn to express what he experienced in the Italian countryside, but not exclusively -- he, too, heard elements of urban life in the piece.

I thought their different ways of interpreting the symphony complimented each other. They also broadened my experience with this piece.

They definitely agreed on the most important point: it's a symphony that expresses how Italy energized Mendelssohn and inspired him to compose a symphony full of the joy of life and the vitality of beauty. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-08-2026: Bruce Larsen's Upcoming Celebration of Life, Tire Repaired, Tchaikovsky and Spinning Reels

 1. MARK YOUR CALENDARS! CELEBRATION OF LIFE FOR BRUCE LARSEN!

Today Stu, Sue, and Sally met over lunch and nailed down the date and place for Bruce Larsen's Celebration of Life:

Date: Saturday, June 13, 2026

Time: 1:00 p.m.

Place: The Kellogg Elks Lodge, 202 McKinley Ave

 

2. I wanted to go on a drive today and as I left the driveway, the light indicating low tire pressure came on (again). 

I'd had the Camry's tires checked on Saturday and, indeed, the right rear tire needed air and today it looked like it needed air again. 

I rocketed over to Silver Valley Tire and the guy who put air in the tire recommended I have the tire checked for a problem. 

Luckily, they got the Camry in almost right away and discovered the tire had a small puncture. They repaired it and I was on my way again. 

3. On my drive to the CdA Casino, I listened to Robert Greenberg's illuminating lecture on Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Not only did his lecture help me understand how Tchaikovsky moves his listeners through parts of the story of Romeo and Juliet, it also helped me understand how his orchestration worked to explore the play's many moods, emotions, and tensions. 

Moreover, this is one of a handful of lectures Greenberg presents in this Great Course about the historical move from the Classical to the Romantic period of classical music and this particular lecture helped clarify much of what is distinct about Romantic compositions and, for Tchaikovsky, what he pulled forward in this composition from the more formal Classical period. 

Was it a Winning Wednesday for me at the casino?

No. 

But that didn't dampen the fun I had driving, listening to Robert Greenberg, enjoying a light lunch at the Red Tail Bar and Grill, and skipping around the casino floor in search of the lucky machine I never found! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-07-2026: Several Silver Valley Stops, Debit Card Doesn't Go in Cash Slot, Stimulating Book Club Discussion

1, I spent time late this morning and on into the early afternoon taking care of things: paid the water bill; paid the City of Kellogg bill; took cardboard boxes to the dump; drove to Wallace to add miles on the Camry so I could get our wheels retorqued; fueled the car. 

Nothing revolutionary.

Nothing exciting. 

Just necessary and satisfying. 

2. Debbie and I drove to Spokane to attend the Science/Nature Book Club at Auntie's Bookstore. 

I seem to have decided that this otherwise easy and relaxing trip needed a shot of weirdness. 

I parked the car in the lot at Main and Stevens and when I went to pay for the parking pass to put on our dashboard, I put my debit card in the (unmarked) slot meant for paper currency. 

The machine ate my card. At some point later on, a parking lot employee will open up that machine and find my debit card.  

It'll be dead. 

Debbie paid for the parking pass and I called the credit union, put my lost card out of its misery, and I'll order a new one with another call Wednesday morning.

I did my best to put my careless mistake behind me so we could enjoy our bowls of curry at the Mango Tree.

3. The Book Club meeting began at 6:00. 

The people in the group were easy to be with and the discussion got better and better as our meeting progressed. 

We entered into substantial discussion about wildness in the midst of the toxic impact we humans have on land, water, and air and, in turn, on plants, fish, animals and other living things. 

The book inspired club members to refer to other books they've read (or that the club has read) and I enjoyed finding out about books I hadn't heard of and a few that I did know about. 

I thought telling the book club that I was from Kellogg was appropriate to our discussion. Not all the club members knew that Debbie and I live in a Superfund site. I know that much of the rehabilitation of the Silver Valley is from constructive human intervention: trees planted, soil replaced, slag piles removed, and so on. 

What I don't know -- and don't know if I'm capable of observing or discovering -- is whether wild plant life, damaged in the past, has made its way back the way Christopher Brown writes about this happening in the empty lot he purchased and had remediated. I don't know much about native plant life in this area, how much of it has been damaged, and what evidence one can find of it coming back to life again. 

I know that many of the trees, flowers, and other vegetation in and around Kellogg are beautiful, but not wild. 

So, I'm curious. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-06-2026: I Finish *Empty Lots*, I Didn't Watch Tonight's Basketball Game, I Didn't Watch Games 6 and 7 of the '75 World Series

1. By about 8:00 tonight, I finished the book, A Natural History of Empty Lots and its detailed and often meandering (which I enjoyed) exploration of history, philosophy, urban blight, wildness, economics, the business world, and, among much else, the fraught relationship between human beings and the natural world. 

One aspect of the book is Christopher Brown's telling the story of his vision of having a half-buried house built that is as integrated as much as possible into the natural world of the empty urban lot he purchased. His dream becomes a reality and Brown helps us see the joys and challenges of living in this house. 

I went online in search of images of his bunker house and it's a remarkable feat of architectural and ecological imagination. 

2. The book took priority for me over tonight's Michigan/UConn NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game. More than being involved with this game, I wanted to have the book finished and thought about before the Tuesday, April 7th Book Club meeting at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane. 

Now I'm very curious what the members of this book club will have to say about this book. I have no idea where the discussion might go. 

3. Not watching the basketball game this evening reminded me of how I didn't watch Game 6 of the 1975 World Series and so missed bearing witness to Carlton Fisk's eternally famous 12th inning home run to win that game -- nor did I see Bernie Carbo's dramatic pinch hit three run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning that tied up this epic game. 

The night was October 21, 1975. I was a senior at Whitworth College and I spent that evening studying for a midterm exam coming up the next evening in the Renaissance and Reformation class I was taking from Dr. Fenton Duval. My studies took priority over, say, heading over to Rich Brock's dorm room and watching this game with him. 

I loved that course and I wanted to be fully prepared for whatever questions Dr. Duval would pose on that exam. Because it was an evening course, I also missed Game 7 of that World Series. 

I was sitting in a classroom writing my midterm exam. 

I aced it. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-05-2026: Resurrection Rice-A-Roni, Ham Dinner for Easter, Gratitude

 1.  Carol assigned Debbie and me to bring a rice dish to our Easter Day family dinner and Christy requested that we bring Do It Yourself Rice-A-Roni, a dish I've prepared several times. 

I don't know if I used a different recipe today or if I messed something up as I put the ingredients together, but after about a half an hour of cooking, at the time the recipe indicated the Rice-A-Roni would be cooked, it wasn't. 

Debbie, thank goodness, intervened and on this Easter Day we resurrected the seemingly dead Rice-A-Roni. 

Debbie also baked a loaf of egg bread, another food item that fell into the Easter Day category. 

About the bread dough, before it went in the oven, Debbie could joyfully proclaim: "It is risen." 

2. We took our rescued and resurrected Rice-A-Roni over to Carol and Paul's where we joined Carol, Paul, Christy, Taylor, Bucky, and Cosette for dinner. 

Paul prepared a vegetable plate and a cracker plate and made a white bean and pea dip for our appetizer. 

We filed into the dining area and sat down to a dinner of baked ham (Carol), a vegetable casserole (Christy), Resurrection Rice-A-Roni (ahem), and deviled eggs (Cosette). Carol served us each a tidy bowl of fresh strawberries topped with one of the Dream Whip products. 

3. I left dinner today feeling grateful that Cosette and family are doing very well; that Zoe and Molly also are doing well in their work and in the other aspects of their lives; that Carol and Paul's nieces, Taylor and Carly are both pregnant with their first babies and all reports about their lives are good. 

Adrienne sent us an Easter portrait of Jack and Eloise and they are healthy and happy in the picture and I know they, too, are doing well.

Molly also sent an Easter portrait of Olivia, David, and Ana. Just like Jack and Eloise, they look beautiful, healthy, and happy. 

Grateful indeed. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-04-2026: Basketball Wagers, Nature as Resource and Spiritual Source, We Continue to Move Into Our House

 1. Early in this college basketball season when Michigan creamed Gonzaga, I said to someone (or maybe just to myself!), "I ought to drive over to Spokane Tribe Casino and use some of my stupid money that I keep in my stupid money envelope and bet right now on Michigan to win the whole tournament." 

Of course, I didn't do it. 

And there's no guarantee that Michigan will defeat UConn to win the title Monday night. 

But, it's fun to imagine what might have happened had I turned my musing into action. 

By the way, once the brackets were set, I did make one bet on the men's tournament. Ha! I wagered that Arizona would win it all. 

Oh, well. 

(Again. Ha! My one other wager was on the UConn women's team.)

2. As I read further into A Natural History of  Empty Lots, author Christopher Brown continues to explore the enduring questions, questions in play since the Puritans settled in New England: is undeveloped wilderness land really wasted land? Or does undeveloped land have an intrinsic spiritual value? 

I've struggled within myself with this question for nearly sixty years. 

3. We moved into the house we live in back in October, 2017. 

We are not done moving in yet -- which makes me wonder if anyone ever really finishes this job! 

Debbie and I are rethinking the front bedroom (Vizio Room) and we are considering a couple of improvements to our patio. Debbie put up new curtains today in the living room. The basement is always unsettled. Is it time to switch beds between the main floor bedroom and the upstairs one? 

We'll never settle things permanently in this house, just like we never did in the other two places we lived! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-03-2026: Book Club at The Lounge, Relationships Between Books, Red Curry for Dinner

1. Debbie and I are both reading A Natural History of Empty Lots. We are both having a great experience. Debbie joined me at The Lounge shortly before five this afternoon. Ed and I had had a great hour or so yakkin' about all kinds of stuff before Debbie arrived. Debbie and I launched into a discussion of Empty Lots, as far as we've read.  The book is taking us out of our usual way of experiencing the world and challenging us to be more attentive, take charge of how we employ our senses, to be open to surprise, and to resist habitual ways of thinking and doing things as well as to resist the ways entities, especially money making ones, provide us with prefabricated responses to the world around us and how we think about it. 

2. A fun aspect of our discussion while seated at the bar was how this book calls up memories of other books we've read. For Debbie, the book connects to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I keep going back in my mind to Bill McKibben's book The End of Nature and Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist. 

I'll just say that I'm fascinated much more by the disorder, not the order, of the natural world and the biological aspects of the human world. Miller's book explores this. In addition, when I first read McKibben's book in 1989 it accelerated my interest in and curiosity about the relationship between human beings and the natural world and I've read a lot of books and articles about this subject since then.  

3. Before heading up to The Lounge around 3:30, I baked a block of tofu cubed and I made a red curry sauce. Once back home, I cooked a variety of vegetables in the red curry sauce and added in the tofu along with some kaffir lime leaves. 

I prepared a pot of basmati rice, too, and once the vegetables were tender, Debbie and I prepared ourselves delicious bowls of medium spicy red curry sauce over the vegetables and rice. 

We then balanced out having eaten spicy food with small bowls of Extra Triple Fudge Brownie ice cream. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-02-2026: Urban Walking, Urban Fossils and Shark Teeth, Debbie Fixes Chicken Dinner

 1. It could be called anarchy walking. I prefer "anarchy walking" to its more high-minded name, "psychogeography". Basically, this idea challenges us, when in an urban environment, to resist walking the ways the city (legitimately) lays out for us, to resist the streets and routes that, by design, lead us to where money is transacted (shops, banks, restaurants, etc.) and seek out other routes where non-commercial surprises exist, like small swaths of wild vegetative growth, birds and animals we might not think of as city dwellers, micro-ecosystems existing in the midst of discarded concrete chunks, abandoned cars, and other examples of urban blight. We might follow Christopher Brown's lead and explore empty lots in urban areas. (As a reminder, I'm reading Christopher Brown's book, A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places.)

The aim of this kind of walking is to widen one's range of observation and to marvel at the wildness that exists and survives in unexpected places. 

2. Christopher Brown's bushwhacking in creek beds and peering closely at areas on the edges of Austin, TX that were once at the bottom of a a pre-historic sea results in him finding fossils, shark teeth, and other evidence of prehistoric animal and marine life in amongst tires, soda bottles, beer cans, concrete chunks, and other 21st century trash heedlessly cast to the ground or in the water. 

3. Christy joined Debbie and me for a delicious dinner of baked chicken, baked yams, and steamed kale. I joked and asked what kind of ice cream we'd have for dessert and Debbie laughed, bemoaned that even though she'd thought of ice cream while at Yoke's today, she didn't buy any.

Suddenly she rose up, grabbed her keys, and dashed to the Camry, barreled to Yoke's, and before Christy and I knew it, she arrived back with a half-gallon of Extra Triple Fudge Brownie ice cream, served us each a small bowl, and my evening and its culinary pleasures were now complete. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-01-2026: What Makes Marriage Fun For Me

 I'm not an April Fool's guy, so these 3BTs are all straight, no pranking. 

1. Here's what makes marriage fun for me.  

I've been going to Spokane the last couple of months to hear classical music concerts -- the Gonzaga Symphony, the Spokane String Quartet, and the Spokane Symphony and I've been attending lectures about the Spokane Symphony concerts presented at the Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane and an hour before each concert. 

Until Sunday, because Debbie was in either New York or Virginia, she wasn't with me at any of these events. 

Together again, we attended the lectures and Sunday's concert together. I initiated this outing. 

As I wrote earlier this week, after Sunday's concert, Debbie suggested that I be in charge of choosing cultural things for us to do and she'd take charge of travel. 

I happily agreed. 

Two days ago, Debbie was on the Auntie's Bookstore (in Spokane) website and saw that the bookstore supports several book clubs, including one that meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. It's the Science and Nature Book Club. 

Debbie muscled in 🤣🤣 on my gig as the Minister of Culture and suggested we participate in this club on April 7th. 

"That sounds great!" I responded and I could feel that my world was about to expand. 

2. A few years ago, I went on a glorious bender reading books about animals: whales, salmon, beavers, cougars, the octopus, eels, and other more general books about animals. From time to time back in my teaching days I assigned books and readings about the relationship between human beings and nature including Into the Wild and Into Thin Air by John Krakauer and Dan O'Brien's Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch.  These are all science and nature books. 

I'm stoked for Tuesday. 

The Science and Nature Book Club will be discussing A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places by Christopher Brown. 

3. My copy arrived today and I dove right in. Christopher Brown is a keen observer of animals, birds, reptiles, plants, trees, and, well, in short, the natural world and now has written this book about natural wildlife in crummy neglected empty lots and other places in Austin, TX you wouldn't think of as sites to marvel at nature.  He built a house on one of these empty lots near an industrial park and began to observe all the wildlife activity around him in urban areas one might call wastelands or urban edgelands. 

I'm not even a hundred pages in and I've learned more about feral parakeets, mesquite trees, coyotes, hawks, egrets, herons, an array of wildflowers, the history of empty lots, and more than I had ever known before. And that's just for starters. 

My world has, indeed, expanded in invigorating and unexpected ways. 

I hope what you see in this post is that without me, Debbie never would have heard the symphony lectures we attended nor the Sunday concert and without Debbie, I would never have considered this book club nor this book. 

It makes marriage fun. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-31-2026: Winter Tires Off, Spring Clean Up of Our Yards, I Stir Fry Our Dinner

 1. It's a fairly quick job I look forward to having completed every year around this time: today the guys at Silver Valley Tire removed the Camry's snow tires and put the other ones back on. I lifted the winter tires up to the storage loft in our garage and now I won't have to do another swap until about November. 

2. Today was also the first day of 2026 of having the crew who takes care of yard visit. They did a comprehensive spring cleaning, mowed, bagged up cuttings and other debris, and applied fertilizer. They worked for quite a while and both our front and back yard look really good. 

3. If I'm not mistaken, tonight I fixed dinner for Debbie and me for the first time since her return. 

It felt great to put the wok back into action. I prepared Thai wheat noodles and stir fried chicken tenders, potstickers, zucchini, yellow squash, celery, green beans. red pepper, and mushrooms and fixed a stir fry sauce to pour over this food. 

It's been almost six months since I've cooked for the two of us and it made me very happy that Debbie thoroughly enjoyed dinner -- and I liked it too!                                                                                                                                                                                          

Three Beautiful Things 03-30-2026: My World Expands, Copper Wants My Company, A Refreshing and Delicious Family Dinner

 1. When Debbie goes away, whether on short trips or longer stays, I get along at home just fine. I'm self-driven to cook, read, learn new things, maintain stimulating exchanges with friends online, explore the arts at home and in Spokane, and I have relaxing times at The Lounge and when I go spin reels and eat bar and grill food I enjoy at one of the casinos. I enjoy Sibling Outings with Christy and Carol and our weekly family dinners. And, it goes without saying, I always have the warm and reliable companionship of Copper and Gibbs.

But when Debbie returns home, my world expands. She's read books I don't know about, She has ideas regarding things to do together I haven't thought of. I often fall into cooking ruts (enjoyable ones, but ruts all the same) and Debbie brings welcomed and different ways of cooking and does things in the kitchen she's learned while away. 

It was that way today. We have extended and healthy periods of silence when we retreat into our own worlds at home and have little to say to each other. But then something pops up. Debbie tells me about a book written by a man who became obsessed with empty urban lots of land in Austin, TX. I think of something from the music we enjoyed Sunday and I tell her what's on my mind. Debbie comes home from Walmart where she's run into a friend, comforted a neighbor, and talked to former students. She tells me good stories. So, yeah, I try to expand my experience in and knowledge of the world daily. I do a decent job of it when I'm living alone. 

But with Debbie back home, with the meeting of our minds, my world becomes much more expanded. 

2. As Copper ages, he seems to want my company more and more. He never has been an affectionate cat and that remains true. But, as I write this, lying on my back on the bed, he purrs, resting about six inches away from me, careful not to make contact with me from my waist to the top of my head. When I get under the covers and lie on my back, Copper will press himself against one of my lower legs, but he won't press against me in any other way. 

He does, however, like it a lot when I pet him or rest a hand on his back, side, or belly. 

So, today, he meowed quite a bit and decided he was beseeching me to come into the bedroom with him. I assumed the prone position on the bed and rested my hand under his chin and he relaxed and closed his eyes, looking like he'd just eaten a package of catnip. 

He was quiet, at peace, and content.

He fell asleep.

I stayed with him for about an hour or so and Copper's body language conveyed to me that I'd done just what he wanted. 

We were both very happy. 

3. Christy expanded my world this evening. She hosted family dinner and assigned Debbie and me to bring halved hard boiled eggs, steamed asparagus, and sliced tomatoes as contributions to a Roasted Salmon Nicoise Platter. With the platter's salmon, asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce, cold cooked potato slices, capers, and a vinaigrette spread out before us, we each made our own salad. Carol baked bread to accompany our meal. 

I'd never had this exact meal before. 

Before we served ourselves from the Nicoise spread, we enjoyed pickled vegetables, cheese, crackers, and cheese spread for an appetizer. Christy baked brownies for dessert and I accepted her offer of vanilla ice cream to accompany it. I never got around, darn it, to munching a few Easter M&Ms Christy also made available. 

This was a fun and refreshing dinner. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-29-2026: Pre-Concert Lecture, Debbie and I Enjoy Classical Music with Our Eyes and Ears, We Agreed to Each Have a Ministry in Our Marriage

 1. Debbie and I piled into the Camry early this afternoon and zoomed to the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox to attend today's performance by the Spokane Symphony.  We arrived in plenty of time to park, stroll to 1st and Monroe and enter the northside door, pick up our tickets at will call, and find a seat close to the stage for the pre-concert lecture. 

Today's soloist was the Spokane Symphony's concertmaster, Mateusz Wolski. He and Conductor James Lowe opened the lecture with Lowe interviewing Wolski about what he enjoys about Edouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, Op 21 the concerto that would feature him. Wolski explained how Lalo's piece veers between different emotional poles and how it is infused with the energy Spain and the vitality of its culture. 

The program also featured Fannie Mendelssohn-Hensel's only published orchestral composition, Overture in C Major and James Lowe lamented how prevailing ideas about women sabotaged Mendelssohn-Hensel's career as a composer. He helped us see how the overture moves from tentative and searching to exuberant and confident by the end. This overture is not often performed and I was very happy to get to hear it today. 

Fannie Mendelssohn-Hensel's younger brother, the wildly famous Felix Mendelssohn, had his masterpiece, Symphony No 3 in A Major, the "Italian", end the program. James Lowe explained how each movement of this symphony represents a different Italian city (Venice, Rome, Florence, and Naples) and a different facet of Italian identity (boundless energy, spirituality, cultural refinement, gritty and chaotic energy). 

2. Debbie and I always give anything like a concert, play, movie, art gallery, or museum that we experience together time to sink in, time to take hold in us before we talk about it. 

Once we arrived home, we talked.  We discovered that both of us loved hearing this music played live and that we both were as absorbed by watching the musicians, using our eyes and our ears together to figure out where certain sounds were coming from, and were, in some ways, as fascinated by musicians who did very little during some pieces, but then were called into action (after a long wait) whether they played a triangle, a snare drum, or a piccolo. 

Until today, I never knew Debbie watched orchestral concerts as well as listened to them and I had a blast going back and forth with Debbie, telling each other our visual observations and what we found pleasing to our ears, too. 

3. Not long after returning to the Camry, we made an agreement. From now on, for the most part, Debbie will be the travel planner of our marriage and I will be in charge of cultural outings.

Both of us are stoked to carry out the missions of our ministries. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 03-28-2026: Book Donation Project, Right! I Bought that Movie!, Poppers and Salad

1. It's been fun remembering my pleasure when I read the books I'm packing up to donate to Better World Books -- a Certified B Corporation that advances the causes of sustainability and literacy globally through its sales of mostly donated used books and other materials. I've been a customer of Better World Books for about fifteen years and always been very happy with their selections and the condition of the used books I've purchased from them. 

2. As I worked my way through the bookshelves, I'd forgotten about a few items I had in my possession. One example connects with the presence of Leonard Oakland in my life lately, mainly through his Sunday morning radio program. 

I'd forgotten that a few years ago I bought a DVD of the movie A Thousand Clowns, a movie Leonard was very excited about.  On a movie night in Cowles Auditorium at Whitworth about fifty years ago, Leonard introduced this movie with great passion and insight and then not only did the movie live up to his enthusiasm, it became one of my favorite movies of all time. 

I was thrilled today to remember I'd purchased it and that this project I'm working on resulted in me unearthing it. I played the opening ot the movie and WOW! can I ever hardly wait to watch the whole thing again. 

3. We had a fun snack-y dinner tonight. On a whim, Debbie bought a package of jalapeno poppers that the meat department at Yoke's puts together. I enjoyed the heat, cheese, and bacon. I continue to work my way through the vegetables Debbie cut up the other day to make salads with. Cool salad. Spicy poppers. Everything in balance! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-27-2026: Donating Books, Ed and I Meet at The Lounge, Debbie Arrives a Little Later

 1. I made progress today in deciding which books to pack up and ship as donations to Better World Books. I'm beginning to fill some boxes. 

2. Ed and I met at The Lounge around 3:45 this afternoon. He's had concerns about the stability of two large trees on his property and today a crew came out and took them down, a huge relief for Ed. He admired the crew's workmanship and showed Cas and me videos of the work being done. Impressive. 

3. Ed left after a couple of beers and I stayed at The Lounge, knowing Debbie was going to walk up from the Beanery where she went to relax, possibly knit, possibly read a book, possibly have conversations. 

She arrived and it was fun to watch her continue her reentry into life in Kellogg. She's already reconnected with friends, attended Christy's book club, shopped at Walmart (where she ran into people she knows from Pinehurst Elementary), and she visited The Lounge last Saturday. 

Today she joined a table to talk with some regulars at The Lounge, like Candy and Gloria, and Harley came up to the bar and we got in a good session of yakking about all kinds of things: transporting cars, the food pantry at the Elks, the opening of the bar in the basement of the Elks, surprises created by revelations provided by  services like ancestry.com, and other subjects, all including stories, questions, and thoughtful reflection. 

I was at The Lounge for nearly four hours -- my longest stay in a long time and I walked out and drove home cold sober thanks to the wondrous non-alcohol content of Bud Zero. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-26-2026: So Many Uplifting Connections!, Return to Great Harvest Bread Company, The Scoop Again -- Why Not?

1. I'm going to reflect for a few sentences on how things in life can serendipitously connect and bring about joy. 

The series of connections I'm thinking about began when I had kidney transplant surgery in May, 2024.

This surgery required frequent follow up visits to Providence Sacred Heart for bloodwork and appointments with the transplant team. Later on, I had the labs drawn at Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene. 

At some point in 2025, I decided while making these frequent trips to Coeur d' Alene and Spokane that I would listen to the Symphony Hall channel on Sirius XM in the car. 

I not only enjoyed the music, I also very much enjoyed the work of the morning host, Colleen Wheelahan and began to listen to her routinely on Sirius XM in the mornings at home.  Soon I discovered she also hosts a classical music program on Louisville Public Radio that starts at 3:00 p.m. PST and I began tuning into it as well. 

My days began to be taken up with reading from books and listening to lectures about classical music. 

In the meantime, in April of 2025, Carol planned our month's sibling outing to take place at the Museum of Art and Culture in Spokane. 

Deeply impressed that day, I became a member of the museum. 

Joining the museum meant that the museum sent me a monthly newsletter and back in January I noticed something in the newsletter I hadn't seen before.

On Thursdays at noon, when there are upcoming weekend performances by the Spokane Symphony, the conductor, James Lowe, gives a lecture at the museum about the upcoming symphony program. 

In mid-January I went to his lecture, even though I couldn't go to that weekend's symphony, and I was blown away.

So, today, thanks to a kidney transplant, frequent follow up trips out of town, the Symphony Hall channel, Carol planning an impressive visit to Spokane's Museum of Arts and Culture, joining the museum, reading their newsletter,  the magic of audible.com and the Great Courses, reading material, and thanks to having been so impressed with two other James Lowe lectures, today I drove to Spokane to hear his lecture on this weekend's symphony program. Upon returning home, I bought Debbie and me tickets to hear this weekend's program on Sunday afternoon at the Fox Theater. 

2. I can add one other piece to this uplifting bunch of connections. 

Time after time after time that I drove to Providence Sacred Heart for follow up labs and appointments, I then drove to Great Harvest Bread Company for coffee and a treat, most often a muffin. If my visits to Sacred Heart ended later in the day, I dropped into Great Harvest for a sandwich. 

After today's invigorating lecture ended, I headed straight up to E 29th and S. Southeast Blvd to Great Harvest. I purchased a loaf of Farmhouse Bread for Debbie and me and ordered a turkey sandwich on Dakota bread and polished it off with a soft, sweet, and salty Salted Caramel cookie. 

It was an awesome lunch and the many warm feelings I have about this place and how much I enjoyed it after all those appointments returned. 

3. In the spirit of everything's connected, thanks to this week's Wednesday sibling outing and our visit to The Scoop, I returned there today and enjoyed a scoop of chocolate-y Eat the Billionaires and a scoop of Vegan Oatmilk Oatmeal Cookie ice cream, a perfect match. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-25-2026: Sibling Outing to St. John's Cathedral, Cannon Hill Park, Beef Noodles

All this happened on Wednesday. 

 1. First, a quick reminder. 

Our 2026 Sibling Outings focus on visits to Spokane. 

Today, Carol was in charge of our outing and led us on a foray into the Cliff Cannon neighborhood. We started with breakfast at Little Euro, just a block or so away from what was, for me, the heart and soul of our outing, St. John's Cathedral where we worshipped at the 12:00 Rite II Eucharist service. 

Once inside this Gothic Revival building for a while, we learned that the 12:00 Eucharist would be held in the Guild Room. The usual worship spaces were closed. They were being spiffed up in advance of Holy Week and Easter Day. 

So, about a dozen of us sat around a rectangular table and the Dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev. Heather VanDeventer, guided us through a Rite II Eucharist and, lo and behold, Carol volunteered to read the Epistle, a passage from Hebrews, and I volunteered to read the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah. 

I've been out of touch with Episcopalian life and with the worldwide Anglican Communion for just about six years. I was very protective of myself during the pandemic, fell out of the habit of driving to CdA to worship at St. Luke's, and I haven't pushed myself back into that routine again. 

So, I didn't know that today was a momentous day in the Church of England and Anglicanism globally. 

First of all, today was the Feast Day of the Annunciation, celebrating the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would conceive Jesus. 

The celebration of this momentous day in the history of the church was, appropriately, also chosen as the day when the first ever woman, Bishop Sarah Mullally, was installed as the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Click on this link to read more about the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.)

Dean Heather VanDeventer gave a terrific homily today that paralleled the call to service Mary received on this day and the call the (now) Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally also received on this day. Most of all, I enjoyed learning that central to Archbishop Mullally's vocation is her devotion to the understanding that all of us are pilgrims in our faith, journeying together in our walk of faith, equals in the eyes of God, sharing the experience of not having arrived, but being on a road to understanding and service. 

2. We drove a short distance from the cathedral to Cannon Hill Park. 

I'd never been to this handsome, elegant park before. 

Its most attractive feature for me was its pond. I could have walked around the park, but ever since leaving Eugene, OR and Greenbelt, MD, I've yearned for a pond I could travel to easily and yearned to sit and watch ducks and geese and whatever waterfowl might also pop in for a visit.

So, that's what I did. 

I sat still.

Quiet. 

And I watched the birds and dreamed a bit about how fun it would be to live near this spot and walk the circumference of the pond and enjoy the water, trees, and the birds. 

We left the park and went to The Scoop ice cream parlor on W. 25th and Monroe, thus wrapping up our outing with delicious and refreshing ice cream. 

3. Back home, Debbie slow cooked a chuck roast on the stove top which she then turned into a superb beef and egg noodle dish. 

This delicious bowl of my favorite cut of beef, some vegetables, noodles, and a savory broth, brought this significant and fulfilling day to a close. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-24-2026: Salsa, Fresh Salad, Remembering and Laughing

 1. All I really wanted for breakfast this morning was salsa. I boiled red potatoes cut into chunks, fried them with onion and mushrooms, and then scrambled four eggs. Debbie wanted this breakfast, too. She was also hungry for salsa. The Trader Joe's salsa I bought last Friday is a little hotter than medium and I loved it on this mess of food I prepared. 

2. All I really wanted at dinner time was a fresh garden salad and I fixed myself one with the vegetables Debbie had cut up yesterday and some romaine lettuce. I ate this salad after enjoying a serving of elbow macaroni and all I really wanted on the macaroni was butter, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. 

That worked. 

3. All I really wanted to do when I read Rich Brock's miraculous response to one of my 3BTs yesterday was make him laugh. 

First, the miracle. I wrote yesterday about things I used to know but that have, in Billy Collins' words, "decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain". I've forgotten them. 

As an example, I wrote that I had forgotten the starting lineup of the 1968 San Francisco Giants, a fact, even as it changed during the season, that I could have rattled off during the explosive summer of my 14 year old season in Babe Ruth as easily as I breathed. 

Miraculously, Rich went to a Giants/Reds game in the tumultuous summer of 1968 and still had the scorecard and sent me the Giants' starting lineup from that day. 

It was a miracle! 

Reading those names reminded me of when, at Whitworth, Rich and I could just say the names of certain players, and, thanks to their mediocrity or what they looked like on a baseball card, we'd make each other laugh just by saying Don Mossi or Gus Triandos. 

So, when I commented back to Rich with the names George Alucik, Claude Raymond, Bobby Bolin and others, all I really wanted to do was make him laugh. 

It worked.  

He answered with the names Clay Dalrymple and Frank Taveras. 

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Three Beautiful Things 03-23-2026: Bursts in the Kitchen, Moroccan Family Dinner, Family Dinner Invigoration

1. I'd have to say that Debbie and I take over the kitchen in bursts. Debbie is on a burst right now. She volunteered without pause to fix hummus, our contribution to tonight's Moroccan family dinner, chopped up a cornucopia of vegetables for future salads, and purchased a chuck roast at Yoke's which she has already planned to fix for Wednesday's dinner. 

2. Lately, Carol has had a burst of ideas for family dinner when it's been hers and Paul's turn to host. The last time she hosted we had an Asian meal focused on miso congee and tonight she created a menu of Moroccan food. 

At the center of our dinner was Carol's Moroccan Vegetable Tangine seasoned with spices I cannot name, but that were wondrously delicious. Christy contributed a superb Rice Pilaf and Debbie prepared a distinctive Moroccan Hummus that went beautifully with a flatbread Carol prepared called Aloo Paratha. 

Carol offered us a bowl of almonds and figs for dessert, a perfect conclusion to this tasty and, at least to me, adventurous meal. 

3. It turned out that Debbie and Paul are both using apps to learn languages. Debbie is chipping away at German and Paul has dived into French. The news of their ventures opened up one of my favorite family dinner discussions of all time as we talked about how different languages function, the relation of languages like French, German, and Latin to English, and what approaches to learning a new language work best. 

I realized during this discussion how much I've forgotten over the last nearly fifty years since the study of English grammar, German for reading knowledge, French, and even a summer of Latin study was a central part of my academic life along with studying literature. 

I wasn't particularly good at language study, but I learned a lot that fascinated me. Over the years, in the same way I can no longer name the starting lineup for the 1968 San Francisco Giants, things I once knew have receded and tonight I missed having had that knowledge, but the discussion invigorated me and some of what I used to know began to wake up.  

It also invigorated me after Debbie opened her Christmas gifts 🎄🎅🤶 when Paul came over where I was sitting and had me read a passage from Days of Awe and Wonder,  a book by Marcus Borg, a now deceased emeritus professor at Oregon State University and a Christian thinker and scholar to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for his clear, sane, generous, and wide-minded writing about Christianity. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-22-2026: Leonard Oakland Reads Billy Collins, Momentary Fright, Debbie Cooks Pork Chops

 1. At 10:00 this morning, via the magic of streaming, I listened to Leonard Oakland's Sunday morning radio program, "Morning Classical" at spokanepublicradio.org. He played a series of familiar and often uplifting compositions and he read a superb poem by Billy Collins entitled, "Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales". The poem took us into the joyful experience of hearing certain music that makes us soar. To read this ecstatic poem, go to the bottom of this post. 

2. I think this happened after midnight early Sunday morning. I was sleeping peacefully and suddenly the sound of footsteps in the house startled me awake. I knew those footsteps were human and it wasn't Gibbs prancing around. I was a little rattled. Who could possibly be walking just outside where I sleep? Suddenly my head cleared.

Oh yeah. 

Debbie's back home.  

3. So, yes, I'm getting used to not being alone in the house at night and during the day. 

Today, Debbie told me she'd fix dinner tonight. 

I loved hearing this. 

While I enjoy cooking and rarely ate out while Debbie was gone, Debbie has approaches to cooking that are different from mine and she dreams up and prepares meals I'd never think of.

They are always superb. 

Tonight, she prepared pork chops in a cream of mushroom sauce with spinach and made a terrific side combining red potatoes, green beans, chicken broth, and bacon. I might have missed ingredients in these descriptions, but you get the idea. 

Sharing tasks. 

It makes being back under the same roof enjoyable and often restful. 

Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales

It was not the five Mississippi Blind Boys

who lifted me off the ground

that Sunday morning

as I drove down for the paper, some oranges, and bread.

Nor was it the Dixie Hummingbirds

or the Soul Stirrers, despite their quickening name,

or even the Swan Silvertones

who inspired me to look over the commotion of trees

into the open vault of the sky. 

No, it was the Splendid Nightingales

who happened to be singing on the gospel

station early that Sunday morning

and must be credited with the bumping up

of my spirit, the arousal of the mice within.

I have always loved this harmony,

like four, sometimes five trains running

side by side over a contoured landscape --

make that a shimmering, red-dirt landscape,

wildflowers growing along the silver tracks,

lace tablecloths covering the hills,

the men and women in white shirts and dresses

walking in the direction of a tall steeple.

Sunday morning in a perfect Georgia. 

But I am not here to describe the sound

of the falsetto whine, sepulchral bass,

alto and tenor fitted snugly in between;

Only to witness my own minor ascension

that morning as they sang, so parallel,

about the usual themes,

the garden of suffering,

the beads of blood on the forehead,

the stone before the hillside tomb,

and the ancient rolling waters

we would all have to cross some day. 

God bless the Sensational Nightingales,

I thought as I turned up the volume, 

God bless their families and their powder blue suits.

They are a far cry from the quiet kneeling

I was raised with,

a far, hand-clapping cry from the candles

that glowed in the alcoves

and the fixed eyes of saints staring down

from their corners.

Oh, my cap was on straight that Sunday morning

and I was fine keeping the car on the road.

No one would ever have guessed

I was being lifted into the air by nightingales,

hoisted by their beaks like a long banner

that curls across an empty blue sky,

caught up in the annunciation

of these high, most encouraging tidings.

 -- Billy Collins

Three Beautiful Things 03-21-2026: Valerie's Celebration of Life, Meeting Debbie at The Lounge, Together is Good

 1. This afternoon Ed and I traveled together to the Blackwell Hotel in Coeur d'Alene to attend the Celebration of Life for our KHS Class of 1972 classmate, Valerie Saari (her married name: Valerie Young). Valerie lived just a block north of us once our family moved, in June of 1962, to the house Debbie and I now live in. So Valerie was a neighborhood friend as well as a fellow student at Sunnyside Elementary, Kellogg Junior High School, and Kellogg High School. 

I loved seeing all the members of our graduating class who attended -- Stu counted at least sixteen of us. 

This Celebration of Life also took me back to my first memories as a child. 

Valerie's older sister, Cheryl, is married to Bill Papesh. Bill and his step-siblings Deidre and Craig Lenhart lived next door to us when we moved into the house at 14 E. Portland. 

Craig, Bill, Cheryl, and Valerie's other sister, Joanie, were all present today and to them I was still Billy Woolum! They all chuckled at calling me Billy and switched to calling me Bill, but it was fun feeling like I was a little boy again! 

Craig Lenhart and I hadn't seen each other for over fifty years and we fell into easy and long conversation about all kinds of subjects related to when we were next door neighbors, to our days as ball players in Kellogg and, for Craig, in Spokane Valley, some of our experiences as Boy Scouts, mutual friends, and other things. 

Seeing Craig, talking with him for so long and so openly, in addition to being with life long friends from the Class of '72, talking with Chris Blickensderfer Fadness, another neighborhood friend from the old days on Sunnyside, seeing Valerie's sisters, and hearing Joanie's kind words about Valerie as she welcomed us all to this gathering made for a most uplifting and intense afternoon. 

2. On the way back to the Silver Valley, Ed and I talked about how much we enjoyed this afternoon in memory of Valerie. 

I discovered, as Ed headed into his house, that Debbie texted me that she was at The Lounge. 

So I drove right there. 

Jake, Mayo, and Craig King also came from the Celebration of Life to The Lounge and absorbed themselves in Gonzaga's men's basketball team losing its second round NCAA tournament game to Texas. 

I yakked with Debbie off and on between conversations with others and she and I continued to get caught up with each other and even began to speculate a bit about what lies ahead for us in 2026.

3. It probably goes without saying, but here I go: I'm enjoying being back under the same roof with Debbie. We can talk about things when we want to. It's good to be back sharing cooking and other household tasks. Put simply, it lightens things up all the way around to be back together. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-20-2026: Debbie Arrives, House Cleaning, French Dip at Capone's

 1.  Debbie's travels have not always been smooth, but today was the exception. Her flights out of Newark and Denver left on time and she arrived in Spokane shortly after 9:00 and climbed into the Camry not long after that. What a relief. We had an easy trip from GEG to Kellogg where Gibbs and Debbie enjoyed a very happy reunion 

2. For most of the day before I left Kellogg, I continued cleaning house and kept finding different things that needed my attention. I didn't get to everything, but I felt pretty good about the floors, counters, stove, and Copper's living areas. 

3. I went to Coeur d'Alene before Spokane and didn't find what I was looking for at Costco -- no problem -- but did pick up a few items at Trader Joe's. 

When Ed and I went to Capone's last week, he ordered French dip that looked terrific and so I went in and ordered one today with a salad. 

I ordered the Chef's Choice with Swiss cheese, onions, and mushrooms and it was a great dinner. 

In summary, a great day: successful house cleaning, easy travels for Debbie, yakking with Debbie from Spokane to Kellogg, a joyful reunion for Debbie and Gibbs, and a tasty dinner at Capone's. 

And now I have a roommate again! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-19-2026: It's About Time, It's About Time II, Corned Beef Dinner from Christy

1. I arrived home Wednesday and after a while it didn't seem like the living room was properly heating up, mainly because the heat wasn't blowing into the room with the force it usually does. I pondered this problem and suddenly leveled foul language at myself! I realized I had forgotten to change the furnace's filter. I rumbled to the basement where I thought I still had filters, but I was wrong. 

This afternoon, after a guy came, sized up a job Debbie wants done, left, and I hustled to Ace and bought two filters. Back home, I replaced the filter that should have come out during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

When the furnace kicked on, the heat blasted out in the usual way and I was happy that I could text Debbie and tell her "I fixed the furnace today." 🤣🤣

I hope this all holds up. 

2. I also took everything out of the refrigerator and cleaned the interior. It was another long overdue job and it's great having a spiffy fridge again.

3. Christy cooked a belated corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and baby red potatoes dinner and gave me a generous portion of her work. One look and I knew I wouldn't eat it all, so I have a second dinner to look forward to at lunch tomorrow. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-18-2026: Casino Visit Already Covered, Flip Flop, No Brackets This Year

1. The post I wrote on Wednesday evening about March 17th made it sound like Ed and I went to the casino on St. Patrick's Day. We actually went today and anything I have to say about our trip is already posted on my 03-17-2026 entry.  

2. Having been gone all morning and half the afternoon meant that I carried out my usual morning routine of puzzle solving late in the afternoon and on into the evening. 

3. For the second year in a row, I decided, reluctantly, not to participate in Doug and Sharann Watson's annual March Madness Weighted Bracket Pool. 

It's fun, but I decided not to add something else to my life this week and I would have pretty much submitted a parody entry anyway since I haven't watched any basketball games this season nor have I followed the season very much at all. 

Now if it were a bracket of great classical music compositions, I think I would have given that a shot! 

Three Beautiful Things 03-17-2026: Insomnia? Watch Videos, Martha Stewart and God, *California Split* and Emptiness

 1. As March 16th turned into the 17th at midnight, I was wide awake and it would be another two and a half hours or so before I went to sleep. I worked the daily Wordle puzzle. I listened to Imogen Sara Smith talk for about twenty minutes about the film director Howard Hawks. I listened to Sean Fennessey give a talk about film director Robert Altman. I listened to Charlie Rose interview Robert Altman about the movie The Player and then listened to another Charlie Rose interview, this time with Mike Leigh, Brenda Blethyn, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. They discussed the movie Secrets and Lies. 

The Player (1992) and Secrets and Lies (1996) were two of my favorite movies thirty or more years ago.

I admire and enjoy how Robert Altman and Mike Leigh make movies -- they give their actors a wide range of freedom to develop their characters. Characters emerge from inside the actors rather than from a script and the result is a rare kind of authenticity and movies that are challenging and unorthodox. 

2. I napped about four different times today. In between naps, I continued, but didn't quite finish, cleaning up the kitchen. I felt gratitude that my adventures with SPICY beef broth didn't wreck our family St. Patrick's dinner and I reveled in the comments people made to me online about my farcical day in the kitchen that seemed, in the end. to have been rescued by a combination of Martha Stewart and the hand of Providence. 

3. I might be, at least for the time being, moving toward some balance in my enjoyment of the arts. For several months, I've been focused on classical music, not only listening to it, but reading more about it and listening to a series of lectures in the Great Courses series. 

This single-minded focus on classical music led me, however, back to poetry, especially a I returned to a half-forgotten anthology of poems I purchased about five years ago, The Music Lover's Poetry Anthology. 

Tonight I added a little more variety and returned to another love of my life, the movies. 

Those videos I watched about Robert Altman inspired me to watch his movie, California Split (1974). 

After I the movie ended, I went to kelloggbloggin and discovered I had watched this movie back on August 7, 2021. 

In the ensuing four and half years, the movie had almost completely left my memory, so I had the pleasure of watching it tonight almost as if I'd never seen it before. 

I had quite a bit to say about California Split back in August of 2021 and I had much the same response to the movie tonight. You can read my original response as my third BT here. 

I don't blame you a bit if you don't want to wade through what I wrote before, so here's a very condensed version of what I experienced watching this movie. 

I often wonder if we are born into emptiness and if the span of our lives is a long effort to fill the void within ourselves and make meaning, find enjoyment, and author our own purpose in life. 

I thought that was the story of the four main characters in this move. Two of them are prostitutes and the other two are gamblers, one a professional and the other more of a compulsive gambler. 

I've never gambled at the level the gamblers featured in this movie do.

I went to the Spokane Tribe Casino today with Ed so we could make our very modest bets on the NCAA men's and, in my case, the women's NCAA basketball tournaments. 

I was not seeking an adrenaline rush today. 

I was seeking relaxation and some laughs. 

I relaxed at the coffee shop with a thick slice of banana bread with nuts and a 20 oz latte. 

I wandered around the floor of the casino and many of the games I played made me laugh with their animations and gimmicks.

After playing a while, I relaxed in the Sportsbook area, long after I wagered on Arizona's men's team and UConn's women and enjoyed a smashburger and fries with a small Pepsi. My lunch was on the house thanks to my player card and the fact that today, like all Wednesdays at this emporium, was Senior Appreciation Day. 

Ed joined me, enjoyed a hot dog, and we had a relaxing conversation. 

I returned to the casino floor down twenty dollars and when I was done playing, I was even. 

Did this give me a sense of elation? No.

Was I looking to spinning reels for joy? As a way to get pumped up? As a way to fill emptiness inside me? 

No. No. No. 

But, if you watch California Split, I think you'll see that these gamblers were not relaxing, laughing, eating banana bread, or enjoying small pleasures like a latte or the music playing on the sound system or a burger and fries at lunch. 

They were looking to drink from a well that can never quench their thirst. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 03-16-2026: Swanson's Spicy Beef Broth, How Can I Reduce this Heat?, Delicious and MILDLY Spicy Family Dinner

 1. Yesterday when I wrote about the Irish stew I cooked Sunday evening for family dinner, I thought the problem with it having unwelcome heat was a pepper problem. 

Turned out not to be the case. 

I hoped to solve the pepper problem by adding more beef broth to the stew. 

So, I went to Yoke's and purchased another quart of beef broth and added a cup of it to the stew. It didn't seem to make much difference and I added another half a cup. 

Then I saw something on the box that caught my eye.

Oh no! Yesterday and today I'd purchased Swanson's SPICY beef broth. 

I didn't even know there was such a thing! 

So, sigh, my first move to reduce the spiciness of this Irish stew exacerbated the problem instead of beginning to solve it.

2. So, I wondered again: How can I cool down this stew?

One remedy I read about was to add more vegetables.

So I did: potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and green beans.

This remedy helped, but I still wanted it to be more bland. 

I'd read about adding water to a stew/soup to reduce spiciness, but I didn't want to dilute the flavor.

Then I thought, well, if water dilutes the flavor I can add more of the ingredients I've already used that boost the flavor of this stew.

I added a cup of water and then I surrendered. 

I let go.

I quit tasting the stew. 

I left it alone. 

I'd have cottage cheese and sour cream on the table as coolants, if necessary. Christy's pear and spinach leaf salad would help put out throat fires if necessary. So would Carol's soda bread. 

I also thought that this was such a vegetable rich stew that surely the flavors of the vegetables wouldn't be too compromised by a single cup of water. 

So, dinner time rolled around. I ladled out bowls of Irish stew to Christy, Carol, Paul, and Zoe. 

My stomach tightened. I could feel panic starting to rise up inside. 

Then I heard these words: 

"It's not that spicy."

"It's fine."

"It's really good."

I nearly collapsed on the floor, I was so relieved. 

That one cup of water and the added vegetables worked! 

3. We started tonight's dinner with a simple appetizer: I cut slices of Dubliner cheese and Carol brought the superb nut crackers she makes at home to go with the cheese. 

The stew recipe called for Guiness beer and I used non-alcoholic Guiness so that I could enjoy the beer I didn't use in the stew. Well, over appetizers, we all enjoyed a small glass of N/A Guiness with our cheese and crackers. 

We filed into the kitchen and, as I wrote above, ended the suspense as to whether the Irish stew was easily edible (it was!) and Christy's Irish Flag Salad and Carol's soda bread added to the excellence of this meal. 

Over the course of the evening we talked quite a bit about movies. I was the only family member who had not watched the Oscars ceremony, but we had quite a seminar on movies in 2026, movies and actors in the past, and on the Oscars telecast itself. 

We also talked about PEO geranium orders, Paul's brother and niece having been to Madison Square Garden to watch St. John's defeat UConn, and other things and had a fun time, animated by quite a bit of laughter, mostly around not being able to remember or pronounce names of people in the movie business and my deliriously funny struggles with cooking a simple Irish stew. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-15-2026: A Most Significant Poem in My Life, Too Much Pepper, House Cleaning Started

1. You and I might have something in common. 

Humor me, please, and see if what I'm about to say is also true for you. 

For most of my life, well, until today, I never gave a second's thought to why the Pied Piper of Hamelin was called "pied".

I focused on his piping and what he did with his magical pipe. 

Pied means multi-colored and the pied piper wore multicolored, patchwork clothing.

This is on my mind because today during his classical music radio program (on spokanepublicradio.org), Leonard Oakland read Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Pied Beauty".

When I was twenty years old, this poem spoke to me directly and enduringly about the nature of God. 

The glory of God lies in the world's pied beauty, its copious blend of multi-colored streaks, spots, plots, and contrasts. It lies in trout, chestnuts, finches, landscapes, trades (labor), and such opposites as sweet and sour, the dazzling and the dim, the swift and the slow and so on. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was a Jesuit priest and an innovative poet. 

I can't really articulate how I experience God, but certain poems (like certain music) help and this poem opened up a way for me to experience God that, fifty-two years ago, was transformative -- it also prepared my mind and spirit to enter into the world of Shakespeare who tirelessly explores co-existing opposites as a bedrock of reality and, like Hopkins, dives into reality's infinite variety. 

Hopkins' poem is at the end of this post. 

2.  When I host family dinner, as I will on March 16th, I strongly prefer preparing the main dish ahead of time, if possible. So, today, I made the Irish stew we'll eat on Monday.

Before I browned the beef cubes I'd cut up, I needed to flour and salt and pepper them.

In a bowl, I combined flour and salt and pepper, dropped in the meat, and browned a few batches of beef. 

I discovered later that I put too much pepper in that flour and that the stew's broth created an uncomfortable sensation of heat, not in my mouth, but in my throat. I went online and read about how to fix an over peppered stew and so on Monday I'll see if I can tame it. 

It'll help to have soda bread and a cool salad as part of our meal and I'm going to make cottage cheese available and, who knows?, if the stew is still too peppery at mealtime, I'll have sour cream out that some might like to try as a coolant. 

My hope, though, is that I can both dilute the stew a bit with beef broth and maintain its essential flavor. I know with some flour or corn starch and water, I can thicken it if need be.  I can also add carrots, celery, or potatoes to the stew and increase the amount of some of the ingredients I used to flavor it originally. 

Now a word from Captain Obvious: Having made this stew a day ahead of time gives me plenty of time to work with it more on Monday -- a significant relief.

3. Before I cooked stew this evening, I went to work on spiffing up the house. I have more to do on Monday, but some judicious sweeping and vacuuming gave me a pretty good start! 

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Three Beautiful Things 03-14-2026: Snow and a Power Outage/Onage, I Won a Drawing!, Planning for Debbie's Return

1. On Thursday, when Copper and I retired for the night, he was blissfully oblivious to the fact that it was snowing steadily and beginning to pile up. By the time I decided to rise and shine, I looked out at the front of our house and knew that rise and shine was about to become rise and shovel. 

I made myself a latte to warm up before heading out and suddenly our power went out. 

I sighed. I began the process in my head of bracing myself for another day of the house growing gradually colder and later on, darker. 

I trudged outside and began to shovel the wet and heavy snow. I paced myself. I didn't have a heart attack. After a while I finished clearing our sidewalks and Christy's. 

Back in the house, I sat down. I caught my breath. A couple of gulps of latte remained and, to my delight, my cup warming device had enough leftover juice to keep the latte pretty warm while I shoveled. 

A text message alert came from Avista. The utility company informed me that the estimated time for the restoration of our power was Sunday at noon. 

I stared blankly into the abyss for a few seconds and was about to rally myself to get going on power outage preparations when PRESTO! the power came on! 

Fifteen hours suddenly became about three minutes. 

Our power went out again later in the afternoon, but only for a few minutes -- and before a text message could come in telling me power would be restored on St. Patrick's Day. 

Right now, it's 6:30 on Saturday. 

I really hope the juice just keeps flowing into our house and into everyone else's for, oh, I don't know, the next nine months or so. 

2. The NYtimes Sunday Crossword puzzle on line is available at 3:00. 

I went to work on it, figured out this puzzle's double theme and was having fun working it.

I glanced at my email inbox and I'd received a message from a stranger with the subject line, Spokane String Quartet tickets. 

I opened it and nearly had the heart attack I hadn't had while shoveling. 

I won two season tickets for the 2025-26 Spokane String Quartet series of programs. 

Then I remembered.

I'd filled out a questionnaire at last Sunday's concert and remembered that one questionnaire participant would win season tickets. 

I won the drawing. 

I'm really happy. 

3. It's looking pretty certain that Debbie will return home this coming Friday. 

I've begun to develop a game plan for her return primarily focused on getting our house looking better. 

I'll get a head start on this project because on Monday, I host family dinner and I always try to at least give Paul, Carol, and Christy the impression that I'm not a total slob and really can sweep, vacuum, pick up stuff, clean the bathroom, wash down counter tops, and present a decent looking place to dine together. 

I'm no Mr. Clean, but I can be Mr. Pretty Clean and my efforts will begin tomorrow. 

I won't get things too clean.

I don't want anyone having a heart attack. 

Three Beautiful Things 03-13-2026: Shoveling Snow, Grocery Pick Up for Christy, Quick Beer at The Lounge

1. The high winds settled down later in the day on Thursday and then snowfall arrived. It wasn't very cold out, so I didn't have bundle up. The snow was wet, not very deep, but heavy to shovel Luckily, I still had some snow shoveling muscles left and I got both our surfaces and Christy's cleared.

2. Christy needed to stay indoors today because of the snow, but she had a couple of curbside orders waiting to be picked up at Walmart. I drove out, brought the groceries home, but I needed to go back because of an understandable human error at Walmart. Driving to Walmart was easy on the wet roads. I picked up the rest of Christy's groceries and blasted over to Silver Peak Espresso and treated myself to a triple shot sixteen ounce latte. 

3. I had quite a bit of writing to do on my Thursday blog post and took a break from it and met Ed up at The Lounge. Ed had and has a lot going on, including looking after a friend's house who left today on a trip, but whose power hadn't been restored. So Ed and I had a quick beer. He left to check on his friend's house and I came home and finished rambling on and on. I finished and posted what I'd written.