Three Beautiful Things 06-08-2026: Coconut and Pineapple and Shrimp Slaw, Copper's Vet Visit, Tonight's Family Dinner

 1. For some unknown reason, I've fallen away from consulting cookbooks to prepare meals. As a possible first step toward getting back to doing some recipe cooking again, I got out America's Test Kitchen's book, The Complete Small Plates Cookbook. 

I was the host of this evening's family dinner and assigned dishes from this book (more on this in #3). 

I assigned myself a recipe entitled, "Shrimp Tostadas with Coconut and Pineapple Slaw". 

The ingredients of this recipe piqued my interest, but I didn't want to serve tostadas. 

My original idea for an alternative was to make shrimp and slaw rice bowls, but once I made the slaw and cooked the shrimp, I didn't see any need to serve them with rice and so I served this tostada topping as a salad. 

All I had to do was combine lime zest, lime juice, and coconut milk and add it, along with pineapple pieces, to a coleslaw mix I bought at the store. I strayed away from the recipe and added feta cheese crumbles to the coleslaw. I then cooked a pan of shrimp in coconut milk and lime juice, let the shrimp cool, added it to the slaw, and, once again, strayed from the recipe by topping the slaw with cilantro. 

The recipe called for jalapeno peppers, but our family is a house divided when it comes to heat in our dishes, so I put out a jar of pickled jalapeno slices for those of us who wanted heat to add to the slaw. 

My creation worked! 

2. Today was Copper's routine wellness exam with Dr. Cook. As I very well knew, Copper is losing weight and his weight loss has accelerated over the last few months. 

He's eating. And he's losing weight. He's down to 11 pounds now and just a couple of years ago he weighted as much as 19 or 20 pounds. 

Otherwise, Copper is doing well -- his heart sounded good, he is able to jump up on my bed, and as Dr. Cook examined his eyes and ears and felt his stomach, no problems jumped out at him. 

I asked Dr. Cook to give me an estimate of how long Copper might have before he passes away. 

Dr. Cook cautiously answered me by saying that if the weight loss continues, he might not last more than 6-10 months but was quick to say that we never really know. 

We are uncertain about Copper's age, but figure he's around seventeen years old, give or take. 

I decided not to have Dr. Cook do deeper investigation into what might be causing the weight loss.

I decided Copper and I will ride out this last stage of his life together and that I won't disturb his peaceful life with poking and probing and other interventions. 

3. We gathered for family dinner this evening at chez Woolum/Diedrich at 5:00. To start, I put out mixed nuts and Christy and Paul enjoyed an orange vodka and tonic cocktail and after some conversation about gardening and other topics, we dove into our small plates dinner. 

I assigned Carol to make a traditional Greek salad loaded with tomatoes, cucumber, feta cheese, onions, and more called Horiatiki Salata and Christy made the small plates cookbook's version of Texas Caviar, known also as Cowboy Caviar around here. 

We enjoyed these dishes and everyone also seemed pleased with my decision to serve Ginger Molasses cookies from Beach Bum Bakery complimented with vanilla ice cream for dessert. 

We started doing a new thing a couple of weeks ago. The family dinner host not only assigns what food each of us is to bring, the host also gives an assignment that leads each of us to bring something to read to the others and these readings give us a source of conversation and discussion. 

I gave this assignment for today: read a passage of prose that has the properties of poetry and that you consider poetic. 

Carol read a wonderful passage from a Barbara Kingsolver essay, "Memory Place". You can find this essay in Kingsolver's book, High Tide in Tuscon. 

Paul read a fun and fascinating article from the book Success with Words on the etymology and social background of the word rub, focusing to some degree on what Hamlet means when he says, "ay, there's the rub!"

Christy read a passage from a meditation by Kate Bowler entitled, "On Anti-Blessings" (did she read the entire meditation? I'm not sure.). Bowler's piece appears in a book that Suleika Jaouad wrote that includes her own reflections and those of 100 other voices, focusing on memory, fear, love, and rebuilding entitled The Book of Alchemy. As an added bonus, because the book emphasizes the value of keeping a journal, each short essay ends with a prompt meant to spark self-discovery through journal writing. 

I reached back to the spring quarter of 1986 when I taught the Survey of British Literature at the University of Oregon and read a passage from Mary Lavin's haunting and poetic short story entitled, "The Green Grave and the Black Grave".

Debbie initiated this idea of bringing passages or poems to read to family dinner and it's been awesome. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-07-2026: All Day Reading, Introspection, The Summer of 1992

 1. With breaks now and then, I spent almost the entire day reading Lonesome Dove and am increasingly gob smacked by how adroitly Larry McMurtry expands this story, introducing new characters, intersecting story lines, and creating fresh conflicts and frightening dangers. All the while, he keeps moving us deeper and deeper into the inner life of these characters, unfolding their memories, doubts, sources of trauma, guilt, regrets, pleasures, and more. 

2. One of Lonesome Dove's prominent characters, ex-Texas Ranger Captain Woodrow F. Call, is introspective. He often separates himself from the rest of the cattle drive crew in the evening and finds a quiet place to be alone and contemplate things. 

In the part of the book I read today, Call can't keep back his memories and regrets and disappointment in himself as he thinks about Maggie, a prostitute who was strongly attracted to Call and Call did not respond to her feelings, nor has he owned up to the strong possibility that he fathered Maggie's son, Newt, now seventeen years old and a part of the book's epic cattle drive. 

I stopped reading and meditated quite a while upon this sentence from Call's inner thoughts: "[Call] wondered if all men felt such disappointment when thinking of themselves."

3. Having a nearly all-day reading session like today transported me back to the summer of 1992. I had that summer to myself and for one stretch I read books almost non-stop. I was especially enthralled by Robertson Davies' brilliant Deptford Trilogy and read it with such vigor that I barely ate. I also read Brideshead Revisited, introduced myself to the hilarious stories of P. G. Wodehouse, and read more, but the titles escape me these thirty-four years later. 

My reading spell was broken when I took off from Eugene in August and drove to Kellogg the long way around via Eastern Oregon, Boise, Sun Valley, Stanley, Salmon, and on into western Montana where I visited Wisdom, Butte, and other towns that were settings for Richard Hugo poems. I accidentally discovered upon arriving in Bozeman that Leo Kottke and David Lindley had a concert that night and it was among the best shows I've ever been to. 

As I drove, I listened to the entirety of Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell entitled, The Power of Myth. Mile after mile I was blown away and then, starting in 1993, these lectures became a central part of the classes Rita Hennessy and I taught together as a team for about three and half school years. 

I arrived in Kellogg for the KHS Class of 1972 20-year reunion, one of the very best parties I've ever been to and drew the summer to a close in September by spending eight days in Cambridge, MA, staying with Craig and Jill Thomas, and, among other things, seeing a baseball game in Fenway Park. 

What a summer that was! 

I'll keep reading, as best I can, as if it's July 1992 again. I doubt I'll do a Richard Hugo road trip this summer, but we'll see. And I know, in August, I'll enjoy another reunion with members of the Class of 1972 as we celebrate that this year the members of the Class of '72 have or will turn 72 years old. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-06-2026: Party for Beverly Jacobs, Cockroach Castle Reunion Planned, I Finished *The Horse*

 1. When Al Callahan eulogized Beverly Jacobs at the Kellogg Elks Lodge this afternoon, he made it clear that today's gathering was not a memorial, not a funeral, not even a celebration of life: it was a PARTY!

The room was packed with family, relatives, and friends and, indeed, the mood was upbeat and those attendance enjoyed the socializing, drinks from the bar, and the buffet table. 

As the party wound down, I popped over to The Lounge to lament our respective fantasy baseball woes with Cas and joined a table of friends who had come over from Beverly's party. The good cheer and upbeat vibes that began at the Elks Lodge carried over to the way people enjoyed each other at The Lounge. 

2. Liz, Jane, and I were great friends at North Idaho College and spent many lively and fun hours with Robert and Bacco (sp?) at their apartment in what became the cultural center of our lives, the Cockroach Castle. 

I haven't seen Liz since 1973 or 74. I have seen Jane as recently as about four years ago. 

But, this evening, we made a plan to have a reunion in July, along with Jane's twin sister Joan, at the Daft Badger for lunch.  It promises to be a joyous occasion! 

3. I returned home from The Lounge and immediately resumed reading Willy Vlautin's book, The Horse. 

This novel is about the tribulations, terrible decisions, and acts of love over the course of Al Ward's life.

In many ways, it's a study of the ravages of alcoholism and the terrible weight that isolation presses upon the human spirit. 

Al Ward is a guitarist and a respected and sought after songwriter who plays with a long string of ultimately doomed bands, some of whom play the casino lounge and bar circuit and some who tour well outside the confines of the Reno area. 

When Al Ward's great uncle Mel dies, he bequeaths a mine holding to Al in a remote location about four hours out of Reno. In his sixties, Al moves to the mine and lives in a rundown assay shack, writing songs, drinking tequila and beer, eating cans of Campbell's soup, and taking a daily walk. 

Out of nowhere one day, an old, blind, and scarred horse arrives, stands near the assay shack, and doesn't move, no matter the weather or anything else. 

The novel moves back and forth between, on the one hand, Al Ward reliving painful memories of suffering he endured at many stages of his life, of his long-standing addiction to alcohol, the handful of music successes he enjoyed as well as the many times bands disintegrated, the love he experienced at times, and the scores and scores of songs he composed over the past fifty years, and, on the other hand, his struggles as to what to do about this aged horse who came into his life. 

I spent the rest of Saturday, after the party, finishing Willy Vlautin's book, with occasional breaks to eat crackers, popcorn, and ramen and to work in spurts on the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-05-2026: Took It Easy Today, An Hour at The Lounge, A Bagel Dinner

1. Even though the visit was short and the news good, my visit with Dr. Bieber left me worn out. 

Yes, I did go uptown to pay bills and I did buy bagels and a Sunshine Muffin at Beach Bum Bakery, and yes, I did pick up a few items at Yoke's.

Then I napped on and off in the afternoon.

2. 3:30 rolled around and I blasted to The Lounge where Ed and I enjoyed a couple of beers and yakked about this and that. I saw Butch and Brian Moore. Cas and I did a quick rundown on our fantasy baseball fortunes. After an hour and a couple Bud Zeros, Ed and I both headed home. 

3. I sure enjoy toasting an everything bagel, spreading a layer of cream cheese on each half, topping the cream cheese with Olive Tapenade, and topping it all with hot pickled Jalapeño peppers. Just that one bagel prepared this way made a most satisfying dinner tonight and I accidentally drank a non-alcoholic IPA, Elysian's Easy Dust. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-04-2026: A Welcome Break Over the Summer, Chance Encounters, Debbie's Having a Good Visit

1. On my way to the clinic in Smelterville, I figured when Dr. Bieber walked into the examination room that he'd be in a cheery mood. 

And that he was.

As I reported last week in this blog, my labs looked solid to me and, thank goodness, to Dr. Bieber, too. 

My parathyroid number was a little high and Dr. Bieber told me to take a Vitamin D pill a couple times a week and we'll see if that brings down the number. 

Otherwise, it's clear that after two years, this new kidney is functioning very well, is at home in my abdomen, and things are going very well. 

Dr. Bieber wants to see me in three months and for the first time in at least two years, I get to enjoy a three month stretch with no blood work, no dental visits, no dermatology visits, no appointments at all (well, Copper has a check up at the vet on Monday, June 8th).

Every appointment I've had over the last two years or so has been a positive experience. 

My blood draws have been, too. 

Every professional I've seen has been easy to talk with, attentive to my questions, and consistently encouraging. 

All the same, I look forward to this break. 

2.  As I moved past page 300 today in Lonesome Dove, all of the traveling characters experienced chance encounters. Roscoe meets a feisty woman living alone as a farmer; Joe and July meet an insect expert turned evangelist; the cattle drive encounters water moccasin snakes; Elmira gets to know more about one of the men on the whiskey boat she's boarded as her means of escape from her life in Fort Smith.

All of these chance meetings deepen the story, unfold more about the characters, and have me increasingly absorbed in this epic novel. 

3. Debbie sent pictures from Cincinnati that uplifted me. Patrick, Meagan, and Debbie dined at a French restaurant and she sent a couple more pictures of views from the hills of Cincinnati looking at the moon and capturing a tender moment Patrick and Meagan shared. 

It not only makes me very happy to see Debbie enjoying her visit, I'm also very happy that Patrick and Meagan's decision to leave Portland and move to Cincinnati is working out so well. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-03-2026: Dental Cleaning, I Called Debbie, Reading Update

 1. I took a one block leisurely stroll to the dentist's office today and left with clean teeth and no problems to concern me. 

2. I called Debbie upon my return. She filled me in on Saturday's party in Roscoe, Illinois and about the relaxing time she's having in the Queen City (Cincinnati) with Patrick and Meagan. It's good to know her trip is going smoothly and that I could report that things are peachy here at the homestead. 

3. Right now, my main reading focus is back on Lonesome Dove in the daytime and once I finish the next day's NYTimes crossword puzzle in the evening.  I'm thoroughly enjoying how Larry McMurtry plots this novel as he moves between different places to develop the storylines of different characters, stories which are all happening simultaneously. I've kind of lost track. Right now I think it's a quadruple decker story, but maybe I'm shortchanging the number of stories he's got running at the same time. As the plots develop, the characters deepen, and the book, engrossing from the start, becomes more so. 

I read Willy Vlauten's The Horse when I go to bed. It's fascinating story about Al Ward, a man in his sixties, who is living in an old assay shack in a remote locale in Nevada (much like Rhys Kinnick did in Jess Walter's So Far Gone). Al looks back on his past life as a country music guitar player in various small casino and bar bands and song writer (he continues to write songs in his hermitage) and the sketchy encounters he had with different characters in the underworld of Reno. 

The novel includes a horse. This part of the book is a mystery to me right now and I'm curious to see how it shapes up. 

Our next book club selection is Our Moon and it's calling out to me to get started reading it. I just might see how it works to have three books going at once, but I might wait until I finish The Horse which is under 200 pages. I might finish it in the next day or two. 

Three Beautiful Things 06-02-2026: Paintings at the MAC, Lunch and a Surprise at Indaba, Book Group Discusses *The Mosquito*

 1. I decided to make an afternoon of it over in Spokane before our Science/Nature book group met at 6:00. My first stop was the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture where I wanted to see a new exhibit of European paintings from 1500-1900 called An Eye for Detail. I enjoyed this exhibit, especially the eyes of the subjects of the portraits and some of the humor in the different paintings. 

Most of all I enjoyed the contrast in style between the paintings in this exhibit and those in a larger room of James Lavadour's paintings in his show called Land of Origin. The European paintings were of recognizable subjects, painted in a more naturalistic style. Yes, some of the European paintings exaggerated their subjects by distorting faces and other features, but the scenes and portraits closely approximate what we would see if were at the different places or saw the person portrayed in the picture. 

By contrast, Lavadour's paintings do not represent what our eyes see when we look out over an Eastern Oregon landscape. Rather, the paintings are emotional renderings of these landscapes, focused much more on how the landscape might make us feel or on the emotional and mythological histories of these places. 

The European paintings give us the pleasure of seeing perspectives of scenes and persons familiar to us. (I can tell that's a brothel. I can tell that's Venice. I can tell that's a classroom. That's a man. That's a woman.) 

Lavadour's paintings invite us to feel danger, awe, reverence, and other subjective experiences, to think of landscapes as sources of emotion, not necessarily as sites of external beauty. 

2. I cruised N. Monroe. I'll go to Chowderhead another time once I've nailed down the relationship between apps on my cell phone and parking places! Zozo's was closed. So I returned to Kindred for a Korean beefsteak sandwich and a house garden salad. 

I headed south on Monroe to Indaba Coffee to review parts of The Mosquito in preparation for tonight's book group meeting. I enjoyed a latte and it turned out that a guy seated a few yards from me was someone I first met at Whitworth about fifty years ago when I was a senior and he was a freshman. It was Bruce Hafferkamp. I had seen Bruce in Spokane at a Shadle Park basketball game in 2017 and again in Kennewick at a Shadle baseball game in 2019 (he was the athletic director at Shadle Park High) and it was terrific to see him again and have a quick and solid conversation and an exchange of phone numbers. 

3. Members of the book group seemed to agree that The Mosquito was much more of a history book than a science or nature book. Pretty much everyone appreciated the history, but members wished he'd delved more deeply at certain junctures into the scientific aspects of the mosquito itself and other related topics that Winegard mentioned but left underdeveloped or unexplained. 

I saw the points these group members made and agreed. 

I didn't say anything about how I thought this was a fascinating nature book, especially since I think of human beings as part of nature, not outside it. In The Mosquito, we learn how mosquitos seriously and fatally affected humans who came into the mosquito's domains, but we also learned how humans affected mosquitos -- humans transport mosquitos and create breeding grounds for mosquitos by clearing land, compacting soil (creating standing water after it rains), collecting water in barrels and other containers, and in other ways. By trying to eradicate mosquitoes with insecticides (like DDT), humans also contribute to the resilience of mosquitoes as they develop resistance to these poisons. 

After attending this group for three discussions of three different books, my imagination and understanding has been most deepened by each book's examination of the relationship between humans and the soil, water, plants, animals, and insects of the non-human world of nature.

And, yet, we humans act as if we live apart from and are superior to the soil, water, plants, animals, insects, live as if they are not us, and we tend to value them for how we can use them, manage them, and/or control them, whether it's salmon, wolves, beavers, wetlands, apples, tulips, potatoes, cannabis, whales, eels, mountain lions, and more, all of which I've read books about, books which all deal in one way or another with human hubris and mercantile ambition. 

I'm left with questions, lots of questions, about human behavior and motivation, not only in humans in general, but my own behavior and motivations regarding nature, too. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 06-01-2026: Debbie is in The Queen City, *Lonesome Dove* Thickens, I'm Reading *The Horse* During *Dove* Breaks

 1. Debbie, Patrick, and Meagan arrived in Cincinnati. Patrick and Meagan's apartment has a balcony that overlooks the Ohio River and northern Kentucky and Debbie sent Christy, Carol, and me a short video and a couple of photos of the remarkable view.

By the way, it's always good news when a road trip is successful. 

2. I'm moving more deeply into Lonesome Dove and more characters, more conflicts, and more possibilities for storylines to cross are developing. I'm enjoying how McMurtry has plotted his novel so far. 

3. I've decided that I want to read a thick book at the same time I'm reading a shorter one. Last night, I started the smaller book that I will read alongside Lonesome Dove. After hearing Jess Walter interview Will Vlauen at a Northwest Passages evening a month or so ago, we bought Vlauen's latest book, The Left and the Lucky, but right now I'm reading another book we also bought, his novel The Horse. I'm a few pages in and I'm hooked. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-31-2026: The Control of Nature, A Whopper of a Family Dinner, We Understood the Assignment

1. With a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, I finished The Mosquito this evening. I'm not quite sure I can sum up what I learned from this book or what affected me most strongly -- which is to say I learned a lot and was rattled by much of what I learned about the mosquito, disease, evolution, genetics, world history, and the persistent effort of humans to control nature and how these efforts can seem successful and then often turn out to be futile or to have harmful unintended consequences. (I'm thinking at the moment of how DDT seemed to be the answer to eradicating mosquitoes, but the mosquitos adapted, the DDT became impotent, and the aggressive use of DDT turned out to have terrible consequences. as Rachel Carson examined in her transformative book, Silent Spring). 

I'll go to Auntie's Bookstore on June 2 and see what the members of the Science and Nature book group have to say about The Mosquito. 

2.  This morning before doing much else, I made a rice salad for this evening's family dinner. I already had a batch of rice in a container in the fridge and I decided I had enough good ingredients on hand that I didn't have to go to the store for anything else. So I put the rice in a salad bowl and added raw almonds, dried apricots, dried cranberries, red pepper, cucumber, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, tomato, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and olive oil.  It worked. 

I walked into Christy's house not really knowing what we were having for dinner, only that I completed my assignment to bring a salad. 

The dinner was terrific, built around a theme of spring flavors or, put another way, spring tonic foods. 

We started off with the perfectly delicious appetizer Zoe prepared: baked prosciutto-wrapped asparagus. 

Christy fixed a very tasty main dish: baked chicken breast with spring vegetables -- what spring vegetables, you might ask, did Christy bake? Radishes! Green onions! Pea pods! Cucumbers! Green beans! She made this potpourri of items zesty with lemon juice and dill. 

Carol added more zest to our meal with a side dish called Vibrant Greek Lemon Rice. That's a good name for it! It was vibrant! 

Using rhubarb snagged from our back yard, Christy made a very delicious baked rhubarb crisp and coupled it with a scoop of Oregon strawberry ice cream. 

3. Following Carol and Debbie's lead from a week ago, Christy gave us an assignment for tonight: we understood the assignment and each brought and read a favorite poem. 

Paul read two poems by e e cummings: "pity this monster, manunkind" and "next to of course god america i". 

Carol presented an Advent poem by Madeline L'Engle: "Love Incarnate Birth". 

I read a Lisel Mueller poem: "Brendel Playing Schubert".

Christy loves Judith Viorst's writing and read a poem of hers in honor of the life she lived with Everett: "The Pleasures of Ordinary Life". 

Zoe didn't bring a poem, so Paul read a sonnet he'd written to/about her several years ago. 

These poems ignited a lot of discussion and stories about all kinds of things philosophical, personal, educational, financial, theological, historical, biblical, and more. 

I left dinner stimulated and beginning to wonder if I'll come up with an assignment when I host family dinner next week . . .  stay tuned. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-30-2026: SURPRISE!!, Post-Party at The Lounge, Ah! So It's the Mosquitoes

1. The miracle to me -- and many others -- was that the secret never got out to Nancy, despite this party being planned and publicized starting five months ago! 

But, Nancy Hanson and her daughter arrived at the Elks Lodge around 3:00 and the many people gathered there erupted with a hearty SURPRISE! and Nancy had to step outside, gather herself, and walk back in as the celebration got underway in full force. 

It was a great social occasion. For those of us from the KHS Class of '72, it was a welcome opportunity to see one another.  

Partiers dove into the food laid out on tables near the kitchen and everyone had fun visiting and just feeling the good vibes of celebrating Nancy's 70th birthday. 

2. I wandered across the street to The Lounge and yakked with Cas for a while and before long Jake, Carol Lee, Tim, and Cindy strolled in we all shot the breeze at a table and after a while Ed and Nancy and an entourage of family and friends arrived, sat at another table, and the post-party party was on. 

The celebration vibes continued to build! 

3. Earlier in the day, I read another chapter of The Mosquito and I'll just say that thanks to microbiologists like Louis Pasteur, the development of the microscope, and other advances in science in the 19th century, scientists discovered that malaria and yellow fever were caused not by swamp air, but were transmitted by certain species of the mosquito. 

This was a huge breakthrough. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-29-2026: Enjoying Spokane, Loved the Palouse Highway, Birthday Shopping at the CdA Casino

1. I drove Debbie to the airport and then dilly dallied around Spokane a bit. 

I had gotten the idea in my head that Spokane's Maxwell House served breakfast and when I strolled in about an hour before opening time, a very friendly and eager to help guy behind the bar told me they open at 11:00 and don't serve breakfast. He gave me some very good suggestions for places to go (Swinging Doors, Bruncheonette, Elliot's). I thanked him and decided to go to the Wall Street Diner where I had last dined about fifty years ago when it was the Wall Street Cafe. 

I finished my Fiesta Scramble and headed down to the MAC where about nineteen European paintings I want to see are on exhibit, but today was also the first day of the museum's Artfest and I decided I didn't want to navigate the festival to get to the museum or go in search of a parking place. I'll go back on Tuesday in the afternoon before 6:00 book club and view the paintings then. 

I drove downtown to Auntie's Bookstore. I've been thinking about buying War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamozov in hardback, but I examined the paperback copies at Auntie's and decided to buy them. I could only get the hardback copies online and decided not to mess with that and buy the books right there in front of me at Auntie's. 

2.  I had an errand to take care of at the Coeur d'Alene Casino and decided to go there on a route I thought would work but I wasn't sure. I stubbornly decided not to accept the always available help of my Maps app. Instead, I drove up Grand Blvd, turned west on 29th, and then right on Southwest Blvd. Southwest ended at Regal and I headed south, hoping I'd come to an intersection with the Palouse Highway. 

I did! 

I turned in a westerly direction on the Palouse Highway, stayed relaxed, and lo and behold what I thought would be true was! The Palouse Highway took me eventually to Highway 27 and I headed south and west, through Freeman and Rockford and coasted into the parking lot of the casino. 

That drive along the Palouse Highway and on to Rockford and the casino was a gorgeous combination of evergreen trees and farmland covering rolling hills. It made me very happy not only that I tried this route, but that I succeeded in getting to my destination relying on my memory of having looked at hard copy maps and didn't solicit the help of my map. 

3. I've delayed posting this entry on my blog because it involves the gift I purchased at the CdA Casino for Nancy Hanson in celebration of her surprise 70th birthday party on May 30th and I'm hoping she's opened her card from Debbie and me -- it has the gift in it -- by the time she gets to this post. But, if this post gives the gift away before she opens it, so it goes. I tried to delay long enough! 

At the casino, I spun reels for a while and left the casino with the same amount of money I went in with -- so I played all that time for free! I also went to the Red Tail Bar and Grill and enjoyed a bowl of beef stew with a half a garden salad and ordered a chocolate sundae for dessert. I was on Cloud 9. 

On my way out of the casino I took care of the errand I mentioned earlier.  For her 70th birthday I bought Nancy Hanson a seventy dollar gaming ticket, hoping that when she puts it in a machine that she'll turn those 70 birthday dollars into 700 or 7,000 dollars of winnings! 

Wouldn't that make her 70th birthday unforgettable! 

Three Beautiful Things 05-28-2026: Morning Blood Draw, A Trader Joe's Run, *So Far Gone* Covers A Lot of Ground

1. Yes, the lab I go to for blood draws at Kootenai Health was under heavy demand from a small horde of geriatric patients like me ready to get poked and surrender urine samples. The staff in that lab, though, are peerless in their efficiency. They also exhibit grace and kindness under pressure. None of us had to wait long (I happen not to mind waiting) which made me happy primarily because I was eager make my deposits, take my pills, and dash to the coffee stand to break my fast with a latte and chocolate croissant. 

Oh! I thought the results looked as good as the tests I had done about a month ago. 

2. I really like many of Trader Joe's dips, spreads, and dressings and bought several largely in preparation for Debbie's departure on Friday. I also bought oatmeal. peanut butter, ground turkey, hamburger buns, nuts, dried fruit, and other staples for when I'm living alone to supplement the meals I cook for myself. 

3. I stayed up past midnight and finished Jess Walter's So Far Gone. 

It's not a long book, but it has a lot going on in it. It examines the impact of going off the grid on the inward life of one character; it explores family, relationships within the family, the rifts that develop, and explores the messy and confusing nature of familial love and the ways family members hurt one another and raises question about whether familial pain can ever be overcome; I think it's a book about different expressions of masculinity, and in one storyline, explores how something like cowboy/militia masculinity coupled with Biblical literalism and the idea that we are in the midst of spiritual warfare can be a volatile and violent combination. 

This might be the first novel I've read that I thought could be called a Covid novel. Characters in this book carry non-medical and ongoing effects of the pandemic:  disillusionment, grievances, scars, and more that shape their lives. 

It's also very often a funny book, making it a rich blend of humor, violence, suffering, vengeance, loyalty, and courage. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-22026: I'll Wait, Surprise! Labs on Thursday, I Switched to *So Far Gone*

 1. In the next handful of days, I am going to finish The Mosquito, go back and reread parts of it, and listen online to a lecture Timothy C. Winegard, its author, delivered before I post about this book again. I made an honest and totally forgivable mistake in my post on this book yesterday and, even though I know things can be looser in a blog, I'd like to be more certain that I'm getting things right about mosquitoes and humans before I make my next post. 

2. A person from Kootenai Health called me today to remind me of my appointment on June 4 with Dr. Bieber and told me that I needed to have labs drawn in advance of that appointment. This message came to me on voicemail. 

Hmm.

I thought Dr. Bieber had told me the last time I saw him that the labs I had drawn on May 4 for my May 11th appointment at the transplant clinic would work for our June appointment. 

So I called Dr. Bieber's office to make sure he wants labs drawn again. 

He does. 

No problem. 

I'll dash to CdA and have blood drawn right away on Thursday morning. 

3. I posted a correction/clarification this evening of what I wrote about The Mosquito on my May 26th post. 

As it grew close to time to go to bed, I decided to put The Mosquito aside and read an easier, thoughtful, and more entertaining book: Jess Walter's So Far Gone. 

What a great choice. 

It's kind of a wild story, at least early on, with fascinating characters, a kind of bonkers storyline appropriate for the bonkers 2020s, and a riveting combination of danger and hilarity. So far, the story has moved me to feel afraid in some scenes and laugh out loud in others. 

It's been a while since I've read what, for me, is a page turner.  I'm enjoying that this one is set in a remote area north of Spokane, in Spokane itself, in Grants Pass, OR, and on a Christian militia compound in a remote area of Bonner County, Idaho. 

At the center of the story are two precocious and very likable children and I'm rooting hard for them to have everything turn out all right for them --  either because of or in spite of the very flawed adults in their lives. 

A Clarification of Item #2 of My 05-26-2026 Post

 I want to clarify what the book The Mosquito has to say about slaves at the time of the Civil War and what was thought in the 19th century to be, as Abraham Linclon put it, "their impenetrable genetic defenses to mosquito-borne disease". 

In fact, Lincoln's Surgeon General, William A. Hammond, as quoted by Winegard, asserted that "it was a well-ascertained fact" that Africans were "less liable to the affections of malarious affection than the Europeans". 

When I read these statements yesterday, I took them as fact, but I should have waited to finish the chapter on the Civil War before I wrote in my 05-26-2026 blog post that slaves were generationally immune to mosquito-borne diseases. 

You see, toward the end of the Civil War chapter, Winegard writes about freed slaves becoming soldiers and about their malarial rates. 

I won't go into great detail in this post, but suffice it to say that African-American soldiers did suffer illness and death from malaria, leading Winegard to state the following: "The scientific stereotype of African immunity to mosquito-borne disease was discredited."

At times like this, when not only I have I made a mistake, but have given life to harmful stereotype, I am glad that it's commonly understood in the world of blogs that because bloggers often post while in the process of learning something or working our an idea, blog posts are prone to needing correction and clarification. 

So here's mine, humbly submitted. 

More clarifications might be coming. I'm confused about immunity and other things and will be rereading parts of this book seeking clarification. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 05-26-2026: Back to the First Days of Three Beautiful Things, The Civil War, Northwest Passages with Craig Johnson

 1. Today I suddenly wondered how many other people who had been posting daily (or near daily) Three Beautiful Things were still at it. I started posting Three Beautiful Things on November 11, 2006, following the lead of Clare Law whose blog, called Three Beautiful Things, I had found one day while space truckin' in the once thriving blogosphere. 

Clare went on a hiatus in 2014, but she didn't take down her blog and her blog included a long list of links to other blogs that featured Three Beautiful Things, including kellogg bloggin'. 

Today, I visited Clare Law's blog (it's here) and discovered, to my delight, that back in 2020, Clare Law resumed writing Three Beautiful Things again. 

She also remade the look of her blog and she no longer posts the list of other writers posting Three Beautiful Things. 

But, thank goodness, her blog is archived.  I can go back and read, from time to time, posts I've missed over the last several years. 

Clare Law writes her three beautiful things in brief sentences or sentence fragments in what I regard as being in the spirit of the haiku. She brings flashes of her day alive, moments, and I love her approach. 

As my writing of Three Beautiful Things evolved, I took on an approach closer to a short essay, sometimes very short stories and, for any number of reasons, I enjoy having this almost twenty-year-old record of family life, observations, thoughts, photographs, events, and other aspects of my life. 

Rediscovering Clare Law's blog moved me. 

I am immeasurably grateful to her. 

She introduced me to a source of happiness and fulfillment that has invigorated me and buoyed my spirits for two decades. 

2. It's been fifty years since I completed Prof. Homer Cunningham's course, The Civil War. I double majored at Whitworth in history and English and thoroughly enjoyed both emphases of my undergraduate studies. Fifty years after completing this course, I wish I had a clearer memory of what Prof. Cunningham focused on over the semester. I know that he required that we each read a book beyond the course syllabus and make an appointment with him to discuss it. I read selected letters of Abraham Lincoln. Those letters gave me insight into Lincoln's internal struggles, intellectual brilliance, and complex Christian faith. 

I'd like to find that volume of letters again and see if Lincoln wrote about the crippling effects of mosquito transmitted disease on the Union troops and the folly of military leaders who led troops into swampy lands and fetid marshes swarming with mosquitoes. 

I'd also like to see if in any of these letters Lincoln wrestles with emancipating slaves, opening the way for freed slaves to fight for the Union army, providing the Union army with soldiers who had developed generational immunity to malaria, immunity passed on to them in their family life lines in their home countries, making them very valuable soldiers (in the same way they were very valuable laborers). 

I don't remember reading about this question in the fall of 1975, but I certainly read about it today in Timothy C. Winegard's book, The Mosquito. 

3. The joy of this day kicked into a higher gear when Debbie and I traveled to the Garland Theater in Spokane for another Northwest Passages event. 

Tonight, Craig Johnson, the author of the (so far) twenty-two Longmire western crime drama books, which were also the basis for the A & E television series Longmire, was the featured author. 

I haven't watched a single moment of the television series Longmire nor have I read a single word in any of Craig Johnson's novels. 

Debbie watched the television series, but has not read any of the books. 

So. 

Why would I want to go to this event? And why would Debbie? Why would we want to sit in a good-sized audience of enthusiastic and knowledgeable readers of Craig Johnson when we hadn't read his books at all? 

I've attended four Northwest Passages events, two featuring writers I had familiarity with (Jess Walter and Leah Sottile) and two whose work I didn't know at all (David Guterson and Willy Vlauen). 

All four events invigorated me and expanded my view of and understanding of writing, reading, and of the world I live in. 

Northwest Passages is an ongoing series of evenings, put on by The Spokesman Review that focuses on one writer's release of a new book and that writer sits for an interview conducted by a person connected with the Spokesman Review. 

I trust this series. So does Debbie. We've decided that we will go to every one of the Northwest Passages evenings whether we have heard of the writer or not and we will trust that it will be both fascinating and stimulating. 

Craig Johnson was both.

And he was entertaining, warm, generous, engaging, funny, well-read, and multi-talented. 

His new Longmire novel is The Brothers McKay and get this: it's inspired by and patterned after Fyodor Doestoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamozov which Craig Johnson read over the course of about a week when he was fourteen years old and then, as was the custom in his family when he finished a book, had a long talk with his father about what he thought of it. 

Craig Johnson was quick to make sure we knew that The Brothers McKay would not be the philosophical novel that The Brothers Karamozov is. But his book develops a similar storyline. 

Sixty-five year old Craig Johnson runs a ranch in Wyoming. He built his own house there. He is very much a working rancher who shovels manure out of stables, tells his horses about what he wrote the day before, and recently completed a job requiring him to shove two and half tons of rock out of a truck to fill in some kind of an opening in the ground. (He was still sore tonight.)

He has a keen sense of his fiction writing process, of how he keeps his title character Walter Longmire fresh, how he endows Longmire with intelligence, courage, and deep flaws. 

I left the Garland Theater (where years ago I saw All the President's Men, Rocky, The Goodbye Girl, and An Officer and a Gentleman among others forty to fifty years ago) shaking my head.

What am I going to do?  

Sunday night, Paul inspired me to want to read Crime and Punishment. 

The chapters of The Mosquito dealing with Napoleon made me want to read War and Peace. 

Craig Johnson has me jonesin' to read The Brothers Karamozov

And I continue to work on finishing Lonesome Dove. 

Can I read them?

Will I? 

Well, I've got a pretty good stretch of days coming up when I'll be home alone and it's possible that I'll just hunker down with massive novels. 

And read them! 

Stay tuned. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-25-2026: Troubling History, Salmon Dinner, Debbie Leaves Soon

 1. The chapters of the book The Mosquito that I'm reading now are focusing much more on the years following the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. It's emphasizing the United States' expansion westward, its war with Mexico, an imperialist undertaking, and the forced relocation of indigenous people in the southeast to west of the Mississippi -- you might know this cruel injustice as the Trail of Tears. 

The mosquito and its lethal role in transmitting disease continues to occupy the focus of this book, but these recent chapters have had me thinking about the human drive for power, territorial expansion, heartless economic development, and the long-term impact of these wars, displacements, forced labor, and imperial ambitions. I'm perplexed by Napoleon's ambitions, the cruelty of Andrew Jackson's policies, the United States' seizing and annexing of parts of Mexico by force, and other acts of aggression and acquisition that have shaped so much of the world's history. This has been on my mind even more than the mosquitos. 

None of this history is new to me, but often the facts of it sit in the back of my mind and The Mosquito has catapulted this history to the front. 

Next up will be the Civil War.

2. Christy joined Debbie and me for a simple and delicious salmon dinner. I enjoyed the fish and the carrot salad and brown rice that accompanied it. Christy, Debbie, and I continued discussions from last night's family dinner by talking more about books and addressing the ongoing thorny question of how we can best live our lives. 

3. Off the top of my head, I can't list everything fun that Debbie and I have done since she returned to Kellogg in March. We've attended lectures, symphony performances, a string quartet concert, gone to the MAC in Spokane, enjoyed tasty meals at home, done some rearranging of our household, and more. 

Over dinner tonight, Debbie brought out her calendar and talked about flying to Chicago this Friday, going to our niece's party to celebrate her daughter's first birthday, spending time in Cincinnati with Patrick and Meagan, and heading east to New York for at least a couple of months. 

I am 100% in support of Debbie doing all she'll be doing this summer. Not only that, I get along just fine on my own and I'll continue to seek out invigorating things to do this summer 

It's all good.  

I MEAN THAT! 

At the same time, I'll sure enjoy Debbie's return when we will resume going on cultural safaris, having great discussions about books, music, and a host of other subjects, and exploring what else we can do in North Idaho and Eastern Washington to expand our horizons and feed our inner lives. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-24-2026: I Needed a Day Off from Mosquitoes, Greek Family Dinner, Reading Passages to Each Other and Discussing Them

 1. I have probably mentioned that the book The Mosquito is a study of the mosquito as a major contributor to world history in the human realm. The world history Ronald C. Winegard consistently focuses on is the ambitions of countries, city-states, and other entities to expand their empires and colonize undeveloped regions around the world. 

These ambitions rely on military aggression, in armed conflict. 

The book unveils the vital role the mosquito and the way they spread fatal diseases has played in these wars, battles, and skirmishes. 

It's all fascinating and serves as a vivid reminder of role biology and ecology have played and continue to play in the history of the world. 

It's all fascinating, sobering, and unnerving and today I needed a break from it all gave my reading of this book a rest. 

2. Carol and Paul planned and hosted a superb family dinner today. We met at chez Roberts at 5:00. We started with an appetizer I made called Mediterranean Cauliflower. I marinated the florets of a single head of cauliflower in mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a variety of dry herbs. I then roasted the florets and combined them in a bowl with chopped tomatoes, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives. 

Carol and Paul prepared the main course: grilled Chicken Tzaziki and Feta Fries accompanied by Dad's Greek Salad. Carol also prepared a small bowl of Tahini and Garlic sauce and another of Tzatziki. 

Christy baked Kourabiedes for dessert, a tray of Greek butter cookies popular in Greece at Christmas. 

3. Debbie had mentioned at some point in time that she'd like each of us to bring a quotation/passage from a book we are reading or have read to dinner, read it aloud, and let discussion among us arise out these readings. 

Carol went with this idea tonight and it was a smashing success. We talked about kindness, biology, the vastness of the universe, storytelling, compassion and empathy, generosity toward one another, churches, Biblical questions, and more. Here's a list of the books that sparked our inquiries, stories, explorations, and listening: 

I read from The Mosquito by Timothy C. Winegard. 

Debbie read from The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.  

Christy read from My Friends by Fredrik Backman.  

Carol read from Braving the Truth by Rachel Held Evans. 

Paul read passages from two books: The Many Worlds of Logic by Paul Herrick and sentences from Joseph Frank's introduction to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. 

Every passage stimulated thoughtful discussion, raising many more questions among ourselves about life and living authentically and mindfully than we answered. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-23-2026: Mosquito Commemorations This Summer?, Mashed Carrots. Yorktown Memories

 1. After reading the chapters on the American Revolution in the book, The Mosquito, I wondered, as the USA celebrates the 250th anniversary of declaring independence, if anyone is planning to commemorate the role of the mosquito in decimating British troops and making USA victory possible (along with help from the French and Spanish and other factors). 

2. Debbie imagined a mashed carrot dish and gave fixing it a very successful whirl. She boiled carrots, mashed them, added butter and half and half, and spiced them up with a couple of chopped poblano peppers. She might have salted this dish, too. I don't remember. 

Bottom line: it was out of sight. 

3. Reading today about the rebels' decisive and war changing victory at Yorktown in 1781 called up fun memories, took me back to March of 2017, when Debbie and I spent a couple of nights in Yorktown, paid Jamestown a visit, sampled excellent beers in the Yorktown area, visited a Revolutionary War museum in Yorktown, and enjoyed a great dinner at a restaurant called Fat Tuna Grill and Oyster House. Mom had given us money for our birthdays a few months earlier with instructions to enjoy a dinner out on her, and did we ever enjoy bourbon, oysters on the half shell, gorgeous, sweet shrimp, and tender calamari. 

We didn't know it at the time that we'd be moving to Kellogg in September of 2017.

Over that weekend, I was feeling very happy that we'd made this great trip and looked forward to more excursions south of Maryland. Before this, all of our trips had been north to New Jersey and New York or out to Indiana and Illinois. I'd traveled by myself to Massachusetts. 

We made the right decision to move to Kellogg, but rereading my blog posts about our weekend in Yorktown tugged at my nostalgic heart and I dreamed about returning to the East Coast for fun trips again. That might happen. In the meantime, though, I'll focus on what's here in the Silver Valley and the Inland Empire in my present and see how things in the unknown future work out. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-22-2026: I'm Not Much of a Storyteller at The Lounge, My Current Life is Great -- Few Stories Though, The Mosquito in the New World

1. What I'm about to write is simply true and I'm fine with it -- in fact, there's nothing I can do about it. 

For year upon year upon year, especially after I graduated from Whitworth fifty year ago, I lived my life involved in a college, a community college, and a university until I taught one last writing course in 2014. My life was largely shaped and defined by the world of higher education. 

I enjoyed these years immensely -- I enjoyed reading and learning, enjoyed yakkin' with fellow students and fellow instructors. While, yes, I experienced disappointment by not achieving all I thought I wanted to, even in my failures, I came away from my studies having thought more deeply about big questions that matter. Most important, I always enjoyed working with students in the classroom and in conferences with them individually. 

One thing that did not emerge from those approximately thirty-five years of making a living doing what I loved was a bunch of stories I could regale friends with at The Lounge or at parties and reunions these days in Kellogg. 

This afternoon, Ed and I got together at The Lounge for a beer and he told me the story of getting his brakes fixed in Boise on a great trip he and Nancy and the Derbyshires took to enjoy Idaho waterfalls earlier this week. Later he told a series of five or six (or more?) stories about his friend in the logging world, Kingfish. The stories involved boats, a trailer, a forged medical card, and more. They were all fun to listen to and funny. They gave Debbie and me a vivid picture of what a character Kingfish was, and reinforced what I knew to be true from past stories: Ed thought the world of Kingfish. 

Ed isn't alone in having stories to tell about working in the woods, adventures with vehicles, snowmobile outings, hauling rock, asphalt, and other materials, being friends with colorful guys, and more. These stories abound at The Lounge, at the Elks, and in other social settings. 

Other friends of mine have hilarious stories to tell about wild days 45 to 50 years ago of doing crazy stuff on road trips, at music festivals, in canoes on local rivers, at Quinn's Resort, and elsewhere. 

2. While friends in Kellogg were doing memorable things that make for gripping and hilarious tales to tell, I was studying. 

I worked for a school year on Whitworth's Chaplain's Office staff. 

I taught writing. And literature. And other subjects. I wrote stuff. I presented papers on occasion at conferences. 

I got involved in theater.

I went to jam band, Grateful Dead, folk, jazz, and other live music concerts and behaved myself -- no stories there! 

I joined Debbie's family and became a stepfather. 

And even though I had been married twice before, I don't have any stories to tell -- no "bitch from hell" tales, no complaints about my ex-wives, or anything else that would grab people's interest at The Lounge or at other gatherings. 

Nothing to make people laugh. 

The things I do now aren't very story worthy either: book club at Auntie's Bookstore, symphony concerts in Spokane, a successful kidney transplant that's had little drama, going to hear writers talk about their books in Spokane, reading all the books on Leah Sottile's book list a few years ago, enjoying the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture in Spokane, lectures in Spokane, taking care of Copper, and so on. 

And that's no problem. 

My friends who have great tales to tell give me the pleasure of not only laughing, but of vicariously experiencing work, jobs, and crazy escapades I never did myself and colorful North Idahoans I never knew. 

I am invigorated by the pleasures in my life and I'm accustomed to experiencing and enjoying them within myself, with Debbie, and at family dinner. 

Once in a while I'll enter into conversation with someone at a concert in Spokane, like when a first violinist for the Spokane Symphony and I fell into great conversation about music and movies when we had seats next to each other at the Gonzaga Symphony back in February. 

I'm also learning about how different people read and what their thoughts are about matters related to science and nature in the book club we recently joined. 

It's all good. 

3. I walked into The Lounge today knowing that Cas and I would have a lot of fun reviewing the past few weeks of action in our fantasy baseball leagues. I also knew that I had questions for Ed about his trip to the waterfalls and the car trouble I'd heard he'd had on this trip and I had questions about when his procedure on Tuesday was happening and whether he needed a ride that morning to Post Falls. (He doesn't. Nancy will take him over.)

My day, however, had been enjoyable, but unusual, not a day that would spark fun conversation in The Lounge.  

Today I read further into the book The Mosquito.

In many ways, this is a world history book that brings to light the tremendous impact the mosquito had on what we think of as human events.

Today I read more about the colonizing of the New World and how much infestations of mosquitos and the malaria they carried and fatally infected mammoth numbers of people with shaped, for one thing, economic development in the New World. 

Europeans had not developed any immunity to the diseases mosquitoes carried. 

Africans, who had lived for generations in mosquito infested areas had developed immunity. 

Therefore, the African slave market became essential to the growing of plantation crops like sugar cane and tobacco because while Europeans who were forced into planation labor succumbed to malaria and yellow fever, the slaves from Africa did not. 

This is another of this book's many examples of how the mosquito and its impact shaped a major development of world history. 

Developing immunity to malaria was known as seasoning and over time and generations, European settlers in the emerging thirteen colonies began to develop immunity, to become seasoned. 

But what about soldiers who came from Great Britain to defend the interests of the king in these colonies? They were not seasoned and, in the book's next chapter, I'll learn more about the role of the mosquito in the American Revolution. 

(The paragraphs I just wrote about this book might be rough with some inaccuracies. I'm writing from memory after a single reading, but I am confident that the gist of what I wrote is pretty much right on. If I need to make corrections, I'll make them in future posts.)

Three Beautiful Things 05-21-2026: At Least Forty-Five Years, Magnificent Performance of *The Four Seasons*, Popcorn Finale!

 1. So when did Vivaldi's four violin concertos, often presented together as The Four Seasons, first become a part of my life? Did I listen to them on an lp when I attended and worked at Whitworth from 1974-78? Or did it first enter my classical music bloodstream in 1981 when I saw the movie The Four Seasons? Or had The Four Seasons come into my life at NIC during one of my classical music listening sessions at the library? Did my trailermate John Soini have The Four Seasons on an lp? Did he introduce me to Vivaldi? 

I'm not sure. What I do know is that these four violin concertos have been alive inside of me for at least forty-five years and I've come to learn that The Four Seasons are among the most beloved pieces of music in the entire classical music canon. 

As Debbie and I were walking from the Camry toward Spokane's Cathedral of St. John, I wondered if I'd ever heard The Four Seasons performed live. In Spokane? In Eugene? London, maybe? 

I couldn't think of a time I had and excitement began to build in me as I anticipated hearing these concertos within the grandeur of the cathedral. 

2. Being violin concertos, each of The Four Seasons pieces featured Spokane Symphony Concertmaster Mateusz Wolski as each concerto's violin soloist. He played with verve through the storms and dances of each season and played with tenderness and sensitivity through the slow movements of each concerto.

I loved the playing of the 17 piece orchestra in support of Wolski. Aside from a harpsichord, the orchestra was all stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, bass) and after the concert Debbie and I discovered that both of us had been deeply impressed with the performances of the principal cellist and violist. In fact, hearing all the lower stringed instruments tonight reminded me of how much I loved the parts Vivaldi wrote for them when I listened to recordings. Tonight the invigoration I'd felt in the past for these parts redoubled. From the pew I sat in, I had a direct view of both the principal cellist and violist and I spent much of the evening watching them, loving their work, while, at the same time, marveling at Mateusz Wolski's virtuosity. 

3. I didn't want to leave the cathedral. I sat for a while, letting the performance we'd just absorbed sink in and felt the awesome power of this English Gothic building enfold me. 

As is commonly the case, Debbie and I didn't say much on the clear easy ride home.

At one point, however, I blurted out that I thought eating popcorn at home sounded like a good idea. 

Debbie whole heartedly agreed and so we checked on Copper and Gibbs, I took my pills, and we each happily devoured a bowl of popcorn as a perfect way to conclude an evening of superb music played in a towering setting. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-20-2026: Living in the Light, Physical and Mental Illness, Living More Calmly

 1. At his request, I sent Stu a link to pictures Rick Taylor took at our Class of 72 40-year reunion. Those pictures brought memories back to me of the weekend a bunch of us spent together in 2009 in Lincoln City to celebrate turning fifty-five years old. 

2009 was a difficult year. I was hospitalized twice. Debbie's mother and younger brother passed away. There was more. 

Somehow, although I didn't know it at the time, in the spring of 2009, my dark experiences with mental illness came to an end.

It must have been about a year later that I realized I hadn't had any episodes over the past year of what Debbie and I referred to as me going into a black hole. In fact, my last such episode occurred around the time, in late March or early April of 2009, just before I contracted pneumonia and spent five days in the hospital. (I returned to the hospital for another stay not long after with a case of c-diff.)

I marveled today that it's been seventeen years since my last dark episode and I don't know why and no medical person I've talked with knows why those episodes ended after they'd been with me since high school. 

I'm grateful for these seventeen uninterrupted years of living in the light. 

2. I'm certain that another reason 2009 is on my mind is connected to my reading of The Mosquito. Medical and other sciences have advanced to the point that it's now common knowledge that mosquitos carry the malaria parasite and transfer in through bites to human beings. So far, this book has been about the staggering number of people who have died from malaria carrying mosquitos infecting them and how these massive numbers of death have affected centuries of military campaigns, the extinction or near extinction of indigenous people in the New World, and the value of African slaves who had developed immunity over the centuries and so could labor on plantations. 

This is all more complicated than I can sum up here, but reading so much about physical illness, disease, and death returned my mind to how it's fairly common for people to accept the seriousness of physical illness, but do not regard mental illness with the same kind of compassion or understanding, in part, I suppose, because mental illness is often not connected to something observable, like a bacteria or a virus or a parasite, but can, in fact, seem to have no cause at all. 

Back in my days of black hole episodes, if someone asked me, "What are you depressed about?", I wouldn't be able to answer them. These episodes often occurred when things in my day to day life were humming along just fine. 

Medications help. Therapy helps. Often I hear people talk about people experiencing mental illness as needing to be fixed. That's very difficult for me to hear, as if mental illness were an engine problem or clogged sink drain. 

3.  Yes, today thoughts of disease, illness, and the difficulties of 2009 occupied my mind, but so did my good fortune in the years following 2009. 

I think I can say, with certainty, that what I've enjoyed the most about living in the light has been how much more even my temperament is than it was for decades. I'm not prone to the mood swings I used to be. I don't lose my mind over trivial things. I'm quieter, calmer, more able to step back from situations, and much less prone to the strains of anxiety and fear. 

Back in September of 2009, I wrote a piece on this blog about needing to settle down as a classroom teacher. I compared my teaching style to the all out, go for broke style of playing tennis exemplified my Rafa Nadal and challenged myself to teach in the style of the more measured and calmer Roger Federer. 

Looking back, I think I partially succeeded, but old habits are difficult to change. 

I wanted to maintain my enthusiasm in the classroom, but, at the same time, I wanted to quiet down, be less kinetic and less theatrical. 

Over time, even after I retired, this attempt to change my approach to living life took hold. I conserved energy. I was easier on my nerves. I hope I became more predictable. 

It sure feels that way today. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-19-2026: Voting at the Elks Lodge, Bagels and Potato Bread, A Fantastic Zany's Pizza

1. I enjoyed the convenience of mail-in voting when I lived in Oregon, but, at the same time, I felt twinges of nostalgia for going to a church or an Eagles hall or the OSU Extension building to walk in, be greeted by a volunteer, and go to a private place and vote. I voted at a school and a senior activity center in Maryland and fully enjoyed standing in line and rubbing elbows with my fellow Maryland voters. 

Here in Kellogg, we vote at the Elks Lodge.

I enjoyed today what I've enjoyed in the past. I went to our polling site, accepted friendly greetings, filled out my ballot, and got to look at the faces of fellow voters and try to get a sense of their mood. 

I drew no conclusions. 

I also put some food items in the food pantry that sits outside the Elks. 

2. I hadn't been to Beach Bum Bakery since Debbie returned home. Today, however, I knew they had potato bread available along with freshly baked everything and plain bagels. 

I wanted bread on hand at home. Debbie prefers not having sourdough, so the potato bread was just right and I thoroughly enjoyed eating a plain bagel, not toasted, with cream cheese. I put the other five bagels in the freezer. 

Vera, who Beach Bum Bakery hired a little while ago, took my order and filled it and was friendly and engaging to interact with at the counter. She told me that I'd come in just after a morning rush. I was happy to hear that business was good this morning. 

3. A little while ago, Debbie strolled from Radio Brewing to The Lounge and along the way she stopped in at Zany's Pizza. Debbie didn't realize Zany's had opened uptown and dropped in to see what the deal was. 

This afternoon, we decided to order a pie from Zany's and both Debbie and I were staggered by how delicious and satisfying Zany's Fire in the Hole pie turned out to be. 

We both enjoy moderately spicy food and I've been eating a lot of Jalapeno peppers lately, so Debbie ordered this spicy and sweet pie topped with chicken, pineapple, red onion, and Jalapenos all complimented with a homemade Buffalo sauce. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the heat of the Jalapenos and the Buffalo sauce and the way the pineapple, red onion, and chicken balanced the spiciness with sweetness and mildness. 

We have leftover slices and I look forward to eating more of this pizza on Wednesday! 

Three Beautiful Things 05-18-2026: Bruce Larsen's Celebration of Life Draws Closer, Mosquito Power, Dinner and Yakkin' with Christy

1. With the Celebration of Life for Bruce Larsen coming up on June 13th at 1:00 at the Kellogg Elks Lodge, I'm helping Sally determine an estimate of how many people might attend so she can make a fairly accurate food order. I sent out emails today to people I hadn't heard back from after an earlier emailing, and I heard back from several people and got confirmation from seven of them that they will, in all likelihood, attend. 

Huge help and I hope to hear from more people as the week continues. 

2. I am learning more than I ever knew from the book The Mosquito about the early centuries of Christianity and the role malaria played in the fall of Rome, subsequent empire building, and the rise of Islam. It's all mind boggling that one insect and the way it transmits disease has had such an impact on the development of world history. 

3. Christy joined Debbie and me for dinner. We enjoyed a southwest chicken bowl that Debbie invented and Christy told us about her adventures and misadventures in the Boise area over the weekend.  That led us into a series of discussions about plans for the summer, family news, and a host of other topics. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-17-2026: Christy is Back With Riley, Folk and Classical Music, Debbie Improvises a Dinner

 1. Today was my last day dog sitting Riley. He showed signs of becoming a bit more attached to me today. He was more enthusiastic than he had been when I arrived and when I returned home, he followed me to the gate and whimpered a little bit when I left. Christy was on the road returning to Kellogg until about 10:00, so I spent more time with Riley in the evening and waited until he relaxed and fell asleep before I left. 

2. Debbie and I blasted over to Spokane for this afternoon's Spokane String Quartet concert. In a very good way, it was intense with the music ranging from minimalism to Nordic folk music to the explorations of Antonin Dvorak inspired by when he lived and worked in the United States for three years. 

I learned more this afternoon about how much classical music and the performance of it has its roots in folk music and hearing that connection come to life again this afternoon was invigorating. 

3. Back home, Debbie whipped up an intriguing combination of potstickers, shrimp, and broccoli seasoned with a ramen seasoning she concocted a while back. Debbie is a superb innovator and improviser in the kitchen and she totally nailed it tonight. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-16-2026: Good Day with Riley, Mind Boggled by Mosquito History, Revisiting *Ways of Reading*

1. I spent several hours today keeping Riley company over at Christy's house. Riley moved closer to me today, often lying on the floor near my feet. I'm not an animal psychologist, but I'll act like one for a second here. Riley seemed kind of stunned the first day or so of Christy's absence, but today he shook off the lethargy that came with being puzzled and moved around the house a bit more and approached me more willingly. 

Dog sitting him has been easy. 

2. For much of the day, both while dog sitting and back home, I continued to read The Mosquito by Timothy C. Winegard. Honestly, as he details the life of the mosquito and its impact upon human life going back really deep into antiquity, I have trouble grasping the huge amount of time, way before homo sapiens emerged, that not only the earth, but the mosquito has existed. 

I began to feel like I was on somewhat more familiar ground as Winegard explored the impact of the mosquito on life and on military actions involving the ancient Greeks, Romans, Macedonians,  Carthaginians, and others, but I had no idea that the devastating impact of the disease carrying mosquito shaped much of the history and development of these entities and of what we call the western world.  It's mind boggling. 

3. Debbie and I converse frequently about what we're reading. Debbie reads with a notebook at her side and writes out passages and other notes. (I did quite a bit of this today as I tried to keep timelines and other facts straight while reading The Mosquito.)

Our conversations got me thinking about my teaching life about thirty years ago. 

For two academic years (1995-97) I assigned my students readings out of a book entitled Ways of Reading. 

For an hour or so this evening, I couldn't remember that book's title, but I did some halfway creative search engine work and found the title. In the process of looking for it, I had memories I enjoyed a lot return to me of as I read other book titles of textbooks available back in my teaching days: A World of Ideas, Rereading America, The Bedford Reader, The Norton Reader, The Shape of Reason, and many others. 

What I really wanted to find, though, was the introduction to Ways of Reading. 

I found it online. 

And I familiarized myself again with a concept I have had on my mind for over thirty years now. 

Readers often read with a pencil and pen and mark what they are reading. 

This introduction turns that around and posits that, at the same time, what we read marks us. 

I began to think, yeah, what I read underlines me, puts notes in my margins, puts question marks, exclamation points, and asterisks on my inner life of memory, experience, ideas, and values and those marks invite me not just to read a text but to converse with it, question it, open myself up to ways it is impressing (or marking) me. 

Looking back, I have no idea if this concept made any kind of mark on my students. 

But as I taught from Ways of Reading, I became a student of its (back then) editors, David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky, and this evening their introduction reminded me how they inspired me to work at becoming what they call a strong reader. An active reader. An attentive reader. 

It invigorated me to revisit those two academic years, to remember the countless conversations I had with fellow instructors about Ways of Reading, and the stimulation I enjoyed thanks to the difficult and mind stretching readings Bartholomae and Petrosky included in their book. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-15-2026: Hanging with Riley, Reading *The Mosquito*, Chef Debbie

 1. I don't know if it matters to Riley that I hang around Christy's house for much of the day while she's in Boise. We don't do much together. He comes over to me occasionally and I pet him, but mostly Riley has been going to places in the living room he finds comfortable and relaxing and sleeping. I like to think he'd rather have company in the house than be alone -- I'm that way about dogs and cats. 

2. Mostly, while with Riley, I've been writing, reading, and working the puzzles I go to daily. Our next book club book is The Mosquito, a substantial book tracing the history of this deadly insect all the way back to deep pre-history. The mosquito is an extraordinarily resilient insect and a frighteningly lethal one. I am anticipating that this book will be informative, but so far it's not fun to read. (No problem.)

3. I love to cook. So does Debbie. She's been on a fantastic tear lately, fixing all kinds of delicious food. Today, she used strips of steak as the foundation for a superb beef stroganoff and served it with these great noodles she buys at Walmart. I fixed myself an excellent green salad to accompany this dish. Later in the evening, I finally made a contribution to our life of eating by popping a batch of popcorn that we both enjoyed a lot. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-14-2026: I Enter the Life of Riley, Replicating a Scrambled Egg Dish, Impromptu Book Club with Debbie

 1. I began my dog sitting stint today, so I entered into the Life of Riley. 

I don't have any funny stories to tell. 

All day long, Riley relaxed, looked out the window, slept, and just had an easy dog day. 

2. When I lived in Eugene, I used to occasionally have breakfast at a Mexican restaurant near the U of O Bookstore. I used to order a scrambled egg entree. The scramble included, as best I remember, jalapeno peppers, grated cheese, corn chips, and salsa on the side. 

I made a decent replication of that dish for breakfast this morning. 

It worked! 

3. Debbie and I had an impromptu book club discussion this evening. She's astonished by John Vaillant's book, Fire Weather. It's about the 2016 Ft. McMurray fire in Alberta. We talked at length together about fire and what huge conflagrations feed on. 

I haven't read Fire Weather yet, but I read Timothy Egan's Big Burn several years ago and I talked with Debbie some about what I thought were central ideas in his book. 

I think the two books are different from each other, but both seem to overlap in their descriptions and discussions of the ways fire behaves, what it feeds on, and how powerful fire is. 

A quick coda: we have John Vaillant's book in our home because when I told Leah Sottile I was reading my way through the booklist she published about three years ago, she almost immediately responded that I had to add two books to her list, both by John Vaillant: Fire Weather (2023) and The Golden Spruce (2005).

At our last book club meeting, Debbie and I learned that the club had read Fire Weather and some of the club members had also read Vaillant's 2010 book The Tiger. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-13-2026: Ed Had an Appointment, Winning Wednesday, No Damage (As Far As I Know)

 1. Ed had an appointment for a consultation at Northwest Specialty Hospital early this afternoon. I picked him up way early because high winds and possibly pounding rain were in the weather forecast and I'm a guy who likes to play it safe and leave plenty of times for things to go haywire and then recover. 

Nothing went haywire. 

We arrived at Dr. Sarkis's office plenty early. Ed had several pages to fill out, so our being extra early allowed him to take his time getting through them. 

Ed had a good talk with the PA and will be coming back to the hospital the last week of May for a colonoscopy. 

2. I thought a good way to relax after this consultation would be to rocket down to the CdA Casino and enjoy a meal and the fun we always have on Winning Wednesday. 

Ed and I both fully enjoyed a bowl of beef stew with a garden salad and our plan to relax was working. 

No, neither of us had much luck on the gaming floor, but the machines entertained us and we both had fun. 

3. Good news! Yes, some strong winds kicked up. It was blustery at times. Overall, though, it wasn't that bad. I had no problems driving and we both were relieved that apparently the winds didn't cause any damage or power outings. I might find out later there was damage I don't know about, but it didn't happen in our neighborhood in Kellogg nor Ed's in Kingston. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-12-2026: Body and Mind and Soul, Quietness, Improvised Bacon and Tomato Sandwiches

 1. When I check in at the transplant clinic, for the last year or so it's been a really good guy named Brandon who takes my temperature, weighs me, takes my blood pressure, checks my blood oxygen, asks me a series of questions about medicines and if I've been having any problems. 

We yakked a bit and I told him about going to the symphony and how I've been slowly reading Lonesome Dove and he told me how much he enjoys listening to cello music. 

Nurse Jenn had the day off Monday, so Brandon also checked me out and was very impressed that my exit papers were so brief -- as I wrote yesterday, no medicine changes and only a few appointments over the next year. 

"Wow!" he said, "That's great."

I responded, "It's all that Bach and Beethoven."

He answered, "Yeah. Good for the soul."

He nailed it. 

I will always be convinced that my daily efforts to be good to my soul by writing daily about three beautiful things that day, listening to great music (jazz, classical, jam bands, alt country, classic rock, yacht rock, 90s alternative rock, and more), watching movies I love, learning more about the natural world, reading substantial books, having Copper and Gibbs as companions, being invigorated at book club, spending time in communication with great friends, whether online or in person, enjoying outings with Debbie, and having scheduled time with my sisters to dine together (with our families) and go on Spokane outings to enjoy food, art, sites, museums and other positive Spokane offerings have all combined to boost my health and to nourish the connections within me between body, mind, and spirit. 

2. After such a full and wonderful day yesterday, I drew in today and spent much of the day focused on quietness. I wrote a couple of emails to the Class of '72 and began to reach out to three people about a few things that will help me when I am the host/MC of June 13th's Celebration of Life for Bruce Larsen. 

3. Debbie's been jonesing for a BLT lately and tonight she fried up some bacon and sliced tomatoes and red onion and both of us built ourselves a sandwich. We both passed on the lettuce -- BT sandwiches, I guess -- but I souped mine up a bit by spreading olive tapenade on one slice of bread and topping it with crumbled feta cheese. I also passed on the freshly sliced red onion and, instead, put pickled red onion on top of my tomato slices. 

Great simple meal.

Maybe even good for my soul. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 05-11-2026: A Very Happy Two Year Transplant Anniversary, Quick Camry Battery Service, Ooops! Back to Sacred Heart and Ice Cream

1. Two years ago this evening, a nineteen year old man's kidney was transplanted into my urinary system.

Not long after midnight, the surgeon and his team released me to the ICU and right from the get go, all signs looked good that my body had accepted the new organ and that the kidney was waking up nicely and beginning to function.

I drove to Spokane this morning for a two-year anniversary appointment with Dr. Monita Poudyal, the same transplant nephrologist who spent a generous amount of time with me in the hours before the surgery talking me through what I would experience in surgery and what I could expect in the following days, weeks, and months. 

Today, Dr. Poudyal beamed. 

She told me my new kidney was "functioning beautifully". 

We went over everything -- my recent labs, how I was taking care of myself, whether I was having any problems (I'm not), my exercise habits, my weight gain, my medications, everything. 

Her final verdict: no changes. 

Medications and dosages remain unchanged. 

She expects this kidney to function well for many years. 

On June 4th, Dr. Bieber, who is my primary nephrologist at Kootenai Health, and I will decide how often I'll have labs drawn and how often I'll see him. My guess, if memory serves me correctly, is that I'll have labs drawn every three months and see Dr. Bieber every six months. 

My next appointment at the transplant clinic is in a year. If my kidney's function and my health continue to be good, the transplant team will cut me loose and I'll be under the sole care of Dr. Bieber. 

When the results of the labs I had drawn last Monday began to parachute into my patient portal, I thought they looked awesome. Prostate normal. Cholesterol in great shape. No diabetes. My GFR looked strong. My creatinine levels looked acceptable. I saw no problems and my visit with Dr. Poudyal confirmed that I read those results correctly. 

Ah.

What a relief that this surgery was a success and that I'm doing so well as I move forward from it. 

2. Today started really great before I went to Spokane. 

I called Silver Valley Tire Center around 7:20 to report the Camry's dead battery.

Within five minutes, one of their guys came to the house and removed the dead battery. 

Ten or fifteen minutes later he returned with a new battery. He installed it. It worked(!), and I knew well ahead of my appointment in Spokane that the Camry was ready to roll. 

Great service. Great guys to work with. Much gratitude. 

3. I knew coming into today's appointment that after Dr. Poudyal and I were finished that I would be going over to the Sacred Heart lab for specialty labs to be drawn. These labs assess whether I'm at risk for organ rejection. 

Wouldn't you know it. I left Dr. Poudyal's office on cloud 9 and I was hungry and I forgot all about having those labs drawn. 

I glided up North Monroe to Zozo's Sandwich House and ordered a Hungry Hungry Hip-Pea sandwich, a combination of a mashed chickpea mixture, avocado, tomato, pickled red onion, spinach, and vegan mayonnaise along with a cup of chicken enchilada soup. 

I was about three bites into my sandwich when I suddenly remembered that I didn't have the specialty labs drawn. 

I finished my lunch and eased back up to Sacred Heart and the blood draw went quickly, smoothly, economically (!). I was back to the parking garage within and half an hour so didn't have to pay to park! 

I ended my trip to the metropolitan Spokane area at Belle and Pete's ice cream parlor and celebrated having a new battery and the great news at the clinic on my two year transplant anniversary with a scoop of Extreme Oreo ice cream in a bowl. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-10-2026: Dead Battery and Christy's Generosity, In my Soul and Not My Head, Our Return to Kellogg Breaks Our Silence

 1. I guess you can say I don't read Toyotas very well. I sensed that the Camry's battery might be weakening, but this afternoon as Debbie and piled into the car to take off for this afternoon's Spokane Symphony concert, I wasn't expecting the battery to be dead. 

But it was. 

If we were going to attend the symphony, we didn't have time to do anything about the battery, so I sent out a calm, panicked text to both Christy and Carol wondering if one of them could let us use her car. 

Christy could! 

I learned a lot about the Camry today and I left the car in our driveway and Debbie and I rocketed off to Spokane, hoping we might still hear some of James Lowe's pre-concert talk. 

2. We missed the first five minutes of the talk, but enjoyed the rest of it. 

Now it was time for the concert featuring pieces by three composers, each of whom left the country of his birth and came to the USA: Sydney Guillame, a contemporary and living composer, left Haiti; Sergei Rachmaninoff left Russia; Bela Bartok left Hungary. 

In a discussion online about classical music, Stu referred to me as cerebral. That's true, to a point, but I do not engage classical music concerts cerebrally. So, on the cerebral or intellectual level, much of this concert mystified me. But I put that aside and let the music nourish my soul, not with comfort, not with inspiration, but with intensity and grief, with longing and confusion, with fire and calm. 

Afterward, Debbie and I couldn't talk about the concert. We didn't have words for what we'd experienced, a depth that left us not only inarticulate, but mute. 

3. By the time we got to Kellogg and drove Christy's car in her driveway and saw that Carol and Paul were at Christy's house, not having returned to their house after the three of them had dinner together, we both started to be able to say a few things about the concert. 

Evren Ozel, the twenty-seven-year-old piano soloist for Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini was incomprehensibly talented and charismatic. 

Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra left us saying, in a positive way, "What was that?" OMG!

We could talk, too, about the mixture of musical styles and the rhythms of Haitian street music in Sydney Guillame's superb composition, commissioned by the Spokane Symphony, Between Homelands. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-09-2026: Loafing, Debbie's Invigorating Time Uptown, I Fix Myself a Delicious Soup

 1. I'd had a busy week leading up to today -- labs and three separate trips to Spokane for book club, symphony lecture, and our sibling outing. Debbie and I will return to Spokane on Mother's Day for a symphony concert. 

So I pretty much rested today and beyond doing puzzles and writing in my blog, I didn't do much. 

2. I made a brief shopping trip to Yoke's and dropped off Debbie at Radio Brewing, a place she likes to go to read. For Debbie, it was the start of a terrific afternoon and evening. She ran into friends at Radio. She dropped into Zany's just to find out how the uptown pizza business was going. She strolled on down McKinley to The Lounge and had great conversation with Bob and Tracy and then a miracle happened. 

A French speaking man from Mali, how living in Spokane, was at The Lounge and Debbie approached him, asked if he spoke French, and for at least a half an hour the two of them yakked in French, a rare and most uplifting experience for Debbie. 

When I went uptown to give Debbie a ride home, believe me when I say she was invigorated! 

3. I interrupted my loafing briefly by making a soup I thoroughly enjoyed this evening.

I combined frozen shrimp, potstickers, chicken bouillon, green onion, celery, and mushrooms in a pot and seasoned it with soy sauce and a chili paste. The chili paste gave the soup a bite, the shrimp sweetened the broth, and the mushrooms made it all kind of meaty. I love potstickers in soup -- it's kind of like having dumplings -- and this simple meal gave me a lot of pleasure. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-08-2026: Enthusiasm and Invigoration, Sibling Outing to a Market/Fair, Leaving Texas

1. When we messaged back and forth this morning, I told Stu that when I arrived home from the symphony lecture I attended on Thurday, I was so pumped and was talking so fast (and loud?) that it was as if I'd just drunk five pots of coffee. 

Stu responded that he was glad that I could be so enthusiastic about what I'd experienced. 

Later I realized that the adrenaline rush and joy and sense of being fully alive I've been feeling since I was about eighteen years old about lectures, certain books I've read, superb conversation, classical and many other genres of music, and other sources of vitality in my life is, yes, to a degree, enthusiasm, but, even more, it's invigoration. 

I mean, I can be enthusiastic about going down to the CdA Casino on Winning Wednesday, but I don't feel more alive when I spin reels. My sense of being alive is not heightened nor do I see the world more clearly and fully than I did before. 

But when I listened to James Lowe's lecture on Thursday, when I listened to speakers and other presenters at Forum at Whitworth College decades ago, when I hear a transporting version of the Grateful Dead playing "Uncle John's Band" or Richard Thompson performing "Beeswing" or "Galway to Graceland", when I watch a stirring movie like Henry V (1989) or Stop Making Sense, when I hear a great sermon or when an Episcopal liturgy moves me to tears, when book club discussions turn toward addressing big questions, when I'm in the presence of paintings and other art that moves me, or when I read a great novel like Middlemarch, my inner vigor grows stronger, my awareness of being a thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, curious human being is electrified and that's what I think of as not only enthusiasm, but invigoration. 

Over the approximately thirty-five years I worked as an instructor, discussing big questions with Whitworth, University of Oregon, and especially Lane Community College students invigorated me, sometimes beyond my ability to control my electrified behavior! 

I'm grateful for all the sources of invigoration in my life. I write about them often in this blog. 

I'm not what's known of as an adrenaline junkie. 

I'm simply open to having music, lectures, books, poems, conversations, movies, beauty, and other similar things I seek out and enjoy invigorate me. 

Growing old has not diminished this a bit. 

It might be stronger now than ever.  

2. I was in charge of organizing our sibling outing for the month of May.

I wanted to see if I could find something for us to do that was unlike anything we'd done on these outings before. 

If I remember correctly, I did an online search of events in Spokane during the month of May and I discovered the Spokane Night Market and Street Fair. 

I guess depending on your sense of Spokane geography, this market/fair's location is at any one or all of these landmarks! 

• The Spokane U-District
• The Gateway Bridge
• At Sprague and Sherman
• At 508 E. Riverside Ave

Once in this general area, it's easy to find.The market/fair's tents, booths, and attendees are conspicuous! 

This event happens on the second Friday of each month starting in May, ending in October. 

It's put on by The Wavy Bunch. You can learn more about this organization by clicking on the link I posted above. 

When Christy and Carol visited Eugene when I lived there, they enjoyed going to Eugene's weekly Saturday Market and Farmer's Market. 

I thought this Spokane market/fair was definitely in the same spirit as the Eugene markets and that they would enjoy looking at what vendors sold, the food being offered, the organizations who had booths, and listening to live music. 

I was right! 

I spent much of our time at the market/fair standing in front of the music stage listening to B Radicals, a self-described existential experimental rock funk jam band and they invigorated me! 

In fact, they made me tear up because their style of jam music transported me back to my frequent evening and late night visits to Eugene's WOW Hall from about 1989-1995 to listen to and dance to the really invigorating jamming of bands like Zero, Nine Days Wonder, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Little Women, and others. 

B Radicals took me back to the Grateful Dead shows I went to in Oakland and Eugene. 

It's rare for me to hear live jam bands since I left Eugene. I didn't hear any such bands in the DC area when we lived there and I haven't  heard any in Kellogg. 

But this evening I did and I especially enjoyed one memorable moment. 

The B Radicals had been playing all original tunes since the beginning of their first set, but as they closed that set, the lead singer said, "We're going to do a cover now. See if you can guess whose song this is."

They started to doodle a bit and I thought they were about to launch into the Grateful Dead's "Shakedown Street", but, no, they launched into Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman", replete with a joyous funky psychedelic break out jam and then they segued seamlessly out of Stevie Wonder into another original tune. 

And then, to my utter disbelief and joy, whoever ran the sound system to play recorded music during the band's break played -- I'm not kidding -- the Grateful Dead's "Shakedown Street". I wouldn't say I felt exactly like Moses standing before the burning bush, but it was close! 

I had a small order of Suya, that is, Nigerian barbeque, for dinner. Carol enjoyed an Ethiopian combination plate and Christy entered new culinary territory and ordered a Shawarma wrap.

Christy purchased an opal necklace and Carol purchased a garment to wear in this fall's production of Blithe Spirit. 

We left the market/fair happy -- were all of invigorated? Maybe. I know I was. We headed back to Pete and Belle's on North Argonne Road for delicious scoops of ice cream before gliding back to Kellogg.  

3. It's taken a while to pull everything together, but the cowboys in Lonesome Dove have now rounded up their cattle and are heading out of Texas and beginning their long trek to Montana. Jake and Lorena, at least for now, are not part of the official roundup party, but riding close and camping close to Call, Gus, Deet, and rest of the boys heading north. 

Three Beautiful Things 05-07-2026: Symphony Lecture in Spokane, Great Food and Memories at Great Harvest, A Vegetable Sandwich

 1. I left the house shortly before 10:30 this morning, eager to arrive in Spokane and take a seat in the Museum of Arts and Culture's auditorium to hear Spokane Symphony Music Director and Conductor, James Lowe, give a stellar lecture on the concert the orchestra will give this Saturday and Sunday. 

Debbie and I will go on Sunday. 

For this program, James Lowe commissioned a composition from Sydney Guillame, a Haitian-American composer he has worked with in the past a few times. He began his lecture by interviewing Guillame about the piece he wrote to fulfill this commission and we learned about Guillame's experiences being between homes, between Haiti and the United States, while living in New York, Los Angeles, or Portland and how those feelings and his connection to Haitian culture helped shape the piece we'll hear this weekend. 

James Lowe organized this weekend's program around three composers, Sydney Guillame, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Bela Bartok, all who came to the United States from other countries (Haiti, Russia, and Hungary) and in their works we can hear evidence of their love for their home countries and the influences of living in the USA. 

2. In the months immediately following transplant surgery, after my many visits to the transplant clinic for labs and visits with the transplant team, I happily got into the habit of going to Great Harvest for a muffin, a cookie, or another baked good and a cup of coffee. If I arrived at Great Harvest at lunch time, I ordered one of their superb sandwiches. 

I decided after the lecture that it would feel good to return to Great Harvest. 

So I did. 

I bought two loaves of bread for home.

I ordered a blue cheese beef sandwich on Dakota bread with a cup of chicken rice soup and a fantastic oatmeal cookie for lunch. 

Every time I came to Great Harvest in 2024 and 2025 it was after a positive visit to the transplant clinic. I associate their physical space and their food with celebrating another positive visit, with feeling great that life after the transplant was proceeding well. 

Those feelings returned today, not only because my lab results this week have looked good, but because I was invigorated and stimulated by James Lowe's lecture and by knowing that I'd be back in Spokane Friday for an outing with Christy and Carol and would return on Sunday to hear the symphony concert. 

(I'll also be back on Monday for a visit to the transplant clinic.)

3. It's been a superb time recently for sandwiches! Steak sandwich at the Snake Pit. A half a beef sandwich at the casino deli at Wildhorse. We had grilled cheese sandwiches Sunday with tomato soup. I had a very tasty chicken sandwich before Tuesday evening's book club. We ate at Kindred on North Monroe. Today I loved my soup and sandwich at Great Harvest. 

I am especially fond of vegetable sandwiches and so tonight I took out two slices of the 5 Fiber Wheat Bread I bought at Great Harvest and made myself just the sandwich I wanted: cucumber, mushroom, zucchini, red onion, and red pepper between the slices of bread, with one slice covered with Olive Tapenade. 

All that was missing was a cup of soup!