Three Beautiful Things 01-21-2026: Everything I Want in Life!, My Uptown Kellogg Pleasures, Stir Fried Beef

 1. It's funny. Almost everything I want in life is right there on those few blocks that comprise the Garland District. Art. A movie theater. A bookstore. A bakery. A diner. An ice cream shop. If I frequented the Garland District more than once or twice a year, I'd no doubt find more. 

2. I was uptown today giving a project I'm into some attention and, fair or not, I thought how fun it would be to be able to go to a jam-packed used bookstore, sit among the stacks of books, read pages of book I'd be buying about classical music, and then walk a short ways and have some homemade ice cream. 

But, hey, we have the Elks. We have The Lounge. We have the Beach Bum Bakery. We have the Uphill Grill. And there's more. 

So, believe me, I might dream, but I'm not complaining. 

3. With a tip of the hat to those of you who read my blog post yesterday and viscerally rejected the idea of eating eggplant and tofu, tonight I stir fried chopped tri-tip with mushrooms and onions and rice left over from last night. 

I made it nice and spicy with Green Dragon Hot Sauce and a bit salty with soy sauce. 

Gibbs liked bits and pieces of my dinner, too.

Three Beautiful Things 01-20-2026: Sibling Outing to the Garland District, Lunch at Ferguson's, Murals and Used Books and Ice Cream

 1. Christy, Carol, and I do our best to clear out one day a month and go on an outing together. 

In 2026, we are going to Spokane for each of our outings and hang out and explore a bit some Spokane neighborhood or area. 

If I remember correctly, we went on three smashing sibling outings in 2025 in Spokane: we visited the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Browne's Addition, the Jundt Art Museum on the Gonzaga campus, and the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum in Opportunity. We also enjoyed meals at Frank's Diner, Indigenous Eats, and The Mango Tree. 

Today we piled into Christy's Outback and cruised up Monroe Street to Garland Avenue and the Garland District. 

Starting at Monroe Street and extending several blocks east on Garland, on both sides of the street, are a variety of businesses housed in building that have been around for decades, giving the Garland District a charm we all enjoyed. 

This unassuming and inviting district has not been gentrified. 

We liked that. 

2.  Just south of Garland Avenue is the Garland Art Gallery, on open air exhibit featuring about thirty murals. We were going to begin our visit strolling in the alley, but decided we'd rather eat lunch first and so we dropped into the venerable Garland Avenue diner, Ferguson's.

Ferguson's had to be refurbished after a fire about fifteen years ago, but it was not gentrified. Instead, the interior maintains the looks of mid-20th century diner with a linoleum floor, a dining counter with stools, and booths and tables smartly placed along the walls and windows facing the street. 

Ferguson Cafe is kind of a gallery/museum too with pictures and other artifacts on the walls portraying the history of the cafe and of the way scenes from three different movies were shot here: Vision Quest, Why Would I Lie, and Benny and Joon.

I had dined at Ferguson's when I worked at Whitworth over 40 years ago and Kathy, Mary, and I had dinner there in 2019 one night before playing trivia at the Bon Bon Bar located inside the Garland Theater building. 

I enjoyed the food on those visits and to my delight I very much enjoyed my jalapeno burger and fries with a cup of delicious everyday black diner coffee. 

3. After lunch we strolled through the open-air art gallery and over to Book Traders, one of those great used bookstores with thousands of books packed efficiently into a narrow long building, filling shelves and boxes on the floor and stacked in piles in some spots on the floor. 

I bolted straight to the music section and found a book titled, Listen to the Music. It's crammed with essays about orchestral works composed by Bach, Vivaldi, Brahms, Beethoven, and many many more. While Christy and Carol browsed, I found a chair and started reading the book's essay on Brahm's Fourth Symphony, learned all kinds of things in a short amount of time, and closed the book and bought it when it was time to leave. 

Time to leave, yes, but not time to leave the Garland District. 

If you've been on Garland Avenue any time over the last several decades, you know there's a building on this street constructed in the shape of a milk bottle. 

It's Mary Lou's Milk Bottle, yet another wonderful space standing up to the inevitable encroachment of franchise eateries and gentrification in US cities. 

Mary Lou's makes their own ice cream and I devoured a heavenly single scoop of salted caramel ice cream in a dish. 

It was the perfect way to wrap up our visit to the Garland District. 

One more thing: our father, Raymond Harold "Pert" Woolum divided his high school education between John Rogers High School on E. Wellesley in the Bemiss neighborhood not far from Hilyard. 

So we drove by his alma mater (Class of '48) to see how it's been renovated and to pay a kind of homage to our dad. 

Then we returned to Kellogg. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-19-2026: "Deteriorata" at the Cockroach Castle, Learning More About Classical Music, Tofu and Eggplant -- Yeah I Know!

 1. Liz posts a lot of great stuff on her Facebook page and she came through again by presenting the poem, "Desiderata". 

The poem immediately brought to my mind the National Lampoon parody entitled, "Deteriorata". 

Two Kellogg guys, Robert Larsen and Bruce Alldredge, rented an apartment in a wobbly building close to the North Idaho College campus, a place they nicknamed Cockroach Castle. 

In the spring term of 1973, I hung out a lot with Bruce and Robert and before long was also hanging out with Liz and Jane in and around the Castle along with other friends. 

The Castle was my cultural hub that semester. We listened to all kinds of music, read (Bruce and Robert also wrote) poetry, pontificated freely with one another about Richard Nixon, religion, and a wide range of other topics we had passionate and ill-informed (ha ha -- so what!) opinions about. 

We also read National Lampoon.

And it was by way of Bruce and Robert that I first heard "Deteriorata" read aloud and it completely killed me off and contained lines that we quoted to one another (Rotate your tires) and that never failed to make us laugh. 

So, when I saw Liz's post of "Desiderata", I messaged Liz and Jane and wondered if they remembered the parody poem. 

They did. 

And that led to all three of us being transported back 53 years and taking some time to revel in how much we loved the Castle, Bruce's van, The Purple Pig, and the wonderful times we had together for those few months until the semester ended. 

As a nineteen year old, being with these friends at the Cockroach Castle was the first time in my, albeit, young life that I felt absolutely uninhibited with peers. 

These were the most accepting and open people I'd ever known and I thrived on our times together, whether at the apartment, shooting stick at the Fort Ground Tavern, dancing to Free's "All Right Now" as we closed down the Steinhaus, or buying a dollar pitcher of Lucky Lager beer for each hand at the Rathskeller to celebrate the Knicks' NBA Championship victory over the Lakers. 

I know now that I came out of high school feeling confused and insecure and it was great to pontificate, party, read poems, and be someone I'd never been before and revel in the accepting embrace of my friends at the Castle.  

2. I spent much of today doing my best not only to understand, but to absorb all that Professor Greenberg had to say over the course of four lectures about opera, oratorio, and the cantata. I can't even being to write it all out in this blog post, but I will say that learning more about the oratorio and then listening to a thrilling excerpt from Handel's Messiah and finding out the role of the cantata in Lutheran worship and hearing excerpts from Bach's Cantata 140 moved me, made my belly shake like a bowl full of jelly. 

3. I returned to two foods I love today by preparing a tofu and eggplant stir fry over white rice and seasoned with soy sauce and Sichuan chili crisp  It worked. The sodium of the soy sauce and the heat of the chili crisp played off of each other just the way I hoped they would. And I have more of this simple food in a container to eat again in the next day or two. 

Yeah == I know you probably can't imagine eating tofu and eggplant. All I can say is that they float my boat......

Three Beautiful Things 01-18-2026: Leonard Oakland on the Wireless, Intro to Opera, Magnificent Family Dinner

1. If I weren't so scatterbrained and, at the same time, single focused, I would have figured out a long time ago that I can listen to Leonard Oakland's Sunday morning classical music program from 10-12 on Spokane Public Radio's classic music station, KSFC. I would have figured out there's more to the world of classical music on the radio than SiriusXM's Symphony Hall.

Leonard was an English professor for decades at Whitworth. I took a course from him and I looked to him for guidance and inspiration when I taught at Whitworth. 

Today I finally got my head on straight, figured out how to stream KSFC, and listened to Leonard's show. I loved hearing his voice again, experiencing his mind at work, listening to his comments about the music he played, and relishing his music selections. I also deeply enjoyed when he took a short break from playing music and read Billy Collin's superb poem, "Forgetfulness". 

I must, now, whenever possible, and that should be almost all the time, listen to Leonard Oakland's program on Sundays. I cherish the thought. 

2. I put on Lecture 11 of the Great Courses series I'm listening to. It, along with Lecture 12, focuses on opera in the Baroque period. It was during this period that opera was invented.  I got the gist of the lecture, but I fell asleep during it (I like to nap) and so I'll go back and listen again. Professor Greenberg shares his unbridled enthusiasm for opera, repeatedly arguing that it is the most complete form of musical expression, combining instrumental and choral music with dramatic storytelling and theatrical spectacle, bringing together sophisticated music and stagecraft in service to rich and powerful human emotion. 

3. We had a terrific pasta and meatball dinner tonight at Carol and Paul's house. We began with Christy's perfect appetizer, Carpaccio.  Alongside the penne, sauce, and meatballs Carol prepared for dinner, we enjoyed the green salad I brought and the fresh homemade bread Carol baked. I honestly wanted to sit for hours and eat countless helpings of everything. I love pasta meals like this. 

I really can't even begin to list all the different things we talked about tonight, but subjects ranged from the Seahawks and the Zags to The Scarlet Pimpernel. It was fun bouncing all over the place and we topped off the evening with a piece of the yellow cake with vanilla frosting that Carol baked. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-17-2026: Being Unnoticed, A Day of Serious Listening and Learning, Debbie Played It Smart

 1. When it comes to volunteering, it makes me very happy to find ways to help out when I can be pretty much unnoticed. The Elks food pantry makes this possible for me -- at least it did again today. 

2. I decided to devote much of today to listening to the Great Course on learning how to listen to and understand great music. When I was going to college at Whitworth and the U of Oregon, I always enjoyed learning about the Protestant Reformation and what practices of the Roman Catholic Church that movement was protesting and what, over many years, the movement did to reform not only doctrine and church governance, but the experience of worship and the ways it urged individuals to search their conscience and not rely on the Church to do that for them. 

That short paragraph I just wrote doesn't account for how messy the Reformation was nor does it account for Protestant abuses that I find historically repulsive and find disturbing as I see them continue into the present. 

BUT, what I hadn't thought a lot about before today was the Roman Catholic influence on music, what its purpose is, what the Church regarded as appropriate and what wasn't, nor had I thought a lot about how Protestant reforms affected the composing and producing of music. 

So many intellectual, spiritual, philosophical, and ecclesiastical developments that began to emerge in the 16th century matured in 17th century and beyond thanks to the Enlightenment or The Age of Reason. This blending of the spiritual, scientific, and rational, this trust in the authority of reason (almost always with God right in the middle of it all) helped a creative and precise and deeply pious mind and imagination of someone like J. S. Bach flourish and helped give us the exuberant creations of the Baroque Period, not only in music, but in other arts and sciences, too. 

What I just wrote falls far short of elaborating upon all I learned and thought about today, but, hey!, this is a blog not a seminar paper! 

3. I'm not quite sure how severe the winter weather was today along the route Debbie drives when she goes from the Diazes in Woodbridge, VA to Adrienne's house in Valley Cottage, NY. 

What I do know is that a day or two ago Debbie saw the winter weather coming today and drove up to Adrienne's yesterday and so didn't have to make her way north in the winter weather today. 

I am relieved she made things easier for herself by driving yesterday and that she has settled in at Adrienne's where she'll hold down Adrienne's fort and look after Jack while Adrienne travels to Virginia with Ellie next week on a business trip. Thankfully, Ellie will stay with the Diazes during the day while Adrienne is busy with work. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-16-2026: Debbie's Check Arrived! Three Month Later!, I Loved Eating a German Chocolate Scone, Taco Night at the Elks Club!

1. Debbie submitted the paperwork back in October to receive her Idaho state pension money in a single payment. Now, keep in mind, when Debbie bought her new Corolla in New Jersey, it took a few months for something in the machinery of auto titles, registration, and license plates to get unstuck and for her to have them in hand. 

Similarly, something, a typo?, an error in code entry?, Thai curry stains on the paperwork?, something got the processing of the paperwork for Debbie's pension money held up.

Today, however, three months after she put in her request, Debbie's pension check arrived and I mailed it to her in Valley Cottage, New York (where she arrived today). 

Luckily, on Wednesday, the process of extending the life of her expired driver's license only took a part of a day.

Everything's cool on that front. 

Everything's cool with the car. 

I have the Corolla's title in Kellogg. 

Debbie has the registration and license plates with the car. 

And everything's cool with her pension check. 

It's in the mail. 

This is all a relief. 

2. When I went uptown to mail Debbie her check, I also stopped in at the Beach Bum Bakery. Rebekah recently introduced a German chocolate scone into her bakery case. At family dinner Sunday, we had a discussion about the divinity of German chocolate cakes and BOOM! now a German chocolate product was available for me right uptown. 

Back home, after a quick check on the food pantry and shopping at Yoke's, I sat down and as slowly as I could, I blissed out on the chocolate and coconut splendor of this German chocolate scone. 

I am developing quite a list of products I love at Beach Bum Bakery and I hope this scone will continue to be available from time to time. (What else do I love? New York bagels. French bread, chocolate chip cookies, ginger molasses cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, rye bread, apple fritters, sunshine muffins, rustic sourdough bread, and I know there's more. I also haven't even had a chance to sample many of Rebekah's wonderful creations. I will continue to do so.) 

3. I don't know if it was the first time ever, but I am pretty sure toght's Taco Night at the Kellogg Elks was the first one held there in the last 8-9 years since Debbie and I moved here. 

The turnout was excellent and Tamie and her volunteer helpers set up an excellent taco bar with hard shells, soft shells, ground beef, refried beans, Mexican rice, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, olive, sour cream, chips, and salsa. (I might have missed something.) Margaritas were for sale. It was really helpful having a volunteer ready to serve the shells and the other items to go in them and it worked out great for each diner to select their own toppings. 

Since my transplant, I've decided not to risk the harm alcohol might do in combination with some of my medications. Being dry opened the door for me to have Coca Cola with my tacos and I realized tonight, if I hadn't realized it before, that Coca Cola is my very favorite beverage to drink with tacos (and burgers, too). 

A bunch of us swarmed across the street to The Lounge for some more social time and we did just what we used to watch the old people do when we were younger: we headed out the door and home before the clock had a chance to strike seven o'clock! 

Three Beautiful Things 01-15-2026: My Trip to Spokane Today: Listening to a Great Course on Music, Spokane Symphony Lecture, Bloodwork at Sacred Heart

 1. I was eager to blast off from Kellogg this morning and rocket over to Spokane. I had decided over the last several days that I didn't think I could drive and listen to Lonesome Dove at the same time because the book has required a lot of my concentration. 

I wondered, though, how I'd do driving while listening to my audible copy of a series of lectures from the Great Courses series entitled, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition. The lecturer is Robert Greenberg, a superbly credentialed professor, a scholar in multiple areas of music history and musicology. 

As I pulled out of the driveway this morning and made my way to I-90 and eased my way onto the Interstate, I discovered listening to these lectures in the car was going to work splendidly. 

And so, on my way to Spokane and on the return trip to Kellogg, I learned much more than I had ever known about some basic vocabulary for talking about concert music, the role of music in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and, as I pulled into the driveway upon arriving back home, I was nearing the end of Greenberg's discourse on medieval music. 

2. Debbie and I are members of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (also known as MAC) and when I read a recent newsletter describing what's happening there in January, I read that today the Music Director of the Spokane Symphony. James Lowe was giving a noontime lecture on the Symphony's program being performed Saturday and Sunday. 

James Lowe will be conducting this program and it will feature Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Paul Creston's Fantasy for Trombone, and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. 

I needed to go to Spokane for a specialty blood draw at Sacred Heart. I could drop in any time during the day, so I had decided I would attend the lecture and then have the bloodwork done. 

The lecture stirred me up emotionally and stimulated me intellectually. 

I thoroughly enjoyed how James Lowe explained what these composers had created in these masterpieces and how he played excerpts from Bernstein and Rachmaninoff with images of the scores of those excerpts on a screen for us to both listen to the music and see it written out. 

The Creston composition will feature the Spokane Symphony's principal trombone player, John Church, as soloist. I think the plan had been for Church to play some excerpts from the Fantasy for Trombone today, but he arrived a bit late, hadn't had a chance to properly warm up, so couldn't play. He did, however, tell us about his history with this piece and why he loves it so much and told us about his instrument and explained how he creates vibrato on the trombone. 

If I decide to go to see the Spokane Symphony perform Saturday evening, I'll be writing a bit about it. 

It all depends on how I feel on Saturday about driving from Spokane to Kellogg in the January darkness and possible fog. 

3. One of the things I enjoy about all these blood draws is working with phlebotomists I'm familiar with. Today Angela drew my blood. I've been working with her off and on since May of 2024. Back then, Sacred Heart ran a lab in the same building as the transplant clinic. The hospital closed that lab a year ago and now I go across the street from the clinic to the hospital itself. 

No problem. 

Angela is friendly and efficient -- so much so I was able to check in, have my blood drawn, and return to the parking payment kiosk in under 30 minutes, so my parking was free! Ha! 

Seeing Angela reminded me of when I was going for blood draws weekly, a time I enjoy thinking back upon because things were going so well. 

And they continue to to well. 

The tests today will provide information as to whether my body is showing signs of rejecting my new kidney. 

These tests had great results three months ago and also at intervals before that. 

I hope the good news continues. I'll know in the next 7-10 days for so. 

These specialty test results always come back slower than my other tests. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-14-2026: Winning Wednesday with Ed and Jake, What! My ID is Expired?, Renewing My Driver's License in Wallace

1. Ed and I rendezvoused with Jake at the Rose Lake Conoco station where I parked the Camry and we packed into Jake's new Toyota Tacoma and blasted off to Winning Wednesday at the CdA Casino. 

We had a great time. I came out a little bit ahead on the machines. I enjoyed eating Buffalo Wings and a garden salad for lunch. It was a lot of fun being with Jake and Ed throughout the morning and early afternoon. 

I hope we'll join up and do this more often. 

2. I had one odd and fortuitous experience at the casino. 

As a club member, I always swipe my card in one of the kiosks and check my player points and see what modest benefits the casino has granted me. 

Today, however, when I swiped my card, I got a message telling me that my ID was expired. 

That message didn't make any sense to me, so I hotfooted it over to the Player Club counter and asked about it. 

A very enjoyably sassy woman working next to the woman helping me overheard my question and said, "Ah! Someone's just had a birthday!" 

I was still puzzled about the expired ID message and thought maybe nowadays my player card ID had to be renewed every year around my birthday. 

So I handed the woman helping me my driver's license. 

She said, "Do you have your temporary license papers?"

I didn't know what she meant and she told me my driver's license expired on my birthday. 

Oh. My. God.

I didn't even think about my driver's license on or around December 27th and said something lame and elderly sounding about how I thought it expired in 2026.

No harm done. I just couldn't use the kiosk. 

But the first thing I thought of was that Debbie's license had also expired, hers six days before mine. 

I texted her. 

She contacted the state DMV in Boise and they worked with her to transmit paperwork to and from Virginia and she got  an and can renew when she returns to Kellogg. 

3. So, upon arriving in Kellogg, I stopped in at the house to check the mail and make sure all was in order and then I headed up to the Sheriff's office in Wallace. 

I hadn't been there since the Dec. 26th shooting.

The security measures in the aftermath of the shooting are temporary. There were about five people ahead of me, a person being served, who could be in the lobby where licenses were issued, and four of us waiting our turn in a chilly little area just outside the lobby. Only one person at a time could be in the lobby -- but, the lone employee at the counter didn't like seeing us in the cold little room and told us we could all come in. Kindness trumped the rules. 

I arrived at the office figuring it might be a slightly inconvenient wait, so I was in the right frame of mind to patiently wait my turn. 

The woman working the counter was lovely and made the short process of renewing my license most enjoyable. 

So, thanks to a CdA Casino kiosk message, Debbie and I are set -- me for four years, Debbie with a one year extension, but her plan is to renew her license as soon as possible when she returns to Kellogg.  

Three Beautiful Things 01-13-2026: Nurse Jenn Updates My Post-Transplant Treatment Plan, I Find Hidden Notes, Newt Is Growing Up

1. Today Nurse Jenn from the Transplant Clinic messaged me. All my test results from Friday's labs are in and she told me that my numbers looked stable and that I should only make one change in in my pillbox. We've been fiddling around, in a good way, with my dosage of the magnesium supplement I take, seeing if we could lower it and if I could, in turn, increase my magnesium levels through the food I eat. 

Today, Dr. Poudyal decided I should take two more pills a day than I have been.

She also decided that I could have labs drawn once every three months, a significant change after many weeks of weekly, bi-weekly, and, more recently, monthly labs. 

I'll have labs drawn in February in advance of my February 19th appointment with Dr. Bieber. He comes to Smelterville that day. 

Then I won't have bloodwork done again until May in advance of my May 11th appointment when I see the transplant team on the second anniversary of the transplant. 

I'm also having more specialized labs drawn at Sacred Heart every three months, labs that cannot be done at Kootenai. I'll go to Spokane for one these batteries of tests this week on Thursday the 15th and will have them done again in early May one the same day I have the standard labs done that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. 

I will be very happy if the rhythm of my post-transplant treatment and monitoring becomes defined by bloodwork every three months with office visits scheduled as needed.  

2. Once I put that small pile of notes, written on carefully cut rectangles (around 5" x 4") scraps of papers in a basket with other things I put out of sight for family dinner, for a couple of days I might as well have dropped them into a twenty foot deep empty well. Not only were they put away, they were hidden and I'm terrible at finding hidden things. 

Today, though, I felt like I'd scored a tie breaking World Cup goal when I found them. They are back out in the open again, a reference to consult for words that have not been Wordle solutions, reminders of things I need to get done, and listing daily tasks like feeding Gibbs and Copper, taking my pills every 12 hours, and other things that, as important as they are, I am skillfully and expertly capable of forgetting. 

3. In the first part of Lonesome Dove we see, through the perception of a greenhorn named Newt, two herds of horses, one going north, the other south, collide into one another and create a stir of chaos and confusion before sunrise that makes useless every means Newt has of knowing what's happening in front of him. It's a coming-of-age event in Newt's life, one that challenges his romantic imaginings of what it would be like to round up horses (or cattle) and move them across the north Mexico terrain into the south of Texas. This one event does not form Newt into a full adult, but it's an early start of that process. 

Larry McMurtry's sharp attention to sensory detail and his plain spoken and poetic language in this passage is consistent with what makes his prose style as arresting to me as the novel's story.

Three Beautiful Things 01-12-2026: Filers and Pilers, Lost Notes That Were in a Pile, Pie Eye and the Widow Coles' Underwear

 1. Filers and pilers. Kenton sent me an article telling me about two kinds of people. People like me who are pilers and others who, I guess, can remember what's out of sight, who are not plagued by out of sight, out of mind. They are filers. Kenton and I are pilers. I heard from another friend, Liz, who is a filer and had to come up with a way to deal with her husband's things when they were selling a house. He's a piler. She bought a good-sized basket and piled his things in the basket and put the basket on top of the freezer. Once the viewing ended, her husband could unpile the pile in the basket and repile his piles in the house. Liz said (possibly tongue in cheek) that it saved their marriage! 

2. I write myself notes. A couple or three weeks ago, I saw that there were still pills in a couple or three morning slots in my pillbox. I'd forgotten to take them. So I wrote myself a note in all caps telling myself to take my pills first thing in the morning, before feeding Gibbs and Copper or doing anything else. It makes sense to me that I was more concerned about feeding Gibbs and Copper than I was about taking my pills, but I couldn't let that happen anymore -- and the note worked. I haven't missed a dosage since I wrote it. 

I have notes about groceries, what to be sure to do before I leave the house and what to take, notes that are lists of words that haven't been solutions yet over at Wordle, and a host of other reminders and guides to help me make it through each day. 

Well, those notes were in a pile right by the chair I sit in to write this blog, work puzzles, read, and other things and right now, having moved that pile of notes before family dinner, I have no idea where they are. All I know is that they aren't in plain sight. They are out of my mind. 

Now I need to either find them or do my best to remember what I'd written and recreate them. 

3. The developing story lines in the first part of Lonesome Dove are very good, but as I listen to Will Patton read this novel, I'm really impressed by the lyrical qualities of Larry McMurtry's language, the ways he imagines great miniature stories within the scope of the book's dominant plot, and how funny the book is. When I was reading it to myself, much of the humor went by me, but one of the rewards for listening to the book is that, for me, the humor comes through much more vividly, to my great pleasure. 

One example is when a storm kicks up and Pie Eye helps the widow Coles retrieve sheets and other things that blew off her clothesline and suddenly realizes he's holding her undergarments in his hand. I'll leave it at that, except to say that it's a moment, thanks to McMurtry's deft storytelling, that made me laugh out loud. 

There have been many others. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-11-2026: Family/Birthday Dinner, Gifts and Cherry Pie, A Quirk of Mine Came into Play Today

1. Today was a big day. 

Paul, Carol, and I collaborated to fix tonight's family dinner, a birthday dinner for Christy whose actual birthday was Friday. 

I was the host. Christy requested a pot roast dinner, so Friday I purchased a chuck roast at Costco and this morning I took it out of the refrigerator, let it warm up a bit, and then went to work. 

I began by heating up vegetable oil in our larger Dutch oven and then I seared the top and bottom of the  roast.

I took the roast out of the pot and cooked six cloves of crushed garlic for a minute and then poured a quart of beef broth over the garlic and deglazed the pot's surface. 

I returned the roast to the Dutch oven, covered the meat with Worcestershire sauce put a couple sprigs of rosemary on the roast meat, and added chopped up onion, carrots, red potatoes, and mushrooms.

I cooked the roast all afternoon, first at 300 degrees and later raised the temperature to 350. After about three hours, I determined that the vegetables were cooked and still firm, so I removed them. By about 5:15 or so, the meat was falling apart.  I placed the meat on a cutting board and heated up the vegetables. 

By 6:00 we joined each other at the table and enjoyed our dinner, deliciously enhanced by the green salad Carol made. She served it with Roquefort dressing made from a recipe that is at least sixty years old and came from Sig and Bunny's Sunshine Inn. 

2. Conversation flew all over the place. Books. Movies. Gonzaga basketball. Paul went to see the Zags play last Thursday night and his observations and insights were fascinating. 

Before long, Christy opened gifts from Paul and Carol and from Debbie and me and we ate slices of the superb cherry pie made, at Christy's request. 

3. Let me tell you briefly about a quirk I have. If I put things away, I lose track of them and often forget I have them. As a result, my papers, books, bills, electronics, pills, and a host of other things are out in the open, covering different tables and other surfaces in the house. It's the same way in the kitchen. I often forget I even have certain goods because they are put away.

I curb this quirk a bit when Debbie and I are in the house together, but she's been gone the last three months, so gradually I've not put away more and more things, on purpose, so that I can see them and always know where they are. 

Well, since I hosted family dinner tonight, I spent much of the day clearing off surfaces, putting things of mine out of sight, and now, starting tomorrow, I'm going to have to find those things again and get the process underway to put them back out in the open so I'll know I have them and can easily access them. This quirk of mine  dictated my relationship with papers, file folders, teaching notes, memos, and other tools of my trade as an instructor. I have no explanation for why I have this oddball relationship with the material world. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 01-10-2026: Talking with Debbie, Flitting Around Town, One More Lab Result Came In

 1. The best thing about this electronic wireless instant communication world we live in is that Debbie and I can have the kind of conversations about a wide variety of things on our minds that are unique to our twenty-eight year long relationship. 

We talked today. 

2. I hopped around town a bit after talking with Debbie. I paid bills. I stocked up on things I need as the host for Sunday's family/Christy's birthday (Jan 9) dinner.  I checked on how the Kellogg Elks food pantry looked today and dropped off some things. 

3. The dosage of most of my medicines stays stable, but the one medication the doctors adjust most often is Tacrolimus, one of the two immunosuppressants I take. Each time I have labs drawn, a test is done to measure the Tacrolimus level in my blood. 

That test goes to a Mayo clinic and so the results come back more slowly than the tests measured at the Kootenai lab. 

I got the Tacrolimus results today. 

When I was tested in December, Dr. Poudyal lightened my dosage slightly and today I saw that the level of Tacrolimus in my blood came down some. 

Enough? Too much? 

I'll find out this coming week, but I'm going stick my neck out and predict I will not be assigned a new dosage. 

I enjoy playing transplant nephrologist, always trying to predict what the pros will say when they read my test results or when I visit them in person. 

(By the way, the trick is to have enough Tacrolimus in my blood that it protects my new kidney against my immune system's natural inclination to reject this foreign presence in my body. But, at the same time, we don't want to over suppress my immune system. It's got to be able to do its job protecting me from infections, illnesses, diseases, etc.) 

Three Beautiful Things 01-09-2026: My Labs Are Stable, Burgers at the Elks, Yakkin' at The Lounge

 1. I asserted whatever strength of will I might still possess and slowly rose out of bed greeted this new day at 6:30 and at 7:30, I vaulted into the Camry and rocketed to CdA. Before I fueled the car and shopped at Costco, picked up a few things at Trader Joe's, got a haircut at Supercuts, knocked down a double cappuccino at Starbuck's, and ate a sausage, egg, and hash browns breakfast at Breakfast Nook, I sauntered into the lab I go to at Kootenai Clinic and Deborah, my phlebotomist today, drew vials of blood from my arm and I stepped away and produced a urine sample. 

Upon returning home from CdA, all but one of the lab results were available in my patient portal. 

The results were solid, stable, sturdy. 

It's a relief every month when I see no red flags in my results. 

I hope the pros see the same thing. 

2. Tonight was burger night at the Elks and I joined Ed, Nancy, Cindy, Tim, Jake, and Carol Lee at a table. It buzzed with stories, explanations, updates, and laughter. 

Maybe it was knowing my lab results looked good, maybe it was the company, maybe it was the citrusy and faintly vanilla sweetness of the can of Coca Cola I drank, but whatever the reason, my burger tonight was awesome, as were my fries, and I relished eating such a delicious and simple meal. 

3. The members of our table skipped across the street and piled into The Lounge and the good times continued. I couldn't begin to document everything we yakked about, but subjects ranged from secret ballots when we vote to the Grand Ole Opry to Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers to Evel Knievel to wind damage at the Pinehurst golf course and I probably talked too much about how much I'm enjoying Copper and Gibbs day after day, night after night. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-08-2026: Change in Sleep Pattern Again?, Rye Bread, Debbie Hangs Out and Creates

 1. I was up earlier than usual this morning, giving me some hope that my sleeping schedule might revert back to what it was for so long until a few months ago. I decided to wait one more day to go to CdA for blood work and shopping, though, mainly because I just didn't feel like driving over today. 

2. I bought a loaf of freshly baked light rye bread at Beach Bum Bakery and began to imagine some sandwiches I might try to make with it, loving rye bread as I do. 

3. Debbie and I texted for a sustained amount of time again today. It's fun learning about places near Woodbridge, VA she's finding to hang out at, learning what books she's been reading, and about a workshop she'll attend to learn how to knit a lace baby blanket. 

My big contribution to the discussion? I'm focused on increasing my fluid intake! 

Three Beautiful Things 01-07-2026: Our Snow Shovel Walks Away, The Chill of Virtue, Sleep and Blood Work

 1. I could see from inside the house that the thin layer of snow covering Christy's and my sidewalk was a combination of watery and icy. I decided to shovel this slightly over frozen Slurpee mixture off the surfaces. 

I walked out on the front porch and reached to my right to grab the snow shovel Christy and I share.

The shovel had walked off, taken a stroll, decided to amble, booked, disappeared. 

Okay. 

Someone robbed us. 

I blasted down to Ace Hardware, purchased a new shovel (I guess I'll keep it in the garage) and cleared our sidewalks. 

It went quickly, might have been unnecessary, but I liked getting it done. 

2.  Writing about my two summers at Fort Wright College and having superb text message exchanges with Debbie and Deborah buoyed my day. I thought Deborah and I and then, a bit later, Debbie and I aired out our thoughts about and history with the inherent contradictions in, well, everything. How do we or can we be expected to reconcile these contradictions? 

I thought when I was young that I'd have these things figured out once I grew old. 

The opposite has turned out to be true. 

I'm more bewildered by the world and my place in it than at any time in my life. 

I don't think things in the world are uniquely bewildering right now. I think I'm more cognizant of being a member of a bewildering species. 

Maybe the best I can do is listen to what Jesus instructed his disciples to be as they went out into the world: "Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves." Martin Luther King, Jr. preached on this directive and I agree with him when he says Jesus was telling his disciples to be tough minded and tender hearted. 

The importance of being both clear-eyed and compassionate also brings to mind an essay Martha Nussbaum wrote about what she called the chill of virtue. Her essay was a warning that absolute fidelity to belief or principle or virtue can damage others, cause suffering, be, in fact, immoral. One might be admired for adhering immovably to a certain principle or ideology, but it becomes a cold commitment if keeping the adherence intact results in others' deprivation of one kind or another. 

Nussbaum called into question Socrates' refusal to take money for his teaching. By doing so, he maintained a high ideal and regarded himself above corruption. No one could sway his pursuit of truth and his instruction with money. But his family suffered in the poverty brought about by his commitment to this principle. 

It was, in Nussbaum's mind, a clear example of the chill of virtue. 

3. I need to have blood work done once a month. It's been about a month since I had work done in early December. I have to have my blood work done in the morning, in Coeur d'Alene, before I take my morning pills. I take them sometime between eight and nine o'clock. 

I'm having trouble falling asleep at night. The more sleep I get in the morning, the less my head aches in the when I get up and the less groggy I feel. I just couldn't get up before 8:00 this morning so I didn't go to the lab. I'm hoping that it'll be different Thursday morning. I want to get this blood work done and I have some other tasks I'd like to complete in CdA before I return home. 

If I wake up Thursday to iffy icy roads, I'll stay put and plan to go over Friday. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-06-2026: My Positive Summers with Sisters of the Holy Names, Good Energy Today, Heavenly Music and Music for My Secular Soul

1. Tim O'Reilly posted a picture and comment on Facebook about his experience as a student in Kellogg's now defunct Catholic school connected to St. Rita's church. Tim tells us he has PTSD and attributes it to the nuns. A roster of other St. Rita's alum commented on Tim's post, furthering his point that the nuns could be strict, punishing, and traumatizing. This thread alternated between dark humor and painful memories. 

As this thread developed, Shelley Church wondered why nuns were so mean and asked if anyone had a positive story. 

Well, I couldn't tell any stories, positive or negative, about St. Rita's, but I had two of the best summers of my life at Fort Wright College, run by the Sisters of the Holy Names, in Spokane. I took courses there in the summers of 1976 and 77. My professors were nuns. A majority of the students were nuns. Some resided in or near Spokane and others were from more far-flung parts of the country.  

I'll just say that for whatever reasons, my inclinations when it comes to Christianity and world religions have always been ecumenical. 

In 1976, I had just graduated from Whitworth College (a Presbyterian affiliated Christian college) and in September I would begin a new job as a Chaplain's Assistant in the college's chaplaincy. 

So I showed up that first summer at Fort Wright College as a young Protestant whippersnapper, not so eager to represent Protestantism, but eager to learn all I could from the Roman Catholics I would be studying with. I returned the second summer eager to build upon what I'd learned the summer before and to deepen the friendships I'd made. 

My experience with the Holy Names nuns those two summers was unfalteringly positive. We studied literature and the Bible together. We worshiped together, prayed together, dined and drank beer together, and had stimulating conversations. My professors and classmates accepted me warmly, encouraged my participation, and opened my eyes to a world of serious study, meaningful prayer and worship, and much laughter and fun. 

I've often thought that my wonderful experiences those two summers contributed significantly to my decision in the 1980s to worship as an Episcopalian and to be eventually confirmed in the Episcopal church. 

2. Again today, like yesterday, my energy was better than it's been in months. I got more work done around the house, including more laundry.  I made a run to Beach Bum Bakery for a loaf of just out of the oven French bread, bought a Sunshine Muffin Top, and because Rebekah had great news about the bakery (I'm not sure she's making it public just yet), she gave any bakery club member who came in a slice of a heavenly chocolate cake she'd just baked. 

I put together a leafless salad, listened to more of Lonesome Dove, and read several articles by great writers developing their perspective on events transpiring as 2026 gets underway. 

I'm not feeling as good as I felt in the first half of 2025, but I have felt better the last two days than I have most days in the second half of 2025 and I will be very happy if this improvement continues. 

3.  I also meditated upon the January 5th and 6th pieces of music from the book Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day. 

First, the music for January 5th. 

I listened to Crucifixus, composed by Antonio Lotti (1667-1740). 

The setting for this three and a half minutes of polyphonic choral music goes as follows: "He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried."

I need to make one thing clear: I do not have great sound speakers at home. 

That said, as the sound of this choir intoning the news of Jesus Christ's crucifixion came pouring out my inferior speakers, miraculously, our living room became like a cathedral. 

I was transported back to the years 1975 and 1979 when I toured England and visited several Gothic Cathedrals from Canterbury to London to Salisbury to Chester to York and other cathedrals in between. 

I was struck, repeatedly, by the way the architecture of these cathedrals invited one's eyes to look upward, heavenward and by the seemingly immeasurable amount of space these cathedrals provided, space I experienced as being filled by the Holy Spirit. 

I worshiped in some of these cathedrals and hearing choir sing in them gave me the feeling that their voices were coming from another realm of being. I imagined they were angels singing, filling the expanse of the cathedrals' interiors. 

And so this evening. as I listened to the Choir of New College, Oxford bring Lotti's Crucifixus alive, it was as if the ceiling and roof of our modest little house began to expand, rise upward. I imagined for about three minutes that a cathedral had replaced the space I live in and angels had come to sing in it. 

The wonderful music for Jan 6th was by Max Bruch  (1838-1920). I listened to the Prelude of his Violin Concerto No 1 in E Minor. 

Listening to Bruch took me back to Eugene's Hult Center or the U of Oregon Beall Hall or being back to the one-time home of the Spokane Symphony, the Spokane Opera House. Our living room transformed from a Gothic cathedral into a Symphony Hall. 

 Whereas the first piece transported me to a heavenly place where I imagined angels singing, Bruch's concerto is beautifully human, taking me not out of myself but more deeply into myself, opening me up to a wide, deep, and sometimes exciting range of emotion. 

I enjoyed this contrast between sacred and secular music, between being taken into the heavens and into some region of my soul. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-05-2026: Morning Clarity, A Mini-Burst of Clarity and Energy, A Verve Comeback?

 1. I was up this morning around 8:15, had the morning pressure inside my head I always have, and was a little groggy. I fell into my routine but forgot to take my medicine at the appointed time, but I did take my pills later, just a while aftee I'm supposed to. 

I fed Copper and Gibbs and fixed myself a latte and launched into my morning puzzle solving. 

Before long, I realized I was feeling better than usual. 

My head was clearing, the fog was lifting, and my physical energy felt pretty good.

2. I had thought I might do a couple of things outside the house today, but since I didn't know if this mini-burst of clarity and energy would continue into the week, I decided to stay home and get some tasks done around the house. 

I exchanged text messages with Debbie as we worked out some easy home business matters and mailed Debbie just what she needs to move forward on one of those matters. 

I took care of dishes. 

I did three loads of laundry. 

I changed the sheets on my bed. 

I wiped down counters in the kitchen with a focus and determination I haven't felt in a while! 

Cupboards next?

I did a few other things, including napping. Short naps. 

3. I also made a most satisfying tri-tip stir fry with a host of vegetables and brown rice left over from last night.

Let's face it. I

'd like to have another few days like today this coming week. 

I've been doing stuff, as you know if you read this blog, but not always with the verve I'd like to do them with. 

Tomorrow I'll see if verve is making a comeback! 

Three Beautiful Things 01-04-2026: That Sunshine Muffin Hooked Me, Yoke's and the Elks' Pantry, A Satisfying Day of Listening

 1. Beach Bum Bakery opened a small mobile shack on Bunker Avenue here in Kellogg in October of 2022. I'm not sure when I first shopped there, but I do know that the first baked good I purchased was a Sunshine Muffin. I love Morning Glory muffins and the Sunshine Muffin reminded me of the Morning Glory and that one muffin hooked me on Beach Bum's baked goods and I continue to be hooked today. 

In fact, today when Rebekah texted out what goods she had available today, I saw I could purchase a Sunshine Muffin.

Around noon, I blasted uptown to the bakery and bought a muffin and one of my favorite cookies, the oatmeal raisin. 

I had a latte in a travel mug in the car and blissed out on my way down to Yoke's as I ate half the muffin and sipped on the latte. 

2. On my way to Yoke's, I stopped off at the food pantry at the Kellogg Elks to see what the pantry had in it and what I might add. 

At Yoke's I bought items like beef stew, chili, tuna fish, and other food products and bought some toothbrushes to go with the pack of tubes of toothpaste I brought from home. 

I had intended to donate pet food and forgot to buy some at Yoke's. I'll remedy that sometime early this coming week. 

3. I had a terrific listening day today. When I drove out to Walmart to pick up a curbside order, I listened to an album of Chopin's piano etudes. I continued listening to these jewels later in the morning when I went uptown and to Yoke's. 

Back home, I took out the book, A Year of Wonder, and listened to the pieces the author, Clemency Burton-Hill had chosen for this weekend, January 3rd and 4th. 

The medieval Benedictine nun and abbess, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), famous as a philosopher, mystic, prophet, medical expert/botanist, poet, and composer of music composed the January 3rd selection.  The four minutes of listening to the Kronos Quartet play her O virtus sapientine transported me to a place removed from the disorder and bewilderment of this world. I experienced this music as calming and sacred. 

The January 4th selection came from Beethoven. The Tokyo Quartet played the fifth movement of his String Quartet No. 13. It was beautiful in a whole different way in its complexity and its explorations of the nature of human life. By the time Beethoven composed this piece, he was completely deaf and so we are hearing music played that he never heard, except as he could hear it in his mind as he wrote it. It explores the fragility and deep feeling that is central to being human. 

This day of varied pleasures began to wind down as I listened to another chapter and a half of Lonesome Dove and, to repeat myself, I am experiencing the music making and the virtuosity of Larry McMurtry as a novelist much more immediately and vividly as I listen to Will Patton read the book to me than when I was reading it to myself earlier in 2025. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-03-2026: Catching Up with Debbie, Homemade Patty Melt, Figuring Out My Ember Mug

 1. Debbie called me this evening and updated me on what lies ahead in Virginia and New York over the next, oh, I'd say three weeks. I appreciated Debbie bringing me up to speed. I'm always happy to be able to report to her that Gibbs is doing great and so is Copper and that the holiday season for all of us here in Kellogg was full of good cheer. 

2. I had purchased a loaf of light rye bread from Beach Bum Bakery and at dinner time I had a great idea. I had thawed a small packet of ground beef and suddenly thought that I could fix myself a patty melt.

And I did. 

The rye bread was perfect. I liked the sandwich dressed with ketchup and mustard and was grateful I had Swiss cheese on hand. 

Next time I'll add a dill pickle. I'll also make the meat patty less thick. 

All in all, though, it was a fun and mostly successful experiment, giving me good reason to always try to have some ground beef, Swiss cheese, and bakery fresh rye bread on hand. 

3. Debbie thought I might enjoy having an Ember mug. To me, it's an electronic device that keeps hot drinks at pleasantly hot temperatures, depending on what setting a person chooses. I've been setting my cup at 142 degrees, the max, and that's working for me. 

This device has flaws. It doesn't work consistently well with the Android Ember app. Its battery doesn't hold a charge for a very long time. It also has other eccentricities. 

But, with patience and experimentation, I've figured out ways to work with these imperfections and it's fun having a latte or a cup of hot Trader Joe's Cinnamon Sunset Black Tea stay comfortably hot. I'm glad I invested time and patience in working with its flaws and developing simple ways to make it work for me. 

(One example: it doesn't take long, but I freqiemt;u have to uninstall and reinstall the app.)

Three Beautiful Things 01-02-2026: "This Week in Baseball", Karaoke Dreams, Chillin' at The Lounge

 1. A program daily comes on WUOL at six PST called "Exploring Music", hosted by Bill McGaughlin. It has theme music that helps open most shows, not all of them, and it reminds me of the music that played while "This Week in Baseball" came to an end. 

I teared up when I found the "This Week in Baseball" theme songs on YouTube. The opening music was jazzy, kind of urban, and set the mood perfectly for Mel Allen to come on the air and narrate highlights, some baseball history, and funny things that had happened over the previous week. 

The closing music featured, among other instruments, strings and confirmed for me that similarity does exist between "Exploring Music" and "This Week in Baseball". 

I glanced over at the right hand side of my screen at the videos YouTube recommended and clicked on an entire episode of "This Week in Baseball" from March 31, 1977. 

My insides shook with pleasure and I got teary again. 

I loved those days in baseball and seeing highlights of the Yankees playing the Red Sox, the Pirates playing the Cubs at Wrigley, and other highlights rekindled the deep affection I had for teams like the Reds and the Dodgers I never rooted for, but deeply admired, as well as the teams I pulled for.  

I also really enjoyed seeing the style of play: lots of action created by hits that stayed in the ballpark, sacrifice bunts making highlights, and seeing pitchers like Ken Holtzman, Luis Tiant, and Rudy May getting hitters out with guile, creativity, and intelligence. None them served up blistering fastballs or put devastating spin on their pitches. 

I realize everything changes and I understand that executives, managers, coaches, and players have a different understanding of the game in 2026 than the players who moved me today had in 1977. 

I wasn't assessing, while being transported back nearly fifty years, what was better. 

I was just enjoying and letting myself be moved by baseball back then and the great music that made baseball come alive for me weekly on "This Week in Baseball". 

2. I was seeking out these videos on YouTube while working the always challenging Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.

Suddenly, for no sane or rational reason, I began to fantasize about singing karaoke. 

In my fantasy, I was a top-notch singer. I could do anything with my unlimited vocal range and impeccable sense of rhythm. 

For my two performances, I clicked on two songs I loved imagining myself performing, but at some risk, not knowing if anyone in my imaginary audience knew these songs. 

I've been crazy for over thirty years about the Celtic folk rock/folk punk group called Oysterband who have also called themselves The Oyster Band. 

I blew my fantasized audience away taking over the lead vocals on their song, "Take Me Down". 

(By the way, when I regained consciousness after a couple days or so of unconsciousness thanks to a 1999 bout with bacterial meningitis, Debbie brought a cd player and some discs to the hospital and she just knew that it would help me heal and boost my spirits to listen to the great album, Freedom and Rain recorded by June Tabor and The Oyster Band. And she was right. That album, along with others, helped transport me slowly and surely out of my post-ICU weakness and confusion into strength and a clearer understanding of what had happened to me.)

The other song I performed required the audience to accept me singing a woman's song and to accept me singing the words "smell my perfume". 

Over forty years ago, I became enamored with Joan Armatrading, especially her bold and assertive song, "Drop the Pilot". Singing that song during daydream karaoke gave me a way to sing words I would never say, devise a plan to take a lover away from another person that I would never think of to do, and to pretend my roots are Caribbean. 

On this fantasy island of karaoke, it worked! 

3. So what on earth set me off to go down baseball nostalgia boulevard and sing my guts out at imagine that! karaoke night. 

Must have been the Bud Zeros at The Lounge. 

Ed and I met up at The Lounge around 3:30 for a relaxing hour of yakking, story telling, and looking ahead to major events, like the Elks Crab Feed, awaiting us in the future. 

Or maybe cooking up that last small chunk of salmon and eating it with the last of the couscous set me off, inspired me to check out the theme music from "This Week in Baseball" instead of listening to Mozart on "Exploring Music". 

I don't know what sent me away, but spending some time in 1977 baseball land and singing like a boss at karaoke was sure fun. 

Three Beautiful Things 01-01-2026: Symphonies Wander, Our Annual Prime Rib Dinner, Pub Trivia

 1. To be honest, I just hadn't given much thought to symphonies over the past seventy-two years. They would come on the different classical music radio stations I've listened to over the years and I enjoyed them playing in background as I drove a car or went about my business at home. 

I think I've had a small breakthrough, though, in developing an appreciation for this art form. 

Symphonies wander. 

Much like novels which can move easily from setting to setting, travel in time, and, in the course of exercising this flexibility, experiment with point of view, language, and with the genre itself, I've begun to hear the same sort of wandering, exploration, and experimentation in symphonies. 

I'll leave it at that for now, except to say that I've been much more receptive to the multiple aspects of symphonic music over the last few days as I've given into the wandering in the movements of these compositions. 

2.  Our family decided a few years ago to have our holiday prime rib dinner on New Year's Day. We used to have it closer to Christmas -- even on Christmas Day,  

Tonight's dinner was thoroughly delicious. We started with a simple shrimp cocktail that Cosette and Taylor assembled and before long paraded to the dining table where the perfectly seasoned and tender, juicy prime rib Carol roasted was accompanied by Zoe's terrific chopped salad (I think Saphire helped her), Christy's perfectly baked Hasselback potatoes with a smooth white sauce, and Carol's flawless Yorkshire pudding. I contributed a mundane pickle and olive plate, compliments of jars purchased at Yoke's Fresh Market. 

3. As our fantastic dinner wound down, Carol hushed the table and announced that she wanted us to divide into two teams and play Pub Trivia. By some randomizing method, Christy, Taylor, and I became one team and the other was Paul, Carol, and Cosette.  The best part of the game was that Christy, Taylor, and I all contributed answers and in our collaborative effort we answered quite a few questions correctly. It was a lot of fun.