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.
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