Three Beautiful Things 06-29-2026: Copper Undergoes Laceration Repair, Death Exposes Greed, Black Bean and Brown Rice Salad

 1. Even before fixing myself a latte, the first thing I did this morning was call the Kellogg Medical Pet Center to see if I could get Copper in to have his wound examined.

A 9:00 slot was available.

I did not expect that! 

Dr. Cook immediately sized up the nature of Copper's injury and said ideally the thing to do would be to sedate Copper, remove the flap of skin that had been hanging from where I accidentally injured him, and then stitch the wound. I had been trying to put that flap of skin back over the wound, trying to keep it in place with my amateur placement of the gauze, holding it in place by wrapping a self-sticking wrap around Copper's neck like a collar. 

Dr. Cook presented me with the option of continuing to do that, but I immediately concluded it would be best for Copper for me to say yes to Dr. Cook's "stitch him up" proposal. 

Then another stroke of luck: a cancellation opened up time this afternoon for the surgery. 

So, I left Copper at the vet and returned at 5:00 to pick him up and found out the surgery was a success and, once home, Copper took a small leap atop a towel in his favorite open suitcase and rested, as ordered, for the evening. 

2. In the very early pages of War and Peace, Tolstoy makes it clear that the aged and stroke stricken Count Bezukhov is going to die. 

The drama in this part of the story is not if he will die, no, the drama is in the jockeying, plotting, secret conversations, resentments, and other activity and feelings carried out by his survivors. 

Dickens, Trollope, and many other 19th century novelists brilliantly write whole segments of some of their novels around the sniping, greed, hypocrisy, and self-seeking, often exercised under the guise of grieving, acted out by family members and others who want to cash in on the death of one with wealth. 

Tolstoy takes us into the souls of these characters as they grub for a share of old Bezukhov's death. I'm eager to see how it all pans out. '

Reading the development of this subplot made me laugh, cringe, boo, hiss, sigh, and long for someone with a sense of common decency to step in get the parties to settle their conflicts. Will this happen? I'm going to stay tuned and find out. 

3. As I've mentioned, I've been hungry lately for other than lettuce focused salads. 

Tonight, I cooked brown rice and combined it with black beans and built a salad around the beans and rice. I chopped celery, green onion, radishes, and red pepper in a bowl and mixed in Kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, and cilantro, and put it all together with the beans and rice. I completed this salad by adding a couple generous splashes of salsa and topping it with broken corn tortilla chips. 

I loved this salad and have a good helping or two left over.

I realized as I finished the helping I ate for diner that I forgot to include fresh squeezed lemon juice. 

I remedied that error by squeezing half a lemon over the leftover salad. 

I tasted it. 

The lemon made a huge positive difference.