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.