Three Beautiful Things 10-07-2026: Conference, PT Progress, Discussions

 1. I left the nearly completely cleared off table up and it served me well during an important video conference. 

2. I texted Christy today about how her PT session went and her answer was both positive and encouraging. Great news! 

3. When Debbie was in New York, we tabled a lot of discussions about different aspects of life at home and what things we might want to do at home and about our upcoming trip to Cincinnati. Now that were together again, slowly and surely we are getting different discussions started. Today we had some of those discussions in earnest. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-06-2026: Card Table Quandary, Trash to the Curb, Cilantro Pesto

1. Do I need a card table set up in the bedroom where I sleep? For months, the card table was my pill box filling, blood pressure cuff, and record keeping station, but I no longer need such a station now that I'm over two years past having had a kidney transplant. I did some rearranging of other items in this bedroom today and remain undecided about the card table. 

It's not really a huge decision!

All the same, I'll make it before too long. 

2. The City of Kellogg collects our garbage on Wednesdays, so I went over to Christy's and took her trash bags and cardboard out to her container and rolled it to the curb. It's much safer for Christy to have one of us in the family take care of this job until she regains more mobility and energy. 

3. Debbie enjoys making different kinds of pesto and recently she made a batch using cilantro, cashews, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and I'm not sure what else.  It's terrific and tasted great over a bowl of rotini pasta this evening. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-04-2026: Team Take an Interest, Claiming an Education, Dinner with Christy

1. Deborah and I have been friends since we met as students over fifty years ago at Whitworth. She wrote a wonderful response to what I wrote about going to Ferris High School to hear Rick Riordan and Annabelle Ho. Her parallel experience, and more involved one, took place six years ago when she joined her grandson in reading the Harry Potter series, books she hadn't been interested in but that she TOOK AN INTEREST in and enjoyed thoroughly. 

I told her, in response, that it was really fun to have a friend and companion on Team Take an Interest. 

She liked that and my guess is that we'll both continue to explore things in our life that we hadn't been interested in, but decided to pursue, to take an interest in. 

2. By the way, about forty years ago I read Adrienne Rich's convocation address at Douglass College. In it, Rich urged the students not to passively receive an education, but to actively claim their educations through questioning assumption and engaging critically with ideas in the face of contradiction. In other words, she urged students to take responsibility for their education and to experience it as a dynamic, participatory project. 

I used to read Rich's address to my students and it was in the spirit of Rich's call to action that I encouraged students who told me they weren't interested in readings I assigned to actively take an interest, to see an education as a way not of confirming ways they already saw the world, but to take an interest in ways they didn't and then decide what they thought of different perspectives or things that happened outside their own experience. 

I have no idea if this encouragement made a difference. 

I do know I had a lot of fun trying to help my students' worlds become a little larger. 

3. Mostly I rested today. I needed to recharge after traveling to Pendleton and back last week and then going to highly stimulating events in Spokane on Saturday and Sunday. 

We invited Christy over for dinner late this afternoon.

It's a good thing I had rested. 

Our dinner conversation was intense. 

We talked a lot about all that Christy went through medically this summer and continues to go through now. 

I felt the impact of the complexity of Christy's ongoing medical situation strongly this evening. 

She's experiencing multiple difficulties, all at the same time. 

It's taxing her. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-04-2026: *Americana*, Aaron Copland Twice!, Surprise!

1. Debbie and I arrived at the Fox Theater this afternoon in plenty of time to hear Conductor James Lowe and guest cello soloist Zuill Bailey give a talk about today's concert. 

Today's concert was entitled Americana and, with the exception of Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations, the concert focused on exploring musical identity in the USA.

The cellist, Zuill Bailey, had collaborated recently with former Spokane Symphony Music Director, Eckhart Preu, on a commission to recruit five American composers of different backgrounds to each create a five minute composition inspired, however they wanted, by the Declaration of Independence. Each of the five compositions featured the cello as a solo instrument and Zuill Bailey filled that role. 

So, Bailey and Lowe discussed the process of putting these five compositions together into a single suite and previewed the emotional content of each piece. The title of the suite: Visions of Humanity. The composers:

Chanda Dancy-Morizawa, African-American

Avner Dorman: Israeli-American

Zhou Tian: Chinese-American

Enrico Chapela: Mexican-American

Mark O'Connor: Appalachian-American 

Bailey and Lowe's discussion of these compositions was fascinating and I appreciated being prepared to experience the variety of ways these composers explore humanity and the musical identity of the USA. 

2. Another great pleasure of this concert was that it opened and closed (or so we thought it closed! More later!) with compositions by Aaron Copland. 

The orchestra's performance of Variations on a Shaker Melody set a tone of beauty of familiarity of the concert. 

The final (or so we thought) piece of the concert was Copland's Suite from Billy the Kid, twenty minutes of selections from Copland's Billy the Kid ballet. 

Fitting snugly into the Americana theme was William Grant Still's warm and lyrical Mother and Child, in which Still brought together his classical European influenced training as a composer with the bluesy and jazzy root music of his life as an African-American. 

The concert program stepped out of the Americana theme for Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, giving us another opportunity to savor the brilliance of cellist Zuill Bailey. 

3. After the orchestra finished Billy the Kid, and the standing ovations and bows by the conductor and the orchestra concluded, suddenly James Lowe reappeared and to the absolute delight of the audience, the orchestra suddenly played Stars and Stripes Forever. The audience clapped rhythmically at the appropriate places, the three piccolo players wowed the audience during their section, and as the lights came back on, the audience left the Fox Theater sporting wide grins and joy. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-03-2926: I Was With Hundreds of Youngsters, Authors Collaborate, Taking an Interest

 1. I've written this about a thousand and one times, but here I go again. 

Especially through Northwest Passages presentations in Spokane, I am attending programs about things with which I have no familiarity and listening to authors I've never (or barely) heard of. 

This evening, I joined over 800 people in the Ferris High School auditorium in Spokane to hear fantasy writer Margaret Owens interview Rick Riordan and Annabelle Oh. 

Thanks to this program, I now know that Rick Riordan is the very well-known and admired writer best known for having created the character Percy Jackson, an ADHD twelve-year-old, who discovers he is the son of Poseidson, and from that launching pad, Riordan has written several series of books. 

The primary audience for his books is young people. 

Over 800 people attended this presentation and I'd say at least 75% of the audience were youngsters ranging in age from elementary school to high school and some of the young people appeared to be just a little older than K-12ers. 

I don't remember ever being in the same place with so many giddy and excited youngsters, youngsters who listened with rapt attention when people on stage talked and who, at appropriate times, screamed like Beatles fans on the Ed Sullivan show, expressing their love of the world Riordan has created, the characters who populate this world, and the stories Riordan tells. 

And their love of reading. 

Their enthusiasm and the feeling of togetherness in the auditorium moved me. 

2. Rick Riordan is in the midst of creating another Camp Half-Blood series. He decided to take a new approach to writing the books for this series. He recruited four writers and each is working as a co-author for one book in this new Camp Half-Blood series. 

The first of these four books is now available: The Wild Zone. The co-author of The Wild Zone is Annabelle Oh. This book features a newcomer to Camp Half-Blood world named Katie King. 

We got to hear Riordan and Oh talk about their collaboration, the process of bringing The Wild Zone to life, and their enthusiasm for encouraging youngsters to read and to learn that they, too, can be heroes. 

3. Tonight brought me back to something I wrote about a little while back. I did my best in my years as a teacher to encourage my students to take an interest in things they didn't think they were interested in. Often students would tell me I'd assigned them to read something that they couldn't relate to and so weren't interested. 

I knew what they meant.

They were telling me the assigned reading was outside their lived experience. 

I'd do my best to encourage them to go beyond not being interested in the reading and to try to take an interest in it. 

That's exactly what I've been doing. 

Last night I took an interest in young people's fantasy books, something I've never had an interest in. 

Before that I went to presentations on the world of Disney (I lost lukewarm interest decades ago), a post-apocalyptic novel (way outside my interest), a novel about rescuing pianos in the Arctic (I'd never thought of that), and the world of Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire (never watched the show or read a Longmire book). 

All of these Northwest Passages interviews/presentation stimulated me, broadened my worldview, gave me pleasure, and encouraged me to continue to open myself to new worlds of discovery and learning. 

I'll just add that when Debbie and I, in a moment of what the heck spontaneity, decided to join the Science/Nature book club at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, I found myself taking an interest in the restoration of a plot of land heavily polluted by toxic factories, in the history of apples, potatoes, tulips, and cannabis, in the history of mosquitos, the history of Earth's moon, rivers in Ecuador, India, and Quebec, birds, and medicinal plants. 

I don't hold things in my mind as well as I used to, but in the moment I'm reading these books, listening to these presentation, or listening to the Spokane String Quartet or Spokane Symphony, I'm enjoying myself. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-02-2026: Easy Driving, Easy Living, Back to Crossword Puzzles

 1. Ed and I had an easy travel morning back to the Silver Valley and I only missed one exit that cost us about ten minutes of time, but the recovery was pretty easy. We stopped in at Country Mercantile outside of Pasco for a quick sugared croissant and I put a little pep in my step with a latte. 

2. I arrived home to a peace and quiet. Debbie baked some chicken and I boiled some potato chunks. Easy food. Easy conversation. It's all good. 

3. I relaxed with some puzzles today. At the Wildhorse Resort and Casino, when I was relaxing in my room, I didn't work much on NYTimes crossword puzzles, so I have some catching up to do. Instead of crossword puzzles, I read The Dog Stars and, with it finished, I can now move on to a new book. I think I'll give Priyanka Kumar's Conversations with Birds a try and continue to read and learn more about a subject I know very little about. 

Three Beautiful Things 10-01-2026: I Finish *The Dog Stars*, Lunch in Meacham, Serious Yakkin' in Ed's Room

 1. I won't give away the ending to Peter Heller's The Dog Stars. I will say that after I finished it, I closed the book, lay back in my Wildhorse Resort bed, and thought a lot about the complexities of survival, the post-apocalyptic inevitability of violence, about love, the post-apocalyptic yang to the yin of violence, and ingenuity, flexibility, and adaptability. 

I also thought about poetry, especially this one by the ninth century Chinese poet Li Shang-Yin:

When Will I Be Home?

When will I be home? I don't know. 

In the mountains, in the rainy night, 

The Autumn lake is flooded.

Someday we will be back together again.

We will sit in the candlelight by the West window.

And I will tell you how I remembered you.

Tonight on the stormy mountain. 

This poem is vital to the story Peter Heller tells in The Dog Stars. 

2. Earlier in the day, Mike, Ed, Don, and I strolled into the Oregon Trail Grocery and Deli in Meacham, OR, an essential part of our routine when we get together twice a year at the Wildhorse Resort and Casino. A hard-working couple runs the place. I don't know their names, but the husband, who takes orders and serves them,  has been friendly and funny with us for as long as we've patronized the Deli and his wife is a superb slinger of the menu's food. 

I ordered a bowl of superb ham and pinto bean soup to go with a memorable Patty Melt. Everything was perfect: the ground beef coming off the well-seasoned grill, the bite and slight sweetness of the Swiss cheese, the onions grilled just right, and, the coup de grace, the robust nuttiness of the rye bread. 

The cook came out from the kitchen and let us shower her with accolades and she was laughing appreciatively as we fell over ourselves with gratitude for her impeccable work. 

3. Mike, Don, and I came up to Ed's room around 4:00. The other guys enjoyed some whiskey and I drained a cup of coffee. We had quite a session, talking about the past and the present, what we read or watch on television, the complications of family life, and what happens when people who share the same father but didn't know each other have a chance to meet up and get acquainted. 

Fascinating -- and the stories were not uncommon. I hear more and more of these tales the older I grow and Debbie's side of the family has their own to tell as Misty, fathered by Debbie's brother David, has entered into the lives not only of Debbie and me, but of David's two other adult children and has become acquainted with more and more of the family tree she just discovered she's a part of a couple or three years ago. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-30-2026: Weighty Decision, YakFest in Ed's Room, Dinner at the Plateau

1. My luck on the casino floor has been lousy, so I've stayed mostly away. That has opened up time to relax in the comfort of my hotel room to read deeper into The Dog Stars. I'm at what feels like a critical juncture in the story as Hig tries to determine if he can take off from where his plane is right now with two added passengers -- can the plane lift the weight of three people and some supplies off the ground? 

2. It's always fun during our stay at the Wildhorse to have yakkin' sessions in Ed's room. The other guys enhance the fun with a snort of whiskey or two, but I had to enhance my fun with a couple of cups of coffee since I'm not mixing alcohol with the meds I take to suppress my immune system. 

Our session featured fun stories, news updates, and, as always, lots of laughing. 

3. Don, Terry, Ed, Mike and I got together at the resort's Plateau Steakhouse for the upscale dinner we always enjoy on our twice a year visits. I tried something completely different tonight. I ordered a bowl of terrific French onion soup and a Plateau hamburger. 

The hamburger was massive, way more than I could eat. It featured two quarter pound ground beef patties, two hunks of slab bacon, tomato, and lettuce. The burger was cut in half with each half held together with a kabob-like spear. The two halves of the burger rested in a very shallow Gouda and white cheddar cheese sauce. In addition, this monster burger had an onion ring the size of my head resting atop it and it came with Brussels sprouts and garlic fries. 

We thought the Brussels sprouts came with Terry's order of rack of lamb, so he enjoyed those. 

I could only eat half of this burger, a few fries, and the onion ring. 

I'm sure I could have eaten the whole thing about thirty years ago, but not now. 

Had I consumed it all, I would have been like that guy in the old Alka-Seltzer ad moaning, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."

It was a fun dinner and I wisely returned to my room and relaxed with a crossword puzzle and some reading before I went to sleep. 

Here we are at dinner:  

Three Beautiful Things 09-29-2026: Whitworth at Dave's Bar and Grill, Geography Brain Fog, Thai Food with Colette

1. Ed and I headed out this morning for the Wildhorse Resort and Casino shortly after 6 a.m. and made what has become our regular first stop at Dave's Bar and Grill just off Pines Road on E. Sprague in Spokane Valley. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast. 

As we wrapped up our visit, I asked our server why she was wearing a Whitworth University shirt. She replied that her son had played football at Whitworth and earned two degrees there, a bachelor's and a master's degree. Her son also worked alongside Bud Nameck, the radio voice of the Pirates, over the weekend and Nameck invited him to join him again this weekend to provide analysis and insight. 

Listening to her story was a really fun way to end our breakfast.

2. Thanks to my confusion regarding the geography of the state of Washington, Ed and I took a somewhat out of the way route to Colfax and on west to Walla Walla and south to Pendelton. Luckily, my confusion didn't mar our trip.  We enjoyed the late September landscapes and ended up making pretty good time. 

Later in the evening, I consulted a google map to try to figure out my confusion. It happened as we left Tekoa and I think I pretty much figured it out. I hope I'll remember next time how to best travel from Tekoa to Colfax with a clear and not muddled mind. 

3. Colette and I also have regular thing we do when I come down to the Wildhorse Resort and Casino.

We meet for dinner at Thai Crystal. It's a twice a year thing and we always talk about a wide variety of topics ranging from health issues to books we've read to ideas and insights we have about the natural world, human activity in the natural world, and our lives and life in general. We always converse for about three hours and inevitably continue our discussion in the parking lot, always having a few more insights or stories to wrap up. 

Once again, this was a superb get together that stimulated a lot of thought and gave me more things to investigate in the coming days and weeks. 

Upon returning to the resort/casino, I bolted to the deli for one of the treats I indulge every evening: a two scoop dish of ice cream. This evening I enjoyed a scoop of Cookies and Cream topped with a scoop of French Vanilla. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-28-2026: Blood Test, Chili, Mortality

 1. Dr. Bieber determined that I ought to lower my dosage of Tacrolimus, that is, lower the levels of this medication in my bloodstream. I made the adjustment he ordered.  Then, today, I further followed Dr. Bieber's orders and drove to the lab in CdA and had a vial of blood drawn. The results came back and the Tacrolimus level in my blood was lower and Dr. Bieber messaged me that the new level was acceptable and to continue with the new dosage. 

2. Christy, Debbie, and I swooped into Carol and Paul's house for today's family dinner -- which has, for the time being, morphed into family lunch. Christy brought pickled vegetables for a starter and then we enjoyed Carol's chili, the Trader Joe's cornbread I baked, and the clean out the crisper vegetable salad that Debbie created. 

Great news! 

We hadn't quite, in previous family dinners, eaten all the ice cream that had accumulated at Carol and Paul's and so we enjoyed the last of their stash for dessert.

3. We returned to having a topic discussion, a practice we started back in the spring, but gave a rest over the summer. Christy planned today's meal and asked us, in light of her experiences this summer and of comments I've written in this blog about The Dog Stars, to discuss mortality and how our awareness of our mortality shapes the way we live. We learned quite a bit about each other and it was good to know it's a topic we aren't avoiding, even though it's tempting. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-27-2026: Solo Pianist, Piano Trio and Piano Quintet, Whistle Punk Brewing

 1. I thoroughly enjoy these trips Debbie and I (or I alone) make to Spokane to participate in the Science/Nature book club, hear the Spokane Symphony, listen to Northwest Passages presentation, attend symphony conductor James Lowe's lectures, and hear the Spokane String Quartet. 

All of these pleasures have enlarged my understanding of the world, music, and life itself. 

Today was no exception. 

The Spokane String Quartet played this afternoon at the Fox Theater. This was either the third or fourth concert of theirs I've attended and today's was unlike any of the others. 

For starters, today's concert featured a pianist, Frank Huang. 

The concert opened with Frank Huang as a soloist, playing a stunningly difficult and emotionally complex composition by Franz Liszt entitled Totentanz. I thought the piece pushed Frank Huang to show us the full range of virtuosity with its thunderous and drum-like passages, mind-boggling stretches of rapid runs, and sudden moments of tenderness and calm. 

2. Then the concert featured not a string quartet, but a piano trio featuring, along with Huang, violinist Amanda Howard-Phillips and cellist Helen Byrne playing the Antonin Dvorak's Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor. My enjoyment of Dvorak grows out of his ways of weaving together Slavic folk tunes, dances, and marches with moments of sorrow, soaring energy, and great beauty. 

The concert's last piece featured the famous piano quintet, known as "Trout", by Franz Schubert, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. I was unfamiliar with the first two offerings of this program and very much enjoyed settling into hearing music I've been enjoying for over twenty years. 

I loved that I came to a string quartet concert and heard everything but a quartet! We heard a solo, a trio, and a quintet and enjoyed three of classical music's most brilliant composers. 

3. As Debbie and I walked back to where our car was parked, we decided to pop into Whistle Punk, one of my favorite breweries anywhere. I didn't know what their non-alcoholic offerings were, but I was confident that Debbie would enjoy whatever she ordered. And I was right! She did. And I struck gold! Whistle Punk carried n/a IPAs in cans brewed by the mighty Fremont Brewing. First, I drank a fine n/a West Coast IPA and then a dark IPA, a style of beer I hadn't drunk since the good old days of Firestone Wookey Jack IPA. 

We loved the brick-lined comfortable tasting room, the fine service of the guy who poured our beer, and the enthusiastic young dudes at the bar who talked about topics ranging from the Spokane Greek Festival to where to eat great ramen in Spokane to their admiration for old music like Credence Clearwater Revival. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 09-26-2026: Spokane Symphony Replay, What Have I Missed?, Vanishing Birds and Animals

 1. Last Sunday I left the Fox Theater wanting to go back in, sit down, and hear the entire Spokane Symphony program again. I knew, however, that Spokane Public Radio station's KSFC 91.9 would play the entire concert again today at noon. 

I tuned in. I listened to the entire concert again. I absorbed much more of the music than I did a week ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 

2. Maybe I've mentioned in earlier posts that until I cracked open The Dog Stars, I had never read a post-apocalyptic novel before. Peter Heller's book is turning out to be such a compelling exploration of love, loyalty, friendship, death, survival, memory, and other human experiences that I'm beginning to wonder if I've missed out on some good material by not checking out books, movies, and television shows in this genre. 

3. Debbie paid some visits uptown late this afternoon. Before she left, she said she asked me to find a podcast for us to listen to when she returned. 

I found an episode in the podcast The American West entitled "John James Audubon and Vanishing America". I chose this episode because we had both recently read Kenn Kaufman's book The Birds That Audubon Missed for book club and wanted to hear what retired University of Montana professor Dan Flores had to say about Audubon. 

The podcast episode ended up focusing on Audubon's deep dismay that so many birds and animals were being killed, often indiscriminately by settlers throughout the USA. Entire species of birds, for example, the passenger pigeon, were rendered extinct and other birds and animals were decimated to near extinction. 

Like so many of the books we are reading in the Science/Nature book club we have joined, Flores examines the relationship between humans and the non-human world of nature, why humans have seen themselves as having license to kill birds and animals (and often do it cruelly and voraciously), and how Audubon (and Henry David Thoreau, among others) grieved the loss of so much life, beauty, and variety in our world. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-25-2026: Grooming Riley, The Lounge, Debbie Rocks the Kitchen (Again)

 1. Yesterday it was Gibbs. Today it was Riley. I taxied Riley to the groomer and picked him up about three hours later and he looked and smelled great! 

2. Ed swung by around 3:00 and we blasted up to The Lounge and spent about an hour relaxing, yakking, and doing a little planning for our departure to Pendleton on Tuesday morning. 

3. I treat myself well and am content with my day-to-day life when Debbie is away. 

That said, Debbie prepares food that far exceeds my very modest imaginative powers in the kitchen.

Like today. 

She made a curried chicken and apple salad. Its ingredients and blend of flavors and textures blew me away. She also made a terrific batch of hummus that tasted great with the salad. Together, they made me very happy. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-24-2026: Gibbs Gets Groomed, Mortality, Take an Interest

 1. I picked up a clean and spiffed up Gibbs from the groomer today. 

2. I don't know much about post-apocalyptic fiction (or movies). But reading The Dog Stars and the thoughts the main character Hig has about his life before the book's pandemic struck and about his life now with few people left in the world is making me think that having a keen sense of our mortality inspires us to self-examine, determine what in life matters most to us, and do the best we can to love others. 

3.  Debbie and I had a long conversation this evening about the variety of books we've read over the past several months, how joining the Science/Nature book club has helped shape some of our reading and the questions we ask of ourselves and about the world, and how we read and think about books. So has attending Northwest Passages evenings in Spokane. 

I thought back to all those years I taught English and how I tried to impress on students the fact that an important aspect of an education is learning now to take an interest in subjects and ideas. Often students would resist essays or books I assigned, telling me they weren't interested in what the book/essay was about. I would respond, "Try taking an interest." Why? I thought an education was about expansion. 

Well, in my retirement (it's been twelve years since I last taught a class), I'm following my own instruction and have taken an interest in new things:  empty lots in Austin, TX, rivers in Ecuador, India, and Canada, how plants satisfy our desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, the history of mosquitos, the long history of Earth's moon, discovering species of birds, the medicinal qualities of plants, a fictional world of hunting for lost pianos in the Arctic, Josh Brolin's memoir, and more. 

I do my best to put aside the question of whether I like a book and focus more on these questions:  What is the nature of the world of this book? What is the writer inviting me to learn about this world? Is this book changing how I experience and understand the world I perceive myself to live in? 

All of the books I've referred to in this post have taken me into unfamiliar worlds and have changed how I experience and understand things. 

Talking about this stuff with Debbie was a terrific way to bring an end to our day. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-23-2026: Coffee at Mountain Gem, Coffee Cake Delivery, The World of Disney is Really Wide and Deep

 1.  I drove Christy uptown this morning for a 9:00 appointment. While she was taking care of her business, I strolled up Main Street to the Mountain Gem Coffee Bar to give it a try. It's a cozy interior and there's a seating outside on the south side of the building. I opted to drink my latte indoors on a stool, resting my drink and my book (The Dog Stars) on one of the wooden bars affixed to the wall. 

I especially enjoyed reading this book. It's lyrical. The narrator, Hig, is a poet and the language he uses to describe and tell tales about his life of survival in the aftermath of a pandemic that has devastated most of the human population is rhythmic, not flowery, but musical. I like that he cites poets like William Stafford and Li Po. Hig's loyal companion in this post-apocalyptic landscape is his dog, Jasper, and I'm getting attached to him. 

2. Debbie subbed at Pinehurst Elementary School today. She had a great day. She baked a coffee cake to have put out in the teachers' lounge, but she forgot it. So when Christy was done uptown and Carol came over to drive Christy to PT in Christy's car, I borrowed Carol's car and delivered the coffee cake -- and Debbie happily reported to me when she arrived home that the staff loved the cake. 

3. As I thought might be the case, Debbie decided to stay home this evening after a day of work.

I drove to Spokane alone to attend tonight's Northwest Passages' evening with Disney imagineer Joe Rohde. He's touring with his new book, Floating Mountains. 

It was a perfect evening for me, given what I enjoy in my life, namely learning about things through reading or attending lectures that I know next to nothing about. 

For starters, I've never been that interested in all things Disney. 

I know almost nothing about the Disney company. Aside from being aware of longtime animated characters and having seen some older Disney movies and knowing that Disney is the majority owner of ESPN, I am ignorant about Disney theme parks and other Disney ventures. 

That changed tonight. 

Joe Rohde's work with Disney started at least forty years ago and tonight I learned about ventures, like Animal Kingdom and the Hawaiian resort hotel, Aulani, that Rohde has been in a leader in conceptualizing and bringing into being. 

Joe Rohde's intellectual prowess fired me up. I wasn't expecting this evening to be a deep dive into theories of creativity, the power of collaboration and the near non-existence of individual genius in all walks of life, the desirability of dissent, the indispensable value of the world of nature, the vital importance of the experience, intelligence, and wisdom of indigenous people (much like in the book I just finished: The Plant Hunter), aesthetics and how we perceive reality (and how art shakes us out of those perceptions), and more. 

For me, Joe Rohde's ideas and experiences connected to books our book club has discussed, to Japanese haiku, to ideas Spokane Symphony conductor James Lowe has presented about aesthetic theories, and, most delightfully, to discussions Debbie and I have had over the past twenty-nine years about creativity, the collaborative efforts, including dissent, of Babes with Axes, and so much more that Rohde discussed. 

I really couldn't retain all that I heard tonight.

Thankfully, these Northwest Passages interviews are saved on YouTube and I look forward to replaying what Joe Rohde had to say, possibly several times. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-22-2026: Another Update on Christy's Recovery As I Understand It

1. Today I drove Christy to CdA where she had her next follow up appointment after having had her right hip replaced. The P. A. Christy talked with examined today's x-ray and summed up her assessment in one word: "Beautiful". 

This is great news and I was also happy when Christy told me that she and P. A. also talked about the chief complication to her overall recovery: the aftermath of having been in sepsis. The dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, lack of appetite, and general malaise Christy experienced over the last three days had kept her mostly confined to bed. 

The P.A. talked with her about three things. Because Christy had been on antibiotics to knock out an infection elsewhere in her system, the P.A. recommended that she care for her gut by taking probiotics and continuing to eat probiotic foods. She recommended that Christy focus her diet, as much as possible, on anti-inflammatory foods. Lastly, she gave Christy advice about how to pace herself as she alternates between activity and rest.

2. I helped Christy with a few things in her house when we returned from CdA. I gathered up her trash, disposed of it, and took her garbage can to the curb. She had had a handful of packages delivered to her that she hadn't opened and I opened them and put the contents where Christy wanted them. I cleared out her empty cardboard boxes, either putting them broken down with the trash or taking them to our house. Debbie and I clearing things we don't need out of the basement. The boxes will help us with that job. 

3. So how should Christy pace herself? The P.A. recommended that when Christy takes on a household task, she ought to put twenty minutes on a timer and then rest when those twenty minutes are up. Working in short segments of time will keep her active. Resting and not overdoing it will help her conserve energy and not wear herself out. 

Christy tried this approach on Tuesday and was happy with the results. 

Indeed, those twenty minutes of activity got her moving around in a healthy way, but resting afterward helped keep her need for activity and need for rest in balance. 

An example of one good outcome: Christy cleaned out her fridge, emptied another cardboard box, and had another couple of things for me to dispose of before the garbage collector's Wednesday morning arrival! 

Three Beautiful Things 09-21-2026: Fighting Infection, Sloppy Joes, String Quartet Tickets

 1. And I believe her. In her book The Plant Hunter, Cassandra Leah Quaves presents herself on a quest, through rigorous scientific research and testing, to integrate the medicinal powers of plants into the more common practice of using synthetic drugs as a way of treating infections, especially those superbugs that have developed resilience to synthetic antibiotics. 

In telling us her story, Quaves helps us see how the challenges she faces are, yes, in the laboratory, but they extend far beyond the laboratory. She tells us the story of the birth defect she's had to deal with in a multiplicity of ways her entire life. We learn about the interplay between her ambition to save lives by scientific means and the demands of joining her husband in raising a family. And then there's funding: Quaves spends an inordinate amount of time seeking funding for her work. 

Some men in her field harass her, condescend to her, and doubt the value of her work. She learns to resist and navigate this, push forward, and as her courage, self-belief, and sense of purpose grows, so does her success. 

I experienced this book as combining memoir with travel writing and with science and nature writing to give someone like me who is unfamiliar with the demands of doing botanical, infectiological, and medical research in academic settings a perspective upon this remarkable work I'd never thought to look into before.

Most of all, I admired that Cassandra Leah Quaves is an idealist. A higher purpose shaped by working for the good of the whole world, for the protection of plants and animals as well as the saving of human lives marks her work. She has a keen sense of ethics, love of family, love of others, widespread interconnectedness between all living beings and inanimate things, collaboration, service to her students, and hope.  

Now I wonder how our book club will approach this book in our discussions. 

2. In a drawing held after the Spokane String Quartet's final concert for the 2025-26 season, I won season tickets for two to the Quartet's four concerts in 2026-27. 

The tickets were supposed to arrive in my mailbox in late August or early September, but hadn't arrived and there's a concert this coming Sunday. 

I emailed the person who had congratulated me for winning the tickets and heard back from another person in the organization. 

It turns out the person whose job it was to send me the tickets is having medical problems and the person who stepped up and answered my email assured me that our two tickets would be available at the Will Call table when Debbie and I arrive at the Fox Theater on Sunday afternoon. 

3. Debbie prepared superb Sloppy Joe's for dinner. Somehow, the sweetness of the ketchup and tomato paste complimented the onions and green peppers perfectly and together these ingredients elevated the flavor of the ground beef. I added hot pickled jalapeno peppers and bread and butter pickles to my sandwich and I loved their crunch and the heat and sweetness of the pepper and bread and butters. What a delicious blend of flavors and textures inside the toasted hamburger bun! And, then, somehow, the vinegary cole slaw pulled the whole meal together.  

Three Beautiful Things 09-20-2026: Debbie and I Attend Today's Spokane Symphony Concert

 1. Debbie and I know that it's likely that we'll experience traffic delays whenever traveling between Kellogg and Spokane. Right now, delays are common on I-90 westbound because the Northwest Blvd exit is closed and in that area traffic is funneled into a single lane. The delay gets compounded by cars entering the freeway via the westbound Northwest Blvd ramp.

Our hope was to arrive in Spokane in time to attend today's pre-concert presentation at 2:00. The Spokane Symphony Orchestra's performance was at 3:00. 

We left Kellogg around 12:15, hoping we'd left ourselves enough time to absorb a delay and arrive a little before 2:00 at the Fox Theater. 

We approached the I-90 delay. 

The line of cars stopped still on I-90 looked long.  

Right away, both of us shrugged. 

"We might not arrive in time for the pre-concert lecture. No use getting upset. We know we'll make it in time for the concert."

So we patiently, without complaint, inched our way to the where the single lane turned into two lanes and, lo and behold, it was clear sailing into Spokane. We entered downtown Spokane via Lincoln Street, I spotted street parking spots on Second Avenue, we strolled to the Fox, and we seated ourselves at about 1:50 and got to hear the entire pre-concert presentation. 

The presentation was terrific. 

Conductor James Lowes' introduction to today's program was illuminating and stimulating and so was his interview of today's featured piano soloist, Mackenzie Melemed.  

2. This weekend's concert opened the Spokane Symphony's 81st season. I wasn't expecting the season opening concert to begin with the symphony playing "The Star Spangled Banner", but that's exactly what they did! 

We then got to hear the 20th century Soviet/Russian composer Dimitri Kabalevsky's energetic overture to the opera Colas Breugnon. 

I enjoy very much being introduced to composers and compositions unknown to me. Kabalevsky's overture was sparkling. It took full advantage of the entire orchestra and, like all the pieces we heard this afternoon, created fascinating and often fun interplay between the orchestra's different sections. 

The orchestra then played 19th century American composer Amy Beach's gorgeous and romantic Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor. Beach was a piano virtuoso and this forty to forty-five minute concerto in four movements presented soloist Mackenzie Melemed with mind-boggling challenges at the keyboard. He met these challenges with elan and his own virtuosity. As Romantic compositions so often are, many passages in Beach's composition were lush and emotional, giving Melemed and the orchestra long and gorgeous passages of interplay and deep feeling. 

Until today, I'd never heard of Amy Beach. I learned that this concerto we heard today has rarely been performed. It was thrilling to have James Lowe decide to bring this composition out of obscurity and to entrust its many challenges not only to the orchestra, but to the zestful Mackenzie Melemed. 

3. Having accepted the roars of the audience's approval and a lengthy standing ovation, Melemed then returned to the piano and played a medley of several favorite American tunes including "The Star Spanged Banner" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy", sending the audience into the intermission uplifted. 

Conductor James Lowe opened the concert's second half with a tribute to Charles "Chuck" Karscheny who passed away this past June after playing French horn in the symphony and later serving as Production Manager. His career with the Spokane Symphony spanned more than 40 years. 

Then, in a deeply touching further tribute to Chuck Karscheny, a quartet of French horn players stepped forward and played "Evening Hymn" from Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera Hansel and Gretel.  

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet presents a complex blending of a long feud between the Capulets and Montagues, the accompanying dark hatred and street violence, the high hopes of Friar Lawrence, and the passions, frivolity, and optimism of young Romeo and Juliet. 

Sergei Prokofiev, a 20th century Russian/Soviet composer, wrote the music for a Romeo and Juliet ballet, and a suite of selections which constituted the second half of today's concert. 

As with the concert's previous pieces, Prokofiev wrote compelling parts for instruments across the orchestra, even surprising us with gorgeous passages for the tenor saxophone. 

For the duration of this suite, we felt the many emotions of Shakespeare's play and marveled at how beautifully Prokofiev fleshed out the complexity of the characters and the story in his marvelous composition. 

The story of Romeo and Juliet features the death of the ill-fated, star-crossed lovers, and Prokofiev's composition ends with their tragic demise. The orchestra played the solemn final notes and James Lowe held the audience in silence for a short while -- the audience obeyed -- and then released us into a sustained and enthusiastic standing ovation. 

In a move that startled me (really!), James Lowe responded to this solemn conclusion by telling the audience he just couldn't bear to have the concert end so sadly. 

And, so, as an encore intended to send us all out of the hall in a more chipper mood, the orchestra played an uplifting and short Modest Mussorgsky tune (I couldn't hear what Lowe said its title was) and this move seemed to accomplish Lowe's goal. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-19-2026: Science, Stir Fry, Calming Sleep Sounds

 1. I spent much of the day reading Cassandra Leah Quave's book, The Plant Hunter and thought a lot about how difficult and challenging it is for scientists working within university systems to secure funding and places to do their work, especially if the research they are undertaking is outside the box of traditional approaches. Ever since I joined the Science/Nature book club, I've been learning a lot about the difficulties and obstacles scientific researchers face. The memoir dimension of this book is fascinating as is the learning about the ground she works to break in researching ways to combat persistent infections like MRSA and staph infections. 

2. While I read this book and relaxed at home, Debbie had a fun afternoon out on the town where she ran into and had fun interacting with former students, a former fellow teacher, and friends at The Lounge. 

She texted me that she was "in a groove" (great news!) and asked me to take care of myself for dinner. 

Gladly. 

I whipped up a very satisfying and easy vegetable stir fry with Thai wheat noodles and look forward to having the pork chop dinner we were going to have tonight on Sunday. 

3. I'm having trouble falling asleep at night. To help me settle down, I've been playing Spotify's offering called "Calming Sleep Sounds" once I'm in bed. It's helping. 

Three Beautiful Things 09-18-2026: Update on Christy (From My Perspective), Premium Yakkin at The Lounge, Chili Dogs at the Elks

 1. Today I drove Christy to the Shoshone Medical Center for lab work. We talked about the impact having been in sepsis continues to have on her system and how it helps explain the fatigue, reduced appetite, and other trying symptoms she has been experiencing. 

Things are going very well with physical therapy. The physical therapists have been encouraging Christy to increase the range of her walking, to walk up and down longer staircases (but not alone), and to engage in other activities. At the gym, they continue to work with Christy to strengthen her muscles, improve her balance, and other similar things. 

Knowing that recovery from being in sepsis can take months, I thought back to late 1999 and the year 2000 and how my recovery from having contracted bacterial meningitis took at least a year. During that year, I experienced fatigue, headaches, lightheadedness, depression, and other symptoms. 

I hope Christy's recovery from being in sepsis doesn't take a year, but maladies like sepsis and bacterial meningitis hammer one's system and the aftermath can last long after the condition itself has cleared up. 

So that's my update on Christy's recovery -- from my perspective. 

It's great to see her mobility progressing so well and, at the same time, sobering to know that she has much more than the hip replacement to recover from. 

Christy told me that having come to understand the complexity of her recovery has helped her feel more patient, knowing that the way she's been feeling lousy is not unusual given what she's been through and what the medical pros continue to monitor. 

I think that's a very good thing. Patience is a great help in nurturing the positive attitude and outlook that Christy has worked hard to maintain throughout this ordeal. 

2. Ed and I strolled into The Lounge around 3:45 and immediately engaged in some premium yakkin' with Abby, Fitz, and, when he wasn't busy serving customers, Cas. The guys told a lot of great stories. We had some high level talk about baseball. We thoroughly enjoyed our session.

3. So why didn't Ed and I stay longer? 

Well, tonight the Kellogg Elks served chili dogs so Ed and I went across the street and enjoyed a delicious chili dog dinner. Ed and I continued to yak about all kinds of stuff and we saw some people we've known forever.

It was especially great to see Tona. Her cancer treatment and has been rough on her. I thought she looked great with her new haircut (even knowing she'd rather have longer hair) and it was uplifting to know that after dinner at the Elks that she'd be doing some camping a short ways away. 

After dinner, Ed headed home and I returned to The Lounge. Debbie had arrived. She got involved in conversations with a couple different friends and I got to yak for a while with Rob Gillies. He filled me in on the spreading of Jack Lunger's ashes and we talked about some events that occurred when we were much younger -- like over fifty years younger!