Three Beautiful Things 04-29-2024: A Call from the Social Worker, I Can't Rewind, A Superb Rice Bowl

 1. So every time the phone rings, my heart skips a beat because it could be kidney offer. Today my phone rang and I saw the word "transplant" on the screen, but I could tell the call came from the transplant clinic at Providence Sacred Heart. 

I knew no one there would be offering me an organ (!). 

I was right. 

The transplant team I work with includes Helen, a social worker. I've enjoyed every one of our several conversations. Helen called because when she, Debbie, and I talked back on April 3rd, she forgot to raise a couple or three questions. 

Here's one thing we discussed: Helen and I always talk about my alcohol consumption. In the over five years I've been talking with her, my use of alcohol has diminished quite a bit, so I could tell her that remains the case these days, that over the last several months I've almost never drunk alcohol on weekdays (unless I'm at the Wildhorse Resort!), but sometimes have a beer or a cocktail or three at the Inland Lounge on Friday or Saturday and enjoy a cocktail and some wine at family dinner.

I told Helen that I've cut back quite a bit since November, when I started the rehab program back in November and as I continue to hit the Fitness Center several days a week now. I'm trying to lose weight. Alcohol stimulates my appetite and it lowers my will power! I do much better at controlling the calories I consume when I don't drink alcohol.

I also sleep better. I exercise better, too, if I don't have alcohol in my system.

All this said, I miss drinking a variety of craft beers and when I do have one or two now, they taste especially good! So did sharing whiskey with Terry, Mike, and Ed at the Wildhorse! 

2. While exercising today at the Fitness Center, I decided to try a different channel on the Sirius/XM app. I played Classic Rewind Deep Cuts. It focuses on music from the 80s -- and a little earlier. The station refers to this period as (something like) "The Cassette Age". 

I huffed and puffed as the channel played Journey, Asia, Simple Minds, and other 80s bands, but I left the channel when they played Phil Collins' song, "I Don't Care Anymore" from his Hello, I Must Be Going album. 

I began listening to this album in the year following the dissolution of my first marriage. I guess you could call the song "I Don't Care Anymore" a liar's song, a song expressing denial, a deeply ironic song, or, in that vein, a wickedly sarcastic song. Whatever you call it, the words of the song, the repeated "I don't care anymore" conflict savagely with the pained way Phil Collins sings the song and with his drumming, which relies heavily on his dark, menacing, and repeated use of the his kit's larger, lower sounding drums. 

The song ended. 

I left the channel, punched in my Spotify app, and dialed up the entire Hello, I Must Be Going album. 

I trembled listening to it. My private (or personal) life, starting late in 1981 and continuing for several years, was dark, confused, disillusioned, and painful. In some ways, I was doing all right, but I was lost. Being unmoored shaded, sometimes darkened, even the things I was doing pretty well like my work as an instructor or the successes I experienced in graduate school or friendships during that period of time. 

It's weird. 

As confused, lost, and unmoored as I was, I have a storehouse of great memories from those years -- I loved my work, had many superb interactions and experiences with students, thoroughly enjoyed living in Spokane, enjoyed trips to Seattle, Eugene, Portland, Ashland, San Francisco, Boulder, and, in December of 1986, traveled to London and other parts of England for the last time. 

Hello, I Must Be Going brought many memories and feelings from the Age of the Cassette into my consciousness. I welcomed them all, even as I gave in to self-recrimination, but also in to feeling great happiness. 

I know I thought back then that if I could just get through the confusion, the bad behavior, my ascents into ecstasy and my descents into despondency, one day I'd be done with all of this.

But, as one of my favorite lines from The Boggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" -- a song, by the way, from the Age of Cassette and the first song ever played on MTV --  goes:  "in my mind and in my car/we can't rewind we've gone too far". 

Back then I thought one day I'd be able to one day rewind, start over, put those turbulent years behind me, just move on, be able to say, "that's the past-- it's over", but, no. 

I can't rewind.

I went too far. 

Only if I somehow let those days die can they go away. If they die, part of me dies with them. So, they stay alive in me, and, sometimes they come knocking at my mind's door. 

They aren't always welcome, but other times, like today, with the help of Phil Collins, I welcome those days back and I feel the complexity of the tattered and sometimes rapturous life I lived during the Age of the Cassette. 

3. Upon returning home from the Fitness Center and all that memorable music, I fixed a superb Hello Fresh dish: Hoisin Sweet Potatoes and Mushroom with Ginger Rise and Sriracha Mayo.

I savored the way the sweetness of hoisin sauce interplayed with the heat of the sriracha sauce. Underneath these flavors, not too deep in the background, was the tasty saltiness of the soy sauce that was part of the sririach/mayo sauce. In addition, I obeyed the recipe and briefly cooked grated ginger and the white part of a few stalks of scallions in butter before adding water and jasmine rice to the pot. The ginger and scallion gave the rice a jolt of flavor and texture that worked beautifully underneath the roasted sweet potatoes, mushroom, and yellow bell peppers.

This meal REALLY worked. 

Oh! By the way, it during those frayed days of the Cassette Age, being new at being single, I found great solace in teaching myself how to cook -- and had a blast doing so. 

I cook a lot more now than I did then as I was learning, but I had to start somewhere and I was determined to be self-sufficient in the kitchen and to never rely on another person for meals again. 

It worked. 

From that point on, for over forty years now, I have either cooked for myself or shared the cooking with whomever I lived. 

It's been blissful. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-28-2024: ZOOM Talk, Nu Step, Retro Family Dinner

1. It had been a while since the Westminster Basementeers jumped on the ZOOM machine, but Bill, Diane, Val, and I talked to each other this morning around 10:00.

As we age, as we face medical challenges, both for ourselves and our animals, that tends to be, for a while, what we talk about. Val has a hand/wrist injury. Diane is recovering handsomely from cancer treatment. Bill has a day surgery coming up. Val's dog has been beset by seizures. I continue to wait for the next kidney call/offer. 

I had to leave our conversation early so I could get to the Fitness Center before it closed at noon. 

I'm grateful I got to stay long enough to learn about the trip Val has planned to Eastern Europe later this year -- it sounds fascinating and challenging. 

2. I almost always start my time at the Fitness Center on the Nu Step machine and today, propelled again by another episode of Tom Petty's old show, Buried Treasure (not Treasures as I have errantly written in the past), I stuck with the Nu Step machine for the entire fifty-five minutes I exercised. 

3. We did our best tonight to have a retro dinner as the focus of our Sunday family dinner. 

We started with bite-sized celery bits, some stuffed with whipped cream cheese, others with cheese that sprays out of a can like whipped cream. 

I used the tall narrow highball glasses Cas lent me and fixed everyone a 7 & 7 garnished with a (not so retro) Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.

Carol brought wedges of iceberg lettuce dressed with bacon, cherry tomatoes, green onions, and bleu cheese dressing -- this was our retro salad.

For our main course, we enjoyed pot pies. We fudged on our entree a little bit. Truly retro pot pies, at least this was true in our family's household, would have been made Swanson's pies or Banquet. We, however, enjoyed Marie Callender pot pies -- Christy enjoyed a beef pie and rest of us loved our chicken pies. 

Our table wine: Carlo Rossi Burgundy served from a carafe and a bottle of Rose -- I wanted to serve Lancer's, a favorite of Dad's, but not available at Yoke's. 

Christy has many fond memories of a dessert Mom used to make called Lemon Fluff. She made individual servings of lemon fluff in small aluminum pie containers lined  with (I think) a graham cracker crust. Mom used crushed vanilla wafers, as I understood it from tonight's conversation about this dessert. I thought the graham cracker crust worked great.

Since our dinner was a nostalgic one, so was much of our conversation. Christy shared vivid memories of Mom making lemon fluff, of it being her dessert when she and Dad participated in the Camp Fire Girls' Father/Daughter Banquet. She also discussed her ongoing detective work trying to determine where the recipe originated. We reminisced about the Rena Theater in Kellogg. Somehow, we even had a brief discussion of Glasgow, MT! Is it the USA's most remote town? I'm not sure that question really got settled. 

As our dinner party broke up, we went our separate ways with Kentucky on our minds. 

As the host for next week's family dinner, Christy will assign us Kentucky dishes to prepare -- it is, after all, Kentucky Derby weekend! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-27-2024: Morning Errand Blitz, Swords and Highball Glasses at The Lounge, Enjoying Salad and Salmon and Teff

1. Once I worked puzzles and blogged this morning, I leapt into action and raced to Silver Valley Tire Center and had the Camry wheels retorqued. I sidled up to the next door vacuum cleaner and removed Dorito detritus from floor mat on the driver's side of the Camry. I blasted over to the liquor store and bought spirits for family dinner tomorrow and rounded out my morning errands with a family dinner shopping extravaganza at Yoke's.  What a morning! 

2. Ed swung by around 3:25 and we rocketed up to The Lounge and had a great time yakkin' with Cas and visiting a bit with Tom and Cindie Sawyer. Debbie arrived later and while she was talking to Julie and Diannah, I told Cas that, if it were possible, I'd like some cocktail swords for Sunday's family dinner. He gave me a bunch and THEN I mentioned that I'd sure like to serve Sunday night's highball in a glass similar to the tall narrow one I was, at that moment, drinking club soda out of. 

Bob disappeared.

He returned with a box of six such (I call them) highball glasses and now I'm set to serve drinks just the way I'd dreamed of when Debbie and I started imagining Sunday's dinner. 

3. Back home, Debbie and I dove into the bean salad (featuring white hominy!) she made today along with dining on a salmon burger patty and an unusual, but delicious second side: teff. Teff is a lovegrass native to the Horn of Africa, cultivated for its edible seeds. It's prepared much like any grain, brought to a boil and simmered in a covered pot. It's a solid source of calcium, zinc, and iron. It's gluten free. I like it a lot and, I admit, I ate a little too much of it tonight -- but that's what drinking a few 7 & 7s will lead me to do once I arrive home from The Lounge.   

I over-teffed. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-26-2024: More Tom Petty, Crossword Challenges, Superb Take Out Dinner

1. Listening to episodes of Tom Petty's Buried Treasures show while doing a little cardio at the Fitness Center keeps me very happy while I exercise. 

2. As the weekdays come to an end, The New York Times crossword puzzles are increasingly challenging. It took me a good chunk of time, and some help from the World Wide Web, but today I felt some satisfaction as I completed the Friday puzzle. The Saturday puzzle pops up online at 7 p.m. on Friday, so I got started on it, but realized after a while that I needed to let it go, get some sleep, and return to it with a rested mind on Saturday. 

3. Debbie texted me from The Beanery wondering if I'd like it if she brought home dinner from there. Am I ever glad I said yes! We split a superb chicken pesto sandwich, servings of quinoa and baked potato salad, and a small bag of BBQ potato chips. Totally out of sight take out food! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-25-2024: David Byrne on *Fresh Air*, Into the Great Wide Open, Spicing Up the Curry

1. Out of the blue the other day, Deborah called me. She was out driving around in her car, listening to Fresh Air, and wanted me to know that Terry Gross was interviewing David Byrne. She knew that I'd been ecstatic last fall when I went to Spokane to watch the remastered version of Stop Making Sense at Riverstone Square's IMAX theater. She figured, 100% correctly, that I'd love to hear this interview.

Today I listened to it while on a cardio machine at the Fitness Center. I'm not sure what my expectations were, but the interview exceeded them! I was very impressed with how forthcoming and open David Byrne was about his young life, his songwriting, his influences, and his sense of himself as a performer,  how he moves and sings on stage, especially in Stop Making Sense. 

2. Stu and I were yakkin' by text message about all the uncertainties in our lives. Debbie and I yak about the same thing from time to time. She and I chuckle at ourselves for having thought, when we were young and life was tumultuous, that when we grew older, things would smooth out, life would be settled, we'd get to coast. Ha! 

So, after listening to the David Byrne interview, I dialed up the episode of Tom Petty's old show, Buried Treasures that was playing on the 24/7 Buried Treasures channel on the Sirius/XM app. 

For many reasons having to do with uncertainties in our life right now -- you know, kidney transplant, will Debbie teach another year?, etc. -- just hearing Tom Petty's voice as the show's host planted in my mind his song "Into the Great Wide Open". 

I'd always thought of this as a young person's song, of the way life, when we were young, could seem so full of possibilities and so many unknowns, as if we were about to jump in a car and just travel, without plans, the wide open roads stretching across the USA.

I'm seventy years old. 

Maybe the Great Wide Open has become The Great Unknown, but whatever it is, I know what it's not. 

It's not the Great Wide Certain.

Thinking about these things and listening to Tom Petty's music selections kept me going as exercised for a last half an hour on a second cardio machine. 

3. I broke open our second HelloFresh bag and fixed Debbie and me a Creamy Chicken and Potato Curry. It was supposed to include peas, but either the packers at HelloFresh didn't pack our peas or I lost the packet. No problem! Today I had bought another big container of spinach and I simply put spinach instead of peas in the curry and it worked out great. In fact, I think spinach worked better than the peas would have. This curry was mild, no heat at all, so Debbie and I both added smokey red pepper flakes to our helpings and enjoyed the spicier version much more than the mild one. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-24-2024: The Washing Machine Didn't Walk Away, Slow Weight Loss, A Fun Tortellini Dinner

1. In the past, when I've put the queen sized blankets from my bed in the washing machine, it's made the machine rock violently during the spin cycle and try to walk away!  Each time I thought I'd balanced the load, but I guess I hadn't. 

Today, I decided to see what would happen if, instead of taking the blanket to the laundromat, I tried putting them in our machine again.

You know what happened? 

NOTHING!

I divided the blankets into two loads and felt a great sense of triumph (!) when both loads cycled through peacefully and my blankets were clean.

2. I did a lot of writing today -- more on that at a later date -- and I didn't want to leave my laundering project unattended, so, as far as exercise goes, I took a day off. 

I'm happy to say, though, that my slow, not always steady, effort to lose weight continues to move in the right direction. I set goals for myself in five pound increments and I just surpassed my most recent goal. It took several weeks, but I've tried not to get anxious about the slow pace of my weight loss. I just do my best to stay the course. 

3. Debbie and I enjoyed our chicken dinner very much Tuesday evening. Our remaining HelloFresh bag is also a chicken dinner and we decided to do something different tonight. 

Drawing upon things I've learned from preparing HelloFresh meals, tonight I sautéed a half a white onion and, when the onion got tender, I added finely chopped cloves of garlic. To this mixture, I added all the spinach we had left. At the same time, I boiled a batch of frozen tortellinis and I roasted panko in butter.

Soon, I pulled it all together. I put the boiled tortellini in the pan with the onion, garlic, and spinach and topped it with the roasted panko and added chopped green onion bits.

Had this been a HelloFresh meal, I'm sure the bag would have included ingredients for a sauce, white or red, but Debbie and I had decided we didn't want a sauce.

We loved this sauceless meal! 

It's a dinner we'll return to again.  

Three Beautiful Things 04-23-2024: Good News at the Dentist, Good News at the Garage, Great Boxed Dinner

1. First thing this morning, I strolled down to the dentist's office and everything looks good. I have a couple of older crowns, but they are holding up well because I wear a guard at night to protect them. 

2. The Camry went into the garage today for a 30k mile service job and everything looks great. 

3. Debbie added a couple of boxed dinners to our HelloFresh order this week. Tonight we tried one of them, a most delicious Garam Masala Coconut Chicken Thighs with Golden Raisin Cashew Rice. I sure enjoyed it! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-22-2024: Blood Draw Snafu Rectified, Back to *Buried Treasures*, Steelhead for Dinner

1. There's a lab in Spokane that needs a fresh vial of blood from me every month in support of my being on the transplant list. I was going to head up to the hospital lab last Monday for a blood draw, but when I opened the box the lab mails me every month, it was essentially empty! I contacted Tara, my transplant nurse, and she had the lab send me a new box. Today, I took the full box to the lab, my blood got drawn, and now I'm back on schedule again.

2. Today when I exercised at the Fitness Center, I used my Sirius/XM app to play the channel entirely devoted to Tom Petty's terrific old show, Buried Treasures. Several years ago, I used to listen to Buried Treasures when it came out weekly on Deep Tracks. I also listened to the awesome Bob Dylan radio show called Theme Time Radio Hour.  Dylan's old show is archived online and it'll be fun to huff and puff and alternate between Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Lou Simon, and the Satellite Survey show hosted by Dave Hoeffel. 

3. I prepared a fun HelloFresh dinner tonight. For the first time, HelloFresh sent us a bag featuring steelhead trout which I roasted with fresh dill and mandarin orange and lemon slices. Lemony asparagus spears garnished with dill accompanied the fish and I plopped the fish and vegetables on a bed of garlicky jasmine rice seasoned with turmeric. I also made a creamy lemon and garlic sauce that tasted great on the fish. It was a fun dinner: new, fun to prepare, and delicious. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-21-2024: Hungry for Spinach, Debbie's Spinach Salad, A Gemelli Family Dinner

1. Thanks to our breakfast at Roosters Country Kitchen in Pendleton on Friday morning, where I enjoyed a spinach and mushroom omelette, and, thanks to having bought a large container of spinach leaves at Costco on Saturday, I think I'm going to fix myself eggs and spinach on a regular basis for a while. I got right into it this morning with a Yukon gold potato and spinach scramble topped with a small amount of grated sharp cheddar cheese and it worked! 

I gave my breakfast an hour and half or so to digest and headed to the Fitness Center for a good session and listened to the recent '60s Satellite Survey broadcast, entitled "The 60s' 40 Biggest One Hit Wonders". 

It was a great show and I finished listening to it when I returned home. 

2. Carol assigned Debbie and me to make a green salad for tonight's family dinner. Debbie volunteered to take charge of our assignment. She enjoys remembering when her mother discovered spinach salad some time in the 1960s and Debbie replicated the salad and the dressing her mother made all those years ago. 

I don't have the recipe handy, but I loved the bacon in the salad and the dressing was a little sweet thanks to the inclusion of a small amount of sugar and some ketchup, both of which worked beautifully.

3. Carol went all out today and made a complex and delicious pasta sauce that included roasted tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, vodka, butter, red wine vinegar,  cinnamon sticks, and other great ingredients. 

She boiled gemelli pasta, combined it with the sauce, and put it all in the oven. 

It was an awesome dish and Debbie's spinach salad paired perfectly with it. 

Paul created a bar where we could make "mule" drinks of our choice blending ginger beer with either vodka, tequila, or amaretto. 

Well, earlier this week at the Plateau Steakhouse, I ordered a Cadillac Margarita and it triggered a desire in me to drink some straight tequila over ice. 

So, for my cocktail, I decided not to have a ginger drink (which I love), but enjoyed tequila on the rocks with a squeeze of lime juice. 

It was really good.

We had a really robust time at the dinner table talking about a very wide variety of subjects and having a lot of laughs. 

There's a lot going on in our family these days involving the banjo, dogs, medical stuff, future trips, stuff from the past, teaching, performing, and more and we seemed to talk about it all tonight, one way or another. 

It was fun. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-20-2024: Exercising with *Jukebox Diner*, Quick Trip to CdA, Easy Chicken Dinner

 1. It felt good to return to the Fitness Center after being absent for over a week. I especially enjoyed dialing up Lou Simon's Sirius/XM radio show, Jukebox Diner, using the Sirius/XM app and listening to callers making their requests and hearing songs I wouldn't listen to on my own. On his April 7th show, Lou Simon got worked up as he disagreed with a caller's interpretation of Carly Simon's "That's the Way I've Always Heard It  Should Be" and, on his April 14th show, he returned to talking about that call, offered his explication of the lyric, apologized to the caller for getting his dander up, and played the song again. Later, the caller, named Steve, called in again and he and Lou made peace, reached a detente.

2. I wanted a haircut. I wanted to go to Costco. Therefore, I blasted over to CdA in the Camry. My trip was a success. I got right in at Supercuts and was back out in no time. I fueled up at Costco and had a good time stocking up on a few supplies in the store. 

3. Back in Kellogg, I shopped a little more at Yoke's and decided not to join Debbie at The Lounge. Instead, I put four chicken drumsticks in our cast iron skillet along with a small handful of baby Yukon potatoes, baked them, and steamed a pack of frozen broccoli and cauliflower. 

Debbie returned home and we enjoyed this nifty, easy, tasty little meal and, as a bonus, Debbie packed leftovers for her lunch on Monday. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-19-2024: Going to Roosters with Rooster, Easy Driving, Sweet Fatigue

1. Sometime in the last, oh, forty to fifty years, guys Ed worked with began calling him Rooster. I've always called Ed Ed, but I've known for a long time that he's had this nickname. 

Well, for many years now I've joined guys I grew up with at the Wildhorse Resort once or twice a year for a few days of food, socializing, gambling, and relaxation. 

Every year, coming in or going out of Pendleton, we've seen a billboard advertising a Pendleton restaurant called Roosters Country Kitchen. 

Every year, Ed and I have said something to the effect of "we really ought to eat there some time". 

We never did.

Until today.

Terry and Jake headed home earlier than Ed, Mike, and I, but while we enjoyed our nightcap on Thursday night, Ed, Mike, and I agreed to go to Roosters for breakfast after we checked out of the resort. 

Now we'll go back every time we go to Pendleton.

Under the care of a friendly, attentive, and energetic server, Ed and Mike were very happy with their breakfast steak and I thoroughly enjoyed the spinach mushroom omelette I ordered. 

Breakfast at Roosters was a perfect way for the three of us to conclude our time in Pendleton together. 

2. Ed and I had an uneventful trip back to the Silver Valley. We made a quick stop at the Country Mercantile just north of the Tri-Cities. Driving conditions were easy and traffic was safe and sane out on the open freeway and as we made our way, easily, through Spokane, Post Falls, and Coeur D' Alene. 

3. Back home, Copper seemed unfazed by my absence and equally unfazed by my return! He fared very well under Debbie's care while I was away. 

The drive from Pendleton to Kellogg involves a little over four hours of actual driving time. 

It's not that much driving, but all the same, when I arrived home I was ready for a nap and I went to bed pretty early.

I was tired, but it was a sweet tired.

The three nights hanging out with lifelong friends and having a great dinner with Colette was a blast.  

Three Beautiful Things 04-18-2024: Breakfast at the Oregon Trail, Relaxing Afternoon, Early Nightcap

1. Jake, Terry, Mike, Ed, and I piled into a couple of cars and blasted east on I-84 to the town of Meacham, OR to the Oregon Trail Store and Deli for breakfast. Every time we go to the Wildhorse Resort, we visit this superb dining spot run my a wife and her husband. Once again, our servings were plentiful, the food was superbly prepared, and we had a great time yakkin' and joking with the husband. He runs the front of the establishment while his wife cooks up awesome meals in back.  

2. We returned to the resort. I spent quite a bit of time in my room, tending to my fantasy baseball teams, getting caught up on NYTimes crossword puzzles, and relaxing. I spent some time on the casino floor. Around 2:30, Jake, Ed, and I met in the lobby bar and enjoyed beers and, a couple hours later, Terry, Ed, Mike, and I met in the Wildhorse Sports Bar for a happy hour plate of nachos. 

3. Ed, Mike, Terry, and I met around 7:15 in Terry's room for an early whiskey nightcap. We made plans for leaving in the morning and talked about other things. Mike and Ed left after a bit and Terry and I yakked for a while about what's happening with government in both Idaho and Oregon and kept an eye on the PGA golf tournament being played at Harbor Town near Hilton Head, South Carolina. 

I wondered if Debbie's cousin, Sally, was staying at her condo at Hilton Head right now and let my mind wander, thinking about her husband, Ted, having died several years ago and how much the two of them enjoyed attending and volunteering at golf tournaments together. I felt Ted's absence. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-17-2024: Relaxing at the Resort, The Band Got Back Together at the Lobby Bar, Steak Dinner and Ginger Whiskey

1. One of the aspects of coming to the Wildhorse Resort that I enjoy is time alone in my quiet hotel room, solving word puzzles, writing in this blog, napping, contemplating, in short, relaxing. I spent a few hours today enjoying some solitude. 

In addition, I put the April 14th Jukebox Diner radio show on, put in my earbuds, and spent a half an hour huffing and puffing in the hotel's exercise room. 

That felt really good! 

2. Later in the afternoon, Mike, Terry, and Jake arrived back at the casino/hotel after playing eighteen holes of golf and, along with Ed and me, we all sat in the hotel lobby bar and enjoyed a round or two of adult beverages. It was the first time the five of us were able to get together all in one place on this trip and we had a great time yakkin' and laughing and making a concerted effort not to solve the world's problems.  

3. Later, at 6:30, the five of us met at the resort's Plateau Steak House for dinner. We make it point every time we come to the resort to eat together at the resort's fine dining establishment. I started off with a delicious and refreshing Cadillac Margarita and then enjoyed a fresh and perfectly dressed chopped salad before digging into a boneless rib eye with sides of crispy Brussels Sprouts and asparagus with a light stream of Bearnaise sauce. 

After dinner, Ed, Mike, Terry, and I sat around in Terry's room. Terry cracked open a fifth of Heaven Hill Kentucky Straight Bourbon. We mixed it with Cock and Bull ginger beer. This after dinner cocktail was perfect and we launched into a great session of yakkin' about everything under the sun, except the world's problems. 

We let the big world have those problems and gladly left it up to someone else to solve them. 

We had a lot of things on our minds -- things closer to our day to day lives in the little and excellent worlds we all live in. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-16-2024: On the Road, House Money, Dinner with Colette

1. I sprang into action around 5:30 this morning, fixed myself coffee, completed Wordle, and simultaneously made a last check of my packing list and put my remaining unpacked items in my bag. I flew out the door, rocketed the Camry to Ed's house, picked him up, and we enjoyed breakfast at the Breakfast Nook in CdA. 

We had one more stop to make after breakfast. We dropped into the Spokane Tribe Casino and I cashed in my ticket. I'd wagered on UConn to win the NCAA men's basketball tournament and picked up my cash. 

Ed and I hung for under an hour at the casino and then we hit the road.

2. Ed and I yakked our way to the Wildhorse Resort and checked into our rooms. I unpacked, fiddled around for a while on the casino floor, and went back to my room, having played with my UConn win and the other modest amount of money I won on machines at the Spokane Casino. I haven't lost it yet! 

3. I napped. 

A text message notification woke me up.

It was Colette.

Her meeting at work wrapped up earlier than she'd thought it would.

She could be at Thai Crystal in downtown Pendleton around 5 o'clock.

Perfect.

I had time to clean up and soar into town.

Colette and I enjoyed our dinner and talked and talked for over two hours about everything: Colette's work, medical stuff, working with students who need accommodations and special assistance, education (Waldorf schools in particular), and a host of other things. 

It's remarkable, given Colette's very busy work schedule, that we are always able to work out time to dine together and yak whenever I come to Pendleton. 

  

Three Beautiful Things 04-15-2024: Getting Ready to Hit the Road, Shoshone Glass: Same Day Service, Great Spaghetti Dinner

1. Making lists, gathering cords and bathroom stuff, finishing laundry: in short, getting ready to head to Pendleton on Tuesday. 

2. I called Shoshone Glass, hoping they'd be able to perform a same day repair on a chip on the Camry's windshield. They did! They got me in at 10:00 and I was out of there within 45 minutes. 

3. 3. I made Debbie and me HelloFresh's Lemony Spaghetti with Brussels Sprouts topped with Panko and Scallions. It is one of my very favorite meals this company offers. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-14-2024: Scottie Scheffler Wins the Masters, Annual Mostaciolli Feed, Drinks on the Patio

 1. I'm at a point in my long life as a sports fan where I've become less and less partisan about who wins and have come more and more to enjoy seeing sports played well. 

This change in my perspective was in full force today as I watched much of the final round of The Masters golf tournament. 

I wasn't really pulling hard for any one player over another nor did I single out any players to fulfill some need I've had for there to be a villain. 

I wanted to see the world's best golfers confront the challenge of playing one of the world's most exclusive and challenging golf courses, Augusta National.

Today, Scottie Scheffler played the course more steadily and calmly than any of his competitors. 

Early on in the first round, he struggled to strike his ball onto Augusta's greens in regulation, but he made one superb recovery after another. His playing partner, Collin Morikawa, on those same early holes, was striping the ball. He had several birdie putts and could have applied a lot of pressure on Scheffler, his playing partner, if he'd made any of those putts. 

But, he didn't, and then, starting at the ninth hole, which Morikawa double bogeyed, his game began to wobble. Other golfers chasing Scheffler also had small disasters. Ludvig Aberg splashed his second shot on 11. On 12, Max Home's tee shot struck what looked like a patch of concrete on the green, and his ball caromed into the bushes. 

Scheffler's competitors fell away and Scheffler, with an almost eerie sense of calm and a steady display of masterful shot making, pulled away and won the tournament by four strokes. 

Scottie Scheffler is not a dramatic player -- he's not particularly animated or demonstrative. 

He is a quietly fierce competitor who excels in all aspects of the game of golf and, today, he further secured his current status as the world's best player.

2. Today, Christy, Carol, Paul, Molly, Debbie, and I met at around 4 o'clock at St. Rita's Catholic Church for their annual Mostaccioli Feed.

Every year this feed is like a high holy day, not only for the St. Rita's parish, but for the town of Kellogg and the other towns nearby. 

People line up to pick up their green salad and garlic bread and then watch hungrily as Don Rinaldi serves them a generous pile of mostaccioli and another guy piles on the red sauce and meatballs. Every year, the Mostaccioli Feed has a wine table where diners can pick up a glas of Chianti. 

Yes, the room is noisy.

Yes, it can feel a little bit, not very, cramped. 

But, it's a chance to see a lot of old and not so old timers out enjoying one another's company as well as  a delicious pasta dinner. 

3. On the spur of the moment, Debbie invited our family over to our house for a cocktail on the patio. Molly had cleaning to do at her apartment and did not join us, but Carol, Paul, Christy, Debbie, and I enjoyed drinking gin and yakking in ways we couldn't at the feed, given the noise and our seating arrangement. 

It was fun having our first get together on the patio and fun to get caught up on what's happened over the last week and the different things that are to come: Paul installed Christy's gate, Christy returns to Riley's trainer, Debbie continues to work on getting rid of things she no longer needs in her classroom, I'm heading to the Wildhorse Resort in Pendleton on Tuesday, and Carol and Paul continue to work with young people and encourage people to be creative. It's a vibrant time in life. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-13-2024: Overcoming Fatigue, Challenging Day at The Masters, Superb Pasta Salad and BLT

1. I'm glad that I've remained calm, haven't gone on a roller coaster ride emotionally or paced the floor or felt the tightness of anxiety in my stomach as I've waited to find out if I would be going in for surgery when I've been contacted three different times in the last ten days with news that the first step toward possible kidney transplant was underway. 

It has, however, been fatiguing. 

Fortunately, I didn't have anything really going on today and I could rest, take naps, and do what I needed to restore my energy.

2. I enjoyed a few restful hours watching The Masters and marveled at how demanding Augusta National Gold Club was today. The course grew drier and faster as the day progressed -- at times I thought I was watching a U. S. Open -- and if today's action revealed anything, it showed those of us who love golf that these top players demonstrate their best talents when they have to recover from errant shots, settle themselves down after what they thought was a good shot goes awry, and do their best to put bad scores on specific holes behind them and focus on what lies ahead. 

I thought Scottie Scheffler steadied himself particularly well after he double bogeyed 10 and bogeyed 11 with an eagle on 13 and a birdie on 15 and a huge birdie on 18 after he stumbled and bogeyed 17.

I would have to say I'm somewhat of an empathetic viewer of golf. So, it pained me to see Bryson DeChambeau struggle mightily on several holes on the back nine, but he electrified the gallery and possibly lifted himself out of his own slough of despond when he holed out with a miraculous shot from 77 yards on the 18th hole. 

I laughed joyously when that shot dropped in the hole. 

3. Debbie fixed a superb pasta salad today and it was the perfect accompaniment to the BLT I fixed myself for dinner tonight. I hadn't had a BLT for a long, long time and, for me, today, the bread was the key. Earlier I had bought a loaf of White Bread Done Right, a product of Dave's Killer Bread. It was perfect, as was the pepper bacon, juicy tomato, crisp lettuce, and, my favorite condiment, a generous blob of French's yellow mustard. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-12-2024: A Respite from Offers, Making Tentative Plans, The Lounge Was Hoppin'

1. Ed, Mike, Terry, Jake, and I have a three night trip to the Wildhorse Resort planned for this upcoming week, Tues through Friday morning. I had already told the staff at the transplant clinic that I would be unavailable for kidney offers from April 15-19. First thing this morning, after having three offers over the last ten days, I expanded my time of being unavailable to include today and the weekend. 

When I am available for offers, which is most of the time, I'm always aware that at any moment a transplant coordinator could call and that another period of waiting and possibly fasting would begin. I wouldn't go so far as to say I dread these calls, but I will say it lightens my mind to know I won't get a call over the next nine days.

2. At 1:00 this afternoon, about eight members of the KHS Class of 1972 met at Diane's house over snacks to begin planning for a 70th birthday party later this year. It's too early for me to divulge details. But, we had a calm and easy meeting and have some good ideas on the table for how and where we might celebrate. As soon as things are nailed down more firmly, I'll be sending out notices to announce what's going on. 

I don't want to put information out now that might have to be changed later. 

3. After the meeting, Jake, Carol Lee and strolled into The Lounge, sat down at a table, and started yakkin'. Before long the Shannons arrived, then Bucky and Debbie, and, a bit later, Diane and Debbie joined the table. We had a blast telling stories, laughing, acting like experts about this and that, and enjoying one another's company. 

We weren't the only animated table in The Lounge. The Moores and friends crowded around a table next to us and down toward the north end of The Lounge, Harley and Candy and a crowd of fun people were enjoying each other at another table. 

The Lounge was hoppin'!  

Three Beautiful Things 04-11-2024: Transplant Update -- Another "No Go", No Fasting! Great Stir Fry, *Bundyville*

1. I admit it. 

These kidney transplant updates are dizzying.

Here's the latest.

On Wednesday evening, around 8:00, one of the transplant coordinators called me to ask me the initial screening questions because another donor was, as it turned out, near death. I misunderstood this initial call. I thought he said this was not a case where to donor was brain dead but hadn't met the criteria to be declared legally deceased. 

Twenty-four hours passed. 

I texted the transplant coordinator who called me Wednesday evening. 

He was off duty, but let his colleague, Patricia, know that I was seeking an update.

Patricia and I have talked before and she straighten out my misunderstanding. 

She told me that the donor had just gone into the operating room where life support would be removed. 

I knew what this meant. 

For the donor's donated organs to be viable, the donor had to meet the death criteria within a certain time frame. 

That didn't happen. 

Patricia called me shortly after 10:00 to report that the situation was a "no go".

So, after twenty-six hours of calmly waiting, I could go to bed knowing that a transplant was not happening now and that I have no idea when the next call will come. 

I accept that. 

2. This was my third go around in the last week or so with news that a kidney was potentially available. 

When I received the first two calls, the next call I got was to begin fasting. 

Because of the time that passed before the donor went off of life support, on this go around, I was never instructed to fast.

So, late this afternoon, I chopped vegetables, took out tofu I had drained the water from, made a pot of brown rice, and made a sauce and fixed a delicious stir fry dinner for Debbie and me, a dinner I had been thinking about for a couple of days. It was even better than I had imagined. 

3. I think Leah Sottile is a terrific writer and creator of podcasts. I read her book, When the Moon Turns to Blood, about Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell and the murder of two of her children. Lori Vallow has been found guilty of the murders and Chad Daybell's trial started this week. 

With this in mind, Debbie and I decided to listen to Leah Sottile's podcast on the Bundy family called Bundyville. Tonight we listened to her accounting of the 2014 standoff near Bunkerville, NV and the occupation, a couple years later, of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. 

These stories, of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell and of the Bundy family, are connected by the out of the mainstream, apocalyptic Mormon beliefs they all hold and put into practice. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-10-2024: Early Stage of Another Kidney Offer, *Jukebox Diner* at the Fitness Center, Debbie Fixes a Great Dinner

1. At 8:00 this evening (Wednesday), I received a call from a transplant coordinator. A donor has died. The donor's two kidneys are potentially available for transplant and I might be in line for one. 

That's it. 

I answered some screening questions and when I said, "Now do I just wait for the next phone call?" the coordinator replied, "Yes". 

No news yet. 

2. I got in a good hour of exercise today at the Fitness Center. It felt good to be getting back into this routine today and yesterday after it was interrupted over the weekend and I was so tired on Monday. Today I enhanced the pleasure of my exercise by listening to first hour or so of the April 7th broadcast of Lou Simon's Jukebox Diner on my Sirius/XM app. Lou Simon's selections and his conversations with people calling really worked for me. 

3. Back home, Debbie told me she'd fix dinner tonight. Great! I had been to Yoke's earlier and bought a bunch of vegetables to use in a stir fry, but I was delighted that Debbie wanted to serve the potato pancakes she made and froze a week ago accompanied by perfectly prepared asparagus spears and mushrooms.