Three and More Beautiful Things 02-26-27-2025: Travel Prep, Bob H Does the Job!, Blood Work Looks Stable, Many Hours of Driving, What a Book!, The Duplex and Time with Jeff and Zero

1. Preparing to travel is a bit more complicated for me after having a kidney transplant. I filled up a whole sheet of typing paper with lists: pills, thermometer, blood pressure cuff, electronics, clothes, and more and slowly and quietly, focused on keeping any anxiety at bay, spent hours today packing, organizing, checking, rechecking, doing my best not to forget anything necessary. 

I succeeded! 

2. The door that opens the back of the Sube (it's a station wagon) has been sealed shut for a while. I looked at YouTube videos about how to get it unstuck and it was all beyond anything I could do. It also looked like it could be complicated. Finally, today, after I had the air level in the tires checked at Silver Valley Tires, I stopped in at Hickey's Collision Repair and Bob Hickey had some free time and he came out and looked at the door. 

He had me back up closer to his shop, came out with some tools and some oil and greased the latch. 

That did it! 

With the tools he got the door to open again and then he generously greased the lever/latch and now Debbie and I have access to the back of the Sube again. 

I see a trip to recycle cardboard in my near future once I return home again! 

3. Thursday morning the cock crowed (not really) and I was up at the crack of dawn to load up the Camry and head to Sacred Heart for a blood draw. Afterward, I grabled a 16 oz triple latte down in the cafeteria and hit the road. I popped into the parking lot at the Sprague Rest Area. Blood results had come in. 

Things look stable. I liked seeing that my Creatinine levels crept a little closer to being in range and that my kidney function climbed another percentage point to 55%. That's sure better than the days when it ranged between about 12 and 16/17 percent! 

4. I had decided before leaving Spokane for Eugene that I wouldn't try to break any land speed records, fully expecting not to reach Eugene until 7 p.m. or later. 

I stopped in Ritzville for a triple grande Americano with half and half and a bagel with cream cheese. 

I stopped at the Rivertrap Pub in The Dalles and enjoyed a Thai stir fry for a mid-afternoon lunch.

I fueled up in Cascade Locks.

I crawled with my hundreds of travel companions down I-205 and then onto I-5 until the traffic congestion eased up south of Wilsonville. 

From there, it was an easy drive to Eugene. I guess I should say that driving in the congestion was also easy. It was just very slow, but nothing I didn't expect and nothing I didn't accept as the reality of coming into Portland-land around 4 in the afternoon. 

And, as I expected, I arrived in Eugene between 7 and 7:30.

5. From Spokane to Eugene, I listened, with some wandering of my concentration, to Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City. I knew when I decided to listen to this book that I'd learn a lot of fascinating history of Chicago and of the machinations that simultaneously delayed and brought into being the 1893 Chicago World's Fair in Jackson Park.

I did not expect, however, to learn so much about Frederick Law Olmsted, the renowned landscape architect, the designer of Central Park and other superb projects, and the landscape architect in charge of transforming Jackson Park into a vibrant space worthy of a World's Fair. 

I also did not know, that by listening to this book, I would also be wading into the troubled waters (once again) of psychopathy.

This book has two main currents. One current is the story of the World's Fair and the city of Chicago.

The second current is the story of serial killer H. H. Holmes, an accomplished swindler, con man, seducer, and psychopathic murderer. 

This second current of the book has been difficult for me to listen to, but, at the same time, I admit to being on pins and needles wondering how this plot of the book will conclude. 

6. I'm staying in a duplex at 12th and Monroe, just a few blocks south and west of where I, and later, Debbie, Adrienne, Molly, Patrick, and I lived in Eugene from 1993-2014, with the kids growing into adults and leaving and, from time to time, coming back to visit and, for short periods of time, to live.  The duplex I'll live in until Tuesday morning is terrific. Handsome. Clean. Quiet. Appointed perfectly. I'm very happy with this place.

I didn't stay long in the duplex upon arriving. 

I leapt back into the Camry, went to New Frontier Market to grind coffee beans, buy milk, and purchase a pack of four bagels. 

Then I soared over to Jeff's house to listen to his radio show, Deadish. He records it at home on Sunday and it plays on KEPW-FM on Thursday at 9:00. 

Tonight's show was especially great.

It featured two straight hours of a February, 1995 Zero show performed at WOW Hall in Eugene. 

I'm pretty sure I didn't attend that show, but it was a deep pleasure to listen to two hours of it tonight and Jeff and I had superb conversations about books and music and podcasts and dogs and other stuff. 

Shortly after midnight, I fell into a deep and comfortable coma sleep. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 02-25-2025: Huff and Puff and Listen, Calendar Taking Shape, Sausages and Roasted Vegetables

1. Once again, not only did my workout late this morning feel satisfying, listening on Audible to the early chapters of Devil in the White City was fascinating. Erik Larson is setting several stories in motion early on, establishing profiles and deeds of several complicated persons, and I'm eager to see how these story lines and these figures contribute to overall story Larson is telling. Alongside these profiles of persons, he also develops a detailed picture of the stark contrasts between grandeur and noise, stench, filth and danger that define the city of Chicago.  (No doubt I'll learn a lot more about these persons and the story of Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th century  during my extended time listening to this book on the road on Thursday.)

2. My calendar for my Friday-Monday visit to Eugene is taking shape. I'm balancing spending time with friends with having time to myself to do some roaming around on my own. It's such a short visit and on Saturday,  after 11:30, I'll devote much of my time to driving to and from Corvallis in order to attend Harold Lammon's memorial and to be free to be a part of whatever follows the service. I'm very happy with what's taken shape so far and my guess is that there's more to come! 

3. One evening a while back, Debbie mentioned that one of the dinners I prepared was great and she thought it would also work with sausages. 

Well, for the life of me, I don't remember after which dinner she said that, but on my last visit to Spokane's South Side Trader Joe's, I picked up a package of sweet Italian sausages.

I cooked them for dinner today and also roasted Yukon gold slices, red onion rings, red pepper, broccoli, and cauliflower. 

Debbie and I enjoyed how much pleasure this simple meal provided and were very happy that the Trader Joe's sausages were so tasty.  

Three Beautiful Things 02-24-2025: Peter Himmelman Then and Now, After Twenty Years I Read Erik Larson, Family Dinner for Three!

1. Peter Himmelman's album, Strength to Strength continues to be one of my favorites, not only by Peter Himmelman, but favorite albums of all time. The two times I saw Himmelman in concert were two of my most enjoyable evenings of all time and his songs continue to move me nearly thirty years later. 

When I was in the hospital in May, I played Strength to Strength several times while recuperating and the songs inspired and comforted me and I enjoyed how nostalgic they made me, as memories of his concerts, of those with whom I shared his music, of playing his music while I gardened and traveled to and from the Oregon Coast, and of how his songs always got me thinking about life's big questions. 

For a while today, Peter Himmelman's music filled the house. I lived simultaneously in 2024-25 and the mid-1990s, enjoying being here now and being there then. 

2. When we lived in Eugene, I seem to remember we had a hardback copy of Erik Larson's non-fiction historical book, The Devil in the White City in the house, but I never read it. For some reason, the mere existence of that book has stuck in my mind for the last twenty years or so and today I finally did something about it!  

I downloaded the book on my phone and it will be my companion for about fourteen hours as I work out and when I drive to Eugene on Thursday. At some point, I'll purchase a copy so I can go back and read passages from books that I've listened to on Audible. 

The opening of the book has me hooked. I'm ready to learn more about the characters Larson introduces and am fascinated by the book's passages about the history of Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

3. Debbie passed a simple recipe on to me over the weekend and I cooked it this afternoon:  baked pork chops with onion and rice for tonight's Family Dinner. Carol and Paul are in rehearsal and Molly is working on getting ready to move to Boise, so Christy came over to the house and joined Debbie and me for our meal. Christy roasted broccoli with superb seasonings, using a recipe she'd just received from the NYTimes. It was unique and rounded out our meal perfectly. 

We enjoyed our dinner, yakked for a while, and after we wrapped up our time together, I was ready to go to bed, a result of my hour long workout earlier in the day. That exercise rewarded me with deep and satisfying sleep. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-23-2025: Wide Ranging Conversation on ZOOM, Reading *Bridge of Birds*, Confronting Human Darkness

1. Diane, Bill, Bridgit, Val, and I jumped on the ZOOM this morning and fell right into wide ranging and deep conversation about everything from life after retirement to the complications of a sudden death in the family and the importance of making arrangements for death before it happens to the Episcopal Church  to the importance to ourselves and those around us to find joy in our lives. 

2. A while back, on Facebook, Bridgit and Diane both wrote about their enjoyment and admiration of a fantasy novel set, in the author's words, "in an ancient China that never was". The book's title is Bridge of Birds. The author is Barry Hughart. I bought a copy about ten days ago and, inspired by our ZOOM conversation today, I started reading it. I honestly don't remember the last time a read a book in the fantasy genre.  So, now, I'm into this story of a young man named Number Ten Ox who puts his sage master, Li Kao, on his back and together they head out to find the Great Root of Power, the only possible cure for a plague that struck the village Number Ten Ox lives in. 

I'm about 100 pages in and already they've had perilous and humorous encounters with unforgettable characters on this adventurous journey.

3. The books I read from July to January or so on Leah Sottile's list were about 95% grim, with a little bit of humor here and there. Most of the time, though,  I was reading about dark and violent things people do. Likewise, Saturday I finished listening to Sottile's podcast, Hush, and it was a study of the darker elements not only of crime but of law enforcement and the judicial system in Oregon. 

Bridge of Birds is also, in part, a dark book. It features fantasy characters who are monstrous, but, at the same time, I sense that what drives Number Ten Ox and Li Kao to go in search of the Great Root of Power is noble, it's in service to those who have fallen ill, and this nobility emboldens them to confront the perils they face in this journey. 

So, this book is not an escape from the dark aspects of human life, but it's not solely focused on what is dangerous, cruel, greedy, and exploitative in the world. 

I'm eager to find out how Number Ten Ox and Li Kao's journey progresses and how it concludes. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-22-2025: Morning Work Out is the Ticket, Relaxing Afternoon, Mental Lapses and Spaghetti Sauce

1. This morning my workout at the Fitness Center sealed for me that my plan to go there around, say, 10 or 11:00 is my ticket to being active and sleeping deeply. I won't be able to return on Sunday because of a Westminster Basement Zoom get together, but I'll be back on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and maybe on Thursday before I drive to Oregon. 

2. I enjoyed a peaceful afternoon finishing up what has been my morning routine. I successfully completed the NYTimes puzzles Connections and Strands and the Sunday crossword became available in the afternoon and by the time I went to sleep, I had completed most of it. 

3. Debbie left for an hour or so late this afternoon to relax at The Lounge. On her way out the door, we agreed that I would use some of the ground beef I just purchased on Friday and make a spaghetti sauce.

I experienced two mental lapses. 

First, I forgot that Christy gave us a jar of her homemade tomato sauce and that I could have used it to make the spaghetti sauce. 

Next time! 

Secondly, when I went to the basement pantry to get tomato products, along with a can of diced tomatoes, I accidentally also brought up a can of spicy tomato soup. 

So, our spaghetti sauce was a combination of diced tomatoes, tomato soup, red pepper, onion, mushrooms, ground beef, garlic, and seasonings. 

But, guess what?

My mental lapse turned out to be awesome. 

The soup worked deliciously and Debbie and I were really happy with what a great spaghetti dinner this turned out to be. 

And now we can look forward to another one some time using Christy's sauce -- I'm hoping that writing about it will keep my on and off memory from forgetting we have it!  

Three Beautiful Things 02-21-2025: I Face Facts, Cagey Grocery Pick Up, I'll Attend Harold Lannom's Memorial

1. A pretty decent rule of thumb to follow: face the facts.

What fact did I finally face?

If I don't go to the Fitness Center in the morning, chances are good I won't go in the afternoon.

I've avoided mornings since my surgery as a way to avoid being with larger numbers of people, but today I I decided to see how spread out people working out were in the Fitness Center at around 10:15 or so. 

It was pretty good.

In addition, during my last post-transplant check up, PA-C Natasha Barauskas clarified for me that while if the gym were crowded, masking up would be a good idea, what I really needed to be sure to do was sanitize the machines I work out on, keep my hands clean, and avoid physical contact with others. 

So, today, with the number of fellow exercisers fairly small, I diligently sanitized machines, kept my hands clean, and didn't shake anyone's hand, slap any one on the back, or hug anyone. 

I exercised for an hour, huffing and puffing my way toward my goal today of burning 300 calories. 

It felt great.

2. Before going to the gym, I was sly and had the Walmart order I made for groceries be ready between 9-10, guaranteeing I'd get out of the house before working out. I picked them up, brought them home and put them away, yakked a bit with Debbie, and zoomed back to Smelterville to the Fitness Center. 

3. Back home, I decided, after some internal debate,  that I would travel to Oregon next week and, on Saturday, attend the memorial service for Harold Lannom, a great friend and fellow parishioner at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Harold lived to be 100. He lived in Corvallis the last years of his life and his memorial will be at The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis on Saturday, March 1st at 2:00. 

I'll spend the time I'm not in Corvallis in Eugene and start back to Kellogg on Tuesday morning. 

It will be a whirlwind visit --I hope I can get around and see as many friends as possible.  

Three Beautiful Things 02-20-2025: *Hush* Continues, Baked Curried Chicken Thighs, Jazz to Cook By

1. I returned to Leah Sottile's podcast, Rush, which tells the story of Jesse Johnson, a Salem, OR man who was wrongly convicted of murder, sentenced to death, and lived on death row for over twenty years. In 2021, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned his conviction and two (long) years later prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case and the State released Jesse Johnson from incarceration. 

I listened to Episode 4 today, "Patti". The episode title refers to Patricia Hubbard. She lived across the street from the murder victim, Harriet Thompson, and was smoking a cigarette on her porch when she heard a commotion across the street, heard screams, and saw a white man she'd seen come and go from the victim's residence in the past leap off the porch and speed away. 

Police investigators ignored her story. Jesse Johnson's defense attorneys never looked into it. Attorneys for the Innocence Project deposed Patti Hubbard in 2013, she told her story, and the fact that the court never heard this testimony helped lead to Jesse Johnson's eventual acquittal and release from prison. 

Leah Sottile is not done with this story after four episodes.

I have five more episodes of Hush let to listen to as Leah Sottile further investigates the investigation of Harriet Thompson's murder and why the police didn't explore possibilities other than their conclusion that Jesse Johnson was the perpetrator.

Here's a link to this podcast:  https://www.opb.org/show/hush/

2. As Debbie slipped out the door to go to work this morning, she asked me to do something with chicken thighs for dinner. 

Gladly.

I thawed a pack of three thighs.

I wanted spicy chicken for dinner.

After some thought, I decided I'd make red curry sauce with diced carrots, onions, and potatoes.

I did that. 

I also cooked a double batch of brown rice.

I decided to roast some potatoes and carrots, seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning. 

Once the rice was cooked and after I sprayed Pam on the bottom of a baking pan, I created a bed of rice, placed the chicken thighs on the rice, and poured curry sauce over the chicken and the rice. 

I thought the chicken would take about 50 minutes or so to bake, so I set the timer for 25 minutes and when the timer chimed, I put the pan of carrots and potatoes to roast in the oven beside the chicken.

At the fifty minute mark, I determined the carrots and potatoes needed another five minutes and that that would work for the chicken as well.

Then it was all ready to eat. 

I didn't use all the sauce I cooked when I poured it over the chicken, so we had curry sauce to use as we wanted -- we could pour more on the chicken and rice, cover the roasted vegetables with it, or eat boiled rice that was available covered with curry sauce. 

Over the course of our dinner, I think we exercised all those options. 

It was a most satisfying meal and I had a lot of fun cooking it. 

3. Listening to the Spotify playlist, "Post Bop Essentials", featuring jazz artists like McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, and others made my time in the kitchen even more enjoyable and relaxing. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-19-2025: Cashing In, Saving Up, Peaceful Evening

1. I make three wagers a year at the Spokane Tribal Casino's Caesar's Sportsbook: the Super Bowl, the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and the World Series. 

This year Ed, Buff, Darren, and I all wagered on the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. Our bets were successful and today we hustled over to Airway Heights and cashed in our winning tickets. 

2. I had a plan. I would protect myself with a mask and vinyl gloves and play machines for a while with my winnings and come home with half of what I won having bet on the Eagles. That ungambled money would go in the envelope of cash I am saving for our April trip to Pendelton. 

Well, as it turned out, I returned home and put all but five dollars of my Eagles' win into my Pendleton envelope. I had some decently good luck spinning reels and now have a modestly more bountiful envelope of savings than I thought I would when I left the house this morning. 

3. Debbie and I quietly retreated into the evening. We yakked for a while about life at Pinehurst Elementary School where there's rarely a dull moment and then left each other to our solitude. I started the Thursday NYTimes Crossword and Debbie relaxed with some videos on the World Wide Web.  Ah! Another peaceful evening for us. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-18-2025: Membrane Falls Off, Coma Nap, Control Knobs

1. A membrane protecting the site of my Jan 14 tooth extraction was due to be removed on March 11th. It fell off last night.  I trotted down to the dentist's office today to have the site looked at and to determine if the membrane's early exit was a problem. As of now, the site looks good. I need to continue not eating with that side of my mouth and continue to rinse with salt water every time I eat or drink anything except water. I hope the site will continue to thrive, but if complications arise, I have an open invitation to trot back to the dentist's office for help and possible intervention. 

2. Even brief visits to the dentist wipe me out. I returned home from today's five minute visit and fell into a coma nap. Seemed kind of weird, but felt so right. When returning home from the dentist, 🎵if sleepin' on it is wrong, I don't wanna be right🎵. 

3. It took some help from the World Wide Web, but I think I figured out the right knobs to order to replace our old ones on our kitchen stove and oven. I'll find out Friday when the order arrives!  

Three Beautiful Things 02-17-2025: Heavier Snow, *Oldmanhood*, Leah Sottile Will Be in Spokane

1. The snow shoveling this morning took a little more out of me than usual -- but I was fine. The snow was a bit deeper and heavier -- no powder today. I finished and thought I might have to go for a second round, but before long the snow let up and the temperature went up a bit and the sidewalks were bare and wet. Awesome. 

2. Bill Davie sent Debbie and me his most recent book of poetry, Oldmanhood: a journal in poetry and it arrived at least a week, maybe two weeks ago. Time flies. Debbie and I were in the midst of rearranging our living room and I was trying to get the Vizio room straightened out and his book temporarily got buried in a pile of magazines, mailings, and other books. 

I found Oldmanhood over the weekend, thumped my forehead, and briefly scolded myself for losing track of it. 

Tonight I started reading it and immediately realized that I will not be able to read straight through this book. 

I read the introduction and five poems and stopped to let Bill's prose and poetry sink in, let the many memories his words were firing in my mind play themselves out, and contemplate, along with Bill, what I'm experiencing in oldmanhood. 

I'll go back soon and reread what I've read and push forward another five poems or so and let Bill's eloquence, insight, and the stew of word music, pain, and joy in these poems take hold. 

3. I already knew Leah Sottile was giving her first reading and discussion of her new book, Blazing Eye Sees All, at Powell's in Portland on March 27th. 

I had been dreaming about, almost planning on, going. 

But, I thought, if Leah Sottile is going to do a reading/discussion in Spokane, I won't drive to Portland. 

Today, in her Substack newsletter, Leah Sottile announced that she will be presenting in Spokane on Wednesday, April 2 at the Steam Plant Rooftop. 

Great news! 

Three Beautiful Things 02-16-2025: Deep Sleep, Turning Tedium Into Meditation, Confidential Conversation

1. Snow falling fast, oh fast, promises me nights of deep sleep thanks to the exercise I get shoveling. I've enjoyed restful, peaceful nights all through this storm.

2.  I remember back over thirty years ago when Rita Hennessy and I were team teaching, I read a book, possibly by Thich Nhat Hanh, that described turning tedious tasks into meditative time. I did that today. I meditatively returned to my files project, thinning papers I don't need out of folders while relaxing, breathing evenly, and meditating. (It might have resulted in a tangible reward. My evening blood pressure was 119/73. Golden.)

3. Even though I sometimes wish I had record of conversations Debbie and I have about our lives, growing old, our kids, the world we live in, and why we haven't made popcorn for such a long time, ultimately, I prefer to keep them confidential. We spontaneously fell into one of those conversations this evening, puzzled over where our lives might be headed, decided we needed to get popcorn in the house, and then both dug into the bean salad Debbie made earlier in the day. After a bit,  I returned to working word puzzles, enjoying Copper's company, and feeling happy and relieved that my blood pressure has been so stable and so good. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-15-2025: Nostalgia: Iain Matthews and Anne Sexton and More, *South Your Mouth*, Top Notch Family Dinner

1. It had been a long time since I last read poetry by Anne Sexton.

It had been a long time since I listened to Iain Matthews' album from about thirty-five years ago, Pure and Crooked. 

It was today that I realized that on Pure and Crooked, Iain Matthews covers Peter Gabriel's song "Mercy Street" (from his So album) and today I learned that Anne Sexton's poem "45 Mercy Street" inspired Peter Gabriel's composing of "Mercy Street".

Having all of this come together for me today took me back to days late in the 1980s and early in the 1990s when acoustic folk and singer/songwriting music dominated my music listening life and Jane, my wife at the time, and I went to live concerts all the time. 

I don't remember quite how we (or Jane) learned about the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, but we subscribed and when we did, Dirty Linen rewarded us with a complimentary copy of Iain Matthews' cd Pure and Crooked. 

It became one of my favorite albums and Dirty Linen, which had been a Richard Thompson/Fairport Convention fanzine (if I remember correctly), opened the way for. me to become a nearly obsessive listener of Richard Thompson, Richard and Linda Thompson, and the many musicians who performed at one time or another with Fairport Convention or were influenced by Fairport's ground breaking folk rock sound. 

Warm memories of that scintillating time of listening to so much acoustic music and so many singer/songwriters came flooding back to me today, thanks to a playlist of random songs playing on Spotify which happened to include Peter Gabriel performing "Mercy Street" and sent me looking more deeply into the song and its connection to Anne Sexton. I listened again to Pure and Crooked. I read about Anne Sexton's troubled life, which meant much more to me at age 71 than it did when I first learned about her at age 19. I read more of her poems. 

It was a most welcome and intense couple of hours this afternoon. 

2. When we lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, I kicked my cooking efforts up a few notches and via Pinterest, I discovered Mandy Rivers who publishes recipes under the title South Your Mouth.

Christy planned and hosted today's family dinner and assigned Debbie and me the task of bringing a rice or grain dish.

As it turned out, Mandy Rivers had published a recipe for exactly the dish I wanted to make, a dish I thought would go really well with the pork loin and cherry sauce I knew Christy was serving. 

I wanted to make an almond rice dish and found Mandy Rivers' recipe for Classic Rice Almandine.

All I had to do was sauté onions and basmati rice in butter, add garlic and then white wine to the rice, cook this up and then spoon the rice into a saucepan of heated chicken broth. Once the rice was tender, I added the lightly salted roasted almonds I had slivered. I let the cooked rice sit in the covered saucepan until just before we went to Christy's and then I transferred it into a serving bowl and topped the dish with whole almonds and chopped cilantro. 

3. Our dinner, enjoyed by Christy, Carol, Paul, Molly, and me, was among our finest tonight. Christy's cherry sauce for the pork loin was delicate, tart, not at all overly sweet, and deliciously complimented the pork loin she prepared. In addition, Paul made a great salad mixing greens, sliced apples, blue cheese, and dried cherries. We had started the evening with a cherry (goat?) cheese that we could spread onto pieces of bread. I didn't quite master what the cocktail was, but I enjoyed my sparkling water while the others enjoyed their drinks. 

Carol baked a Cherry Chip cake for dessert. If it wasn't a Valentine's Day cake, it was sure in the spirit of Valentine's Day and was so good that it even touched my Grinchy heart! 

We had a lot to talk about tonight. 

The best thing, in my opinion, to come out of our discussion was our pledge to one another that as we age, and knowing that with aging comes increased uncertainty about a wide range of things, that we are committed to one another's welfare, whatever that comes to mean. We also expressed confidence that the younger members of our family also share this commitment and assured each other that we remain committed to the well-being of the younger generation. At this moment, we are happy and relieved that our family's youth are getting along very well in their various situations. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-14-2025: Six Minutes of Valentine's Day, Puzzle Day, Chicken and Rice in the Wok

1. Have I mentioned that on our first date back in August of 1997, somehow, at a Eugene Emeralds baseball game, the subject of Valentine's Day came up and Debbie and I learned neither of us enjoyed it? We might have said we hated it. 

WOW! 

When we got married on Christmas Eve that year, one of the first things I thought about as we strode out of the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel in CdA was that as long as Debbie and I were together I could no longer blow it on Valentine's Day, never again suffer the consequences of never being moved or inspired by the Valentine's Day spirit. 

Debbie always put out chocolate or other nice things for the kids on Valentine's Day, but she and I never did anything for each other: no cards, no hearts, no candy, no stuffed animals, no balloons, no flowers, ah!, nothing. 

And so it was today. Debbie was home all day. Our day was normal.

But, Christy did temporarily knock down our Valentine's Day wall! 

Christy loves Valentine's Day and she gave us a bag with chocolates, cherry frosted sugar cookies, and a jar of tomato sauce she recently made. 

We ate the cookies.

We ate almost all the chocolate. 

We'll put the sauce to good use. 

So, I guess you could say that we acknowledged Valentine's Day for about six minutes! 😏 

2. I haven't started reading a new book just yet, but today I did return to word puzzles. In the evening, I completed the Saturday NYTimes puzzle and went online and solved three or four acrostics. My puzzle solving routine each day has grown: no I work on Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, Connections, and Strands in the morning and since the NYTimes makes its daily crossword available the evening before, I've been working those before going to bed. 

3. Debbie asked me to make chicken tenders and rice for dinner and since last night I forgot to add broccoli and green beans to our stir fry, I added those tonight. 

It was another great night cooking with the wok, made even more enjoyable by having a selection of Trader Joe's sauces to choose from -- next time, though, I think I'll mix up homemade sauce. We love what I whip up so we don't always have to rely on Trader Joe's. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-13-2025: Sibling Outing to DOMA Coffee Lab, Next Stop: DOMA Cafe, Back to the Wok at Home

1.  Thanks to Paul driving Carol and me to the Shoshone Medical Center clinic in Smelterville, we met Christy, piled into her Sube, and our February sibling outing began. 

Christy was in charge of our February outing and she planned a DOMA day -- that is, a visit, first to the DOMA Coffee Lab and then lunch at the DOMA Cafe.

DOMA is a coffee business founded by Kellogg High School graduate Terry Patano and his wife, Rebecca. Recently, he sold the business, but the aesthetics, ethics, and devotion to quality coffee drinks and, now, food that he established lives on. 

I found the setting and atmosphere at the DOMA Coffee Lab relaxing and especially enjoyed that DOMA features house music played on vinyl records. 

I honestly don't remember the last time I went to a coffee shop that served its drinks in ceramic cups rather than paper ones. I enjoyed the traditional Macchiato I ordered Monday at the Sacred Heart hospital Thomas Hammer coffee bar, but when I made the same order today, I loved having my single shot of espresso topped with a thin layer of foam come to me in a tiny ceramic handleless cup with a tiny spoon to stir it up if I wanted to (I didn't).

2. The DOMA Cafe turned out to be another handsome spot, located very near the Centennial Trail and close to the Spokane River. At this spot, I ordered a cappuccino and, once again, I felt a jolt of pleasure when it came to the counter in a ceramic, handleless cup. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the turkey sandwich I ordered, especially the bread. It was crusty white bread. Its texture was perfect and it deliciously complimented the ingredients in the sandwich itself which I cannot recite as I write this. 

We sat at a counter looking out windows on to the river. 

A studious looking young man sat a little ways down from us. 

He had two books: a novel by Cormac McCarthy (I didn't see the title) and a book I didn't know existed entitled The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing. 

I thought, yeah, if I lived in or closer to CdA, I'd come to either of the DOMA locations to read and enjoy a coffee drink or two while enjoying my book. Chances would be good that I could do so anonymously since I don't know many people in CdA. 

No one approached this guy. He was laser focused on something on his laptop, had two great looking books, and seemed to be enjoying his coffee.

I liked that. 

3. Back in Kellogg, after a fairly quick shopping trip with Christy and Carol to Trader Joe's, I went to work almost immediately on preparing dinner. 

I took a block of tofu out of the fridge, diced it, and wrapped the tofu in paper towels to draw water out of it. 

A bit later, I baked the tofu for a while and, at the same time, sliced or chopped white onion, zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, cabbage, and cilantro. I also prepared sugar peas and got out fresh spinach. 

I cooked a pot of basmati rice and got out the wok and stir fried the tofu and the vegetables and before long our stir fried dinner was ready to eat and I put out three different sauces to try out on our food. 

I didn't put any of the Peanut Satay or Green Dragon Hot Sauce on mine, but tried out the General Tsao Stir Fry Sauce and liked it a lot. 

So did Debbie. 

What a great coffee and food day! Much of it with my sisters!  It was great on the road and was great back at home! 

Three Beautiful Things 02-12-2025: (A Blogging Milestone Yesterday), Fun with Cardboard, Fun with Espresso Coffee Drinks, Fun with Pinwheel Salmon

I just noticed that my 3BTs for Feb 11th was my 6700th post on kelloggbloggin. 

I'm about four months into my 19th year of keeping this blog. 

1. It never gets old. The feeling never changes. I feel significant relief and a peculiar happiness when I clear the cardboard boxes out of our garage. Today, I determined it was time to load up the Sube and take the cardboard to the transfer station and throw boxes into the cardboard.recycling bin. 

Good lord. 

That felt really good. 

2. Nurse Jenn responded to my note telling her that as a way to cut back on calcium that I would be cutting  back on drinking so many lattes. Nurse Jenn is a jolly and positive minded advocate for transplant patients returning to living a normal life as soon as possible. She told me not to quit doing something I enjoyed so much.  I appreciated her note a lot. At the same time, I had to face the fact that I was drinking as many as three, four, sometimes five 16 oz lattes a day. 

So I'll obey Nurse Jenn. I won't stop drinking my homemade lattes. I will, however,  moderate my consumption. 

In fact, I've started fixing myself strong cups of Americano coffee with a small amount of half and half. This coffee drink is more bitter and coming to enjoy these more bitter Americano drinks mug by mug reminds me of how I came to enjoy, as I drank them pint by pint, the bitter qualities of India Pale Ale and other hoppier ales back in my glorious craft beer heyday. 

3. Yes, I buy some practical products at Trader Joe's like plain sparkling water and Thai Wheat Noodles and chicken tenders and cheese. 

At the same time, I have a blast being guided by one simple principle: if it looks fun, buy it. 

Well, Monday, for the first time, I finally noticed that Trader Joe's sells these Mediterranean Salmon Pinwheels. It features a long strip of salmon with feta cheese and spinach rolled in the fish. It looks like a pink and green and white cinnamon roll. 

They come two in a pack and I bought a pack.

Tonight I baked the pinwheels and served them with two sides: Trader Joe's Greek chickpeas with parsley and cumin (a can of these looked fun to me) and a warmed up packet of brown rice and lentils. 

Unreal. 

Sometimes buying fun looking food turns out to be delicious and nutritious along with being fun. 

What a fun day:  fun with cardboard recycling, fun with making espresso coffee drinks at home, and fun with Mediterranean salmon pinwheels.

Sometimes being easy to please is, indeed, everything I crack it up to be! 

Three Beautiful Things 02-11-2025: Stable Lab Numbers, Filing Project (and Gratitude for Medicare), Debbie Rocks the Kitchen

1. Great news! Nurse Jenn messaged me this afternoon and the transplant pros are happy with the stability of my lab results. Nurse Jenn didn't mention the one thing I was concerned about so I am no longer concerned. She pointed out, however, that my Calcium level has gone up and recommended I cut back on high calcium food and drinks. I snack through the day a lot on almonds. I'll moderate. Likewise, I'll drink fewer lattes in a day and experiment with making espresso drinks with less milk. That'll be fun. I'll cut a bunch of celery and carrot sticks to snack on in place of so many high calcium almonds. 

2. I sorted through my paper files today and unloaded a lot of papers I no longer need or want. I almost finished this project and don't have too far to go. It was interesting, as I threw them away, to look back on blood draw reports from when I lived in Eugene and Greenbelt, to look at the pre-transplant reports from the Univ of Maryland when I was listed there, and to be reminded of how much better and easier things are in my medical insurance life since I turned sixty-five and enrolled in Medicare. (I'd forgotten that when I enrolled in the transplant program at Sacred Heart, my medical insurance provider, pre-Medicare, denied coverage of a transplant. Good thing I didn't have that surgery before 12-27-2018!) 

3. In the spirit of "if it looks fun, buy it" at Trader Joe's, I bought cans of eggplant combined with tomato and onion. Being the superb cook that she is, Debbie imagined that this product, usually an accompaniment to crackers or bread, would taste great with pasta. 

So, tonight, she cooked ground beef, added the eggplant/tomato/onion combo, and some canned tomatoes to the beef and served it over penne pasta. 

Awesome. 

I love to cook, but on those occasions, even after a full day of work, that Debbie says she'd like to fix dinner, it's always terrific and tonight she more than succeeded at making a great meal. 

I'm moved to quote the great Emerson, Lake and Palmer song, but sub "was" for "is".

Ooh, what a lucky man he is.

Three Beautiful Things 02-10-2025: Daylight Driving Time, Making Bi-Weekly Labs Fun, Pork and Panko

1. Now that daylight is creeping into our mornings a bit earlier each day, I decided I'd like to drive to Spokane for labs and some gallivanting in mostly daylight. Therefore, I hit the road a little later than usual and arrived at Sacred Heart a little later. It worked out fine. I was done not long after 8:00 and so just over twelve hours had passed since I took my last Tacrolimus pill, in keeping with the doctor's orders.  I took my 8:00 pills at around, oh, 8:30 and that's fine, too. 

I went to the hospital cafeteria and the Thomas Hammer coffee bar and ordered my first ever Macchiato, a traditional Macchiato, not a caramel one that is popular at Starbucks.

The traditional Macchiato is a shot of espresso topped with some milk foam. It's intense, a good drink for coffee drinkers who enjoy bitterness, and I now think I'll experiment with making Macchiato like drinks at home. 

I'm having fun playing around in the world of espresso coffee. 

2. I fast before my labs, so it had been over twelve hours since I'd eaten. 

So I beat a retreat to Great Harvest for a Morning Glory Muffin and some coffee. I also wanted to stock up on bread, but bread wouldn't be ready for purchase until around 10:30 or so. 

No problem. 

Trader Joe's is a short distance from Great Harvest, so I dropped in and did some "if it looks fun buy it" shopping and I hope the Mediterranean Salmon Pinwheel I purchased is as fun on our dinner plates as it was to see in the store! 

I returned to Great Harvest and found out my buying habits there had earned me a free loaf of bread, so I came home with two loaves of white bread and a loaf of Harvest Blend, all right out of the oven and cooled for the proper amount of time. 

I then blasted to CdA, glided into Pilgrim's Market, stocked up on produce, and returned to Kellogg. 

3. Back home, I beat an egg in a bowl, dipped two pork chops one at time in the egg and then rolled the chops in panko bread crumbs seasoned with Everything But the Bagel seasoning. Before frying the chops, I sautéed rings of red onion and I steamed chunks of Yukon Golds with broccoli. Before frying the chops, I cut the meat in bite-sized pieces and before long we had a delicious dinner of breaded pork chop bits and red onion with potatoes and broccoli on the side. 

Mom used to cook pork in a similar way, using crushed saltine crackers. I almost did that tonight, but I'm kind of crazy about panko bread crumbs, and so I used them and was very happy with how the Everything But the Bagel seasoning worked with the panko. 

Espresso fun! Great Harvest fun! Trader Joe's fun! Pilgrim's Market fun! Fun in the kitchen! 

A fun day. 

I hope to hear on Tuesday what the transplant team has to say about my labs. I saw numbers I liked a lot and noted one thing out of whack. I'll reserve comment on that for later after I find out if it concerned the team. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-09-2025: Eagles Win Honoring (for Many of Us) Don Knott, Family Dinner, I Wrap up *Resurrection Walk*

1. For reasons I have confided in a few people, but prefer to keep to myself, I don't watch football games.I I keep up with things a bit, enough so that I half way know what people are talking about if I'm in the company of football conversations, but I don't watch games.

I'm not on a mission.  

I'm not sitting on a high horse.

Once a year, I enjoy going with Ed (and this year Buff and Darren joined us) to the Spokane Tribal Casino and making a single wager on the Super Bowl.

In memory of and as a tribute to Don Knott, this year I wagered on his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles. (So did the other guys.)

Lo and behold, the Eagles won and so I have some cash waiting for me at the casino! 

2. We had a low key Valentine's family dinner tonight. After crackers and different dips for an appetizer, we enjoyed a dinner consisting of Carol's beef stroganoff, Christy's transformation of a green bean salad recipe into a delicious hot dish, and the green salad with dressing that Debbie and I teamed up to make. We each had a single piece of Valentine's chocolate at our place at the table and the dinner places had a Valentine's Day theme. 

We finished dinner with an apple and philo dough piece of pie Carol made using apple pie filling she made from scratch.

Dinner conversation roamed all over the place and was both cheerful and, at times, serious. 

I had a lot of fun listening to Debbie tell us about an instruction video she found online explaining the finer points of making sock monkeys. Debbie is making several of them these days. 

3. I finished reading Michael Connelly's book, Resurrection Walk, featuring both Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller. I enjoy how, in the three Lincoln Lawyer books I've either now read or seen as a movie, Connelley turns Mickey Haller's attention inward, portrays Haller looking over the case we've just witnessed him trying to win in court and becoming introspective, pondering his work as a defense attorney, examining the moral murkiness of his work and the justice system, and contemplating what kind of future he'll create for himself now that the case he's been dedicated to is over.  

Three Beautiful Things 02-08-2025: Shoveling and Sleeping, Bosch Teams Up with the Lincoln Lawyer, Memory Lane and Billy Mac's

1.  Right, right, right. I get it. Shoveling powdery light snow for about twenty minutes doesn't compare to an hour of huffing and puffing at the Fitness Center.

But it's exercise. 

It gets me moving and active. 

And, here's the kicker for me: shoveling the two sets of sidewalks, while not a vigorous workout, deepens my sleep at night and I enjoy that benefit of exercise more than anything else. 

I've returned to that kind of sleep thanks to shoveling and going to the gym. 

2.  Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller, are half brothers. Bosch's career was as a police detective. Haller is a defense attorney. In the book, Resurrection Walk, they work together on a case to free a woman sent to jail for murdering her ex-husband.

I spent much of the day with this book and I've enjoyed the way Bosch and Haller work together, how Bosch's skill's, which he used for about forty years in service to prosecuting crimes, are helping Haller in their work opposing the prosecution. 

I'll leave it at that. I've enjoyed this book's different complications too much to give any of them away.

I don't know how it will conclude -- but I'll find out fairly soon. 

3. In my imagination, I transported myself back to Eugene's now closed and awesome neighborhood bar and grill, Billy Mac's.

I loved Billy Mac's hot shrimp and tonight with the help of some butter and Frank's Red Hot Sauce, I made myself a serving of hot shrimp and ate them alongside noodles that Debbie had prepared. 

Since I'm unsure how alcohol and my immunosuppressive meds interact, I'm not drinking alcohol, but tonight, to further pay tribute to the countless great nights I had at Billy Mac's, I would have loved a margarita. 

Three Beautiful Things 02-07-2025: Breaking the Spell, I Return to the Fitness Center, Leah Sottile's Podcast: *Hush*

1. I admit it. I really enjoy being in the house, reading,  writing, working puzzles, listening to a wide variety of music, cooking, spending time with Copper and Gibbs,  but, that said, once I break the spell and leave the house, I enjoy being out and about. 

I broke the spell today. 

Debbie asked me to mail a package at the post office.

We had food containers to return to Diane.

I then decided, as long as I was uptown, that I would go to the public library, renew my library card, and see if I might find a book to read until my copy of Bridge of Birds arrives. I've enjoyed the few Michael Connell books I've read and decided to check out Resurrection Walk, which features Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch teaming up to, well, I'm not sure yet what they'll be doing. I've barely started the book! 

2. I further broke the spell of burrowing in the house by putting on my new sweatpants that arrived yesterday and blasting out to the Fitness Center for the first time in 2025. 

I put a mask in my pocket and I'm glad I did. The gym wasn't crowded, but quite a few people were working out. My mask worked beautifully. I bought this particular 50 mask package and there's nothing special about these masks, but for some reason, they are the best ones I've tried. 

I huffed and puffed for an hour, thirty minutes per machine. 

Not only did this exercise feel great, I was startled by my own stamina, by how strong I felt. 

It's encouraging. 

I let myself hope that as I continue to exercise, whether at the gym or shoveling snow, that maybe this spring I'll feel up to taking some moderate hikes again. 

I miss that. 

3. I did one other thing that made my exercise very enjoyable. 

Leah Sottile dropped a season of eleven podcast episodes in the fall that I hadn't listened to yet. 

The podcast is entitled Hush. It's an Oregon Public Broadcasting production.

The podcast tells the story of Jesse Johnson, a black man who did not commit murder, but was arrested in 1998, tried, found guilty in 2004, and sentenced to death. 

He was on death row for seventeen years until the State of Oregon overturned the conviction in 2021 and released him from prison in September, 2023. 

Leah Sottile, and her producer Ryan Haas, after countless hours of research and interviews, tell Jesse Johnson's story in Hush. 

How did Jesse Johnson, an innocent man, end up on death row for all those years? 

Why did the State of Oregon decide not to retry him and cut him loose?

What does Jesse Johnson's story tell us about law enforcement, criminal investigation, justice, crime, the realities of race, and other aspects of Jesse Johnson's and other cases?

I'm three episodes in, hooked, and eager to get back to the gym, not only to exercise, but to listen to the eight episodes I still have in front of me. 

Where can you find this podcast? Right here: https://www.opb.org/show/hush/