Monday, March 18, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-17-2024: Top 40 Songs of March 1968, Preparing Family Dinner, A Superb Discussion

1. Stu recommended that I tune into '60 Satellite Survey on the Sirius/XM app. Each week, the host, Dave Hoeffel, goes back to specific week in the 1960s and plays that week's Top 40 songs. So, Saturday night, I went to sleep listening to his show focused the week ending on March 16, 1968. 

If you'd like see this Top 40 list, just click right here

I finished listening to this episode while I burned calories at the Fitness Center.

I found this list's wide range of music styles remarkable as Dave Hoeffel guided his listeners through it. 

Artists as different from one another as Sly and the Family Stone, Roger Miller, Petula Clark, 1910 Fruit Gum Company, Otis Redding, and The Bee Gees helped comprise this Top 40 list and I listened to songs as widely different from each other as "Love is Blue", "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde", "Spooky', and "I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)".

I'll admit it. I was expecting a Top 40 list of March 1968 to include The Beatles, Steppenwolf, The Rolling Stones, and other groups I think of as epitomizing the music of the late 1960s. 

But, nope. During that week ending March 16, 1968 more people were buying The Mills Brothers, The Lettermen, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the Delfonics, and others than the classic bands I expected to appear on this Top 40 list. 

2. Debbie and I hosted tonight's St. Patrick's Day family dinner. We had decided a while back not to serve corned beef and cabbage and eventually decided that I would made shepherd's pie. Yoke's doesn't carry ground lamb, so I used ground beef. The pie was simple to make. I started by boiling about three pounds of potatoes while also cooking up chopped onion, zucchini, carrots, celery, and garlic. When the onion was tender, I added the ground beef. Once the beef was browned, I added flour, ketchup, tomato paste, and beef boullion, and frozen corn kernels. I mashed the potatoes while the meat/vegetable mixture cooked down and thickened. After I sprayed oil on the inside of our cast iron dutch oven, I transferred the meat/vegetable mixture to it and topped it with the mashed potatoes and baked it for a half an hour. 

I didn't season this shepherd's pie. No salt. No pepper. No herbs. No spices. The natural flavor of the ground beef and vegetables and the addition of the tomato paste and ketchup, in my opinion, didn't need further enhancing. 

For an appetizer, I sliced Dubliner cheddar cheese, Debbie sliced a cosmic crisp apple, and we put out Carr's crackers. 

I served Emeralds for our cocktail, a blend of Jameson's Irish Whiskey, sweet vermouth, orange bitters, and lemon peel.

We capped off our dinner with Bailey's Irish Cream.

3. I am not at liberty to write about what Paul, Carol, Zoe, Molly, Christy, Debbie, and I spent a healthy portion of the evening discussing. I would, however, like to write for my own record of the evening that I thought it was a superb discussion, unquestionably one of the very best and most satisfying we've had over the last six to seven years of eating together as a family. 


Sunday, March 17, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-16-2024: Hooked on Exercising Indoors, Preparing for Sunday's Family Dinner, Chicken with California Rub

1. Warming temperatures, blue sky and still I exercised indoors at the Fitness Center this morning. It went well, although, I admit, I would have worked out longer if I'd arrived earlier and if the facility didn't close at noon. But, I burned a decent number of calories on the cardio machines and got in some fairly good work on a couple of resistance machines.

2. I'm responsible for food and drink preparations for our family dinner on St. Patrick's Day. I don't care to reveal what I'm going to fix (not corned beef and cabbage, by the way), but after a trip to Yoke's and the liquor store today, I have the food and drink I need fix our meal.

3. Today I used the California rub Christy gave me to cook with a while back and baked a packet of party chicken wings with boiled potatoes and steamed broccoli. What were the ingredients of this California rub? Strawberries. Lemon peel. Cilantro. Thyme. Turned out to be a delicious seasoning for tonight's chicken.  

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-15-2024: Nearly Empty Fitness Center, Kierkegaard on the Value of Walking, Paninis for Dinner

1. Today the clouds and fog burned off and, by this afternoon, Kellogg enjoyed temperatures nearing sixty degrees. It started to feel a bit like spring outside.

For a short while today at the Fitness Center, I was the only person exercising. I had to chuckle at myself for not being outdoors. I rely on these cardio machines to tell me how many calories I've burned and how much time I've been on the machine. I enter this information into an app I use to track my calorie consumption, how many calories I burn, and how much time I spend exercising. At some point, I suppose, I'll get back to walking and hiking out of doors and hop on my bicycle again. Today would have been a good day for it. 

2. For the first time since I rejoined the Fitness Center back in November, its internet service went down today. It wasn't a big deal, but it did mean I couldn't listen to another episode of "The Jukebox Diner"on my Sirius/XM app. After listening to Bach for a while, I changed gears and clicked on my audible.com recording of the book Songlines.

I have become enamored with the book's chapter entitled, "From the Notebooks". In it, Bruce Chatwin records a series of his notebook entries. Some of the entries in this chapter seem random, but many of them are focused on Chatwin's deep interest in the nomadic life, in human restlessness, on the value of travel, and of how important it is (and has been historically) for human beings to stay, in one way or another, on the move. 

I particularly enjoy this entry in which Chatwin quotes from a letter composed by the 19th century philosopher/theologian Soren Kirkegaard: 

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it . . . but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. . .Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right. 

3. Back home, I fixed messy fried zucchini, sun-dried tomato, mozzarella cheese paninis for Debbie and me, dressed with a mayonnaise, sour cream, plain yogurt, and parsley sauce. I roasted russet potato slices as a side. This was our second HelloFresh meal of the week. I think it's the second time I've made these sandwiches. Neither time did I feel like I quite got it right, but, alas, they tasted pretty good. 


Friday, March 15, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-14-2024: "Jukebox Diner" at the Gym, Four Versions of "You're No Good", Delicious Italian Vegetable Soup

1. A couple of weeks ago, I finally downloaded the Sirius/XM app on my phone. This morning, Stu and I were chatting and he told me how much he enjoys listening to Lou Simon's show, "Jukebox Diner" and so today, at the rehab gym, I took a break from Bach and Iron Butterfly and horn bands and listened to about the first hour of Lou Simon's latest installment of this show. Lou Simon plays a wide range of pop music from the fifties forward, provides a lot of background information about performers, songs, and record albums, and he takes phone calls and also responds, on air, to emails and text messages. 

2. "Jukebox Diner" made my workout today even more fun. I continued listening to this episode when I returned home and especially enjoyed it when Lou Simon played four versions of the song, "You're No Good" -- he began with Betty Everett's version, then played the Swinging Blue Jeans cover, moved on to Linda Ronstad's most famous rendition, and wrapped it up with Van Halen's 1979 track (it kind of blew me away). 

Lou Simon's show reminded me a bit of a Grateful Dead call in show called, "Tales from the Golden Road". Both programs feature callers who are eager to share trivia, talk about experiences they've had listening to music live (especially true on "Golden Road"), and to ask the host questions. Like Lou Simon, the "Golden Road" hosts, David Gans and Gary Lambert are patient with the callers, often let them ramble on about stuff, and turn whatever they have to say into something positive. I don't know if Lou Simons ever does interviews, but Gans and Lambert do.

3. I popped open a HelloFresh bag for tonight's dinner and it turned out to be mighty delicious. We'd never had their One-Pot Italian Vegetable Soup before and it was simple to prepare and both tasty and comforting. It's a tomato based soup with onion, carrots, kale, and Israeli couscous, seasoned with a packet of Italian seasoning. It's a soup I could make without the HelloFresh bag. I just hope I can remember to do so some time. 

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-13-2024: Getting Stuff Done, Bach and *Copia*, Copper Is In Good Health!

1. I got down to business today and did laundry, paid bills, got my monthly blood draw at the hospital for the kidney transplant program, and, later in the afternoon than usual, worked out at the Fitness Center. 

2. While I worked out, I listened once again to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and let all of its glorious, uplifting musical lines energize and uplift me. I thought a lot about the rhetorical trope copia, or plenty. When employed in writing, copier is a way at getting at the truth of an idea or the reality of things through unfolding its many dimensions, of exploring a subject in detail. Bach's compositions swim in copia as he explore themes, variations on those themes, and as he composes points and counterpoints in his music. It's what I love about Shakespeare. He was devoted to copia and creates ambiguity in his characters and ideas not by withholding detail but by exploring them in great detail, leading him so unfold contradictions, opposites existing side by side, and stimulating complexity.

3. For those of you on Copper watch, I have good news. Dr. Cook called me today and his blood work looked terrific. Dr. Cook recommends that I have Copper's teeth cleaned. He and I talked about the risks of Copper being under anesthesia and the doctor is confident the risks are minimal for Copper. It's a mystery why Copper meows (or to use Dr. Cook's term, vocalizes) overnight as much as he does. My hypothesis? Copper was once a stray cat and stray cats tend to be more active at night. Without Luna around to keep Copper company at night, I think he wants to be active. My guess is that he has a drive to be outdoors. I tried letting him go outdoors a couple of years ago, but I didn't like where he roamed to in our neighborhood so I keep him indoors. If only he would stay in our yard . . .  

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-12-2024: Working Out to a Vivid Bach Memory, Building a Vegetable Stir Fry, I Take Copper In for His Annual Exam

1.  I arrived at the rehab gym in CdA still a bit road weary from my weekend travels. I scaled back my workout just a bit. It turned out to be a wise move. 

I had put Spotify's "Best of Bach" on the Camry's sound system to help keep me calm as I drove from Seattle to a gas station I stopped at several miles after getting over Snoqualmie Pass. 

I had Bach on my mind after listening to Iron Butterfly last week. Today, I decided to listen to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos while I worked out. 

My mind wandered back to 1986. I was in Portland. So was one of my favorite friends at the time, Craig T. As I remember, and I could very well be mistaken, the Portland Film Festival was getting underway and featured the world premier of Woody Allen's movie, Hannah and Her Sisters. Craig and I luckily snagged two of the last seats left in the theater. 

In one of the movie's scenes, Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Elliot (Michael Caine) are alone while Frederick (Max Von Sydow) and Dusty (Daniel Stern) go into the basement to look at Frederick's oil paintings. Elliot has been recommending music for Lee to listen to and poetry for her to read. After Frederick and Dusty leave the room, Lee pulls out a Bach album she's recently purchased and plays the second movement of Bach's Harpsichord Concerto No. 5 in F Minor. 

This moment in the movie transfixed me. When I returned to my apartment in Eugene, since I didn't have an LP with the Harpsichord Concerto on it, I played what I did have: my collection of the Brandenburg Concertos. 

When I hear the Brandenburg Concertos, I can't tell one of the six concertos from another. I get so engrossed in their beauty that it doesn't matter to me if I'm listening to the first, fourth, sixth, second, fifth, or third. I love them. I'm the same way when I listen to the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius/XM. A song will come on, I'm engrossed by it, but I cannot for the life of me remember its title -- unless it's a song whose title is repeated in the lyrics. Same with Pink Floyd. Their song titles, especially from Dark Side of the Moon, escape me, but as I listen to their music, I often find myself transported to another world. 

2. The Nancy's yogurt Debbie and I enjoy is unavailable in the Silver Valley. So is Nancy's kefir. I went to Fred Meyer after I worked out to pick up yogurt and kefir and I suddenly felt an irresistible urge to buy some produce, too, so I could make a vegetable stir fry for dinner. 

Back home, later in the afternoon, I chopped a white onion, several stalks of bok choy, some broccoli, and a zucchini. I stir fried these vegetables along with some sliced mushrooms. Before stir frying, I made a stir fry sauce combining soy sauce, water, sesame oil, rice vinegar, minced garlic, ginger powder, honey, cornstarch, and red pepper flakes. As the vegetables cooked, I put all the brown rice left over from last night's dinner into the cast iron skillet and warmed it up and once the vegetables were ready, I combined the rice and vegetables in one pan. (Note to self: purchase a wok!) I then topped the rice and vegetables with several stalks of chopped raw green onion.

I seasoned the stir fry with the sauce.  Debbie and I agreed: this dinner worked! 

3. Just before fixing dinner, I took Copper to the veterinarian for his annual check up and vaccinations. I'll get the blood work results by phone later, but, as of now, Dr. Cook says Copper's heart and lungs sound healthy, she feels good to his hands, his weight is stable, and he seems in good shape. Copper is about thirteen years old. I'm hoping the blood work supports Dr. Cook's optimism. 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-11-2024: Driving Home from Seattle, (Re)Listening to *Songlines*, Simple Salmon Dinner

1. As far as having my things gathered, I was ready to bolt out the door about an hour before I actually left the Grove West Seattle Inn, but I didn't want to drive in the dark, so I waited until daylight began to break. I knew I would experience some congestion merging onto I-5 and onto I-90, but I don't mind traffic congestion, especially because I wasn't under any time pressure at all. If it's going to be congested, all I ask is that all of us drivers behave ourselves. That happened. Drivers were patient, worked within the congestion, and so it wasn't at all stressful driving out of Seattle. 

I'd read that snow might begin to fall on Snoqualmie Pass around 11:00 a.m. I made sure to drive over the pass before the possible snow came. The roadway was clear of snow and ice. It was foggy, but I managed the limited visibility without any problems. 

2. Going to Seattle and coming back, I listened to approximately the second half of Bruce Chatwin's Songlines. It was a challenge to keep up with his book while driving, especially as he ruminated, with the help of copious numbers of sources he'd read, on such topics as human aggression, humans in relation to weaponry, different theories of species evolution, human restlessness, the significance of desert lands, and many other meanderings, all while telling the story of his experiences in the bushland of Australia. 

I've finished this book, but I'm not done with it. I'll be going back, rereading parts I listened to, sorting things out, and marveling at Chatwin's breadth of knowledge and interests and at his remarkable story telling ability.

3. I knew when I arrived home that Debbie had bought a salmon filet for us to split. I seasoned it with butter, rosemary, and butter and I combined yogurt, sour cream, garlic, and water to make a garlic sauce. 

I also cooked a pot of brown rice. I then sautéed a white onion, added frozen green beans and corn to the pan, and once those ingredients were ready to eat, I added brown rice and garlic to the mix.

The garlic sauce tasted great on the salmon and I also dressed my vegetable and rice side dish with it and enjoyed it a lot.  

Monday, March 11, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-10-2024: Recharging My Energy, Songs of Bill Davie, Post-Concert Trance

1. I treasure the time I spend in big cities whenever I get the chance to pay one a visit. That said, I also have a limited amount of energy to spend driving, riding, walking, gawking, drinking, dining, and enjoying the amenities of, say, Seattle, and I used up quite a bit of that energy on Saturday -- I was out and about for over twelve glorious hours!

So this morning, I poured myself one cup of coffee after another, worked on word puzzles, ate the generous portion of the Taste of Africa dish I didn't eat last night (it was a terrific breakfast), lounged around and got cleaned up.

I recharged my batteries. I got refreshed. I slowed things way down.

2. The primary reason I made this trip to Seattle was so I could attend a benefit concert to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Bill Davie and I have a long friendship, extending all the way back to 1977 and over these years I've heard him perform his songs in multiple venues in Washington and Oregon, hosted two of his concerts in my home in Eugene, and I tuned in Tuesday evenings when he was able to perform online -- you might remember his Treehouse Concerts.

Bill has had MS for about ten years. He can no longer play the guitar. 

One of his fellow musicians, Mike Buchman, had a brilliant idea. 

To keep Bill's music alive and to raise money for the MS Society, he organized the concert I attended today. It featured twenty musicians, all longtime friends and acquaintances of Bill's (oh! and one duo featured his nephews), each performing one of Bill's songs. The concert ended with the entire company of musicians joining together, with Bill singing lead, to get the audience to sing along and perform Bill's song, "Where Will We Go?"

The concert stirred and moved me. I marveled, not only at the superb performances, but at Bill's mind boggling range of songs, the vast variety of rhythms, moods, explorations, styles, and insights that drive his catalog. Bill's songs can be tender, loving, surrealistic, pointed, funny, and fun. They are expertly crafted, full of surprises, and always engaging. 

I'm writing this blog post on Monday evening. 

Earlier today I drove back to Kellogg from Seattle and the long stretches of I-90 helped stretch my mind.

My mind wandered back to the spring of 1974. I was enrolled in a Modern Literature course at North Idaho College. We'd been assigned to read poems by W. B. Yeats.

Yeats visited me today somewhere, say, where Moses Lake is, and he kept repeating to me his two lines at the end of his poem, "Among School Children":

        O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
        How can we know the dancer from the dance?

I suddenly realized that for the over forty years that I've been listening to Bill Davie perform, Bill and his songs were unified to me. He was his songs. His songs were Bill. For me, the way his hands moved, the way his songs took over his body, his facial expressions, his stories, wise cracks as a performer, were all inseparable from his songs. How could I know the singer from the song? I couldn't. Bill the singer and Bill's songs formed a unity.

This afternoon that unity did not exist. 

I heard Bill's songs, but not Bill the singer, the performer.

It was a profound experience. 

The songs suddenly had a new life, infused with the power of other singers and players, and every one of those songs vibrated with fresh vitality and vigor.

Yes, I missed being able to watch Bill perform them. I love witnessing the unity of singer/writer and song.

But without Bill to animate those songs, hearing those songs performed by twenty other musicians, gave me an even deeper sense of how strong Bill's songs are, that other dancers can dance them, other singers sing them, and his songs' power drives these other performers to convey their brilliance in ways I hadn't imagined before. 

3. After this stirring and moving two hours or so of absorbing Bill's songs, I wanted time to myself. Peter and Kris, two longtime friends from Whitworth whom I got to sit with during the concert, had other engagements that evening.  I was content to leave the concert hall, wind my way through the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Tunnel, across the West Seattle Bridge, and back to my room to relax, stare, think, remember, feel gratitude, rest, and let the beauty and emotions of what I'd just experienced wash over me, trusting that I was not alone, somehow knowing that the performers and the other 150 people in the audience today were, no doubt, in their own ways, also in some kind of trance along with me. 



 

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-09-2024: Breakfast with Peter and Mark, Afternoon in Seattle with Hugh, Mediterranean Dinner at Petra Bistro

 1. What a day! 

It started at 8:30 this morning when I wound my way to the Alki Cafe where I joined my longtime Whitworth friends, Mark and Peter, for breakfast. We fell immediately into easy conversation for the next, oh, about two and a half hours, talking about the very things that have occupied our conversations for nearly fifty years now: books, music, our heady days being formed and inspired at Whitworth, professors and friends we knew and loved in the Whitworth days, spiritual matters, Whitworth events (like the Easter Vigil) and a bounty of other topics. I was hungry for this kind of conversation, to tap into the profound impact my years at Whitworth had on me and to bring that impact into the present, knowing that for all three of us what we learned and experienced at Whitworth is not simply a source of nostalgia, but continues to shape and influence how we live our lives now. 

2. The invigoration continued when Hugh Crozier rolled up to the Grove Inn around 11:30 and we headed into Seattle. We headed straight to the Hatback Bar and Grille, grabbed a stool at the bar, and began our afternoon of stimulating conversation, beer sampling, and a good time roaming at the Pike Place Market. At the market, we enjoyed a pint and stellar conversation at Old Stove Brewing. We wandered over to Mee Sum Pastry where I devoured a steamed BBQ Pork Hombow (my first hombow ever). We then went to a produce stand, a meat market, and to other lively vendors and shops and Hugh filled the shopping list he brought. 

I loved being at the Pike Place Market. I loved being a part of a sizable crowed of shoppers and visitors, loved seeing people from all over the world, loved the sensory stimulation, especially the intoxicating blend of smells, whether of the variety of food cooking, spices, fish, or the many other sources of variety and pleasure. 

3. After our indulging our senses at the market, we headed south to Renton. We made a stop at the Hop Garden pub for a quick beer and continued our conversations. Then we blasted over to Hugh's house where he put his groceries in the house and his wife, Carol, joined us.

We rocketed back downtown to the Petra Bistro, a handsome Mediterranean restaurant, and enjoyed a superb dinner. 

We started with an appetizer tray of falafel, dolmathes, olives, hummus, baba ghanouje, and labnie, accompanied with warm pita bread. 

I ordered a terrific chicken dish called Taste of Africa, a chicken breast served with charbroiled vegetables,  sautéed garlic, onion, and tomatoes, seasoned with a variety of the bistro's house spices. All of this was served on a bed of rice topped with garlic sauce. 

Petra Bistro's portions were both delicious and generous and after just a single dolmathe, a ball of falafel, and some pita bread, I was full just halfway through my meal. 

I sure look forward to continuing to enjoy this food on Sunday. 


Let me repeat: what a day! 

For me, today embodied exactly what I love to do whenever I get to travel.

I spent many hours with lifelong friends.

I enjoyed a day spilling over with stimulating conversation.

I got to enjoy a sample of  the vitality and vigor of the energy of Seattle.

I sampled some delicious beer. 

I got to eat food unavailable to me in my day to day life in Kellogg. 

What a day! 


Friday, March 8, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 03-07-2024: Good Work Out, Simple Dinner, Getting Packed

1. I worked out with a bit more vigor today in CdA and continued my discussion with Claudia about how much I need to eat before working out to keep my energy levels strong. 

2. I made a simple pasta sauce and let it simmer for a few hours this afternoon and Debbie and I enjoyed a simple and delicious dinner.

3. I compiled a check list of things to pack for my trip to Seattle and got my bag almost completely ready to go.