Monday, July 24th, 2017

AM blood glucose level  139 at 7:13 am

I started my day by:  Facebook, e-mail and popping penguins.  The usual.  Then café au lait (latte, if you prefer) and on to bread making.

Major events going on in my world today:   Medical appointments (cardiac therapy and meeting with the cardiologist) and chorus rehearsal.

My goals for today:   Get bread baked and have fun in Missoula.

Pain au levain

Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine

by Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts

Today I feel:  Overall, very good.  No complaints.  I have a good life.

The most memorable thing that occurred today:  Looking out the window while rehearsing and seeing one of Fred's peacocks on the hood of my car.

Thought I'd shop for a new hood ornament.

The best part of my day:  The best part of any Monday is getting together with the guys and making great music.  Well, ok, making fun music.  Sometime I'll hear that D where I need to be in the Laudate Dominum.

Something I am looking forward to tomorrow:  Weeding at least one of the flower boxes in the back yard.  If the weather is cool enough, and I have enough ambition, I may clean out all three.

More Thoughts and Feelings:  I have never minded Mondays.  And with rehearsal on Monday evenings, that just caps my day.  But first the bread.  I found a website about baking bread using sourdough starter.  Now understand this, I have been baking sourdough bread for some forty years, but we can always learn new tricks, right?  This method intrigued me because you start the night before and only use 1 tablespoon of starter.  Mix that small amount of starter with flour and water and let it ferment overnight to become the levain you use to bake the bread.  The whole process is quite involved and takes a bit of time.  Problem is, I made the levain on Saturday expecting to bake on Sunday.  Then Kevin decided to take a drive, and we weren't home in time to do any baking.  So the levain sat another 24 hours and now it's Monday and I have a full day ahead of me.  No time to get the bread processed and baked before I leave for Missoula at 1 pm.  So I pull out Eckhardt and Butts' Rustic European Breads from your Bread Machine and look up the Pain au levain recipe.  I have noted that this makes an excellent bread, so why not.  And indeed, the finished product was delicious.  Even Kevin noted that in a Facebook post.  But it has no structural integrity and as I let it rise before baking, it just spread out into an amorphous lump.  I guess, if I'm making this, I need to put it in a pan.  But, again, it sure tastes good.

Ten years ago.  Fun with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Arcata, California

July, 2007

The drive into Missoula was uneventful.  Saw lots of horses that I should have photographed, but didn't want to take the time.  Two guys have told me they are interested in joining the chorus.  I will believe it when they actually drive into Missoula for a rehearsal.  But I feel I need to do my "civic" duty, so I texted one and stopped by the other's office to let them know that we are rehearsing on a weekly basis and would love to have them join us.  Now we wait and see.  I won't beg or grovel.  If they want to come, they have the information they need.  But stopping by the office made me run a bit late, so no photos for the day.  I'm filling in my quota with photos from the past, such as the group of Sisters shown above.

Had a good session with the cardiac rehabilitation people.  Julie's lecture was on tobacco which, as I told her, I didn't need.  I don't smoke, and I don't let anyone smoke around me.  She then went on to the physiology of the heart, stuff I probably learned at one time, but filed away in the back of my mind.  You know, stuff like atrium, ventricle, different types of valves, veins, arteries, and oxygen in the blood.  Important stuff, I'm sure, but at the same time I'm huffing and puffing on the treadmill and not sure how much of the information I retained.

After the rehabilitation session, Julie gave me a printout of my cardiogram which I was to take to the cardiologist.  She informed me that I had an irregular heart beat, and that I should be aware of that.  My meeting with the cardiologist followed almost immediately.  Dr Jinich, the man who did my angioplasty, has left Missoula, so my meeting was with Dr. Miner, a new physician to me.  He seemed nice, and assured me that there was nothing "abnormal" about my heart beat and that I shouldn't worry about it.  He did ask if I thought I'd be able to walk 3 city blocks on flat land.  I informed him that I have been walking 1 1/2 miles or more in the hills, so I really didn't think that 3 flat blocks would be a problem.  Next meeting with him will be toward the end of September when I will have to do another stress echocardiogram.  What fun.

Five Years Ago.  One of the first pictures I took of our new home

Before we actually bought it

July, 2012.

Dinner was a very fast chile relleno and chicken enchilada at Fiesta in Jalisco--the one in Rowdy's tavern.  I was surprised at how fast my meal appeared.  Seems I barely had time to eat a couple of chips and salsa before the platter was placed in front of me.  I wondered if I had been given someone else's plate, but no, it was exactly what I ordered.  Unfortunately, it wasn't very good.  Not up to the standards I expect from Fiesta.

Rehearsal was fun.  We are working on a set of songs to sing at the 125th anniversary of the founding of St. Francis Xavier church in Missoula.  Should be an interesting event, especially so as the Jesuit church fired our previous director when he came out of the closet.  We are also working on Mozart's Laudate Dominum for our Christmas Cabaret.   But to mix the bitter with the sweet, this evening we said good bye to Evan Fossen who is leaving Missoula to attend grad school in Pennsylvania.  We will all miss Evan's humor and good will, not to mention his tenor voice.

Got home by 10 p.m. with enough light in the sky that I wasn't driving at night.  I no longer enjoy driving when I can't see the suicidal deer jumping in front of me.  And to close out the post, here is the flower box I intend to weed on Tuesday.  Can you find the star gazer lily blossoms about to bloom?  Tune in tomorrow to see how it looks once I've attacked the weeds.

No Ringing Rocks

AM blood glucose level  207.  Still not down from the mac and cheese supper, plus a late supper of pizza last night.  Not a good idea, but tasty.

I started my day by:  Getting up at 4 a.m.  Kevin said he wanted to leave for Livingston by 5:30, and I know it takes me longer in the morning than it does him.  Of course, I check my glucose levels, take my prescribed medicines, make my morning latte, and try to put something together for breakfast, none of which Kevin does.  And with all that, we were out the door by 5:32, and it wasn't me making us "late."

Major events going on in my world today:  Riding along as Kevin drives to the Livingston side of Bozeman Pass where he will pick up another radio antenna tower.  I love going for Sunday drives, and it's always fun traveling with Kevin.

My goals for today:  Get in a 1/2 hour walk, get my blood glucose level lower, and take some amazing photographs--nothing major.

Today I feel:  For the most part, I feel sleepy.  Took 3 Advil PM tablets when I went to bed, and have  been having trouble all day waking up.  I'm afraid I wasn't very good at keeping Kevin company on the drive as I kept nodding off all the way over and back.

The most memorable thing that occurred today:  I hate to admit it, but the most memorable thing was coming back from my walk to find one of the young men helping to load up the antenna tower had taken off his shirt.  Easily one of the most handsome (and well built, not over muscled) young men I recall seeing.  I only wish I had been brave enough to ask if I could take his picture.  He's a senior studying to be a teacher.  None of my teachers were that hot when I was in grade school.

The best part of my day:  It's always a good day riding along with Kevin, even if I'm sleeping.  This trip was 600 miles round trip.  We left home at 5:32 a.m. and pulled into our driveway right at 6:00 p.m.  Twelve and a half hours, well, ok, twelve hours with my man at my side.  The other half hour I was doing my cardio walk by myself.

Something I am looking forward to tomorrow:  Monday means cardio therapy in Missoula, plus a follow up visit with the cardiologists at the Montana Heart Center, but Monday is special because it means rehearsal with the Missoula Gay Men's Chorus.  I always look forward to rehearsal with the guys.

More Thoughts and Feelings:  I know that I'm not going to get top-level photos when Kevin is driving and I don't ask him to pull over.  Driving through the canyon west of Drummond, the sun was just right on the rocks to the south.  I keep trying to get a great shot of these rocks, but am rarely here when the morning sun is lighting the scenery.  Today it was, and I tried, but, as you can see, the truck was moving faster than the shutter so the picture is out of focus.  Nonetheless, you can see a bit of the color that makes these rocks so special.

Rock Wall South of Interstate 90

West of Drummond, Montana

July 23rd, 2017

When I first put together Glory of the West:  A Photographic Portrait of Montana's Fifty-Six Counties, all my pictures of Silver Bow County were scenes in Butte.  Of course the city of Butte and Silver Bow County consolidated their governments many years ago, so why not show Butte off.  But the thing is, Silver Bow County is more than just Butte, and some rural landscapes would be a good addition.  This shot was taken just across the county line near the Gregson/Fairmont Hot Springs exit from I-90.

Once we crossed Bozeman Pass and took the Jackson Creek exit (where the Grizzly Bear tourist trap takes pride of place), we turned left and drove for another four miles along the frontage road until we came to Lake Drive.  Turns out this area was part of the 6,000 acre ranch that Kevin's family owned when he was born.  He knew all the history of the area, who owned what back in the 1960s, and shared that with me and with the guys who helped us load the antenna tower.  Here's a view of that land, taken from the site where we loaded the tower on the trailer.

While Kevin and the local guys took the tower apart and loaded it on our trailer, I took off on my half hour (or more) walk.  I am supposed to walk 30-40 minutes every day at a rate that makes me know I'm working (but not so hard as to die on the trail).  The Heart Center has a 20 point scale, where 0 is no effort and 20 is Oh My God, and we are supposed to exercise at around 12-13.  For some reason, all my walks thus far have started and ended at the top of a steep hill.  I am now to the point where I can climb our driveway without stopping, but I do notice the effort involved.  There at Bozeman Pass, I began by walking up the road, but only got a short distance before realizing that I was on a private driveway and would have to turn around.  Turning around meant going downhill, then further downhill, then even further downhill before turning around and having to climb back to the truck.  Topping things off, my phone, which I use to track my walking thanks to the Map My Fitness app, died some twenty minutes into the walk.  By the time I was back at the truck, charging the phone and catching my breath, the app recorded that I had walked for fifty plus minutes.  Not so.  I walked approximately 32 minutes and only covered 1.15 miles.  Someday, I'm going to have to find a walking path that doesn't start and stop at the top of the hill.  These lovely daisies grew all along the route I took, along with a few other wildflowers.  And no, I didn't carry my camera on my walk.  These were growing alongside the truck.

Once loaded, we headed back to Plains, and, I am ashamed to say, I slept most of the way.  We stopped at the Wheat Montana Deli near Three Forks, but the line was exceedingly long, so we continued our drive westward, stopping at the A&W/KFC in Whitehall where Kevin ordered original recipe chicken (two breasts and a thigh) with two cole slaws and a genuine A&W root beer.  I told the clerk to give me exactly the same.  It was good, and we were obviously not at the KFC in Missoula, because the restaurant was clean.  Just as obviously, we weren't at the KFC in Kalispell, because the food was tasty and the portions large.  You'd think there would be some corporate standards these places would have to maintain.

Driving east over Homestake Pass, I saw a rock formation in the Boulder Batholith that merited a sign on the side of the highway.  I think it said "Tower Rock," but I'm not sure.  Driving west, I watched for a similar sign but didn't see one.  I did, however, see the formation, and here below is the photo I took as we passed it by.  On my Montana bucket list is a trip to the Ringing Rocks in this area which you can access from the Pipestone exit on I-90.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we got home in time for Kevin to take a brief nap while I lay on the porch swing.  By 8 we were in town (Plains) to watch the movie Despicable Me 3.  Kind of stupid, but lots of laughs.  I recommend it for mindless entertainment.