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.
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.
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