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.

Connections

The world is meant to be savored. It is filled with exquisite delights. This earth is the body of God, as we are. By savoring the delights of this earth, we connect to the divinity that flows through it and through us. Sight leads to insight. Hearing leads to being here. Touching puts us in touch. Scent brings us to our senses.

Please list fifty particular things that you savor.

--Julia Cameron, God is No Laughing Matter

1) The semi-conscious awareness of Kevin's body next to mine in the middle of the night
2) My bowl of café-au-lait, topped with cinnamon, first thing in the morning
3) The hot water falling on my neck and shoulders in the shower
4) Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto
5) The rich grape scent of a bearded iris

6) Spending face time with Gypsy
7) The exquisite silence of the forest when cross-country skiing
8) The sound of water racing over rocks
9) The tendrils of leaves hanging from the willow outside my window
10) Kevin's smile

11) Orion in the winter sky
12) Opening a new book
13) Feeling the breeze on my bare skin
14) The smell of a fresh cinnamon roll
15) The Golden Gate Bridge

16) The quiet hum my Saab makes driving with the top down
17) The perfection of a dandelion gone to seed

Taken 5/14/2009
Missoula, Montana

18) The miraculous way individual strands of yarn become cloth on my loom
19) Playing the Rogers 321 at Norm's house
20) Sitting quietly in the lawn swing

21) The cheerful aspect of a lawn filled with bright yellow dandelions
22) The call of the Western Meadowlark

23) Freshly baked sourdough bread
24) Bad puns
25) Sunflowers

26) Crawling into bed between freshly laundered sheets
27) Tulips in the spring
28) Good conversation with friends
29) Filling the dining table with good friends and good food
30) Watching the flames in a campfire

31) Chipmunks
32) Pineapple, fresh from the field
33) Homemade split pea soup, especially Potage St Germain
34) Watching the sun set over the Pacific

Taken 3/23/07
Smith River, California

35) Feeling the pull of the wind on my kite strings

36) Hugs
37) Tears of joy
38) Biting into a crisp, juicy apple
39) The feel of a hand-woven silk scarf
40) The silky smoothness of Minnie's fur

41) The beauty of the human body

42) Sweet, ripe Flathead Bing cherries
43) The sight of fishing boats at Port Orford, Oregon
44) The graceful way a surfer rides the ocean waves
45) Hang-gliders drifting on the air currents overhead

46) Being on stage with the Missoula Gay Men's Chorus
47) Wearing my white tie and tails
48) The sun, shining through the rain
49) Colorful sunsets
50) The way the evening sun lights up a building

Evening in Missoula
Taken 4/19/2007
Missoula, Montana

This exercise was both harder and easier than I would have thought. Trying to list 50 "particular" items at first seemed a daunting task. Wouldn't I end up with a lot of repetition? But the more I thought, the more I came up with. Each of the fifty items on my list make me stop, take a deep breath, and sigh with gratitude. I recommend that each of you make up your own list, a very personal "My Favorite Things."

God waved to me

I saw God wave to me yesterday. OK, so maybe it wasn't God. But maybe it was. It was definitely a man up in the sky, yet still very close. The purpose of this blog is to help me work through Julia Cameron's book God is No Laughing Matter. The subtitle of Cameron's book is "Observations and Objections on the Spiritual Path." The book is divided into sixty-seven chapters plus an introduction and a section at the end called "Roots and Wings." The end of each chapter has an "Experiment" or "Exercises" to do in the privacy of your own home. I'm choosing to share my responses with you, my faithful readers. So, with no further ado, let's look at the Exercises at the end of the first Chapter, Blind Date.

This section has the heading "Experiment," and has ten questions for the reader to answer. The Experiment section begins:

The world of Spirit is open to all who seek it. "My Father's house has many mansions," taught Christ. Yet, many of us remain locked in the room of our childhood. As adults, we may be stifled by our unconscious acceptance of a God concept we have long since outgrown. The following questions are aimed at clarifying God as you understand God.

1) What was your childhood religion, if any?

I grew up in parsonages of the various Methodist (and after 1968) United Methodist churches my father served as Minister. The Jesuits have a saying, "Give me a child to the age of 12, and he's mine for life." I will be a Methodist to my dying day, even if I never again go through the doors of a United Methodist church.

2) What was the spiritual atmosphere in your home?

This may seem a bit odd, or maybe it's just because it's the only home atmosphere I know personally, but I'm not sure that our home was much different than any other 1950s and 1960s home. We said "Grace" before Sunday dinner, but other than that... and of course all the time spent at the church for Sunday School, Church Services, MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship)...

3) What did your mother teach you about God?

Most of my religious beliefs came from my mother. She taught me that God is a loving father, and that his hand is visible in everything: the jigsaw puzzle bark of the Ponderosa pine; the lake or river water and the rocks that water flows over and through, the animals surrounding us, and even our manufactured goods such as the cars we drive or the homes we live in. All are created by or inspired by God.

4) What did your father teach you about God?

Most of my father's teachings seemed to be concerned with matters of doctrine (such as the meaning of the phrase "Holy Catholic Church" in the Apostle's Creed) and church history. The one truly God-related teaching of my father came from J.B. Phillips' book, Your God is Too Small where Phillips shows that most people look at God as some kind of celestial policeman or angry parent, and miss the absolute greatness of God who is so much more than can be imagined by the petty mind of man.

5) Describe your childhood God using at least ten adjectives:

1) loving; 2) omnipresent (or as I would have said in childhood--always present); 3) omnipotent (all powerful); 4) omniscient (all knowing); 5) kind; 6) helpful; 7) peaceful; 8) embracing; 9) concerned; 10) gee, I already said "loving"

6) Is this still the God you believe in?

Pretty much. Today I believe that all creation throughout the universe is connected, and that what connects us I call "Love." My mother would have called it "God," but we're talking about the same thing.

7) What is your current concept of God?

That force that connects each to the other and to the rest of creation.

8) Describe your ideal God concept using at least twenty adjectives.

I'm gonna have to think about this one (and maybe get out my thesaurus), but first and foremost, loving.

9) Write a prayer.

Father, Mother God, in whom we find peace and love, help me to always see your face in the face of everyone I meet. Help me always to see your heart in the heart of those I find along my way. Help me always to see your path in the steps of those I encounter. Help me to show your face, your heart, your path to all.

10) Set aside a half hour. Take yourself out of the house. Do something small and festive. Walk, window-shop, enjoy a cappuccino. Sit on a park bench. Be alert to encounter God in any form. This is your blind date.

On Saturday, August 22nd, 2009, my friend (and former student) Sandy, a retired dermatologist from San Diego spent 3 1/2 hours floating the Bitterroot River from Lolo to Maclay's Flat just outside Missoula, Montana. This got us out of the house, was relatively small and festive, and helped me to be alert to any encounter with God. Believe me, we had many such encounters in the form of fish jumping on the river, birds flying or swimming nearby, and many, many other people out enjoying the day. I had been very upset the night before when I discovered that smoking a small bit of marijuana left me more relaxed than I had been in months. What upset me was the idea that I required drugs to unwind. Spending time on the river reminded me that I always feel closer to God when I'm out enjoying his creation. I'm always able to unwind in these "natural" situations. And who's to say that that man in the ultralight flying just over our heads is not God--or at least one manifestation of God?

Various encounters with God. All photos were taken on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009, by Sandra Stedinger, MD. All three photos, when clicked on, will open full screen in another window.

A flock of Mergansers crossing the river in front of our canoe

OK, it's not a park bench, but it was festive

And who's to say that it is not the hand of God waving to us from above?