Posts Tagged ‘Cyndie’
Misjudged Amount
I thought it was going to be a small amount of slushy snow coating the grass but I guessed wrong. Our first snow of the season covered everything with around three inches of windblown snow.
As ready as we thought we were for winter to arrive, this snow landed on plenty of things I intended to move. Cyndie’s door table in the woods. The furniture on the deck. Potted plants all around the house. Chairs out in the yard.
It’s all stuff that can still be moved without too much trouble. Temperatures are expected to warm up well above freezing in the next few days, but there’s no guarantee how much of the snow will disappear. I’m gonna make another guess and combine it with some hope that almost all of it will vanish.
By the weekend, it looks like a chance of some rain, which would go a long way to finish off any patches of snow that might last that long.
Cyndie landed the first appointment for surgery today, so we are heading out the door before dawn and hoping to have her back home in the recliner by mid-afternoon. Just depends on how quickly she comes to her senses, breathes on her own, and eats a little something.
We are well familiar with the routine.
While she convalesces the next few days, Asher and I can be outside putting away deck furniture. I’m sure he’d love to help me.
When we first met Asher, his foster mom told us he loves snow, so we’ve been looking forward to witnessing it firsthand. His reaction didn’t disappoint. His aura radiated “FUN!” the whole time he was romping around in the white stuff.
Thank you to all who have offered encouraging messages to Cyndie for her metal removal today. We appreciate your support! I’ll provide a full report tomorrow about how smoothly everything went.
.
.
Just Pieces
One year ago this week, Cyndie shattered her ankle. After surgery to hold bone pieces together with plates and screws, she has worked long and hard to get back to as close to 100% as possible. After multiple follow-up consultations with her surgeon, she has decided to endure additional surgery to remove the hardware now that the bones have healed.
There just isn’t enough room in her little ankle to fit the added metal. Cyndie has sensed this for a long time but still put effort toward figuring out ways to cope with the ongoing pain, hoping that added time would lead to improvement.
The pain of trying to walk in a winter boot recently helped her to decide another surgery was justified.
We know the routine. She will be convalescing in the recliner with periodic icing and I will need to do all the dog walking and horse care. In the last few days, Cyndie has been working feverishly to prepare meals that can be frozen and tackling as many projects as possible before she becomes chair-bound.
I’m trying hard to keep myself from overthinking what my routine will be like during her recovery period. The difficulty is that I know what’s coming. Last year there was no warning that our lives would be impacted so dramatically for months.
I’m not sure which is worse. It was an unwelcome shock last year when Cyndie suddenly got injured so severely. But knowing in advance what is headed our way is a little scary, too.
Maybe distracting my mind by assembling a jigsaw puzzle will help. I can make it a contest to see if I will find and place all the pieces before Cyndie heals enough to take Asher for walks again.
.
.
Cyndie’s Views
Rarely a day passes when I don’t receive a photo in a text from Cyndie. Many times, it ends up being the only image available to complement the tales I post. Occasionally, it is the main point of my post. Today, the backlog of images she recently sent me are featured in this post.
Like, “A Man and His Wife’s Dog.”
Okay, he’s our dog. Until he runs away. Then he’s her dog. Or when he chews up something valuable like my glasses. Or plows into me from behind. Or… well, you get the picture.
Cyndie gets the pictures, too. Here are five more to give you a glimpse of Cyndie’s view of this October at Wintervale…
.
.
Search Worked
Walking Asher unleashed through our woods yesterday, I took a picture of him trotting in front of me because he was so calm and happy. I was even happier because he stayed on the trail and was not manic about the sights and smells constantly vying for his attention.
Shortly after I captured that image, his trot picked up pace and soon he was running out of sight ahead of me.
It was nice while it lasted.
No trouble came from any of his brief excursions out of our sight on multiple sessions of walking with him unleashed. Asher generally explores the woods adjacent to our property and returns within roughly one to five minutes of vanishing. Since he has yet to reliably respect our voiced recall commands, our off-leash walks happen more toward the wooded end of our property as opposed to the open fields near the road.
We do not trust he would know enough to stay away from traffic passing on our street. I suspect just the opposite; he would be inclined to dangerously chase after moving vehicles at this point.
On one of our trails, we passed something I don’t recall ever seeing before.
Do you know what critter makes this?:
There was a half-dozen of them in relatively close proximity.
I added my foot to one of them to give a size perspective.
Just ignore that brightly colored leaf stuck in my boot. [I can’t keep my eye from looking at that distraction.]
Cyndie suggested we do an image search after uploading one of my photos. I figured that wouldn’t work but I was very wrong. She quickly found many photos with striking similarities to this one of mine:
Based on the search, the likely creatures are ground bees. Color me surprised.
I’ve seen bees disappear into a hole in the ground but I’ve not seen the ant-like piles of granules with the perfect pencil-sized hole on top like these.
I learned two things from this. One is obviously the discovery of ground bees. The other is to not doubt Cyndie’s problem-solving prowess.
Married for over 41 years and known her since we were teens in high school. You’d think I would have already learned not to doubt her abilities by now.
.
.
Party Food
Brunch was a treat at Hope Breakfast Bar yesterday. The restaurant had a wonderfully eclectic menu from which Cyndie selected the pina colada french toast that came with very festive-looking cotton candy on the side. Yeah. Made my teeth hurt just looking at it. The egg sandwich on an everything bagel was more to my liking.
After having just watched the final episode of Ted Lasso season 3, the giant “BELIEVE” on the wall behind our table was a welcome sight.
It was a little loud for conversation at the table but the overall experience was perfect for our family party. It had a very celebratory vibe. I don’t think the birthday girl felt old at all while consuming that sugar party on her plate.
I bailed on my plans to do any weed control in the simmering heat by the time we got home. The visible haze of poor air quality helped convince me less work would be more advisable. I played with Asher, instead. The birthday girl wanted a break from going out at all so I took the pup out for some off-leash time. After he bounded into the woods close to the house, we made our way down the backyard hill where he sprinted away again.
I busied myself pulling vines growing across the trail when I heard him bouncing through the brush and looked up to see a deer leaping through the trees. That wasn’t the dog I thought I had heard. A short while later, it was Asher making the noise, following the same path the deer had just run. It was pretty obvious what the deer was running from.
When we went down to feed the horses dinner, all four were still standing in front of the fans under the overhang. Later, as the sun was setting and Asher and I went out for one last walk, we found the horses finally making a party of the freshly cut back pasture.
I knew it wouldn’t take them long to get after the shortened blades for grazing. Everything in its time.
.
.
June Fourth
What makes June Fourth so special? It’s Cyndie’s birthday!! We are not old or anything, compared to everyone older than us, but when you qualify for Medicare in the U.S., it suddenly feels like you are older than ever. Well, older than you’ve ever been before.
It feels wrong to be doing anything other than celebrating my lovely wife today but there are weeds to be cut, you know. We are meeting Cyndie’s mom and our kids for brunch, but after that, it’s back to the battle against allowing weeds to go to seed.
I don’t know how many versions of this photo I have posted over the last ten years, but it’s a view that truly captures my experience for hours on end.
I worked the string trimmer along the fence line, around the round pen, and along the deep washouts of the drainage swale. I used the Greenworks riding mower to knock down weeds in the round pen and along the inside of the fence line. Finally, I pulled the brush cutter behind the diesel tractor to cut the back pasture. Among the multiple weeds battling for dominance against grasses in the field, thistle is the one we are keeping at bay by mowing.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In the background of the photo with the cleanly trimmed fence line, you can spot the little maple tree that is in the center of the labyrinth.
This morning we opened the gate to the back pasture, giving the horses access to all that cut grass. They took little notice after finishing the feed in their pans and lolled around near the fans under the overhang. It’s not uncomfortably hot yet this early in the day, but the humidity is noticeable and those big-body mares know the heat will build faster by the minute.
I expect we’ll find them out there soon enough. They have a good sense about the opening of gates around their confines.
.
.
Additional Detail
We enjoyed the day after Cyndie’s performance with a sigh of relief over her having accomplished the feat she had devoted so much time and energy to.
With the time-limited storytelling out of the way, I’d like to add a little behind-the-scenes context to the drama of that moment when the wedding cake crashed to the floor. Yeah, she wanted to scream. Consider these added tidbits…
- Cyndie had taken a full day off from work to bake the cakes on the Friday before the wedding. She hadn’t planned on having a distressing day at work on that Thursday triggering a decision to seek an immediate change of employment. That decision was linked to an opportunity with an application deadline of 9 a.m. Friday morning. Cyndie started her day at 4 a.m. to update her curriculum vitae and compose a cover letter by 8 o’clock for a courier to deliver in the nick of time.
- Then, she started baking cakes for the planned 12-hour project. Random interruptions pushed that allotted time to nearly 18 hours. Somewhere in there, our daughter, Elysa came home feeling unwell and I crashed with her in our bedroom. When Cyndie came up to sleep, she found Elysa in our bed so she moved to Elysa’s room instead. A short time later, after midnight, our phone rings and Julian answers. His young cousin is sick and wants to talk to Cyndie.
- Julian comes into our room looking for his mom and is totally confused about not finding her there. We get the phone to Cyndie in Elysa’s room and find out her brother’s kids are being watched by a grandparent with limited English skills while the parents are traveling. The boy is suffering a terrible bout of flu and asks if Cyndie would come over because grandpa’s only solution is to go to the hospital.
- Cyndie drives over and is basically up the rest of the night assisting with bouts of vomiting.
- She finally makes it home early on Saturday morning to thoroughly shower any and all sickness off her before preparing to depart with cakes for the wedding venue.
She had reasons to scream before she even started assembling the wedding cake that day.
Only a few people enjoying Cyndie’s storytelling at The Moth slam on Wednesday night knew the full detail of how stressful that dramatic disaster really was for our hero.
.
.
Cyndie’s Story
Two weeks ago, I wrote about us attending a Moth story slam in advance of Cyndie’s plan to submit her name for an opportunity to tell her wedding cake story at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St. Paul. For those of you who weren’t able to hear her tell it in person last night, she has allowed me to post a written version for you.
Cyndie’s name was selected tenth –the last slot, out of twenty that had signed up for the chance.
Imagine Cyndie walking up on stage, standing under the lights in front of a microphone, and addressing a packed house. She is allowed only 5 minutes…
When my niece got engaged, she asked her mother to sew her wedding dress, and her grandma to knit a shawl and asked if I would bake a simple wedding cake. Thrilled, I said yes immediately… even though I’d never made a wedding cake before. Friends expressed concern over the huge responsibility I’d taken on given my lack of experience with wedding cakes. But I love to bake and was inspired by my niece’s invitation. I embraced this cake-baking opportunity with equal measures of optimism and naiveté.
That year, I baked dozens of practice cakes to test out on family and friends. I was blamed for inches added to waistlines and my reputation for baking in excess soared to new heights. It took me about 40 hours to mold sugar paste into candied pearls and colorful, edible flowers. With all that practice, my confidence grew and so did the cake. What started as a simple wedding cake had become a five-tier, white chocolate, lemon-raspberry layered masterpiece, stuffed with extra love.
Days before the wedding, my friend asked me how I planned to transport the cakes to the venue. I’d been so focused on baking, I hadn’t given it a thought. I quickly discovered that my mustang convertible with bucket seats is NOT the car for the job. My friend bails me out by loaning me her practical 4-door sedan as long as I drive and relieve her of any responsibility for the safe delivery of the cakes.
On the big day, I load up the car with boxes of cakes, buckets of extra frosting, edible decorations, and fresh flowers. I’m so nervous about transporting the cakes that I drive like a Sunday driver, on a Saturday! Thankfully, all the cakes arrive intact.
I carry the boxes of cakes like they are newborn babies and begin to carefully assemble the tiers of cake with the stands and pillars. I’m so meticulous about frosting and decorating each level to perfection that it takes me 2.5 hours just to finish the first four tiers. But I’m happy- already the cake is nearly 3 feet high and it looks as stunning as I’d hoped it would be.
As I reach to place the final tier, I hear a loud snap and then another one, as the pillars give way under the weight of the cake, and, in horror, I watch the cake topple over and crash onto the floor. A busboy says, “You are so [effed]” as he and the wait staff all run for cover in the kitchen. I can barely breathe but I manage to warn my friend, “DO. NOT. SAY. A THING.” She doesn’t and takes cover behind the bar.
I can’t believe I have just ruined my niece’s wedding day. This is exactly what my friends had warned me about. I can hear all the “I told you so’s” and the “what were you thinking’s” and see the evidence of not being enough piled high on top of the inglorious mess. I want to scream but I can’t because the only thing separating the wedding chapel from the reception hall is a thin, moveable partition.
Then the organist begins to play, “Here Comes the Bride.” I AM SO [EFFed]! My friend appears next to me with a shot of whiskey she’d stolen from the bar. I don’t drink whiskey, but on this day, I did. She asked, “What are you going to do?”
I have two choices- I can succumb to the despair of this epic fail or I have to rise up and fight with all the love in my heart to make the simple cake my niece had asked for. The fight is on. Baking in excess is now my saving grace. I have enough backup cakes. The groom’s cake is still intact and I can use fresh flowers to decorate so I kick my inner critic to the curb and ask for help.
The busboy –yeah, that one!– comes to my aid and scoops up the four-tier disaster on the floor, a waiter brings a fresh tablecloth and my friend fearlessly rips open the boxes and hands me back-up cakes as fast as I can frost & decorate them. I have to finish Wedding Cake 2.0 by the time the ceremony ends in less than 20 minutes.
I finish the second cake just in time to see the mother-of-the-bride walk into the reception hall, look at the cake, and, burst into tears. She says, “I didn’t cry at all during the ceremony but when I saw the cake… It’s so beautiful.” And it really was!
Sometimes, even I have a hard time believing the miracle that happened that day. But the radiant look on my niece’s face when she thanked me for baking her wedding cake helps me remember that anything is possible when I let love lead the way.
.
Out of the ten storytellers, Cyndie’s performance earned a second place score from the judges, losing out by half a point to a tale that included both a tornado and nudity. The evening was a smashing (pun intended) success and made all the sweeter by the support of family and friends who showed up to cheer her on.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
Grand Slam
One of the things Cyndie decided to do to occupy herself during the months she was laid up with a broken ankle was to explore storytelling. “The Moth” level of storytelling. She bought their book about storytelling and started writing down details of stories from her life experiences that seemed worthy of telling. She picked the date of a local Moth story slam at the end of this month and has been working on honing one of her stories down to an effective 5-minute version.
Last night, we drove to St. Paul to get an in-person taste of Moth storytelling at the Fitzgerald Theater. It was their GrandSLAM Championship where nine winners of previous story slams competed against each other with 5-minute stories based on a common theme of “Crash Course.”
At the end of the night, my first question to her was, “Did that change your mind about throwing your name in the hat?”
It didn’t. I find it difficult to understand that she won’t even know if she will have a chance to try until the night of the event because they pull 10 names out of a hat to determine whose stories will be told. I don’t know how many people show up hoping to be selected to stand on stage in front of a microphone under a bright light in front of a large audience, but I’d guess it will be more than ten.
Last night we got the chance to see what aspects of the storytelling worked well and what Cyndie might want to keep in mind if she gets the chance to tell her story of baking and assembling a wedding cake for our niece’s wedding. The versions Cyndie has been trying out have changed a lot from when she started. The Moth asks that stories be “known by heart but not rote memorization.”
Whittling down the entire experience of a compelling story into a 5-minute version forces you to figure out what details are essential and which ones don’t contribute to the main point. Moving from reading it to “telling” it by memory gets tricky with multiple versions floating around in her mind.
Only one storyteller last night had a moment of visibly losing their train of thought. The emcee did a great job of rallying the crowd to support all storytellers with a lot of love and we cheered the person with encouragement and her story resumed flawlessly in short order.
“The Moth’s mission is to promote the art and craft of storytelling and to honor and celebrate the diversity and commonality of human experience.”
Cyndie has countless stories worth telling. I’m thrilled she has chosen to develop greater mastery of the art of telling them well and doing so in larger venues.
It’s a bonus for me because I LOVE listening to well-told stories. That is… when I’m not too busy trying to tell one of my own. Why don’t I try getting on a Moth stage? I think it comes down to the part about knowing the story by heart and telling it in 5-minutes. On a stage.
I’d rather write my stories in a blog.
.
.
Cyndie Leaves
It’s not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. One minute she was here, the next minute she was gone. Cyndie has flown to Florida to spend a little time with her mom and our daughter where the water isn’t frozen.
Before she left, Cyndie took advantage of one of our pleasant afternoons to visit the horses and seized on an opportunity to untangle some of the “fairy knots” in Mix’s mane.
Mix almost stayed put long enough for her to get them fully separated. Combing out the rest of the mane with some conditioner will have to wait for another day. I look forward to a time when Cyndie has regained her full mobility and can return to bringing her precious energy to the horses in the paddocks every day again.
Hopefully, a little sunshine and exercise in the swimming pool will do wonders for the rehabilitation of her ankle.
Her scenery has definitely changed. One might even describe that as an improvement. (Individual opinions will vary.)
I am holding down the ranch on my own in her absence, which isn’t all that different from the previous four months of her restricted ambulatory abilities. The main thing that changes is my diet becomes a lot less fancy. She did make a point of baking a fresh batch of cookies before she left, so the management of my self-control and willpower won’t be getting a break.
Full disclosure: The primary incentive for managing my consumption of cookies is not for health reasons. I need to pace myself so they will last until Cyndie’s return.
.
.
Relative Something 