Posts Tagged ‘fellowship’
Good Thing
Activity in our kitchen is back to normal, now that Cyndie is home. When I walked in the door from a day at work yesterday, my nose was greeted by a simmering ham roast in the slow cooker, two side dishes baking in the oven, and a fresh loaf of home-baked cranberry/orange/walnut bread and plum crumble dessert cooling on the counter.
George was coming over for dinner. I went to start a fire in the fireplace, but noticed we needed to bring in more firewood. That meant I would need to shovel a path to the firewood rack on the deck.
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The food Cyndie prepared was fit for serving a royal feast. To heck with counting sugar grams or total calories. I ate it all, and then some.
We enjoyed dessert in front of the fire, where we lingered long while pondering the fragility of mental health in a wandering trail of tales, eventually feeling as if we had gone full-circle and discovered connections in otherwise seemingly dissimilar situations.
There is always hope possible in times that seem hopeless. If it is not easily available for the grasping, it can be cultivated, when the essential willingness is on hand.
It remains to be seen whether the hopes and remote support seeds we planted will produce desired results in the long run. In the mean time, the fine food and fellowship we shared and enjoyed was a heck of a good thing for the three of us.
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Warm Indoors
It has been darn cold the last few days. It has an extra bite because we had been experiencing such un-winterlike conditions up until now, and got lulled into complacency. I finally realized I should pull an actual winter coat out of the closet, the one with my scarf tucked in the sleeve.
I got a good chuckle out of the legendary former Minnesota Vikings coach, Bud Grant, walking out to the ceremonial coin toss prior to last Sunday’s playoff game on national TV, without a jacket on. It was below zero and he was wearing a purple Vikings short-sleeved polo shirt, flaunting the Minnesotan hardiness.
Last night we chose indoor recreation, with a wonderful fire to make it extra warm and cozy. Cyndie had designs on making chicken parmesan, and talked George into bringing his pasta machine over. He showed up with that, and more. Can you say, “homemade ice cream?”
Oh, but that’s not all. He also made chocolate sauce to go with it, and brought some fruit toppings.
Good thing I was appropriately prudent with my choices earlier in the day, and had headroom left over in my sugar quota to enjoy my favorite treat, guilt-free.
The highlight of the evening was Cyndie’s glee over her first successful made-from-scratch pasta making, under George’s helpful tutelage. He arrived in time to intervene on her baking tendency to add flour continuously while working the dough. Together, with a little water, they got the consistency back from being too dry and the pasta turned out great.
We enjoyed a treasure of an evening, laughing in the kitchen while preparing food, luxuriating in sitting down to eat the food, and then hanging by the fireplace to play cards, eat ice cream, play guitars, and thrill in the joy of simply being together.
Indoors. Where it is warm, and life is good.
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I stored the ice cream George brought, out on the deck, where it was a lot colder than our freezer. Plus, there wasn’t any spare room in the freezer, anyway.
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Fun Friday
In the morning on Friday, Pequenita was stretched out at the end of the bed while Cyndie and I were studiously working on our laptops. I know I was working because I can see by the screen that I was in my work email account.
I had stepped away for some reason, and when I returned, I got this view of our cat, stretched long at the spot just beyond where my feet had been, with her front paws tucked beneath her.
How cat-like endearingly appealing that looks.
We had plans for the day that involved creating some fun food to bring to a gathering of a group of futsallers with whom I had played for many years, before my degenerating disks forced my retirement from the game.
I suppose that may have helped to inspire the coincidence of our spontaneously deciding to pull out the giant soccer ball for the horses to play with in the relative warm sunshine of the afternoon.
I recorded a short video so I could provide proof to my old friends that there is soccer still in my life on the ranch. Well, sort of.
The hours after the horse-play were filled with experimenting in the kitchen, where I helped with some taste testing and cutting & wrapping home-made caramels that Cyndie cooked up late Thursday night.
Then it was off through Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic to get to the party where we enjoyed hours of wonderful food and fellowship. I relished the opportunity to catch up with friends and hear stories about the ongoing morning games and the growing participation.
It was nice to meet a couple of the newer players and particularly precious to reconnect with my old favorites. The food was exceptional, to the point we packed a doggy bag of leftover foods that captured our fancy, when retrieving our dishes as our target departure hour arrived… and passed.
Brief moments after I had made the rounds, saying goodbye, a group photo was requested. While we were posing for that, Cyndie’s brother and his wife arrived, prolonging our visit for, I think, two more rotations of saying, “Good night. We have to leave!”
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Relative Something 