Posts Tagged ‘friends’
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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Favorite Photos
Holy cow, this year is flying by. It’s the 3rd day of January already! We are home again, and I’m happy to report that Delilah did great on the 4-hour drive from Grand Rapids, Minnesota to Beldenville, Wisconsin.
Today, I hope to do as little as possible in the way of productive endeavors, unless they involve power-lounging and idling away the time with trivial pursuits (which have their own way of feeling productive sometimes). I will mentally prepare for the return to the week of work that follows the New Year celebrations. Everything that was being held in suspended animation during the holidays will be released for a return to the regular grind.
Our next paid holiday doesn’t arrive for 5-months! At least the daylight hours will gradually be getting longer during that otherwise ominously staid period of time.
On that cheery note, I will endeavor to bring some pleasure to these proceedings with a sampling of a few of my favorite photos to emerge from our weekend visit with Barb and Mike.
The first two were taken by Barb when the lake was just in the process of freezing, and she generously shared them with me. The close-up shot is right out of my bag of tricks, so of course I love it the most. I asked her how she got it to be black and white, and Barb replied, “It’s not.” I love that it looks like there is no color in the captured image.
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This next one is mine. I took a picture of the water flowing beneath a dam, wanting to capture the water droplets on the edge of the forming ice. After zooming in, I was surprised to find the lines that look like a drawn-in animation. A moment after that, the whole thing took on a look of being more a painting than a photo. I’m really happy with it.
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Wonderful Adventures
We enjoyed a fabulous day of wonderful adventures on the first day of 2016 up in the woods of northern Minnesota with our friends Barb and Mike. I captured some evidence.
We went for a walk in the woods of their nearby property…
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We went for a walk on their lake. It is a very, very deep water lake, and only recently froze over. We mostly stayed close to the shore. The ice thickness was reported as being just enough to support foot traffic, but nothing beyond that yet.
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I wore my festive hat that the Morales family bought for me when they visited us at Wintervale a couple of Christmases ago. Perfect!
We topped off the incredible day with a visit to a neighboring property where I experienced two amazing firsts. This family hosts an annual New Year celebration with their own custom fireworks show. I have never stood that close to a show that was that big and that spectacular. I’m happy to report, we all survived unscathed. Did I mention it was spectacular?
Too bad my hasty attempt at capturing one of the explosions with my pocket camera didn’t do it the justice it deserves.
The other first for me was witnessing this brilliant design for burning a one log fire in a vertical position. What amazed me was that I hadn’t come across this before in my 56 years of existence. I want to make some!
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Newest Year
This is the newest year ever! 2016 is brand spankin’ new. I hope your greeting from the 1st day of January this year was a friendly one.
Our drive north yesterday, with Delilah along for her first long car trip, went better than we imagined it might. She did great. She settled in amazingly well at the cabin of our good friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus. It helps that Mike is especially good with dogs, greeting her with a treat, right from the start.
After a fantastic steak dinner, he offered Delilah a bone to chew. I think I noticed her swooning over him. She has a new best friend.
At Delilah’s usual bed time, Cyndie put her in her crate and dropped the cover over it, and we moved to the kitchen to play cards. After a short while, Delilah began to whine in her bed. Cyndie decided to give Delilah a little more time with us while we were still up. The dog was as happy as could be over her good fortune.
Later, to top off an otherwise stellar day of good behavior, Delilah ended up putting herself back to bed in her crate when she got tired. Cute and very helpful! We are confident she is feeling very, very comfortable here.
Goodbye to the year 2015. Bring on the new year, the newest year, 2016!
Look out, new year. Here we come.
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Spaghetti Demo
I found the perfect gift to give Cyndie for Christmas: a kitchen pasta making machine. Last night, our friend and neighbor, George Walker invited us over for dinner and demonstrated how to make spaghetti noodles from scratch. By the time we arrived, he had already created the dough, so the bulk of what we got to see was the process of rolling it out and cutting it into strips.
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With Cyndie’s experience in baking from scratch, making spaghetti seems like a natural variation she could expand into. Now that I’ve seen the process in person, I’m convinced it is something she can do. After tasting the results of George’s effort, I believe making fresh spaghetti will be well worth her time.
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After dinner I got a chance to play George’s resonator guitar that lays flat in the lap and is played using a steel slide bar. It seems to me that an instrument like that would be good for me to have for entertaining Cyndie while she is making pasta noodles with her new machine.
How come I get all these brilliant ideas after Santa has already come and gone for the season?
It was a good thing that we only had a short drive home at the end of the evening, because it was snowing so much that it looked like the light-speed view from Star Wars hyperdrive with all the flakes blowing toward our windshield.
This morning, my day begins with some driveway plowing before I will be able to try braving the challenge of commuting on the freeways during a snow storm. That is, if I actually try getting to the day-job today…
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Christmas Sentiment
I am giving myself a present for Christmas, and it comes from everyone who loves me.
I am going to choose to consciously allow myself to absorb, feel, and appreciate the love that others shower over me in myriad ways.
It’s simple, but oh so powerful.
Thank you to all who love me. May you feel and receive an abundance of amplified love in return!
Merry Christmas!
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Sneaking Treats
I’m feeling a bit of a sugar overdose this morning after a day of too many treats. I told Cyndie that I kept sneaking cookies and caramels as if I was trying to hide them from myself. I don’t think I successfully fooled me.
We had a bit of a weather event move through the region yesterday. It wasn’t as bad as the tornadoes that proved lethal in the south, but it added a little drama to my double-commute. After navigating the snow to get home from work, we drove back into the cities through the heaviest snow for dinner and a visit with friends and family.
Yesterday’s precipitation started as rain. Cyndie had smartly moved the horses into the barn overnight, while they were calm and dry Tuesday evening. She described the horses as wanting to go outside Wednesday morning, even though the obvious reverberation of raindrops on the metal roof meant they would get a soaking once out.
By the time I got home in the afternoon, it was falling as all snow. It was a sloppy, sticky mess. Rolling slowly along the driveway, I inspected the herd. The two young chestnuts were in the back pasture, grazing normally. Dezirea was near Legacy, close to the paddock, but out in the hay-field area. She had her butt to the wind and her head down, in the classic pose of enduring the wetness.
It was Legacy who drew my attention. I felt a moment of alarm, wondering if he may have a serious problem, so I stopped to observe him for about three minutes. I couldn’t quite figure out his issue, because his uncharacteristic behavior included as many normal gestures as odd ones.
I decided he just looked uncomfortable and reported it to Cyndie immediately. She headed out to check and let them back in the barn for the night. Turned out to be accumulations of sticky snow balled up under his hooves that were irritating him.
After picking up my car that had been in for service— oh, that’s another story… The recent flat tire revealed that all my tires were pretty worn out. I authorized a full set of new tires and asked them to change the oil while they had it. I wasn’t surprised when the shop called to report the rotors of the front brakes were in bad shape. It was time. Nor was I surprised when they called again and said the calipers not working is probably what wore out the rotors. New calipers, too.
The repair of my one flat tire had escalated into a 3-day project that was in danger of costing a quarter of the car’s worth. When I called to see if it was ready for us to pick up, the tech answered and reported that, yes, the battery had come, and it was ready now.
Battery?
Oh, yeah. That, too. That one flat tire led to a very expensive visit to the shop. Merry Christmas, John. You just spent your holiday bonus and then some. I will say, I am very satisfied to have this much car, with its known history, for that amount of money.
I’m off work until next Monday and we now enter full Christmas eventing for the next 4 days. If I find time, I’ll write about it.
It’s going to involve a lot of driving in my “new” car, and I’m hoping a somewhat controlled amount of sugary treats.
Merry Christmas to you!
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Social Success
Our cookie social was a success, despite not drawing as many new faces as I hoped we might meet. The new people we did discover were a wonderful pleasure and we quickly learned, once again, how small the world can seem. We have a good variety of kindred spirits in the vicinity, revealing a number of common connections, many of them being our friend, George Walker.
The rural setting, with many of the homes tucked far from the road, makes it too easy to see less of neighbors, unless proactively putting effort in seeking to connect. It motivates me to be quicker to ask neighbors for advice or assistance in the future.
What’s the worst that could happen? If they weren’t able to help, I am learning they would most likely know someone who could, and they’d be happy to provide these referrals.
The downside about the small number of folks showing up is, there is a dangerous amount of cookies and holiday treats left over that I want to avoid consuming in my quest to eat a low sugar diet, even with Cyndie loading up mountains on take-home plates for folks.
Before guests arrived, I took Delilah out for a walk to burn off some energy and we made our way down to check on the horses. We found them at nap time, with Hunter laying down on the raised circle of hay in the paddock. Dezirea and Legacy were up by the barn where he was eating hay out of the box and she was falling asleep in the sun.
Legacy turned to interact with me, and while he was facing me, I could see Dezirea behind him. She kept buckling as she eased into too deep of a sleep, and would startle to catch herself and stay upright. Each time she startled, it made Legacy jump. He would turn to give her a look, and she would be standing just fine. It happened over and over again, creating a hilarious spectacle.
It was as if Legacy was peeved over her spooking him, and every time he turned to throw his grumpy gaze at her, she was standing perfectly calm, like a little angel.
I tried to take a picture of her to catch that moment, missing several times before I realized I should be recording a video. By the time I did, she must have figured out what was happening and remedied things.
I have a couple of minutes of video showing her standing rock solid.
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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 