Tag Archives: Glyn Rimmington

Friends, Fremont Street, and My Healing Journey Continued

Posted on February 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

This photo probably looks like three friends having a good time on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. It is! But it is also so much more! Two months ago, I would not have been able to be here, let alone walk around and enjoy myself. The bright, colorful, moving light shows, the hustle and bustle of the crowds of people moving in all directions punctuated by laughter and silliness would have been too much for me. It would have taken me down. Within minutes, I would have had a blazing headache, been dizzy and nauseous, and had poor balance. I would’ve had to hold on to Andrew and Glyn‘s arms for stability. This time I did it with no such stress and very little physical support.

Those symptoms, dizziness, nausea, lack of balance, and headaches, are my body’s way of telling me that I’m out of my comfort zone and I need to rein it back. (Other people have different reactions.) The thing is I don’t need to rein it back. I need to push through until it’s too much and then stop. That’s how I’m progressing on my healing journey.

For those of you, who haven’t followed along, a year ago in a freak moment, part of my left retina detached. The night after I had surgery, I stumbled twice in the bathroom and trashed my knee, spraining my ACL, MCL, PCL, and shredding my meniscus. That required an additional surgery that could not happen until my eye had healed adequately, eight weeks after my retina reattachment surgery. Then I had a second eye surgery to remove scar tissue that had built up on my retina.

I’m not completely back to normal yet, but I’m on the road and I see so much progress. There’s still distortion in my left eye, although with red light therapy (to remove inflammation in my eye and knee) and vestibular therapy to help my visual, physical, and auditory systems work together to control my balance and coordination, I see so much improvement. I am getting better! I still have a ways to go, but I’m on the road. As my eye doctor said, I’m not going to know how my vision will level out until at least a year from surgery, which was last March. That aside, I’m becoming more functional and self-sufficient all the time. My independence is something that I have always prized and have at various times in my life, lost. I continue to move forward in my recovery journey, still learning patience and the ability to rely on others when I need them.

Andrew has been an absolute rockstar through all of this. To be honest, I have not been easy. At times, my self-concept and self-esteem have suffered. I have felt bad about myself. My internal narrative can get pretty dark and negative sometimes. Through it all Andrew has reaffirmed and reinforced that caring for me is where he chooses to be, and that he would not choose to be anywhere else. He also consistently reminds me of how far I’ve come, a journey that it’s difficult for me to see step-by-step. He has literally been my lifesaver. I cannot express my gratitude enough.

And now, my friend Glyn. He showed me nurturing, care, and understanding over a decade ago when I broke both of my wrists. You learn a lot about people by how comfortable they are being with you when you’re damaged. Glyn was always comfortable and easy to be around where other friends were sometimes awkward, or simply avoided me.

This situation was different. I had had a couple friends visit a day or two as I recovered, but with no expectations that I would be able to do anything. Paaige and Miche were wonderful. They had no expectations that I would do anything or go anywhere and were just comfortable to be with me and follow my lead. Glyn was making his first trip to Las Vegas and to be honest, I was a little fearful. With my friends, I am normally vibrant, engaged, high energy, and high activity. I have not been able to be those things since these accidents. I didn’t want to become frustrated that I couldn’t be the me that I wanted to be. I didn’t want my friend to have a disappointing experience in Las Vegas. I wanted to make sure that I set appropriate boundaries and called events and activities when I needed to. Glyn was awesome! As we explored Resorts World, where my daughter works, and Fontainebleau, where the new Cocoa Dolce is located, Glyn recommended that we stop for a cup of tea – ostensibly because he was thirsty – likely he also recognized that I was getting tired. It was wonderful to have someone ask for something they wanted that benefited me rather than having someone show pity or concern for my capacity. Well done, my friend!

We had a big exploration day that day. We walked over 12,000 steps, found the Ghost Donkey Bar where I tried my first sips of mezcal. We explored the Bellagio, rode the bus up and down the strip, and I felt gloriously free and capable. When we needed breaks, we stopped. When I needed support, I held Glyn’s arm. It was such a strong powerful day for me.

The next two days I was much more low energy and I needed to rein it back in a bit. We still had fun visiting some of my favorite places and enjoying lunch and dinner. Andrew picked up the slack one night and took Glyn to explore some sites while I rested. Then we had another wonderful “get out there and do things” day, giving Glyn his first experience with Korean barbecue at Master Kim’s, spending time on Fremont Street, and going to the ice bar 5° Below Zero in Mandalay Bay, where we wore fur coats and hats and sipped colorful, sugary sweet cocktails from glasses made of ice. The last day of his visit Glyn and I went to lunch at a new Japanese restaurant in Town Square, Mall.

This trip was about both of us doing things we had never done before. It was about me being kind to myself (although I did have a couple moments, when my gremlin voice – what I call my critical self talk – tried to take me down), asking for what I needed, enjoying myself to the fullest, recognizing that it’s OK to be low energy sometimes and almost normal others. Realizing the freedom to be with a friend that I could trust to understand, and not to push. The steps toward normalcy are important and powerful, as is the recognition that I still have some limitations, and that these may continue indefinitely. Having loved ones and friends for support and nurturing during these times are more precious than gold.

Graduate School, Cooking with Friends, and Coq au Vin

Posted on September 21, 2017 | 1 comment

My love affair with coq au vin began at a particularly difficult moment for my then younger self. I was inching in on finishing my master’s degree in communication at Ohio State University in 1980. I defended my master’s thesis and my committee gave me 6 reasonable changes. Except, at that point, I wasn’t reasonable. I was tired. The typist for my thesis, my friend Rick, was tired. There was a lot of political scrambling in my academic environment which was very uncomfortable. Competitive professors didn’t want students to work with other professors, a competitive graduate student culture, demands on my time as a speech coach. I wanted to be done. So,… I decided I was. I went home from my defense, opened the door to our house and said to my typist and my roommates “I quit! I don’t need a master’s degree and I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. They were stunned into silence.” My roommate Trish, rarely lacking for words said, “Awesome! Let’s party! I want to make coq au vin. Where’s the wine?” As she and our roommate Mimi started preparing food, Rick helped me box up everything related to my thesis and put it in the basement. I was done! I felt free! It was exhilarating! That day we cooked; laughed; drank wine (a lot of wine). We invited friends over and played in the rain. I breathed. We were all a bit (or a lot) “happy” by the time the coq au vin was ready, several hours later and together we enjoyed one of the best, most delicious, meals of my life.

Three years ago, my friends at Wichita State University, Mara, Glyn and I began a tradition of spending a day cooking together that we have done several times (but not nearly often enough). We begin the day at Mara’s with brunch, sometimes just the 3 of us. Sometimes with more friends. Mara always makes palachinque (Bosnian pancakes – which will be the topic of a later blog post); the rest of us bring whatever we want to eat with the pancakes. Then if we’ve decided what we want to cook, again with wine, usually also with music and dancing, always with laughter and friendship, we cook dinner together. The first time we cooked together, I told my graduate school story as we were trying to decide what we wanted for dinner. That did it. The decision was made. Coq au vin it would be. It was a wonderful day and the coq au vin was as delicious as I remembered.

The third time I made coq au vin, again for my friends on one of our cooking days, my last as a resident of Wichita, was in celebration of my birthday, my retirement, and my moving to Colorado. For more on my retirement decision, click here: The three of us shared a delicious brunch and couldn’t decide what we wanted to cook. We reviewed what we’d made on prior occasions: pilaf, curry, cioppino, pasta… Mara looked me in the eye and with great certainty said, “Coq au vin. I want coq au vin. Let’s go shopping,” And off we went.

Throughout the day, more friends came and left, Jan, David, Carolyn (a new friend), Randa, Julie, Jeff. They wrote to me on a “Congratulations on your retirement, Happy Birthday, Good luck on your move” poster Mara had taped to the wall. Like always, we laughed; we danced; we talked; we ate; we drank wine; we prepared more food; we ate some more.

Glyn acted as my sous chef and we spent the day in Mara’s open kitchen preparing food while our friends floated in and out, enjoying all the tasty food everyone had brought. Food made in an atmosphere of love and friendship always tastes the best! It was another precious day!

Coq au vin is typically a rustic French chicken and wine stew with mushrooms, onions, carrots, and potatoes. We had salad, roasted vegetables, hard bread, more wine. Purists make coq au vin with bone-in chicken. I’ve done that twice and the recipe below is my newest modification, boneless chicken. I prefer this version for a number of reasons, most important, how much more quickly the chicken cooks, and how much easier it is to eat. As always, I perused various online recipes for inspiration. Our basic recipe was inspired by Ina Garten’s: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/coq-au-vin-recipe4-2011654, Alton Brown’s: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/coq-au-vin-recipe-1952021, and the New York Times recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018529-coq-au-vin?mcubz=3. Below I’ll share our portions in such a way that they can be halved or quartered for easy adaptation of the number of people you need to feed. We were cooking for 10 people and hoping for leftovers.

Ingredients and preparation:

1 pound thick cut bacon (based on the theory that one can never have too much bacon) sliced into ¼ inch strips)

6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (washed, dried, and cut into 2×2 inch chunks)

12 skinless, boneless chicken thighs (washed, dried, and cut into 2×2 inch chunks)

1 ½ pounds of cremini mushrooms (or your favorite type – washed, dried, sliced with stems – I always trim off the tip of the stems because they are typically dried out)

1 pound of carrots (cut into 1 inch chunks – we cheated and got the peeled baby carrots – they worked perfectly)

2 large yellow onions (or 1 onion and a bag of pearl onions – 1 peeled and cut into chunks, the other roughly sliced – pearl onions replace the roughly sliced onion)

16 oz container Italian spiced tomatoes (optional – I prefer spiced tomatoes with garlic, oregano, and basil)

3 Idaho potatoes (optional – can be peeled or unpeeled, cut into rough 1 inch chunks) ((We decided to serve the dish with fresh Italian pasta, so I didn’t add potatoes))

1 bottle dry red wine. We used Malbec (our favorite)

1 cup plum brandy (You can also use any type of brandy, cognac, etc. – we used what we had on hand)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 handful of fresh Thyme (washed, uncut – about 1-2 oz – 12-15 sprigs)

1 ½ tablespoons Garlic (Spice World Minced garlic or 5 or 6 fresh cloves)

Olive oil (as needed)

8 oz Chicken Stock

3 (or 4) tablespoons salted Butter

1 ½ tablespoons Flour (your favorite – All-purpose flour works fine)

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2 pounds hearty pasta (your choice – this is a hearty dish, so you want a hearty pasta to go along with it – rigatoni and cavatappi ((which we used)) are examples. I prefer Italian pasta (as in pasta made in Italy).)

Making the dish:

After preparing all ingredients above, salt and pepper chicken to taste and set aside
Preheat oven to 250°
Fry bacon in a heavy skillet (cast iron works well) on medium high heat until crispy (About 10 minutes) (Everything will be prepared in this skillet until we transfer it to a stock pot to put into the oven. It will be used again when we saute the mushrooms and onions. Don’t wash it!) Set aside.
Brown chicken pieces in bacon fat until golden brown on all sides. (About 5 minutes per skillet – we browned about 3 skillets of chicken for this recipe.) Set aside.
Salt and pepper all veggies to taste. Add veggies (carrots, potatoes ((optional – great if you don’t serve with pasta)), onion chunks ((reserve the onion slices for later)) to remaining bacon grease. Saute for 10-15 minutes until carrots are just softening, potatoes are still crunchy, and onions are lightly browned.
Add chopped garlic and cook for 1 additional minute
Add brandy – make sure to scrape all the delicious chunks off the bottom of the skillet
Transfer everything to the stock pot
Add wine, chicken stock, and Italian spiced tomatoes to the stew – Bring to a gentle boil on top of the stove
Add thyme and gently push into broth. Cook in the oven for 30-40 minutes until chicken is white inside, but still moist. (Note, the outside of the chicken will take on the lovely color of the wine.)
About 20 minutes into the oven cooking time, saute the sliced mushrooms over medium heat in 2 tablespoons of butter (About 10 minutes). (We used the cast iron skillet to take advantage of any remaining bacon juice and dripping residue. This is why you don’t want to wash the skillet.)
Add sliced onions to the mushrooms and saute for the last 3 minutes of the mushroom cooking time. (Add another tablespoon of butter as needed.) Set aside.
When the chicken is done, remove the stock pot from the oven and place it on the already medium hot burner. Remove the thyme. (If some stalks are left, people can just pull them out.)
Combine 1 tablespoon butter and 1 ½ tablespoons of flour. Mix thoroughly and add to stew. Stir gently, but thoroughly.
Add the sauteed mushrooms and onion slices to the stew. Simmer on top of the stove for roughly 10 minutes to allow the flavors to co-mingle. Stir occasionally.

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Prepare pasta according to package instructions. (For this dish, I prefer al dente – Cooked, but still firm.)

Serve hot in soup bowls either on top of the pasta or with the pasta on the side.

Enjoy!

Side dishes:

Wine – more Malbec or wine of your choice

Mixed green salad with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper

Hearty bread

To make long stories more manageable. I did finish my thesis. In fact I went on to get my PhD (I built in 2 months of “unreasonableness” during my dissertation writing process, just in case I needed to “quit” again. I did!). I have had a wonderful career as an academic and now I’m moving on to new adventures with wonderful friends to visit in Wichita. This party was delightful and the coq au vin delicious! Memories, food, and friends. More of each to come!

Bon appétit!!!

1 Comment

Posted in Easy Recipes, Food, Fresh made soups, Friends

Tagged Bon Appetit, Coq au Vin, David Bonfiglio, Glyn Rimmington, Jan Petersen, Julie & Jeff Shrewsbury, Mara Alagic, Randa Toubia

A Love Letter to Las Vegas – <3

Posted on March 30, 2015 | 2 comments

As you know, dear reader, I am FINALLY in Las Vegas visiting my wonderful daughter Alyssa. I fell in love with Vegas several years ago when I spent 6 weeks here after my dancer daughter shredded her knee. Surgery had to wait until after the semester, so we lived in the other wing of her dorm in a double room. This gave me plenty of space to work on my WSU classes with the help of wonderful colleagues, like my friend Glyn, and students with whom I skyped and phoned. It also allowed me to stay close to my girlie in case she needed me.

Looking back, it was a truly amazing time. Las Vegas is absolutely beautiful in the spring. While it took me several weeks to realize it, I fell completely in love with the campus, with all the green spaces and nature paths filled with wild, desert flowers. I loved the clarity of the early morning air, the way the breezes caressed my skin and blew my hair, before the sun turned too hot. The wild flowers inspired me. I started photographing them on my phone, posting them to social media as a way of staying connected with friends and family. Based on the encouragement of my friend Pam, I ultimately turned some of these photographs into a calendar that I gave to friends and family for Christmas.

I trolled the campus each morning, sometimes running the steps outside the Thomas and Mack Center, listening to music on my iPod. I fell in love with a sky blue Lotus Elise often parked near the campus desert garden. I was tempted to leave a note to let the owner know how much I appreciated that car. I never did. I still look for it when I’m back on campus. Since Alyssa’s graduation, I don’t have an excuse to troll campus any more. I miss that.

I got comfortable with the shops near the university, especially those on Maryland Parkway. I frequented Einstein’s Bagels. I’d often stop there near the end of my 1 ½ hour walk to pick up yummy breakfast for Alyssa to start her day. We could eat healthy on fresh fruit and veggie drinks, or enjoy bagels with eggs, meat and cheese, or bagels with plain or flavored cream cheese. Alyssa’s favorite was strawberry cream cheese. We also found a car wash and nail salon I still visit whenever I come to town.

I remember with gratitude her teachers, especially those in the dance department at UNLV. They recommended surgeons and physical therapists, encouraged her to safely push the limits of her physical capacity. They told her she would get better, that she would dance again. Their support was priceless.

Alyssa’s and my pattern this trip is different now that she’s graduated from UNLV. She works as a concierge at Monte Carlo Resort. Each morning I get up, take Greyson, her Australian Shepherd, for a walk. This year, it is the bush and tree flowers that are just starting to bloom that speak to me. They are quiet, gentle. I photograph them.

Each morning, I hang out with Alyssa before she has to go to work. I drive her to work and get on with my day. I do something useful, get the oil changed in her car, fill her tank with gas or get her car washed. I get a mani/pedi (no, it’s not ALL about doing things for my daughter). Then I find a Starbucks to write.

As I settle in with my iced chai latte with soy each day, I have a feeling about what I’m going to write. Rarely (never actually), do I write what I think I will. I write whatever comes out, whatever inspires me in the moment. This post was not what I had planned for today, but it is what I wrote.

As I reflect, I guess my message today, dear reader, is that life happens in the little day-to-day moments as well as when I have to rise to the occasion to deal with whatever challenges face me. Life happens when the beauty of a flower stops me short. Life happens when I pause from what I’m doing to listen for my daughter’s voice. Life happens as I run the steps at the Thomas and Mack Center or take Alyssa’s puppy for a walk. Life happens as my favorite song leads me to move faster on my morning walk, or an unexpected song triggers a memory. Life comes when the conversation of those next to me in Starbucks demands my attention.

I found beauty as my daughter healed from a traumatic, painful injury. I found beauty in flowers and the feeling of sunshine on my shoulders, a soft breeze on my neck. I fell in love with where I was. I fell in love with Las Vegas! I wish for you the same. Fall in love with your day! I’m off to finish mine.