The Long Wait For Waffles

Back in late May, my friend Janet sent me a bottle of her homemade maple syrup.  She and her husband tap the trees on their property in Michigan.  They get about 30 gallons of the stuff, which she says boils down to a gallon or two of maple syrup. It takes HOURS and HOURS to boil the stuff down.  They share this bounty with friends and relatives.  I feel really HONORED to be among them.

So, there we were at our cottage in early June, with plans to break open (although not literally) the bottle and have a terrific breakfast of waffles and bacon.  We'd planned that for Sunday morning.

Saturday morning Mr. L said, "I have a stomachache."  I didn't think much of it because as someone with frequent (although not so much anymore) heartburn, I always had a stomachache.  But if I had been really listening alarm bells should have gone off.  Mr. L is NEVER sick.  He NEVER has a stomachache. He hasn't puked in over 40 years.  (I sure wish I could say that.)

And so . . . later in the day Mr. L decided that his stomachache was getting worse--as in 'Take me to the ER" worse.  Except that he really didn't make a fuss.  By the time he got seen, the resident on duty said, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain."  Mr. L quite calmly said, "Ten."

Whoa!  When Mr. L had his knee replacement surgery, I don't think he said the pain was every worse than a five.

When they finally released him from the hospital two days later (yeah, he hand an infected gall bladder), they gave Mr. L a list of foods NOT to eat.  And what was on there?  Waffles. (He could have just mainlined the syrup--there's no fat in it, after all.)

So, seven weeks (and 24 pounds) later, Mr. L finally got his waffles on Sunday.



Yummy!  (Still waiting for that bacon.  Maybe next week.)
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