On Creating Monsters
We don’t want Pandora right now. So, I need to cancel it. In order to cancel it, I must find the vendor that the bill goes through for payment since Pandora doesn’t do collection directly. And that is a Pandora’s Box that was unleashed on my tender sensibilities.
After about 7324 hours research, I’m just not sure. I can’t be for certain. Of anything.
How did life treat me so unfairly? I ask. I created a monster, that’s how. This is all my doing and as it currently stands, my undoing. Good grief.
While trying to figure out my Pandora bill problem, I first went to my credit cards. The only way I could figure out what is being paid out of my credit cards was to look at the statements. My feeling was that the credit card companies would have an easy-to-access list of all my electronic debits…but I couldn’t find them. If they are there, they are well hidden.
Pandora is coming due in November, so I had to go back to 2019 and look for November which was always spread between the November AND December statements. Good grief. My patience was thinning.
Because I was going to all this trouble, I decided to write down which debits went to which bills. The list was long. Our life is complicated. I bet yours is too. But not as bad as mine and even if it was, you wouldn’t admit, now would you? If your life in this regard is less of a problem, I would love to know your methodology.
So…three credit cards, a checking account, and Paypal. All three of these methods played a roll in my search to unlock my Pandora’s Box.
Paypal was the last one and they make things super easy. And the bank account was relatively easy. The credit cards were ridiculous. By the time I arrived at Paypal, I discovered that I could easily just stop the auto payments and so I did. Disney Plus…deleted. QVC…deleted although it hadn’t been used all year (I actually think I only used it once), Houzz, Ancestry Uber…all zapped. It was such a powerful feeling. The crazy thing is I don’t remember having this set up on any of them except Disney Plus for the original Hamilton performance.
After hours and hours, I have a better handle on things…except Pandora. I have no idea if that will get automatically deducted or not. But I’m not spending another moment on it. If I win, I win. If I lose, I lose. The worst thing that will come of it is more music.
I could use more music. I’m A Creep by Radiohead would sound good about now…Better go to Pandora and listen to it while I maybe still have the account.
Dueling Devices
Getting ready to leave one place to go to another is a task we always under estimate, thinking it will only take a short time. Reality is… it takes a significant amount of time as a semi well oiled machine to pack the clothes, pack the food, pack the dog paraphernalia, pack the electronics, gather up the pillows, clean up the kitchen which includes the refrigerator, the freezer, the pantry…it is exhausting just detailing some of it in the blog. And poor Rayman has to fit all our stuff into the car. He is a master at it. But it takes time and much effort.
Then there is handing off food to the relatives, cancelling the TV, asking the neighbor to take of our garbage cans next week…yada yada yada.
Driving from Portland, Or to Morro Bay, CA is not easy with fire and smoke complicating the journey this year. There are many routes and most of them have issues. So, after careful consideration, I think we picked the absolutely worst way to proceed…straight down I-5. It was fine until we got in the hills and mountains. Smoke as dense as pot de creme. It brings home to us how horrible the world is becoming with global warming. We really need to do more raking. Click the link. https://pin.it/1CE0h53
And in OR, you can’t go a mile without seeing beautiful tree boles piled high on a big rig truck so there is obviously some forest management going on despite the rumors. But the raking. We need more raking.
This is near Medford where an entire town was burned to the ground.
Choking smoke.
Can you spot Mt. Shasta? And Lake Shasta is a mere wisp of itself.
When we reached Roseburg, OR we were hungry and I was at the wheel. I asked Rayman if he would find us a spot for a bite. This may have akin to asking him to find the black hole. OMG. After much googling and Yelping he found a Mexican place. Great. He found it on his iPad. Then somehow, he tried to find it on his phone, I think…god knows what he was actually trying to do but in the process he lost the restaurant which he first reported to be located off off-ramp 124. He couldn’t find it on the iPhone. Then he couldn’t find it on his iPad and in the meantime, I’m making good time barreling toward to the destination. His frustration rose as the destination got closer.
“I think I have it. It’s off of 124 just like I said.”
One of the devices says, “Take exit 138 East toward downtown.”Okay, then.”
Then like a premonition from the heavens, another device says, “Exit 124 and stay in the right lane.” Then both devices talk to us in unison and we couldn’t make head nor tails out of any of it.
“Rayman, you have both devices giving us conflicting info”, I offer.
”He says, “What the hell? I don’t know what is going on.”
I say, “Rayman, you need to turn the one off that doesn’t take us to where we want to go .”
Rayman said, “Jesus Christ. What the hell is going on?”
I say, “Rayman, you need to pick one place or the other. I don’t care which one as long as it has food.”
He fumbles with this devices. “There. I turned off the iPad.”
Then the iPad says, “Take exit 138.”
At this point he is screaming at the device. “I don’t want that restaurant. I want the other one on exit 124.”
“Well”, I said. “You turned the wrong device off”.
At this point Rayman goes to the F word. “Oh, fuck, what the hell is going on?”
I say, “I don’t know. Turn the iPad off.”
He said, “I thought I did.” At that point the iPad chirped, “ In 500 yards….”
Rayman yells, “Just get off the damn freeway!”
And then the iPhone says, “In 2 miles, exit the freeway.”
Really, this is exactly what happened.
Anyway, we exited the freeway, turned left and drove toward city center. The iPad said, “Stay in the left lane and the destination is on your left in 200 yards.”
Then the iPhone said, “Get in the left lane and make a u-turn at the light.”
By this time, I spot, I kid you not, three roach coaches (aka as food trucks) parked in a gravel parking lot. “Well, I’m going to pull in here and see if one of these is the Mexican restaurant.
”Rayman says, “Really?”
I turn into the lot. The first roach coach is a Thai venue. We couldn’t figure out what the other two were. I made a U turn and was going to leave the lot but suggested, “Rayman, why don’t we just see if that far coach is a Mexican coach?” He said okay. It was a Mexican roach coach without any signage other than a lone neon “OPEN” sign. So, we parked and sauntered up to the coach. A nice Mexican woman took our order. Food was on paper plates, two tacos each. And it was delicious. Fresh, flavorful, and the best part was that there were three tables under some cloth “umbrellas” that provided perfect outdoor dining in the age of covid. And we were the only ones there until a couple of young guys joined us as we were leaving. They had tacos too!!
Key learning was that really, I need to be on the devices arranging things. And two. Sometimes just giving it a whirl works out just fine!!
Golf May Be a Metaphor for Life
As I lay awake in the early morning hours this a.m., I took to serious thought about my golf game. This is because yesterday afternoon, we played golf with number one son…nine whole holes laid out before us as sun was going down.
The course is set in a grove of redwood trees, thank goodness because if the trees were of the leaf-dropping type, we never, ever would have been able to find our balls. As it was a few times we still had to look hard for those golf balls which tells you something about our skill levels.
But I digress.
Golf is a game of ups and downs. One minute you are on cloud nine because of a shot you pulled off. The next minute you feel like a toad for the golf shot you didn’t pull off. Golf is like life…it is voluntary. You choose to live, you choose to play golf. Golf teaches humility and if you are lucky, life teaches you humility. Golf teaches us how to lose gracefully. Okay, most of us. Our President is a golfer but he threatens to cheat to win, he threatens to refuse to concede, he is known for disregarding the rules. For the rest of us, we regard golf as a game of honor, our own honor. We do not cheat because in the end, it only hurts us by giving us a lower score… which will drive our handicap down to the point that we cannot win in a low handicap game because we cheated to win. I know this is a circular example and I wish I could explain it better for my non-golfing friends. Just trust me on this.
So, now I’m asking you to trust me and for those of you that know me, you know you can trust me. Unlike our President who lies every time he opens his mouth, seemingly. Those that I know that cheat at golf, the funny thing is, so does everyone else know they cheat at golf. Word gets around. And when you are known as a cheat, fewer people want to play with you. Who wants to play with a cheat? You have to keep an eagle eye out. How many strokes did they really take? Did they sneakily move the ball for a better lie? It takes the fun out of it and it may also have a negative effect on your own game because you can’t truly relax with a cheater.
So, you see, golf is a microcosm thing. It is a wonderful game for young people to learn if they learn the lessons of honesty, integrity and the like. I think it is the only game where a player has been known to call attention to committing a foul and then adding strokes to their score because of the foul. That is darn cool.
You know, if Trump had learned about all that and taken it to heart, we would not be in the situation we find ourselves in today. And neither would he.
For non-golfers, you may not know this but golf balls can break windows. And it is on the golfer that hit the ball. They are responsible. And most golfers are honorable enough to seek out the owner of the window or leave a note if no one is home. I’m not convinced Donald would do that. I don’t know but I’m sure it is true. (one of Bill Maher’s favorite lines).
Speaking of Bill Maher, he has been predicting that Trump will refuse to leave office. He did a montage on his program last week that went back years of him saying Trump will no go. People thought it was ludicrous. But, he was right all along. In golf that would be akin to refusing to lose a match. It just doesn’t happened. And it has never happened before in the history of our democracy, politically speaking.
Ever heard a pro golfer give an interview and call Golf Magazine a hoax? Of course not. It has never happened. Ever heard a player state that if the round isn’t completed by a certain time, that they must stop playing at that time for the match to be legit? Of course not. You get the drift by this time, I assume.
Golf is such a wholesome game in so many ways and it is beyond ironic that this man living in the People’s House, has been shown to owe $400 million today on properties that have golf courses. But, really, when will the dripping ever stop?
Jeering at a winner in golf just doesn’t happen. Cheering happens all the time for all the players because anyone who golfs knows just how darn hard the sport really is. 99% of all golfers in the world are duffers…just not that good. But that doesn’t stop us. We look forward to the next round hoping for the best, always. We tell people we are playing with that their shots were good…we never comment when the shot is bad…unless the errant shot ends up next to the pin in the in the hole!! That is part of the fun and enjoyment. It is a thrill to see a great shot up close and personal be it mine or someone I’m playing with. A good shot is a good shot. It is to be appreciated and admired. If a person hits a good shot, acknowledging it is akin to saying thank you in a way. It is just so cool.
Recently I have considered selling my clubs because of my poor play. However, having written this, I realize, I can’t give it up. I is a reminder of all that is good in this life. Playing for fun, enjoying the walk, the nineteenth hole, the challenge and yes, the honor and trust and the humility.
There. I left you all on a high note!!
Finding the Funny
After plunking out $250 for the Central Coast Writer’s Conference, I may be concluding that writing a book may just be too much work. Being allergic to work is one of my ticks. So…I am rethinking this idea.
So many times in life we are called upon to rethink our thinking. It’s either that or living with the consequences be they big or small.
Two squirrels are playing on the fence right now. Wish you could watch them with me. They are smallish and that’s why they are playing. Kids, is all. They jump from the fence to the tree which is a mighty jump for the little kids. Then they run around the bole of the tree as though they had in hand a string of lights that they were using to decorate the tree for xmas. Up and down and all around. They are so squirrelly. Imbedded below is a movie I took in my cousin’s backyard. Look for the squirrel!!
But I digress.
So I also learned that writing is practice. You must constantly be practicing. Therefore, I am practicing on my blog this fine morning. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, you can safely breathe, you can see Mt. Hood. It is a good day and I hope the same for you, all three of my faithful readers!! I appreciate so much my faithful followers. It gives us a connection of sorts and in this day of so many choices for spending ones time…
Another thing I learned is that we all need to find the funny in situations. Like if you are in line at CVS, the line is long, there is only pharma person at the register, you might be tempted to say, “Oh, for heavens sake…why are they so short handed. I have other things I have to do and this is stupid.” The speaker suggests that we should take a different tack because all our huffing and puffing doesn’t change a darn thing. So have fun. You could say to yourself…”it appears I will be here until Thanksgiving. I wonder if that outdoor furniture over there would help on Turkey Day. Would it seat 6? How would the wine glasses fit?” Admittedly it was funnier when she said it because of her verbal delivery. The point is well made and well taken. Lighten up and find the funny. It truly is all around us.
As we were returning from the Green Dog Organic Health Food Store, Rayman made bedroom eyes at me. So I thanked him for warning me and giving me ample time to come up with an airtight excuse. TMI? Perhaps. But it was a funny conversation. We both laughed.
Another thing I learned was the difference between surprise and suspense. Surprise on the golf course would be chipping in the ball for a birdie. Suspense is when you are lying 6 in the fairway and wonder if your next shot will get over the water. Now, suppose you aren’t a golfer. Surprise is if a man sits down at his desk and a bomb goes off under the desk. Suspense is if the reader knows there is a bomb under the desk. The man sits down…suspense is automatically created unless that person is, say, Hitler. In Hitler’s case, you would hope the bomb would go off negating the suspense. Or in Hitler’s case, you know he didn’t die this way because you are an esteemed reader of history and so no suspense is forthcoming at all. Unless it is a Coen movie. Or a Tarrantino movie. And the way I deftly moved from writing to movie was not a switch a bait…every movie is written, afterall.
We, the conferees listened and learned all these tricks of the trade on Zoom. And by some weird twist of fate, no matter if I got on line before the session started or mid-session….I was always in the far left top corner, usually next to the speaker. This rendered me somewhat unnerved. All those people couldn’t help but see me. It’s like sitting in the front pew Zoom style. Don’t know how it happened but it did. Every time. Of course, the fact that I was in the top left also gave me a sense of being in the right place politically speaking. Far left. Top of far left. While I was not asked my political affiliations, perhaps they instinctively knew. Nah. It was just one of those things that required me to comb my hair before signing on.
There are so many talented people and they made the conference very informative and entertaining. Sometimes, however, the speaker would be upstaged by a fluke of digital proportions. All of a sudden, the Hollywood Squares format on Zoom would stop, and one of the conferees would be the only person you could see as the speaker spoke. And this lead to some embarrassing moments for these folks. We had a woman in the afternoon session that got looped on gin and tonic and then cried. One got caught feeding her dog. Another laying on her couch. Ah, Zoom. It makes for some moments, doesn’t it?
We watched some movie clips. One was Lucille Ball and Ethel at the candy factory. As many times as I have seen it, I was left snorting with laughter. That was one time I muted myself. It was uproarious. That was the class where the leader told us that the funniest stuff is people caught in the situation of being human. And somehow getting caught in the act of being human leads to death…not directly. But I learned that everyone dies. Now that was a real revelation. Did you know that? And that somehow everything goes back to that because all art, it turns out is based upon death. As some of us with brains know, we know we will die and we spend our lives trying to come to grips with that central fact. And this was the session on Being Funny!!
The funny is when you tell the truth about people. For instance, you have an ordinary guy, struggling against insurmountable odds while lacking talent. Aah, ha. That explains my funny blogs…Rayman fits the bill! Fang filled the bill for Phylis Diller. Okay. I got it.
So, your assignment today is to find something funny…or as I do, lots of things that are funny. They are all around us if we just take the time to notice.
Please report back on your assignment results. They should be a scream!!
Writing the SHIP
Today I purchased something I never knew I needed until I signed up for The Writer’s Conference that will be presented this year, not in person, but on Zoom. The organizers said I really needed a selfie light and I really believe them. Of course, I’m just learning this today and the conference starts tomorrow and after an extensive search on the internets, nothing can be delivered until Saturday, the last day of the conference,…but I ordered it anyway, because we zoom twice a week and it might help going forward because who the heck knows when it will ever again be safe to be with people in person sans mask and at least 6 feet apart.
Really, peeps, this is so old, so aggravating, so exasperating…so, so.
So? Well, I’m getting this disc of a light that clamps on to your computer, in my case, laptop so it makes me more lit up. I’m already lit up on oh, so many levels. My assumption is so are you.
Let’s see, what else is new? Oh, we took a drive yesterday to the beach. Cannon Beach where we walked on the beach, Beau ran on the beach. We gazed at the ocean and had meaningful talks. It really was a lovely day. The change of scenery lifted our spirits. We both recommend you escape the confines of your four walls and at least take a drive down a two lane road.
We decided we are going to do something differently. When we get back to California, we are going to play golf together once a week come hell or high water. Okay, forget the high water. “Just golfing in the rain…getting soaking wet”. This refrain should be sung to the tune of “Just Walking in the Rain”. Rain while golfing is not my thing. Golfing in the rain is not my thing. It is just downright uncomfortable. Which is leading me to the thinking that I should stop walking the golf course in “iffy” weather. Or stop walking the golf course at all. It slays me when I see young guys in carts. How is that a thing? They look abled bodied and I’m pretty sure I can afford it more than they can. However, they ride. So, maybe I should start riding. If I play a course that has huge amounts of real estate between green to tee, I ride. I ride in tourneys. I ride at resorts because they demand it. But I’m torn. A good walk is a good walk. And my Uncle Ralph keeps me wanting to walk. He rode his bike up the steep roads until he was 85. A little walk to nothing compared to that. Anyway, I keep fighting myself on this and I don’t know who will prevail.
We are going to stop spending so much time on our gadgets…iphones, ipads, laptops. We just watched Social Dilemma and it was just excellent. It describes the problem social media has wrought on us people of the entire world. it advocates for solutions by the very smarty pantses that created it all…like, one guy that will not allow his kids on social media at all until they are old enough to understand the real implications. Pretty drastic for a creator of our world order. So, we will spend less time doing FB, Twitter, et al. The exception for me is my writing . I really love to write. It is on my laptop. You can watch it on Netflix. Really, really thought provoking.
As most of you know I’ve been writing a book for years. It started as a cookbook with stories and has now morphed into a book about my family. Now, when I really look at it I wonder if I should continue. It feels like a job and I’m opposing to working on general grounds! So, I’m spending some time noodling through that.
It’s raining here in Portland as I write. Love, soft rain. Our air is clear. All is well. Counting our blessings.
It is now time to leave the house and drive to Costco to get gas. They pump for you so it’s easy peasy. It’s a way to break up the day. To get us off our gadgets and our duffs. To drink in some fresh air and such. This is the big activity of the day. Gassing up….until 5 p.m. when we have our evening cocktail time before dinner. That will be our second gassing up. We both feel so good at 5 p.m. It really is the highlight of the day when the only thing you do is get gas for entertainment.
Hope you are all finding ways to cope. And stay safe. And take care!!
Kitchen Kapers
But I digress.
The kids were playing corn holes and squealing in delight whenever the bean bag went in. They never looked up except to look at us so we could clap at their performance. As this was transpiring, I asked Kristen, Sue’s youngest daughter, if she would like me to bake each twin a cake like I did last year. “Well, I talked to the kids and they put in a request for a dinosaur cupcake pull-apart cake, color with turquoise, and with “confetti inside”.
I didn’t know there was such a thing so I said, “Sure. I can try it.” She showed me some pictures on the google machine.
What was I thinking? I took one decorating class at Diablo Jr. College in the 90s and was flabbergasted to learn that those beautiful roses and intricate icing creations were made partially from Crisco shortening. I dropped the class. Crisco? Who uses Crisco anymore…it is beyond unhealthy? If roses were made of hydrogenated fats, I could live without them. This kid will stick to buttercream icing or glazes or…well, anything but Crisco. I prefer bacon fat over Crisco.
OH, there I go again.
On Labor Day and Tuesday, I planned my attack for the project. Since my cupcake pans are in Morro Bay, I borrowed my cousin’s. Then I tried to find YouTube instructions, written instructions for dinosaur cupcake pull-apart cakes. There were very few. One woman on YouTube was a hoot. She was so chirpy, “Hi, I’m XYZ and I’m here today to show you how to make dinosaur cupcake pull-apart cake. Kids love them.” She smiled profusely and as she segued into the instruction, the camera man caught her doing a lips up to down maneuver…it reminded me of Melania and Ivanka at the RNC. And then she was off to the races. Way too fast, not enough detailed info. The article I found, and there may have only been one, was better but still lacking for me, the dinosaur cupcake pull-apart cake novice. I saw two possibilities. I googled bakeware shops. Actually found one south or Portland in the burbs…Tigard, OR. So, given we live in the age of Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table, restaurant supply outfits, and Amazon, I was beyond amazed to find a well-stocked store that had more that I needed by a mile. Oh, and who can forget Kitchen Kaboodle. It’s a big cookware and home furniture store that lives only in the NW. I purchased food coloring, a box to transport the cake, colored tin foil that Rayman taped on to the flat board they have for such a job. The cake was biggish and needed something more than the bottom of a turned over cake pan, for instance. Old trick that looks, unglamorous. So, the flat board was my first requirement. I also bought two tips for applying the frosting and passed on the pastry bags…it was just one project. Food coloring was required. Eyes were purchased. A 6-pack of half eye balls, a tiny package of string licorice (for the mouth). That may have been it. Oh, cupcake liners…can’t forget the cupcake liners.
Once inside the bakeware shop, I picked the brain of the masked blonde woman behind the counter. She knew her stuff. She also knew the merchandise. I was full of questions. She had the answers. She even reminded me to put a bit of frosting on the bottom of the cupcake so it would stick and the cupcakes wouldn’t get out of wack, a technical term used in the trade.
We then hit the grocery store on the way home and I bought everything I needed except the butter. Good grief. FORGOT the butter. The cupcakes and the frosting were all butter, or so it seemed. Sometimes, I do not know where my mind goes. On vacation? Taking a break? Lost in space? No butter. It would be like forgetting the lightbulb when you bought a new lamp. Or forgetting to put bubble bath in your bubble bath. Who takes a bath anymore in CA? We don’t have the water.
That was on Tuesday.
Today, Wednesday, was party day. I had to perform. The heat was on. No, really, the heat was on at 350 degrees. I brilliantly selected a vanilla cupcake recipe that couldn’t be doubled so I had to prep everything in double. Made one batch and then the other…and I learned as I went that it was just as well, doing it twice. I only had so many cupcake pans. Dumb luck. So I had two bowls of dry ingredients, two of wet ingredients and two bowls of egg whites with vanilla. I don’t know how it happened, but I didn’t screw up the cupcakes. So, then the icing. Rayman went to the store for more butter. 1 c. unsalted butter, 590 to 840 grams of powdered sugar, 2 tsp. vanilla, 1/4 tsp. Salt and whole milk (1/2 c.). Beat to a pulp. Made it nice and smooth. Didn’t screw that up either. In both cases, I had recipes.
The cupcakes once cooled, required surgery. I had to drill out a 1-in. Hole with a sharp knife, pull it out, and dump sugar sprinkles into the hole, and then recap the hole. There were 22 cupcakes. With that done, the actually frosting could be applied. I had no idea if the icing I had made was enough of do the job. They said it would cover an 8-in. Two layer cake.
Ezgi showing us the sprinkles of her cupcake.
So, I took a wild leap, made a management decision, and moved some of the frosting into one bowl (maybe a scan fourth). I had two colors with no directions to follow, I was just SWAGing it it. SWAG stands for Scientific Wild Ass Guess…it is a technical term from the 60s, and as I consider its derivation, I come to the sudden realization that SWAG is the precursor to LOL etc. And so is SNAFU. Okay, this is crazy…SNAFU has been around since Christ was in the army. Ultimately, everything old is new again.
But I digress.
How much coloring should I use? Decided on 3 shakes of the teal food coloring. But I decided to add two more. Looked good. Going in slow is often a good tactic in life. Once I did that, I found a picture of a dinosaur cupcake put-apart cake on the google machine and tried to mimic the same layout. At this point the rubber meets the road. Applying the goop.
The lady in the store mentioned that I should buy a number 10 tip for the cupcake tops, and a #6 tip for the stand-up scales on the spine of the dino. She told me to snip the corner of a storage zip-loc bag and insert the #10 into the hole, load the bag and apply it in a concentric ring starting on the inside and moving to the outside. Here is a picture of me trying to do that.
My mistake was cutting too big of a snip and the #10 went right thru the bag. Not wanting to ruin another zip-loc. I made another attempt on the other corner of the same bag and what do you know…it worked…for awhile until somehow the frosting started emerging from the big hole and the #10 tip at the same time. OMG. This is when I discovered that the #10 tip was a silly idea. I whooped up the frosting emerging from the first hole and slammed it onto a cupcake. I’m here to tell you that it was just as good an application as the other. Of course, this was long into the process but it reminded me of when scientists discover things by error. I think 3M stickums were a mistake.
It was sorta like that.
Anyway, after you gruelingly apply the frosting thru the the #10 tip, you then take an off-set spreader, and smooth the icing. By this time there is teal frosting everywhere. On the kitchen counter. On the spreader, on Rayman, on the chair…I’m sure some must have gotten on the chair. But the mission was going along okay. It vaguely looked like the body of a dinosaur. It had a tail, a head, and a neck goiter. And then I applied an eye and a mouth. Then I applied some mini chocolate chips for the claws and visual interest down the tail. I was disappointed but determined not to throw it in the trash.
Then I moved on to the #6 slant tip. That made more sense because it was suppose to form a tip at the tip. I used 2 and then another drop of the food coloring which was named…electric yellow. This time I used a smaller zip-loc, loaded the bag and did my thing without any further instruction from what I had received from the blonde lady with the mask at the well stocked bakeware store. It didn’t look good at all. But by this time, the party was too close to run out and buy a cake as a replacement. So, it was complete.
At this point a few more observations. Don’t do this unattended. Rayman was vital. He opened the bag for loading, he gave me his opinion on a few things and they were all helpful except when he suggested I put my spatula where the sun did not shine…I’m kidding, he didn’t say that. He did the most shocking thing of all…he took a picture of me when I wasn’t looking. He never does that except that time in the bedroom. He took the picture without my asking. That’s like your husband bringing flowers for Valentine’s Day without being reminded, say.
“It’s coming out of the other hole”.
Kept on going.
When I told my cousin that her daughter had asked me if I could do this cake and I accepted, Sue said, “And you agreed to that?” I fell on my sword by saying, “Well, there’s not a lot going on…it gives me something to do for the kids.”
Well, as unaccomplished at the cake looked, the kids loved it. They didn’t notice it was teal, not aqua. They didn’t notice the goiter. The yellow things on the back of the dinosaur didn’t bother them either. I think they loved it.
Queuing up for cake.
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