A murder of cake
As I was walking out to the trash with the turkey carcass, I got to thinking about an English wedding I attended. How did I get from turkey to wedding?
Well, at the wedding I noticed there was a tiny wedding cake, not nearly large enough to feed even a tenth of the people there. It seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. I could see that cake running out by the time the bridesmaids got their cut. That’s how small it was.
Then something peculiar happened. The newlyweds cut the cake, each had their ceremonial bite and put the rest on the table. Then. No one ate any more cake.
So I had to ask someone. What is the deal with the cake? Is a fake or something?
I was told it was indeed a real cake and I was very welcome to have some but I would likely spit it out, that’s how bad this cake was.
I went over and took a closer look. It was a freaky color, burnt orange or something like that. A rich fruit cake. Rich! They told me it was a tradition to serve it at weddings in England and no one ever eats it, but they do it because that is how it has always been done.
What a murder of cake.
Tradition sometimes just doesn’t make sense. And that brings us back to the turkey.
I hate turkey. The taste, the smell, and then the leftover meat that is wasted. I have decided I will never cook another one again. If someone insists on having it, I’ll cook a turkey breast. But no more full birds.
As for the English, what I find really funny is how beautiful their cakes are. Look at these I photographed through a bake shop window in York in 2005. I apologize for the quality of the photos.
I love that castle cake.
And the cute bears in a tub.
Oh, what a murder of cake photos…
Beginning of a Lifetime
The journey begins with a black ink footprint on a white sheet of paper.
This first signature declares “I am here.”
Teenaged aunts stare and touch those tiny toes in pure wonder. Hypnotized or mesmerized or both. They compare the tiny hand to theirs. How could it have ever been that small? Ever?
Such a Coward…
I’m feeling crappy today because of a dream I had last night that I just can’t shake. It’s one of my best dreams, cinematically. Character is what I have a problem with.
It starts out with me climbing hundreds of steps up a mountain. It’s a setting that looks like a mashup of The Temple of Doom and the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. Rope footbridges overlooking lush jungle growth around a marble cliffside. Beneath the foilage, five stories of heiroglyphs stamped into white marble.
There are other people like me with their cameras, but no one I know. It must be some sort of remote tourist attraction because there is a stand selling bottled water on the flat and dry mountaintop.
So I go up there for some water and while waiting in line, I spot this colossal vortex on the horizon. It appears as if half the world has folded into it already and it heads straight for us. Everyone scrams for cover except for me. I gotta get some video of this. The wind around me strengthens and I decide to go for cover. I run and run and look for a ditch but find an overpass looking thing. I hide until I hear the earth tremble and no longer feel safe.
More running.
I keep running until I get to a parked SUV. I open the door and get in with a car load of strangers. My heart is pounding, the tornado is almost upon us now, I feel safe, and the car starts when the driver turns the key.
I’ve saved myself AND I have some of the best storm footage ever recorded.
And then…
A little boy comes to the window and asks to come in. I’m about to let him in when, behind him, a crowd of people rush up, all wanting to get in. The others warn if I open the door they’ll mob handle the car and we will all die.
I can see it so clearly right now, my finger pushing down the lock of that door. Through the window I see the boy’s face pressed against the glass. I tell myself he is dead already.
Our car speeds off to safety.
Through the back window, I see the tornado suck up everything. First the boy and the people behind him, then the overpass, the wall of heiroglyphs, the water stand…
When the storm is gone and the sun is back out, we drive back to the scene which now looks like a landfill. News crews begin to pour in and one of the reporters asks if anyone has video of the tornado. I say I do, click some buttons on my camera, and guess what?
No tornado footage. Just video of people waiting in line for water.
Anticlimactic, yes?
I have dreams like this all the time where some big catastrophic event is coming. If there is an ending, I’m always the hero. But not this time. What a nightmare and I feel like such a coward even though it is just a dream.
Lash Crack
I’ve been seeing people with looooong loooooong eyelashes. Ridiculously long. So long I saw a lady getting hers cut at the salon next to me. I asked the hairdresser if something was wrong with her to have all this overgrowth.
Nothing wrong, she’s using one of those new lash products that grows them thicker and longer. I thought I might invest $150 bucks and do a special here, a product demonstration with some before and after pics.
Sound fun?
Okay, so I’m cheap. I couldn’t part with the hundred and fifty clams. I saw somewhere on facebook that a mom discovered how to mix two household ingredients to get longer lashes. Free. F-R-E-E free. So I clicked that link.
And I tried it.
Here’s the before shot:
After just one night, voila! Here is the after shot:
The unibrow (or eyesbrow, as Spanky calls it) is an unintended side effect. Must have smeared this stuff all over while sleeping.
So I shaved it all off and started fresh.
Wait, what the hell? My eyes turned brown? I’d better put some more of this stuff on and grow an eye fro before anyone notices…
That’s better.
But seriously. Ladies. Those ridiculously long freak lashes are horrible. I can understand if someone has short and thin lashes and wants to improve a little on Mother Nature. A little. But not eyelashes that keep knocking you in the eyebrows. It’s just too much.
It certainly isn’t worth a change in eye color, which is a real side effect of the prescription formula Latisse. Actually, it can cause patchy brown spots on light eyes, so not even a uniform color change.
What do you think?
Movember
You know all that pink stuff they sell to raise money for breast cancer awareness and research? I buy that stuff. I have pink everywhere. A pink jacket. Pink socks. The t-shirt. Pink kitchen scissors, two of them. I even have pink baking cups for cupcakes.
I’ve also eaten quite a few too many of the pink M&Ms.
So I wondered all this time what are the dudes going to come up with to raise money for their issues?
They chose the mustache. This month is Movemeber and the bros are going to grow them to raise money for prostate and testicular cancer research and awareness. Friends, family, coworkers, etc. sponsor them to grow it for the entire month and pay up if the participant went through Movember without shaving.
And just as dudes might not feel too welcome to support our cause by wearing pink ribbon things, dudettes might not feel too comfortable growing a ’stache. Nope, I’m not growing mine out, no way.
But my son Blane has joined, Yay! I’ve never seen him wear anything other than a fake mustache as a gag. I have no idea how bushy this thing could become, but I want to see it. I even bought him a present to encourage him. A fifteen inch long gummy snake. And a cat that craps jelly beans. He loves that sort of thing.
Now here’s the trouble. His baby is due November 30th. He says he is shaving it off when the baby is born, so if it’s born early, he’s going to have to pull out that stick-on mustache or do something to convince his sponsors that he really made it.
If you want to know more about this project go to Movember’s website which is partnering with Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong campaign. There is a cool video on there that lists the statistics for both cancers and other valuable information about the diseases.
You can watch that here:
For all you bros out there growing a flavor savor, this sista supports this important cause. Govember!
