August 2008 Archives

On Friday morning I carefully packed the frozen wedding cake into my enormous cooler, padded it with just about every single ice pack Target had in stock, tucked in some spare frosting, and delivered it to someone who was driving up to Massachusetts for the wedding. “It’s out of my hands now!” I declared to anyone who would listen, although the truth was that I was still worried.

On Saturday morning I got up at 4:30 am, showered, informed Seamus that no, we were not going for our walk yet, kissed my sleepy husband goodbye, and hit the road for the airport. Getting up and doing anything that early in the morning is on par with completing a Herculean task for me. I was so very pleased with myself when I pulled into the parking lot at Dulles at 5:58 am for my 7 am flight. Sidenote: This was the first time I've flown without checking baggage since all those liquids rules went in to effect. I was shocked when I realized how small a quart sized bag is. I have curly hair, dammit. I can't use any old shampoo or conditioner, and I need my hair gels and potions. Those do not fit in a quart size bag. So I not only got up at 4:30 am -- I did my hair before I left the house!

Anyway, I landed in Boston and picked up my rental car and took custody of the cake back. I love going to Boston and getting all nostalgic. As I headed up to Rockport, I passed the exits for: my old house in Somerville, the place in Medford where my friends and I spent portions of our senior year of college being degenerates and the reservoir where we used to take our dogs, my grandma’s old house in Wakefield, Peabody, where my Aunt Sally lives now, and Ipswich, where she used to live. Whole chapters of my life played out in those towns, and it makes me happy to reconnect with them, if only by yelling “Hi, Aunt Sally!” as I drove past her exit off of 128.

I’m very pleased to say that the cake survived the ride up to Boston. The freezing and thawing process went ok. And I was successful at thawing the frozen frosting and using it to assemble the tiers and decorate the cake. It totally came out looking like a real wedding cake! See:

Then all I had to do was worry about whether or not the cake would actually taste good. And it did! If I were to make it again (not likely) I’d try to make the strawberry layer a little thicker, but it wasn’t dry, it wasn’t soggy, it didn’t taste like it had been frozen, and it wasn’t stale. Yippee!

The wedding itself was lovely. Jules's dad lives in a state park, and they had the wedding in his yard. It was gorgeous -- sunshine but not too hot, with flowers everywhere. Jules and Mike wrote their own vows, which always makes me cry. And my friend Julie and her husband Mark and their adorable kids were there, which was both awesome and a welcome surprise.

The only drawback was the mosquitos, which were everywhere. I'm so thrilled that two people who so clearly belong together are together. As Julie said in our completely off the cuff toast (because we didn't know we'd be making one!) pretty much as long as we've known Jules, no matter who she was with, or what she was doing, Mike was there, lurking at the back of her heart. May they have a long and happy life together.

The happy couple cutting their cake:

The tall blue cooler in the background that some woman is opening is the infamous cake transport cooler.

I had a blast. It was totally worth all the hard work I put in to the cake, totally worth getting up at 4:30 in the morning, and fun all around.

Now let us never speak of wedding cakes again.

I have a digital camera that is at least five years old. In digital terms, that's practically from the Pleistocene era. Lately I've been having trouble where at least half of my photos are coming out poorly. This is because the camera now takes forever to figure out the light levels and then set off the flash. A bunch of my photos from my college reunion didn't come out because people thought they had taken a photo when they hadn't. And then there's all the pictures where people are making weird faces because they had to wait and wait and wait some more for the camera to actually take the photo. It kind of defeats the purpose of taking pictures.

I researched it, and apparently this is something that happens with Canons when they get older. So, ok, perhaps it is time for me to get a new camera. Do you like your camera? Would you recommend it?

As I mentioned earlier, my friend Jules asked me to bake her wedding cake. The practice cake I made was a lot of work, but in the end, pretty manageable and kind of delicious. The actual cake is turning out to be a different story. Should you ever consider making a wedding cake, please, please take a moment to listen to my advice here. When the moment comes that your friend asks you to bake their wedding cake, tell them, honestly, that you are honored they want you to play a part in their wedding. Explain how flattered you are that they think so highly of your baking skills. Then look your friend/sibling/cousin directly in the eyes…

...and offer to do a reading. Hell, offer to pay for a baker to make the cake. But whatever you do, resist the urge to say you’ll make the cake yourself.

Before I start to tell the saga of the cake, I want to make it clear that I do not harbor any resentment toward my friend. She doesn’t bake very much, and I’m sure she had no idea what she was asking me to do. I bake all the time and I had no idea what I was getting into with this cake. I had to buy equipment, because I did not have the right sized pans. I had to buy supplies. Lots and lots of eggs and butter and cake flour and sugar. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time stressing out about this cake and how it is going to get up to Boston safely. I have spent even more time actually making this cake. It is currently taking up two shelves in my refrigerator. I had to bake it ahead of time because the steps are so time consuming, but I’m terrified that I’ll be serving stale, dry cake on Saturday. Stale dry cake that is going up there unassembled and only partially decorated because supposedly it will travel better that way.

Then I’m going to do a quick assemble and decorate up there. In a strange kitchen, under a deadline. No pressure though. And that’s if the whole thing doesn’t disintegrate during the 8 hour drive up to Boston. I bought the biggest cooler I’ve ever seen, so hopefully it will stay cold, but to say I’m anxious is a mild understatement. Seriously, I now truly understand the meaning of the word “agita,” which previously was just something they said on the Sopranos.

Now, if you’ve read all of that and are still determined to try making a wedding cake on your own, I highly recommend that you read this book: Wedding Cakes You Can Make by Dede Wilson. It has been invaluable. Then learn from my mistakes.

1) Do not agree to make a cake that has to be transported 500 miles on a Friday night for a Saturday wedding. Particularly if you have to work all week.

2) Do plan ahead, which I tried very hard to do.

3) But plan for mistakes to happen. Buy extra eggs, cake flour and butter. You can thank me later. I think I went to the grocery store five times this weekend.

4) You’ll need more frosting than you think you will.

5) Believe the lady in the book when she says that your egg whites must be at room temperature.

6) Plastic wrap is your friend.

7) There is no shame in deciding (after having a tier completely disintegrate on you) that you don’t need to torte the cakes. Two layers per tier is enough, dammit.

8) Try to remember that it is supposed to be fun. Slap some frosting on the tiers that totally stuck to the cake pan and terrify your friend by emailing it to her as part of a progress report on her cake.

It's delightful, no?

I've had to bake the 6 inch tiers twice, I had a 12 inch tier completely fall apart on me (requiring more baking), and there was an incident with the meringue buttercream. There's still a chance this will all be ok in the end, but it is going to require an act of Congress or a request from the queen to get me to agree to bake a wedding cake ever again.

I have been a purse buying tear over the last year and a half. I went from not buying any for years to suddenly racking up a total of seven. It started somewhere around the time that I made this purchase.

After I bought that bag, Coach kept sending me coupons. So I bought a couple more purses – they do come in so many different and pleasing colors and styles – and a wallet. And then I picked up this out of season Kate Spade bag I’d always liked on eBay. This spring I made my slightly tipsy assertion in Vegas that I was going to go gamble and win money so I could buy a Louis Vuitton purse. Well, I never did win any money. Gambling is just not fun for me. At one point, bored and bitter after my flight got delayed I was actually up about $17 on the slots at the airport, but $17 isn’t getting me any purses. Actually eBay came through again there, and I acquired a Cabas Piano bag that I absolutely love. It is the perfect size, shape and weight purse. Seriously, if that thing ever wears out, I’m buying another one. That’s how much I love it.

Lately I’ve been eyeing an absolutely adorable red patent leather LAMB bag. I’ve wanted something red patent leather for a while. I could never quite justify spending money on shoes though, because really, how much use am I going to get out of red patent leather shoes? A bag, however...

So I watched it for a while. Then I found out my friend Laila had bought the exact bag I wanted, but in green. She loved hers. Still, I waited. I was very disappointed in Nordstrom for not including it in their Half-Yearly sale. I even dragged poor Becky in to my obsession with this bag. Which is why, when she got a coupon from Bloomingdales today for a 15% discount and free shipping, she immediately sent it my way. And I pounced. My new bag arrives on Monday!

But that is it. I am done with buying purses for a good long while. I have enough. I have more than enough! In fact, I just remembered I bought a clutch to take to England with me, which brings my total up to eight.

There are two exceptions to this rule, which I will lay out ahead of time.

1) Should I actually ever get knocked up, I reserve the right to spend a ridiculous amount of money (ridiculous to be defined by me) on a diaper bag

2) In the extremely unlikely event that I get invited to a fancy shindig, I may need to buy an evening bag

Aside from that though, I am publicly declaring a purse moratorium. You all heard me. I'll just have to find something else to blow money on. Or perhaps I'll try this newfangled thing I've heard about called "not spending money on fripperies."

I just took Excedrin PM in an attempt to defeat this sinus headache that has been plaguing me all weekend, so I have about half an hour until I can no longer keep my eyes open. I’ll try to type fast. It’s always the sinuses on the right side of my face that give me trouble. The left ones are very well behaved, but the right ones have a serious attitude problem. I’ve had about enough of their nonsense, let me tell you.

Anyway, I went grocery shopping this afternoon. First I went to the organic market, which was strangely crowded, short staffed and out of some stuff I wanted like peppers and blueberries. So then I went to the regular grocery store, which was also really busy, although better staffed. Not only was there just one register open at the organic market (although to her credit, the poor cashier kept paging other people to come up to the front of the store, and they kept ignoring her) but the guy in front of me in line said his wife had his wallet, but she was in the bathroom. Then she finally came out of the bathroom, and she didn’t have his wallet. And she didn’t have her wallet, so they sent one of the kids out to the car. Luckily for me, at that point the cashier suspended their sale and rang me up. I was trying to be gracious and patient, but what I wanted to say was “get your shit together, losers!” Part of me wondered if it was some sort of scam, but I think maybe I’ve just watched too many episodes of Hustle.

Now, at the organic market I have reusable bags to use, and they give me a 10 cent credit per bag. The Giant and Whole Foods also encourage you to get the reusable grocery bags, and I think they’ll give you a credit too. My question is, is it rude or somehow bad form to use a reusable bag from another grocery store? I can’t help but wonder if the Giant people would give me the evil eye for using a Whole Foods bag. If they truly care about the environment, that would be one thing, but I think they really just want to sell me their reusable bags. Would you use one store’s bag at another store? Discuss in the comments, please!

I’ve been busy. Busy and tired, which does not lend itself to good blog writing. But now here I am, back and ready to rock.

Let’s see…

The great ant invasion of 2008 seems to have abated. John discovered there was a lot of activity under the sink, so we concentrated our efforts there, which made a difference. Let’s hope our many-legged friends stay away.

Also, my poison ivy/insane bug bites/itchy arm plague finally went away. My left arm is now a little dry and scaly, but on the road to recovery.

Last week’s kickboxing class was taught by a sub. A sub who almost killed Becky and me. My legs were so sore that I practically fell over when I got out of bed on Friday morning. Tonight’s kickboxing class was taught by the usual guy, and it was so much fun! It was still a workout, but neither one of us felt ready to keel over at the end. I was sure the guy totally hated me at first, but he turned out to be really nice. We kicked, we jabbed, we punched, we stomped. I’m kind of a girly puncher, but a pretty darn good kicker. I also got confused about which hand I should be punching with when, but I’m hopeful I’ll catch on with practice.

In other news, I made a wedding cake. My friend Jules got married last December. Now she and her husband are having a party for her family, and she asked me if I would make the cake. I’m a good baker, but a wedding cake is a whole different story. My cakes are usually delicious, but decorating is not my strong suit. Plus, wedding cakes are BIG. So last weekend I baked a practice cake. I didn’t make the entire cake, but I made two tiers. Check out the before photo with the huge pile of pre-baking ingredients.

It took me all weekend to bake, no exaggeration. By the end of the weekend I totally exhausted and passed out on couch at 9 p.m, right in the middle of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is a high-energy show. At times I was convinced the cake would be a complete disaster, but it came out ok in the end. The cake was delicious, and not too ugly. I do now know that my wedding cake was worth every single penny I paid for it, and perhaps more. Jules’s cake will be a 3 tier strawberry vanilla buttercream cake, which is the top tier of the cake you see here on my practice cake.

The bottom layer was a lemon cake with raspberry filling, but the strawberry was everyone's favorite. So it will be a very tall, white on white cake with strawberries inside. Hopefully it will make it to Boston in one piece for the party.

I also seem to have inadvertently started a rumor at work that I have a wedding cake business on the side, because I put the leftover cake out for my co-workers to eat. I suppose the baking gets easier with more experience, but there's no way I could do this as a sideline. I like having a weekend!

Becky and I have been talking about trying a kickboxing class forever, but for one reason or another, we never ever made it to one. Until tonight, that is. Holy moly, what a good workout! She and I both exercise pretty regularly – Becky way more so than me to be fair – and we both struggled to keep up with the instructor. Now, the woman tonight was a sub for the usual guy, so I don’t know what the class will be like next week. We will most definitely go back for more though. I guess this is why they say you should keep changing your exercise routine. I think I’ve discovered new sets of muscles that I’ve never used before.

One of the people on my team at work had been to this kick boxing class, and she told me it didn’t involve much cardio. Right. The class started off with five straight minutes of jumping rope. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that I can’t actually jump rope. That requires WAY more coordination than I have. I had to put the rope down and pretend. Whatever. Plenty of other people got tangled up in the rope, so I think I did more reps in than they did. Then we had to do this fast shuffle in a big circle while jabbing with three pound weights. For some reason, I kept ending up next to the instructor, who could shuffle way faster than I could. And then going in a circle made me dizzy. Yes, I’m a model of fitness. Apparently jogging around the outside of the circle is also acceptable, so I did that when I got too dizzy. There was also kicking and punching (naturally) and balancing on a big ball, and lunging and kicking and this thing where Becky had to run while dragging me and then I had to run while dragging her.

At one point, the teacher looked over at us and said “You two are kind of quiet. Are you getting a good workout” as we stood there, red faced with sweat pouring off our bodies, looking at her like she was insane. New rule for any class that may require partner work, as this one did. Make sure you have a friend with you, or you could end up sweating all over some stranger. And being sweated on by them, too. I thought I did ok at the kicking (probably due to all of those years of ballet) but less good with the punching. The abs section at the end was also killer, and I think I have pretty decent core strength. Not decent enough!

Still, I love a good workout. I know, when the hell did I turn into that person? Let’s all just hope I can walk tomorrow!

I “went” three very different places this weekend. First, I visited Gotham by watching the Dark Knight. Then I took a little jaunt to Belgium through In Bruges. And finally, I attended the wedding of Bella and Edward in Forks, WA by reading Breaking Dawn. Three very different stories, but each one really good in its own way.

I’m a Batman fan. Always have been, always will be, so you might wonder if I am biased in favor of the Dark Knight. Not necessarily. I didn’t like Batman Begins all that much. I thought it was way too long, and very slow paced. As I recall, I fell asleep for a bit in the middle, and I can’t even remember exactly how it ended. Wayne Manor blew up or something, which I recall mostly because they reference it in the Dark Knight.

Well, the Dark Knight is much, much better. It’s still too long, but the actors are great and the story works. I definitely prefer Maggie Gyllenhal in the Rachel Dawes role. Gary Oldman is fabulous as per usual, it’s always nice to see Michael Caine and Heath Ledger…he’s the perfect Joker. His portrayal got it just right. The Joker doesn’t really care about anything. Not the money he steals, not the people he terrorizes, nothing. He just likes to stir up trouble and he does plenty of that in the Dark Knight.

Christian Bale is fine, but the movie isn’t really about Batman. The Joker is the star of the story, along with D.A. Harvey Dent. Batman is just the catalyst. In fact, it is the Batman-centric piece of the story where he goes to Hong Kong and does some fancy techno-bat stuff while snatching up a crimelord who has to be returned to Gotham that I thought could have been cut to move the story along faster. I guess it gave them the chance to do a Mission Impossible type action scene, but I felt it was unnecessary. Overall, it was a highly satisfying movie, and it gets the Penguin seal of approval.

In Bruges was a complete change of pace. I owe thanks to the guy I heard review it on the radio a couple of months ago, because I hadn’t heard a peep about it. The studio really fell down on the job promoting it, which is a shame, because it may be my favorite movie I’ve seen this year. Even with the review I was expecting a slightly different story than what I got. I thought it was a British gangster/caper movie. It is a movie about British gangsters, but there is no caper.

It is a movie about consequences and responsibility. Two hit men get sent to Bruges at Christmastime to hide out after a hit gone wrong. Their boss books them in a hotel for two weeks and tells them to wait for his call. Half the cast of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is in this movie, making me wonder if they all got together on set or something, and said wow, look at this kick-ass script. Ralph Fiennes is the gangster boss. Brendan Gleeson (Mad Eye Moody) is one of the hit men, and my former pretend celebrity boyfriend Colin Farrell plays the other hit man. Keep doing movies like this one, Colin, and our non-existent fake romance could be back on. Clemence Poesy (Fleur Delacour) plays Chloe, a local girl Colin’s character hooks up with.

The movie is beautifully shot – moments of quiet and stillness mingling with dreaminess and terror. Seriously, John and I are ready to schedule a stop in Bruges on our next trip to Europe, and I’ve never had any intention of going to Belgium before. It’s a sad story, but also surprisingly funny, and it has just the right ending. Not happy, but right. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

And then there was Breaking Dawn. I am not quite so far fallen as to have gone to the midnight release party at Barnes & Noble, but I did pick up a copy of the book on Saturday morning. Not that there's anything wrong with the people who did go! The book got off to a great start, diving right in to Bella and Edward’s wedding, which sounded lovely. The honeymoon sounded awfully spectacular too. Who wouldn’t want to go to a private island off the coast of South America?

And then, well, then I was really worried the story had gone off track. I don’t want to give away details because I hate spoilers, but I was actually pretty disappointed in the direction I thought she was taking there for a while. That probably has something to do with me being a 37 year old at a place in my life that is completely different than where 99.5% of the target audience for these books is.

Then we got to the section narrated by Jacob, and I started feeling better. Edward is romantic and lovely, but Jacob is one of my favorite characters. Anyway, I should have had more faith in Stephenie Meyer, because in the end, it all came together in a way that left me quite happy. If you liked the first three books, I think you’ll like this one too. Edward fans will be happy and Jacob fans will be happy. I read somewhere that this is supposed to be the last book in the series, but a whole bunch of new and interesting characters got introduced, leaving the door open for more, at least in my mind. I’ll remain hopeful, anyway. If you write more, Stephenie, I’ll read ‘em!