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March 4, 2006

Beuhler?

How many skeletons can you fit in one closet, anyway?

Okay. I'll admit. This is my third cheater blog in a row. I'm a loser. But, I'm revising the WIP (official title: THE QUILT READER, releasing February 2007 from NAL, first chapter coming soon!) this weekend to go to my editor on Monday and once I do that, I'm all YOURS, Literary Chick Readers. It's gonna be all about YOU. I promise.

But for now, I'm cheating. I'm poaching what turned out to be a very popular blog I wrote some three years ago. I'm posting it here because I think many of our readers can relate (except maybe Beth, who can substitute with "Dog-Mom of the Yeeaaaarrrrrrrrrrr...") and because I'd like to hear all your Mother of the Yeeeaaaaarrrrrrrrrr stories. Come on, you know you have one.

So, without further ado...

Originally posted on March 27th, 2003, on Time Out, Lani's old blog, now-defunct because Literary Chicks is so much better:

Note: Some names have been changed to reflect the current pseudonym structure, but other than that, this is exactly as I wrote it back then.

Last September, my best friend Tracy came for a visit. We spent every day, dawn till dusk and well into the night, talking, eating, talking, drinking, talking, smoking... I believe I've set the scene. On one particular day, it was about 2 o'clock, both the kids were napping, and I didn't think it would be too awful for me to pour a couple of G&T's, sneak out to the porch with Tracy, and have a cigarette. I mean, kids were sleeping, what's the harm?

So we're out there, smoking, drinking, taking a brief fantasy detour into believing we were 21 again, having an afternoon break. I get two sips down and a couple of drags on the cigarette, and I see the blinds moving behind me. I look, and there's Sweetness, who had apparently woken from her nap. She climbed up on the back of the couch and had shoved the hanging blinds aside to press her face to the window and see Mommy. I put the drink down and dumped the cigarette and waved back at her, saying to Tracy, "I'm Mother of the Yeeeeaaarrrrrrrr!!!"

It's quickly become an inside joke. Every time I screw up, or do something badly, or am just stupid, I finalize my failure with a big grin and a declaration of myself as Mother of the Yeeeeaaarrrrrrrr. So let me tell you about Sweetness's birthday yesterday...

I'd asked Fish the night before to run out to the store and get cake pans and cake mix. Which he did. But instead of getting regular rinky dink cake pans, he got big, serious, spring-loaded cake pans. Me, being culinarily challenged, didn't realize that bigger means you have to put more mix in, so I only made one box worth of mix, divided it between the two cake pans and put them in the oven on two different racks.

About thirty minutes later, when I realized I'd forgotten to turn on the timer for 26 minutes, I rush out and pull the pans out of the oven. The top one is done. The bottom one, however, is burned on one side about 2/3 of the way in, and then, predominantly uncooked for the rest. It is a crescent-shaped abnormality, reflecting perfectly the position of the cake pan above it. I consulted a friend about this, and she says that even though I had both cake pans in at the same time (which I assumed was my mistake) they should have both cooked okay. I eyed the crescent shaped deformity and begged to differ, but, since it didn't matter, put it back in to further burn/cook for another five minutes.

After an hour or so, I went to the cooled cake and tried to pop it out of the spring-loaded, nonstick cake pans, which I'd covered with non-stick spray. Funny thing, they stuck. They both stuck. It's possible that the naive combination of nonstick pans with non-stick spray actually creates adhesive. You know, like two negatives making a positive. I don't really know, though, because as I said, I'm culinarily challenged.

Now, a little sticking wouldn't be a big problem if it wasn't for the fact that each cake, at their highest point, was maybe a half-inch thick, and maybe a couple of centimeters on the burnt edges. There was no filling in with icing. These cakes were, quite literally, toast.

I spent the afternoon grabbing unburnt chunks of cake, spreading frosting on them like butter, and cheating on the whole cake thing with Sweetness. I took one big chunk, lathered it up, used the decorative icing to draw a "4" on it, and stuck four candles in. It was pathetic. So of course, being the scrapbooker that I am - or intend to be, I take a thousand pictures for scrapbooks and about twelve of them have actually made it into a book - I start taking pictures. Pictures of the pathetic cake bits, lying on a plate in despondent chunks. Pictures of the sad pseudo-salvage candle cake, which definitely serves the purpose of giving us a place to stick the candles. Snap, snap, snap the pictures, done with the roll, Sarah's waiting for her candles so she can open her presents, Adam gets the presents, I'm still looking for my store of film, Sarah oohs and ahhs over the pooh-bear wrapping paper, I'm still looking for the film.... which I was sure I had.... stored here somewhere.... rolls and rolls and rolls of it....

So, I now have a roll full up with pictures of my pathetic cake and none of Sweetness opening presents on her 4th birthday. Luckily, this weekend, we'll be down at my in-laws' for another celebration. I'm tempted to futz with the burned-in date on my camera so that, when I'm old and senile enough, I can look back on those scrapbooks (which I will make someday) and possibly forget that I am Mother of the Yeeeeaaarrrrrrrr....

So. What's your Mother of the Yeeaaaaarrrrrrrr story? Let's hear 'em! I can't be alone, right?

Right?

Anyone?

Beuhler?

Posted by Lani at 7:20 AM | Comments (6)

Comments

Posted by: Eileen at March 5, 2006 1:41 PM

Posted by: Michelle C at March 6, 2006 6:10 AM

Posted by: Lani at March 6, 2006 6:20 AM

Posted by: Lani at March 6, 2006 6:23 AM

Posted by: Lani at March 6, 2006 6:23 AM

Posted by: Michelle C at March 6, 2006 9:44 AM