The cookies took the cake.
7:38 p.m.
When Buddy Boy was about 11 years old, he got it into his head that he wanted to bake. He decided on peanutbutter cookies, and after I verified that we had the necessary ingredients in the house, he got to work and I left the room. They were terrible. They crumbled as soon as they were lifted off the sheet and placed on the rack to cool, and they tasted awful. I looked at the recipe and asked him, �What did you use for baking powder?� He answered, �The quantity in the recipe.� �No,� I insisted, �show me from the pantry what product you used.� He pulled out of the pantry not the baking powder, but the baking soda, as I had suspected. I said, �That�s not baking powder, but baking soda.� �What�s the difference?� he wanted to know. �Everything,� I assured him. He was so despondent, so thoroughly discouraged, that I had to tell him the following story.
When I was about 12 or 13, I wanted to make my mother a birthday cake. She was sick in bed with the flu, and I wanted to surprise her. So I followed a recipe and made a cake with one very serious substitution. Knowing that she was on a diet, I decided not to use sugar, but Sugar Twin, a product which the box assured me could be used for all my sugar needs. I knew nothing about how baking is really chemistry and sugar is an important ingredient for the correct reactions to take place. The cake did not rise properly and, more importantly, it tasted awful. I was devastated.
I went to my mom where she was sick in bed and I told her, through tears, how I had wanted to do something nice for her, and this was the result. She was probably very amused, but thankfully did not laugh at me. Instead she told me to quietly put the cake in the compost and use a mix she had in the cupboard for emergencies. This surely counted as one. At that point, we heard ambulance sirens in the distance, coming closer and then receding again. She said to me then, �Someone else is having a lot harder time of it than you are, honey.� That has always stayed with me, and I thought of it again when I saw the ambulance on the rugby field yesterday.
Buddy Boy and I drove downtown so he could drop off his application for a S.I.N. (he wants to get a summer job), but the government office closed at 4:00 p.m. and we were ten minutes too late. We headed up to the mall where we got him two pairs of jeans and a pair of jean shorts (I won�t let him cut down his perfectly good jeans into shorts, even though they�ve turned into �floods� because they still have enough life left in them to be given away to Goodwill or the diabetes people), and I bought myself a new purse (almost identical to my old one) and a pair of white summer dress sandals. This is the first such pair I have bought myself in over 20 years. It�ll probably be another 20 years before I buy another pair.
I also perused the Cliptomania website today, drooling over all the beautiful earrings that I could wear, considering I have never pierced my ears nor intend to do so. I am so tempted.
from krugerpak007 :
I say go for it. Pierce your ears! Enjoy the white sandals. My mom just sent me a pair now too which I love. And thanks for sharing the stories about the cakes. Take care and have a good weekend. xoxox
from zitagsd :
Yes, yes...pierce those lobes! It�s no big deal, you will survive! PS...I have definitely heard that cookie story before, and I am sure it is somewhere in your diary!
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