The Saga of the Cake

Jul 28, 2007

so we were going to throw this surprise anniversary party for Ray and Kathy.  It was recently their 25th anniversary, and we think that deserves a party.

 

So we (Calvin, me, Kelly and Nikki, Kevin and Stacey) resolve to have this party.

We pick a date, a place, a menu and buy some decorations...all that good stuff.

I think it would be nice to have a cake.  A wedding cake.  Well, okay, an Anniversary Cake...but that's mostly the same thing.  Same cake, different topper. Right?

 

and I, in my brilliant innocence (innocent brilliance???), decide to get the cake from the Slaton Bakery because as we ALL know, Slaton Bakery is West Texas' best kept secret, and their cakes are to DIE for.  Honestly, best cake ever.

 

So we drive over to Slaton, and pick out a cake. It's well after this point that the logistics of transporting a wedding cake 100 miles on a July afternoon make me go 'hmmmm'.  But you know what?  I have a big truck.  There's room to sit the cake.  There's an air conditioner vent in the back of the truck.  No biggie.  Right?

 

right.

So we pick up the cake, and off we go.  Air conditioner blasting the whole way.  Rock was in the back seat asleep under a blanket.  I couldn't feel my toes.  But the cake was doing fine.

We got to Odessa, and stopped (for five minutes) at Nanny's house to get some pictures.  It might have taken us a little more than five minutes.  We MEANT to stop for five minutes.  Maybe it was thirty minutes.  I don't know.

 

What i do know, is when we went back to the truck, I looked through the back window to see how the cake was doing.  the cake was doing fine....just fine.

 

the icing, unfortunately, was not doing so good.  The icing was mostly melted, laying in these big mushy heaps around the bottom of the cake.  There was a lot of bare cake looking back at me through that window.  Bare cake that was just screaming "WHY DID  YOU LEAVE ME ALONE IN THE CAR?!?!?!!? YOU KNOW THAT ISN'T GOOD!"

But hey, we all make mistakes.  Right?  Maybe not with cakes that are that expensive, but it's not like I left my dog in the car while I went shopping or something. Come on... But I was not in a good mood after that. I was pretty damn cranky, to tell you the truth. But Calvin made a few calls and found a bakery that was willing (not excited, but willing) to redecorate the cake. so we drove across town to the bakery, and this very nice woman scraped away all the melted icing and redid the sides of the cake with brand new icing that looked just like it was supposed to look.

 

yeah, the icing on the sides of the cake looked great. Of course, this is about the time when I notice that the roses on the cake have changed colors.  ??  Um, those roses were purple when we left home, I KNOW they were. The bakery lady says "yeah, buttercream will fade....."

so now the cake has blue roses instead of purple roses.  Okay.  Deep breath.  I can live with that.  Honestly, they're a very lovely shade of blue. they are still a little purple down at the base, and then they turn blue, and it's actually really pretty.

but THEN I notice that the roses on the top layer of the cake did NOT change colors.  so now the top layer has purple roses, and the bottom layer has blue roses?

 

Well, maybe nobody will notice?  Maybe? 

the cake tasted good.  That's the important part.  Right?  Tasted wonderful.  :)

 

And it's the thought that counts.  Right?

 

there are pictures....but you have to promise not to laugh.  I might think this is funny in about forty years.

 

Cherry bombs

• Jul 28, 2007
  

  If you looked at my new pictures, you may have noticed the album titled Cherry Bombed.
  

   
   

  Well, there are a couple of things I should probably explain.  :)
  

  this is NOT habitual.  LOL   and, well, for the uninformed, a Cherry Bomb is a wonderful concoction available at the Texas Cafe which is also a good place to go hear live music.  On this particular night, we heard the Texas BelAirs who were wonderful, and quite entertaining. 
  

   
   

  the Cherry Bombs, well, it's like drinking a cherry slush.  Yum.  and you drink one, then you drink another one, and then you have one more, because they bring them to you in these convenient pitchers, you see....then you stand up to go to the ladies room, and realize that those are NOT just cherry slushes.  :)
  

   
   

  ha.  But anyway.  There were some really nice guys in the corner that kept flirting with Nikki and Andrea, and they sent the waitress over and said they wanted to buy them a drink, and she asked what they were drinking, and Nikki pointed to the ONE pitcher of Cherry Bombs that we bought.  Wait, maybe we bought two....anyway...so the waitress brought them each another PITCHER!
  

   
   

  wow.  So we had plenty of cherry bombs to go around, and we all ended up a little cherry bombed...but once again...we were NOT driving, and the drivers were NOT drinking.  So that's all good.  Right?  :)
  

   
   

  anyway.  It was fun, the band was good...I think I liked the dog song best.  LOL
  

I broke a nail on Friday

• Jul 24, 2007
  

  Current mood:amused
  

  It's not that I'm that concerned about the nail…not really. It'll grow back. They always do. It's hardly the first time I've broken a nail. But this time….well, I don't mean to be whiny, but this hurts.
  

  Here's the thing. The nail was pretty long, and it just snapped off. (opening my hood for the guy in the superlube. Next time I'll get out of the car and let THEM open the freakin hood) It snapped off clear down on my finger….like now the tip of my finger touches stuff instead of my nail touching it.( and you know, right, that it didn't totally snap off. It ripped all the way across EXCEPT for that last eighth of an inch, and I had to pull it off. I hate that.) This sucks. This is on my ring finger, btw…and now the whole end of my finger is kinda swollen and red, and it's tender…and when I'm typing, it hurts every time I have to type an s. or a w. or an x. See, doing that was excruciating.
  

  Well, maybe not excruciating…agonizing. No, that's not fair. It was just incredibly painful. Okay!!! Not incredibly painful, but it was painful. Aggravating. Annoying. It doesn't feel good, okay? L And do you have any idea how hard it is to type anything that makes sense without using an s?
  

  Try that sentence again. And do you have any idea how hard it I to type anything that make ene without uing an ?
  

  See, (ouch) that didn't make sense (ouch) at all.
  

  Sigh. (ouch)
  

  Good thing I don't have anything important to say (ouch) about Sally (ouch) selling (ouch) seashells (ouchouchouch) down by the seashore. (ouch OUCH!!!)
  

• All I'm saying is there are things in life that we all take for granted every day, and maybe we should try harder to appreciate them. So for everybody who can touch something right now with your ring finger without saying 'ouch'…hey…be grateful, would you?
  

  
   

My Dyslexic Tendencies

• Jul 3, 2007
  

  Okay, so it's not so bad.  I mean, I can read.  I read all the time.  But just every now and then....like there's this store across town that's called Rug Depot.  But their sign is all run together like one word, so it says RugDepot.  Right?
  

  But every time I look at it, I see Rudgepot.  I call the store Rudgepot.
  

  and just now, I had a moment.  But it might have just been my dirty mind.
  

  There was a link on the bottom of another page that said 'share your life with a few simple clicks'
  

   
   

  and I thought it said dicks.
  

   
   

  Share your life with a few simple dicks.
  

   
   

  maybe I just need new glasses.
  

  sigh.
  

Profound words

• Jun 29, 2007
  

  Current mood:contemplative
  

  this is short and sweet.  It just occurred to me earlier today that when I posted words to live by, I forgot something.  Something so important.
  

   
   

  I must share the immortal and ultimately profound words of ... Meatloaf.
  

   
   

  No, really.
  

   
   

  You're looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks,
  

  but there ain't no coupe de ville hiding at the bottom of a cracker jack box.
  

   
   

  I'll never be able to give you something,
  

  something that I just haven't got.
  

   
   

  and really....
  

  Two out of three ain't bad.
  

   
   

  I truly wish I had known this when I was twenty years younger.  LOL
  

   
   

  and here's one more gem from David Bellamy that I forgot...  :)
  

   
   

  She said "Girls just want to have fun, and boys just want to have sex...."
  

  and he said "I never could tell the difference...."
  

  
   

First jobs

Jun 29, 2007

Current mood:amused

We all learn things from our first jobs. Mine was in a church office, and I learned to answer the phone expecting any variety of strange conversations and attitudes. The people I remember best are these:

A couple who was married (but not to each other) who had attained an …um…inappropriate level of sympathy and commiseration for one another and the travails of their respective unhappy marriages. The woman would call the pastor almost daily, in tears, asking what she should do. Every time she called, the pastor would tell her what he believed she should do, then the next day she'd call again. I can only assume she was hoping he would change his mind. I suppose if you call often enough, eventually even a preacher will say "well, hell, honey. Maybe you should just leave your husband and be with the other guy…"

And my favorite lady in the whole church, who called me like clockwork on Friday afternoons because she was cleaning her phone and the only time she got to dial 0 was when she called the church. I should probably mention that this is WAY back in the dark ages when you actually had to DIAL phones….and my immediate thought the first time she called me and explained why was "omg…am I supposed to be cleaning my phone?"

But that was long ago and far away…(and dare I say it? So much better than it is today) anybody that knows where that came from gets my sincere congratulations. LOL

Let's see, I think my daughter's first job was working as a telephone solicitor…and she learned to hate those people equally from both sides of the issue. She also learned that she hated going to work, so after about a week she stopped doing it. J

My oldest son worked at a restaurant, and he learned (as he puts it ) 'a Lot about how to get along with people, and clean up messes, and take shit from co-workers and how to cook'. Not an altogether bad experience, I guess.

The twins started their first job this week, and so far they've learned that they hate cleaning up after whiny little spoiled rich ass college kids that can't even freaking walk to the trash chute. Carson said to me "they just leave their trash outside their door, and I go pick it up and take it to the trash chute for them. How are they ever going to learn if I do it for them?"

Man, that was funny.

 

Words to Live by

I had forgotten about my old myspace blog.  funny stuff.  enjoy. ;)

Aug 26, 2007

I frequently receive bulletins or emails that ask questions like 'what is your favorite song' or 'favorite movie' or 'what book changed your life'…these types of questions.

 

This is entirely too hard to answer. I've read hundreds of books. Probably thousands of books, and I've watched more movies than I can remember… rarely do I run across a book or movie that changes my life.

I can't narrow down a favorite book or movie, but I can give you favorite lines from books, favorite scenes from movies. And songs…favorite lines from songs.

I've been thinking for a while about collecting a list of my favorite lines. J

In no particular order, here are quotes from books, movies, and songs that stick in my mind, and have probably entirely too much meaning for me.

 

from Lonesome Dove (yes, it IS the best movie ever made....)

 

Life is still just life, and the only way to get through it is to learn to appreciate the little things…    

                

I hate rude behavior in a man... I won't tolerate it…

            

It's living in this town that does it.

 

By God, Woodrow, you'd argue with astump.

        **************************************

from Chase Calder (okay, okay...NoraRoberts)

            

If you're the biggest and the best, then people will see it. If you aren't, you should really keep your mouth shut.

        ***************************************

and Rhett Butler. no, I guess that would be Margeret Mitchell...    

 

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

        ****************************************

        

I don't want to spend my life jaded waiting..to wake up one day and find that I let all these years g oby…wasted.

Hillary Lindsey/Troy Verges/Marv Green

(as sung by CarrieUnderwood)

 

There's a five dollar finefor whining…

…ChrisLeDoux

Lord, I hope this day isgood.

…DonWilliams

But there's no road to get meback to September in Abilene

…JakeKellen

I thought happiness was Lubbock, Texas in my rearview mirror…now happiness is Lubbock, Texas growing nearer and nearer.

…Mac Davis

Since you're leaving anyway ,take out the trash.

Title of the book – DixieCash

I'd save thereceptionist…

From The Office…Jim aboutPam

*******************************************

        words of wisdom from John Oates.

            

To play to get rich and die baroque is wrong.

                   

Too scared to reach out, maybe afraid of what they'll find. But a hand stuck in a pocket comes up empty every time.

         

        

Hearts get broken when the words I love you go unspoken.

******************************************    

and....things that David Bellamy said.  :)

 

It's hard to leave yourself behind.

            

Our optimism mingles with the doom.

            

All of those dreams from her younger days quickly dwindle with her middle age…now she knows exactly what she is and always will be….

            

Pull over on my shoulder, darling...off the highway of regret.            

    
 

No, you don't want to be any younger, not unless you could know then what you know now…but oh, you don't want to get any older…you're just looking for the fountain of middle age

That's not what it takes to love me…you fool, you fool.

            

Sometimes you gotta get a little crazy to keep from going insane.

            

And I pause for a moment to bring you this quote from my life.

    You want to go see the Bellamy Brothers AGAIN?!?!?!?!

      Calvin Roquemore

 

Either way I'm fine, but don't waste my time…make up your damned mind.

         

I may be a little bit smarter but I sure do believe, that life was whole lot better when I was a little naive.

a lot of love and a little laughter, you'll find out that's all that really matters.

If you're reading fast and not really paying attention, pay attention to this.

a lot of love and a little laughter, you'll find out that's all that really matters.

and in case you don't know...IALWAYS want to go see the Bellamy Brothers again. :)

    

And finally…from my favorite new t-shirt, featuring two of Snow White's dwarfs…

                               I'm Grumpy cause you're Dopey.

        That's enough for today. I'll be back when I've had time to look through my favorite books and refresh my memory. I don't want to quote inaccurately. J