organized chaos

So we had some birthday madness around here this last weekend. I might have mentioned that my oldest is now a decade old. Wowzers.

But the real issue at hand is the cake building. I’ve built some doosies in my time. Some really swell and some really not. That’s how most things are for me. No middle ground in my life. That’s how I roll with it.

I’ve found, however, that with working weekends, cake building becomes infinitely more stressful to complete in the 5 hours available to me on a Saturday morning. Because you know that’s not the ONLY thing I have to do on a Saturday morning before a party on Sunday.

And then there’s the sleep deprivation from the late night at work on Friday. So. I’m a real peach to be around on Saturdays. Really. You should come over so I’ll have an extra head to chew off.

No matter how peachy I am, though, I never forget to document these moments for all posterity you folks to laugh at.

Here’s some snippets of info I thought I’d pass on about cake building.

Let’s say you forget to add the water to the cake mix. Then you start mixing away and realize the mix resembles thick chocolate ice cream. Here’s a tip for you: Don’t just pour all that water in all willy nilly. Especially if you have two boxes of cake mix in the bowl for a double batch. The result when you turn the mixer back on will be similar to this picture. And you will have watery goop up and down your shorts and shirt as well. Not that I would know. I’m just guessing here.

Unless you like to make as much of a mess as possible as you go. In that case, forget I mentioned it.

Once you break your arm stirring in the water by hand, it will then be safe to turn the mixer back on and go to town. All’s well that ends well.

Unless your sink looks like this.

I don’t know about you, but there is nothing more defeating to me than to look at this. So let’s interrupt this program for a word from our Sponsor:

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So the cakes actually turned out fine, and I moved on to the frosting bit. Last year I actually bought the canned frosting. *GASP* Please don’t choke on whatever it is you’re eating or drinking whilst reading this. Like I said, working the weekends has greatly kinked my cake building skills, and had I the money, I probably would have bought a cake from the store already made. The gremlins would actually prefer it. And at this point, I’ve got nothin’ to prove.

I found out at the last minute that I was out of frosting bags. Drat. Luckily, Charlie’s mom sent one of these crazy doo-hickies in the box one time, so I had something to frost the bat with. I’ve avoided it so far because while it is easy to use, it’s small and you have to keep refilling it after exactly 10 star shapes. And my frosting color?

Don’t judge me. Frosting color is my nemesis. I was going for a dark blue. I added tons of blue and some icky old brown stuff I found in my birthday tub and this it what I got. Puke green. Batman was feeling a little sick that day. The bat signal just didn’t have the usual significance. But ask me if I care.

A word about the frosting itself: scrumdiddlyumptious.

For some reason, the frosting was extra good this time. I used real butter and some maple flavor. I’m not a huge fan of frosting, but I do taste a little when I’m making it and I almost died of euphoria when I tasted this.

It couldn’t have been related to the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything yet. But that might explain the maniacal laughter eminating from the kitchen for about an hour afterward. In the end I was forced to bypass the spoon and inject it straight into my veins.

I might need help. Anybody know the hotline number for this sort of thing?

Don’t worry though, I finished the bat cake.

The puke green bat signal strangely represents the exact color of my face about an hour after my frosting injection. Sugar highs only last a little while, then the fun’s over. What goes up must come down.

Good times.