I've been a baking fool!

Since I have been back here from the New England City which shall remain nameless but finally has a winning baseball team, I have been baking a lot. It's probably because I am really depressed about some things going on right now which I can't talk about on the blog but which suck more than anything has ever sucked before.

So last weekend we had someone to dinner on Saturday night. And I made a chocolate raspberry cake. But her dog ate part of it while we weren't looking. So Sunday, when we were going to our friends' house for dinner, I had said I'd bring dessert. And I had meant to bring the chocolate raspberry cake. But since the dog ate part and we'd eaten part, I figured I needed to make a different cake.

The Kid and I went to the Giant up the highway from us and I got it into my head to make a coconut cake. So I made a massive (I mean this sucker had to weigh 6 pounds) coconut mound of a cake. It was delicious. But since I had the leftover chocolate cake with the raspberry filling and since Ricardo and I ate a ton of the frosting (may I recommend using coco lopez in the coconut frosting? It is to die for), we left the rest of the cake with friends.

Now tonight, we have someone coming to dinner. So I am baking a blueberry pie. I even did the lattice top and glazed it and sugared it.

I guess joining the gym was perhaps prescient? Oh except, that with my luck, two days after I signed the 12 month contract I found out that I could get a deal through my school system to pay only $9.50 a month. Two fucking days. Fuck. I need a pie.

I just joined a gym

I've never belonged to a gym before. Frankly they are not the place people of my particular dimensions want to be seen in sticky tight clothing. If I were svelte, I'd be thrilled to sport some stretchy tops, but since all my tops are stretchy if only to fit across my ample bosom, it's just not the same.

See I've realized this year has royally sucked ass. I kind of hate my job in that the kids are not the age group I really like. I love my principal and would work for her any time. And my partners are really great, but it's not the kind of teaching I love doing.

Ricardo has had a brutalizing year with all the administration stuff going on and still having other responsibilities.

My mom has had surgery for cancer. My step-mother-in-law had a pacemaker put in. It's been a shitastic year.

And the newest crap keeps on getting hurled onto the top of the pile. I can't blog about it because it's all still going on, but imagine all the bad things that have been listed and then crank them to 11 (you know, it's one more than 10). Let's sum it up by saying I don't think I've ever cried this much since my son was born prematurely and we were told he'd have only a 60% survival rate. And since in a few weeks that got bumped up to 90%, this is in many ways worse.

All I can say is that our health is fine, the house is good (cool thank God because it's fucking hot out here), the kid is fine. It's just everything else that's in disarray.

So I figured, I could go to the doctor and get some drugs to counteract the panic attacks, *or* I could go to the gym.

And how things have changed! Ok so this is Gold's Gym. As in super buff, steroid freaks with cooking oil slicking themselves down. But it's not! It's full of like normal people. Chunks like me, decrepit gomers even, completely normal people. And I'm all excited. So I am going back tomorrow. I did stop at K-Mart next door because at home I tend to get on the elliptical in a crapped out sportsbra, jammie pants and sneakers. It seemed I needed actual clothes for public exhibition of exercise. But even so, it's a good deal for teachers.

And the best part is they don't have a pool. So we can use all these hotel pools here in town. And since pool memberships run $1200, I figure $39.99/month is a bargain.

So how long will I make it going there? We'll see.

Squirrel Bait

And I am not making this up. I was on the phone with Ricardo at the time and he can vouch for how wigged out I was by it all.

So I am at my mom's still, helping out while she's recovering from her surgery (and she's doing really well which is awesome because I don't think I realized how worried I was before it all). And she lives in this amazingly fabulous brownstone in an undisclosed New England city (you do the freaking math). I didn't want to wake her yesterday so I decided to call Ricardo while sitting on her stoop which is something one does in said undisclosed New England city (it's simple math, people).

I've been really emotional lately because there is a whole lot of hideous shit going on on our lives above and beyond my mom's cancer and my job with feral third graders. So I really needed to connect with Ricardo because I was emotionally gelatinous yesterday morning (better today but still edgy, so Ricky turn on your damn cell phone already this morning!). So I sat on the stoop so we could chat.

And it was perfect weather, like the temperature of air conditioning, 70 and dry. And we're chatting about everything, what this year will be like, plans for his book, work for the summer, schedule for the Kid, yadda yadda, when I notice this cute little squirrel looking right at me. But it's a wild, city squirrel so I think to myself it won't come near me. Not that I am afraid of squirrels. I kind of like them. It's the series of rabies shots I fear. You know how I like those freakshow shows? Well I watched one about a girl who got rabies from a bat in her church and what happened to her and well all I can say is OMFG I do not want rabies.

So I ignored the squirrel and kept chatting. But then it started up the stairs. My mom's house has a lot of stairs. There are like 10 just to get to the front door. And the squirrel was warily but steadily making his way towards me. And looking at me with his beady little eyes. He'd scurry up a couple stairs and then turn sideways and pace a little and then come up some more. He was coming right for me.

So I stood up thinking that that would scare him. He bolted across the railing onto the matching stairs to the neighbor's house. I sat back down and thought that was the end. But it wasn't. The squirrelly bastard started peaking through the scroll work. And the next thing I knew he was back on my side.

I started to wig. Ricardo said throw something at him. But it's a city in an undisclosed New England location. Everything is fucking bolted down or people steal shit. So the best I could find were some dead leaves off a plant and a styrofoam bird in my mother's window box. So I threw the leaf because I didn't want to find that the window box came down. The fucking thing made a lunge at that point.

I swear it was headed towards my ankles. So I was the one running now. I ran down the stairs away from it and the beast followed me. So I ran back up the stairs and it came after me. I hissed at it like you do a cat and it just stopped and stared at me then kept a-coming. And all I could think of is a series of shots in the stomach and hoping I don't die of my brain pickling. And would my insurance cover that.

Then Ricardo said, why don't you just go back in the house.

Jesus. I think I already have rabies if I couldn't figure that one out.