My Greatest Accomplishment...

So, in my family it is a tradition for birthday cakes to be made from scratch. My mom has a ridiculously fantastic recipe for a double layer chocolate cake and a chocolate buttercream frosting. My sisters and I learned to make this cake as we grew up. It is a family classic, and it is always worth the effort. So much deliciousness.

Over the years, we have all pretty much mastered this recipe. Lots of birthdays. However, every once in a while there comes a moment when the person who has been selected to make the cake for someone's birthday does something...different. The most infamous of all of these mess-ups was the year--many years ago--when Dad made the cake for Mom's birthday. I was pretty young at the time, maybe 9 or 10, but we all still remember this cake like it happened yesterday. 

Dad baked the two cake layers, and took them out of the pans with no problems. Then he started to ice those cakes with the traditional chocolate buttercream frosting, and that's when it happened. The entire cake split right down the center--it was like "The Land Before Time". We could tell that Dad was a bit discouraged by these results, but he filled in the enormous cake canyon with more frosting, put a couple of candles on top, and presented it to Mom with his apologies. 

All of us kids were in shock. No one had ever before presented a double layer chocolate birthday cake that wasn't perfectly intact! It just wasn't done! So naturally our little juvenile brains fully expected this cake to taste sub-par, at best. And then the cake was finally cut, and we started to eat it.

And do you know what? 

It was the most delicious, succulent, moist and utterly wondrous cake any of us could remember eating. We're pretty sure that the moistness was the main reason for the cake's falling apart the way it did, and that the extra frosting that Dad used to try and fill in the gap only added to the deliciousness. This cake--now known in our family as "The Grand Canyon Cake"--is still the golden standard of birthday deliciousness. Oh sure, there have been many other cakes that have been very tasty and that haven't fallen apart, but somehow the Grand Canyon Cake still shines as a beacon of hope to all those who wish for Birthday perfection. 

There have been other mess-ups over the years as well. And they have all been delicious, and we'll all get a good laugh out of them. However, none of them could ever hold a candle to Dad's extraordinary feat.

And in all those years, I've never had an epic fail before. My cakes have always come out of the pans and stayed whole and never presented any real challenge for me, frosting-wise. I sometimes wondered just what I was missing out on. Well, this year, as I prepared the cake for my son's birthday celebration, I found out.

It was my first time cooking with my brand new cake pans and parchment paper. Trust me, it's not as easy as it sounds. At least...not for me it isn't. Anyway, when I pulled the cakes out of their pans, I also pulled off the parchment paper. I was a bit worried about the structural integrity of these cakes, as the parchment paper had been wrinkled around the edges and left ridges around the bottom and sides--they were like two giant, flat, cupcakes. I let them cool for a while, and then I made the frosting and pulled out the cake holder that I would be using. 

I started frosting the bottom layer, and it went quite well, boosting my confidence, and making me believe that I really had a chance to continue my streak of excellence. And then I placed the top layer, and things started to go a bit...crooked. I figured I could straighten it all out as I frosted the sides of the cake so I started frosting the top. One side went quite smoothly. No problems. And then I reached the other side, and that's when things started to go wrong. The edges of the cake started to crumble. I figured: "Oh, it's no big deal. I can just cover that up." 

Oh no I couldn't! 

I tried to smooth the frosting over the crumbly part, and then the cake started crumbling more and more and more and more. I stood there and watched, helplessly, as--eventually--half of the entire top layer of my son's birthday cake had disintegrated completely into a puddle of crumbs and frosting. As I watched this horror show unfolding, I felt so helpless and flustered and I really wasn't sure if I wanted to start crying or put my fist through what was left of that stupid cake. 

I am proud to say that I did neither. I thought of my family--and specifically my dad and his famed Grand Canyon Cake and I realized that here--here was my chance to finally reach that level of birthday infamy. I had some leftover frosting, and...AND...a brand-new package of Double Stuf Oreos. I had planned to use them as a sort of garnish on this cake, but they were about to become more. So much more. 

Oh, and that cake/frosting puddle I talked about? I took a freaking spatula and I scooped that delicious gunk into a bowl. I would take it to Mom's house with me, as a trophy--as proof that what had happened really was an accident, and not just me trying to out-do my Dad. Once I had everything put together, I put the lid over my creation, and presented it to my family. They were all highly impressed with what is now known as "The Avalanche Cake of 2014." 

And guess what! It was quite tasty, and everyone loved the Oreos. AND, that bowl full of disintegrated cake bits? My brother and my Mom ended up splitting it. It was the coveted treat of the evening. Oh yes, we take our birthday cake experiences very seriously in my family. If we're going to ingest those calories, they had better be worth it!

My big sister, "Josie", looked at the cake before it was served and said: "You know, I bet you could post a picture of that on Pinterest and people won't even think it's a mistake. They'll probably even try to duplicate it." We got a good laugh out of the sheer truth of that statement, but I decided to keep my triumph a secret--between me, my family and the blogosphere.

So it just goes to show: What seems at first to be a catastrophic failure can actually be one of your greatest triumphs with a little improvisation and a good sense of humor. There's your take-home message for the day. You're welcome.

Oh, and in case you don't believe me, I took pictures of this masterpiece. 

**Here's the cake, all patched up and looking disastrously fabulous (The coloring on the top of the cake is a bit off, because I had to remove my son's name from the picture, but all of the edges have not been touched up at all.)**

**And here is what Jim Gaffigan would call the "Loser Pile in a Sadness Bowl"**

Oh, and in case you were wondering what CT's reaction was to his mother's epic fail for his 9th Birthday cake: He just smiled and laughed along with everyone else. He didn't care at all about how is cake looked. He even tried to re-name it: "Oreo Falls". (Pretty darn clever, although the majority vote won out in this case.) He was such a good sport, and he just hugged me and thanked me and his only request was that when the cake was cut, he got the "C" from his name and at least one Oreo on his slice. He was such a grown up about it, I was so proud. (Don't even get me started on how quickly that kid has gone from my sweet little guy to my-sweet-little-guy-who's-really-not-so-little-anymore-but-I'm-still-in-denial-so-don't-burst-my-bubble.)

Well, Happy Birthday, CT. Your 9th birthday shall forever be immortalized as "The Year of the Avalanche Cake." You are officially a legend! 

One New Development and a Lovely Story for You to Enjoy...

No, this new development is not anything ground-breaking or even particularly upsetting. The new development is simply this: I'm taking down the comment moderation setting on my blog. It's a bit of a hassle, and I'd rather not deal with it anymore. So...Yay, Laziness! (I guess...)

Now for the story...

The other night, Friday, to be exact, the chiddlers were already in bed. Ty was doing something on his laptop, and we were watching a show on Netflix. (I think it was "Greek", but I wasn't really paying attention...) Anyhoo, I decided that I wanted to have a snack, and enjoy a lovely glass of milk along with it.

Once I'd finished the snack, I--being a good and responsible person--wanted to transport my small plate and my glass to the kitchen for cleaning. I stood up, walked across the room, and started climbing the stairs to get to the kitchen level. (We're in what's called a "California Split" style home, in case you wanted to picture this a little better.)

As I climbed up the stairs, my hands filled with dishes, I suddenly felt one of my big, fat, toes getting caught inside the hem of one of the over-sized pant legs of my sweats. As soon as I realized what had happened, I tried to disentangle myself, but it was too late. Far, far too late.

I fell. I fell hard. I'm not quite sure of exactly how it all happened, but I must have thrown my hands out to catch myself. Natural reaction, right? Well, unfortunately, as you might remember, my hands were rather full at the time. With GLASS.

The next thing I knew, there was a deafening crash as my glass and plate went smashing down onto the kitchen tile and I just knelt there, half on the stairs, my now empty hands laid flat on the tile. I was too stunned to move for a few seconds.

Ty, who had heard this catastrophe taking place, called out: "Are you okay?" I said: "Yeah, I think so" as I checked my hands for injuries. They seemed fine at first, I hadn't felt anything cutting through my skin, anyway. But then my right index finger suddenly seemed to bloom with bright red blood. It dripped onto the tile, and I couldn't even see the cut at all. I cupped my left hand underneath the oozing wound and ran up to our bathroom to wash it off and see if I could figure out how bad the damage really was. Running water over my finger, I could see that the cut--though deeper than your average paper cut--had not gone deep enough to require stitches (in my personal opinion, though I verified my theory with Ty before making a final decision, as I am not a doctor and figured a second opinion would be a good idea...)

I asked Ty to get me a towel or a washcloth or something that I could use to put pressure on the cut and try to stop the bleeding. He brought me one, and I just sat down and wrapped my finger with the towel, squeezing as hard as I dared and wincing every time my finger throbbed.

Since the door was open, I could hear clattering and scraping in the kitchen as Ty cleaned up all the broken glass shards and wiped up the blood. (Poor guy, it's a good thing he isn't squeamish about those things...) I continued to try and get the cut to stop bleeding, but every time I opened the towel to check on its progress, it just kept right on bleeding as badly as ever. As I sat there, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong, something finally clunked into place.

I had kept both of my hands clasped tightly...in my lap. For a nasty bleeding wound, it's usually a good idea whenever possible to ELEVATE it. I would have kicked myself, but I think under the circumstances that would have been a bad idea. I would probably have fallen down again and ended up with a head wound and a concussion as well...

Within moments of elevating the injury and continuously applying pressure, my finger finally stopped bleeding. And just a few moments after that, Ty brought up some Neosporin and bandages and I was all patched up.

I learned some very important lessons that night.

Lesson One: If you have a pair of sweatpants whose hems you notoriously get your big toes stuck in as you walk up the stairs, either find a way to shorten them or give them away to an enemy.

Lesson Two: If you are going to try carrying dishes up and down the stairs, make sure they're made out of plastic.

Lesson Three: Elevate a bleeding wound.

Lesson Four: Always have a good husband on hand, who understands--and has long since accepted--your propensity for clumsiness, to bring you towels and bandages and clean up your glass-shardy, bloody mess.

Lesson Five: Always make sure that you have a fifth lesson in mind if you intend to start a list of lessons that contains more than four items.

Lesson Six: The "Oozing Wounds" would be a great name for a rock band.

Have a great day/week, everybody!