Cake Anyone?

FIRST! I forgot to put wax paper down in the bottom of the cake pan. DUH! SERIOUSLY, BEAUTIFUL LADY? I even told myself to do it, and then I just went right ahead and poured it into the pan! It's like Alice in Wonderland when she says, "I give myself very good advice, though I seldom follow it." Kinda like that. Anyway, so the above monstrosity is what happens when you don't listen to yourself. Note to self: listen more often.
But it's all ok if you think about it (really, really, really hard) because fondant makes everything look better! Am I right or am I right? ("right, right, right"--Groundhog Day-- "Watch that step! It's a DOOZY!") I just realized how scatterbrained this entry is so I'll get right to the punchline: the next thing I did on my "to-do" list was use fondant.
The above is Master's cake. She is pretty much the most amazing person in the WORLD because she exhibited an inhuman amount of patience while Skipper and I tried to get our fondant on correctly. (the above is her two-layer brownie cake) I'm thinkin' that we tried to get the fondant on our respective cakes 5 different times EACH with very little success. In the end... well, you can see from the pictures...
Overhead is Skipper's cake: sculpted to perfection via rolling pin, fingertips, and fondant smoother. Oh man. It was SO funny! You shoulda seen it before she used those fancy sculpting tools!
The Master, me, and Skipper displaying our final results. I didn't know what to do on mine, so I just copied the Master, but made the character Luigi. The little red blotches are just because I wanted to try out a certain tip-- and that's what the result looks like! Just for your FYI.

I'm-a Luigi and I'ma gonna win!

A long, long time ago, I swore in my wrath NEVER to crochet around a hemstitched baby blanket EVER again.

EVER!

But see, the thing is, baby mania has approached my friends.

BABIES EVERYWHERE!!!

Side note: there is a hysterical "BABIES!" joke that is pervasive in my life. So I'm thinkin' that I'll share it because I think it's SO FUNNY!

It all started with Chuck Norris. Back in High School, Chuck Norris jokes were a BIG deal. I don't even know why!!! But I do know that I went to a Presidential campaign rally for Mike Huckabee because Chuck Norris was an advocate for him! (The following picture was taken from my very own camera!)
Anyway, so Chuck Norris jokes might go something like this:

Chuck Norris can gargle peanut butter
When Chuck Norris does push ups, he doesn't push himself up; he pushes the world down!
Chuck Norris had his tonsils removed... TWICE!
When Chuck Norris was born, the doctor cried because no body slaps Chuck Norris!

So yeah, there was a Chuck Norris joke that went something like this:

Chuck Norris likes to knit sweaters; and by "knit", I mean kick; and by "Sweaters" I mean BABIES!!

I told that joke to my (then) 15 year old- Chuck Norris joke- loving brother, and he said

"That is not funny. That is cruel."

Ouch. Talk about a slap in the face. So then, we modified the joke so as not to offend anyone. NOW the joke can be used to brighten any situation! For example:

Boy: "I HATE those pants that you are wearing!"
Girl: "Oh. These are my favorite pants. My favorite, favorite pants."
Boy: "And by 'hate', I mean 'love' and by 'those pants', I mean BABIES!!"

So yeah, that's the basics of the joke. Feel free to use and modify it as you like.

But getting back to the story. As you may know, I am learning how to crochet. Back when I was twelve, my mom got really into hemstitching. I tried it, but was SOOO bad at it. (Hemstitching is when you crochet around the edges of flannel blankets, bibs, and burp rags) That was the point when I swore in my wrath never to hemstitch again.

Well, this weekend I broke that promise to myself.

But I think that the results were quite charming!
BABIES!!!!

I gotta kitten.

I gotta kitten.

I gotta kitten.

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

So, one of the things to do before I die is knit a sweater. What does that have to do with kittens? Hold your horses, man!

So, before I was so rudely interrupted, I was saying: So, one of the things to do before I die is knit a sweater. I recently learned how to crochet. (oh, wow! Way to introduce a THIRD unrelated topic!) SO! We have a kitten and her name is Cadie (Cadie Cat. Or Kitten Little. Or Stinky. Or Cleo- as in CleoCATra. Really, the names are interchangeable.) Anyway, last year on my birthday we got this beautiful little runt orange tabby cat. Oh how she loved people. Oh how she purred. Oh how she adored being adored.

Does the fact that all of the positive qualities of said cat are past seem odd to you?

Now she is a pure, through and through, man hater. Except for my dad. She LOVES him. She sleeps in his arm pit and sticks her paw up his nose for crying in a bucket!!

And Dad loves her. So therefore, Mom loves her. But Kitten Little (Cadie Cat, Stinky, etc) hates all other things that live.

So, after coming home to find that monstrosity thriving in our house, I decided to do something about it. With hands scratched up and a wounded ego, I set to work with my most diabolical plan yet.

That's right. I crocheted her a kitty sweater.
It was even in a wonderfully contrasting color! Needless to say, my parents were not amused. "If it was any other of our three animals at our house!" They said. But no. Only one deserved such treatment.

I think they love her more than their own children! (oooh! What a nice, new firebox!) Really, if you think about it hard enough-- I could just be doing her a service! What if the little kitty was chilly or something?

But given the brand, spankin' new firebox that is oh, so efficient, and the fact that she is covered with fur, I find the chilliness possibility not so possible.

All I can say is, vengeance is sweet. Do I regret inflicting public humiliation on said animal?

No.

The above is my victim. Err.... I mean, client... Can you guess what this thing-to-do-before-I-die is? Tally your points, make a wager, and compare with the correct answer.

Cut someone's hair.
BUAH AH AH AH AH AH!

That's me looking nervous. Having a nervous haircutter is like having a blind surgeon: "Oops! That looked like the other thing... no worries! That's nothing a little sew, sew here and there won't fix!" Or perhaps, to quote the famous Brian Regan:

I’m always putting my foot in my mouth. I don’t stop to think. Oh, no!...words are coming out…oh, no…I’m not thinking…what is that? Like I met this woman recently; I could have sworn she was pregnant, lemme tell ya. [crowd moans] I know, now. I think the rule is: Don’t guess at that ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever… ever. Something like that. I didn’t have enough evers memorized. So I said, “When’s that …b…aby due?” You ever feel a word coming out but it’s too late to stop it? Whoa! It’s coming out and loud… “Hey, when’s that BABY due? BABY!”

“What baby?”

Have you ever guessed somebody’s gender wrong? There’s no recovering from that. You’ve just gotta move on because you ain’t wrigglin’ out of nothin’. “Hey, excuse me, sir.”

“MA’AM!”

“OK. Bye, Human. Bye, Person. Nice to meet you, Individual.”

So yeah, it's kinda like that.... But Go-Bot wasn't a wimp about it at all! He willingly let me cut his hair and was not even worried one little bit about the fact that school was on Monday!

What a good sport.

And that whole previous statement thing: yeah, it was all a lie. A BIG, FAT (oh, so fat) LIE! He whimpered and blubbered the WHOLE TIME! The above picture is him squirming around because I "caught his hair in the blade" or something. *Sheesh*

But the thing that makes the whole thing so much more sad and pathetic, was the fact that my dad was standing RIGHT THERE NEXT TO ME TELLING ME HOW TO CUT THE HAIR! I wasn't even flying by the seat of my pants on this one!!! But "wah wah wah", grown-up, 18 year old Go-Bot had a cow the whole time.

The good news is that now, at least, we have a brand new baby cow!

So in case you are totally bored from reading that all and just want the punchline: He didn't die. He didn't even get cut. I didn't even nick that super sensitive part right behind the ear! And he turned out looking FABULOUS!

Don't you agree?