DAMN YOU MODERN PASTRY!!!

Today I went to Boston to visit my friend Amanda from Seattle who was in town checking out a Master's program. I of course was delighted to trek up to one of my favorite East Coast cities and spend the day in the wonderful spring weather, and we had a smashing time. We walked around Hah-vad as the Bostonians say, and went to a hilarious improv show and ate at Regina's Pizzeria which is apparently famous. Then it was time for me to return to Hartford, so I offered to drive her and the two friends she was with back to her hotel. "Oh no, we're fine!" they graciously protested. It was only ten minutes away, so I said, "No big deal! Really, it's fine--and then you can avoid public transportation." That is the last time I do anything nice for anyone ever again. Madge (GPS) decided that she wanted to be a hot mess and not get satellite reception and then go "Recalculating, recalculating, recalculating" so I couldn't tell where the hell I was supposed to be going and I had to drive past all these exits, swerving and trying to guess what I was doing. As I screamed at her to get her life together all the while realizing that this was probably not the best way to the end the day with two people who I didn't know all that well, and realizing that they probably were secretly fearing for their lives as three different cars nearly hit me because they weren't paying attention as they were changing lanes (there is a reason they call Massachusetts drivers 'Massholes'), I realized that all I wanted after this ordeal was the Whoopie Pie from Modern Pastry that I had ordered earlier that day.

Now, if you know me, you know that I love sweets--and nothing gets between me and a baked good: no man, woman, or child. If you don't know what a Whoopie Pie is, it's a delightful chocolate cake-esque sandwich--the outside is a really dense chocolate cake (kind of like a mix between cake and a brownie), with whipped cream in the middle. I think it might be an East Coast thing, because I'd never heard of them on the West Coast. Modern Pastry (this pretty famous bakery in Boston) makes delicious Whoopie Pies, and I had been craving one since SEPTEMBER when my parents and brother came to visit. You're probably beginning to surmise that mischief is afoot and this is not going to end well. And you would be right. So immediately upon dropping everyone off I hauled ass to make it to that Whoopie Pie carefully tucked into the Modern Pastry Box I'd been carting around all day--because that was the only thing that was going to make the whole ordeal feel better. As I reached in, my fingers went squarely into a pile of frosting. That's odd...Whoopie Pies are individually wrapped in cellophane...AND do not have frosting... NO. *GASP* I GOT A BLACK AND WHITE COOKIE INSTEAD OF A WHOOPIE PIE!!! This is NOT good news to find out while driving, and the pedestrians who were J walking were THAT close to being put in harm's way. Ohhhhh they were lucky I wasn't in the mood to go to jail for reckless endangerment that night...LUCKY. This was the f---ing icing on the cake, let me tell you (pun INTENDED) and it felt like a scene from a horror film where someone finds out some bad news and screams in a deep slow motioned baritone "NOOOOOOOOOOOO. ME WANT WHOOPIE PIEEEEEE." To make it worse, the frosting from the B&W Cookie had melted all over the Italian Rainbow Cookies I had bought!!! Some people would argue this might have made them better but NO. IT DID NOT. My girlfriends who came to visit me last summer would say it's my own damn fault because last year we went to Modern Pastry and received poor customer service that they were really not impressed with, and in fact Cassady stood outside and yelled at people passing by to not purchase anything from them. While I appreciated her civic activism, I didn't really care because their desserts are delicious, and I am living proof that apparently when your sweets are super tasty you can treat people like crap and they will still buy your goods. Go figure.

As I've come to find out, bad things come in threes, which was proven on my drive home when I went into a bathroom stall without toilet paper and passed a billboard for the Bon Jovi concert that I can't attend. I was able to do some positive self-talk telling myself that things weren't really that bad, but you know what, as I sit here and think about that Whoopie Pie I am STILL not over it...uuuuugggggghhhh...Modern Pastry you've BESTED me again!!! Oh, and City of Boston please do realize we are NOT on speaking terms right now, at least until another friend comes to visit You soon (I tend to be pretty wishy washy when it comes to holding grudges...LUCKY FOR YOU!!!)

My mantra

I Think I'm Losing My Appetite...

As you most likely know, I love cupcakes. Any type of cupcake will do. Pink frosting, vanilla cake, carrot cake, lemon frosting, sprinkles, chocolate cake, it doesn't matter, a cupcake is a CUPCAKE. And I will eat it as soon as possible. But I was troubled to find THIS article on "Manly cupcakes." I didn't know cupcakes had gender, I simply knew they were delicious. I'm very confused. And frankly, if men only eat "manly" cupcakes, they're missing out on a lot of delicious goodies...ahhhh the social institution of gender and how it is now invading our kitchens...BLEH!!!

http://www.gender-focus.com/tag/chick-flicks/

2. Manly Cupcakes

I came across this via Neatorama. Apparently someone decided men couldn’t enjoy regular cupcakes because they’re too feminine, soButch Bakery was born. The Butch Bakery Man-Ifesto? “We’re Men. Men who like cupcakes. Not the frilly pink-frosted sprinkles-and-unicorns kind of cupcakes. We make manly cupcakes for manly men.”

Each cupcake is topped with a chocolate disk in such designs as Woodland Camo and Checkerboard and flavours include “The Driller”: maple cake with chocolate ganache and bacon bits. The flavour on the main page of their site is the “B-52.”

I’m not too keen on the bacon bits idea, but other than that I usually believe the more cupcakes, the better! What’s interesting is what it says about what’s unacceptable for men (eating pink desserts) and what’s considered manly (red meat and military motifs).

Use That Sociological Imagination!

Sssssuuupppeeeerrrr interesting--turn your sociological imagination on the next time you hit the movies!!!

"It was late when I finally went to bed, and I lay there, unable to sleep, wondering if God were watching. It was an uncomfortable feeling, being watched. What if I were in the bathroom, would He watch me in there, too? I guessed He had access to anywhere people are suffering, which, thinking back on my Thanksgiving meal, surely included the bathroom."

--David Sedaris, "C.O.G"

Waiting Take 2

I just told my friend Rob that if a certain situation in my life didn't work out how I wanted then I was going to renounce God, because I couldn't deal anymore. Every once in awhile I like to say really childish things like this. While perhaps moderately entertaining for the person at the other end of the conversation, it's really troubling to know that I haven't really given up my flair for the dramatic since I was two and flinging myself on escalators at the mall as people stepped over me when I didn't get my way. Things change, and yet they stay remarkably the same.

But then I logged onto my neighbor Scott's Tumblr which I love following because he has such a delightful perspective on life and always has an interesting find--and he's the pinnacle of all that is Seattle, so I feel very connected to the Pacific Northwest. I found this gem:

Stuck in Saturday

After I read it I got my composure about myself. I imagine I'm in a Saturday sort of place right now. That waiting place, where all you can have is hope. I hate this place almost as much as I hate BJ's (evil twin of Costco). But how do we learn to find beauty in waiting and disappointment? I don't have the answer to that question yet. I suppose this is really what Easter is all about anyways--hoping in what we cannot see, which brings me to one of my favorite verses:

"For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is not seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?" Romans 8:24

Good question, Paul. If we can see it, feel it, touch it, know what's coming, then why do we need God at all? And while I would greatly enjoy it if God would decide to write what it is that is going to become of my life, preferably through the use of neon signs or perhaps a nice musical number, this is not how God operates (though THINK of the possibilities if that were the case!) nor requires faith or hope. So for now, I will have to keep hoping in the things unseen, because that is ultimately what faith is...(although I daresay that a bottle of wine might make the medicine go down a little easier...? Hrm...)

“Waiting is our destiny. As creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for, we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. We wait in fear for a happy ending that we cannot write. We wait for a ‘not yet’ that feels like a ‘not ever.’”

--Louis Smedes

Thanks Scott! So true...