Nov 24

So, it's 5.00 am, I'm drinking my first cup of coffee, and at my blog already. I can't seem to imagine what possible incentive ever got me out of bed before I became a coffee drinker. In about five hours, we plan to leave for Chicago, where Martha's parents live. Before that I still have the business, which just recently became the unfinished business, of Mrs D's 60 birthday cupcakes. Last evening, at 7.00 pm, just as the Mall was closing I received a call from Ball Bakers. The store is run by a cheerful, aging couple who emigrated from East Germany during the 1960's. They began by renting a closed down tailor shop to open a bakery. The establishment took nearly 10 years to start thriving, and just when it did several corporate clothing manufactures bought the land and opened a mall. They have since allowed the couple to run their shop in the mall for a modest fee of nearly two-thirds their annual earnings. Also, the Balls hadn't anticipated that some teenagers would spray paint the letters "re" in-between the "B" and "a"of the second word on their sign. Now it reads "Ball Breakers." The shop owners stopped repainting it some years ago and now most people call it "Ball Breakers" - which is unfortunate for many reasons, the first being that the term has some very misogynistic origins. In class once, I mentioned the incident of the graffiti on the shop sign, to begin a discussion on how working women have been talked about in the mainstream culture, in U.S. history. My students were too distracted admiring the teenage pranksters, who had not only seen the possibility of the pun on the shop sign, but who had also repeatedly gotten away without ever leaving a clue - except the letters "re" which now brazenly face the a security camera everyday. 


Anyhow, Mrs Ball called to inquire, at what time on Friday would I be picking up the "60 rainbow colored cupcakes"? Either she had genuinely misheard the original order as she claims the case to be, or what I think is more likely is that she's mixed up my order with another - say, perhaps, one by the Queer Students Organization, which is also due to celebrate its birthday (its 3rd year anniversary) on Friday? So before we depart for Chicago, I have to go to the Mall again to get to the bottom of this. If I ignore the problem before I leave town today I fear two calamities on Friday; Principal D baying for my blood, and a box of 60 red velvet cupcakes arriving at the QSO birthday party. I care more for the latter than the former, so I now feel duty bound to settle any possible mix-up with the cupcakes - even though I am beginning to loathe the sight of cup cakes. If I had more courage, I would present Principal D with a couple of Duncan Hines cake mix boxes on his next birthday.


Okay, I had better run and start fixing breakfast for the family. I think I hear Martha rising. Lately, I haven't haven't been able to surprise her with the lemon-ricotta cheese pancakes for breakfast that she loves so much. I used to make it for her nearly every weekend after we had got married. The idea suddenly seized a hold of me last night and I can't wait to see the look of surprise on her face when she heads downstairs.
Tim