Baking Cakes

No, I'm not advocating bomb-making, but I can make a cake.

Flourless Chocolate Cake for Everyone Needs Cake™

As for bombs, I can throw around the f-ones, particularly in these dark times. I found this article really illuminating. It sheds light on anger, my own in particular.

I used to insist I didn't get angry. Not anymore. On female rage.

Here's a favorite paragraph with words attributed to Audre Lord:

Anger isn’t just a blaze burning structures to the ground; it also casts a glow, generates heat and brings bodies into communion. “Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions,” Lorde writes, “which brought that anger into being.

If you're Homeland Security, be assured. I might be an angry woman (at times), but I'm not making any bombs.

Did ya'll go to the Women's Marches in your city? I didn't go this year because my little sister and her daughter were visiting, and -- to tell you the truth -- just wanted to be quiet. I'm so moved by the numbers of people who showed up, though, all over the world. It gives one hope, right?

Here's one of my favorite posters:

Last week I interviewed the founder of the Pussy Hat Project, Kat Coyle. She's the owner of The Little Knittery, a much-loved community knitting store. I'm writing an article about it for The Los Angeles Times. Stay tuned.

I bought a skein of pink wool to make another pussy hat.
Kat is the one knitting in the background. She's so cool I can hardly stand it.

This is over the door of her new store -- so weird and wonderful how women make history.

Yeah. It's been a wonderful weekend.

Playing Chicken Feet dominoes. I won.

The San Francisco Hard Hat Walk and Riding Planes with Valkyries

Oliver and I had a wonderful weekend up north. We had a good visit with my sweet Aunt Yvonne who is eighty five years old and very frail but still sharp as a tack. We also drove up to San Francisco to participate in the Children's Hospital Hard Hat Walk. We were proud members of Team Maggie, walking in her memory alongside many of Sally's friends and family. The energy there was lovely -- there was music and delicious food from local restaurants, and the hospital looks like it will be an amazing center of health and healing. The only thing missing, of course, was darling Maggie, but I imagine her spirit infused everything and everyone. It was a beautiful evening in San Francisco and an impressive event. I confess to not realizing that it was a real walk, like a miles and miles walk, and only wore a trusty pair of Birkenstock sandals, but my feet are still attached to my body twenty-four hours later, and I'm pretty excited that I finally got a decent amount of exercise after languishing for weeks with that dadgum virus.

Here's Sally and me:

Here's the Big O and me:

Not a bad view to walk along and gaze upon --

Oliver and I flew back on a Southwest Air flight from San Jose to Los Angeles this afternoon with the entire UCLA women's volleyball team. I don't think I've ever seen a powerhouse college volleyball team, and ya'll -- these women were like Valkyries. The tallest ones, and there were a bunch of tallest ones, were well over six feet and many had waist-length yellow blonde hair. The team was pretty diverse in every way except for height, and I have to say that it was hard not to stare at them walking as a group -- they honestly looked like they'd stepped out of some kind of mythical adventure book. These photos really don't do it justice, but I wonder where they all come from if not the realm of the gods.

How was your weekend?

The Mystery of Boys

The Dyslexic Entrepreneur has been sitting outside in the baking hot sun, selling lemonade and chocolate chip cookies since 10:00 this morning.  He decided against selling cotton candy today, as there were still things to work out. The last time I ventured to the corner to check on things, he had made upwards of $100. I'm not kidding you. While part of the proceeds will go to the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles, Oliver is also intent on saving enough money for an off-road go-kart.

O.K.

Henry, on the other hand, slept until noon, woke and ate pancakes, made a few forays to get himself a couple of lemonades, did some homework, and I just walked into his bedroom where he was swinging a bat, practicing. When I expressed alarm at how close he was swinging to the window behind him, he condescendingly told me that when you swing a bat, Mom, it's not BEHIND you. 

These boys mystify me.

Completely Beside Ourselves

Aside from the mini Anthem Blue Cross rant, and it wasn't really a rant but more of a sardonic aside, we've had a lazy three days here in southern California. The weather was seasonably hot -- smokin' hot, actually -- and since the AC has barely been on all summer, it was cranked up, I let the boys play video games nearly all day, Sophie slept for hours and hours and I read. And read. And read. I'm reading a weird and wonderful novel called We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves whose title I adore. I also flipped through a pile of New Yorkers, and watched a few episodes of Orange is the New Black which I found not so great at first (too much titillating yet slick lesbian sex that I imagined the crew of writers guffawing over) and then I was sucked in and now I'm in. I rejoiced with the rest of the world as Diana Nyad, the world's Goddess, swam in to the shores of Miami from Cuba and I celebrated the laborers -- those who've brought us the weekend, the eight-hour workday, etc. etc.

Reader, what did you do this long weekend?

Purple Haze Lenin

So, this was a fairly relaxed weekend. Other than baking cakes and going to one baseball game, I didn't do much. On the way home from Oliver's game, he screamed out Look, Mom! Lenin got a cotton Schwab! That enormous sculpture is right around the corner from our house -- it's a sort of art installation at a gallery that used to be a car dealership and now hosts raucous parties instead of art, except for the great leader. It appeared overnight last fall and is entitled "Lenin with Madame Mao." That's evidently her on the top. My mother takes great offense to this installation as she imagines it's another sign of the great Liberal Conspiracy That Has Enveloped Her Daughter. I try to allay her fears by only wearing my Communist pajamas at night. This weekend, another installation appeared, a dirty cotton swab. My quip was that it apparently signified the reason why Lenin didn't actually listen to the people. He had wax in his ears.

I also made a second cake, this one milk chocolate. I think chocolate is my specialty, to tell you the truth. I'm hoping that I get lots of orders for cakes and cupcakes over the next few months -- enough to buy a new pair of communist pajamas.

This afternoon, a large iguana was sighted strolling through our neighborhood. Here it is on the pathway leading to the Crazy Cat Lady. That thing gave me the creeps, but actually far less so than the Crazy Cat Lady and her infernal cats.

And here is Sophie and me in the late afternoon, as the sun goes down and makes a sort of purple haze in her bedroom. She had a fairly decent weekend. I took her for walks. She stayed in her swing outside while I watered the flowers. She had some seizures and lay beside me while I read a TC Boyle short story in the April 15th issue of The New Yorker. The story satisfied me and had one of the best ending lines I've read in a long time. Sophie loves words on a page and stares intently as I read. I like to imagine that she, too, can read and has a wealth of stories in her head, things to turn over and over and never feels the need to talk about them.

Weekend Wrap-Up

A trip to Universal Studios amusement park

Oliver messed around with the shark from Jaws

Henry left 

 of chickenpox and emerged from seclusion

I hate amusement parks but sat on a Curious George chair and paid $.25 for a foot vibration  massage.

Marilyn Monroe drove by

Bob Marley probably turned over in his grave 

and when I got home I baked two cakes

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting and Chocolate Topped Cookie Mushrooms