Catching Up
Today is a big day! I got the chance to finally catch up with an old friend on the phone, among a million other things. In the morning my friends and I joined all the mad outdoorsy people in the awesome REI member sale, and in the afternoon our cake was entered in the library Sweet Afternoon Bake-Off! At REI, I bought an awesome Leatherman and some new green smartwool socks and looked up tents in anticipation of another sale another day when I will complete my backpacking gear and be ready for a trip through Latin America.
After a decidedly sad cereal breakfast after no eggs, no bread, hence no french toast was established, we put the finishing touches on our competition cheesecake. It's an adaptation of this awesome cheesecake.
Somehow the mere presence of a decorating bag filled with chocolate ganache always leads to ganache in mouths, on faces, and everywhere except on the intended surface. The cake received its lattice top in the end, though, and raspberries gave it a burst of color. If I do say so myself, it looked absolutely perfectly delicious.
I suppose the judges must have agreed, because we walked away today with a third place ribbon, a gift card to Salsa Brava, and one solitary slice of leftover cheesecake.
Check out some of the competition!
I have been less than diligent about keeping my blog updated, so a little catch-up session is in order. With my friends home, a job until the end of the month and the looming threat of snow, I have been taking advantage of any free time I have rather than keep my written life as up-to-date as my real one.
It is high time for another reflection. I know this blog is public, but it is also a journal - a method for personal reflection and remembrance. The media is wrapped up in pre-election name-calling and politics, and fascinating as digging into Obama and Romney's pasts may be, I want to take some time to look into my own history.
Luckily, I took some photos that should get me back up to speed...
The Giver by Lois Lowry was one of my favorite books as a kid. Sunday, I saw my childhood memories of the stories take shape on stage in a theater adaptation of the book in at the Ricketson Theater in Denver.
A work break and a beautiful sunny day meant a hike at Red Rocks in the afternoon a few weeks ago.
A more recent sunny day was an opportunity for my dad to convince me to attend the Air Force v. CSU football game after the Coronado Homecoming Parade. Needless to say, Air Force did us proud in grand fashion - football players, cadets, band, skydivers and fighter pilots were all top notch.
The first mother ever to parachute onto the field helped introduce the game - an auspicious start to a great match.
Did I ever tell you we have cats now? No? Well, we do. Our little family has grown. Somehow my sister convinced my parents that we needed cats. Our dog was hit by a car a few months ago, and the house is sad without any animals. I was not holding out for another dog, since it took eight years of begging at every Christmas, birthday, and any other major holidays and every time I saw a dog to convince my parents to get the last one. I was not, however, expecting cats. It was probably the mouse infestation that finally won my dad over, and indeed we have seen not one mouse since the cats came home. A cat would not be my first choice of pet, but these two are very friendly and decidedly dog-like. They follow us around and wait patiently (albeit loudly) for food morning and night. They love being petted and chase each other around the house at all hours. They get in more places, but in less trouble than the dog ever did. They do have an affinity for windows, but so far they have not managed to jump out of one, something I cannot claim for the dog. He jumped out of the second story window and ran into the church down the street during the sermon because thunder boomed through the empty house so he escaped to find the closest group of people. The cats deign to be with people; they do not beg for companionship. Incidentally, they aren't too keen on photos, so I had to catch them off guard.
This is Monster.
And this is Azula.
At the end of July, I drove with my brother from Rensselaer in New York back home to Colorado. The drive was beautiful and traffic and construction were, for the most part, light. The joy of the trip was not in the driving, however, but in the stops. We visited family I haven't seen in at least five years, and I re-learned the joys and stresses of having lots of relatives nearby. We stopped in to see my grandparents and hear some stories from my grandpa's youth, and my father's childhood. We visited my Pennsylvania relatives and I finally met my two new adopted Ethiopian cousins and caught up with the older ones. One is already off in Kenya for the Peace Corps, but I caught her before the trip. We stopped in Ohio with more cousins, and were given the full Columbus tour, completed by a visit to the german bakery to pick up dessert. Dinner was incredible, eaten outside with wonderful company a stone's throw from a path winding off into trees. After dinner we were taken back to a memory of Pennsylvania with the train empire my cousin has created in his basement. It is impossible to quite describe the splendor and magnitude of the empire, but suffice it to say we were impressed.
Our final day on the road ended in Kansas City with a magnificent sunset and some Chipotle. I know we should eat local, but I just can't get enough of that spicy, fresh explosion of flavor transported to my mouth on salty chips. Chipotle was Colorado local once, at least.
Life is pretty dang good most of the time. Sometimes I wish we had grown up in Pennsylvania near my grandparents and cousins. I would have a built-in group of friends and a million dinners and concerts with all of my family. It is difficult to reflect on what I never had, and now that the immediacy of the road trip has worn off, I can reflect on all that I do have. Sure, it would have been awesome to grow up with my cousins, but it would have been exhausting as well. It would have been cool to go swimming in the pond in the summers, but I would never have gone skiing in the mountains in the winter. I would love to see my relatives often, but I would never have met my best friends. I still remember a paper plate award I received at the end of summer swim season one year - it says, "Life is what it is." I still agree with those words I said, the words my coach remembered amidst seemingly endless drama from the girls that summer. I appreciate the opportunities and the glorious moments in life. I think of the "what if's" with a critical eye, I realize that life is what it is, and smile.
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