For the Love of Cake

 I'm not a real cake fan. Except for the icing or fluffy filling.

"I've spared myself the extra calories from carbs," I console my sugar-shocked mouth after swallowing the last creamy spoonful of frosting and leaving the starch. Although, carrot cake, Tres Leches and anything soaked in coconut get my vote.

Maybe I am a fan, after all.

Wherever we look, cake comes up. At birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, most every celebration, except funerals.

We stay longer at receptions and parties to have said piece of cake. It's the grand finale. The crowning glory. The event focal point.  And we praise those who can decorate them in buttercream roses, swirls, flower petals, swags and pointlets. Others sit in graceful sophistication, tailored with fondant, ganache or glace.

My mother loved to decorate them, though wanting in many other culinary skills due to being raised with a cook and nursemaid.

On one birthday--my little girl guests fluttering in their petticoat skirts--she served a dessert in the shape of a ladybug by carving layer loaves into ovals and then icing them with dots and eyes and antennae. I must have been eight. 

These are triumphs of cakes.

But cakes also suffer their tragedies. 

Such as in the callous response of the selfish French monarch, oblivious to the starving state of her subjects. "Let them eat _ _ _ _!" certainly gave the sweet a bad name.

Like the time my mother spent hours on a cake for a friend's event. Her beloved bakery creation traveled in the "far-away" (trunk) of our powder-blue station wagon. I also rode in the back, with the food. (These were the times before seatbelt regulations). I made my five-year-old self comfortable on the trip, edging up to something soft and squishy, only to discover I'd situated my bottom on the precious pastry. 

I had sat on the cake. The cake that took so long to bake.

Although my mother never scolded me, the pall of disappointed as I emerged from the back of the car with a half-flattened cake, etched a deep ravine of eternal guilt.

Some cakes fall. Some spill. Some get sat on. Some burn. Some over-rise, as in my favorite childhood book, The Duchess Bakes a Cake. 

And some get immortalized in songs,

Melting in the dark

                                              left out in the rain

                                                                                     the sweet, green icing flowing down

Jimmy Webb's epic four-verse song--with an extended instrumental--triumphed in 1968. 

And here in 2026, the song, MacArthur Park, has enjoyed a re-bake accompanying an American gold-medal ice skater in her Winter Olympic victory.

Ms. Liu chose the heart-stopping interpretation of the late, imitable Donna Summer. 

Only Summer's soaring vocals could reverberate the transcendent joy of Liu's jubilant dance.

How appropriate. 

Another cake with which to celebrate this moment in cult history!

The songwriter, 

                            the singer,

                                                            the skater 

                                                                                            the Olympic victory   

Let's all linger at the party for a second slice of cake.      

     

Saharan Dust Moon

Tonight I saw the sand that traveled three thousand miles across the Atlantic. 

The road weary plume illuminated by the full moon 

It's beam turned from silver to gold

From milky to cafe con Latte.

The busty orb set against a grainy buff sky.

Not the clear, crisp light that our full moons bring,

But an unfocused hazy glow.

The sun had set the same way

It just looks like regular clouds, my husband said.

No, it’s an unusual haze, I countered

A fuzzy blur of rays

Such as our talks have become of late.

This isn’t California, after all, where smoggy skies are the norm.

This a wind blown tropical peninsula where air pollution retreats to the Gulf

Or the seas

Amber skies are enigmatic

Saharan dust plumes a rare phenomenon 

Whose golden spray, like an ecru pair of sheers just hung

Casts a yellow diamond hue 

Over us all

                                                           Photo credit Palm Beach Post

A Slow Boil and Grocery Prices

 Frogs and people.

We have much in common. Our lungs, for one. Remember dissecting them in high school? Every time I do, I cringe. Not because I'm afraid of blood or anatomy-in-the-raw. But because I just didn't want to taste any frog innards.

There we were sticking a small straw into the trachea. "Now gently blow air into the straw," the science teacher directed. So, I did. But when I stopped blowing, I neglected to take the air tube out of my pursed lips and a wreaking, formaldehyde-drenched puff of frog breath rushed back into my mouth. I couldn't not have been more grossed out and repulsed. "Ew, I breathed the same air from inside a frog's lung," my lab partners heard me scream.

Then there's the slow boil. I have never tried that experiment, but am told frogs don't jump out of hot water if it is heated in small degrees.

Much like we shoppers in the grocery store. Two years ago the price of a six-box raisin pack was 0.99. Then you notice it's 1.09. A few months go by and they're up to 1.29.  Until they are, as I just bought them up to 1.99. One hundred percent increase!

At first it was because merchants were catching up on lost profits during COVID. Then the rise was due to the price of gas. Now I don't see any rationale, so I asked Aldi worker while I was waiting in line to check out in the one and only place to load your food on the belt, 

"Look I know it's not your fault, but why do groceries keep going up?  Gas is going down, COVID has long been over and all the checkers have disappeared to leave it to customers to self-scan, bag our own groceries and pay. The groceries should be going down because the stores no longer have to employ checkers! They should be paying us!" 

"I don't know," he blithely answered.

"Does any one else ask these questions?" 

"No." 

That's the other thing that's changed. Employees don't know anything about their own store.

"How long is the mulch sale on?" I asked the clerk at Home Depot. "I don't know." 

I wanted to say. "Why don't you know what's going on in your place of employment?" But didn't. After all, now, no one needs math or even the ability to read. Technology does it all. It even thinks for the employees.

Once a Walmart worker cut some fabric for me. It was an easy 1/3 of a yard of a leather-like fabric to line the console of the car. It was 10.99 per yard. He said, 

"Wait, let me get my calculator." I said, "Well it's easy if you just get 10% of $10 which is $1. then multiply by three to get 30%. Then do the same for the extra two .99's and add them together. $3.33."

"Ah," he said, "I was never good at math." 

"Neither was I, " I replied. "But a girl has to know her sales discounts. So I found shortcuts."

The help is in decline, but the prices are on the up as we become more amphibian-like. 

Come on in, the water's fine.

But the temperature's rising.

Oh, Say, Can You Sing?

 

My husband and I took in the Saturday Night Lights jumping event for the second week in a row here in Wellington--the Winter Equestrian Capital of the World.

Each week is a little different. 

Different course. 

                                                 Different purse. 

                                                                                                Different entertainment.  

Well, except for the fire-eaters and flame-twirlers. It's the same troop performing at 'half-time' every week.  Miss acrobat did the splits while holding two fans of flaming torches.  Gentleman stilt walker juggled fiery batons and blew the stuff of dragons out his mouth. 

Impressive.

Naturally, every week the National Anthem is sung as we stand with our hands on our hearts. Last week it was the local middle school choir and this week a 12-year-old whose thin frame belied her gusty belting. 

Not so impressive.

When did this sacred anthem sprout new notes, slurs and appoggiaturas? And I'm not talking about the acceptable improvisation and stylizing that a veteran voice might employ. 

I'm talking about scooping and sliding to the pitch. A clear indication of an untrained voice and violation of correct singing.  Are those sirens I hear? 

In disbelief, I listened as the choir, in perfect unison, scooped up to the high notes and dragged down to the low ones. And then this week, the little soloist slipped and slid the same exact way. 

My God, my vocal teacher would have booted me out of her office faster than you can say do-re-mi for singing so sloppily. 

You must place the pitch squarely in the middle. Imagine it in your head first, then hit the target in the bull's eye. If not, go back to the practice room until you stop swerving around every note like your driving on ice.

It was a clear sign of inferior singing. The mark of a novice; a beginner. And never could I have imagined being allowed to perform a song in such shape. 

I'm sure we could trace the trend to some current pop singer who set this vocal standard in the cellar, put this bar in the basement. And every indiscriminate influencee thinks it's fashionable and like-worthy to follow suit. Of course, the sweet budding students can't be faulted or even the conductors. Some arranger did a simplified version of John Stafford Smith's tune to accommodate developing voices and the music teacher said, yeah, they can achieve this. 

A purist, such as my piano teacher, (who had performed before the Queen and forbade me play 'Fur Elise' until I could handle the technical middle section), would never have assigned the simplified National Anthem to any choir. It would had to have been the original or else wait and work for maturation of skill. Perhaps the singing issue is due to a greater problem of a declining arts culture...

Fortunately, the horse jumping was graceful,

                                                                              skilled, 

                                                                                                and beautiful to watch. 

The years of practice and discipline loaded in every leap, turn and trot. Lithe equines responding to their master's nudge and prod; rich coats glistening as muscles rippled at every calculated and memorized move. 

Maybe next week the music will find its stride the way the horse and riders have.

A Letter to My Son on His 30th Birthday

There you are.

In your Brooklyn Navy Shipyard suite--a white walled, multi-windowed space that beckons creativity. A potter's wheel in one corner, a center work table and counters lining the window, all catching the suffused sunlight of a north facing exposure. It is hot, so the window panes are tilted to their widest angle in hopes of inviting any breath of wind the steamy July day might part with. 

Boone, your Brindle dog, once nosing into every shopping bag and clay bucket, now older, lies lazily on the white painted floor, spongy paws taking in the cool of the cement. Shelves spill over with the latest bisque collection, lamp bases and shades, glazes and carving tools. A fine layer of  ice-grey powder covers every surface. 

Defaulting into mother-mode, I offer to organize the cluttered sink while you add hardware to a lamp sample that must make the mail today, bound for inspection from hoteliers who will soon appoint their boutique rooms with custom lighting from Episode.nyc. "It's ok, Mom," you say. "Everything is where it should be." Adjusting my relational place again, I retreat to the window seat.

The sweetest of girls shares your affection, supports and, yes, while you are well mannered and socially aware, she still refines any rough edges that have followed you into this thirtieth year. 

I and your father stand at a greater distance than when I wrote the 20th birthday letter, though not without ample discomfort from this adult parenting business of increasingly letting go. 

There you are.

Following your own path. College interrupted, but your work has found its way into Architectural Digest and British Vogue and hotels in New Orleans, San Francisco and the Caymen Islands. Dishware, chess sets, pendants and table lamps that are more work of art than functional residing in homes as far away as France.  

You have much to show for your twenties, choosing to act on your passions rather than dutifully finishing a course of classes that would leave you indebted to both loans and lost time. You are almost more New Yorker than Floridian, now, having spent equal years in both states. And your first five years in California are a faint memory, details and adventures of which your older brothers and sister must remind you.

By the way, your stuff is still in our attic--golf clubs, fishing poles and plastic boxes of memorabilia. You ran out so quickly five days after high school graduation, and haven't taken anything since. Living in cramped quarters in NY is a valid excuse. Those childhood report cards, notes and letters, along with the family cellphone plan are soul ties I unhealthily cling to. So, no rush. Leave them there.

And Happy Birthday, Son. Never been prouder, nor had a fuller heart to see you now

Where you are.

Reservations at the Gowanus Inn and Yard

It should have been simple.

Just a quick online search for a one night stay in Brooklyn in the middle of summer. Of course, I wanted to be as economical as possible after a no-holes-barred 5 days on the Cape for a family history trip with hubby, son and daughter-in-law. 

And it was simple.

At first.

The website listing that caught my eye showed a photo of a modern platform bed with tightly tucked sheets and a throw laying crosswise at the foot. A large undressed window, mid-century end table, and a potted Ficus Lyrata completed the decor of this $115 a night room. Other photos showed an updated bathroom in shades of white and a smart-looking lobby.

"What do you know about The Gowanus Inn and Yard?" I asked my son who lives in Bed-Stuy. He had lived in New York for a good five years and knew the Brooklyn boroughs better than this Floridian who only flew in sporadically.

"It's a great area. We go to the Whole Foods there and my favorite brewery is in the area. It's really up and coming. You should book it," he said.

And I was about to until I paused to look up some reviews. Even before I finished typing in the google search bar, autofill finished my sentence choices.

Gowanus Inn and Yard...deaths

What? 

I clicked over to read about a computer hacker who was found hanged in one of the rooms. 

Another news report read about a woman found dead in her bed, not of natural causes.

And still another more grim about a mother who killed her 6-year-old son during her stay at the Gowanus Inn. 

"But how long ago were those incidents?" My son asked me after I called him back quickly. 

"The oldest was in 2013. the latest was 2021," I replied.

"Because," he explained, "Gowanus has a rough history, but it's been cleaned up over the past few years. 

Before then, that creek was a hub of criminal and Mob activity. The stream grew so murky and polluted, it served as the perfect dumping ground for the latest homicide. 

Gowanus Canal, which runs through the town has a long checkered history.

The Dutch settled on what was a conflagration of several creeks where livestock drank and nearby farms were tilled. The brackish water, created by the bay and the freshwater creek fostered the perfect marine environment in which oysters could flourish. The Dutch harvested the little crustaceans and shipped them to England, Brooklyn's first real export, some say.

In the early part of the 20th century, industry began to swell along the rivulet's banks. 700 buildings rose up in one year in nearby Brooklyn. All those new residences needed a place to dump their sewage. That was beginning of the virgin creek's deflowering. 

Chemical plants and tanneries replaced cattle, cement plants marred the grassy banks. Oil refineries and machine shops blighted the pastures, while the fumes of coal gas and Sulfur production exuded odors that swallowed up the meadows' natural fragrances. The lake became so choked with pollutants that locals referred to it as "Lavender Lake" (Gowanuscanal.org).

As New York grew, so did crime. The fast influx of rival ethnicities spilled into the streets--and also the creek. Gowanus' murky, frothy water became the perfect place to discard, not only factory run-off, but unwanted bodily remains. 

In my mind, the current Gowanus rejuvenation was not complete enough for my comfort, regardless of my son's assurance.

I called Vrbo and canceled as quick as you could say, "Get-me-outta-here!"

We found a lovely room with a garden in a classic brownstone on Sterling Street, instead.

July Fading

Time ticks away the final hours of summer 

The sun shifts. The heat persists. Stroke after stoke, thoughts of classes, lessons and meetings erase the lingering softness of the season,

Vistas of Buzzard's Bay with rarely seen family, 

Walks on the crunchy, shelled beaches of Wings Neck, 

Happily braving the ocean winds on a Chappequiot island stroll to the Family Boathouse, 

    the same grey-shingled house where my mother would summer with her cousins as a child in the 30s

I wrap myself in the fraying shawl of summer comforts

    against the impending cold of schedules and obligations

I breathe the thinning air of sun-soaked Cape beach days, 

    dripping coconut popsicles from the ice cream truck 

Central Park picnic on a sultry afternoon. 

    Grown sons

     New friends

    Dogs and toddlers running mindlessly on the green slopes, 

        oblivious to anything but the pure joy of movement

Lamplights flickering at dusk

New York skyline silhouettes at sunset

July fading.    

God and the Metaverse

     In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. 

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1

        Enter man, woman and the snake (whether it took 6 days or 600 million years). Nothing was the same afterward. From that first moment in the Garden, at the snake's cunning coercion, man has been trying to usurp God's role, avert His authority and take his place as ruler of the universe. The tower of Babel was an attempt to rise as high as God. Numerous historic leaders like Caesar and Hitler have doled out life and death at will. Genetic engineering allows parents the ability to pick their baby's eye color. Medical science seeks to alter God-given gender.

    And now, key Palo Alto players are parading themselves as Zeus to create a new universe. 

The Metaverse.

    In this inner-space, people can recreate themselves as avatars or emojis. "Avatars" as a Hindu concept are defined as deities who manifest themselves on earth in bodily form. We all can create our preferred personality, physical traits and talents with emoji applications available on google play or the apple store.

  Apple. 

    The object that facilitated the first rebellious act against God. The bite in that fatal fruit was to "open one's eyes and make them like God," so Satan promised Adam and Eve. 

The metaverse is just an ancient idea contemporized by the most powerful people on the planet. Digital dictators who decree the value of our currency. Corporate demigods who compete with other platforms, companies, and websites to get your eyes looking at them the longest.

    We are complicit worshippers of these 21st-century deities. And they know everything about us--except maybe the number of hairs on our head and the amount of tears we cry. 

    Sadly, the Church has launched into the orbit of this new universe. What Covid-19 restrictions inseminated with video streamed church services, the metaverse has consummated. Now you can join a church that is entirely online, with no physical or real-world location. Your avatar will attend virtually, free from blemishes and wrinkles and always in perfect behavior. (1)

    The Christian Church, which is by definition an interactive body of believers living out their faith in the real world will be reduced to emojis, memes and comments via cyber forums. 

    I believe humans desire more substance that the illusive world of the metaverse. Where art is no longer a skill honed over years to produce fine sculpture, paintings and music. But has been demeaned to a digital code in the form of non-fungible tokens or NFTs.

    Try as culture may, emojis and air hugs cannot replace physical and emotional warmth, a gentle embrace and expressive nuance. Avatars cannot fix our facial flaws. Web profiles cannot redeem who we really are.

    It will take a Herculean effort to escape this cultural cosmic storm. Only the strong will get up and rejoin the human race,

come back to earth and live face-to-face.

    (1) 'Breakpoint' from The Colson Center, WRMB, 2-18-22

Mrs Shaw’s Fantastic Fourth Graders and the PG-Rated Day

 It all began when we viewed a science video on angiosperms and gymnosperms. Pollination was a bit risky as we took notes on the male and female parts of a flower. But the class was rather mature I thought, especially when asexual organisms like earthworms  were introduced.

They took it like adults.

But the animated  teenagers in the video discussing gymnosperms started to push the limits of 9-year-old composure. “Gym,” the perky cartoon figure explained, “means naked. So you see, a gymnosperm, such as a pine cone, is like an unclothed seed, it has no fruit or petals on. It is a naked seed.”

I tried to play it down—although I’m certain they’ll remember that fun fact—and divert the focus to spores and their vascular type of reproduction.

Along came Language Arts, where groups of five read around the teacher’s half-circle table. The nonfiction book at hand was about dams. The Aswan in Egypt, the Hoover in Colorado. It was all quite innocent until one sweet girl who wants to be pastor when she grows up could not quite get the words out. She was reading how dams are built with concrete walls. With extra emphasis, to spit the words out she had previously tripped over, she blurted, “...the dam wall!...” 

Then I, the teacher, became the least mature of them all and exploded into uncontrollable laughter which propelled the whole table and then the entire class into a roaring cacophony. I rocked and spun on my swivel chair for a good minute until we finally calmed down to let the next child read in turn. 

Every time the word ‘dam’ was read, snickers and giggles percolated up again. The last person continued to read about their construction and when she approached and read the word, buttress, a fresh tidal wave of laughter crested. I slapped my book closed, squelching a chuckle, collected the others and said, “That’s it! We’re done! I give up!” 

Aspiring pastor girl apologized profusely.”I didn’t  mean to say it that way, Mrs Shaw. I really didn’t!” 

“Of course you didn’t, Sabrina. That’s what made it so funny. You would never curse anything, much less a wall!”

It was a very PG-rated, hilarious day! The events of which most likely reached the dinner table and ears of many a parent!

The Least of These - Part 2

 Recently, I felt our nightly addiction to Netflex was a complete waste of time. Better that we did something significant. I suggested to Tim that we find and pray about some kind of missions trip to Cuba or Haiti or even nearby Belle Glade that we could join. He agreed. 

When we were first married, in the mid-70s, our bible study group took monthly visits to an orphanage in La Gloria, Mexico. It was a great adventure full of scruffy orphans, dubious bathrooms and cockroach-filled cinderblock whose residents visited us as we slept on the concrete floors. We helped with laundry on 50s vintage washer/wringers, played with the kids, built structures, donated food and clothing and swept screen-less stucco dormitories. 

I was hankering for a new adventure of loving on the least of these.

Be careful what you hanker for. A month ago, our prayers were oddly answered when Tim received a call from his mother-in-law's landlord. They said that her condo was in need of mold-remediation and roof repairs and that all residences had to be immediately evacuated. 

So, on Cinco De Mayo, my 92-year-old Mexican mother-in-law came to stay. And it doesn't look like it will be temporary. She took over the office/guestroom.

The first morning of her stay, the internet was strangely off. We called Xfinity and netgear to see what the problem was. Our Chinese exchange student was beside himself because he had to use a hot-spot to engage in his ever-so-urgent videos games. After a morning of trouble shooting, we learned that mom-in-law had unplugged the wifi and cable devices. (A worry of hers is that leaving lamps and appliances pugged in is a fire hazard). Tim, controlling his temper as best he could, told her not to touch the wires. "I know not to touch them," she replied indignantly. " I used to work in electronics on the space shuttle for crying out loud!" He bundled and fastened the wires so she could not detach them. 

Late that night, I get a text from the Chinese student that the internet is down again. I go into her room and sure enough, she's unplugged everything digital. I reattached them without telling Tim and all is well. This happens three nights straight. Finally when Tim reprimands her again, she blames me for unplugging them! "That woman did it." 

I am so happy she is here so we can feed her regularly. Even though Tim was delivering her meals at her retirement community condo, she would not eat the leftovers in between deliveries. 

She weeds the front and backyards, hand picking all the droppings from our messy Poinciana tree. The property has never been more beautiful. She cuts things she shouldn't, so we hide the trimmers. She feeds the dog our precious coffee creamer, so we are getting a small refrigerator to stash it in. She sneaks the dog her meals, so we quarantine the dog at breakfast , lunch and dinner, so she will eat.  The dog is getting a fur problem because of his new diet of hot dogs, sausage and pudding. Fortunately, we have geriatric drinks we can sit and watch her gulp down once a day. She feeds the dog people food, including orange juice in a small dish that often gets spilled on the carpet. Saturday was spent scouring the carpets with our carpet cleaner, followed by a rug topper in her bedroom.

Her laundry is interesting. We are finding ways to trim and wash her hair although she resists vehemently.

The least of these and our prayed-for, hankered-for missions trip all in one precious, beloved soul.