I'll Take Some Closure In Lemon Chiffon With Buttercream Please

(EDITED: Now with supercute photo of yours truly, ca. 1975)

First, WOW. I've been lamenting the loss of my audience, thinking nobody was still reading. But the comments yesterday proved otherwise. A sincere THANK YOU to all who took the time to comment. The support, the advice, and the perspective were all appreciated more than you can possibly know. It's nice to know we're not on this walk alone, and I promise to post updates as we progress. I can't solve your child's problems and you can't solve my child's problems. But we can share information and experience. And we can offer each other hope.

Now, on to today's post....

Last night, I was watching the Food Network. Or rather, I was wasting time on the computer while husband watched the Food Network, because I never watch it on purpose.

I loathe cooking, you see. I'm honestly not interested in knowing how to do it better. Cheaper and faster and with less effort...absolutely.

But better? Na-uh. Because invariably, better means more work. And that? Is contrary to my nature when it comes to all things cookulatory.

Also, it always makes me want to eat. And I swear to God, thinking about eating is the same as eating as far as my ass is concerned. Thanks to stolid Teutonic genes, my fat cells assimilate calories by osmosis.

Anyway, the point is, it's not really my thing, so some of the shows that I happened to catch were heretofore unknown to me.

My ears pricked up when Charm City Cakes came on. My sister used to work in a bakery and became quite accomplished. She even made a toilet cake once. It was very realistic.

And up until a few years ago when Mom-made cakes became uncool in the extreme, I made all the boys' cakes. I think I fancied myself a bit of an amateur cake artiste. Even if a couple of my cakes were more likeley to end up here than anywhere else.

I watched these talented folks create one fantastic confection after another. Some were whimsical, some were silly, some were elegant. All were unique and interesting.

And I realized....

That I have some residual resentment from not having the cake of my dreams at my wedding.

Oh...you haven't heard that story? Sit back...it's a doozy.

Well you know...I've gotten over most of it. To tell the truth, if I had it to do all over again, I would have skipped the wedding altogether and spent another week in Europe.

But back then, I swore that one day, we would do it over again, properly. We would renew our vows and it would be the most elegant affair ever, even if I had to sell my body to every soccer Dad in suburbia to do it. What's a little penicillin when we're talking about the realization of every little girl's fondest dream?

Pffft.

Fifteen years we've been married and it seems a little pointless and frivolous now.

And yet...

I still long to have a cake of transcendant loveliness.

When I was six, I was the flower girl in my cousin's wedding. I had a beautiful pale blue high necked long dress, with a cameo embroidered on the bust. My mother gave me a ridiculously sophisticated updo. And I got to carry a little white wicker basket of blue and white daises.



The bride's father was very well to do and the wedding was a very elegant affair. Well...as elegant as 1975 could ever hope to be, I guess.

She had a cake that took up the entire table. It had a real fountain that spouted blue tinted water, which cascaded down the tiers with magical grace. I remember gasping when I caught sight of that magnificent cake. It was everything a little girl could ever dream of. And I did, from that day forward.

Someday...someday I would have a storybook wedding and an amazing cake that would make all my guests gasp the way I had.

By the time my own wedding came along, I had pretty much abandonded the fountain idea. Passee. Gauche. TACK-y.

My cake would be the epitome of elegance and sophistication.

Unfortunately, though I wanted something like this:



Or this:



Or even this: (AA, I'm thinking of you here)



What I got...SIGH...was this:



As bad as it looks in the picture, the reality, I'm afraid, was even worse. Because what appears to be a soft peach, was actually, a shockingly garish orange.

I suppose I should be grateful that I had a cake at all. Because my mother said "I don't care WHAT happened, you get my daughter a cake, NOW." And this is what I got, in an hour, at 9:00 on a Saturday night. From Publix.

When you look at it that way it's kind of a wedding miracle.

When I'm under a lot of stress, I have one of several dreams: My teeth are falling out, I've lost the diamonds from my wedding ring, the high school calls to tell me there was a mistake and I didn't really graduate and....cutting into a beautiful wedding cake to find it filled with garbage.

I blame that last one on the fact that I was denied the cake of my dreams.

I feel that I need closure. And by closure I mean cake.

My 40th birthday is less than a year away. I'm just sayin'.