How to Make a Birthday Cake in 10 Easy Steps

I make a horrible house wife. 

I am terrible at cleaning and vacuuming in lingerie and mostly I suck at baking. But it was The Mad Scientist's birthday and I wanted to make a cake for him. So I rolled up my sleeves, mentally prepared the cat and bought a LOT of butter.  So I'm proud to present... 

How to make a 4 layer white cake with red velvet heart-shaped core and red velvet crumble top with royal icing in 10 easy steps or your money back! 

1. Bake 4 round cakes. Remember oven mitts. (Fire hot. Indeed.) 

2. Take a can of icing, use like glue to stick two layers together. Don't use real glue. You should have 2 two layered circles of glue-free cake. Bake two round red velvet cakes. Crumble one once cool. Eat the other one with one hand like it were a fluffy red frisbee.

 

3. Start carving. (The cake, not a shive... That comes later.) Carve a cone into the center of one (concave), then dig a little pyrimid into the other(convex). Yeah, just look at the photo.   

Concave and convex, bitches.

4. Run out of icing. Decide you are awesome enough to make icing from scratch. Coat the kitchen in a delicate layer of powdered sugar. Make 'snow' angels on the kitchen floor. Fill in caves with crumbled red cake.

Fun fancy mixer.

5. Stack cakes precariously. Lapse into diabetic coma from all the icing testing. 

6. Briefly reevaluate your life choices.

7. Realize that you've come too far and ice the entire cake. Add remaining crumbled cake on top. Try not to think about how it kind of looks like ground beef.

8. Add candle.

9. Sing "Happy Birthday" to my dear sweet husband. (Remember to send AOL Time Warner royalty check tomorrow.)

10. Burn the kitchen to ashes since there's no going back after the horrible mess you made.

Nothing says 'love' like a blood red core to your cake.

Because Doesn't Everyone Love Feet Cake?

Oh, you wanted the vanilla extract?
I thought you meant Durian. Now our cake smells like feet... Rotting corpse... Diaper. Whichever.
My bad.

William Holden and the Death of Old Hollywood

I think I hear a flat-line.

Or maybe it's just someone breaking into the liquor store down the street. Either way, I feel old Hollywood may already be dead.

I started to feel this way when I was watching one of the few shows I watch on the rectangular screen in my living room the other night. Hollywood Treasure on the SyFy network (I'm not sure why it's on that particular station either) is about Profiles in History, an auction company run by Joe Maddalena, whose passion for movie and TV memorabilia make me look like a chump(ette). I love this show yet at the same time, I want to throw things at the screen because I wanted the screen used stepper motor driven turbolaser tower from Return of the Jedi! I wanted Jack's santa sleigh from Nightmare Before Christmas! And I so want Mary Pickford's cigarette case.

I went to their website and it turns out that for the last two days they had one of their huge, amazing auctions. And to my happiness (and totally jealously) day one of the auction had a loose theme - The Golden Age of Hollywood. And as I scrolled through the digital catolog, one item stopped me dead in my tracks.

William Holden's Oscar.

If you ask, 'Who the hell is William Holden?', punch yourself in your face then get on Netflix and educate yourself, dammit. His time on I Love Lucy. Sabrina. Paris When It Sizzles. Bridge Over the River Kwai. Stalag 17. Sunset Blvd!!  Ok, now that you've watched all those movies...

Bill Holden was a complicated guy (but aren't we all?) who loved women, animals, and (allegedly) the drink. He bought a chunk of land in Africa as a preserve for the animals in the volatile area in East Africa. His collection of antique Asian art can be seen at the Palm Springs Museum of Art. He dated Audrey Hepburn, Capucine, Stephanie Powers and Grace Kelly.  Humphrey Bogart allegedly hated him. I love the both of them and would have arranged a play date for them if I had been around at the time.

In 1953 he won this Oscar for Stalag 17, where he played an antisocial prisoner who openly barters with guards in their POW camp who may or may not make it out alive. Some felt this was an apology Oscar for snubbing him for Sunset Blvd. He had the shortest acceptance speech in the history of the shindig, merely saying  "Thank you." and heading off.

In 1966, he was in Italy where he was in a drunk driving accident that killed a man. He was sentenced to 8 months, suspended. Friends say this was the point when his marriage began to fall apart and his drinking became worse, racked with the guilt of a man's death.

In 1981, at 63 years old, he tripped on a rug, banged his head on the corner of a table and bled to death alone in his apartment. No one found him for days.

'So what?' you may ask. Another Hollywood actor dead from excess. Why bother with this whole bloody article? It's not just a quiet and sad death. I feel like it's all something more. Something irreplaceable and special, the likes of which we shall never see again.

When scrolling through the catalog, staring at the Oscar, I begin to scroll down and there is more and more of Holden's things. A framed flight report, awards, his Emmy. And as much as I covet, it makes me a bit sad that someone is selling off The Golden Age for profit. Or out of desperation. At least the cynical part of me thinks that.

I hope that the person who bought it takes good care of it. Appreciates where it came from and what it witnessed.

Hell, if I had $120,000, I'd give it a pretty good home too.

UPDATE: Just checked "Prices Realized", it DIDN'T SELL. I wonder if they would take the grocery money for the month. Also not bought: Marilyn Monroe nudes, Mal's space suit from Firefly, Harpo Marx's wig and Mary Pickford's cigarette case.

check out Holden's legacy here.
Profiles In History website here.

Mourning with benadryl

I'm covered in hives.

I'm not sure why, but I guess it's because of the funeral.

Last week, we got a terrible call at 8:30 in the morning. My husband's best friend, a young man with a young son, a wonderful friend and an amazing story teller, had died.

We are still in shock, a week later. We will continue to be for quite some time. As we will continue to grieve and cry and do all things we do when we lose someone we love, I feel my sweet Mad Scientist struggling. I try to be there but I'm not sure if I'm helping.

This has brought me screaming back, five years ago to my brother's funeral, where I was covered in hives and giving my eulogy, shaking hands and consoling friends and talking with people I didn't know about funny stories that I wasn't there for, the whole while a little voice, selfish and angry, whispering to me how all you want to do is tell everyone to shut up and slink away to sleep for 100 years.

I'm not a wise person and I don't have any answers but I am living proof that life goes on and I have found a way to be. I guess that's the only thing I have to say on this subject in life with certainty.

It's not much. But a little benadryl and a nap might help too.

Da nuh... da nuh...

No one loves the killer in the shadows. Except me.

In honor of the upcoming Shark Week, I wanted to share my thoughts on my favorite under-the-sea creature. (Screw you adorable seals!)

Not only are sharks fascinating, complex and varied but they are truly beautiful. There is something elegant about a creature that hasn't had to evolve since the time of the Megalodon, which existed roughly sometimes between 28 to 1.5 million years ago. (Please don't email me evolution deniers. I'm not going to read it cause I don't have to and honestly don't want to...Sorry, life isn't fair... Just ask the Dodo.) Some dispute that the Great White is related to the Megalodon and it's more closely related to Mako. I choose to believe the former because it makes for a better story. Take that, science!

I love the idea of a huge (60feet long), toothy (7 inch long), hungry (munching on whales) shark mostly because it's terrifying beyond anything I actively have a reference to...

What draws me to this creature is that it's not just a fascinating study in biology and evolution but it's also the pure fear i feel when I see footage and pictures of all types, from the sweet looking Woobegong to the Great White beast. I've only seen one in real life once, exploring a sunken ship in the Caribbean. I was frightened but at the same time, I found myself swimming straight for it as it swam away. (Because I'm an idiot...)

So curl up with some seal steaks, and see what Discovery has to offer this year (since last year wasn't so spectacular, in my opinion.)

And hey, if it sucks, I'm watching Jaws.