A wedding cake for S & P

I met my friend S when we were working together at my first job out of college a few years ago. She was always helpful and fun to be around and our friendship grew slowly and steadily over the next few months. In addition to being a dear friend, she has been a mentor and adviser to me, sharing her wisdom as it applied to my life.

Shortly after she became engaged to P, she asked me if I would make her wedding cake. I was humbled, honored, shocked, joyful, you name it. But there was one obvious emotion that was absent: fear. In fact, I wasn't afraid at all until I started telling people and they asked if I was afraid. I had never made a wedding cake before, in fact I had never made a tiered cake at all, but there was something about S' confidence in my ability that made me forgo that emotion altogether. I spent the three months before the wedding dreaming up the cake and soliciting input from the bride and groom.

After a taste test we settled on a lovely dark chocolate cake recipe that I had found. Each tier would have four layers of cake and the three layers of filling would alternate bittersweet chocolate ganache and fresh raspberry. I love chocolate wedding cake so I was very pleased with this decision. Never having worked with fondant before, I covered the mini-test cake with it and S decided then and there she wanted the simple, pure look that white fondant provided. I was a bit nervous about how I would successfully cover the 14 inch tier and making it look beautiful, but I felt I had adequate time to learn. I taught myself everything I needed to know about wedding cakes by reading online articles, a couple of books from the public library and watching some YouTube videos about fondant.

A friend helped with the floral decoration and the bride's brother handcrafted the beautiful wooden cake stand. They say that it is better to give and to receive, and on their wedding day, I felt that sentiment had never been truer. Seeing the look on their faces as they saw the cake for the first time and watching everyone eat the cake at the reception made me feel that it was one of my greatest achievements of my adult life.

Cali Bagby

image via calibagby.blogspot.com

When I was a senior in college I became friends with a woman named Cali Bagby. Cali was a journalism major and interested in everything. She is an avid outdoorswoman and wild animal enthusiast (we watched several Wild America episodes that year).

After I graduated we fell out of touch and I always regretted I hadn't kept in better contact since we had a close friendship at one time. Luckily with the miracle of modern technology (aka Facebook) Cali popped up in my newsfeed last year, and I learned that she was to be an embedded with Charlie Company, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation of the Oregon National Guard, in the middle east. Cali spent 10 months there with the Medevac unit and returned to the US safe and sound.

Cali has recently returned to Afghanistan as a freelance journalist and is continuing to chronicle what she is witnessing there on her blog Cali Bagby, Combat Zone. She is currently embedded with Marines. I'm inspired by her both as an aspiring writer as well as an old friend. Not everyone has that fire inside them that makes you believe they are capable of great things, but Cali has it, and she had it when I knew her, even before she had imagined where this career would take her. The work that reporters like Cali do is essential to a free society, and I am equal parts proud and in awe of what she has chosen to do with her career. Stay safe and keep up the good work, Cali.

Am I an iPhoney? Part II

Back in June I wrote about my recent acquisition of an iPhone (see post here). I had been uncertain of the impact the adoption of a smart phone would have on my communication and phone usage. Six weeks later I feel it's time to reevaluate the phone situation. I've found it to be quite helpful when I need to access information from emails such as directions. I've used the GPS a couple of times, although I recently received a Nuvi as a gift so I doubt I will need to rely on it too often for that purpose, especially since my Nuvi doesn't deplete my data plan.

I use it to check the weather on a daily basis, and use the world clock function to know what time it is where my expatriated friends are. I've downloaded a song to use as a ring tone, the Fandango application to check movie times, Pandora to listen to music anytime and anywhere, and Tetris. The main thing I love about it is the camera. It's great when I just want to quickly capture something funny, or take a photo of something I want to think about buying, or when I forgot my camera battery at a friend's wedding. It's convenient, but at the end of the day a camera would have performed the same function.

The bottom line is that the functional impact the iPhone has had on my life is negligible. Sure, some things I used to do on a computer I now do on my phone, but isn't that just a different format for the same habits? I might spend less time on my laptop, but instead I'm just staring at a different, smaller screen. The iPhone is fun, occasionally very helpful but as I described it to a group of friends the other day: it's basically a phone with a Gameboy attached. I've probably played far more Tetris on it while waiting for a bus, a friend, takeout, etc. than anything else. Let's face it, I should probably be toting a library book around with me instead. It would be much better for my brain and my eyesight. Of course it's probably too late for that, I've probably become assimilated. Besides, you know what they say, once you go Mac, you never go back.

Insomnia and la vie en rose

image via Amazon.com

Last night I found myself tossing and turning, unable to sleep. After a weekend trip to Seattle I was unable to shut my mind off after so much socializing, eating & drinking, and of course hours in the car. My go to for nights like this is generally a glass of water and a predictable, familiar movie. Last night's selection was Sabrina, the 1995 Sydney Pollack remake of the 1954 Audrey Hepburn classic.

The movie's montage of Paris always makes me a little bit heartsick for the summer I spent in France several years ago. As the camera pans cafes with outdoor seating, Notre Dame de Paris and Ile St. Louis, I can almost smell the boulangeries and rich espresso. I think of how nice it would be to just spend time inconspicuously writing with pen and paper while drinking cafe au lait as I did many an afternoon that summer.

In the movie, Sabrina quotes Gertrude Stein, saying "America is my country, Paris is my hometown." Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to visit and fall in love with the French way of life understands this sentiment perfectly. I never understood before that fateful trip, how you could feel so at home, all by yourself in a foreign country. I'll leave you with a favorite line from Sabrina that I feel adequately sums up the French philosophy on stuff:

"More isn't always better, Linus, sometimes it's just more"

On one of the bridges crossing the Seine as the sun set


What helps you sleep well?

Take some time to enjoy the summer

I had the pleasure of hanging out with this little guy the other day. He belongs to a friend and is a 5 month old French bulldog named Pepe. What is it about animals that reminds us how to be human?