Our Patriotic Cake

from glorioustreats.com

Ok, so above is the picture of what we wanted to make for our friend's 4th of July party. Fun right? So we set out to make it. Now because I am often impatient, I did not refer back to the instructions, which was my first and repeated mistake. Primarily this resulted in me having to make an extra cake because I initially baked 2 white cake rounds instead of a white and red, then a red and blue. So altogether we had 6 cake rounds. Six! Oy. If only that were the worst of it.

Assembling proved difficult as I injured my wrist and was trying to rest it, so I had to give instructions to my family while I watched. By the time we got all the layers together, on a scale of "Nailed It!" to "Epic Fail", we were cascading toward the latter, as you can see below.

At this point, I was ready to throw in the towel, but Megan was desperate to bring this cake to the party. We left it in the refrigerator overnight, hoping it might pull its act together by morning. It did not.

But wait - cutting in to it proved that there was hope! Yes, it seems we managed to make two red stripes next to each other (yet another proof of Gina's strange reluctance to actually refer to instructions. You would have thought that trying to fit 3 cake round halves alongside one cake round and wondering why they weren't the same height would have been my first major clue. 1/2+1/2+1/2 is not equal to 1).

So we trimmed around the outside and made an obscenely large second batch of frosting with which to cement the cake together long enough for it to be consumed by the hungry, patriotic masses. Here it is waiting to be judged in our little mini-competition:

We won "most patriotic" which seems fitting somehow - the American way always seems to be a fight against the odds, isn't it?

Next time, (if there is a next time) I think I will just use red cake and put copious amounts of white frosting in between as the white stripes. I mean who doesn't love more frosting?

What Did Our Ancestors Do?

So here was our conversation at dinner:

Ethan: I've realized that a lot of times peoples' last names have something to do with what their families did. Like the Schumacher's family probably used to make shoes. And the Hausmans . . . I think they made houses. Or maybe they sold real estate.

We all giggle.

I ask, "In Germany?

Ethan, with a grin: Yeah, they were ancient German real estate agents. And the Olivers sold olives, obviously. But what about Butz?

We're all silent. Then we burst out laughing.

That Date That Wasn't

In light of Valentine's Day approaching, I thought I'd take this time to share with you the story of The Date That Wasn't.

It was 1995 and I was living in Mankato with 4 other women in a house right next to the university. I had convinced one of my roommates to watch The Jerk (oh the irony) with me. Partway through the movie I had already fielded 4 telemarketing calls and let's just say my tolerance for being propositioned was running thin.

Then I had this phone call. I swear every word of this phone call is true and unexaggerated:

Me: Hello?

Random guy: Hi Gina?

Me: Yes?

Random guy: Yeah, I was just wondering if you wanted to go out with me on Friday night.

Me: That depends. Who is this?

Random guy: I'm not really sure I want to tell you.

Me: Well then I'm very sure I don't want to go out with you.

Random guy: Well . . .

Me: Do you think I'll go out with you if I don't know who you are??

Random guy: (ok I won't publicly out him here. I am quite sure he doesn't read my blog but that would be just mean. Suffice to say he identified himself).

Me: I'm going to my parents' house this weekend (honest to God truth).

Random guy: Oh. OK.

I don't know how he saw that ending differently. I guess he must not have thought it through or he was just banking on the element of surprise. Maybe he thought I'd be caught off guard enough to say, "Sure, pick me up at 6" and then when he showed up, I'd be locked in. Poor guy. I hope since then he's worked up a little more courage.

Survival Skills

Our kids have been sharing a bed here in Thailand, which is a recipe for character building for all. Last night Ethan woke up to find that Megan had taken all the covers. He tried to pull some of them back and asked her to give them up. In response, she put her foot on his body to push him away while simultaneously choking him (all in a sleeping state).

I guess it's good to know that our daughter has instinctive survival skills.

My Tao Bao Christmas song

(to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas")

Chorus:

We bought all our gifts on Tao Bao

Whatever we need on Tao Bao

We buy everything on Tao Bao

And it comes to our door

We find things online

They cost so much less

It saves time and money

We don't go to the store

(Chorus)

There’s rarely a day

When we don’t hear “kuai di!”

That’s what they yell at us

When they ring at our door

(Chorus)

A hundred and eight things

In the last ninety days

That might seem excessive

But we just might buy more

Did you try to look on Tao Bao

You really should look on Tao Bao

They have everything on Tao Bao

And it comes to your door!

For Your Entertainment

My dad sent this article to me today. It was written about my grandpa, when my mom was a little girl (she's the "pixie" mentioned). I think my favorite line is, "his mind coated in hopeless perplexity." As my dad said, "They just don't write them like this anymore."

Top Lips Enjoy

I bought a lip balm this week. It says "Top Lips Enjoy" so I guess the fact that I enjoy it means my lips are tops. It also bears this colorful description:

Anti-exposes to the sun the element and the special effect including SPF15 protects the lip ingredient, contends with the moral climate, the violent sunlight and the cold wind violation, often maintain the bilabial four seasons health are moving!

I'm particularly impressed that this lip balm will help me fight all that immorality out there.

Don't Believe Everything on Pinterest

 What is this man doing? It may look like he is taking a blood sample from a lemon, but that is not the case. We were trying to debunk something that has been pinned and repinned on Pinterest in the past few weeks. It's a picture of lemons cut in half, each lemon a different, perfect color other than yellow. It says you can achieve this by injecting food coloring into lemons.

When I first saw this pin I thought, "Cool!" for about three seconds, and then my logic kicked in. How could the skins be uniformly another color? And how does each individual piece of pulp get colored, but nothing happens to the white parts?

We had to try it.

So we got out some dark red food coloring and injected as much as we could. As you can see below, most of the ink settled to the bottom of the lemon, making it look sadly bruised. We tried at least three different places to make sure we got as much as possible in, but it also kept leaking out the other holes.

We let the lemon sit for awhile to make sure we gave it a change to spread and soak in. Then we cut it open, and below is the result. As I suspected, you shouldn't believe everything you see on Pinterest.

Conversation about the future

Me, "Megan, when you're done being the best soccer player in the world, will you be a coach?"

Megan, "No."

Me, "What will you do then?"

Megan, "I'll keep playing soccer."

Me, "You mean even when you're an old lady."

Megan, "Yep."

Me, "But how will you make money?"

Megan, "I'll just kick the ball around."

Me, "And people will pay to watch an old lady kick a ball around?"

Megan, "Yep."

Let's hope she's a REALLY interesting soccer ball kicker into her old age.

Red Plate Day

We got one of those red "You're Special" plates for our wedding. We didn't realize how, if I can say it, "special" it was at the time. So it wasn't one of the things that made the cut into the 5 bags we brought when we moved to Asia in 1999.

Too bad, because today was a Red Plate Day. Why? Well, for a reason I'm guessing most of you (unless you live on this side of the world) would never have. Ethan came to me after language class today and said, "Mom, I just pooped in the squattie for the first time!"

For those of you unfamiliar, a squattie is what we call the hole in the ground version of toilets popular here. I hate them myself. I'm pretty sure I'm using them wrong, but I'm not going to into details. I love when I go to a public restroom and there is one sitting toilet, because there's always a line for the squatties but they kindly leave the sitting one for us foreigners. I think they probably whisper about me while I'm using it, wondering why I would want to squat 2 feet off the ground.

But back to Ethan. He continued with, "I thought, 'Uh . . . I'm not sure how this is going to work' but then I just did it." He was really proud. He wanted to be the one to tell Erik later. Now if only I could get Megan to use them at all . . .

Oh, and mom and dad, I'm guessing that plate's in your basement. Next summer. I promise. That and everything else. Ok, most of it.

Out of the mouths of kids

I asked my Sunday School class today, "Why do we take offering?"

Responses:
"Because we want to give to God"
"Because we should give to the poor"
"Because the Bible says we should tithe"
"Because God gives to us so we should give back"

and my favorite:
"Because the church has a budget."
Spoken by the son of one of the guys who works at the church. Classic.

And a few more . . .

Megan decided to get down on the floor to do Wii Fit with me yesterday. As she did she commented, "Ok, let's get this DONE!"

Today as she sat on my lap, she grabbed my sweater and said, "This is a mammal! It has fur!" Don't worry, it's not that our science curriculum is lacking. She just knows how to say something that will crack me up.

Gold Digger

I was delighted recently to find both Glee season 1 soundtracks at the DVD store. We've been listening to them in the car on the way to the north part of town and back. One of the songs is a cover of Kanye West's Gold Digger. As we were driving home the other night it was playing, and Megan piped up, "I'm digging for another kind of gold!" Said with finger up her nose. Nice.

Things I never thought I'd have to say

They don't warn you, when you become a parent, that you will hear sentences coming out of your mouth that were previously inconceivable to you. Ethan usually is the one who generates these phrases from me, as he is the more physically creative of the two (do you like how I put a positive spin on that?). Over the years I've been led to say things like, "Honey, it's not a good idea to free fall off your lofted bed onto the floor, even if there is a mattress there", "Great drawing, sweetie, but you can't swing your sister from your bed by a rope" (see drawing from December 21, 2004), and "Can you please stop trying to launch mini-muffins with your catapult." After awhile it becomes quite normal to say these things.

So yesterday I added to the list when the kids were eating snacks, and I was compelled to say, "Ethan, please don't try to shoot gummies into Megan's mouth with your sling shot." While I appreciate the fact that he's enjoying this simple toy, and learning to use it well, they were at seriously close range. How do you explain a slingshot/gummie induced wound?

You never know

Whenever he can, Ethan investigates technology. When we got our flight from Minneapolis to Chicago, he put on the earphones and searched for music on the armrest. The pilot broke in with an announcement, which caused the earphones to crackle. Ethan told me it gave him a mild shock all the way down his body. Then he continued with this interesting bit of information,

"Mom, whenever something like that happens, I do this" and proceeded to first hold his hand up, palm forward, then flip it around and hold it Spiderman style. Why? "Just to see if it gave me any super powers."

Always good to check.

Ancient

Here I am, back for more posting. I just had to mention that there are three guys who have just run into each other at Dunn Bros. From the sounds of it, they were friends in high school, and have now all graduated from college and are working. One of them just mentioned that he is dreading turning 25 in a few weeks because it means he's, "Halfway to 50." Because as we all know, halfway to something as ancient as 50 is like one foot in the grave. One of the others commented, "Yeah, you're 1/3 of the way to being dead."

Granted, life expectancy for men isn't much higher than 75, but seriously, how grim are these boys? For those of you approaching 50, be warned: your life is nearly over. If you've managed to elude death and slip past 50, I have to warn you that you have less than 1/3 of your life left. Live it well.

Entertaining the locals

I set my pink Camelbak water bottle down on the counter while I paid for my copies. An old woman walked up and admired it, saying it was very beautiful.

"How does it work?" she asked.

I flipped up the valve, to her utter amazement, then surprised her even further by squeezing it. She said, "It's like a baby's bottle." I laughed.

"Hey, she understands me. She understands that I said it looks like a baby bottle!" She told the cashier. Then she laughed.

Always happy to entertain.

This is too good

The mid-autumn festival is approaching here. I'd love to tell you more about this holiday, but I'm not entirely sure what it's about other than eating moon cakes. These are little round cakes that have a somewhat pastry like outside and the densest insides you will ever encounter in something considered edible. That part's usually some kind of fruit flavor, but also could be red bean or chicken.

So because I lack the know all to tell you about the mid-autumn festival, let me share with you this gloriously written ad from a moon cake brochure found on our restaurant table tonight. I swear to you that this is word for word and not embellished in any way:

Welcomes the midautumn festival festival, month round person round all things is all smooth, the day and the human and all things are auspicious, are widely separated by Wan Lichuan the friendship, but asks the safe early morning and the evening.A moon cake entrance, the myriad taste enters the throat, the full moon view spends a character and style, the heart, thought, obtains, saw, smells, eats, the luck, transports, wealth, midautumn festival festival!

All clear now on what mid-autumn festival is?

I can't make this stuff up.

God's workmanship

We were laying on my bed this afternoon reading Johnny Tremain for homeschool, and Megan said, "Look mom," pointing at the wrinkles on the inside of her elbow, "Here's where God stitched me together!"

In Minnesota, we'd call that, "Oh for cute!"

Take a guess

Erik and I just hit upon what might be the best question in the study guide for the Chinese driver's test. I'll let you guess which one is the correct answer:

After a vehicle falls into water, the wrong method for the driver to rescue himself is to:
1. Close the window to prevent water from flowing into the vehicle.
2. Immediately use hand to open the door.
3. Let the water to fill up the driver's cab so that the water pressure both inside and outside is equal.
4. Use a large plastic bag to cover the head and tight the neck closely.