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Come a summer evening at the close of day
Babelfish wins the internet. Translated off a page in Dutch, Richard Thompson's "Old Kit Bag" becomes "The Old Seals Farrowed." There had better not be a moratorium on World War I selkie stories.
This weekend was Birthdays Observed. First my brother's best friend, then my brother himself, so we had two cakes and a barbecue. What is it about setting fire to meat that feels like such a basic evolutionary success?
My brother's friend is of the species non-genetic family; mine like that is in Hawaii, my brother's in Vermont. His birthday was in the first week of July, but Friday was the first chance he had to visit in months, so we made him a cartwheel of chocolate: layers of chocolate meringue with chocolate mousse in between, also known as death by theobromine. (I got no good photographs, but my mother might have. The real feat was not its construction, anyway, but its almost complete disappearance. I think pocket universes were employed.) He had bonded strongly in previous years with Wilfred Owen and W.H. Auden, so I got him the complete poems of Rudyard Kipling and burned a copy of The Widow's Uniform as a sort of multimedia bonus; I was not sure how he would feel about eccentric folk music, since his tastes are more industrial, but he saw the track titles and yelled, "BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS! YEAH!" Irrelevant dead white imperalist etc. stuff it. Wes came back from Iraq in 2006; he wants to start up a business as a climbing guide in Vermont: we are hoping he will not be redeployed. Peter Bellamy is the least I can give him.
When my brother was four years old, my mother made him a chocolate-peanut train cake—engine, cars, tracks, all decorated with small candies—that he has remembered fondly for nineteen years, along with its rapid and messy dismemberment by a cohort of small children. So he requested a train cake this year, and after much searching through back issues of Gourmet (ending when my mother gave up, pulled a basic recipe off the internet, and made the rest up), we complied. Of this, there is photographic evidence.
The train cake, posterior view. My mother has pointed out that with the candles planted up front on the engine, it looks rather like a caterpillar of the psychedelic variety.
The yellow M&M headlights don't do much to dispel that impression, either. The hands at the end of the table belong to my grandfather.
Apparently it's a tank engine. The bunker is constructed of milk chocolate almond bark; evidence seems to indicate it runs on raisinets. Nonpareils for the wheels, strawberry licorice for the tracks, company standard. Yes, that's a gummi shark in the first car.
Candies whose basic existence delights me: edible Legos. Those colorful blocky things in between the gummi bears and the kosher-for-Passover fruit slices; they have about the same texture and range of flavors as Sweet Tarts, but you can actually build with them. I wish we'd bought more.
Because no train is complete without a gummi snake attacking it from behind. I should have put a fork in the picture for scale, but that's at least two feet of gummi snake—they were all tangled up in the bin and impossible to scoop out, so I got a disposable plastic glove from the girl behind the counter, located a handy loop of snake, and began pulling. And kept pulling. I had assumed that gummi snakes were like gummi worms, only with scales. I now want to go back to A Chocolate Dream and tack up a little sign reading: "Midgard Serpent. Approach only if Thor."
He is a photographer himself, so I got him Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss, which I am hoping will not scar him too much; the latest CD by The World/Inferno Friendship Society should be in the mail, because Brian Viglione is currently playing with them. He and his fiancée are beginning to discuss the details of their wedding, such as how to work some of the pagan aspects they would prefer into the ceremony without causing her Catholic mother to spontaneously combust. (The major victory: they are not getting married in a church. Particularly since it would have required him to convert.) I am wondering if it is an appropriate wedding gift to get them an athame.
This is what domesticity looks like in my household: talking about rocket sleds and liquid stitches while frying eggs and those leftover mashed potato cakes that are sort of the Western equivalent of the latke at a quarter to eleven because two out of three guests have suddenly decided they need a non-chocolate source of blood sugar. I check my e-mail, they talk about proteins. It's pretty cool.
This weekend was Birthdays Observed. First my brother's best friend, then my brother himself, so we had two cakes and a barbecue. What is it about setting fire to meat that feels like such a basic evolutionary success?
My brother's friend is of the species non-genetic family; mine like that is in Hawaii, my brother's in Vermont. His birthday was in the first week of July, but Friday was the first chance he had to visit in months, so we made him a cartwheel of chocolate: layers of chocolate meringue with chocolate mousse in between, also known as death by theobromine. (I got no good photographs, but my mother might have. The real feat was not its construction, anyway, but its almost complete disappearance. I think pocket universes were employed.) He had bonded strongly in previous years with Wilfred Owen and W.H. Auden, so I got him the complete poems of Rudyard Kipling and burned a copy of The Widow's Uniform as a sort of multimedia bonus; I was not sure how he would feel about eccentric folk music, since his tastes are more industrial, but he saw the track titles and yelled, "BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS! YEAH!" Irrelevant dead white imperalist etc. stuff it. Wes came back from Iraq in 2006; he wants to start up a business as a climbing guide in Vermont: we are hoping he will not be redeployed. Peter Bellamy is the least I can give him.
When my brother was four years old, my mother made him a chocolate-peanut train cake—engine, cars, tracks, all decorated with small candies—that he has remembered fondly for nineteen years, along with its rapid and messy dismemberment by a cohort of small children. So he requested a train cake this year, and after much searching through back issues of Gourmet (ending when my mother gave up, pulled a basic recipe off the internet, and made the rest up), we complied. Of this, there is photographic evidence.
The train cake, posterior view. My mother has pointed out that with the candles planted up front on the engine, it looks rather like a caterpillar of the psychedelic variety.
The yellow M&M headlights don't do much to dispel that impression, either. The hands at the end of the table belong to my grandfather.
Apparently it's a tank engine. The bunker is constructed of milk chocolate almond bark; evidence seems to indicate it runs on raisinets. Nonpareils for the wheels, strawberry licorice for the tracks, company standard. Yes, that's a gummi shark in the first car.
Candies whose basic existence delights me: edible Legos. Those colorful blocky things in between the gummi bears and the kosher-for-Passover fruit slices; they have about the same texture and range of flavors as Sweet Tarts, but you can actually build with them. I wish we'd bought more.
Because no train is complete without a gummi snake attacking it from behind. I should have put a fork in the picture for scale, but that's at least two feet of gummi snake—they were all tangled up in the bin and impossible to scoop out, so I got a disposable plastic glove from the girl behind the counter, located a handy loop of snake, and began pulling. And kept pulling. I had assumed that gummi snakes were like gummi worms, only with scales. I now want to go back to A Chocolate Dream and tack up a little sign reading: "Midgard Serpent. Approach only if Thor."
He is a photographer himself, so I got him Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss, which I am hoping will not scar him too much; the latest CD by The World/Inferno Friendship Society should be in the mail, because Brian Viglione is currently playing with them. He and his fiancée are beginning to discuss the details of their wedding, such as how to work some of the pagan aspects they would prefer into the ceremony without causing her Catholic mother to spontaneously combust. (The major victory: they are not getting married in a church. Particularly since it would have required him to convert.) I am wondering if it is an appropriate wedding gift to get them an athame.
This is what domesticity looks like in my household: talking about rocket sleds and liquid stitches while frying eggs and those leftover mashed potato cakes that are sort of the Western equivalent of the latke at a quarter to eleven because two out of three guests have suddenly decided they need a non-chocolate source of blood sugar. I check my e-mail, they talk about proteins. It's pretty cool.
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Happy birthday to your brother and his friend!
The Babelfish thing is very interesting indeed. Selkies seem to be showing up quite a lot, lately. They've stuck their noses into my fiction the last week or so.
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I'll convey your regards! My brother's actual birthday is the middle of this week, so it's still timely.
Selkies seem to be showing up quite a lot, lately. They've stuck their noses into my fiction the last week or so.
Maybe it's something about the time of year. It's Perseid season, anyway; I saw two shooting stars last week.
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Thanks!
My brother's actual birthday is the middle of this week, so it's still timely.
That's good.
Maybe it's something about the time of year. It's Perseid season, anyway; I saw two shooting stars last week.
It could be the time of year. That's grand, your shooting-star sightings.
As I think about it, my parents saw a greenish meteorish thing driving home last night--I was in the back seat and only saw such a brief flash that I couldn't even say for sure that I actually saw it. I hadn't thought about it being Perseid season, for some reason, but you're right, it is.
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It was fun to make.
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candy Legos...
And, yeah, that cake needed to be sitting on a big mushroom.
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We should have burned psychotropic candles.
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The phrase "a year and a day" thrown in a few times might not sound too odd and I bet very few will even notice when "blessed" is pronounced slightly funny.
(I know that many new jack witches feel they shouldn't have to hide their true nature. I was raised to be worried about bad people abducting me and burning me at the stake.)
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Thank you. I will put over that proposal to them.
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What an amazing cake. I love your family.
Speaking of proteins, I should send you some protein music...
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*snerk*
I love your family.
I'm fond of them myself.
Speaking of proteins, I should send you some protein music...
What is this?
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I love it: lets you *hear* how we are made. Makes you really feel the song of creation.
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it looks rather like a caterpillar of the psychedelic variety.
YES.
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I meant to take pictures in the aftermath of its devouring, when it was a psychedelic train cake wreck, but I forgot. All that's left now are a couple of nonpareils and a bundle of strawberry licorice nobody wants to eat.
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I miss you a lot! Things are vastly difficult right now, and there's no one of my sort to talk to, only pragmatists.
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It's one of the nice things about them.
Things are vastly difficult right now, and there's no one of my sort to talk to, only pragmatists.
*hugs*
E-mailing.
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I had no idea those little sour blocks were Legos! I just see them at the candy store and go, "Oh, that's an odd shape for candy," and never think twice. Thank you for putting me onto these--I might have to buy some now.
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Well, if you're ever in Belmont . . .
Thank you for putting me onto these--I might have to buy some now.
You're welcome! I hadn't known they existed before Friday, either.
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Those parties sound marvelous. :)
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I know! Sometimes this species come through.