Cupcake Chronicles

I am about to run 26.2 miles in Vegas.

Yes, I plan to be in bed by 10pm on a Saturday night in sin city. (Gasp.) Vegas enthusiasts, fear not. It will be ok.

Just remember, it's like they say, 'Mr. Pibb and Red Vines equals CRAZY DELICIOUS.'

Wish me luck in cupcakes...

Dari Cupcake

There are times when you have to believe there is something bigger than you working away up there and everything we experience in this world is one more step toward that plan.

That time is now.

The exploding image above is titled "Dari Cupcake." Why? I have no idea. But I like it.

Vita-Cupcake

After a much-needed Thanksgiving break (complete with a rudofsky flag football extraveganza) I find myself half-dreading, half-looking forward to getting on with the next three weeks of work and life and love (maybe?) so that it will finally be the holidays again. And by holidays, I mean Christmas, and by Christmas, I mean 'break from work' and snow (fake) and caroling. Not that I carol.

(Please ignore the absence of anything Chanukah related. I'm just getting over Thanksgiving... I need the 7 days until Chanukah to practice my 'barucha.')

However, with December 1 coming up on Saturday, and my third marathon coming up on Sunday, I have been taking my vitamins and steering clear of cupcakes for the past month.

Do I feel different? Fitter, thinner, lighter, fluffier? I think I feel a little bit of all of those (possibly including the 'fluffier' part.) The following are my observations from adhereing to the 'no cupcake' left behind (on my plate) program. Let's not get this confused with a 'Bush-ism' because as we all know... that would never succeed.

Zero Cupcakes means I...

- miss cupcakes. I do.
- don't miss the fleeting happiness and instant regret they brought.
- am developing a serious all-out love for peanut butter.

And that, young reader, is as far as I have gotten.

Gobble Cupcake Gobble

Out in the desert.
Turkey and cupcakes give thanks.
For all that we have...

Cupcake Cleavage

Just like homemade... is that not the best slogan for anything that has the words 'cleavage cupcakes?' Exactly.

Let me be the first to say- there are not many advantages to eating your weight in cupcakes for say, oh, just around 6-ish months. However... when a good portion of those extra cupcakes travel to the nether regions that lie just below your neck, the result is two-fold: It's either- 'are those implants?' (because, golly gee, that is the first thing I would do when moving to Los Angeles) or it's- 'can I touch them?' (in the most innocent way imaginable.)

My question is- since I've finally stopped eating cupcakes (and 10 bowls of cereal and 3 jars of peanut butter and etc.,) does this mean that the cleavage that I have come to embrace (except for when running- believe me, it is NOT comfortable and has left me with a red rope-like burn clear across my chest) will disappear?

I hope not. But...

I would trade cleavage for the ability to eat just one cupcake anyday. Yes I would.

The Cupcake Blues

Blue is- the color of the sky, ocean, boy, sadness, music... my favorite pair of chuck taylors.

The color blue is bright, soothing, melancholy, dark...

Blue is a state of mind. I don't feel blue. I feel yellow and fuschia and orange- like a burnt sienna.

And it feels... un-blue.

Cupcake: C-P-C-K

I am going to frame this. Brilliant, I say.

M. Johns... thank you.

Choco-Cupcake

fresh from the oven.
smells like home, christmas, winter.
and chanukah, too?

Whirly Cupcake

Have you ever heard of the band OXO?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OXO_(band)

Yep. Neither had I. Until one serendipitous night to be mentioned in a moment. Apparently, OXO was a small-time American 'menudo-like' band complete with fluorescent t-shirts, mullets, and over-the-shoulder keyboards. Their name was a 'palindrome' and they made sure everyone knew it. Impressive to say the least.

OXO had one Top 40 hit, "Whirly Girl" more aptly titled "Whirly Cupcake" according to yours truly. However, what make this band of any interest is that on a chilly Los Angeles night way back when (in September) I attended "Mortified!"- 'a comic excavation of adolescent artifacts (journals, letters, etc.) as shared by their original authors to total strangers' over at King King in Hollywood. Now, I had actually been once before, because what is better than laughing along with someone as they relive their most embarrassing, excruciating and mortifying experiences? Not much. Plus, I am the BEST audience. I laugh, a lot.

So, to make the evening even more hilarious, my cousin was performing. Yes, she is THAT fabulous. While I knew that she would own the stage, what I didn't know was that another performer, GJ Echternkamp, would read a terrible poem he wrote as a teen, and then (and more importantly) announce that he had left postcards about a very quirky, very real documentary he had made about his parents, 'Frank & Cindy.'

So I picked up the postcard. And gave it to my VP. And then one day, I looked down to see 'Frank & Cindy' on my desk. And I watched it...

'Frank & Cindy' appears to be a comedy- a humored look at the life of a boy-bander gone south. However, in GJ's words, "After a year of filming, what began as an attempt to mock his one-hit-wonder step-father, instead becomes a candid portrait of the pursuit of happiness."

So the question remains... What happens after? Where are all those one-hit-wonders now? I'm sure VH1 will have a special sooner or later. Just wait.

Cupcake Pedestal

Frosting piled up high.
A right-side mini mountain.
Cupcake pedestal.

National Public Cupcakes

Letting the title marinate... However, I was on npr today. And it was delightful.

While grad school was, shall we say, interesting, it did manage to introduce me to one of my true loves (no, not him)-- public radio. What once I thought was slow and boring is actually hours of fun at the push of a button.

I should be an npr commercial.

But only if it is recorded in black and white (even though it will never air on television) and all the little neighborhood kids gather round their radio to hear my debut. And mummy (prounced exactly like it is spelled) glides into the sittting area with a tray of good ol' fashion cupcakes (father is of course off with his chums at the local gentleman's club,) while grandpa puffs on a cigar and in between swigs of scotch says, "Damn that LBJ! That SOB is good for nothin'!"

Then, only then, am I in.

3's a Cupcake Crowd

And no one likes a crowd of cupcakes.

Will You Cupcake Me?

There are a few things that I have always loved. It could be said that if you have known me for a few years, you have at one point or another been affected by my love of weddings. Not my own wedding per say (though, trust me, it has come up now and again,) but the whole idea of weddings (what most people get caught up in anyway.) I love to watch them, read about them, attend them, and maybe one day, plan them... something I have been seriously thinking about as a little detour in a few years.

However, just because I might have forced my previous boyfriends, roommates, family members (I am SO sorry) to watch TLC's 'A Wedding Story' every morning at 11am (even if it was a repeat) that does not mean that I have lost all touch with reality.

For instance. I love weddings AND I love cupcakes.

However, some things should never be combined in gold lame. If (pause) a boy gave me a gold ring with a jeweled cupcake on top for any other reason than a hilarious 'gag' gift, I would call that... a DEAL BREAKER.

I would immediately leave, break up with, end it, post it, email it, IM it, myspace it, text it...

It would be OVER.

And all because one confused soul decided it would be a swell idea to dip a cupcake in gold. There are many things appropriate for a cupcake to be dipped in... unfortunately, gold is NOT one of them.

End note: Of course none of the above would apply to someone that I truly loved. BUT it would have to be the kind of 'will you cupcake me?' down-on-one-knee kind of love. I know it's out there... just leave the cupcake diamond at home.

Stop... In the Name of Cupcake

Seriously, stop.

Chutes & Cupcakes

Back in the day, I played my share of boardgames. A little Monopoly on a rainy day, Chutes & Ladders with a gaggle of little girls, 'Sorry' with my sister (I loved it when I won- she didn't) but looking back I'm not sure I took full advantage, and did true justice to the mighty boardgame. Sitting on the rug in front of our blue leather couch (which sadly to me, now lives in my 'all grown-up' sister's san francisco apartment) Andrea and I would spend many an afternoon cross-legged on the floor moving little colored cones, thimbles, or top hats over what was really just a piece cardboard- but it folded. Remember that? I always thought the folding board was amazing.

But I digress. Back to the Glick's tv room. (Others may call it a den or family room, but we never did- though that is exactly what is was- even more so than a room to watch tv.) In this room, which sits in the middle of our house- not quite it's own floor, but a seperate level in it's own right- Andrea and I (and when I turned 14, our gorgeous little man, Gabe (a-la) would rotate throughout the room over the course of an afternoon. The corner of the couch, the big leather recliner, the computer desk... All to the rythmn of 'Like sand through an hourglass, so are the Days of our Lives." Oh, the things we saw at 3:30pm.

Marlena possesed by the devil, Stefano dead, (but not for long) Sammi married to Austin, Austin married to Carrie, Carrie kissing Lucas, Sammi married to Lucas... The list goes on. Of course, all of this happened under the watchful gaze of the Salem Place steadies; John, Roman, Marlena, Victor and Kate, Beau & Hope, Jack & Jennifer and as pointed out by a seasoned Days fan, my sister, Sean & Belle... For those who I have failed to mention- days will live on in you all.

3:30pm also marked snack-time. I will say, cupcakes were not so much on the radar at 15, 16, 17 years of age. Instead... dry kix in a plastic brown bowl (or yellow, or orange,) peanut butter and bananas, tofu. Nothing like the delectables of 1476 Benito Avenue.

Maybe I'll try the dry kix again... better than cupcakes. (But not really.)