Of Surprises and Desserts: A Parisian MMP

Well, what a surprise! I got an email from BusDude. He was in Baltimore and took my advice about dropping in on the pub where my sis works. He has experienced my crazy youngest sib. I b’lieve **BBBobbio **is the only other Mumper who has had the pleasure.

Second load in the dryer, third in the washer, first folded and awaiting stowage. I’m so efficient! :smiley:

Friday at last! The week was long for me too!

My lovely daughter is going to cook dinner for us and her boyfriend. Score! It’s nice to just come home and relax.

Appropriate yays, hugs, boos, and smooches to all!

Well, I"m finally packed up. Now it’s time to haul all this crap out to the car, leave enough space for

a) the cat
b) the frog
c) the frog cage
d) the catbox
e) the computer
f) my suitcase of take-with-me clothes
g) me

which can’t go into the car until tomorrow for obvious reasons.

I was just summoned. Time to haul!

Laundry is done. Yay. Time to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Car is partially loaded. Complicated Roommate is depressed. Corvette Roommate is sleepin’. Zeldadog is depressed. Petercat is mad. Bobbyefrog doesn’t care…yet.

Now I need to relax enough to go to sleep. I have to get up and play Car Tetris again first thing in the morning. See y’all next week!

Well, that was interesting. I’m sitting at work, scheduled to leave in fifteen minutes, and the power goes out. At least now I have a good excuse if I’m asked why I didn’t clock out, because without power I can’t do that since I do it on my computer.

What really blew my mind, though, was when I got to the one non-working traffic light I encountered, people were actually doing what you are supposed to do – treating it like a four-way stop. Amazing.

Luckily I have power here at home, though I’m definitely leaving the computer unplugged tonight. There is obviously some lightning around the area.

Howdy. One more day till day off.

Hope the loading goes well, Spaz!

: empties laundry into FCM’s hamper :

Great pics, gt.

I love your pictures, gt. It sounds like a fun trip.

Here’s a yummy cake recipe:

Orange Poppy Seed Cake, modified from Jeanne Lemlin’s Quick Vegetarian Pleasures cookbook

Cake:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt (1/2 tsp or less if using salted butter)
3 Tbs poppy seeds
1 cup butter, softened (salted is fine, just use less salt)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs (Room temperature, not cold from the fridge.)
2 cups sour cream or plain yogurt (use 1 1/2 cups if you prefer a dryer cake)
1 Tbs orange extract

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 Tbs warm water
1/2 tsp orange extract

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and *flour *a 10 cup bundt or tube cake pan. If you don’t use flour, your cake will stick. Baker’s Joy is fine. Mix the dry ingredients together. I usually mix everything together and then add the poppy seeds, otherwise they sink. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar, until well, creamy. Beat in the eggs, then the sour cream and orange extract. Beat in the flour mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Scrape batter into the pan. Bake 50 - 55 minutes or until knife/toothpick/whatever comes out clean. Cool at least 15 minutes on a wire rack before turning the cake out, or it will stick and break in the pan. Cool completely before making the glaze. I usually make the cake the night before and make the glaze in the morning. If you don’t wait for the cake to cool, the glaze will run and soak into the bottom of the cake. It’s still delicious, just not as pretty. To make the glaze, combine the confectioners’ sugar, water, and orange extract in a measuring cup with a spout and drizzle over the cake. Let the glaze harden for about 20 minutes before serving.

This cake freezes well, although it probably won’t last that long. This more of a decadent breakfast treat than dessert. It goes well with coffee, hot chocolate or tea. Serves 12 - 16. Or 1. I made this cake for a friend on her birthday. She set it on the kitchen counter and when she came back in with the rest of her things, her husband had eaten the entire thing. :eek:

Well, I didn’t wake up at 3. I made it all the way till 4. :rolleyes: Tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t happen, so around 5-ish I gave up. I hate this.

I may crawl back into bed in a bit anyway.

Plans for today involve making a pedestal cover for the boat. We’re going to take an old sheet to use as a pattern and pin/mark/cut it, then transfer the pattern to the proper fabric. Here’s hoping it’s a 1-day project.

Beyond that, who knows. Still have a bit more laundry to do (after tossing doggio’s dirties thru his window…) We need to clean the blue bathroom - daughter’s best friend and her husband are coming to visit at the end of the week. And I really need to semi-organize the green bedroom. It’s becoming a walk-in repository of stuff I don’t know what to do with. Only walking space is disappearing. Purge time!

Yeah, it’s another exciting weekend at FairyChatEstates. And it’s overcast again.

I want sun, dammit!!!

Shadow!!! I was thinking about you the other day. How are you? I’ll add the recipe to the blog later today.

Hope the move goes well, Spaz.

Thanks for the compliments on the pics (and thanks for putting up with the bla bla bla on the trip to those of you who aren’t fascinated by the minutiae :)).

Off to a fun field trip where I won’t plant anything, but will admire things that can be planted.

Back later…

GT

Morning all! I’m working again today. : eyes clothes in bushes: And I guess laundry, too.

Hey Shadow!

Morning! Plans for the dog park shortly. Laundry beckons later. Gonna whip up some brekkie here in a minute.

Lovely hot hot day is forecast.

Showered, dressed, and ready to head out. If you felt a disturbance in The Force, it’s becauseI shaved my legs. :eek:

Time for breakfast and some boat work.

Laterz!!!

Busy. Just popped in to say I can do Monday, but will likely post it Sunday night.

Good morning!

I’m sitting here with my first cup of coffee and getting ready to do my first load of laundry.

My lord, my neck and arm hurt! I’ve been in pain for the last three days now. I don’t know what the hell I did, but I wish it would stop!

We’re going to a mixed martial arts figtht event tonight. Not my thing,** Mr. Taters** is excited about it.

My daughter cooked dinner for us last night. It was good!

There’s a little cloud cover right now, but it’s supposed to burn off and temps are supposed to reach the mid 70s.

Well, I guess I should get crackin’ on the chores.

I was just thinking about Shadow a couple of days ago, too.

So, I’m here garage saleing today. Its been pretty successful so far as I sold an old refrigerator and some extra catering equipment. Just trying to figure out what I want to eat as I was too busy running around up to this point to find any breakfast.

I have had a busy day today - got the lacy naughty things for the Bride-to-Be and also for her gag gift some…erm how can I put this without the male contingent keeling over…nipple tassles :smiley:

Got a realy nice wrap to go with my dress for the wedding as well, went out for a nice lunch, did laundry, stripped and re-made the bed and took a nap.

I was going to go to the movies but I woke up to late from my nap and would have missed the beginning so I will go tomorrow afternoon.

I have to do some work tomorrow for a Managers school I am putting on in a couple weeks but at least I had an nice day out today!

Knee is sore from all the walking though…I think medicinal wine is needed!

So good to see Shadow and Mmmms! And thanks for the recipe, Shadow, it looks scrumptious! :slight_smile:

Had a good day of resting today! laughs I appear to have hit a bit of a snag in my proposed exercise regime - bathing suit does not fit! I’m going to see what I can cobble together to be able to get into a pool. Gah. On a better note, I bought much fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery store.

Tomorrow, though, I’ll be running errands. Well, not actually running! But will have to go to Tarjay to pick up a few things and then finish up the grocery shopping.

Og, I wish the weekend were longer! :stuck_out_tongue:

The cake sounds scrumptious, Shadow!

I’m glad to **Shadow **and ems both popped in here too. I meant to mention that earlier, but I’m not all here today.

My back and left arm are just killing me. I’ve been in pain since Thursday and I don’t know what the hell it is. If I bend my neck forward, extra pain shoots all the way down my left arm and into my hand too. The area between my shoulder blades is extremely painful. It all feels like a terrible toothache. I tried Motrin several times yesterday. It didn’t even touch the pain. Sigh…I really hope this passes soon. It’s making it difficult to concentrate, much less get anything done.

I think we’re supposed to be helping my sister-in-law move some stuff into storage tomorrow. She sold her house on the Eastern side of the state and is moving over to this side. I don’t know how much good I’ll be if the above situation doesn’t start resolving itself soon.

Well, I should try to muster up some more get and go and try to do a few more chores done.

I’ve got all the pieces of fabric cut out and daughter brought home a zipper for it. I’ll put it together tomorrow - I’m too tired tonight. So I’ll just knit.

Hope I can sleep tonight…