Beeping Slooty and a rant about powdered sugar

By the way, the rain finally ceased last Saturday, after 34 days of measurable rainfall. Sunday took itself literally, Monday and Tuesday copied their predecessor, and Wednesday a new storm system moved in. But three days of sun helped IMMENSELY.

I have been meaning to post for the last week but I haven't gotten to this screen. So you know, I decorate cakes for fun and profit. Mostly fun, but the profit is mighty nice too. (Go see! Sweet Finales) ANYwho, 'round Christmas time someone borrowed Betty (my mixer) and my last 2# bag of C&H powdered sugar, since she only had 1# of the store brand called Western Family pwd sug. and she needed to make a double batch of frosting.

Long story short: I had a birthday cake to make last weekend. The ever-popular and best selling caramel apple spice cake with cream cheese frosting, for Al's 82nd birthday. I pulled out the Western Family powdered sugar, butter, cream cheese, vanilla, etc. and went to work. Hm. runny texture. The recipe calls for 3 cups of powdered sugar, mind you, and a pound of powdered sugar is a little over 4 cups. I emptied the remaining sugar into the bowl. Runny. I grabbed an open bag of C & H I've had for a while - added 2 more cups of sugar. A little soft, perhaps, but should work for covering the cake, even if not for piping. I frost the cake and smooth it, and put it in the garage fridge to set up.

In the morning: the cake looks like the saggy baggy elephant! AGHRGGH! So I chop pecans up, press them into the sides of the cake to hide the multitude of frosting sins, and attempt to do some "finish work" - shell borders, writing, etc. on the remainder of the cake. The shell borders do not hold, but rather form a nondescript blobby pool at sequential intervals. AUGHGHHH!!!
THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use anything but the BEST - C & H Pure Cane Powdered Sugar From Hawaii Growin' in the SUN! western family is on my blacklist for powdered sugar!!

When Tracy came to pick up the cake I told him this was NOT representative of my work and I would not charge him the full price, but when he wrote the check out, he went ahead and gave me close to the original price. He's a guy; what does he care how it looks, as long as it tastes good? Still, my resolve is firm. C & H for me. I should do their commercials.

Also last weekend, pre-cake, I went out to my old teaching/coaching haunt by the request of the current cheerleading coach to help her cheerleaders with some stunting. They seriously needed to get back to some fundamentals, so we went back to basic shoulder stands, as far as how bases should pull down on the back of the flyers' calves just below the knee for added stability and support. Also in how to get OUT of stunts, "shake right, shake left" - the hand grips needed and the proper support to get their friends SAFELY down to the ground. I then showed them a "cooler" way of getting into a shoulder stand via a calf pop. I'd show you what it looks like but I don't see any examples of it on Varsity.com. Basically the base stands in a forward lunge position, and the flyer uses the base's back leg as a sort of mini tramp to get up to the shoulders. One pair of stunters was able to get this technique so I felt that was a job well done. That, in addition to teaching them the proper grip. I firmly emphasized the need for them to go to a good cheerleading camp to get proper training in technique to spare themselves injury, if they plan to do stunting like they want to do. Becky (the coach) mentioned that they couldn't do an elevator extension so after watching the girls try a couple of preps, I made a few suggestions (they really could do it all along, they just didn't know they could, you know?) and the first time they tried it, ZING, right up the flyer went, locked and held solidly in her first ever extension. You know, in cheerleading that used to be a BIG deal, but now it's a pretty basic stunt. The thing a squad needs to be elite nowadays is a ground-up liberty extension. I think *one* stunting team on my squad got that one down, but I don't think we used it in any games because it was a little shaky.

OK, that's enough cheerleading. A. would rather watch grass grow than have anything to do with it, but I can't help it, I love it, especially the stunting and acrobatic parts.

Today we went up to the Seattle Children's Theatre and saw Sleeping Beauty. This was not the Disney version. It had more Scottish overtones in it (accents too!) and instead of three fairies trying to undo the spell of Maleficent, there were two sister witches ("one bright, one dark") who, in their personal conflict, make Briar Rose the fulcrum of their success/failure. The dark witch was rather a conflicted soul; the writer of the play made it clear there was personal bitterness between the sisters. "I am who I was made to be" I think was a line repeated more than once. I don't think I'm quoting it correctly.
Anyway, after that we went to the Pacific Science Center and goofed off there for a bit. I don't know what the most popular exhibit was for the kids, but I was having a good time looking at the digital human scans/3D computer anatomy.

And now I am wondering why I'm sitting here fully dressed when I could be in jammies with a bowl of popcorn......or, ooo, hot chocolate, that sounds even better. The kids are watching Lilo and Stitch and I just might go watch it to see Lilo educating Stitch on how to be a model citizen like Elvis.