30 March 2003
25
R. Linda:
As you know, me cousin Sean is staying with me in between his being at his girl's house. Yesterday, I be at the office when he rang me up and asked if it would be all right if he cooked dinner and invited Rose (that's his girl), over and if I would be there so her parents would know they were being chaperoned. Like I said, I haven't told him about American dating habits, so we are working it straight out of the dark ages here.
I told him that be fine by meself and if there be anything I can do to help, just say the word. At about 5:30 he rings me back and says could I pick up some candles for the top of the cake? I say candles? What for do we need candles? He says because it be Rose's birthday and he forgot the candles for the cake (that's not all he forgot, remember we are talking Dougal from Father Ted here).
I said I would pick up candles and asked if he had something for her because maybe he should give her a wee gift. He said he did, he bought her ruby earrings and a posy ring. It cost him a pretty penny it did, but he was all happy. He said he'd give them to her after dinner when I went off to me room to watch the telly with me door open. I didn't know I was going off to me room to watch the telly, because I thought I had been enlisted as a chaperone, but ok at least me door will be open.
Then he says, would I pick up one of those cake things where you can write a message on the cake? I said I would try, then thought about it and asked him why he wanted that thing. He said he got a pretty white iced cake with red roses on it, and because he was in a hurry and was buying food he wanted for dinner, he forgot to have it 'engraved.'
What could I do? I went to the store, grabbed one of those gel cake writer tubes that come with a thing you can screw onto the end to make it write in a fine line. I got it home in the nick and he says to me, "You write her name on it because I'm not good at those things." I said I'd give it a whirl and got a napkin to practice on.
"Do you know how to spell her name?" He asks.
"N-i-c-o-l-e," I said slowly.
It took him a painful three minutes to realise what I had spelt.
"What?" He blurted out in a panic. "Her name be Rose. Where did you get Noelle from there Gabriel?"
Noelle? Oh my God, I thought to meself. I said lighten up it was merely a joke and of course, I knew how to spell Rose for land's sake. I get to practising on the napkin and I was doing pretty darn good for someone whose handwriting sucks. I took the cake and started with the Happy. It was well done if I do say so meself. Then he points under it and says, "Put the birthday right there." So I did. Then when I was finished he said, "That be so beautiful." Tears were welling up in his grateful eyes, but I be seeing something else that he wasn't because of the tears.
I be looking at the cake thinking I have no place to write her name. There simply was no room left! Usually, he wouldn't notice that, but after a few long moments, he did. He suggested I put a giant 'R' at the end. There was no room and it would look like BirthdayR.
"How about at the top?"
"How would that look? R Happy Birthday. Would look like we did it ourselves."
"Then, ooh, here's an idea Gabe, put it along the side of the cake all the way around."
He held the cake while I wrote Rose out in big red icing letters that went up and down and looked like we'd had too much to drink when we wrote it. We decided it looked horrible. Getting a knife we tried to ease the writing gel off to find it was bleeding in with the white icing. Seeing we made a bit of a mess, we decided to blend the two colours and hope for the best, only then we had to add red writing to the back of the cake because we didn't have enough to spread all the way around. So now we had a pink mess on the sides with the elegant white top, red roses and halfway decent Happy Birthday written on top.
I got out a fork and while I spun the cake, Sean holding the fork steady, put lines in the icing around the cake to make it look better. Instead, the fork lines were as bad as the writing had been -- not straight -- all wavy and curvy.
Sean decided to blend the icing back the way we had it. Only this procedure took the icing off the sides in globs. We had big gobs of naked cake sticking out between pink icing and when we tried to match the stuff back to cover the exposed cake, we made it worse because the patches got bigger. Now we had a cake that had icing on the top and practically nothing on the sides.
I looked at the pink goo on the knife. I ran next door and got me neighbour Tonya. I told her what happened and made her promise not to laugh. I could see she was having to fight it when she saw the shambles of a cake. Sean stood there looking defeated, stirring the gravy for the meat, like he'd been at it for hours and never been near the cake. Tonya looked the cake over and told us not to touch it, not to lift a knife to it, and to step away from the cake. We did.
She left us and went back to her apartment returning with a canister of powdered sugar, heavy cream and a tub of butter and a mean-looking mixing machine. She threw the ingredients in and to make a long story short, we had a pretty spiffy-looking cake when she was done. For her cake-saving efforts, Sean asked her to stay for dinner. She said she'd love to. He isn't as stupid as he looks because before long, she was in there correcting his culinary mistakes and dinner turned out to be editable, something I doubted much of the day would ever happen.
Sean left us for a half hour to go pick up his Rose, while Tonya reset the table. Seems we had the forks on the wrong side, the knife edge sticking out towards each other, which she said was a warning sign we could be hostile and stick our guest with the knife if we didn't like what she said. Begorrah me! I never knew that setting a table had RULES!
Next, I know, Sean is lumbering in the door all red in the face because he's embarrassed he has a girlfriend. The eejit came in first instead of Rose, and Tonya and I were standing there all smiles and nothing.
"Where is Rose?" I asked.
"Oh, she be right here behind me," he stupidly says and finally moves out of the way and lets her in.
Me cousin is shy 6 feet tall, but Rose was shy by several feet. She had to be all of 4 feet 10 inches tall. She is a wee pixie of a girl with those slanty Irish eyes and turned-up nose, and the cropped red hair that makes great posters for leprechaun changelings. She comes in with this sweet smile and shyly says hello.
Because Sean isn't much in the brains department, I introduced Tonya and meself and threw in Sean in case he never told her his name. She laughed at that. Yes, she did. She laughed a honky snorty laugh up her nose that Tonya and I did not expect from such a wee bit of a lass. Tonya sprayed her drink all over me shirt and holding her mouth ran for the kitchen saying something about having an allergy fit. And Sean was all concerned she was not alright because he's dimwitted.
We sat down to dinner, Tonya talking up a storm to keep from giggling and Sean, hopelessly looking at his Rose with what should be called a dreamy expression, but looked more like a stupid one, not at all caught up in the conversation. This happened on more than one occasion when either Tonya or meself would say, "Isn't that right Sean?" to which we would get the response, "Sorry, what was that you said there Gabe?"
As we neared the near birthday disaster known as the cake, Rose took it upon herself to speak. Every single sentence went something like this -- "I be going to school here, uh huh, ok?" and "I love broccoli, uh huh, but Sean doesn't care for it, ok?" and "Would you please pass the lamb, ok?" and "I saw GANGS OF NEW YORK and thought it was violent, ok?" and "I wish it were warmer here, it be too cold for me, ok?"
OK!
How infectious is that! I found meself saying such things as, "Pass the gravy, ok?" and "Rose, would you like some butter for your roll, uh huh?" This set Tonya to outbursts of laughter she covered quite well by announcing, "Allergies, ok?"
We tried not to make Rose laugh because when she did, she'd do the honky snorty thing and Tonya would fly out of the kitchen because her allergies were making her have a seizure of sorts and she'd come back sort of controlled, but with teary glazed over eyes and the laughter she disguised as hiccups. It was just so unbelievable.
The cake went off well, and for all our trouble we found out, we really didn't have to go to any of it. Rose admitted when she missed blowing out the two candles (don't ask why just two, Sean can't count beyond that), she apologised and said she had broken her glasses and couldn't see because she was blind as a bat. Of course, once that came out Tonya left the table with her napkin over her face for the kitchen, because who knew?
To put the icing on the cake, excuse the pun, Rose asks at the end of the dinner who Tonya is to me. Before I could say she be me neighbour next door, Sean pipes up and says she be me girl. Saints preserve me! Both Tonya and I did a double take at each other and she said to Rose, "Yes, I love this guy, wait till I bring him home to meet my parents," and she punched me softly in the arm with a grin on her face. Then she said, "They will be surprised to see I am dating a white boy." Did I fail to mention Tonya is the product of a Lebanese father and an African/American mother? She has the colouring of Paula Abdul and I would tease her by referring to her as Ms. Abdul which is her name really. Anyway, she leaned towards me and said under her breath, "Not only my parents but my boyfriend," and she pinched me.
As Chloe's Jewish neighbour, Mrs. Caster would say, OY VEY!
Gabe
Copyright © 2003 All rights reserved
R. Linda:
As you know, me cousin Sean is staying with me in between his being at his girl's house. Yesterday, I be at the office when he rang me up and asked if it would be all right if he cooked dinner and invited Rose (that's his girl), over and if I would be there so her parents would know they were being chaperoned. Like I said, I haven't told him about American dating habits, so we are working it straight out of the dark ages here.
I told him that be fine by meself and if there be anything I can do to help, just say the word. At about 5:30 he rings me back and says could I pick up some candles for the top of the cake? I say candles? What for do we need candles? He says because it be Rose's birthday and he forgot the candles for the cake (that's not all he forgot, remember we are talking Dougal from Father Ted here).
I said I would pick up candles and asked if he had something for her because maybe he should give her a wee gift. He said he did, he bought her ruby earrings and a posy ring. It cost him a pretty penny it did, but he was all happy. He said he'd give them to her after dinner when I went off to me room to watch the telly with me door open. I didn't know I was going off to me room to watch the telly, because I thought I had been enlisted as a chaperone, but ok at least me door will be open.
Then he says, would I pick up one of those cake things where you can write a message on the cake? I said I would try, then thought about it and asked him why he wanted that thing. He said he got a pretty white iced cake with red roses on it, and because he was in a hurry and was buying food he wanted for dinner, he forgot to have it 'engraved.'
What could I do? I went to the store, grabbed one of those gel cake writer tubes that come with a thing you can screw onto the end to make it write in a fine line. I got it home in the nick and he says to me, "You write her name on it because I'm not good at those things." I said I'd give it a whirl and got a napkin to practice on.
"Do you know how to spell her name?" He asks.
"N-i-c-o-l-e," I said slowly.
It took him a painful three minutes to realise what I had spelt.
"What?" He blurted out in a panic. "Her name be Rose. Where did you get Noelle from there Gabriel?"
Noelle? Oh my God, I thought to meself. I said lighten up it was merely a joke and of course, I knew how to spell Rose for land's sake. I get to practising on the napkin and I was doing pretty darn good for someone whose handwriting sucks. I took the cake and started with the Happy. It was well done if I do say so meself. Then he points under it and says, "Put the birthday right there." So I did. Then when I was finished he said, "That be so beautiful." Tears were welling up in his grateful eyes, but I be seeing something else that he wasn't because of the tears.
I be looking at the cake thinking I have no place to write her name. There simply was no room left! Usually, he wouldn't notice that, but after a few long moments, he did. He suggested I put a giant 'R' at the end. There was no room and it would look like BirthdayR.
"How about at the top?"
"How would that look? R Happy Birthday. Would look like we did it ourselves."
"Then, ooh, here's an idea Gabe, put it along the side of the cake all the way around."
He held the cake while I wrote Rose out in big red icing letters that went up and down and looked like we'd had too much to drink when we wrote it. We decided it looked horrible. Getting a knife we tried to ease the writing gel off to find it was bleeding in with the white icing. Seeing we made a bit of a mess, we decided to blend the two colours and hope for the best, only then we had to add red writing to the back of the cake because we didn't have enough to spread all the way around. So now we had a pink mess on the sides with the elegant white top, red roses and halfway decent Happy Birthday written on top.
I got out a fork and while I spun the cake, Sean holding the fork steady, put lines in the icing around the cake to make it look better. Instead, the fork lines were as bad as the writing had been -- not straight -- all wavy and curvy.
Sean decided to blend the icing back the way we had it. Only this procedure took the icing off the sides in globs. We had big gobs of naked cake sticking out between pink icing and when we tried to match the stuff back to cover the exposed cake, we made it worse because the patches got bigger. Now we had a cake that had icing on the top and practically nothing on the sides.
I looked at the pink goo on the knife. I ran next door and got me neighbour Tonya. I told her what happened and made her promise not to laugh. I could see she was having to fight it when she saw the shambles of a cake. Sean stood there looking defeated, stirring the gravy for the meat, like he'd been at it for hours and never been near the cake. Tonya looked the cake over and told us not to touch it, not to lift a knife to it, and to step away from the cake. We did.
She left us and went back to her apartment returning with a canister of powdered sugar, heavy cream and a tub of butter and a mean-looking mixing machine. She threw the ingredients in and to make a long story short, we had a pretty spiffy-looking cake when she was done. For her cake-saving efforts, Sean asked her to stay for dinner. She said she'd love to. He isn't as stupid as he looks because before long, she was in there correcting his culinary mistakes and dinner turned out to be editable, something I doubted much of the day would ever happen.
Sean left us for a half hour to go pick up his Rose, while Tonya reset the table. Seems we had the forks on the wrong side, the knife edge sticking out towards each other, which she said was a warning sign we could be hostile and stick our guest with the knife if we didn't like what she said. Begorrah me! I never knew that setting a table had RULES!
Next, I know, Sean is lumbering in the door all red in the face because he's embarrassed he has a girlfriend. The eejit came in first instead of Rose, and Tonya and I were standing there all smiles and nothing.
"Where is Rose?" I asked.
"Oh, she be right here behind me," he stupidly says and finally moves out of the way and lets her in.
Me cousin is shy 6 feet tall, but Rose was shy by several feet. She had to be all of 4 feet 10 inches tall. She is a wee pixie of a girl with those slanty Irish eyes and turned-up nose, and the cropped red hair that makes great posters for leprechaun changelings. She comes in with this sweet smile and shyly says hello.
Because Sean isn't much in the brains department, I introduced Tonya and meself and threw in Sean in case he never told her his name. She laughed at that. Yes, she did. She laughed a honky snorty laugh up her nose that Tonya and I did not expect from such a wee bit of a lass. Tonya sprayed her drink all over me shirt and holding her mouth ran for the kitchen saying something about having an allergy fit. And Sean was all concerned she was not alright because he's dimwitted.
We sat down to dinner, Tonya talking up a storm to keep from giggling and Sean, hopelessly looking at his Rose with what should be called a dreamy expression, but looked more like a stupid one, not at all caught up in the conversation. This happened on more than one occasion when either Tonya or meself would say, "Isn't that right Sean?" to which we would get the response, "Sorry, what was that you said there Gabe?"
As we neared the near birthday disaster known as the cake, Rose took it upon herself to speak. Every single sentence went something like this -- "I be going to school here, uh huh, ok?" and "I love broccoli, uh huh, but Sean doesn't care for it, ok?" and "Would you please pass the lamb, ok?" and "I saw GANGS OF NEW YORK and thought it was violent, ok?" and "I wish it were warmer here, it be too cold for me, ok?"
OK!
How infectious is that! I found meself saying such things as, "Pass the gravy, ok?" and "Rose, would you like some butter for your roll, uh huh?" This set Tonya to outbursts of laughter she covered quite well by announcing, "Allergies, ok?"
We tried not to make Rose laugh because when she did, she'd do the honky snorty thing and Tonya would fly out of the kitchen because her allergies were making her have a seizure of sorts and she'd come back sort of controlled, but with teary glazed over eyes and the laughter she disguised as hiccups. It was just so unbelievable.
The cake went off well, and for all our trouble we found out, we really didn't have to go to any of it. Rose admitted when she missed blowing out the two candles (don't ask why just two, Sean can't count beyond that), she apologised and said she had broken her glasses and couldn't see because she was blind as a bat. Of course, once that came out Tonya left the table with her napkin over her face for the kitchen, because who knew?
To put the icing on the cake, excuse the pun, Rose asks at the end of the dinner who Tonya is to me. Before I could say she be me neighbour next door, Sean pipes up and says she be me girl. Saints preserve me! Both Tonya and I did a double take at each other and she said to Rose, "Yes, I love this guy, wait till I bring him home to meet my parents," and she punched me softly in the arm with a grin on her face. Then she said, "They will be surprised to see I am dating a white boy." Did I fail to mention Tonya is the product of a Lebanese father and an African/American mother? She has the colouring of Paula Abdul and I would tease her by referring to her as Ms. Abdul which is her name really. Anyway, she leaned towards me and said under her breath, "Not only my parents but my boyfriend," and she pinched me.
As Chloe's Jewish neighbour, Mrs. Caster would say, OY VEY!
Gabe
Copyright © 2003 All rights reserved
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