As promised, a photo gallery of the little angel's eighth birthday cake.

This was obviously not made by me.

I chopped off the top because it had her name on there and I'm still not into sharing that online. I'm bad with photos, but not that bad.

The number was made from white chocolate, I think.

Mr. Octopus sits on a bed of brown sugar sand. The entire cake was edible except for the toothpicks holding in the treasure chest. Note the suckers on the underside of his legs.

Coral and shells

The treasure chest was made from cocoa Rice Crispie treats.

Nemo. I know -- when she brought it over I just sat and stared at it for twenty minutes, asking her how she made all the parts.

Absolute best part: how much she loved it. Happy birthday to my sweet girl.

I'm still feeling pretty gross, so this is all I've got today. If you're a Kansas City local and are interested in contact info for my amazing baker friend, email me at ritajarens(at)gmail(dot)com.

Over at BlogHer my interview with Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) is up -- Jenny's book comes out today, I think, and I'm so excited for her! 

This weekend we had the little angel's bday party, and the neighbor made the coolest cake I've ever seen in my life. Like it belongs on Cake Boss. But last night I slept like hell, the cat has a cold and keeps sneezing in my face and I have body aches I think I caught from the little girl who got puking sick the day after my girl's bday party. So, instead, here's a link I wrote to a post on BlogHer for today on why glasses are so damn expensive. Back tomorrow!

My daughter still takes a bath every night. She thinks she should probably be showering because the older kids shower, but I reassure her it's for me as much as her. It's our time to talk about the day and what's going on in her head. I sit on a little stool next to the bathtub, and we discuss the finer points of hairwashing (I got schooled over Easter by my sister regarding the proper amount of conditioner to use if you don't have duck fuzz for hair, which is a third of a bottle instead of my pea-sized drop) or what happened in art class that day or what we should do on the weekend. 

Inevitably, I beg her on nonhairwashing days to keep her locks dry, and instead she immerses herself up to her chin in bubbles and soaks the bottom half of her head.

Recently I tried a shower cap. I had one from a business trip, the plastic clear kind they give out at HoJo. Of course, she soaked it, and I was annoyed. I turned around to get something and heard a weird ShushShushShush noise. 

She had the shower cap over her face and was sucking in and out against the plastic.

She was in no danger, but my brain registered in nanoseconds child with face and nose covered in plastic and freaked the fuck out. I completely lost it, tearing the shower cap from her face and screaming DON'T YOU EVER PUT PLASTIC OR RUBBER OVER YOUR NOSE AND MOUTH OR HIDE IN AN EMPTY FREEZER OR DO ANYTHING THAT WILL CAUSE YOU TO RUN OUT OF OXYGEN BECAUSE YOU COULD SUFFOCATE!

And she burst into tears immediately. 

Of course she didn't realize. She was just messing around; it's what kids do. She also has inherited my lack of common sense. My husband somehow instinctively knows which way is north and whether a piece of string is long enough to go between two poles and whether you should eat that food that's been in the refrigerator for that amount of time. I have so little common sense I have to think academically through everything, which takes a long time, so usually I just skip it, which results in me putting a metal travel mug filled with coffee in the microwave and nearly burning the house down.

Because I know how I am and how she is, I didn't feel bad about my overreactive outburst, though. I didn't want her to forget what I said. She and I tend to be daydreamers, half paying attention to the world while thinking through whatever is going on in our heads. I wanted her to be completely shocked out of whatever game she was playing with the shower cap so she would never, ever forget the bit about the impermeable materials and the breathing orifices. 

When she got out, we went and sat in her bed and played with her stuffed animals and cuddled, and I dried her tears and told her why I reacted that way, that I never, ever wanted to lose my Baby Duck and it scared me. Then she realized an animal was missing and dove under the covers to find it.

"It's okay, Mommy!" came her muffled voice. "The bed is not covered in plastic! I CAN BREATHE!"

Phew.

I was at a virtual group last night and met someone I wasn't sure whether I had met before. (That sentence is going to get my writer card revoked, but you know what I mean.) The first thing I said to her was, "Have we met before? Because I have an occupational hazard in that I can never remember anyone's name."

This is not my attempt to be a douchenozzle. I would love for the world to know that. I could have a three-hour conversation with you in the back of a limousine and depending on how many other people I had talked to that day and whether or not it was super loud and maybe dark and whether or not you might not look anything like your avatar on Twitter, I may or may not recognize you when you walk up to me at 8 am under bright lights. I've had people get really upset with me to my face for this sort of thing. I'm sure people have also said things behind my back. (Some probably deserved, I mean, hey, everyone screws up sometimes.) But I hope nobody ever gets seriously mad at me because I can't remember his or her name, because that problem is mine, not anyone else's. And all this existential angst over my cognition shortfalls kicked in totally last night.

I've read a ton of tricks for memory-jogging. And I've tried, really I've tried, to associate people's faces with a fruit or a color or anything that will help, and instead of remembering the person's name, I end up wondering if the character name "Walter White" on Breaking Bad is ironic or not, because he's a jerk.

Here's the thing: Remembering names and faces is an innate skill, kind of like being a fast runner. Some people are super fast without even trying, and others might train for years and still get their ass kicked by a fat dog. But nobody, NOBODY ever accuses the slow runner of being a snob for being a slow runner. So why do we do that with people who can't remember names?

I should say that nobody called me a snob recently or last night -- it's just horrifyingly embarrassing to have to start conversations with bloggers in this way because I am paranoid that I actually have met this new person three or four times before or emailed with them or commented on their blog or they commented on mine and they might have a real name and a blog name and a different Twitter handle and yet still I am embarrassed if I don't have instant name recognition.

Who are all these people who say they never forget a face? And can they help me? Please?

PS: I never expect anyone to remember meeting me, seriously. For this very reason. 

My cat, Petunia, is thought the world over to be a hellcat. When you ask my niece what Petunia says, she says "HISS." The neighbor girl who desperately wants a cat is scared of Petunia. And the last vet we had saw Petunia as a personal challenge, a mustang to be broken, a spirit to crush. 

Petunia, at home, looks more like this.

But when we went to our old vet, Petunia would barely be out of her travel carrier before she transformed into a flat-eared, fanged, hissing, spitting, malevolent force of nature capable of stealing your breath and banishing you to the land of lost souls. And that sometimes could occur even in the lobby. After two or three rounds of this, the vet suggested we tranq her before bringing her in.

See those pupils?

After the last visit last December in which Petunia was getting her three teeth cleaned (she had to have one canine pulled when we adopted her because of tooth decay) and that little procedure took twelve hours, I called last straw. I couldn't take it anymore. I know Petunia wasn't being abused, but the mental anguish I was going through seeing her so revved up just broke me. I swore never again would Petunia grace the threshhold of what normally looks like a major pet big box store.

And then I put it out of my mind.

This weekend, we hosted Easter for my parents and sister. Somewhere along the line, Petunia ate something she shouldn't have (we can be messy eaters, especially a certain redheaded someone who had a chocolate birthday cake with pink icing that can be seen from outer space) and commenced barfing last night. She's thrown up six times in the past 24 hours, all, of course, on the carpet.

This morning, I told Beloved I was going to do it: I was going to take her to a new vet.

With great apprehension, I stuffed her in her carrier and drove to the new vet. She gurgled the whole way there with unhappiness. I explained to the receptionist that she could morph from sweet baby girl into Satan's spawn in nanoseconds despite having no front claws and only three teeth. They took note.

Into the exam room we went. It had a window, and Petunia and I spent several minutes watching a robin try to brain itself against the glass for no apparent reason.

The vet walked in. I went over again with her that she might want to don a flak jacket. 

She opened the bag. 

She pulled out Petunia.

She palpitated Petunia's neck. She rubbed Petunia's belly.

Petunia meowed in annoyance.

She held Petunia and talked to me for like seven minutes and only at that point did Petunia hiss a tiny bit with impatience.

The vet told me she was going to take Petunia in the back and give her an anti-nausea shot after I mentioned I'd seen her sniffing at some chocolate cake crumbs before I could sweep them away. She told me she would not hurt Petunia but she would restrain her if needed, and then she took her into the back. I heard Petunia meowing and meowing, but none of the gutteral underworld yowls came from the back. There was also no hissing.

All the sudden, the vet was back putting Petunia in her carrier.

And it was over.

Now, does this mean Petunia won't grow to hate this vet, too? Jury's out. However, I'm absolutely kicking myself for allowing a wellness plan to keep me at the old vet for so long. Breaking up with a vet is like breaking up with a stylist, and when this new vet called the old vet to get Petunia's records faxed over, I felt a little like hiding under the steel table lest they see me through the phone.

As I type this, Petunia is winding around my ankles, begging for food, because she can't have anything to eat or drink for twelve hours, and I'm not going to give in because $57, an hour of my time and at least three cups of adrenaline are not going to be wasted just because she is temporarily thirsty and hungry.

This whole adventure just goes to show rule 1 of catdom: HOLD GRUDGES FOREVER.

Sorry, old vet. Petunia clearly just had your number.

Tomorrow is the little angel's eighth birthday. There is no school, because it is Good Friday. I'm sure the school doesn't call it that, what with the separation of church and state, but not only is there no school, there's no emergency childcare, either, so I think we can all agree there is something going on here that's not teacher in-service.

I admit to thinking yay, no classroom treats! 

Then this morning, fifteen minutes before the bus came, she asked if she could bring treats TODAY. 

It really wasn't a choice. What kind of an asshole refuses her kid birthday treats? I thought I was getting off, but no, she noticed. There's no getting anything with sugar in it past this one.

There were a few more reasons why I walked into an elementary school this morning and paraded all the way through all the halls past all the teachers carrying 32 pastel cupcakes properly labeled with all their ingredients for allergy reasons.

1. She's my daughter, and I love her with all my heart.
2. She's my daughter, and I love her with all my heart.
3. I am a sucker.

I'll be away tomorrow, celebrating said birthday. However you celebrate it, happy Easter, everyone!

There are two phantom boards in Chateau Travolta, one upstairs and one downstairs. They don't sound like all the other squeaky boards in this house: These sound like a sigh of disappointment.

I just stepped on one.

I found the one in the kitchen about a year ago. Initially, I thought it was Petunia making just the merest meow, but then I'd look around and find her nowhere near. Once I heard her jump off the bed seconds after the sigh and felt my skin crawl. I walked back and forth across that same expanse of kitchen for what seemed like ten minutes, trying to recreate the noise. It's difficult to do -- you have to step on it just right.

I didn't know about the one upstairs until today.

It sounds like someone who's just been told the house she grew up in was lost in a fire. Not a cry of desolation, nothing as dramatic as that, just the involuntary vocalization of a lost memory.

I wonder what Chateau Travolta has lost.

My inner monologue last Sunday while sporting swimwear during a month when it usually snows.

Ninety degrees on a Sunday afternoon.

Lake water, breathtakingly cold.

Trees not fully leafed out.

Four pontoons parked by the not-yet-roped-off swimming area spilled forth dogs and people amazed at the sunshine.

Twenty children balanced on life rafts and screamed with laughter.

Teenaged boys shook off water like puppies.

The radio commercials talked about spring coming soon.

I think it's already here.

crossposted from BlogHer

I stared at the phone in my hand. My sister had texted me two words: MIDLIFE CRISIS. Because I sent her a pic of a convertible I saw while driving home with my seven-year-old daughter. But I bought one, anyway.

A Brief History of Responsible Automobiles

My parents always bought cars with cash. I don't know if they still do, but when we were growing up there were never debts like car payments floating around. Never. I was fortunate enough to drive not one but two used manual-shift Chevy Novas during high school, and when I went off to college, my parents surprised me with a used but still I thought white-hot burgandy Ford Probe. Its doors were tank-like, and it had those headlights that flip up and the seatbelts that move over you instead of you having to buckle them. (If you're under the age of 30, you probably have no idea such a thing used to exist. It did, and it was so awesomely Star Wars I can't even begin to describe it.)

I kept Peg the Probe from 1992 until 1998, when she sadly began a rapid deterioration into Things Were Falling Off Every Day. My father let me buy his car, Priscilla the Prizm, off him for $4,000. At the time, I had this sort of money in my savings account (the young, houseless and childless can be rich) and off I went to move to Kansas City in Priscilla.

In 2005, Priscilla and I were T-boned on a busy street by a SUV that was much bigger than we were. I was pretty distraught, because her axle was bent and JUST LIKE THAT I went from having no car payment to needing a car, stat. By this time, I was married and my husband and I had replaced his Ford Escort with a Ford Explorer, which we owned outright. We liked the Explorer so much we decided to get another one, because the one we had seemed like it would die soon, and then when that car died, we'd just replace it with something more Prizm-like. It made total and complete sense to us at the time -- gas was cheap, we had a baby and a ton of baby stuff and we made road trips up to Iowa at least once a month with all our junk in tow.

In 2008, gas prices did that thing. You remember that thing? When none of us could afford to go farther than two feet? And my husband and I owned two -- not one but TWO -- gas-sucking SUVs. We were spending $150 a week on gas. Ifreaked out and demanded we right our wrong immediately, but when we went to buy a Corolla, the used ones didn't exist. No one was letting go of a small, fuel-efficient car. So we ended up with another car payment and a very sensible, new, very basic Corolla.

Which then got hit by a tornado.

This is what it looks like when the universe is trying to tell you something.

My husband travels a lot for work and has a rental car. We still had the Explorer -- yes, the original one we thought would die. It has 190,000 miles on it, the front passenger door won't open from the outside, the air conditioning no longer works, it's rusting and the leather seats are stained and ripped. But it still runs, so we had lots of time to think about what to do.

Then, last weekend, my daughter and I were driving home when I passed a for-sale sign on a ramshackle midnight-blue Ford Mustang convertible. I stepped on the brakes and whipped the Explorer around. My daughter's eyes widened as I pulled over on the side of the road and called the number soaped across the windshield. Then we drove straight home, grabbed my husband out of the driveway and drove him to see it.

He was understandably flummoxed by my move. Me, who made him return the convertible he rented last year at BlogHer '11 because it was too impractical for all our luggage. Me, who made him give up his beloved, tricked-out Explorer for a teeny tiny Corolla. Me, who once pinned a Debt-o-Meter to the refrigerator to remind us daily of our credit card sins. What the hell was I thinking?

When Someone Almost Dies, You See Things Differently

I was thinking that we were lucky we only lost our car in that tornado. I was thinking I didn't want another car payment, and every sensible, responsible car he was showing me would mean another two- or three-year loan. I was thinking we made so many car-buying decisions in the past based on what the smart, right thing to do was in the case of any emergency, and then along came a tornado to blow up all our best-laid plans.

I was thinking about how we'd already gone through the carseat years.

I was thinking about how many years I have left to have adventures with my daughter.

I was thinking about how much time you end up spending in a car on the weekends getting your responsible adult errands done. And how much time you spend putting off little things that would be fun and not really hurt anyone even if they are a tish off the beaten path.

And I was thinking about my anxiety, and how I always try to plan for every single thing that could possibly happen, and how the older I get the more I realize I can't do anything but pray hard and row for shore. I told my husband all of this on Sunday night.

On Monday morning, he sent me a listing for a 1997 Chrysler Sebring with 71,000 miles on it that we could buy with the Corolla insurance payout, straight-up. No car payment. And the air conditioning works great.

We named her "Vicki."