Breakdowns….Mechanical and Otherwise
April 22nd, 2005 by Ian
Bobby and I went shopping tonight. I wasn’t in the best of moods at first. I had tried to make Bobby’s birthday cake earlier in the evening but had hit a snag when I pulled out the food processor. I needed to grate a pound of carrots (for a carrot cake), so I thought I’d use my handy-dandy food processor. I assembled all the parts, threw in some carrots, turned the machine to high, and sat dumbfounded as it did nothing. I then spent the next 30 minutes fiddling with the damn thing trying to get it to work. It never did a thing. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with it. After that, my whole mood was deflated. I had my whole weekend planned and it all began with me baking the cake at 5:30 on Friday. When that fell through, I just seemed to give up. It was weird because usually I can just say “Screw it……..I’ll move on to the next item on my list and come back to this later”. But today was different. My beautiful plan just collapsed in front of me and I fell with it. Bobby got the distinct joy of coming home to an unusually crabby/depressed/lazy me. I know I was not the best of company at the beginning of the evening. And all because a stupid machine didn’t work. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.
Luckily, he convinced me we should go shopping. We stopped at Starbucks before the shopping and a mocha latte brightened my spirits. Funny how sugar and chocolate can affect you. After a few sips the world was bright again and I was rearing to go. And go we did. We hit about 5 different stores. Picked up some beautiful tie backs for our bedroom curtains at Great Indoors. Literally, ran into Z Gallerie 4 minutes before closing, spotted a painting on the wall, fell in love with it, and bought it. And finally picked up a new food processor at Target.
We got home around 9:45 and went to work. Installed the curtain tie backs, hung the artwork, and started baking the cake. Unfortunately, I screwed up the carrot cake. I don’t know if it was the weird baking instructions (400 degrees for 10 minutes then 350 for 30) or the new silicone cake pans I used. Maybe it was both. The result was two lopsided cakes with burned exterior and batter interior. Not a pretty site. This time I was back to my old self, I just shrugged, dumped the cake in the trash, and moved on to vacuuming. I’ll go for my third try on the cake tomorrow.