An update on the newly bereaved…and also, cake
Last night in our panic to dispose of Nemo’s body, P provided a moment of distraction by taking Caroline out to look at “something” on the front porch, while I frantically ran, fish bowl in hand, towards our master bathroom to flush away the evidence. I was in a state of panic over the need to hide the dead body so, clearly, if my Sicilian ancestry includes any ties to the Mafia, I didn’t get those genes.
Don Corleone would never sweat over having to dispose of a beta fish.
It’s not so much that I thought Caroline would lose her mind due to the excessive grief, but it was close to bedtime, she was tired and that tends to turn everything into drama worthy of a very special episode of Diff’rent Strokes. Plus, she looks for any excuse to put off bedtime, so a fish funeral would have been a fine angle to work.
Anyway, I was sloppy in my work. I left Nemo’s empty fish bowl sitting on the dresser in our bedroom and when Caroline woke up this morning (yes, she ended up in our bed around 5 a.m., but it’s totally worth it because she’ll sleep until 8 a.m. if she’s in bed with me. I figure she’ll sleep in her own bed by high school. In the meantime, I am enjoying mornings that start after the sun is actually up)…okay, where was I?
Oh, Caroline woke up and immediately noticed the bowl sitting on the dresser. She said, “Mama, Nemo slept in your room last night!…Oh, where’s Nemo?”. And with that observation, she caught me completely offguard at the time of day when I’m the slowest on my feet. So, I eloquently stated, “Nemo died.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Her lip started to quiver and she said, “Why did he die Mama? I took such good care of him.”
That’s debatable.
I told her that fish don’t live very long and of course she took good care of him, but he just got sick and died. She then hypothesized that perhaps a coyote had come in to our house and speared Nemo during the night which, had I been thinking clearly, would have been a much better answer to her question. And with that, she moved on to wanting waffles for breakfast. Obviously, she was all broken up about it.
Now, let me tell y’all about the rain. It rained cats and dogs and, perhaps, even beta fish today. I dropped Caroline off at school this morning right as the rain started and by the time I picked her up 3 hours later, the streets were flooded. In fact, on our way home, one of the main streets to our house was barricaded and I wasn’t sure how we were going to get home. Fortunately, I am a navigating genius and realized I just needed to go over one more block to higher ground. We had planned to go play at Gulley’s to get through the rainy afternoon but, alas, there was no way we could make it over there without a canoe.
So, we baked a cake. And I thought y’all might like the recipe and a step-by-step pictorial.
Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
Open box. Dump cake mix in bowl. Now, normally I prefer Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden cake mix, but this was all we had and did I mention the torrential flooding?
Next, add in water, butter and eggs. Eggshell is optional, but highly probable if you let a 3 year old crack your eggs.
Note to self, do not turn your back on child with Kitchenaid. Mess. Big Mess. Photo does not do justice to mess. Also, not pictured are the bits of my head that exploded shortly after this happened.
Clean cake mix, egg, butter residue from the walls. And the floor. And the Kitchenaid. And the child. And the entire side of the refrigerator.
Pour batter in cake pans and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.
Relax while enjoying a little cake batter and wonder why Mama is so freaked out. It’s just a little cake batter spewed all over the kitchen. It will come off the ceiling in its own good time.
Have internal debate as to whether or not to make homemade chocolate frosting to compensate for boxed cake mix. Decide to fully commit to Lazy Cake Baking 101.
Tell husband to step away from the canned frosting. He can have whatever is leftover.
Realize you’re writing the longest blog post in history. Oh wait, wrong tutorial.
Find it ironic that you’re frosting a boxed cake mix with canned frosting while looking down at your new issue of this.
Wonder if anyone is still reading to see the results of this labor of love.
Pass can of frosting to P. He really had no idea before he married me the full extent of my baking skills. It was just pure luck on his part.
Prepare a light dinner of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with cream gravy so that you’ll have plenty of room for cake.
Wonder how this post started with our fish grief and ended up with chocolate cake. Also, hope that was only an eggshell I just bit into.
Have a lovely weekend, y’all.