Exotic yet ordinary

If I make it through today without throwing up, I'll consider it a success. I made it back from Bartlesville last night a little before 7pm (I stood in the cake decorating section of Hobby Lobby for a good twenty or thirty minutes trying to convince myself that, yes, I CAN make the Dora cake, and then another twenty minutes or so the next aisle over trying to decide which Dora paper plates to get (the big ones or little), how many, which napkins, and whether I wanted the streamers and banners and the cover for the table. Turns out I didn't. I ended up with no streamers, the smaller plates and napkins, and the cake pan) and was amazingly optimistic about the cake experience I was about to have. How hard could it be?

My confidence started to waffle a bit when I pulled out the cake mix, the cake mix that had been sitting in our cabinet for almost a year but that my mother assured me was fine because the date on the box was 6/06 and this was just 5/06, and, besides, taste it! Seeee? It's fine. So, we mixed up the almost ancient cake mix, set the oven to 350, greased the Dora pan, covered it in flour, put more grease on the parts we missed, sprinkled more flour, poured in the cake batter, put the cake in the oven, and crossed our fingers, toes, eyes, and anything else that could be crossed that the cake would turn out all right, or at least somewhat recognizable. I think I checked on the cake every three to five minutes, each time reporting back the progress of the cake to anyone within earshot. Each report was the same: um, the cake doesn't, er, look right… exactly. To which my mother repeatedly replied: It's only been such-and-such long. It will be fine. Now get out of the kitchen.

Thirty minutes and six checks later, the cake emerged from the oven. It slid easily enough from the pan to the cooling racks, which I mistakenly took for a good sign. And, wouldn't you know, it still just didn't look quite right. Know why? Because the cake NEVER ROSE. It was flat and hard instead of fluffy and spongy and otherwise cakelike. My mother, sensing the panic, tells me not to panic. Maybe this cake is supposed to look like that, she offered. Sure. The longer it sat, the worse it became. Smallish cracks became bigger cracks until eventually pieces splintered and fell off completely. Finally, Mom relented. I guess the cake mix was old after all, she says. Right-o. I place a quick call to Justin, who is already on his way back from the grocery store with ingredients for the icing (yeah, the whole cake decorating thing simply wasn’t enough; I had to have the homemade frosting, too), explain what has happened, and ask if he would be ever so kind enough to return to the store and grab a new cake mix, one that isn't due to expire in 6/06. And then we were back to square one. Grease, mix, pour, bake. Thankfully, the second go was a success. After thirty more minutes of baking, we had a perfect cake. But by this time it's well after 9pm. The second incarnation of the Dora cake would have to cool an hour(ish) at the very least before we could begin the task of covering it with the kazillion teeny stars. We made the executive decision to sleep on it and try our hand at decorating tomorrow. It's now tomorrow. The party is in eight hours and we still have a nekkid Dora cake.

Birthdays are harder than they look! Or maybe I'm just making it more difficult than I need to. Either way, I'm just really nervous about everything turning out okay and everyone getting along and Maya having a good time and not noticing that her mother is a basket case. I just have to keep telling myself that I get another go at this next year, and that next year will be better. Oh, and that the cake will be wonderful and tonight will be absolutely lovely.