So, the rental car exodus of 2009 left D-man and I stranded this weekend, and with an offer to spend Saturday on a dock near Wakefield sadly declined, it seemed as good a time as any to catch ourselves up on some things.

Begrudgingly.

I have a cake due on Monday night for our second cake-decorating class.  Being utterly hopeless, I’ve gone and make this as difficult as it doesn’t need to be.  So did the weather — the hottest all summer — which played havoc with my well-intentioned notions of ambitious application.  (It was melty). The story of this cake shall be legend.

A propos:  the Wilton cake decorating class offered at Michael’s was a stereotype masterpiece of new-Canadian meets mother-of-three meets urbanites-who-had-to-take-the-O-train down.  A short story dying to be written, when and if I manage to graduate.

D-man did stuff, too.  A week ago, we impulse-bought an tiny dresser off the side of the street — technically a men’s dresser with a fold-top drawer, or something, but also incredibly adorable, and perfect for holding a laptop.  Since we don’t own a laptop, we’re thinking of this one as more of an investment piece.

Well, the poor thing has seen better days, and while a full restoration will take a little longer, for now, its function is more a priority than its form (i.e., I need more drawers for my clothes).  D-man fixed it up real good, and at last, my socks are home.

Our Sunday morning trip to the grocery store became a race to see who could fill the cart fastest with vegetables.  This is our bodies telling us to eat better.  I’ve been subsisting on mostly icing for three days (read: cake-decorating) Even D-man admits, the temporary peoples’ strike in the room with all the silver appliances better soon come to an end.  Last night, dinner was Thai leftovers with a side of Red Apron leftovers.

To WHICH end, I took a page out of this particular blog.  My version did not include cute ceramic bowls and bite-sized carrot sticks, but it DID involve pre-washing everything and cutting them up into functional sizes.  There is something vaguely unusual about photographing your fridge.

Holla!

By now, last year, it was into Malawi, but before that, South Africa — a place I gush over, though my time there wasn’t truly sufficient enough to have had a chance to mature.  It was the sort of place where we would make small feasts out out of stylish foodstuffs that hadn’t existed over the first 4000 kilometers of Africa we’d so far crossed.

We would buy Vache Qui Rit and eat it on fresh breads with tuna, our laps overflowing on the bumpy canvas seats of the overland truck.  Dale, thrilled to have paved roads again, let’er ride nice and easy into Stellenbosch’s valley.  Two days later, we went as far as Capetown, and though we didn’t even stay long enough to have breakfast — besides a cup of coffee and a bag of peanut M&Ms at the airport — I love it, with all my heart.  Such unexpected emotion at the meeting of two oceans.