This has been a busy week and a busy weekend, but on Saturday night the dust and obligations suddenly cleared and the evening stretched before us, ripe with possibility.
It was a rare opportunity and we discussed some fabulous options, but in the end nothing sounded better than staying home to make cakes and pudding.
What smells better than warming milk? It evokes the most primal memories of goodness and comfort. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.
Everything is going to be all right.
The pudding would have been wondrous paired with a mango I cut up earlier that day but which did not survive the lunch hour. Such is the fate of a ravishing mango. Instead, I stirred raisins in mine and the girls sprinkled theirs with cinnamon and sugar.
Roger and Caroline made this cake. We have a family birthday party on Sunday and were assigned to bring cake for 22 people. Strawberry shortcake for the birthday girl and chocolate cake for all the little boy cousins.
Caroline pulled out the mancala board and challenged me to a game, failing to disclose the fact she's been playing all year at school and has since become freakishly good. As in, beat the computer good. Or maybe I'm not such a threat.
Either way, she beat me six times in a row.
Sophie slept off a volleyball camp.
Izzy came home from a party.
Roger and Sophie visited with her coach.
I played the piano.
We watched The Artist, or part of it anyway.
I rubbed Sophie's sore leg and felt sorry for her, which made her feel better.
One by one, we wandered off to bed and and last of all I lay watching the ceiling fan, the entire house asleep, thinking and wondering and waiting for my mind to let go of this humming, beautiful day.
:::::::::::::::::
Update: Here is one of the little boy cousins who ate the chocolate cake. His awesomeness is abundantly self evident.
It was a wonderful birthday party and I took a few moments as well to think of my homeland, of its pure, wild, unparalleled beauty and the way it raised me to see with gratitude the nuances in nature of this rich, everchanging world.
Happy Canada Day.
