Hello.

Hi?

Yes, today I want to talk a bit about a person very close to my heart: me. That’s right, a few days ago I fell further into my tweens: “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and the coming of age at thirty-three.”

It’s really very sobering to be quite past the age where most of your fictional friends turn, magically, into adults. Especially when you, quite clearly, age like a hobbit. This year I was reminded of how lucky my parents are that I was born when I was. Not just because I’m so lovable in general, but because I need all the help I can get when it comes to being considerate and my birthday is really conducive to that. I share September not only with Frodo and Bilbo (September 22nd) but with Theo and the Geekette as well. These are two people I’ve known since before I got the knack of coming up with really cool aliases. They know all the embarrassing alter-egos of my past and yet, somehow, love me anyway. And, because our birthdays are all in the same month, I’m never more than a month late giving them a gift.

After a month, I kind of figure “what’s the point,” so, yeah, my birthday has saved my friendship probably twenty times over.

Plus, it’s on national talk like a pirate day, score.

I’m a little too full of grasshopper pie right now, seeing as how that’s been my dinner for the past three days, but sometime this year I really would love to do a picture tutorial of a cake. Not just any cake, but the Geekette’s birthday cake. It’s called The Bloody Chicken Cake, but don’t worry, it’s safe for most vegetarians.

It was born out of a side comment and a joke of a promise, that somehow just wouldn’t die. A few months ago the Geekette came over and cooked me some chickpeas. We always seem to have a can of these in my house but, before last month, I think the last time I had eaten them was when I was seven (I don’t count hummus when saying this, just as I wouldn’t count salsa if I said I hated tomatoes). Anyway, she cooked them up in olive oil with curry, cumin, paprika, and a little bit of the bush basil my dad has growing by the front step. It was really good, even after she pointed out that chick peas really do look like chickens. It was so good that we decided her birthday cake should be made out of chick peas, and of course once that was voiced I had to volunteer, and thus the Bloody Chicken Cake was born. The “blood” in the title comes from my first imagining of the cake, which used blood oranges. That idea didn’t last long, but the name was too good to waste.

Wanna slice?