TOP CHEF

I baked another angel food cake over the weekend (no craters, this time!) to celebrate meeting my 4-day-old great nephew, William Jacob. His siblings Maddie and Boomer got to decorate it, and they did an outstanding job, if you don't mind finger trails in your frosting. Mmmmm good!!

Here's a picture of the guest of honor with his cousins and sister.

Boomer didn't show up for the group shot because he was too busy putting the finishing touches on the cake!

The "dive-and dig-in technique" is the best way for any top chef to taste-test cake!

I'M OUT OF THE CLOSET

Long before he ever hooked up with Angelina Jolie, and even before he was married to Jennifer Aniston, Brad “Be Still My Heart” Pitt belonged to me. In 1994, he showed up in my walk-in closet in the form of a 24- x 36-inch colored poster of him portraying Tristan Ludlow in the movie Legends of the Fall. Trystan/Brad was a steaming young buck who raised the hormonal levels of all the pathetically tragic women he encountered, including me.

Now, I originally shared this closet with my then-husband, who was given absolutely no say-so about Brad gazing deeply into the eyes of anyone who happened to bop in--dressed or not. The ex should have known then that the marriage was in deep trouble, except Brad actually took the place of another hunk who had been hanging on the same wall for seven years--Patrick Swayze. Yes, my original closet pin-up stud was that hip grinding Dirty Dancing dandy himself. His poster, circa 1987, is still underneath the Brad one--so, actually, Patrick is the one who should have been upset about Brad showing up and taking his coveted spot in my fantasy life.

Big Bore doesn’t seem to mind the fact that I have a poster boy lounging sexily in the closet. He’s a bit vague about who he is in the first place. “Oh, is he that gladiator guy in Troy? What’s his name? Brad Pierce?” If BB decides to put up a poster of Angelina Jolie in the closet, though, I’m pitching a fit.

SO LONG

I was saddened to pick up the newspaper this morning and see that writer John Hughes, age 59, had died of a heart attack yesterday while taking a stroll on the streets of New York City. I've long been a fan of his. He could take some mundane, everyday event and turn it into an outrageously funny piece of pandemonium.

Thirty years ago or so he wrote a little short story called "Vacation 58." It was based on his own family's summer road trip from their home in Chicago to Disneyland. Later, while a writer for National Lampoon magazine, he expanded on the story and it evolved into his first smash movie hit, National Lampoon's Vacation. You remember it, don't you? Clark Grisswold and his madcap family on their way to see Walley World and Marty Moose. Can't you still see the Grisswold family running slow motion in the parking lot to the tune of "Chariots of Fire," only to find that the amusement park is closed? Hughes followed that with a string of screenwriting gems like Ferris Beuller's Day Off, Home Alone, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, the list goes on and on.

When I was teaching, if there was time at the end of the school year, which there usually was, I'd throw in a short unit on humor writing. I'd drag out short stories and essays I'd saved over the years by contemporary writers like Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, Lewis Grizzard, Jean Shephard (you've got to recall A Christmas Story and Ralphie's b-b gun--"You'll shoot your eye out!") and, of course, John Hughes. I'd have the kids read aloud a portion of his "Christmas '58" and tell them how this seemingly insignificant, but funny, little piece of writing made the author a rich man and spawned so many of the movies they loved.

John Hughes had the gift of making people laugh. I wish him a safe journey.

OH, BOY!!!

We have another bundle of joy in the extended family! William Jacob Bishop arrived yesterday morning in Pittsburg, 7 pounds/4 ounces, and 19 inches long. Here is his first blog picture. I think he looks rather pleased to be on the worldwide web.

As soon as Mom and Baby get home and settled in, I plan to pay a visit and have a birthday party with big sister and brother, Maddie and Boomer--a great excuse for ice cream and cake. Great Aunt Flaming Bore doesn't do diapers, but she is an expert at consuming mass quantities of sugar. :)

CLUNK

Hey, am I ever steamed about this new federal Cash for Clunkers program! First off, I orginally thought it was going to be some Social Security-type benefit for women age 60+ who look bad in stretch pants. I was going to be first in line to grab my share of the billion-dollar pot!

Then, I find out, no, no, no. The "clunkers" the government is referring to happens to be cars--gas guzzling not-too-worn-out models that can be traded in for vehicles that get better mileage. The plan is to stimulate sales to help bail out the automobile manufacturers AND to encourage drivers to conserve more on gasoline. Well, sonovabit#@!!!! A lot of good that does me!!

In my 40 years of car ownership, I've never bought a car that got under 35 miles per gallon on the highway. Never! I've always been careful with my money and bought the little half-cylinder jobbies that run on a rubber band. No SUVs or Glamour Mobiles for the Flaming Bore. Just small, bare-bones vehicles with four tires. Forget the electric windows and head-jarring stereo systems.

So, where is MY reward? Do you think the government is going to bail me out for living within my means? Heck, no! People like me just keep pinching pennies month by month, debt-free, with a $22,000 house and a used Saturn sedan to show for it. And you know what? I'm mighty happy with what I have--until I read about blasted giveaway programs like Cash for Clunkers!!! End of rant.

WRITER'S BLOCK

At least once a year since I've retired, I've had the notion that I want to write a novel. The trouble is, I get about 20 pages into it and then my ideas splatter here and there or I lose interest. Right now I'm piddling about with two ideas--one is a crime drama about a woman who isn't sure if her suitor is a murderer or not, and the other is about a hopeless gal going off to college to seek a marriage license. Here's how it starts:

Chapter One--In the Beginning...August, 1969

Have you ever had that ominous feeling that you are about to be dropped, dumped, and dragged to the ditch by the love of your life? I've been down this road hazard many times, the first being the summer of 1969. The rocky highway was Kansas I-47 en route to Pittsfield State College with my high school sweetheart Chip Mansfield. We were entering our freshman year at Pitt, and I was anxious about losing him to a bevy of bombshell coeds, of which I, sadly, was not among. Chip was a handsome football player. I was an average looking nobody. How we'd hooked up in the first place was, in part, due to the fact that the pickings were minimal in our small hometown. Through attrition, I'd stepped into Chip's life our senior year of high school. Halfway during our drive to Pittsfield that fateful August day, here it came:

"Uh, Barb, there's something I need to talk to you about," he started. The tone of his voice led me to believe he was not about to propose marriage. His draft number was 350, so the fear of being shipped off to Vietnam wasn't likely on his mind, either. "Mom has told me that she thinks we ought to see other people now that we're going off to college."

"She what??!!" Surely I had misunderstood him. Why, I was a certified virgin. I worshipped the ground he walked on. How could any mother think I wasn't Grade A marriage material, other than the fact that his family was upper crust and my mom was raising seven kids alone, with the help of coupons and Green Stamps?

.....And it goes on and on and on about how the narrator gets the heave-ho and embarks on her new quest to meet guys and find the love of her life at college. Okay, so it's an old formula, but I figure I have lots of material from my own life and my girlfriends to go about 15 or 20 chapters. I just need to focus and get it done. If I can do one chapter a week, I can have the whole thing done in, say, 20 years????? It's never too late.

FAIRY TALES

My great niece Maddie pulled another one of her teeth this past week. She's one of these gutsy kids who delights in constantly messing with the little wigglers until they finally pop out. She was very careful not to let this one get away from her; a previous tooth, extracted at the breakfast table, bounced into her little brother's cereal bowl and had to be retrieved from his own mouth in a dramatic recovery. We wouldn't want to miss out on the bounty from the Tooth Fairy.

I think I've probably blogged before that I lost my first two teeth by biting my father's demanding hand, and my first grade teacher, Mrs. Rankin, yanked out several more of them. One that wasn't loose became the victim of a swinging baseball bat when I got too close to it while playing catcher during a school recess. Others had to be pulled before I got braces, to make room for more. And then when the braces finally came off, a few teeth unexpectedly came out with them. Then there were the impacted wisdom teeth.....

I periodically have dreams that I'm spitting out teeth until my mouth is bereft of them. I don't like these night time encounters, of course, and I'm always soooooo relieved when I wake up, go to the mirror, and find that my chompers are still in place--even though many of them are capped and bridged and filled to the max. I would hate to add up all the $$$$ that Mama Bore and I have paid to various dentists over the years. It's been a big bite out of the bank account, for sure.

I hope the Tooth Fairy is generous to Maddie and rewards her well for her brave, solo, pulling efforts. If not, Maddie can just chew out Madame Fairy with what teeth she has left.