I am not that girl that men fall in love with, swoon over or buy flowers for. I'm the woman the men talk to about the girls they have fallen in love with, swooned over or are thinking of buying flowers for("Should I or shouldn't I? Do you think...?"). So I can count the number of times I have had flowers given to me on one hand and one of those was a, "Yeah, I got this for free and thought you'd like it," tossed at me by one boyfriend and then a couple of, "My girlfriend/wife is mad at me and refused these, but you might like them." The remaining two were flowers from my best friend, Jim (long story, but pretty purple mums that I really appreciated), and a bouquet on my birthday from a college roommate, Charissa.

Now I LOVE flowers. When I had a garden there was one year that my love for flowers took over my Taurean practicality and instead of vegetables it was all Monet flowers all summer long. And there have been years when all I did was YEARN for flowers and friends and family would ask me what I wanted for my birthday and Christmas and I'd list books and albums and flowers. And I'd always hope for flowers. And never get the flowers.

Which is why I started buying flowers for myself for my birthday. I realized it was silly to wish for something when I had the capability of getting it for myself all along. And so flowers were things I started buying for myself whenever I wanted to celebrate something for me - Christmas, Birthday, or just because.

And then today, on a Sunday, I get a call from the front door for a delivery, but I didn't order anything.....

And it's FLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roses, hydrangeas, little wild flowers that my gramma would have loved and I loved, too.

Thank you, Aunt Pat, for my wonderful, glorious birthday flowers! They are truly appreciated for the gift that they are!

In Search of the Best Lemon Cake Ever!

As I mentioned on my last post my birthday is in a couple of weeks, and normally, around my birthday, I like to do things that I know I really like just for me. Some of those things include buying myself flowers (I tend to be partial to yellowy orange roses this time of year, but anything that catches my fancy and spirit makes its way home), treating myself to my favorite lemoncello, and making myself a lemon cake with lemon frosting.

[Normally, at this point, I would insert a picture of one my past tries at my favorite cake, but I can't find any. So, instead, here's a copy of a lemon cupcake I had from Lark, on Sunset, a couple of years ago.]



Usually, I use cake mix from a box and frosting from a tub and just see what I can do with that, decorate it with lemons and voila! My own lemon cake. This year, however, I decided I'd like to try something from scratch, or a little different from just using a box mix and a tub-o-frosting. So, I thought I would look up lemon cake recipes on the interwebs and see what I can find there. There are a LOT of lemon cake recipes out there in the world. There's a Tequila Lemon Cake, a Greek Lemon Cake, and a Lemon Cake with Candied Pansies on the first Google. And a lot more I don't want to sift through. So, what I thought I would do is ask my friends for their help.

So, if you have a recipe for a lemon cake that you really think is the best lemon cake you've ever had, I would love to have you send it my way! And then, if I choose your cake and I'm able to do it justice, I'll blog about it and show a picture and, if you like, let everyone know where I got such a wonderful lemon cake recipe!

Or, if nothing else, I'll get a box of lemon cake mix and see what I can do with lemon juice and lemon rind and then I'll show you a pic of that.

It's all good.


(from my garden when I lived in San Francisco...)

Happy Birthday Blog Contest!

I wasn't going to do a blog contest this time. I just sent out emails to people to see if they wanted a copy and went from there. But somehow I STILL ended up with an extra copy (maybe 2 or 3 unless I hear back from people on brick and mortar addresses). So, if you're interested in possibly winning a copy of the February 2010 issue of Aoife's Kiss with my story, "Love's Clothing," in it (a sad werewolfy love story), then leave a comment down below by midnight Pacific Time April 25th. Then on April 26 (my birthday, hence the title) I will draw names out of a hat and contact the winner(s).

How's that sound?

Okay - GO!

Pye and Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month, so I thought I'd share a spur of the moment poem I wrote on a tribe, plus some tail, by Pye.

Poem:

I hold tails with my cat
breath and peace
twixt two green-eyed, orange haired

monsters...


and Tail: