Intentions

Today is a New Moon solar eclipse–happening in Houston mid-afternoon, around 3:30, I think? It likely won’t be visible to North America or the UK, but there will surely be online videos of it from other parts of the world.

This is the second New Moon of April, the Black Moon. Every day, we’re offered celestial gifts from the heavens with the stars, planets, comets, moons (and the litter humans are leaving there, as Lynne reminded me the other day). Now and then, however, we seem to get a special treat, a reason to say thank you for the abundance of good things.

I woke up determined to make the most of the day in ways that feed my soul. It actually began with feeding my body a breakfast using a tiny portion of the leftovers from our friend Steve R’s birthday cake we had on April 28. His last birthday was in 1992, and though he was in the hospital, other friends joined us to fill the room with laughter, stories, cake, balloons, cards, and joy. He died a couple of months later, and the following year, I knew I’d rather relive the joy of his birthday than the pain of his loss, and we’ve been doing this–always with some version of chocolate, because that’s what he loved–every year since 1993. The number and variety of friends, family, and colleagues joining us through the years has been exactly what Steve would have wanted: inclusive, a reminder that love never dies, and there is always a reason to celebrate.

Lovely as that is, since I was involved, kitchen mishaps were fated. On Wednesday night, I decided to put the recipe and a box of cocoa on the kitchen counter so I’d remember when I woke up on Thursday that I intended to bake a chocolate pound cake. This is one of the few cakes I make completely from scratch, using the recipe we were given in Home Ec when I was fifteen. Now mind you, there are certainly other chocolate pound cake recipes–in fact, Lynne has one from her Aunt Lil that’s fabulous. But this one is pretty mistake-proof for me after all these years. Or so I believed.

First up, I couldn’t find the recipe. This caused me to go through my three little recipe boxes (two are mine because I outgrew the first one; one was my mother’s). No recipe, but the effort did lead me to get those things organized during my frantic second attempt to find it. For a brief moment, I considered texting Lynne–she had the same home ec class, and for all I know, she still has HER old recipe box–then I looked at the clock and knew that was a bad idea.

I finally found it clipped with my most-often-used recipes that I keep more accessible. Why chocolate pound cake was included, I have NO idea. I don’t even make one a year. But whatever. Panic managed.

The next day, I realized I didn’t have one of the ingredients I needed. I checked online for a good substitute and worked through it, but it was chaotic. Bowls, measuring spoons, and cups everywhere; flour and cocoa powdering the counters; and for some reason, my mixer was NOT blending butter and sugar into a creamy texture and kept spitting bits of butter out of the bowl. Fortunately, adding eggs taught that mixer and its mixture a lesson.

There was also vanilla extract in that part of the batter, so let’s pause to discuss challenges that come with age and a…quirky…immune system. When I took the cap off the bottle of vanilla extract, I realized it was new. It had one of those white seals on it that has a little plastic tab that you pull and the seal comes off. IN THEORY. When you have arthritis-weakened fingers, it’s not always easy. Tom wasn’t home in that moment, so I finally improvised by getting a pair of pliers to pull the tab. It STILL wouldn’t cooperate, so I stabbed it to death with a paring knife.

My kitchen looked like some cartoon character threw in a stick of dynamite. Dynamite. Knives. Explosions of flour and cocoa. BAKING IS VIOLENT.

Finally, this lovely batter was in the oven. I cleaned up the scene of the crime(s), and the timer was set, so all should have been peaceful. I went back to my manuscript and was on a flight from NYC to Atlanta when I smelled… something burning? Was a fictitious engine on fire? I don’t write those kinds of novels. Was it…THE CAKE? How was that possible? THE TIMER WAS SET. It was nowhere near time for it to be finished baking, much less burning.

I rushed to the kitchen and opened the oven door to find the batter had overflowed and was landing on the floor of the oven to burn and smoke. Fortunately, Tom was now back at his desk and working, so he hurried the dogs outside before the smoke detectors began to shriek. That shrieking triggers more dog drama than you’d see in a performance of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (which I’ve only seen small clips from, so for all I know, that’s a lousy analogy).

Out came the cake. Out came the racks dripping with batter. Got those cleaned. Trimmed the over-baked edges from the batter and off the sides of my baking dish. Got the bottom of the oven cleaned. Had the kitchen window open, the exhaust fan over the oven on high, and my kitchen fan blowing smoke away from the smoke detectors, which never went off, thank goodness. Once everything was clean, I put the cake back in the oven to finish baking and hoped for the best as I set the timer at five-minute intervals to cause myself maximum beeping annoyance.

It turned out fine according to the Houndstooth Hall humans and was served with fresh strawberries, thawed frozen strawberries in juice, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream.

What was this post originally about?

New Moons are a good time to set intentions, so I began today with my own kind of ritual. On a happy visit to Body Mind and Soul earlier in the week (that reminds me, today is INDEPENDENT Bookstore Day, support your local booksellers, of which BM&S is one), I got a new Focus blend for the Writing Sanctuary’s Mr. Mister. An amethyst heart and an aquamarine are on this nice little incense burner, looked over by a striking amazonite point, all new and lovely finds at BM&S. I’m prepared for a good day of writing.

Apparently, today, a gnat’s intention was to drown in coffee. He succeeded, and I traded my coffee cup in for lemonade in a bottle with a gnat-defying cap.

Except Tom must have known my original intention was to imbibe coffee, so he came home from his regular Saturday volunteering gig with this surprise for me.

I’m gonna have a good day. And now that you’ve been treated to a sight of your daily cow, I hope you are, too!