Herring of Sleet

I made my own birthday cake today. I have done so on occasion, usually under duress, followed by pouting. This time, I have nothing to pout about. The Sparrowhawk did not forget, and would happily have fetched me any kind of cake I wanted. However, the last few times I've eaten cake I bought somewhere, it's been disappointing, so I decided to try making it myself. I found a recipe for German chocolate cake that looked like the ones we used to get at the German bakery when I was a kid, so I'm hoping this one will taste right.

Those cakes of my youth were a marvel. We used to call the German bakery on Main Street in Ann Arbor the "schliced" bakery, because the old lady behind the counter would always say, when we asked for a loaf of bread, "Do you vant it schliced oder unschliced?" I felt very special getting one of their impressive chocolate cakes for my birthday. It probably didn't happen more than four or five times, but it felt like a tradition. I also would ask my mother to make my favorite thing for dinner--chicken with green onions and mushrooms. Steak was not on the radar back then--an actual whole chicken was quite fancy enough. Shared among six people--or more, if I had a friend to dinner--it vanished instantly.

I spoke to my mother briefly tonight. The Duchess took her to Wound Care today, and found that she had turned the volume on her phone all the way down. Well, that would explain it . . . .