Drop Cake Murphy

A little bit ago, I was about to set out for home from a lovely post-birthday dinner. And cake.

Cupcakes and an extra large round-pan cupcake to be exact – gluten-free confetti cake with gluten-free icing.

Plus, neon green icing and bright pink chocolate dot flowers. So made with love. So me.

Absolutely awesome tasting. Might as well have been the real thing. (Betty Crocker, btw.)

There was an amusing packing perfection discussion, debating whether or not the use of a candle was needed to tent the plastic wrapped cake, on a plate, inside a sturdy ziplock.

Packed with ultra-care. Because I am not so occasionally clumsy. More like usually. Even if I try not to be.

The cake travelled carefully, set on the front seat floor boards under the a/c, to ensure: 1. it wouldn’t slide off a seat, and 2. the icing wouldn’t melt.

Carried from the garage, quite carefully leveled in a grocery sack, successfully set on the counter. No minor or major mishaps.

Eased out of the bag, into the fridge, safely on a shelf.

Such a cutie mini-cake, that hadn’t properly been photographically memoried, yet.

So, I swung out of the fridge, because ‘now’ was as good a time as any.

Two hands on the plate, fully wrapped. It’s only a half-step and a turn to the counter.

It’s not like I ninja rotated, but there it went.

Frisbee’d. Past the sink. Toward the stove….

Newton’s Law is real, y’all. .

That’s the one where no matter how you drop your toast, it ends up butter down. Or jelly jammed against the floor, or avocado smashed, or whatever delicious weight you’d decided on decorating it with.

But, the real kicker is Murphy’s. That’s the one I’ve learned to live by; plan by.

‘Cause you know, if it can go wrong, I’ll likely help it along.

You ever just stand there wondering how you managed to mangle a manageable situation?

Yeah, I was kinda there, until Blu streaked over. I snatched it just in time.

That cat loves cake. Learned that by mistake.

Sliding it out of the bag revealed the expected. That’s why the call it cling-wrap, right?

I probably shouldn’t brag how I’m smarter than most because I knew just what to do to save the sweetness.

Silli-ly, I’ve lived through a few similar scenarios.

The freezer fixes this sort of thing. You see, the icing hardens up and then the plastic peels away.

Which it did. Except for one small strip. The flowers were a little flow-ier than they should be, but I figured a picture was still in order.

I guess the moral of the story is, there are times when you try your hardest to protect people and they still manage to make a mess. Much less of a mess than they would have made without your thoughtfulness, though.

I appreciate the baked in love and careful packing. If there’d been a candle in it, I’d have killed that, too. Or poked an eye out. Or poked a cat’s eye out. Or just had to eat around bits of broken wax. All dire circumstances, for sure.

Here’s what I’m hoping you glean from all of this honesty.

Because it’s super important – knowing how to self-save the day.

You see, it’s 100% true. You can drop your cake and eat it, too.

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so, there ya go. plastic-smashed, frozen, peeled away from icing. not pretty, but proof.

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The Six C’s (Only Me) (Conclusion)

Surly, I sorely half-eavesdropped on the success story’s parting instructions.  Let the car run for x-amount of time to recharge, and it will be fine. Seemed like standard advice.

After sliding the truck back a few feet so fixed guy and his happy car could drive away from our odd little coincidental group, the AAA car-whisperer came back to me. Contemplative, he decided to jump aboard my unrealistic optimism train. As evidenced, the jump box wasn’t the problem. So, we tried again. Cranked, the car weakly sneezed and let out a light aluminum wheeze.

Towman theorized I had an ignition problem or a faulty starter that was de-juicing my battery. 

He headed for his rig in search of what I thought would be some other sort of stronger hook-up jumper.

My mind immediately flitted to those pesky ignition-recall postcards I’ve been receiving for about 5 years. The alert cautioned my 2007 ignition could malfunction if the cumulative weight of many keys and an abundance of dangler/flash on a keyring were too heavy. My own personal and very wise car advisor told me not to worry about it years ago, too. He’s super smart and logical, and cares about cars, so I always listen to his vehicular wisdom.

Once my geriatric Pontiac was cabled to the heavy-duty truck’s engine, it slowly woke up and chugged itself into a running engine. Revivification and relief!

After unhooking and putting away equipment, the fixer came back with a clipboard. I’d seen him check the VIN on the car next to me, so I asked if I should get out so he could get in. “Nah,” he replied, going on to infer that it was unlikely after all this time spent together that I was stealing the oldie and someone else’s cat in the back-seat.

 “Didja hear what I told that guy?” he asked me. “Sort of,” I said.

“Well, that doesn’t apply to you.”

He advised I go straight home without stopping anywhere, without turning it off. Additional recommendation included backing the car into my driveway or garage, because it’d be easier to hook up if I needed a tow somewhere, later.

I decided it’d be smarter just to take my car straight to Ron’s Garage.

I called, explained my recent car odyssey and asked if I could drop it off.  As usual, they gave me an easy ‘yes.’

Incident behind me, conclusion in front of me, I set out on my HBlu-barking trek home. 10 miles later I dropped the little struggler off.

The car. Not the cat.

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The 5 C’s, Continued (Only Me)

Curious. Curious things happen to me.

I had briefly entertained the notion that it might be wise to ask the next-to-me car dude for a jump. By then, it’d already been a little over an hour. I considered it probably wouldn’t be that much longer. Besides, the slowly lowering slouchy-ness just didn’t seem that approachable.

Shortly, the tow truck rolled in. I opened my door to wave and saw him see me. Making a loop around the parking lot, the driver pulled up directly behind me. Absolutely, blocking the other guy in.

Just as the driver jumped out, the door on the car next door swung open. The pretty blues and purples caught my eye as I watched the owner exit, shoulders a little high.

“Oh, no,” I thought. “He’s gonna make a scene because now he can’t get out.”

I jumped out of my dead ride and called over the roof, all cheerful-like intending to diffuse whatever. “Hi,” I waved. “I’m the one who needs help…”

“I know,” the operator called back. “I couldn’t believe it! What are the chances that two people parked next to each other would both need a jump and both call AAA?”

Holographic car guy turned around to look at me.  Astonished, I told him that I had almost asked him for a jump. He said, he’d almost asked me for one, too.

Pulling all of the necessary cables and gear behind him, he stopped at my car first. A few fumbles later I pulled the correct lever hard enough to unlatch my hood. A quick hook-up and a crank and… a flock of moshing, honking-seagulls made themselves known.

“Hmm.” There’s nothing as quietly unnerving as a mechanically inclined person looking down into your car guts muttering, “Hmm…” (I take that back. It’s much worse when a doctor does that to you.)

A little tinkering movement later I heard, “Try it, again.”

Optimistically, I did. The cymbal smashing squirrels made a half-hearted effort, their odd exuberance was dying.

He stepped away, shaking his head and toting his gathered equipment over to the azure-royal morphing carriage parked adjacently. I called my phone-a-friend-back. “You’re never gonna believe this,” I stated, filling her in on the so-far status of my latest adventure.

I got a little creative in my thinking, at that point. Was there some kind of magnetic suck coming from the holistic health for pets place? Were we near a malfunctioning transformer?

Obviously not, since pretty-car started to purr right away. Yeah, on the first try.

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The Four C’s, Continued (Only Me)

(Correction: someone pointed out that there are four C’s. Ok, fine. Cat, Chiropractic, Car & … Correction or Continued. Or, maybe, Carrots, because I had to toss two wilted ones last week. ) 😉

In what seems like a significantly too short a time, HBlu is on his way back to me.

As he is being re-lodged in the back seat, I begin my questioning.

“Wait,” I say. “We’re supposed to pick up his thyroid medication. It was ordered last week. Did he get his blood draw to check that the thyroid med isn’t harming his liver? Did he get his steroid shot? How did he present? Did he hiss or flinch when his back was adjusted? Should he still be on the pain meds?”

Yep, I’m that crazy cat mama.

Back he went; back out he came. He was reported to be a sweet boy, still very tight and hunching, but no fussing or hissing. Seems like HBlu reserves that stuff for only me. Blood drawn, meds in hand. Great! Off we go, ahead of schedule.

Or, not. The strangest thing: turning the key released 50 deranged woodpeckers ambushing my engine.

My first thought was, “What? I got here just fine.” Truly, the car started without any trouble at home. I mean, key in, crank, tah-dah!

Ok. Any doors open? Nope. Any warning lights? Nope. In park? Yep. The anti-theft blinking red dot was engaged. Hmm. I locked and unlocked or unlocked and locked the doors and tried again.

The peckers were replaced by a marching band of squirrels made up entirely of cymbals.

Because denial is ingrained trait of mine, I waited about 30 seconds and attempted a 3^rd try.

A conga line of long-nailed, tap-dancing vermin-fans of the Squirrel Band partied on behind them.

At this point, second guessing sets in. “What? Did I suddenly forget how to start a car?”

I gave my engine a full 60 seconds to clear its throat, positive it would get a grip on itself and start.

Nope. Same awful ratcheting noise.

One big calming breath later, I pulled out my AAA card and made the call of defeat.

AAA is 100% automated now. But, brilliantly, they will send you a link to click which will help the rescuer pin-point you. Which, 100% beats my, “Um, I’m off US-12, behind a Tim Horton’s, in an office strip mall, in front of a vet’s office” would-be offering.

Appreciatively, the kindly, yet sterile, robotic informed me my approximate wait time would be 1 hour and 15 minutes.

So, I phoned a friend. Chatted, waited. Waited, chatted. Checked the arrival time update and it had moved 10 minutes in the wrong direction. Harrumph, but… Ok.

As it got closer to my supposed saving, I began the pivoting, neck-stretch search. I was watching the driveway entrance and noticed the car next to me had a holographic purple hued blue coat. It was a really pretty and distracting color. I sat there contemplating whether it could be a custom color or if I could get a car like that. Ponderance complete, I glanced over at the driveway.

No savior insight, on my eye-swing back, I noticed that the car alongside me had an agitated driver. On the phone. Staring at me. Or staring back at my unfocused stare. Clearly not amused.

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The Three C’s (Only Me)

Nope, not clarity, cut or color.

Cat, chiropractor and car.

The first two words were never something I imagined ever saying in conjunction.

The third, well… I’ll get to that.

Here’s a not-so quick kitty update.

Blu’s back is messed up and has been since we were on our regular morning cat leash-walk and encountered an unleashed large dog this past summer. The vet had been asking if he’d had a fall. Turns out he did; from my arms, after shredding my chest. He hit the ground hard, sort of on his side, but jumped up and ran straight home. He was there was waiting at the door to be let in when I caught up. It took me forever to remember that because he seemed fine for quite a while after.

Anyway, the cat chiro is a bit of a drive and requires wrangling that selectively wily Blu cat in his carrier. Illogically, the carrier is where he likes to sleep in the daytime. Somehow, all I have to do is silently think, “It’s almost time to get going,” and he lumber-sprints. This pending trip, the little booger bolted and wedged himself under the basement stairwell.

I had the fore-thought to warn my hunched-over self, “Ok, when you get him, just don’t stand up because you’ll bonk you head.” Grabbed him, rolled him up in my ratty don’t-care-if-you-shred-this-any-more-than-it already-is-holey sweater, aannnd… stood up. Quickly, moving with significant force and speed, which resulted in stars and swearing and a lumpy bluish front forehead bump.

After being blind-folded and jostled up the stairs, he took being pushed into his bag rather mildly. He even rested quietly while I changed out of my not-to-be-seen-in-public top, but, then, began thrashing while I put my shoes on.

Shoes are another trigger. He associates them with leaving the house, now. Sir Harley is fine in the car, until it begins to move. Then, it’s 20 minutes of whiny-boy crying and me apologizing, asking for forgiveness. Explaining, I really do love him and that’s why we’re doing this, again.

I got a little turned around on the way there this time which added an extra 5 minutes travel and yakking. Luckily, we were going to be early. Arriving just on-time at our destination, all is quiet again as soon as the car’s set in park. I call-in to let them know we’re waiting.

The vet briefing is over the phone, and then someone comes out to take him in. I really dislike this COVID necessary scenario. I want to be with him and see how he reacts and ask a million immediate questions. Instead, I’m stuck in my car along, sitting sandwiched between two other pet parents.

It’s a little chilly, but I turn the car off.  I’d cranked the heat on the way and wearing a ridiculous-looking but ridiculously-warm bright red, branded but free, puffer coat.

I’ve reached the necessary age of Michigan Non-Vanity, adopting the Who cares how I look? I’m not shivering! way of life I probably should have years ago. I suppose the fact that it’s 36 degrees in December, categorized as only ‘chilly,’ proves I am indeed, somewhat adaptable.

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